BAO Dropzone Commander Tournament Report
Stompyspath here with a quick overview of the Tournament that was held during the Bay Area Open. This was the first official tourney held by Frontline Gaming and sadly a couple of people dropped which left us with 4 people in the brackets. Of those 4 players, 3 were PHR, Tom, Rich, and I. The lone man out was Ian who brought a very nasty Scourge army.
My list for this event was as follows
Hand of the Sphere
Zeus with Councillor Commander and Hyperion in Neptune
2X Sirens in Triton A1
Battle Pantheon
4X Ares
2X Phobos Both in Poseidon
Immortals
2X Immortals in Juno A1
2X Immortals in Juno A1 both in Neptune
2X Helios
Heavy Pantheon
2X Odins in Neptune
2X Apollo A
Air Wing
Athena
My thoughts were to have a little of everything. The Helios is to help with UCM against Ferrums, The Ares are very good against skimmers as well as UCM tanks. Apollos help with Shaltari and I know one of the things that all PHR players will see is that I don’t have the Immortals in Tritons. It may just be my local meta, but everyone knows to severely limit my infantry’s mobility they just need to kill a rather weak dropship, and even though it doesn’t happen often, that EN 7 gun has won me games. Funny enough there were no UCM or Shaltari.
The first two scenarios had the same board layout.
For this article I’m going to cover the first mission in which there were 5 Objectives (designated by the 5 red flags) the objective in the middle was in the open but only troops could secure it, rolling as if in a small building. Needless to say no one went for that objective, (can you say murder bait) which left the other 4 as the primary goals. In the tournament the TO also altered the tournament packet slightly by saying that every 200 points destroyed (rounded up) was an extra victory point.
My first opponent was Ian Chadwick, who ran a nasty 4 battlegroup scourge list.
Oppressors
Desolator with Enslaver Commander
4X Minders in Intruder Beta
Vanguard
6X Hunters
3X Reapers both squads in a Despoiler with Plasma Cannons
Warriors
2X Warriors in Intruder Alpha
2X Warriors in Intruder Alpha
3x Ravagers in Harbinger with Mini Arc Caster
Occupation Patrol
2X Destroyers in Intruder Alpha
4X Minders in Intruder Beta
Annihilator with Master Commander
This army had some very fast elements and several groups with the ability to hit very hard! I attempted to hold the middle with my heavy unit of Ares and flanked my Odins off to my right. I rushed my infantry up but could only reach the right objective with my Immortals and my sirens staged to run into the one on my left. My Zeus dropped behind a building near the middle on the right. The second turn went very badly for me. Ian managed to take both his Objectives off, and dropped his Destroyers on my left objective. I failed to find my objective on the right and Ian proceeded to dump all his hunter and annihilator shots into that building doing 19 damage points, leaving it on 1. I shuffled up the board and prayed I’d win initiative. Luckily I rolled high and got first activation. I rolled for both my Immortal squad’s and neither could find the objective. With cybernetic tails between their legs they jumped into their Junos and loaded back into the Neptune. Ian took a few shots into the building and brought it down. I was now down 4 to 0 on objectives and knew I had to pull something out to win this, my entire focus shifted to just killing things. Upon activating my Sirens I really felt I was not going to have much luck clearing out the Destroyers, but a 2+ dodge is nothing to laugh at. I rolled very well and only lost 1 more siren. Ian though, did not roll so well and failed six 4+ passive saves and lost both squads of Destroyers.
This was a huge swing for me as it gave me more time to look for that objective as well as quite a few points. I used a Countermeasures Hack to do serious damage to his Desolator and finished it off with my Athena. I ran after his hunters and thanks to the scanners on the Ares dropped half of them. A weapon hack card took out another Hunter and my Odins did good damage to the Reapers. Over the next three turns I was able to destroy almost all of Ian’s forward units. My Immortals, after failing so miserably early on, rushed up the right side to jump into the building on Ian’s side, behind where his objective had been. Ian didn’t fire much at that building choosing instead to take shots at my Ares. On the fourth turn those Immortals went to the wall and brought down his Harbinger. Then on the final turn of the game, he had moved his Annihilator out of line of sight of my Odins and Ares, but it was still visible to my Immortals. The three remaining snipers took bead on that huge monstrosity. I needed 2’s to hit and 6’s to damage (thanks to Shape Charge!), it had 1 DP left. I rolled two hits, and then one 6.
This gave me close to 1100 points killed or 6 Victory Points.
Final score was 8 to 6. This game was intense; it literally came down to the last die roll. If I had not killed his Annihilator (which was worth 260 points!) we would have tied. The mission was a little odd, and I’m not a big fan of a completely symmetrical layout. But for my first competitive game it was a blast, Ian was a great player and tons of fun to play against. I guess the lesson of the day is don’t give up, no matter how bad it looks! As long as there is a slim chance of winning, go for it! Whatever you do, don’t rage.
