Battle Report #1, Dropzone Commander - PHR versus Shaltari

Four of us got together today and braved the new England snows to play our first get together for Dropzone Commander.

After breaking off into groups Peter from Blind Metal minis and I ended up facing off. A simple basic game, 700 points each.

My PHR list was as follows:

Sphere of the Hand
Zeus, Odin
Neptune

Battle Pantheon #1
Ares x2
Neptune

Battle Pantheon #2
Phobos x2
Neptune

2 Immortals
Triton

2 Immortals
Triton

We rolled for mission and played the fifth mission out of the Reconquest book (x). Three objectives were dropped down across the center of the table in hardened buildings. As the buildings were 40 damage points each the odds of me simply destroying whatever the Shaltari went for with only a 700 point force were nil so my plan soon formed to lay down as much firepower in the center as possible and quickly route half of my troops to whichever building Peter didn't head to and then use my immortals in the center to die up his troops and surround the building with giant walker love.

Peter's forces consisted of:

Gate Group [120 pts]
Eden Gates: Eden [45 pts]
Eden Gates: Eden [45 pts]
Haven: Haven [15 pts]
Haven: Haven [15 pts]

Tomahawk Squad: 4x Tomahawk [152 pts]
Kukri Squad: 3x Kukri [135 pts]

Braves: 2x Braves [64 pts]
Braves: 2x Braves [64 pts]

Jaguar Squad: Jaguar(Elder) [166 pts]

Turn 1. Peter won initiative and made me act first. By the time the dust settled I used my superior number of activations to keep him guessing as to which building my infantry would finally commit. After the dust settled he had placed troops in the center building, I had mine in the right flank and we both had one unit uncommitted.

Turn 2.

I made a crucial mistake on turn one as I continued to advance my forces straight up the board avoiding dropping most of the off. On the surface this was an excellent plan but my main problem was getting the Neptune with all my precious AA far too close to the left flank where, at the end of the turn Peter dropped his own AA as his last activation...

Turn 3. The start of turn three was a complete disaster. Peter won the activation with his superior command level and immediately moved his AA and commander's walker straight forward. The second I activated my Phobos a hail of high energy shots flew into the dropship (12!!! and one tank was actually out range or it would have been 16). I severely underestimated the volume of fire that the Shaltari could deliver and within a single move all my AA was destroyed (the dropship exploded into a thousand pieces mid air).

The Shaltari commander's walker surveys the crushing blow he delivered to the PHR.

At the end of turn 3 things were looking very grimm. I had failed to cause a single casualty to the Shaltari as their shields caused all my railguns to bounce. All my stealth missiles missed the central building where his infantry had landed (I had not killed a single one) and my own infantry on the left flank lost three of their members when the building upon which they landed was hit by the Tomahawks. The only two things that went well for me was successfully landing my Immortals onto the building on the right and Peter's hesitation to engage them. At the last moment he turned his Braves back and moved them towards the left flank building. That hesitation would cause them to lose precious time...

Since this was just our first game I decided to press on thinking to myself "remember the mission, remember the mission". If I could keep the center occupied and cause enough casualties around the building I could still pull this off.

My first step would be to kill the enemy commander. The command bonus and constantly having to go last was killing me as I was always reacting to Peter's moves rather than setting the tone of action myself.

Turns 4-5 I moved the Odins out in the center of the city and began to continuously pound Peter's Jaguar. After the first three hits bounced off of shields the second three on turn 5 landed home and finished his commander's walker. On turn 4 the immortals in the center finally got into combat with the braves and the bloodshed was fierce. While we traded blows fairly evenly in terms of average dice my early casualties were to be my undoing. I simply didn't enough troops to hold off against the Shaltari armour. 

The last action of turn four was fairly key in that I concentrated my Ares (with the aid of experimental gyros) into taking out his small infantry gate. That little action would make it take an extra turn before Peter's infantry could head to a gate to pass the objective off.

With his commander dead I was able to win initiative on turns 5 and 6.  On turn 5 I was able to grab the far right flank objective and move my Triton towards the board edge. Peter's AA tanks gave pursuit but weren't able to reach range to them. 

On turn six I won initiative again and activated my Triton on the right flank before Peter's AA could move towards it. I was able to punch off the board and score two points. On the left flank Peter's infantry couldn't find the last objective. I think that crucial turn spent not searching for the item prevented him from being able to tie the game.  The last actions of the game saw Peter's victories infantry in the center jump into transport gate but the gate being six inches from the board's edge. With that I managed to pull out a 2-1 victory.

Casualties in the end:

PHR

2 Ares

2 Phobos

1 Neptune

1 Triton

2 Immortals

Shaltari

1 Jaguar

1 Kukri

2 Tomahawks

1 Haven Gate

Very fun game indeed!  More thoughts and some more action reports to come later this weekend. For now, we look forward to lots more games. After ours finished I stuck around for Ian and Sebastian's game to watch some Scourge versus PHR action. For a look at some of their pictures, visit Ian's blog <<here>>.