I recently commission a table of rural DZC terrain, and Alex and I were eager to put it to the test! We made up our own scenario - Secure the Perimeter...one that we've played several times since!
Basically you have five bunkers making an "X" across the board, three of which (across a diagonal) have focal points. In this game, the turrets are the focal points. The theme of the battle is you're racing outside of the familiar city to activate/repair the turrets, to give your perimeter sentries a bit more firepower.
The game certainly plays different without the usual urban environment. We played true LoS where applicable - lots of stone walls and random things to hide behind, but not as much as a city board. The terrain stands we played as all light woods, giving a concealment bonus to any LoS drawn across any part of the base, similar to how Bolt Action works. Another system we tried later was only a +1 concealment modifier instead of the usual +2, but having it stack with each terrain piece, so shooting across multiple woods became progressively more difficult.
Alex brought his UCM and I played Scourge. We used corner deployments.
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| The Scourge force moves on |
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| I'm personally a little low on medium dropships for the Scourge, so a lot of skimmers were forced to drive on slowly. |
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| Alex's UCM was almost fully airborne, with Condors flying on in droves. |
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| The Longbow howitzers setting up behind the tree lines. |
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| Albatross slowly inching upwards. |
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| Desolator staying close to his AA cover to seek protection from the UCM Archangel interceptors. |
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| My Corsair narrowly escapes being shot down |
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| Desolator cautiously moves up near a bunker while hunters put some damage on the UCM armored formation |
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| Scourge Warriors taking control of a bunker |
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| UCM armor coming dangerously close to the Scourge AA walkers, but they shrug off most of the damage |
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| Scourge Heavy Tanks moving into the fight |
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| Rapiers crashing an Intruder light dropship |
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| The Ravangers start to take heavy fire while the Hunter grav tanks remain unscathed |
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| The Reaper AA grav tanks shoot down a condor dangerously close to it's landed cargo! |
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| A Marauder medium dropship suicides into the UCM armored line |
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| Another Condor crashes into the bunker |
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| The Harbinger Assault Dropship lands a plasma bomb on a Rapier |
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| UCM tanks coming under fire! |
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| The superior UCM fleet support claims another victem |
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| While the Scourge Corsair melts some more tanks |
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| The battlefield i starting to become a graveyard |
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| Scimitar tank destroys decimating the Scourge heavies |
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| Sabres plinking off the Reaper AA grav tanks |
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| The Hunters utilize Jink and Wave to dodge the UCM shots |
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| The Reapers move up to contest the far focal point |
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| The Slayers are unable to finish off the Gladius heavy tank |
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| The final scrapyard of a battlefield |
The UCM manage a 5-3 victory by claiming two focal points and contesting one, while the Scourge only claimed one and contested one. The rural terrain really shakes up the game in an exciting way and we hope to play on it some more soon!
