Battle Report - Campaign Night

[chaoschild]

Just added a report on tonight's campaign games to my blog.

Some of the forces involved in this campaign are getting silly. We have a Renegade Robot force worth over 2600 credits, my own Vigilantes are worth over 2800 (there are 4 models) and if our resident zombie player spends all of his spare credits on zombies his force will be worth almost 3000 credits (84 zombies, is it me or does that seem a bit excessive?).

 

[MongooseMatt]

Often a good idea to set a goal on how to win a campaign. On the other hand, also a good excuse to bring the Mantas in!

 

[chaoschild]

Everybody has a campaign goal, they're different based on the forces involved but all of equivalent difficulty. The problem is, we've got to forces of this size after only a dozen games or so (at most, most of us have played considerably fewer than that) and nobody's got to their goal yet.

And if Mantas were available yet, I'm sure we'd be considering them.

 

[Winged_Human]

How much attrition have you guys actually had?

By that I mean, how many deaths per gang?

 

[shiba-tenchi]

Where's your blog?

Q: While some forces sound gigantic, is the converse true too? Are there gangs that have been hammered?

 

[chaoschild]

There's a link to my blog in the first post on this topic.

We don't have any forces that have really been hammered. One of our justice department players has taken a few significant casualties as have the citi-def and I think we've had a couple of robots decommissioned. But on the whole, there have been very few fatalities which I think is part of the problem. I don't think we've even lost that many minions between us.

I think the smallest forces in our campaign come in at about 900 credits, but I know that one of those just got 1000 credits from a vid reporter so they won't be that size for long. And the judges are about to recruit Anderson as a loyal follower.

The issue is just that we're all generating income faster than we need it to replace losses. When you have 2 forces with ratings over 2000 credits playing each other, that means both players are getting 800+ credits for that game.

 

[Winged_Human]

This is something that we've similarly experienced in our league game.

By the end of the league the highest gang raging was a little over 1300, and it was a mutants gang. which means that I was able to field 17+ mercenaries (punks I believe) to fill that gap, after fielding ALL of the angel gang (one of them leveling at least once).

CC, Would any of your players be willing to share their rosters? I'm curious to see how the gangs were built and which gangs were chosen.

 

[chaoschild]

I'm happy to share mine, I'll get it into a format where I can post it (it's hand-written right now).

In terms of the forces chosen, right now we have the following:

1 x Lone Vigilante (mine)
2 x Renegade Robots
1 x Justice Department
1 x Cal's Retinue
1 x Citi-Def
1 x Zombie Horde

 

[Fattdex]

We restarted our campaign using the new block war campaign rules. Early days but it should be much more levelled cash wise.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Everybody has a campaign goal, they're different based on the forces involved but all of equivalent difficulty. The problem is, we've got to forces of this size after only a dozen games or so (at most, most of us have played considerably fewer than that) and nobody's got to their goal yet.

What level Heroes are you seeing in your games?

 

[Winged_Human]

In our campaign, we saw that every gang had atleast ONE person level each game... Except for me and the Angel gang. It took nearly 3 games to level ONE GUY. *Sigh*

 

[chaoschild]

We have one hero currently at level 9, that's my Lone Vigilante who had a head start over everyone else. As far as I'm aware we don't have anyone else at that level, but we do have a few heroes at level 8 and 7.

I've also uploaded a copy of my force roster. I've asked the rest of the campaign if they'd be willing to do the same since I don't have copies of their rosters.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Cheers for that. The level of Heroes seems about right (and it is nice to have at least one Hero level per game, I have nothing against that).

I may tweak the campaign rewards in the next update - just rein things in a little, and perhaps introduce a greater reliance on Mercenaries (they always brighten up the game).

 

[chaoschild]

Some combination of reduced rewards and/or higher levels of mortality would work. The only real problem with the rules from the core rulebook is that we're gaining credits so much faster than we need them to replenish losses.

Plus, try taking a vid reporter against a zombie horde sometime. You get a LOT of shooting attacks to film.

 

[chaoschild]

Quick update - I've now been informed that the Citi-Def are now worth in the region of 2600 credits following their televised battle against the zombie horde. That's after only 5 games, with no heroes above level 5.

 

[malosavich]

Wow! I was chuffed to get to 1400 in 4 games, 2600 credits in 5 is just insane!

I would have loved to have seen that vid reporters footage, it must have been almost Pulitzer winning quality!

Noc

 

[tneva82]

84 model zombie horde...Sounds nasty if the scale of game is something similar to necromunda.

Reminds me bit of necromunda campaign I played long time ago. One player had got lucky with territories getting several of the "free juve's on 6" followed by lots of 6's. The guy was getting more juve's than he could arm so quickly he had like 10 juve's with knives just running forward as ablative bullet screen for the real guys.

"Welcome to the gang. Here's a knife. Start running toward the enemy! If you survive maybe you'll receive pistol!".

Heavy stubbers, grenades and anything with ability to take out lots of crappy guys in quick order became very popular in purchase list of other gangs very fast With judge dredd would I be correct assuming hand cannons(or in case of lack of money spit pistols and zip guns), sawed off stump guns and double barreled stump guns would be decent anti-zombie weapons?-) Obviously heavy spit gun as well though that seems tad expensive.

Looking at the zombie gang rules they do also seem quite tough to take out though never having played the game(miniatures are kinda putting me off) might just be incorrect assumption. Don't know how much high damage weapons typical gangs are packing.

 

[malosavich]

When it comes to killing zombies it works by once they have been hit by something you roll a D10 and add the strength of the weapon (-1 if the zombie is armored), if the result is over 10 the zombie is destroyed! This means that cheaper low damage weapons find it very difficult to kill zombies, Strength 1 or 2 need to roll 8's and 9's! However weapons with one of these 3 rules; Blast, Explosive or Smasher double there damage against Zombies so a sawed-off stump gun (damage 2) Only need to roll a 6 or more to take a zombie down!

This means that the best weapons to take zombies out are probably clubs, chainsaws (oooh yeah!), Sawed off stump guns, Most heavy weapons (Esp. HE missiles) and any Fire/Flaming weapons (Zombies have aweful Agility)!

I agree though, 84 is an obscene amount to fight against! Even if you manage to somehow kill 40 as they cross the table with shooting attacks, there are still 44 to deal with when they reach you (Not including any the zombie mistress has re-animated), and it only takes a couple of lucky combats for the zombies to grind your force to death! All in all a pretty scary force to be pitched against!

I wouldn't mind seeing how a Dark Judge gang fare against them... Could be fun!

Noc

 

[tneva82]

When it comes to killing zombies it works

Did check the rules (haven't yet checked campaign rules to figure out how easily you lose those zombies and how much money you are likely to get to replace but from sound of this thread that ain't going to be problem)

All in all a pretty scary force to be pitched against!

Particularly if there's decent amount of terrain to use to reduce incoming casualties. Though at least zombies are slow which helps. Big boards could be handy so that you could relocate and keep pounding mayhap. Before they get too close run like hell for new position. But with miniature boards generally being limited in size that ain't going to work forever.

Prolly my strategy would be in beginning to run as fast as possible to gun range, then fire shoot like hell and then do above mentioned run to new position, shoot, repeat until I can't run anywhere. Just try to find last stand position where they won't be able to gangbang too many zombies vs each guy. Multiple guys in combat rules look scary for the lone guy.