All over the HUD there were dots of incoming enemy and fast incoming enemy. Karln had spotted the power station and the scourge seed pods in the area surrounding it from about a half klik away but came in close to drop off his two walkers to hold a bridge that was there while reinforcements came up.
He hoped the rest of the force would arrive in time. His armour company had been sent out to find scourge reproductive centers and annihilate them. Right now the mission wasn't going so well.
The other two Neptunes were coming up fast but it didn't look like it would be fast enough, the Scourge were in sight now and skimming over buildings and trees, closing in on his position. There wasn't time to pull out and having come this far he didn't want to anyway. The only option was to hang tight for the rest of the company to show.
The scourge dropped in just out of site behind a building across the street from where the walkers were standing. Another scourge ship flew in across the river and dropped in behind a building over there. The high pitched squeal of the rail repeater firing at it as it came in was pretty satisfying especially upon hearing the ding as one of the shots hit home. Not enough to drop the scourge ship but it was something.
That is when Eklic arrived. The other Neptune came around the corner and dropped his walkers in the middle of the street a block behind the river. They would prevent the scourge from being able to surge freely up into Karln's rear.
He could see that Malk was coming up soon too and then all hell broke loose.
Scourge rapiers came screaming through the canyons between the buildings, the arcs of electricity each projected from their twin antenna pulsed up into the air. Eklic tried to bank away but there was no escaping it. Plasma arced across the surface of the drop ship and it's engines shut down plummeting the heavily armoured aircraft to the street. Karln moved to support them and fired some missiles down the street. His fire added to that of the two walkers and the enemy AA tanks were just a pile of smouldering debris.
Just in time as another squadron of enemy tanks peeled around the corner, plasma blasts were peppering the building behind the walkers that Karln had dropped off. One blast hit home almost crippling one of the walkers. The pilots stoically stood their ground and fired back. Malk was here now and dropped down to the street. The two APC were deployed from their magnetic locks and rolled towards the conflict.
Malk came up off the deck and engaged in the fighting two. Just then two scourge heavy tanks came up over the bridge and the squadron of walkers Karln had dropped off disappeared in a storm of plasma.
He banked and discharged missiles at the approaching enemy to little effect.
It did buy Malk's APCs time to move their infantry into a building covering the bridge. The scourge must have had the same idea because through some of the broken windows in the building opposite he could see their troops, in their jerky motions, moving up to the windows to take up firing positions.
The last remaining walker engaged the heavy scourge tanks but didn't have a chance against their plasma guns. The APCs added the weight of their fire too but it wasn't enough.
The Immortals were in place before the scourge infantry could get to good firing spots and opened up on their opposites. The front of the building exploded in a shower of glass and leaves as the overgrown building took a pounding from the two infantry squads.
He could see a sniper carefully take aim at the building opposite and the next thing he knew there was a scourge body falling, headless, from the enemy held building.
If he could have heard the thud that it made as it went 5 four stories to the pavement he imagined it would have been pretty sickening.
The scourge's return fire was seemingly undiminished by the fire from the Immortals and with no ground support left Malk ordered his infantry back. They came out of the building in good order and remounted their APCs while Malk and Karln kept the heavy scourge tanks at a respectable distance with their missile fire. Then Malk scooped up the two troop transports and flew away.
The scourge breeding ground would be remembered and returned to.
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This was our first real game of Dropzone Commander using real models and street legal forces. We had about 700 pts of scourge vs. 550 pts of PHR.
It was the difference in points that ended up winning the game. The scourge slayer tanks came zipping in and managed to put the poke in the party pig as far as PHR armour was concerned leaving the PHR down to only two points scoring units at the end of the game while the scourge had three. If not for that it would have been a tie.
We played the brigehead scenario from the book and the scourge ended up with 5 VPs to the PHR's 2.
It was a fun game. I can't wait to do one with bigger forces.