Alllllrighty then. It’s my turn to take a crack at a SCTMG battle report. I am a HUGE fan of Star Craft and still regularly watch the pro scene by way of Winter or Lowko. Star Craft is pretty foundational to my persona BUT I do promise to try and do a mildly unbiased review of the game as it stands in beta.
Chandler and I were able to sneak in a game on TTS (Thanks again to the absolute legends who got that mod up and running) and finally get Zerg on the table and I was able to try out Protoss which has been one of my favorites for literal decades.
My List
Here’s my thoughts, I wanted a bit more of a “go-wide” strategy and so I chose not to bring any Stalkers, which allowed me to have 6 tactics cards and more wiggle room for Core Units. Neither of us had played against or with Zerg so this was going to be a trial by fire. I will go over some list thoughts at the end of the report, but turns out a lot of the upgrades I really rated poorly on my first list building experience would turn out to be quite crucial.
Chandler’s List
And Malignant Creep was his chosen Creep.
Hooooo Buddy here comes the swarm. He has SO. MANY. MODELS. Even if they’re all relatively easy to kill there is just some pure mathematics at play here. I only have so many attack dice. I am a bit worried about this matchup.
We randomized scenario but at this point after 3 games I believe we’re probably ready to start implementing the draft system.
Round 1
Per usual SCTMG fashion the action get’s going pretty quickly.
I win priority and I drop the Pylon right in the center so I can start getting my units where they need to be. I send a unit of Zealots deep into enemy territory with Warp Gate and then spend a few activations paying for Leg Enhancements with my Gateways for both of the bottom units of Zealots and start very comfortably controlling those two table quarters. Adepts and Sentries round out my deployment for a nice clean 8 Supply on the table.
Chandler drops the Omega Worm and just a mountain of Zerglings (Editor’s note: One Unit of Swarmlings) on the left side. Right side get’s some heavy investment with Kerrigan’s Raptors, the Queen, and One of the Hydralisk duos. Center gets the Corpser Unit.
Here’s after the Assault and Fighting phases. First things to note. Good lord Hydralisks HURT. I think as you evaluate the game and look at units to put into your list make sure you give extra consideration to anything with a damage characteristic above 1. It’s VERY good in this game.
I use priority to send my Zealots on the right side into Kerrigan’s Raptors (which would’ve turned off Hydralisk shooting and prevented a lot of damage from the Raptors) sadly they fail the charge into the Raptors. Even with using their Charge ability to roll two dice and choose the highest number. That means they get shot and Raptors get to charge into them, Chandler uses both a tactic card (Evolution Chamber: Extended Claws) and their card ability Adrenal Overload. Now they’re much more accurate. My poor Zealots poof into the nice blue smoke and die horribly without getting any value. A poor start. Since that’s the only real fight going on the Adepts shade forward and get ready to shoot some Raptors.
Score ends Zerg 4 Protoss 2 and we head to the next round.
Round 2
Okay, now there is a ton of Swarmlings on the left side (there surely can’t be more right…). Artanis comes in to protect the right side Zealots with his Hierarch’s Stand ability against the Hydralisk shooting. My thought here is “Please please please make it stop”. In reality I was getting torn apart by Hydralisks and I really needed to get some Zealots into them. I needed to stop the bleeding on the right hand side or attrition would get to some catastrophic levels. Praetor Guard (My favorite unit they’re so cool holy crap) voip into the middle via the Pylon, and another Adept unit comes up the right side. At this point I have severely underestimated both Kerrigan’s Raptors and the Hydralisks and I am trying to reinforce heavily on that side.
Alrighty! Things are going a bit more my way. I have made some solid progress on attrition. Artanis only lost his shields and kept the Zealots alive and they killed the Queen. My Adepts half killed the Raptors and I was in position to clean them up next round. Praetor Guard and Vile Roaches got into a glorious slap fight. Kerrigan comes into join the party but Praetor Guard are just so tanky and my rolls spike and I take very minimal damage.
The left side. Oh man. It’s so cool. This is where this game shines. 3 Zealots and 2 Sentries are staring down 36 Zerglings and are winning. I kill 9 of the Swarmlings, sadly due to how activations had to play out I am unable to charge them, which misses a lot of damage. But my Zealots Psi Blades do go slice and dice. Even the Sentries end up doing respectable damage. Crucially I leave them on 7 models, meaning they’re allowed to use Respawn to maximum effect still.
We end the Round Zerg 7 Protoss 5
Round 3
Here’s the movement phase. You’ll have to forgive me as I managed to forget to take a picture of the end of turn. Only have the end of movement.
Adepts sneak up in the top left with Warp Gate. I really mess up here. I get too antsy about having priority next phase (To get my Zealots into some Hydralisks!) I pass WAY too early and it allows the Hydralisks to scooch back and make my life REALLY miserable.
The Unending Zerg Rush continues down the left flank and honestly my two units are loving it. The regular Zergling unit reinforces to counter my sneaky Adept nonsense. Sadly the wounded Swarmling unit is able to disengage and respawn down in the bottom.
The slap fight in the middle continues without pause in the BREAKNECK ACTION. (Editor’s Note: Send your units where they have a surge….just…use your surges guys)
Raptors live on one wound after the Adept shooting, and as you can imagine, 4 Hydralisks do terrible things to Artanis and the Zealots. Artanis crucially fails his charge, needing a two. Sometimes dice be dice. Zealots and Sentries again half kill the next Swarmling Unit and keep doing their best Legacy of the Void Opening Cinematic impression.
Round 4
Here’s where we end up in Round 4. Sadly attrition has gone a bit off the rails. I am able to clean up a few things but I just am losing so much at this point. I do get clever and put a Forcefield on the chokepoint in the bottom left preventing the bottom Swarmlings from doing anything important. But the writing is on the wall. Between the play errors and the missed charges attrition has slid too far towards the Zerg and I Mass Recall my remaining forces back home to lick our wounds and plan our revenge.
End of Game
We talk out the last few phases and Zerg wins 18-10.
Closing Thoughts
First up. The game
What I did Well – I think my list is really solid! I don’t think I played it super well, but it was my first time with the faction so I’ll give myself a pass. I think I really like what the list can do. The list building step was where I shined this time.
What I can Improve On – I think a lot of my problems stemmed from my round 1 deployment choices. I think I should’ve had Artanis, Praetor Guard, 3 Adepts, 2 Sentries on round one and then fed the Zealots out of the pylon over the next few rounds. It gives me a much larger dice pool to chew through all those Zerg, it gives me time to get my important support abilities like Guardian Shield, Forcefield, and Adept shade shenanigans where they need to be. Second was being wayyyy to early to pass on those middle rounds. Lessons learned for sure!
What Chandler Did Well – I think his deployment choices were much more solid than mine. We both were a bit taken aback by how much work the Hydralisks and Raptors did. But he adapted to that shock much better and just started flooding the other side. His plan of “Here fodder stand in front of my Hydras so the real units can do work” was brutal. The Swarmlings were hilarious. They didn’t…do anything? But they just…didn’t die. Ever.
Secondly The Gaaaaame
Alrighty, like I said, I am going to try and be very objective about this. Putting aside my decades long experience with Star Craft I’m going to give a review of this as someone who has played MANY wargames over the past 15 years and enjoys them immensely.
Rules/Rulebook – This is a great rulebook. There are some truly clever things in here, terrain masking, the cohesion and movement rules, clearly stating how reactions/timings/abilities work. I think there are some hiccups that can and will be addressed (Hydralisk movement, some wordings, some timings, etc). The game feels quite balanced already? I don’t see many egregious pain points after a handful of games. Rules are intuitive and easy to pick up but there are a lot of great decision points during a game and it makes it a ton of fun. The Keywords and Lethality and Surge system are bright points for me as well.
Models/Flavor – The pictures of the models look great, I haven’t seen them in person but I play a lot of Conquest and Archon produces those models so I have no real fear about these models being really high quality. The flavor and rules of the models is just a home run for me. It has managed to balance being a really fantastically made competitive wargame, while also having so many great flavor and fluff wins with the unit rules. NOT an easy thing to do. Adepts are quite possibly one of the coolest models across any wargame I’ve played. Just an amazing adaptation.
Pain Points/Cons – This could be due to our own inexperience with the game and the scenarios, but I feel that the hero units could be a bit more impactful. I think the table is a bit small as I am used to Conquest and GW games, but I’ll get used to that. I won’t say scenario yet, as I am really excited to try the draft system. But potentially the scenario.
Final Verdicts
Alright here’s the unabashed, full bias, take it or leave it, this is the hill someone’s dying on take. I love this game. I am all in. It’s so fun. It’s SO fun. Even if you aren’t a Star Craft junkie like me this is just a fantastic wargame that deserves a spot in your life. The developers seem to be passionate and competent. The game is balanced well. The models are fantastic. Can’t wait to see what’s coming!