Star Craft TMG Written Battle Report Raynor’s Raiders vs Kerrigan’s Brood

Alrighty! After a few weeks of trying to *checks notes* survive having newborn twins paternity leave has ended and the real world has come back. I was able to sneak a game on TTS with Chandler (Of Line of Sight Fame) and his Kerrigan’s Brood. Spoilers. This is one of the most exciting and fun games of tabletop gaming I’ve had in a Looooong time.

Get ready for bullet points nerds, we’re diving into minutia

Alrighty, you can see we’re going to try and APM them to death. I waffled a lot between Slugthrowers and Grenades for my MSU 6 man marines but eventually went with the Slugthrowers so that I can punch a bit harder into evade saves if they end up getting charged. I knew I had a lot of activations in this list so I figured I would be losing priority often so I figured they would be shooting in melee a lot. Two major tanky threats to create the Signature Terran Defensive Onion (Patent Pending) in the Shield Marines and Marauders. Medic Support that comes onto the table for FREE (I love Advanced Medic Facilities, even if it’s 60 points)

This is a pretty elite list. But there is a LOT of power there and some really terrifying stuff. A small dip into Burrow mechanics for the times that it matters (never) and some really strong tactics cards. I love cracklings (Zerglings with the damage upgrades) and think they’re one of the coolest units, especially the raptor strain. Ignoring terrain is so bruuutal especially against Terran. And obviously…no one wants to see 4 Hydralisks lined up against them. They will melt the world.

A key thing to note! We played with Fog of War active (Honestly, it’s how I think the game should be played, it feels so good) we would explain what upgrades a unit has as they entered the table but other than that we had no idea what the other person brought.

Scenario Draft

We lined up our cards and had

Missions –

Hold Position, Gather Resources, Supply Drop and Frontlines

Deployments –

Gauntlet, Proving Grounds, Acropolis and Typhoon

Drafting went pretty quick, Chandler winning priority beating my 2D6 roll with just his one dice (He forgot to roll the second, turns out it didn’t matter) and opting to control the deployment as he really didn’t want to be stuck walking into a gunline. He also chose red just in case we ended up on Proving Grounds and had to be stuck walking out of his tiny tiny deployment area, again, into the gunline.

We landed on Supply Drop and Typhoon and got ready to go!

Round 1

Man I love Terran. Pretty straight forward stuff. The roaches come up with Burrow Ambush and use a tactics card to be Burrowed. But I use the power of Jim Raynor’s sultry voice to let my Marauder’s activate again and get into a prime position. Lot’s of Go Go Go’s! Later and we end up with this scene. The Zerg token is in the middle to drop something scary. I’ve got Queens, a big Crackling unit, and some bothersome Roaches to deal with. On my left I’ve got my big 9 man Marine unit with Medic support, a 6 man Marine to help out and screen for Jimmy and then the Marauder unit.

I am not too worried about the Marauder’s being so far forward because there just really isn’t anything that will touch them this round and the Medics can catch up in the Assault phase.

We did it team. With Stim Pack and Raynor’s Order’s my 4 man Marauders we killed one entire Roach.

Kerrigan ports in, I control the objective and we get ready for Round 2. I have deployed in a way that no matter what zone becomes active next round I will be able to pretty easily get there between Raynor’s Raiders and Proxy Barracks.

Round 2

The Top Objective becomes active and I drop some Raiders on it. I get cheeky and pass after those two activations opting to just activate my 9 man Marines and get them Stimmed Up and ready to go. Chandler brings in the Swarm, but crucially I will get to shoot first. Sadly I miss a picture from this rounds Assault phase (Sorry!) but I melt that middle Zergling Unit down to one Little Guy. I kill another roach, and the Middle Queen takes one damage. Since I was able to activate first and take a lot of the teeth out of the Zergling Unit Chandler opts to activate Kerrigan first and avoid some damage on her. She sadly is able to do a touch of damage to the Marauders before Jumping over to the Medics and making them SUPER dead in the Combat Phase.

Round 3

Again the zone activated is the top, I am in an okay…ish? Position to contest it but the majority of my power is located on the right side of the map. I get my second unit of Medics as far away as possible, drop the point defense drone, and Stim and Shield my Shielded Boys. I also get cheeky and Proxy Barracks out a Marine unit on the Zone I know will be next.

Hydra’s come out of the actual deployment line (WEIRD) and are able to get a crazy line up on the Marines, but I actually opt to activate the 6 man unit there first to try and chip away at that unit, I don’t need them running around cleaning me up from Right to Left.

Shieldy Marines take the charge rom the Raptors and just…care not. They block 7 damage thanks to the Shield and still have 5 bodies to work with.

That catches us up enough to go to this picture

The Raiders sadly are positioned quite poorly. Allowing 15 out of 18 Zerglings to get into combat. I absolutely could’ve made that number MUCH smaller. There was a fantastic choke point there. 5 Raiders die horribly, but my Shield Marines manage to get the fabled 6 on the Grenades Surge dice and between Precision from Stim Pack and the Anti-Evade powers of the Slugthrower they kill 5 Raptors, and clean the 6th up in melee stealing the zone.

Kerrigan kills another Medic unit. (Her current kill tally is 400 points killed by the way) Kerrigan has used Crushing Grip each round on Jimmy and it has been BACK breaking. I am losing so much of my sweet sweet shenanigans because of it. My middle 6 man Marines were positioned cleverly so that if Kerrigan go to the Medics, she would also have to be engaging the Marines, meaning they could shoot her. Jimmy takes some HUGE chunks out of the middle Queen and the Marauders FINALLY kill the Roaches. My surges on the Marauders were pretty lackluster.

Surprising no one the Hydras kill 5 of the Marines

Round 4

Movements have become even faster now at this stage of the game. The Queen backs toward the Active Zone. Hydras flood the zone. Another 6 man Marine unit comes on to support the right flank and Jimmy is Crushing Gripped before he is able to remove their activation token and really get them where they need to go (They were going to use the Ready for a Pickup ability on top of Stim Packs. It was going to be so magical) Crushing Grip real good when your opponent is very clever with it.

Marauder’s scooch forward to get the Queen inside 12″ and not suffer the Long Range Penalty (Also to Activate Stim Pack) and the Zerglings up top opt to stay engaged with the Raider to get the kill point.

Things don’t go great for me this round. I go early with the Marauders because they are hidden from the Hydras and the only things that can see them are the Queens. I turn the bottom Queen into a fine paste, then the middle Queen misses ALL 4 ATTACKS, and my Rampant Drug Use on my Marauders is left unpunished. Jimmy kills the middle queen and the Shield Marines posture for next round. Hydras melt the Marines that were left out to dry because of Crushing Grip and we end the round 12-11 for the Terran.

Round 5

Basically I feel pretty good at the moment. Holding one zone with the dregs of his forces is what Jimmy does best thanks to the Freedom Fighters ability making my Supply always at least 1. I had 4 supply on the zone, Jimmy had 8 health, and the Marauders (Even though they had been Crushing Gripped, I HATE CRUSHING GRIP. I don’t actually it’s so cool and having a model with such a high skill ceiling is dope) were still in range to walk onto the zone during the Assault Phase. A casual 6 Supply on the zone.

Chandler moves his Hydras up. I position my 3 hero Marines with a lot of Stims to try and get some kill points there. Kerrigan stays out of sight and the Zerglings come up as far as they can.

Here’s what actually happened. My best laid plans were foiled by the power of Sarah Kerrigan. In a Supreme Display of Skill Kerrigan charges Jimmy and is put in a place where the Marauders can no longer walk onto the zone. They are forced to charge and they promptly roll a 1 (They only needed a 2, large sadge) the Zerglings are able to kill two whole Shield Marines (So proud) but the real kicker is that Kerrigan is able to kill, to the precise wound, Jim Raynor and secure the game!

Also in a hilarious pyrrhic victory, those 3 marines on the bottom, a unit of one and a unit of two, are able to kill 2.5 hydras. Behold the power of Surges.

The Game goes all the way down to the last activations of the final round, where Jimmy just barely couldn’t hang on, just needing one more armor save.

Zerg win the battle 18-15 and the game was an absolute BLAST to play.

Closing Thoughts

Man, what a freaking game. Super technical with precise positioning and key moments for both sides. Hero moments by Kerrigan to snatch a clutch victory from the Jaws of Defeat.

Things I did well – Key players for me on the Terran side were the Combat Shield Marines. It is not an exaggeration. Those marines saved over 20 damage on their Combat Shields. It was 4 rounds of Impacts and Melee damage and it was so back breaking for Chandler. They were the tidewall that stopped the waves of Zerglings. And they just MULCHED anything that got into combat with them. I’m tempted to give them Bayonets.

I think I played the scenario really well! I got a bit greedy with some plays and they got shut down hard by crushing grip, but I liked what I did. I like my list a lot. I think I should’ve tried to kill Kerrigan more though.

I liked my tactics card usage, I had good Go Go Go’s, I had effective uses of the Scanner Sweep and Point Defense Drone

Things I could Improve on – Maybe not let Kerrigan kill 800 points of models. That’s not an exaggeration by the way. She had free reign rounds 2-5.

Also I need to be better with my Ready for a Pickup, I actually didn’t get to use it this game. I flubbed up activations and then got Crushing Gripped into oblivion

What Chandler Did Well – Just really clutch use of Kerrigan. The use of Crushing Grips are the only thing that kept the game so close and allowed him to get that win! I think the Hydra’s could’ve been more central and the Lings more to the flanks, but otherwise he played a great game and kept his cool for a really epic and cinematic round 5 victory!

Anyway. This was one of the most fun games I’ve had in a gaming in a long, long time and it was on TTS! I cannot wait for the models to get here and get painting! Subscribe and keep your eyes out for more Battle Reports and our Podcast: Awaiting Orders We chat about SCTMG weekly and It’ll always be a great listen! Go listen to our first four episodes!