Deadzone update

Well a couple of nights ago Oscar and I got the chance to play Deadzone, and I thought I'd get back to everyone on my prior recommendation.

Overall, the game plays pretty well - it took us about three hours for what is supposed to be a 1 hour game, but for our first go I think that's pretty much par for the course. We made a few mistakes and there was a lot of rulebook flipping and searching, but we got there! It's quite brutal in parts, and very cinematic - something I always look for in a game - if I feel like I've just taken a maths exam there's definitely something wrong with the game engine.

A few highlights stick in my mind from the game; Oscar's Enforcer rocket launcher guy stepping out from cover and firing a well-placed missile into my level 1 Plague commander - blasting parts of him everywhere despite his toughness - only then to be leapt on by a Stage 2 Plague and torn limb from limb! Oscar's sniper taking out guys with headshots from his vantage point high on a structure, only to eventually be cut down in a hail of heavy machine gun fire.

When the dust settled it was a narrow victory for the Enforcers, but they paid a heavy price to get there.

The game would benefit hugely from a quickstart guide - how to put the models together, working with restic, painting guide, A4 double-sided sheet on game mechanic/reference sheet. Not having this is very frustrating, and leads to confusion and a lot of toing and froing through the rules.

Now visiting the Mantic Games website I realise there IS a quickstart guide that would be great to introduce people to the game, so why not include it as a printout in the set? My vision of a starter set is just that - not that it requires visiting websites and printing stuff off to get things to play basic games. Also, that quickstart guide is more of a starter game thing - play it once and you're done. It doesn't address the basic problem of a quick cheat-sheet.

I did find a fan-made quick reference sheet which is a huge plus, and will be enormously helpful when we play our next game, which will be a much more meaningful test.

Still, overall it was a positive experience, and we're looking forward to getting the minis painted up for our next blast!