Dropzone Tactics: The Scourge

As most of you know by now, I switch armies as often as many of my fellow southerners change clothes. Dropzone is no exception to this rule, and as a result I have recently started exploring the Scourge as a faction again. Rather than continue with the PHR tactics series, for now I am going to take a break and explore the Scourge as I learn more about them.

I played a 1,500 point game a few days ago against my resident UCM player, which helped me to clarify my thoughts for this opening article. As time goes on, I plan to let the article series take on an organic approach, growing in whichever direction my thought process tends to take with the army. With the framework in place, let’s dive into some army basics. These are obviously generalizations; we will expand into individual units later in the process.

Incredible Speed

The Scourge’s greatest power lies in their speed. Everything in the army moves along at a brisk pace, with a few notable exceptions (more on them in another article). This is a tremendous strength, in a game system where many of your opponents will be trundling snails in comparison. Dropzone is largely a game of maneuver, meaning that the Scourge have an excellent advantage in their baseline speed.

A general should seek to control as many variables on the table as he possibly can. Dice rolls are one of the variables that are more difficult to control, but maneuver does not fall into this camp. A unit moves at a certain speed; this isn’t random and gives you a working knowledge of exactly what a unit will accomplish when moving. The Scourge’s advantage here means it is an advantage that the enemy has less ability to negate. A Hades has massive firepower, but bad dice can prevent it’s damage. A Scourge skimmer will move 9” regardless!

Vulnerable Armor

They're just little guys...

With great speed comes reduced armor, and the Scourge have to be particularly careful in this department. They don’t have the Passive protection of the Shaltari equivalents, meaning that they rely almost exclusively on their Skimmer bonus being in place. With their insanely high Move/Fire values this speed should always be utilized. The one exception, obviously, is on the turn the Skimmers come out of their Dropships.

Use the high speed of Scourge Dropships to get into position behind buildings along the middle of the table, dropping quickly to prevent flanking enemies getting into position before the Skimmer bonus is active. Scourge speed and firepower make them an aggressive force, which means that they should be in position to engage as quickly as possible.

Use that infamous speed to press the advantage against a small area of the enemy front, preventing an overwhelming number of enemy shots that would leave your quick tanks as steaming slag.

Devastating Firepower

Beware the bum-rush...

The Scourge have extremely limited range on much of their weaponry, but once it is in position it is some of the most devastating ordnance in the game. Plasma weapons will bring down almost anything you point it at, and the Scourge bring it in large enough numbers to threaten even the heaviest enemy targets in the game.

Again, natural Scourge aggression comes into play here. I call their playstyle “Rush ‘Em and Crush ‘Em.” Your ultimate goal is to commit quickly and decisively to a plan of action, bringing those devastating cannons online as soon as possible. For me, this frequently means turn one drops. Hunters can be 19” into the table with this initial landing, meaning they will have effective range to 40” from their starting point. This is incredible coverage, but it has to be tempered with the fact that you will most likely be skirting cover and trying to avoid enemy return fire on the way. Still, it leaves very little reason for your main grav-tanks to be spending any excess time in their fragile transports.

The Plasma weaponry is almost entirely Demolisher-2 as well, which means the foe will have to be thinking about the difficult placement of Infantry. Even in lower game totals, Scourge will have an abundance of Building demolition, leaving them with options that other forces will not have. Don’t be afraid to use your grav-tanks to force the enemy out of position. The same uses can be given to the AA tank, the Reaper. It is decent at damaging structures, and excellent at aggressively hunting enemy dropships.

This combination of speed and firepower gives the Scourge a hand-up in retaining the initiative throughout the game. To master the faction, a Scourge general has to constantly keep in mind force location, damage mitigation, and enemy presence. If used like the predators they are, the Scourge will rarely fail to cause spectacular bloodshed down the entire length of the table.

All right, Scourge generals. Tell us what works for you…and more importantly, what doesn’t.