Deadzone: Survival of the Fittest

Nexus PSI solo campaign

This Sunday I embarked upon a new solo campaign from the Deadzone supplement Nexus PSI. ‘Survival of the fittest’ is a single player campaign in which a strike team are cut off from command during the first wave of the plague infection.

Rather than using A.I (artificial intelligence) to control the enemies, this game uses A.S (artificial stupidity). These rules dictate how the zombies react to the actions performed by the strike team members.

I built a 300 point campaign force of Enforcers (Iron Eagles space marines) and Pathfinders (Gaunt’s Ghosts Imperial guard) and laid out the terrain ready for my first encounter.

Scenario 1 – First Contact

As the plague infection spread across the planet of Nexus, Colonel -Commissar Ibram Gaunt and his command group at observation post N375/Alpha are cut off from Imperial Guard HQ. Along with brother Sven, a space marine of the Iron Eagles chapter, the strike team must escape the hordes of shambling plague victims, coined ‘poxwalkers’ by master sniper Hlaine ‘mad’ Larkin.

The strike team set up in the middle of the table and cannot leave their deployment zone until they kill at least 4 poxwalkers, then they must attempt to escape the battlefield.

After some initial success killing poxwalkers, Larkin made several head shots and trooper Meryn was overwhelmed and eaten, the strike team could leave the ops post and make good their escape…

Brother Sven uses his position up high to herd the ‘poxwalkers’ away from the route of escape, at one point he dropped a frag grenade in amongst a group, killing and scattering several…

Commissar Gaunt and trooper Criid escape from the Ops post (the red tower in the background) and attempt to make their way across the walkways, unseen by the ‘poxwalkers’ below..

Major Corbec throws down a smoke grenade, allowing master sniper Larkin to get down from the Ops post unnoticed..

The ‘poxwalkers’ finally catch up with Brother Sven, as he fights for his life, yet more zombies are drawn towards his position..

The roar of a chainsaw blade finally stutters and dies, as Brother Sven is brought low by the undead. Gaunt, Colbec and Criid rendezvous ready to escape..

Left alone and behind enemy lines, Larkin uses all his fieldcraft to escape undetected..

With only two casualties, the strike team was able to exfiltrate from their position and attempt to get word back to HQ of the undead threat.

All in all it was a very tense and exciting game which had me scratching my head, trying to work out how best to maneuver without drawing the undead minions upon my troops!