Road to Deadzone: Third Edition – Rob’s Enforcers

Deadzone: Third Edition is now out in the wild! It’s fantastic to see the new edition finally in people’s hands… and we’ve even seen a few people managing to squeeze a game in too. However, we know that you’ve all got a burning question that still needs to be answered. Forget changes to line of sight. Ignore all the clearing up of keywords. Disregard the refined campaign rules. The big question is – how did the Mantic staff get on with their Strike Teams? Well, let’s find out. Starting with Rob…

So, if you’ve read my previous blog you’ll know that I had put together a Mazon Labs Strike Team. However, after writing the blog, I realized that I had pretty much finished my Strike Team – which meant there wasn’t a great deal to update blog readers on. Boo! But with the Mazon Labs under my belt, it meant I could go back to a project that I’ve been working on for a while: Enforcers!

When we started talking about Third Edition, I decided I was going to work on an Enforcer Strike Team. This was mainly because I really like the Peacekeeper miniatures and the fact that I knew they were changing to Troops meant I could squeeze them into my list a bit easier. However, this fact wasn’t common knowledge when we started our Road to Third Edition blogs, so I kept quiet and got on with my Mazon Labs. But now with the force lists in the wild, it’s time to keep the peace… with EXTREME PREJUDICE.

So, here are my models…

In terms of the colour scheme, I do like my sci-fi miniatures to be fairly bright. My Veer-myn are bright orange, my Rebs are red, my Asterians are white/orange, Marauders have bright green skin, etc. As a result, I wanted to do something different, compared to the studio scheme. While exploring the various Vallejo paints at Mantic HQ, I came across Steel Grey. I liked the slightly brighter blue and decided this would make a good starting point, then to really make it pop, I used yellow on the shoulder pads.

My other idea for the Peacekeepers was to give them a bit more character by having them without helmets. I actually used the heads from the Pathfinders sprue, as I liked the idea that these Peacekeepers were once a Pathfinder squad that has been ‘promoted’ to the rank of Peacekeeper. Yet, because they’re so super cool, they still refuse to wear their helmets. Shhhhh… don’t think about headshots.

List-wise then, let’s take a look…

This is my 150pts list (created using the wonderful new EasyArmy website), although I have got plenty more models to scale up to 200pts. The idea behind this list is that I want to be quite defensive, so hopefully my opponent is going to have to work to take the models off the table.

First up, I’ve got Stalwart on my Enforcer Captain, which allows me to re-roll on Survive tests. This is most likely to be used on my Pathfinders, as they haven’t got the benefit of Armour. However, I have popped a couple of Defender Shields in my list – on the Assault Enforcer and Peacekeeper Specialist – which will increase the Armour value of all Size 1 or 2 friendly models in the same cube by +1. Now the Pathfinders will have Armour 1, the standard Enforcer will have Armour 2 and the Peacekeeper will have Armour 3. Very, very tasty!

Meanwhile to give me some close combat punch, the Assault Enforcer has finally made it into my list. I’ve only got one at 150pts, but will probably add another when playing at 200pts. Finally, to give me some Armour Piercing capability, I’ve gone for an Enforcer with a missile launcher. I decided for this option – rather than something like the Strider – as it’s easier to hide the smaller Enforcer, plus it’s much easier to take advantage of height to give me a +1 to Shooting. I may team up the missile launcher with the Assault Enforcer to keep it protected.

As I said earlier, I actually started this project when we first began work on Deadzone: Third Edition in 2020 and I quickly got the bug for painting Enforcers. So much so that I ended up expanding my Strike Team to a full Firefight force. Now I’m prepared for Deadzone and Firefight: Second Edition. Bring. It. On.