We had 500 point armies as finmirage didn't have more ready yet. I used my Dark eldar models with the freeborn rules as my Algoryn were at that time still coming in the mail (and now under construction). The Freeborn rules however are so close match with the Dark eldar units, that it's very probable that their future will be "beyond the gates" instead of grim darkness. I just have to decide how to build drones for them, but that is a separate subject...
The scenario was Hold the line with my Freeborn as defenders and Concord as attackers. In stead of placing terrain pieces, we had just objective markers placed on preset terrain.
The lists were about following:
Concord:
2 Medium support drones with plasma light support accompanied by a batter and a shield drone.
2 Squads of 6(?) troopers with spotter drones and sling net ammo for their x-slings.
Auxiliary drone with Subverter matrix
Bunch of army options to fill up points (for those unfamiliar, these are all sorts of one use re-rolls etc. that you can spend 10% of your points. In my opinion, these are one of the greatest perks of the list construction in the game besides the drones and probes.)
Freeborn:
6+6+7 Domari Household troops with slingnet ammo for the x-launchers (do I see a pattern here?)
Medium Attack skimmer without upgrades
6 Targeting probes
The game started with half of the Freeborn army on table and second half and the concord army moving on board in the first turn. In addition, each of the defender squads got hit of sonic bombardment before the start of the game. This was a d10 roll which caused pins or even some damage depnding on the roll. However the Freeborn were clearly properly dug in, as only one pin was suffered by the three squads.
Those unfamiliar of the game, the pins are a central mechanic of the game. Each time a squad gets hit with a weapon that can cause them damage it also receives a one pin marker. If unit has pins, it must first pass a command check to do it's actions or fall down and in addition they cause penalty of -1/pin marker to all different tests (like shooting). A great mechanic, I must say as you can pin down an unit by shooting it enough, even if you don't cause too much damage on it and it's less dependant on dice rolls as in 40k. (Also half of units in the game aren't immune to this as in that game, but let's not go to that.)
This is what the field looked after the first turn:
No firing was done in the first turn, but one concord squad got a pin marker from sprinting.
Those unfamiliar with the game can see some green dice besides the units that might be a good thing to explain. Each unit has a command die (and some units have more than one, like the light attack skimmer that has two) with the army's colour. These dice are put into a bag in the beginning of the turn and taken from there one by one. Each time a dice is drawn, it allows a unit from the side of the die to do an action. There are 6 actions: fire, run, advance, ambush, down and rally. Fire gives you a +1 accuracy modifier (the game uses d10 dice for rolls), but won't let you move, the advance lets you move and shoot without modifiers, run gives you double move (2x5") with possibility of tripling the distance by sprinting and rolling a agility test, if failed the unit takes a pin. Ambush gives the unit the possibility of react by firing on enemy unit moving in their los. Rally allows you to remove pin markers and Down is only used when you fail a command or morale roll or as a response to enemy shooting and makes the enemies re-roll the hits on the unit. Again another great key mechanic in the game. The randomness may sound strange, but works very well on the battle field and gives the game a sense of battlefield chaos and uncertainity to take in to account. Some orders (like dashing in to cover by run order or shooting assaulting unit) are also possible to be used as response to opponent firing, if the unit hasn't activated yet.
A closer shot on the advancing concord forces and three targeter drones closing on them.
On the second turn the concord squad behind the forest entered the forest and opened fire on the domari squad holding the left objective. With the support of support drones (d'oh), the domari squad took some punishing, but decided not to go down as the probes were in good position for return fire. The domari indeed gave some return fire with the help of probes. The mag guns didn't cause damage or didn't hit, but the x-launcer's slingnet ammo scored a hit. This weapon doesn't cause damage, but causes an additional pin, which is great.
The targeter probes are all moving separately on the table and can just move 20" around. They don't do anything themselves, but they can move to a base contact with enemy units, which gives all units firing that squad a +1 bonus to accuracy with max +3, or reduce scattering by -1" each (which is huge as the scatter distance is d5").
The concord troops didn't want to have a stand off with the probes and domari, but dashed closer behind the forest.
The support drones again shot some domari away from the leftmost squad. Which was eventually shot down. However the pin they had caused to the advancing concord squad caused them to fail their command check once, which kept them behind the forest for an additional turn.
On the other side of the board, the forces closed on each other, but nothing significant happened in the early turns. The drone with the subverter matrix tried to cause some havoc on the skimmer. The subverter matrix is an equipment, that targets all mechanical units of the opponent (drones, probes, vehicles, etc.). They have to pass a command check or one order die from their side is taken out of the bag on side. In the end of turn, both players roll a die for each, if the owner of the matrix rolls higher, they are kept on side. This is a nasty ability. Luckily I failed it only once. Oh, and it also destroys all enemy probes in the area, which my three probes on the area found out...
The concord unit tried to close from the center, but they failed to shoot down the skimmer (there was a fair chance, with their plasma carbines and the plasma lance that got two chances, both with a re-roll, but failed to hit), which in turn shot them down with it's double order dice (that allows it to activate twice in the turn, nasty).
Not much else dramatic happened in the game (it was a small game). The concord eventually got in to striking distance of the left obejctive:
but the brave domaru unit that left their center obejctive managed to pin them down and stop their advance:
So this was a win for the Freeborn. However I must say, that the scenario was highly on the defender's side in this scale. On the other hand we spoke after the game, that if Concord would have concentrated the forces on one side of the table, as almost all freeborn units moved before the concord in the first turn, it would have been a different game as the thinly spread Freeborn probably wouldn't have stood a chance against a concentrated Concord effort, and with one base secured, it would have been easier to conquer the middle objective.
It was the first time I tested the probes and a vehicle. Both turned out to be quite interesting. The probes are a fun unit to play. You'll have to think a bit about activating and moving them, as they have to be moved at the right time, before the unit that wants to use them for its firing, but after the target, so that it doesn't just walk away from them before the firing unit gets its turn. The light attack skimmer was also nice. The freeborn don't have as good support weapon options as Concord. The support drones are superior to the weapon teams of the lower tech forces. Therefore having a heavy weapon in a relatively well armoured and mobile chassis with the additional firepower of the multiple activation is golden. On the other hand, if it was to show itself to the concord support drones, it would have been shot from the sky in very short order. The armour 11 is bound to fail against the -3 strike value plasma support weapons with three shots per drone.
(The shooting sequence is two step system. First you roll to hit trying to roll below the accuracy of the shooter (usually 5) with d10. You get penalties from light cover and pbstacles, long range, pins and various other things. Then the model hit rolls to resist the shot trying to roll below its armour with d10. Again penalties from the strike value of the gun and bonuses from armour and cover. Tens always fail. Almost all of the infantry have one wound, but against monsters, support drones and vehicles you roll from a damage table, low causes extra pins and high destroys the unit.)
All in all, this is a great game that I can heartily recommend. If you have experience from 40k, it's very easy to get grasp of the game. (No wonder as the designer is the same guy...) The pin and order die mechanics give the game a touch of "realism" and added level of tactics. On the other hand, if close combat and heroes are your thing, maybe there's not too much for you, as heroes are more useful because of their command abilities and the close combat is sort of a rare occurence and highly brutal for both sides. There aren't too many close combat specialized troops, but I believe that's not all that bad in a game of future warfare...
I can't say anything about the "point balance" with my experience, but I can believe that there are some killer combos around there to be found. On the other hand the game emphasis more of a story driven gaming as most of the scenarios in the book are themed scenarios with attacker and defender.