Deadzone Asterians: Your First Strike Teams

The ancient and enigmatic Asterian race has plied the stars for aeons, keeping their distance from the lower lifeforms that inhabit the galaxy, but intervening whenever a threat emerges that threatens all intelligent life. Deadzones harbour threats of this magnitude, and it is at this point that the Asterians mobilize their forces.

The Asterians Go to War

Asterians approach warfare in the same manner they approach everything – With deadly precision. To minimize the danger to Asterian life, remotely piloted AI constructs known as Cyphers form the elite of their forces, supported by automated drones and the warrior sub-culture known as the Kalyshi, who revel in the danger of the battlefield rather than hiding from it.

This article will guide you through the process of creating a variety of different Asterian Strike Teams, all of which are possible to build using the contents of the Asterian Faction Starter.

Building Your Strike Team

Asterians are an elite force of specialists that all need to work together to succeed, with a large variety of specialist weaponry and access to powerful items such as Energy Shields.

The core of an Asterian Strike Team will often be Cyphers, which are well-armoured and have an excellent statline, but are also Vulnerable, so if an attack is powerful enough to break through their armour, they are instantly taken out of action. Be careful with these troops, using them as mobile firepower to move out of cover and attack at exactly the right moment. If they need to advance under enemy fire to claim objectives or assault, make good tactical use of their Toxic Smokescreen ability to cover their advance. This tactichas to planned carefully, using your final activations to surge forward with your cyphers, ready to fire the smoke at the start of your next turn.

The rest of the Asterian force is heavily specialized towards either fire support or melee, with a focus on disrupting the enemy. There are a lot of weapons with Frag, Indirect and Knockback, all of which allow you to move enemy models around and pin them, make careful use of these abilities to remove enemy models from objectives and force them into vulnerable positions. The Overseer's special ability is also disruptive and can remove a key command dice from your opponent's pool right at the point where you have set up a deadly move such as blasting their Leader into clear sight of one of your models. Overall, playing the Asterians successfully revolves around successful execution of a specific plan. Strike with precision, and lead your forces to victory!

The following 100 point starter lists are made from the contents of the Asterian Faction Starter and each focus on a different approach to strategy. The tactics used by each of these forces will be covered in the next article, along with ways to expand and customize your Strike Team using the contents of the Asterian Faction Booster.

Sample Asterian Strike Teams

Storm of Fire

Surgical Strike

The Asterian Faction Starter and Faction Booster are available to pre-order now and can be found in all good hobby stores from the end of June!