Dropzone Commander: v1.1+ - Because a white metal ball told me to do it

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Dropzone Commander: v1.1+ - Because a white metal ball told me to do it

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BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

I've been slowly building up a PHR army over the last 6 months. It'll probably be a while before paint them all, but I'm most excited about having really cool I-am-legend style terrain

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 01:14

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:15

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

I'm really excited for more infantry across all the different factions. I love tanks, but having different troops that can take on vehicles owns. The game is all about buildings anyway, so it'll make it more interesting.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 22:06

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

The PHR plastic infantry suck, otherwise the plastic starter box is a good deal and you'll use all of the units. The only unit not worth taking is the Menchit. Otherwise a starter box or two and 2+3 boosters + your commander is more than enough to have a fun solid army.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2015 22:37

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Yeah for big games you'll need a dedicated command unit. I think 1.1 has rules that let you nominate one, but if you play PHR you have access to some of the best commanders in the game. You'll want to pick up one of those and some command cards to go with them. Look at prices on ebay- they usually cost about $15 + $3-4 for the cards.

2 starter sets isn't needed, but it helps because you get cheap transports, core infantry, solid AA, and a good basic walker unit. You'll use all of those except maybe the Junos as you build your army out.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2015 22:57

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Those mechanics sound awesome!

I was hoping they'd do something different with the PHR fleet compared to how they play on the ground. That said, if the quality and level of detail is anything like the UCM ones, then I'll be in on this no question.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2015 00:08

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Welp, I just scored a massive poorly painted PHR army off ebay. Gonna strip this bitch and then go hog wild.

I'm going to paint my planes like this:

... and may robits like this:

BULBASAUR fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Apr 27, 2015

# ¿ Apr 27, 2015 08:04

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Bistromatic posted:

I approve of the Taiidan Republic

And let us know how the stripping, i haven't looked too deep into it but successes seem to vary with hawk resin.

Will do. Also I'm happy you immediately recognized Chris Foss as my inspiration.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2015 18:40

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

You should get yourself a proper commander, some command cards, and maybe a cool unit or two to fill out your core army. I hear the biker dudes are good as are Skool Busses. A second starter army box has big cost savings due to transports, but we should probably get some games in before you go hog wild like I did.

We'll need some buildings and a table to play on, though. That's a big one. I want to go crazy with terrain, but won't really be able to until I have a dedicated gaming space. Maybe we can split one of those paper city kits in the interim?

BULBASAUR fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Apr 29, 2015

# ¿ Apr 29, 2015 08:02

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

How are those paper building sets? I see they have 2 of them- ruins and regular. At $35 for a 6x4 table it seems like a hell of a good deal.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2015 17:57

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

I don't like the infantry stands so I base my infantry on tiny little disks because I am insane.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 18:00

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

I'm fuckin pumped for dropfleet. OwnZone Commander already rocks and unless they really deviate from the curvy PHR look, I'm going to gobble up more micro machines.

I wonder about the price point compared to DZC?

# ¿ May 1, 2015 17:04

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

signalnoise posted:

OK I am going for a Skynet vibe with my PHR guys. Is this too simple a scheme to use on an entire army?

Some silver highlights would also go a long way on that little guy. Maybe color your metal tubes parts brass?

# ¿ May 5, 2015 01:26

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

I'm looking to pick up a Ruinscape, but its out of stock everywhere in the states. Anybody know of a online store that has it in stock at a reasonable price?

# ¿ May 6, 2015 06:16

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Finally had time to work on my little micro machines. I spent a good 4 hours cleaning, magnetizing, and gluing about 10 PHR vehicles.

The detail is amazing, but because of how tiny these models are the tiny mold lines are annoying. They�re in hidden places though, which is a well thought out perk. I�ve also found that the resin has little raised edges everywhere almost like the marks left over after you machine a piece of metal. I have no idea if these will stand out after I paint the models, but I�ve been sanding them away with fine grit sandpaper which removes them and some the detail with it. The drat panel lines pretty shallow before I do that, so I then have to score into them with a blade.

I didn�t expect this much work. That said, I just cleaned and magnetized 1/5th of my army in a few hours so it�s pretty quick compared to 28mm.

# ¿ May 18, 2015 18:42

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Bistromatic, just incase your wondering, your poo poo owns

# ¿ May 18, 2015 19:46

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Hawk owns. I bought some Helios tanks from ebay and one ended up having a nasty miscast on the turret. I contacted the seller and he told me "Just email them, they'll send you a replacement part for free. They did this for my army a few months ago."

So I sent them a picture of the unopened package and asked if I could exchange it. The next day they mailed me out a replacement, no questions asked. Now I have x4 hover tanks instead of x2 :v:

# ¿ May 28, 2015 01:26

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Bob Smith posted:

I played my first game today and it was super fun. I had my UCM stuff and was up against Scourge. We both had similarly sized forces, the starter set plus a command vehicle and a small unit of gunships.

In my opponent's case the command vehicle was a giant space crab thing that had a 12" radius zone of death that did Energy 11 hits to everything on the ground within 6" on a 3+ and 7-12" on a 6+. What I quickly realised was that while my command vehicle was a beefed up APC which could be shot at by his dropships, his tanks, his command vehicle and basically everything, his was a 6HP flyer that moved fast enough to nuke my AA (which needed 3's to hit and 4's to damage) and could potentially kill multiple units per shot more easily than a single E13 Area 5 shot hitting on 4+ most of the time (2+, -2 for Indirect Fire, can't fire on the move).

The game ended up a draw as I drew a lucky Underground Monorail card and hopped from one objective to the next, while my Falcons got a hail Mary shot off on his last surviving APC and did just enough wounds to destroy it, followed by a 6 on the explosion chart to kill his full-strength infantry squad. All he had left was a single tank (which missed my Kodiak on a 2+ to hit for 3 turns running), all his dropships (because my AA had all died trying to bring down his command plane) and that damned command thing on 3 wounds left.

My only losses were my AA unit and 2 single infantry off one stand, killed by falling rocks after he shot his command plane's laser on full beans Energy 13 Devastator mode into the building they were hiding in.

It seems against Scourge at least bringing more AA is a good bet - being able to lock down approaches against dropships with your overwatch threat, and being able to reliably take on the giant flying laser crab thing, seem vital. My tanks ran out of targets super quickly after my Falcons annihilated his tanks, a nuke from the Kodiak killed his entire AA unit in one shot, and their cannons were reduced to shooting buildings. Meanwhile the gunships used their absurd move to stay out of his short ranges, kill all his APCs and that was that.

I now want to buy all the models and play more games of this. Given I currently have all of 2 starter sets save one unit of Sabres, plus 2 Falcons and a Kodiak, are there any must-have UCM units? Because I'm now quite scared of the Scourge command bomber thing, and one of the other people at my club has bought Resistance including their special character bomber, I figure some AA threat is a good bet. Looking at the list the options seem to be more Rapiers, although I already have 6, some Archangel fighters which look sweet as hell, or the Wolverine scout car things which also increase my radius for playing cards and can spot for the Kodiak.

I can't speak from experience, but I hear good things about Katanas and Wolverines. Again, it all depends on your list. With my PHR my goal is just to own enough to make whatever army I feel I want to play.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2015 02:09

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Finally got a Ruinscape and am working on setting it up. For the money, its a fantastic deal and a fast way to get into the game. Pretty impressive for $35.

For those of you with the paper buildings- did you do anything to reinforce them? The paper is nice and thick, but it bows on the bottom and isn't that heavy. Any easy solutions?

# ¿ Jun 3, 2015 08:31

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

That's exactly what I'm doing- mounting everything to a foam board. On a related question, any idea how people got this effect with flock?

I'm guessing they used a spray adhesive and just sprinkled it over the top.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2015 19:40

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

I spent about 10 hours this weekend putting together some of my PHR army, including plastic, metal, and resin. I now feel pretty familiar with the materials and quality so I thought I'd share my experience so far:

Pros

Detail on the resin models is outstanding and, in my opinion, more intricate than Forgeworld
Plastic vehicles have less detail than the resin ones, but it's not too significant a difference. The plastic kits are a great deal and good way to add more core transports and units into your army
You don't need to wash the resin models with hot water and soap after you prep them
Because of the scale, there aren't that many opportunities for conversions, which means I can't go crazy with them
Very few mold lines on the plastic vehicles. They are much less work to clean than the resin ones

Cons

Plastic infantry are very poorly detailed. I'm throwing all mine away and using metal ones instead (PM me if you want them for free)
Resin models have a strange surface texture similar to metal after its been machined flat a few times. I'm not sure if this will show after a layer of paint, but I'm going over everything with fine grit sandpaper because I'm worried that it will. This adds a lot of time to the project
The resin models have lots of annoying little mold lines, on par with what I get from Forgeworld. At 10mm though, removing them means you end up scraping away detail in the process. At 10mm, probably not as big a deal, but its still annoying since you pay premium to have that detail in the first place
Not a fan of the infantry bases, which look out of place when the rest of the army has no stands. I've based all my infantry on tiny individual bases instead
Because land vehicles have no bases, its hard to pose them in dynamic ways while keeping them upright. The end effect is that most of your army looks like it's just standing around in place. I prefer this over having bases, but it does limit what you can do
The square flight stands should really be circles instead. They also come with some serious sprue runner nubs... which end up looking scratched when you sand/scrape them away

All-in-all I'm excited to get playing, but I expected it would take less time to clean these models and pose them. Between the sanding, magnets, drilling, cleanup, and painting it's going to take almost as long to prepare one DZC model as a single 28mm infantry figure.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2015 23:31

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Wow the Juno is such a piece of poo poo. The resin model has a giant rear end seam running down the middle right through tiny rear end details. I can't think of any other tanks that put the main seam right down the god drat centreline.

The plastic version much better. If you must juno, please only plastic juno.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2015 08:13

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

If it's going to lob shells at buildings or has a big old range and footprint, like the Hades, then you have the option to march it on. But its a trade off- you won't be nearly as good of a position, but it costs less.

I can't speak from experience, but I know some dudes march/drive on their backfield AA.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2015 00:34

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Not a fan of the 'Triton With Tosters', but the Medusa looks rad. It's also cool to see more infantry choices for all the armies except resistance (who already had them out the door).

# ¿ Jun 26, 2015 19:36

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

The Sisko and I just played our very first match of OwnZone Brommander. His Resistance against my PHR. Final score was 5:4 in his favor (gently caress your freeriders, glorious white sphere will have its digital revenge!). We played 1000 points for a good 4 hours, which put us at about the time it takes us to slam through a 1500 point 40 Kay game. That said, we're just learning the ropes so our next games will go much faster.

PHR ended up playing a lot like my legion armies- exactly what I hoped for. I used command cards a lot, the robits are tough as hell, and deployment is critical due to their slow movement. I was surprised that some of the resistance units had 2+ accuracy, but they also felt like a really cool balanced army.

My impressions of the game are very positive. It's extremely tactical and there are often several meaningful decisions you must make every activation. I like the turn format, speed, and focus on objectives a lot. Each roll feels very meaningful and the ability to blow up terrain rocks. The game feels extremely balanced compared to 40/30 Kay and I can see uses for every unit in my army, particularly the new infantry models. Our game came down to the wire with Sisko's freeriders running off with a last second objective grab.

My criticisms after a single game are: 1) a lack of secondary objectives 2) no armor facing values. For the latter, I get that they are omitted to expedite the game, but for something so tactical I feel armor values for different facings would add a meaningful level of complexity.

Sisko will probably write his thoughts here as well, but overall I'm very excited to keep playing this game. Definitely satisfied with my army and the game overall.

BULBASAUR fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Jun 27, 2015

# ¿ Jun 27, 2015 07:59

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

I just started work on my army, and I agree with what everyone has said. Get the plastic PHR starter because it still saves you money, but buy the metal troops instead. In fact, you should probably get the new sniper unit as they are a pretty solid upgreydd to regular old Immortals. You'll want a few Triton transports.

The plastic Junos are leagues better than the resin ones as well. So even if you got the resin starter kit you'd still have to deal with at least 1 lovely model.

As for the difference in quality for non-troops, it's pretty marginal between the plastic and resin.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 20:49

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

I threw mine away :v:

Just not worth the work

# ¿ Jul 3, 2015 20:53

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

I haven't played that much myself, but I see merits to having less activations. It makes it much easier to alpha strike, but you can only alpha strike things you can hit. With that in mind this favors long range demolition type lists. Having a bunch of Enyos and Hyperion's walking onto the board, as an example, can put serious focused hurt onto buildings and units. So much so that it can dictate what your opponent does despite a lack of flexibility or react-ability. I have the models so I might try it out sometime in the future.

Gotta finish my army first though.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2015 04:22

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

I think those are the metal limited edition ones HAWK has at expos. Could be wrong though.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2015 02:15

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

LazyAngel posted:

Crossposted from the Oath Thread; my test model for my PHR colour scheme

Bonus points if you can identify where it's from.

I am totally doing a Chris Foss theme myself. Something about PHR just screams 'homeworld colors'

I like what you are doing a lot, but as a bit of feedback your coats look really chalky and thick. I would consider thinning your paints with more water or being more careful when spraying your primer. It'll take a few more layers, but the results will be worth it

# ¿ Aug 22, 2015 20:54

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

The Angelos change means I'll probably use them a lot more. Combined with the new longreach teams it would be a nice little support unit with AA bubble that can sit at an objective and contribute to a fight.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2015 20:03

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Bistromatic posted:

it's the cousin of this guy

Edit: The drill is Bertha, Jessie Adams' special drill. It's big enough to spew out wagons and jacksons.

Eh, can't resist posting wips, my kodiak is nearing completion:

You put a lot of work into that Kodiak and it shows! What bits did you use for the command section?

# ¿ Sep 15, 2015 10:22

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Once they reveal the PRH I'll pledge for captain level. I imagine they're holding that one in last because of how popular the regular PHR line has become. People love their cured space sheeps

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 20:13

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Where are the PHR god damnit Hawk :argh:

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 21:19

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

PHR fleet spotted:

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 22:47

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Yeah, I love Hawk but I'm only in this for PHR. Once that unlocks I'll pledge.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2015 21:46

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

Wait so there's no way to pledge and just get a PHR starter? I want to give Hawk money, but PHR is all I care about.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2015 21:02

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

God drat those PHR ships own. Who doesn't love broadsides in space?

# ¿ Nov 12, 2015 00:09

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

New PHR Ships:

I like them, but they all look like plasma guns to me

# ¿ Nov 14, 2015 00:27

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

I magnetized mine using tiny magnets. It was a bit of a pain, but its possible. Otherwise I'd probably stick with the railgun.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 08:20

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:15

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

NTRabbit posted:

These pledge levels just aren't very friendly to someone interested in Shaltari and PHR more than anything else. Commodore is too much, Lieutenant misses the stretches, Commander and Captain are the wrong armies.

Agreed. I would have backed this thing, but all I care about are my PHR broborgs and it's hard to just get that army. I'll just wait for the game to come out. I have enough toys as it is.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2015 08:37

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Dropzone Commander: v1.1+ - Because a white metal ball told me to do it

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