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 This thread is the replacement to the 'pre-launch' discussion thread, here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3489715 What is it? Dropzone Commander is a sci-fi tabletop wargame using 10mm scale miniatures. It is made by Hawk Wargames and focuses on urban combat. The game plays fluidly with rapidly shifting tactical situations thanks to the games focus on mobility as most units are deployed and redeployed around the battlefield via dropship. This becomes important as the game design and victory conditions are based around taking strategic locations or recovering objectives and often extracting them back off the table. This moves the focus away from simply killing plastic spacemans over to situations where you could out-manoeuvre an opponent who might possess greater firepower to snatch the win. It is a fairly new game system first released in 2012, tweaked over the course of 2013 resulting in the release of the version 1.1 rulebook and then expanded in 2014 with the Reconquest: Phase 1 book. At the time of writing, a second expansion is tentatively slated for release in late 2015. The games is continuing to benefit from updates and teaks to existing rules thanks to proactive developers and a strong community engagement effort in running and supporting a growing tournament scene. Hawk Wargames themselves are a new company founded by David J. Lewis (a.k.a. Hawk Dave) who effectively produced the original game single-handed. The game rules along with model designs and sculpting were all his own work. Along with the back story fluff and photography and probably some other stuff. The guy is some kind of mad genius. Since then the company has expanded and is up to nine employees as of January 2015.  The setting: The short version: Mankind is fighting to reconquer their homeworlds after losing to a parasitic race of aliens dubbed the Scourge 160 years earlier. Humanity has become divided into three factions. The United Colonies of Mankind (UCM) being the rebuilt central human nation, the Resistance being isolated societies of human survivors on Scourge-occupied worlds and the Post-Human Republic (PHR) being a bunch of cyborgs possibly under an alien influence. And finally, there the ancient and unfathomable Shaltari who turn up as it suits them. Long version: see post below. How do you play it? There is a two part demo game video from Beasts of War using the Two player Dropzone starter boxed set featuring Hawk Dave and his game design right-hand man Hawk Simon as they play through the introductory scenario using just the stuff you get in the box. Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enxGJE2xNb4 Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOKwfzck_VM Now that is 2hrs of video so I'll try explaining it in the next post. The size of a battle you decide to play falls under one of three bandings which are called Skirmish, Clash & Battle. The smallest sized game you can play is a 500 point Skirmish. Each faction has a starter army set which contains core units and equates to roughly 500 points, so each player just needs one of these to get started. A 1,500 point battle (tournament standard) will typically take around 2 hours once both players are familiar with the game. A mid-sized game like this is played on a 4x4 foot table, larger games on a 6x4 table.  How do I get started? If you already have a friend with the books, then the minimum entry point is one of the starter army boxes. These are now available in plastic for UCM, Scourge, PHR & Shaltari for £35/$55 RRP, or in resin for the Resistance (apparently some resistance piece can't be made in plastic for technical reasons so there won't be a plastic set) at £55/$85 RRP. All of the sets include a reference card with unit stats etc for play. As with anything, if you shop around then you WILL save money. I recommend checking out Ebay as BNIB items get listed there frequently. If you don't have a friend with the books, then the logical place to start is with the Two Player Starter boxed set: http://www.hawkwargames.com/products/2-player-starter-set This is costs £60/$90 RRP and is frankly the most cost effective way to get started. This set was released in 2013 and contains the updated v1.1 rulebook, a starter army set for BOTH the UCM and Scourge, a bunch of card buildings, dice, a tape measure, counters and reference cards. You can legitimately just buy this box and starting playing the game as soon as you assemble the models. Given that the starter box costs less then buying two starter armies individually it is tough to argue with. When I started buying my own stuff recently I ended up buying a second box off ebay for £45 (25% off the RRP delivered!) and splitting it with my brother. He took the models, I took the rulebook and accessories. He chipped in £30 to get two starter armies at half price and I got everything else I needed for the cost of the book by itself.  I have no friends, but want to play/I beat my friends too easily and want some competition! Hawk are taking an active role in building a community around their game and a competitive scene to go with it. They have settled into a routine of running their own open day & tournament event called Invasion twice a year which takes place in London. As I type this, I have just got back from the February 2015 Invasion which saw 44 players taking part in the tournament (Edit - The next Invasion taking place September 2016 has over 70 players signed up with nearly a month until the event - the game is growing!). I found that most of my 5 opponents were fairly new to the game or even playing their first proper games that weekend! The experience level ranged from total noobs through to hardened (but friendly) veterans. The nice thing about the Hawk's tournament system is that players are matched up based on their scores, so as things progress the better players are pitted against each other while the rest of us rookies/casual types end up together. Long story short? You should try it! The open day events also have a few free tables so if you just want a pick-up game then you may just get to play someone as well as watch the other games and check out the latest releases. Hawk's official event page is here: http://www.hawkwargames.com/blogs/events Ugleb fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Aug 31, 2016 |
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Ok, I bought my stater pack, what should I get next? There are two expansion books. First, Reconquest: Phase 1. Originally published mid-2014, This book has been updated with a v1.1 edition incorporating errata and fixing some miss-prints. http://www.hawkwargames.com/products/reconquest-phase-1 This book includes some new rules & scenarios, introduces The Resistance faction and adds new units to all four of the original factions. Frankly, it is a must-buy for anyone wanting to get deeper into the game and packs a lot in. The second expansion is, wait for it, Reconquest: Phase 2. This was released in August 2016 and has only one edition at the time of writing. http://www.hawkwargames.com/products/dropzone-commander-reconquest-phase-2 This book features a big selection new units for each faction, quite a lot of new scenarios for both friendly and tournament play plus Environmental and Fauna (roaming creature) rules for use in non-competitive games. These optional rules have the potential to flip a game on its head unexpectedly but could lead to some very memorable gaming moments. These cover everything from high/low gravity or toxic environments to earthquakes and space battle debris falling out of the sky. The new units covered in this book most notably transform the infantry game adding in a wide variety of units that do much more than search for objectives and fight each other. The next thing you will want to pick up is the Command Cards for the faction(s) of your choice. These add an extra layer of tactics and opportunity to games and are highly recommended, if officially optional. They are not included in the starter sets in an effort to reduce the barrier to entry but are something you will want to pick up. Note that the UCM, Scourge, PHR and Shaltari decks have been rebalanced to v1.1 as of February 2015. If you are buying new decks then make sure to get the updated v1.1 versions! If you do own the older decks then you can download the errata from the Hawk Wargames site.  While you do get some card buildings in the 2 player starter box, you will probably be wanting more so a good affordable upgrade is to buy one of the card scenery packs. These also include double-sided ground tiles for your street layouts. http://www.hawkwargames.com/collections/card-scenery After that we are simply talking about buying models! If you want to quickly and cheaply expand your core army then you could simply buy a second starter army set, otherwise it is very much over to you, although you will need to pick up a dedicated command unit once you go beyond Skirmish sized games. Each race presently has one option but very soon (early-mid 2015) will be getting a second. This doesn't include the Famous Commander units, the rules for which are in the Phase 1 book. These are special character units designed for fun flavour but not necessarily balanced for competitive play so will not be allowed into tournaments. The first models for these will be released in early 2015. The setting: - If you don't care for fluff, skip this bit! The fluff driving this sci-fi conflict is advancing along with the game development. The backstory tells of a united mankind setting out among the stars and running into a highly advanced and near-immortal alien race called the Shaltari (who make extensive use of teleportation tech and other fancy toys). Things go great at first as the Shaltari guide the puny humans to a cluster of fantastic earth-like worlds to settle, which along with Earth become known as the Cradle Worlds. Eventually humans figure out that the Shaltari are a loose collection of tribal societies and that their benefactors are at war with another tribe, who want to employ the numerous and quick breeding humans as cannon fodder against their rivals. The humans go "err..nope!" and the alliance breaks down leaving the two races in an uneasy neutrality/occasional clash situation. Things continue to go well for the humans as they turn the Cradle Worlds into a paradise of good urban planning building great cities with the ugly industrial stuff either underground or on outlying colonies, leaving the core planets looking pretty and unpolluted. It is a golden age for humanity, which gets kinda spoiled when a weird alien object falls to earth. It is a pristine white sphere, the size of a tennis ball but impossibly dense and generally incomprehensible. It is clearly alien, possibly beyond even Shaltari technology but otherwise no-one has a clue what it is or where it came from. All attempts to analyse it fail until some genius connects it to a networked computer, at which point it immediately hacks everything everywhere and delivers a warning. The warning is to the tune of "Something is coming and you will all die. If you want to survive then abandon your homes and assemble in orbit of this world one year from now." Everyone freaks out. The government attempts to maintain order, everyone is either doomsday prepping, debating, or declaring the whole thing a hoax. In the meanwhile the White Sphere as it is known gets stolen (or possibly arranged to steal itself) from the lab and vanishes. The deadline approaches and a large number of people defy the governments decrees to heed the warning and gather for an exodus. poo poo gets real and the 'abandonists' as they are branded open fire on the navy ships present dealing a heap of damage to the fleet before every Abandonist ship abruptly gets their jump drives hacked and vanishes into the unknown. Two days later, a massive alien invasion happens bringing humanity to its knees. A race of parasitic aliens dubbed the Scourge invade all of the Cradle Worlds at the same time obliterating humanities defences with ease. They should have listened to the tennis ball. A tiny fraction of the populace manage to bail out to the frontier colonies while everyone else has a Really Bad Day. The Scourge, being parasites, have selected humans to be their next generation of host species and start getting parasitic. The FTL navigation beacons on the colony are deactivated preventing the Scourge from following the refugees, cutting off any survivors on the core worlds. Some isolated groups retreat deep underground where the Scourge are reluctant to go, everyone else gets consumed.  The opening of the game takes place 160 years later. The humans that fled have formed the United Colonies of Man (UCM) and the back-story is written from their perspective. They spent the passed time building a massive war machine dedicated to the reconquest of the Cradle Worlds in which they aim to counter-invade multiple worlds simultaneously. The Abandonists reappear just as this kicks off calling themselves the Post Human Republic (PHR). They are now a society of subtly enhanced cyborgs with some really nifty gear courtesy of the White Sphere's guidance. Their motives are secretive and they proceed to play all sides. The Shaltari being incomprehensible ancient aliens like to turn up seemingly at random to screw with everyone. The Scourge by now are a waning power starting to run out fresh hosts, so they are on the hunt for a fresh feeding ground. The story advanced with the release of the games first expansion in 2014, called Reconquest: Phase 1. This picks up 250 days since the beginning of the UCM's Reconquest offensive and introduces the games 5th faction The Resistance. The Resistance are small societies of Scourge survivors living underground or remotely deploying scavenged military equipment or retro-fitted civilian vehicles. Some Resistance groups are friendly to the UCM (referred to as Allied), others are warlords and the like who would rather do a secret deal with the PHR (referred to as Ferals). All in all, everyone likes to shoot each other, as befits a wargame setting. Reconquest:Phase 2 advances the story up to day 500 and sees the UCM's Reconquest being to show signs of stalling. While several first phase invasion targets are close to secured, many theatres remain just beyond completion or have suffered severe set backs. The PHR and Shaltari are everywhere in pursuit of their own shadowy agendas both helping and hindering the UCM or Scourge. The PHR appear to making an unexpected bid for territorial control in one theatre while the Scourge are seemingly massing for a counter offensive.... But where? Ugleb fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Aug 31, 2016 |
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Feb 9, 2015 20:47
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How do you play it? (long version!) There is a two part demo game video from Beasts of War using the Two player Dropzone starter boxed set featuring Hawk Dave and his game design right-hand man Hawk Simon as they play through the introductory scenario using just the stuff you get in the box (as posted in OP). Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enxGJE2xNb4 Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOKwfzck_VM Now that is 2hrs of video so I'll try explaining it a bit. The size of a battle you decide to play falls under one of three bandings which are called Skirmish, Clash & Battle. The smallest sized game you can play is a 500 point Skirmish. Each faction has a starter army set which contains core units and equates to roughly 500 points, so each player just needs one of these to get started. To start with you pick one of the scenario's from the rulebooks and setup the board as it instructs. Depending on the scenario you will be setting down a number of buildings in certain areas of the board that will contain mission critical objectives to be recovered, placing focal points for which you will be vying to control or a combination of both. It is unusual for the primary objective of the game to be 'kill as much stuff as possible', although the value of destroyed units may serve as a secondary objective or tie-breaker. Plus it is always fun to blow stuff up. Once the scenario critical pieces are placed, you fill up the table with other buildings and terrain as you see fit.  It is not unusual to start the game with no units on the table. Most units will be assigned to a dropship of some description and placed 'in reserve' ready to fly onto the table from turn 1. In DzC Armies are made up of 'Battlegroups' which may contain one or more 'squads'. The game is played using 'alternate activation' where players take it in turn to activate one of their battlegrounds (and all squads within it) at a time. At the start of the turn players roll for initiative and the winner opts to go first or second. Player A then picks a battlegroup in their force to activate and moves onto the table. This battlegroup is probably made up of one or more dropships, each carrying vehicles or infantry split into squads. Each squad may move then shoot, or shoot then move. Player A completes his actions their first squad, then the second etc until every squad in the battlegroup has been activated. Player B then picks a battlegroup from his force, works through its squads in the same manner then hands back to player A to select their second battlegroup to activate. They will continue to alternate ike this until every battlegroup has been used, at which point the turn ends they roll initiative for turn 2.  The advantage to this system is that it keeps both players engaged as every few minutes they will be back in control to activate a battlegroup, as opposed to some systems where player A moves and then shoots with their entire army before player B gets to do anything. In large games that gets tedious, but in DzC your turn is never more than a few minutes away. Movement is designed so that units on foot take forever to get anywhere (some units have just a 2 inch move on a 4 foot wide table) while aircraft such as dropships can cover large distances rapidly. This means that deployment is significant and retaining the ability to re-deploy mid-battle can be the key to success. Deploying embarking/disembarking from a transport requires that units canm only move half of their full move and may not shoot in the same turn, a system that promotes forward planning and careful positioning while pushing players to comit forces. You can't simply keep loading/unloading your troops all of that time as then you never get to shoot at anything! Shooting like everything else in DzC uses D6 (sometimes D3 for damage) and is a pretty typical system of roll to hit, roll to damage, reduce health to zero. Each weapon has an accuracy value (2+ to hit etc) which is modified by things like cover (infantry inside a building have 'hard cover' making them +2 to be hit). Weapons also have two range values, which essentially boils down to having a shorter effective range if you want to hit something with countermeasures (most units do) and a much longer one for things that don't (like buildings). Most weapons will deal one damage point (DP) per successful attack, while tougher units have multiple DP. Some units get a saving roll against hits (normally a 5+) which is taken before the damage roll and so reduces the amount of dice rolling you are doing. I find that this system doesn't call for many dice, with only the occasional 'bucket of dice' moment. I got through a five game tournament this weekend using only the ten dice that came with the starter set and a few tokens to mark damaged units.  What I like about DzC shooting is that it tends to feel decisive. You are not rolling buckets of dice needing a 4+ to hit, a 6+ to wound and find nothing gets killed because the other guy rolled on his 2+ save afterwards. Even in tournament standard mid-sized games (1,500 pts) you are probably talking about 30-50 models in your force so it stays quite manageable. The stand-out exception to this is Close Quarter Battles where opposing infantry inside a building scrap it out, but even then the dice are divided between bases and can be rolled in smaller groups. The key point is that combat in DzC leads to stuff going boom so as the game progresses forces diminish and move quickly. A 1,500 point battle (tournament standard) will typically take around 2 hours once both players are familiar with the game. Ugleb fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Feb 9, 2015 |
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Feb 9, 2015 20:47
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Useful Links FFoR List Builder: Fighting Forces of the Reconquest - this an excellent program to help you quickly and easily build your own army lists. Highly recommended and much praised by Hawk's own staff! http://www.dzc-ffor.com/ Hawk Wargames: Main site: http://www.hawkwargames.com/ Forums: http://www.hawkforum.co.uk/index.php Events page: http://www.hawkwargames.com/blogs/events Rules errata (including updates from 1.0) http://www.hawkwargames.com/blogs/errata Community links: Orbital bombardment blog/podcast: http://dzcblog.blogspot.co.uk/ Ugleb fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Feb 9, 2015 |
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Feb 9, 2015 20:48
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The Factions I'm going to keep this a vague overview as metas change over time. Hopefully I can address both Dropzone and Dropfleet together here. UCM - The United Colonies of Man The UCM are the basic human faction of the Dropzone universe. They are what the human government turned into after the Scourge Invasion of Earth & the Cradle Worlds put humanity of the ropes. The UCM are a militarised culture entirely devoted to the REconquest - returning home to wipe out the Scourge squatting there. In Dropzone the UCM are styled as the air faction. Their general approach to warfare is to efficiently drop forces from orbit so make extensive use of gunships, bombers and fighters to support their ground asset deployments. UCM airpower is formidable, however they still possess fairly solid if generally cheaper tank squadrons. The strength of the UCM is probably their wide range of tools while their weakness is in their squishy human infantry. With a few exceptions the UCM rely on numbers over quality and can struggle if their infantry need to get stuck into CQB. Flattening buildings or gaining aerial superiority on the other hand is much less of an issue. The Scourge The Resistance PHR - The Post-Human Republic. The Shaltari Ugleb fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Aug 31, 2016 |
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Feb 9, 2015 21:07
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enri posted:Stupid 1.1 question, are the changes to the version 1 rulebook available anywhere so my mates who picked up the original rulebook can get in on the current changes? They are indeed, it's all in the errata section on Hawk's site. Once the 1.1 Command Cards errata goes up they'll be there too. I'll add it to the links section. http://www.hawkwargames.com/blogs/errata
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Feb 9, 2015 21:59
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I saw a few Stalkers in the Invasion tournament but they didn't seem to do all that well. I took them out quickly so maybe I didn't see their true potential. My Ares squad took two of them down in one round leaving a third to not do much by itself.
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Feb 11, 2015 00:30
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Safety Factor posted:It's nice to see all of them painted up, but, man, Foley has a really garish color scheme. I was actually a little surprised that they didn't show off the remaining special characters at Invasion. I'm kind of looking forward to when Caine gets released so I have an excuse to run a stupid flying robot circus with my PHR. We got new command options instead so it's not like I'm about to complain. The rest of the famous commanders are coming in the second half of this year. The new standard command units may be on sale at Salute (april?) apparently, with experimental rules out around the same time. Also, I gather that the new space game (which might be called Dropfleet) is going to be shown at Salute. And we might see some of the possibly three new Infantry units per faction along with a new book towards the end of the year. So it's looking like Hawk are drip feeding stuff out over the course of 2015.
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Feb 12, 2015 11:34
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Dave Brookshaw posted:
I had mixed feelings there too. I still *DO WANT* a Nemesis, particularly as I don't have a standard Hades yet, but I was hoping for something more new than a variant. The positive though is that I'm not really desperate to buy a famous commander and as they are not tournament legal I probably won't ever see the two side by side on the table.
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Feb 12, 2015 14:08
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Dave Brookshaw posted:Well, one of the Hawks (either Simon or Dave) said that the Hera, the heavy jump-walker the second PHR named character uses, will probably come out as an independent model as using the sculpt for just her mech would be wasteful. Safety Factor posted:I figured something like that would happen eventually and they're right to do it. It could just end up as another generic command option and that'd be totally fine. Agreed, I'm expecting the core of that new 'rarely seen Hera' walker to be re-purposed as a new line unit which frankly is of more interest to me than Jocasta Caine herself. I can't argue with the economics of re-using sculpts when you are running a small company in a niche market. Mould making is a very expensive business so you really need to make good use of them! Presumably the new unit will either be a 'rarely seen Hera' with some outlandish ability or a fourth class of type 3 (Apollo, Erebos, Jocasta's Hera and something else). Thirsty Dog posted:I watched a couple of battle reports of this on YouTube a while ago, and the game actually seemed a lot more static than I was expecting from the description in the op. I have yet to see a DzC youtube video that was as engaging as actually playing it tbh. How much repositioning you do is going to vary from game to game of course but also with the forces being used. PHR for example I have heard called 'the walking turret army' due to their slow moves but long ranges, you aim to get them onto the ground then start shooting. Shaltari on the other hand uses their gates to move all over the place. Many objectives do involve getting the objective back off the table once secured which is where your extractions come in, but redeploying everything can be a trade off given that units which embark/disembark give up their opportunity to shoot in the same turn. Choosing when to get back in the dropship, or how long to stay in it it, becomes a significant choice. You are right that infantry tend to rush objectives when you have a scenario using them, as seizing objectives is key to victory and only infantry go into buildings to get them. It generally is a rush to secure them quickly for an early advantage then try to prevent the enemy from catching up. On the other hand, I tend to find Close Quarter Battles to be usually quite decisive, especially where elite troops like PHR Sirens are involved. I had a PHR vs PHR game the other day with two squads of my basic infantry (Immortals) vs 1 squad of his basics plus a squad of Sirens who are CQB monsters. I was wiped out in a single round! Command card use varies. As what you are drawing is random, you won't always have a card that is relevant to use every turn. I find that when the cards are used they feel significant, but they might not be used in every turn. Having the ability to re-roll missed shots with a unit at a pivotal moment can feel huge. The purpose of the cards is really to add a more unpredictable element to the game that can spice things up, rather than being the main event.
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Feb 13, 2015 00:11
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Even at 1500 points you really have to work at making the stuff you want/need fit. I think it's a strength of the game that you are always having to compromise somewhere.
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Feb 18, 2015 14:07
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Hopefully this sort of expansion will turn infantry from kinda boring but essential into a more exciting and varied part of building your army. Not sure about infantry that can't enter buildings though. Sounds squishy...
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Feb 28, 2015 11:36
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Thundercloud posted:Thinking of putting together a PHR force. How does this look? Well the Janus are scouts so can project sphere if influence while the Zeus plods around, I did similar at Invasion using Mercury's and it works Ok. This list, like mine was, is using Juno's. I went into the tournament with them simply because I didn't own any Triton A1's yet but was unhappy with their cost. 5 games later I felt proven right, they may offer slightly better survivability but I think you could do more with the points. Where I think the list may be weak is AA. Upgrading the Menchit to a second Phobos might be more effective.
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Mar 4, 2015 11:15
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Thought occurred, one change to make with your army as-is would be to split out the Ares/Phobos into two separate battlegroups. Always take the max number of battlegroups to give yourself more flexibility. If you don't mind adding the Triton A1's to your collection, I'd be tempted to go with this: Standard Army Skirmish: 748/750 points Standard Army PHR Standard Roster [748/750 pts] Hand of the Sphere [237 pts] Command Squad: Zeus(War Advisor), Zeus, Neptune [237 pts] Battle Pantheon [171 pts] Battle Squad: 2x Phobos, Neptune [171 pts] Immortals [104 pts] Immortals: 2x Immortals, Triton A1 [104 pts] Immortals [104 pts] Immortals: 2x Immortals, Triton A1 [104 pts] Pegasus Group [132 pts] Janus Squad: 4x Janus, 2x Triton A2 [132 pts] That double Zeus squad replaces the Ares but would soak up a fair bit of fire in a game of this size and you would have plenty of AA to mess up your opponent. The downside here is that your Tritons are unarmed so doing nothing but move stuff about which is an edge the Neptunes hold over them.
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Mar 4, 2015 23:26
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Wind Tempest posted:If you downgrade the second Zeus to an Odin, you can turn those Tritons into a pair of Juno A2s with a Neptune if you want extra durability. I have yet to find a situation where a Juno A2 was able to do anything useful with its weapons. 
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Mar 5, 2015 11:10
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Dave Brookshaw posted:That's why they're cheap. Better chances of survival than a Triton, slower, but forget about ever shooting anything. Not cheap enough I say! I genuinely begrudge having to spend points on them so bought two packs of Tritons.  I do agree about the new Infantry though, we might see more opportunities arising if people have reasons to keep infantry out in the open more.
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Mar 6, 2015 11:21
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The Nemesis shall be mine. Oh yes. It shall be mine. I'm really liking the latest errata. Shaltari have dominated the tournament scene so those points increases should put the breaks on their optimum builds. I'm really happy with the PHR buffs. They were the most popular faction at Invasion but only got one player into the top 10. Cutting the price of Juno's I have already commented on was needed but I am so happy to see the dropships AND their missile upgrades get love. +15 points to arm each of your tritons was tough to find in a 1500 point list, +10 and a cheaper Triton sounds lovely. Destroyers I felt needed a bit of curbing. I think every Scourge player at Invasion was using two squads of them because they really are excellent. Making them slightly more expensive seems fair. Plus, when the close combat version comes out Hawk have given themselves room to make them a cheaper option if they like.
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Mar 8, 2015 08:42
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MisterShine posted:Can someone give me a rundown of how to Shaltari properly? My friend plays them and constantly gets his rear end handed to him by my Scourge I have only played one game against Shaltari so I dunno much, but I can say they are the most technical faction to play. You need to think ahead with placing your gates and to protect them. My opponent did a fantastic job of keeping his army out of my LOS then dropping hammers on me.
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Mar 8, 2015 09:07
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Beasts Of War have held their Dropzone Commander three day 'Bootcamp' event over this weekend, write-up's of each day linked below. Day 3 has a bunch of video's with Hawk Dave talking about the latest errata, Famous Commanders and the new second command options for each faction. Day 1: http://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/dropzone-commander-boot-camp-day-1/ Day 2: http://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/dropzone-commander-boot-camp-day-2/ Day 3: http://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/dropzone-commander-boot-camp-day-3/ And as a bonus, the city that the event's games took place in has entered DzC lore and been dubbed Eden's Path with its own short story. http://www.beastsofwar.com/boot-camp/edens-path-download/
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Mar 15, 2015 22:38
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Grey Hunter posted:Stares at Ugleb. I let my guard down then proceeded to beat him anyway. It was my only win of the tournament and I'm keeping it!
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Mar 17, 2015 11:10
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MisterShine posted:You can leave the board with objectives. Very few games let you do this so I've seen new players hover around the board trying to outrun reapers when they could just loving leave Also bear in mind that the unit which leaves the board may be able to return in a later turn. You need to roll on the reserves table but it is doable.
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Mar 17, 2015 23:08
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Interesting that all of the Oppressors weapons but the claws are MF 4, that whopping 8 inch move is only good for charging or giving up a turn of shooting to redeploy. Once it gets in range though... The Nemesis on the other hand laughs at the notion of mobility and will probably deal 4 DP in one shot to anything it damages from across the table. I think it is a pretty straight forward unit that like much of the PHR will be very reliant on effective deployment. I see the Phoenix gets NINE DP! The thing is a flying brick!
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Mar 30, 2015 22:53
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I just had a little thought about the Nemesis. Given that it is a 190 point (plus commander unit) dedicated almost entirely to firing that one shot per turn from the big gun, and given that any opponent with sense will try really hard to keep out of its LOS, it really does matter that it actually hits something. Would it be over powered to give it the targeting computer bonus of the Ares (cannot be modified to be worse than a 3+)? I was just thinking that if you are playing against skimmers then that death laser will probably spend most of the game trying to hit on 4+, one or two misses and it really won't contribute much to the battle. Maybe even just grant the bonus to the main gun but not the two railguns?
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Mar 31, 2015 14:16
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MisterShine posted:Im just surprised it lost the nanoswarm It needed to be meaningfully different to the Hades. Also Hawk get two uses from the same component as Barros uses it as well. Molds are expensive!
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Mar 31, 2015 19:37
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A second starter pack is really useful and the cheapest way to give yourself more options. You will probably want to pick up a few Triton A1's and Sirens too, they are pretty much core units.
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Apr 9, 2015 13:20
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Very nice indeed!
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Apr 17, 2015 21:14
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I agree, more AA will be needed. Maybe get some Helios in there in place of Ares? I'd even consider losing an infantry squad and putting the third in a Triton to free up a few points.
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Apr 19, 2015 14:02
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MCPeePants posted:Can anyone point me to some words on how the different factions play? There are enough excellent models spread across the factions that pure aesthetics aren't going to make the choice for me, so I'd like to have some idea of their table personality to help decide. I really need to go back and add that bit to the OP. Chip in with your words of wisdom people so I don't write utter bollocks. The brief versions: PHR: The walking turret army. Slow, heavily armoured walker units typically packing long range and high powered weapons but due to fairly high costs will have slightly less units on the field. I often feel like I'm firing fewer but more powerful shots than my opponent. Scourge: The opposite of the PHR! Fast but fragile, they are the most aggressive army with brutal but painfully short ranged weapons. If they can get their guns into position, the target will bleed. UCM: The air faction, at least in theory. Recent changes are pushing them more in line with this original theme. They have a lot of tanks. I see them as being quite middle of the road as they are not as tough as PHR but not as mobile as Scourge/Shaltari. Shaltari: Teleportation is their thing. They use units equipped with teleportation gates to magically move units across the table. They have lighter armour but more defence shields ('passive' invulnerability saving rolls) than the other armies. They have a very different play style to the other factions as they behave so differently. Resistance: Two armies in one and the faction I have most trouble summing up (because I haven't actually played them yet). Can be played as Mad Max post-apocalyptic 'Ferals' or as the noble freedom fighter 'Allied'. Depending on which you pick certain unique units and command cards are available. The core units are either recovered over-engineered pre-war military vehicles (big heavy stuff) or scavenged and repurposed civilian gear. There is an option here to play them as a horde army or as a much smaller elite force.
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Apr 19, 2015 23:14
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Giant Ethicist posted:Maybe consider dropping the dropships for the Nemesis and Hades? They both (especially the Nemesis) have enough range and enough speed that they'll be threatening the middle of the board just by walking on the table. Just about the same points as 2 Phobos in a Triton too (I don't have the army list builder open and am too lazy to do the math). I missed that bit, definitely drop the Poseidon carrying the Nemesis at least. It is intended to sit at the back of the table firing the death beam. It was the first thing Hawk Dave said about it while I was at Invasion, the point of giving it infinite range is that you don't need to advance with it other than to lock down any focal points near to your table edge.
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Apr 19, 2015 23:18
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Salute is meant to be the big reveal for the spaceship game, so not long to wait now! Before the recent errata came out I would have told you that the Kodiak can often be an underwhelming unit and that the Phoenix looked to be much more fun, but then it got buffed to have an AoE attack so it will probably be much more scary now. For the PHR the Menchit has often been maligned but it too got buffed. It probably still suffers from over specialisation as do all flamer units, but hopefully will prove more useful now. Sirens and light dropships (Triton A1) are very common picks for PHR as are Enyo's. You will probably always find room for at least a couple of Phobos in your lists as they are a really solid AA unit. Basically you should get a plastic army set or two and magnetise the arms on the type 1 walkers to give yourself some core options.
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Apr 21, 2015 20:30
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Safety Factor posted:I know they're planning on showing off the spaceship game at Salute, but has anything been said about when we might see these new units? At Invasion in February they were talking about (hopefully) getting a new expansion book out by the end of the year. The new commanders final rules would clearly be in it and it would be very likely that the new Infantry will be too otherwise it would be a pretty lightweight expansion. I think we may be seeing more teasers on the infantry at Salute along with the remaining famous commanders.
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Apr 22, 2015 10:12
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signalnoise posted:My commander? Is that in reference to the command cards? Do I need those? Should I get them? Or are you talking about there being Warma style commanders where I need to pick one? In all but the smallest games you are required to field a command unit, each faction currently has a choice of two. PHR command options are the Zeus or the new Nemesis, the Zeus comes in a pack of two but you don't have to field both as you can make up squads of type 2 heavy walkers using different variants. Command cards are an optional game mechanic but in practice you will definitely want to use them and are effectively standard. You can use them even if you are playing a skirmish game without a command unit. For buying advice see the OP it is all current info and basically boils down to buying the updated 1.1 edition core rulebook and command cards. There is one expansion book so far, Reconquest: Phase 1 which you probably also want to pick up. There is no 1.1 version for that, it has only had minor errata updates made to it very recently so will probably remain current for the foreseeable future.
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Apr 23, 2015 23:08
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dexefiend posted:Does the Menchit stink even after the errata? It rolls a hell of a lot of dice! Not sure, it looks much better but it is still a dedicated infantry killer that pretty much keeps it in the one trick pony camp. I suspect it will become more valuable when the new Infantry types start to come out. Speaking of which there was a newsletter today stating that there will be both new models and previews on show at Salute this weekend. Hopefully it's not just the next round of famous commanders and we learn more!
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Apr 23, 2015 23:30
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Loxbourne posted:Hawk have published their pre-Salute newsletter and it's full of hints that something space-related is coming. Looks like more of the new infantry types will be on show too. I'm jealous
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Apr 23, 2015 23:31
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Weirdly, I don't think the name of the space game is confirmed. Still. But at least the concept sounds interesting, I like that Hawk are trying to go in a different direction to the rest of the increasingly busy space game genre and are trying to tie it into Dropzone so that you could build it into an interweaving campaign. I have no idea how many people will actually do that, but I like the thought. The ships are looking cool, although tbh if you had asked me I would have guessed that those capital ships were PHR rather than UCM, its the lines of the armour plates I think. The new infantry look nice, particularly the scourge bio-beasties. I do have to agree about the PHR snipers though, they do look a bit generic 'scouts in power armour wearing cloaks'. Hopefully they'll come with some interesting trick up their sleeves. Anyone know why there was a big resistance drill in the display cabinet? Is that the painted big bertha? Edit - Just found this on Twitter: quote:Orbital Bombardment @OBDZC · 10h 10 hours ago
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Apr 25, 2015 22:59
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The Sisko posted:Got it. I'm in contact with someone on ebay and seeing if they'll sell the resistance set for 45-50ish with expedited shipping , but if not ill have to drop the big bucks on the starter set. Also Id be down for splitting the paper city stuff (after next week would be fine as that is when I get my paycheck). There tends to be a trade on ebay of people breaking down the starter boxes and selling off the various bits. You may not need to buy the whole thing if you don't want the models.
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Apr 29, 2015 10:04
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Serotonin posted:KR do specific faction foams/cases. They are really good I really like my KR case/backpack but there are two gaps in the range which I'm waiting for them to address. They have only produced foam trays for units from the original book, so at the moment you can't get trays for the newer units or anything for Resistance.
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Apr 29, 2015 13:07
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signalnoise posted:Yeah magnetizing is too much work for me honestly. Magnetising PHR is actually pretty easy and well worth doing on the arms of the plastic type 1 walkers. I haven't based mine, they are nice and stable without it.
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Apr 30, 2015 17:05
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signalnoise posted:It's harder than just buying more poo poo Occasionally but it isn't a big deal usually. Distances are measured from the centre of the models. Just keep the bases on the small side I guess.
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Apr 30, 2015 17:57
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Bistromatic posted:I'm /so/ sold on these. Looks like it, back at Invasion Hawk Dave was talking about some sort of infantry option that feature less mans and more mini drone things. It reminds me of Big Hero Six...in a good way I think.
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May 1, 2015 15:50
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