Catching Up

Wow, I have been slack here. No new posts since February. But I have done a ton of painting and completed several projects, not least of which is my Tallarn army for 40K. This is basically going to be a big photo dump of all the things I’ve been working on since then, with a few comments about what you’re seeing.

 

First of all, I finished my Tallarn army! I’m really happy with the way this army turned out. The detail and character on the minis is great and the theme (LRDG) fits it perfectly. The Rough Riders are the centerpiece models. Unfortunately, their in-game performance does not match how awesome they look, but whatever!

I have had a couple games with my Tallarn. So far, I have lost every single time. Heh! But again, oh well. It’s 40K so what do you expect? These pics are from a fun narrative scenario where the Tallarn were accompanying an Inquisitor on a doomed archeological dig. The Tallarn defended their outpost to the last against the Necrons (who pretty much just plowed them under).

Now, if there is any game that I have played a lot of this year, it’s the excellent Dropzone Commander. I can count the number of games of 40K I’ve played on both hands. I’ve lost count of how much DZC I have played! The game has really taken off at the store and the community is vibrant and growing. We’ve expanded our games beyond the default urban setting as you can see. My UCM army is big and getting bigger! I love the UCM air power! Dropzone Commander scratches an itch for me that was once fulfilled by Epic Space Marine. It seems to be doing the same for a number of other folks.

Round about when I finished my Tallarn, I started painting some of the Knight Models Batman miniatures. Still haven’t played yet but I love these figures. Since it’s a true skirmish game, I’ve tried to do my best on these models and make them look as good as I can get them.

In the summer, I started playing Bolt Action. This game is super fun and I’m hoping to play more of it in the future! I’ve had an American infantry force sitting around for a while, so it was good to finally play!

And pretty much the last thing I’ve done recently is paint up the ships for the HALO Fleet Battles game! Spaceships are super easy and fast to paint. I knocked two fleets out in a week! The game is fun too!

That’s what I’ve been up to since February! There’s much more to come!

All Quiet on the Martian Front – First games!

Finally got to play this tonight with my friend Stephen. We decided to do the intro scenario, where you basically just beat each other senseless without the fancy rules for hidden movement and ambushes and whatnot.

The board has some Flames of War buildings on it. Not quite in scale but not too far off – all good.

In this scenario, you just fight until the other guy loses half his units and breaks. The humans and Martians went at it hammer and tongs!

This tripod scooted up the road and then showed why it’s a good idea to spread out and avoid the nasty sweep template of the Martian heat ray!

 

 

 

Despite their power and durability, the tripods can only take so much. This guy is steadily losing his armor and taking more and more damage. Critical hits had him moving out of control and losing control of his weapons, and the game has a fun way of handling this (you dice off with your opponent).

The Doughboys are most effective against the Martians in assault, but this is also the most dangerous way to attack the aliens! A squad hurls itself into action!

They knocked off a couple more points of armor, and the ‘Pod actually retreated! But on it’s next movement, Stephen won the roll to control it, and the Martian warmachine staggered back in among a horde of enemies! Both infantry squads in the picture there assaulted (after the MG squad and the tank softened it up a bit more. However, if you roll well enough when you damage a Tripod, it can explode…

Before…

After…

Yes, the explosion of the destroyed ‘pod’s reactor took out all of the human units around it (everything within 6″ takes hits)! This actually broke both our forces at the same time! The humans and Martians both pulled back from the carnage with a bloody tie!

For the second game we got a little more involved and the Martians had to cross the board lengthwise and exit as many pods as they could off the opposite table edge. The humans had to stop them. This time we tried hidden movement, ambushes and some Martian special weaponry (Green Gas). Stephen deployed almost all his infantry hidden in the farm compound. His MG squad is in ambush, somewhere in his deployment zone. His MkIII tanks are in reserve.

The Martians have at most, seven turns to get across the board, most likely six. Moving their full distance every turn, they could just make it if they didn’t slow down for anything or spend too much time picking their way through difficult terrain. They reached the road as the human tanks fired away and the infantry scrambled to redploy to the center. The Rough Rider motorcyclists are moving in.

Just as the humans’ best armor is lining up their shots, Martian heat rays deal out death, routing tanks and infantry moving in to assault.

As the terrified infantry flees for the rear, the human MG team waiting in ambush in the cornfield finally opens up at nearly point blank range…and destroys a Tripod with a lucky shot! The alien machine crashes to the ground.

The humans mount a desperate last-ditch assault, but fail to stop the Tripod, which routs and destroys them, and then does the same to the retreating MkIII unit.

We called it there, as the human army had been broken. But, had the game continued, I would not have been able to get more than one Tripod off the board, even had the game gone to Turn 6.

Overall, I enjoyed the game a lot. It played better than I thought it would. I first thought the Martians would easily sweep aside the humans but that was not the case. I can see that with some shrewd tactics and effective use of the weapons available, the U.S. Army can definitely turn back the Martian tide. There is some complexity, but the basic die rolling mechanics are very simple and go really fast. There is little to no chart referencing during play, and once you get the basic systems down, I can see where this game plays quickly compared to many other minis games.

I really want to get some of the Forlorn Hope minis for the U.S. Army – they’re a couple of figures dangling from a rope and you can hook them on to a Tripod so it looks like they’re climbing up. The Forlorn Hope is an upgrade for infantry squads and they pop out when assaulting Tripods, climbing up to plant TNT and grenades. They’re a one use thing (they’re assumed to die in the assault) but they give a hefty bonus to the infantry’s assault roll.

I also like the look of the Martian Scout Tripods, and I’d like to get some Lobototons (lobotomized human captives made into mindless slaves for the Martians).

So far, I haven’t seen anything about All Quiet on the Martian Front I don’t like. I have a couple more games planned next week and I’m looking forward to them!

Dropzone Commander Battle Report – Operation Cyan Rapier: Phase 2

My buddy Stephen and I played our second game of the campaign we have going “Operation Cyan Rapier.” I’ll talk about Phase (game) 1 later, but today’s game was the follow-on from that game in which the UCM managed to successfully extract a Praetorian insertion team that had gone into enemy territory to link up with local Resistance forces. The mission was (barely) successful and victory was won at great cost to the UCM Praetorians. So, here is the preamble to Phase 2:

Operation Cyan Rapier – Phase 2 – Decapitation

After the successful (but costly) recovery of the Praetorian insertion teams from Estrella del Mar, UCM command gives the go-ahead for Phase 2, a strike at the Scourge command elements in the area of operations. With the Praetorians taken out of the line to recover, UCM General Magday reluctantly decides to commit his heavy assets, hoping to deal the Scourge a knockout blow before the main landing operation. This is a risky and controversial strategy, as the relatively small UCM task force assigned to this operation cannot afford many losses. Nevertheless, the UCM forces once again prepare for battle.

Unbeknownst to the UCM planners, the Scourge have more reserves than originally thought, and have managed to keep them hidden even from the Resistance spies. As a result, their defenses near their headquarters complex will be at full strength to face the coming assault!

 It was a modified version of the Decapitation scenario in the main rulebook. 1750 points for both of us, and Stephen got an extra 350 point battle group to represent the unknown reserves (which would start rolling for entry on turn 3). I do a lot of my own scenario design and a favorite method is to take an existing scenario and tweak it in interesting ways. You’ll see more of this when I talk about the Snipers a bit later on.

In this campaign I am also making an effort to do more rural and less heavily urban terrain. This scenario thus featured fully half the board as hills and wooded areas, and the other half a mostly open landing field. It makes for a very different feel than the usual tight cityscape we most often play in.

So, was the UCM able to take out the Scourge Overseer? Read on!

Here’s the battlefield. Pretty long sight lines. In that regard it favors the UCM, but, the UCM has to attack and close the distance in this mission and the Scourge has to defend, so perhaps both sides’ favored roles are switched up? Definitely a challenge for us both. The idea was the UCM was attacking the local Scourge command base, which was established in an old air/spaceport (you can see the runway there). The walled off area was the command center, and there are two bunkers. A string of fighting positions lined the edge of the airfield. Off in the rough, there are a couple of wooded hills, some abandoned huts and a few fading craters leftover from the Scourge invasion centuries ago.

In the Decapitation scenario, the Defender sets up inside a fortified area. The Scourge used the old human terminal as their base. Each wall section and turret is Hardened with 10DP. Steve had a bit of trouble figuring out his list and didn’t have enough AA initially (extremely important in this scenario since keeping his Command unit alive was the key to victory), but we re-jiggered his list a bit and got it straightened out. Here, his Reapers form up around the Overseer (UCM codename: Broken Tower) with a squad of Hunters ready to burst out of the gate. Warriors line the parapets.

Taking out Broken Tower was my objective. Steve’s objective was avoid losing his Commander, or at least make any UCM victory as costly as possible. This position seems a tough nut to crack – indeed although I had 2 squads of 2 Archangels each, going into that AA bubble was a frightening prospect!

A bit hard to see here but there are 5 Possible Objective markers. These represented possible hidden locations of my Praetorian Sniper squad. Until the actual squad was revealed, these markers all had the Scout ability, representing remote sensing equipment and digital ghillies set up by the Snipers who had infiltrated the are before the battle. If fired at, they could only be hit on a natural 6 but if the snipers were actually there, they would take damage, otherwise the marker would be removed. If a Scourge unit moved into base contact, they would also be instantly removed and the snipers revealed if they were there. I borrowed on the Infiltration rule from 40K, allowing me to place a marker in cover as close as 12″ from an enemy, and no closer than 24″ if out in the open.

At the end of T1, the UCM forces are surging on to the battlefield. I have a big tank blob of 6 Sabers and 3 Rapiers in the Albatross. You can see my Longbows down and deployed near the huts. The Ferrum has launched its flight of drones and the Legionnaires and Heavy Ordnance battle groups are going in. My command Kodiak is out of the frame at the bottom left. Steve has raced forward with a squad of Hunters, driving them into one of the fighting positions with the use of a Command Card (Overdrive??) I lucked out and got one squad of Archangels out of Reserve on T1, but they failed to arrive for an attack run. No biggie.

Warriors deploy into the bunker on the right.

Turn 2 action: Scourge Corsairs sweep in on an attack run against the fully loaded Albatross, the big fat transport making a terrific target! I committed both my FM squads to intercept. The flight leader went in screaming “EARF!” at the top of his lungs but in his excitement he and his wingman both missed! The second squad zoomed in from the opposite vector and managed to splash one Corsair, but only one! The survivor opened up on the Albatross but missed, his aim disturbed, no doubt, by his over-enthusiastic enemies! After this, the Albatross pilot moved forward as close as he dared and dropped the tanks into the fray!

 

Turn 3 and the game develops! The Armor battle group rolls forward, hammering shots into the base fortifications. If I could take down a wall, I could possibly start picking off Reapers and clear the way for some Archangel runs on the Desolater. But I couldn’t bring the wall down. Steve began to threaten my Kodiak with his Prowlers and Reavers so I loosed off a hail of fire with my Rapiers, downing a fully loaded Invader and a Reaver. The Prowlers survived the crash, and with a mass of tanks nearby, turned their attention to a more inviting target. They couldn’t attack this turn, but if Steve won the next Initiative roll, my tanks were in trouble!

My Archangels squads had until now been busy elsewhere on the battlefield. This turn it was up to my drones to try and crack the AA bubble and get some fire on the Desolater. The drones swarmed in and the Reapers began reaction firing. The dice did not go the Scourge’s way – even with the Reaction Fire penalty, he should have been hitting half the time. Even the Warriors on the walls blasted away to no effect. In the end, I lost only 2 drones out of 8. They lined up on the Desolator and did 4 points of damage! With the Scourge AA Reaction Fire exhausted, the Archangel squads rolled in on the Desolator and blew it out of the sky! Mission accomplished?

I revealed the Snipers’ position. The Scourge Warriors in that bunker downrange were definitely scoring hits! An earlier volley of AA fire from the troops on the walls had destroyed an inbound Condor and a mounted squad of Legionnaires. The Praetorians synched their cybernetic ballistic targeting computers together and ranged in on the Warriors in the bunker. Their combined fire sounded like one single shot…

Seven points of damage on the Warriors! The Snipers managed one more shot later in the game, resulting in a total wipe-out of the Warriors!

The Scourge have lost their Overseer, and now enraged, seek to do as much damage to the humans as they can before they escape. As the UCM frantically tries to withdraw from the fight, the Prowlers leap onto the Sabers and Rapiers for a hot plasma injection!

Not much left of my armor! The tanks slam into reverse and pull back, shaking off a few Prowlers. Hoping to both pick up its tanks and kill their tormentors, the Albatross swings around bringing all its guns to bear! The tanks also unleash heavy machine gun fire at the walkers, while also taking down the fortress wall with a few shots from their railguns.

The fight on the runway has been close and deadly, leaving the field covered in burning wrecks!

With an untouched Scourge battle group now entering the fight, the UCM forces mount up and firewall their throttles to escape!

Final positions at the end of Turn 6. Most of my units have exited the board. Steve made a desperate push to catch up and was closing in on the Ferrum. The Legionnaire-carrying Condor was shot down, but the Bear and the troops inside survived the crash, but were still on the board. The Praetorian Snipers, their mission complete, activated their therm-optic camouflage and crept carefully away from their hide-site. They knew they would be walking home…

In the end, a Strategic Victory for the UCM. In our next game and for the rest of the campaign, the Scourge cannot have a Commander higher than an Overlord (Lvl5) since Broken Tower was killed. We took a look at UCM losses to see at what cost victory was won for the UCM – I lost my entire armor battle group except the Albatross, plus a few other units, but it all came out to about 25% of my force. Acceptable losses.

It was a great game. Had Steve’s dice been better when he was rolling for Reaction Fire against the drones it could have been a much different game – I would have had to risk the Reaper AA bubble with the Archangels.

So now we’re talking about where our campaign goes next. In Phase 1, the UCM recovered vital info on the Scourge, allowing them to progress to Phase 2, which was a strike against the Scourge command. With success for the UCM so far, we think General Magaday is going to commit his forces to an operation to establish a secure beachhead, so we’re looking at a straight-up clash of forces, probably with the Bridgehead scenario. Focal point missions are always a scrum!

Thanks to Steve for a great game!

Feeling Productive

Somehow, I have three projects going on at the moment – All Quiet on the Martian Front, some 40K and something for Chain of Command. Working on multiple projects at the same time is not too unusual for me, though I had sort of thought when I finished my Daemons I’d throttle back some. Obviously not!

First up, a Warlord Games M8 Greyhound armored car, which I am painting for use in Chain of Command. Chain of Command is a very good game and one that delivers a very satisfying experience. If 40K is the blunt baseball bat of rules systems, Chain of Command is like a rapier, capable of reproducing real-world battlefield tactics on the tabletop. I don’t have the time to play all that often, but when I do, I hope to get this M8 in the game. It’s a decent model with a resin body and metal parts. Not much cleanup but the smaller fittings are fiddly and a bit difficult to attach, but I got them on. The kit has no instructions, but it’s not too hard to figure out. The only trouble I had was how to place the ring on top of the turret. But google image search turned up several good shots of this part of the vehicle, so I got it on there right.

Next, Heavy Machine-gun teams for All Quiet. These need a bit of flock and some grass on the base but they are done.

Finally, this is the first squad of what will become my Tallarn Imperial Guard army for 40K. I don’t have a lot to say just yet. After I get this squad done and see how the colors shake out I will comment more. This is basically my big 40K army project for the next year or so. I’m trying to make a fast recon force, with lots of Sentinels and Rough Riders!

Trenches

Just some quick pics of a quick job. The square bunker and trench line are from Alien Dungeon for All Quiet on the Martian Front. The round one and the shellholes I dunno where they came from. Spray primer, wash, drybrush, boom, done!

Chain of Command

Played my first game of Chain of Command today. Finally got to use those G.I.s I painted a few months ago. Bit of a learning curve but a fun and interesting game. My Yanks vs. Chris’ Krauts. The pre-game positioning and movement to contact is very unique and cool. I like the way this game does deployment.

Started off with a couple squads in the woods there. Another squad is in the back out of the frame. This was a basic patrol clash. I had three rifle squads and a 60mm mortar. Chris had the same plus a halftrack.

These Germans here shot the hell out of me the first few phases, but  I gradually wore them down with mortar and rifle fire til they broke at the end of the game.

A lot of the game was a medium range shootout between these squads here in the woods and the Germans. The Jerries and their MG42s put out ungodly amounts of fire. This was really hammering my squads here until my Lieutenant showed up to bolster their morale and keep them shooting. Think of the scene in Band of Brothers where Winters and his men are at Carentan and have to hold off the German assault, and Winters was yelling at his men to keep firing. Like that.

This halftrack rolled up and started spraying my G.I.s with bullets.

 

My mortar team is in the ruins back there. It did good work, and I kept it focused on the central German squad. The rifle squad there made it into that house, exhorted on by Sgt. Savales.

The filthy Nazi commander shows up with his briefcase full of god knows what and keeps his men fighting. The mortars managed to knock him down wounded for a few phases.

 

I eventually got these guys into a full firing line and began trading shots with the Krauts in the roadhouse.

The halftrack passes the roadhouse. The other German MG squad I was tradinf fire with the whole game is in that building.

 

The guy in the knit cap there with the grease gun is Sgt. Telly Savales. He had to boot these grunts in the ass to get them going, and they got going!

Cinematic moment here. The bazooka team took three shots at the advancing halftrack, narrowly escaped a bunch of fire thrown at them, and then had to rummage around looking for more bazooka rounds. Finally knocked out the halftrack on their fourth shot!

 

The Jerries that were here finally had enough and bugged out!

It was good to finally get a game in of this. The historicals crew has been playing for a while and their games always look pretty good. It was the first WW2 minis game I’ve played at 28mm scale and I did enjoy it.

 

 

When Mars attacks!

Lately, I have become enamored of this game, All Quiet on the Martian Front. I’ve actually gone quite mad for the minis, although I haven’t played the game yet. I do have the hardcover rulebook and it really does look fun. It’s designed by Rick Priestly and Allessio Cavatore, contracted to Alien Dungeon, so it does have a solid design pedigree. The idea is that 10 years after the Martians from H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds destroyed London, they have returned in force for a full-scale invasion of Earth.

Set in the period from 1906 – 1914, the creators have expanded greatly on the idea, positing that this time, the Martians landed in the remote areas of the world, built up their armies, and then attacked. They’ve conquered most of the planet, and humanity is now just holding on. In the U.S. the Martians have advanced to the Mississippi River, where the U.S. Army finally managed to hold them. Undergoing a massive emergency mobilization, the U.S. is devoting every resource to fighting the invasion. Tanks, infantry and artillery are the primary weapons used. Because of the great urgency of this desperate situation, tanks are powered by steam engines, a proven technology that is easy to implement and mass produce quickly. Internal combustion engines exist in this period, but are not yet advanced enough to drive these big tanks (and they are BIG), and are mostly used in trucks and lighter vehicles.

The British have dispatched the BEF to the U.S. to help, and due to their being the first nation to fight the Martians, they have reverse-engineered some of the Martian tech and put it into use. Thus, the British equipment is more advanced than everyone else.

Bwah! This game has got me fired up! I love the idea, and the aesthetic. There are a lot of cool things going on in the background of the setting – President Teddy Roosevelt leads the nation in its darkest hour, Major George Patton is a hero character you can use, Nikolai Tesla and Thomas Edison are building mobile lightning cannons, all kinds of stuff.

Where did this game come from? It was a Kickstarter that funded last year and has finally made it into distribution this year. I usually don’t bother with Kickstarters but this is one that I wish I had! There are so many cool things coming for this, particularly the huge Land Ironclads! They’re also apparently working on other human armies, including the French, German and Japanese (I can’t wait to see those!) and some more alien armies, including the Venusians (!), Selenites (Moon Men) and the Underdwellers (the Morlocks, of course!). I really dig this blend of alternate history and science fiction (by H.G. Wells no less)!

So, I got myself the starter set and I’m working on the models now. The kits are easy to assemble and they have a lot of character. I don’t know what it is about them that has me so involved. A friend suggested they have a sort of whimsical Hayao Miyazaki feel to them and maybe that’s it. I’ve assembled them all and got a basecoat down on the tanks. It won’t be long before I have this game on the table! I can’t wait!

This is the MkII Steamer Tank. The mainstay fighting vehicle of the U.S. Army.

 

And the next step up, the MkIII tank.

 

Doughboy infantry. The motorcyclists are called Rough Riders. They use tow cables to entangle the legs of the Martian tripods to bring them down! Awesome!

There are also heavy machinegun teams. These are the human forces you get in the starter set.

 

 

These are the Martian Assault Tripods in the starter set. Armed with the deadly Heat Ray, they are nearly unstoppable!

 

 

The kits come with some weapon variants for the Tripods. In the middle is the Green Gas Grenades and on the right is the Black Dust Launcher.

Ah, sooo cool!

 

Heralding a New Year!

One of the last miniatures I completed in 2013 was this Herald of Khorne.

While I like the model, it’s Finecast and was a bit of a pain to prep – soooo many bits to trim and flash to remove. Also, the smaller pointy bits, like the claws are super fragile and a couple of them broke off. The sword also broke at the hilt. This model in plastic would be so much better. Anyway, it came out nice, so i just need to handle with care. I also did another squad of Bloodletters but you know what those look like so no pics this time.

My mono-Khorne Daemon army is nearing what I will call “complete”. My next main unit will be a Soul Grinder (and another accompanying squad of Bloodletters). Once they’re done, I should be able to get about 1850 points of Big Red Angry Daemons on the table. At that point, I mean to make a small force of accompanying Chaos Space Marine allies (for the shooty-ness, which Khorne daemons utterly lack). This will be a simple force – Kharne and a squad of Berzerkers rolling in a Land Raider. I need Troops though and for that I will use the Cultists from the Dark Vengeance box.

The Land Raider will be an interesting build. I have a trashed LR hull I got at the EndGame minis swap meet last year that I intend to restore. I figure a CSM Warpsmith hauled the burned out hulk off a battlefield somewhere and is dreaming up ways to revive and corrupt its machine spirit. I need to buy a few bits for it – lascannon sponsons and hatches and whatnot. It will be blood red of course, and I picked up some Forge World etched brass Khorne icons for it too.

40K will not be my only miniatures project focus this year of course. We are getting ready to go full throttle with Dropzone Commander at the store this year, and we even have a demo day for the game coming up on January 18th! I’ve been getting more and more excited about playing DZC. It’s fast tempo and scale is a refreshing change of pace from the relatively plodding pace of 40K. I’m working on my second set of UCM minis from the starter set and I’m looking forward to expanding my army with additional units.

And you see that Sherman tank on the work table there? That is of course for Bolt Action, the WW2 minis game that we’re also hoping to give a bit of a push to at the store this year as well. I have almost finished the last of the infantry platoon that I’m working on at the store (about 45 models) which will give me a good selection of stuff to play around with. I have yet to actually play Bolt Action, but I’m looking forward to it.

SAGA is also occupying my painting schedule at the moment. We are kicking off a new campaign at the store in February, and I am preparing to paint an army of Jomsvikings. These models by Gripping Beast are fairly easy and quick to paint and I will probably get onto them later this month. They’re assembled and based and ready to prime. SAGA continues to be a favorite game of mine and it’s got a solid following at the store. I had a good time playing the Anglo-Danes last year and the Jomsvikings are a power army that I’m excited about fielding.

 

All this painting has me looking at ways to push my skills a bit more, and the one thing I’ve been trying to do for a while is learn to really use an airbrush. I’ve been occasionally using a cheap one for basecoating and such, and I have to say it’s been a challenge. But as I gradually get the hang of it, I think it’s time to try and really push myself. I asked for and received a Badger SOTAR 20/20 airbrush for Christmas (thanks Mom!).

This airbrush is designed for detail work, capable of hairlines and generally small patterns. I can still use a cheap airbrush for basecoating, but this one I hope will allow me to really get some interesting effects done. I need to buy a compressor and I’ll use some Xmas money for that. I’m still on the very steep side of the airbrush learning curve and it will take time and practice before I feel comfortable with it, but I’m looking forward to getting there!

Man, that’s four games I’m painting minis for at the moment! No wonder I feel like I have no time! I’ve been keeping all this straight by using a kanban board, specifically, Kanban Flow. You can do this with a pen and paper, or post-it notes but the online version is easy enough to use. I also use this to track my work projects for VIZ and it’s great!

 

So, it looks like a great start to the new year. Lots of cool games to play and minis to paint, and I’m excited to see what new things hit the gaming tables in 2014!

 

Dropzone Commander = Win!

Dropzone Commander is, in a word, fun! The Dropzone was commanded!

(Scroll down for pics)

I got my first game in last night with Ian Chadwick. We used the models in the starter set – I played UCM and Ian took the Scourge. DZC was exactly what I was hoping for in a sci-fi minis game; it was dynamic, fast-paced and engaging.

First of all, it looks awesome all set up! The cityscape that comes with the starter set is an inspired bit of design. You get two poster maps, which are different and these fit together to form a grid of city streets. On top of this, you set up 10 card building that are also included. They fold out and are ready to go in no time at all. I usually don’t play without fully painted minis but Ian and I were so hot to try this game we just put them together and went for it. I did manage to get a coat of color primer on them and painted one dropship but even without paint, they looked awesome on the board! When we have our armies fully painted this game is just going to be brilliant! As a longtime Epic Space Marine fan, the larger scale is very appealing to me. You definitely get a greater sense of looking at an entire battlefield, of being in command of an entire operation instead of a smaller tactical engagement.

Any wargame that even attempts to predict the battlefield of the future needs to take the effect of technology on combat doctrine into account. Games like 40K are simply WW2 with lasers. Even Stargrunt (which I still love) is really Vietnam in space. DZC may not hit all the buttons but it certainly feels like it’s hitting a lot of them.

First off, all armies are entirely airmobile, or at least highly mobile (one race, the Shaltari, teleport around the battlefield). This means that the battlefield is a constantly changing environment as units can rapidly redeploy where needed and the game mechanics reflect this. For example, a UCM APC can move 4″ which isn’t horrible but a dropship can pick it up and move it up to 9″ in one turn. Since all units can do this, it means that simply driving forward on the ground is more of a last resort – you only really do it unless your dropships are gone. In the game we played, the APCs drove on the ground the last few inches to their objectives after disembarking from their dropships (which then pulled back into cover somewhere, waiting on station for the call for dustoff).

Many minis games I have played feel very static compared to DZC. Even mobile armies in 40K don’t move like DZC units do (of course the different scales make a difference here). In DZC, if you find that things are happening somewhere else on the battlefield, you really can redeploy all the way across the map in very short order. Early in our game, I flew in with an infantry unit, occupied and objective building on T1, located the objective on T2, then re-embarked and got it off the map! Granted I was lucky on the search roll, but man it was fast!

After that it looked like things were developing on the opposite side of the map, so I started picking up units and flying them over that way. Later, when I found my heavy tanks a bit out of position, again I picked them up and flew them where they needed to be. The ground units did drive around some of course, but when they needed to cover longer distance, they could call in the dropships to pick them up.

So, the game makes the dropships and transports extremely important. Lose your mobility and your chances of success drop rapidly. Late game, one of Ian’s APCs was hauling ass for the board edge with an objective. The only units I had in range that could stop him were my AA tanks, which are fortunately also effective against ground units (unlike Scourge AA tanks). I took out his APC, but his infantry survived (luckily for him). I wasn’t able to stop him from scoring for holding that objective, but there was no way he was getting off the board with those infantry, which wound up diving into a building to hide until game end.

The dynamic game play also means that the momentum and initiative can shift rapidly. I had the lead early on, but Ian was in position to score late game. As unit attrition wore me down, it became clear that Ian was set up for an end run, which he managed to pull off for the win (barely – had I killed his infantry in the destroyed APC, we would have been tied on objectives). The sequence of play uses alternate unit activation, which I vastly prefer over Igo-Ugo systems. Since you roll for initiative every turn, this has a big effect on tactics and your choice of what units to move and when. It also means you’re never sitting around waiting for your turn for very long.

Many weapons have infinite range (basically LOS) unless firing at a unit with active countermeasures, which brings the ranges down to 36″ or (much) less. This feels right as a railgun or laser should have no trouble engaging something it can see. Infantry in the open are thus extremely vulnerable as they have no countermeasures (usually). The best they can hope for is to be ignored. But since they are the only units capable of entering buildings where the objectives often are, they’re priority targets. On foot, they only have a 2″ move. Once they’re inside a building, it’s often better to try and take the building down to kill the infantry (though some buildings are quite tough).

This brings another element of the game into play – CQB (Close Quarters Battle). Infantry vs infantry fights usually are going to happen inside a building, and the game makes this go very quickly. One side or the other will be wiped out or broken in one round. My dice crapped out me (rolling only 3 hits on 12 dice needing 4+ – I rolled 5 1’s and the rest 2’s and 3’s!) and Ian’s Scourge warriors killed two squads and broke the other one. Despite that, I like this – the image of two opposing platoons fighting like vicious rats inside a building captures the tension and terror of CQB quite well.

So, all that put together made for a very fun game. Even though we were stopping often to look things up, I can see that once we have the rules down, this will go much much faster. Understanding how units embark and disembark their transports, the way units move and the possibilities that opens up is the key to DZC.

On top of all that, the story and background is also cool. It has shades of Mass Effect and Babylon 5 running throughout. I like the idea that although humanity lost the Earth, it has recovered and is now launching a massive counteroffensive to take it back. In that regard it is a universe where there is still hope, as opposed to the relentless grimdark of other game worlds. There is also room for more new races in the future, beyond the four already in the game. I understand the Hawk Wargames is working on a rebel army list, allowing you to play the stay-behind survivors of the Scourge invasion, and these guys roll out in these awesome looking Mad Max style trucks and whatnot. The aliens are well thought out too, and the armies really do play quite differently.

To sum up, I’m super happy with the DZC starter set! You get a ton of great stuff for about $100. Just go check it out on the Hawk Wargames website. Ian and I are already looking forward to picking up some of the other units and expanding our armies!

Pics below!

Dropzone Commander first impression

Just got my hands on a copy of the Dropzone Commander Starter Set. I was interested in this game before but now I’m super hot to play it. The production values are off the chart, the minis are top notch and the game looks like a blast to play. Finding a real high-tech themed, hard-SF minis game these days is not so easy and Dropzone Commander looks to take the top spot here. It strongly reminds me of Mass Effect in its themes (particularly the idea that Earth was lost to alien invaders and humanity is launching a counterattack to reconquer the homeworld) and designs.

You can find videos and pictures of the minis all over the place, so I won’t post any pics till I have the set painted. I’m going straight for the UCM minis since they’re closest to real-world military paint schemes. I figure Army Painter color primer will make these go super quick and I can get them into action fast. Ack, can’t wait to get some painting time in again!

Now, longtime readers of this blog will know I love me some hard-SF gaming and Stargrunt has been my game of choice for that for a long time (even though I haven’t played in a couple years). But Stargrunt always felt a bit dated in terms of the in-universe tech and how it was represented in-game, and especially how the technological capabilities of the races involved was reflected in their combat doctrine. In DZC, the central tactical idea is that the entire force is airmobile and can deploy and redeploy very rapidly. Range is effectively LOS – the whole table – unless your target has countermeasures going. Infantry combat is extremely deadly and troops don’t last long, so their fight is usually contained to the interiors of buildings. Now, maybe DZC doesn’t cover it all perfectly, but it sure feels a lot more like a future-tech battle environment than 40K’s WW2 with lasers or Stargrunt’s Vietnam war in space.

On top of all that, the scale is 10mm, putting it between Epic’s 6mm and Flames of War’s 15mm. Though 10mm may be a bit odd, I love any game that takes battles up to a real company or even battalion level. The sense of being a dropzone commander and not just a platoon leader will definitely be there while playing.

Makes me want to go play Mass Effect again too! 😀