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Fjalldreki wrote:PHR. Because of the Odin. The rest of their gear is pretty cool, too, though I'm not fond of the Janus. I really want them to have power armored infantry that can ride into combat on the walkers. My favorite (fluffy) aspect of BattleTech's OmniMechs and Elementals.

See I loved the walkers but the Athena is bloody amazing, it sold me the most! In the end it will be weaker than some other flyers but as a multirole F/A I love it

kestral wrote:You know what I would do if I was a brand new wargames company - release cardstock versions of my minis. They would make it easy to play games and get into the system, and I'm pretty sure the minis would follow quickly, if the cardstock was literally pictures of them.

You could, but then you pivot your 2-d tank and it magically disappears, cardstock works sometimes, not in this type of game though.

There is a way of doing cardstock that avoid that.

Either use ground silhouette and assume a verticle for each miniature for the purposes of terrain and screening.

Or have a standing side profile with is kept upright by a perpendicular front /rear profile piece in a cruciform shape rather than a stand. That works rather well for interim rules test miniatures.


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Lysenis wrote:

Fjalldreki wrote:PHR. Because of the Odin. The rest of their gear is pretty cool, too, though I'm not fond of the Janus. I really want them to have power armored infantry that can ride into combat on the walkers. My favorite (fluffy) aspect of BattleTech's OmniMechs and Elementals.

See I loved the walkers but the Athena is bloody amazing, it sold me the most! In the end it will be weaker than some other flyers but as a multirole F/A I love it

I get the impression the Arthena is moderately good at ground attack, either with a decent attack but limited stores or a weaker profile (if ammo is never counted). However its anti- air gunnery looks like it will be VERY nasty.
as a faction PHR has very limited anti air capacity, yet we know that they are specialists and when they do a job (or sometimes two distinct jobs) they do it/them well. The only ground based AAA is the Phobos, and it has one gun, so we can assume its damn good at doing what it does The Athena has two of those guns, so that is going to be bad news if you are in anything nearby that flies.

Especially an unarmed Shaltari gate...

I found some generic cheap N gauge buildings for use with Dropzone Commander.

Here:

Kestrel

There are other N gauge suppliers on the site however all but one of them is markedly more expensive. The last called Lifelike has nice cheap buildings, but they look too specific and lived in and the range is fairly poor.

All the others are considerably more expensive, and while the detail is improved I suspect most players will want to warzone up their models a bit, even if they arent goint to ruin them. I think thats easier with a basic kit.

I'm working on my second building for the game, hopefully the game has a system for entering half-destroyed buildings, like ruins in 40K... otherwise, I've wasted some serious time...

I am torn between the UCM and the PHR. I want the UCM because I love the arc angles and imagine in higher point games having a small fleet of them trying to take out drop ships. The PHR have the Janus and I love those. Create two small groups designed for hit and run on heavier targets. But then the Shaltari have the thunderbird which reminds me of wasps and I love the scourge yeerk/vampire fluff.

I guess I'll just have to get all four...

BobofDoom wrote:I am torn between the UCM and the PHR. I want the UCM because I love the arc angles and imagine in higher point games having a small fleet of them trying to take out drop ships. The PHR have the Janus and I love those. Create two small groups designed for hit and run on heavier targets. But then the Shaltari have the thunderbird which reminds me of wasps and I love the scourge yeerk/vampire fluff.

Similar to me, except I am not torn. I know I prefer both of those factions to the orthers and will collect an army of each. Also UCM is clearly my favourite, I like the PHR but not as much, plus it appears to be the most popular with Shaltari appeaing to be second.

BobofDoom wrote:I guess I'll just have to get all four...

I am heading that way, though I may stop before I get to Shaltari. I want Scourge for the background and as opfor to my UCM.

Alpharius wrote:This game looks VERY interesting indeed!

Ever since GW decided to no longer support the coolest game in the best scale, I've been looking for something similar...

You posted this a while ago Alpharius, but I think it bears repeating.

I'm definitely interested in this for the same reason, if for no reason than I'll be able to get opponents of the game (although they are certainly some beautiful looking minis!)

Surtur wrote:
He's already stated the fluff is told from the UCM point of view. I imagine it would be odd to speak from the Scourge perspective...

Would it? How do you know they are not like the Goa'uld from SG1. They want resources and may not be above talking to humans to get it. Example: they offer useless things like money from the vaults on the cradle worlds to pirates to kidnap people with the promise that they won't infect them.

obsidianaura wrote:I see it more as the way Privateer Press does things.

There's no campaign to stick to. Just with each new book the fluff progresses along.

Not familiar with PP background or methods of delivery so I cannot comment on that. There is a campaign, at least for the moment. I just don't know if that is what will dominate the story telling or all sides will get a primary story arc.

Orlanth wrote:I found some generic cheap N gauge buildings for use with Dropzone Commander.

Here:

Kestrel

There are other N gauge suppliers on the site however all but one of them is markedly more expensive. The last called Lifelike has nice cheap buildings, but they look too specific and lived in and the range is fairly poor.

All the others are considerably more expensive, and while the detail is improved I suspect most players will want to warzone up their models a bit, even if they arent goint to ruin them. I think thats easier with a basic kit.

Was just looking at N-Scale buildings for the purpose of this game, and you are quite right they can jump up in price quite substantially. There are some very cool modern Japanese themed N scale buildings that could work very well for the futuristic setting, but are sitting pretty at £20+ a piece. On the plus side they do have road sets and they all match aesthetically, but I don't think they warrant the price tags attached to them.

http://www.kato-unitrack.co.uk/kato-n-dio-town-high-rise-buildings-821-0.html

Hopefully Hawk's terrain is a lot more affordable, so we don't have to resort to having games of DZC look like they are being fought out over a 1960's Yorkshire!

Medium of Death wrote:

Orlanth wrote:I found some generic cheap N gauge buildings for use with Dropzone Commander.

Here:

Kestrel

There are other N gauge suppliers on the site however all but one of them is markedly more expensive. The last called Lifelike has nice cheap buildings, but they look too specific and lived in and the range is fairly poor.

All the others are considerably more expensive, and while the detail is improved I suspect most players will want to warzone up their models a bit, even if they arent goint to ruin them. I think thats easier with a basic kit.

Was just looking at N-Scale buildings for the purpose of this game, and you are quite right they can jump up in price quite substantially. There are some very cool modern Japanese themed N scale buildings that could work very well for the futuristic setting, but are sitting pretty at £20+ a piece. On the plus side they do have road sets and they all match aesthetically, but I don't think they warrant the price tags attached to them.

http://www.kato-unitrack.co.uk/kato-n-dio-town-high-rise-buildings-821-0.html

Hopefully Hawk's terrain is a lot more affordable, so we don't have to resort to having games of DZC look like they are being fought out over a 1960's Yorkshire!

The way I see it, high rises are all very well, but they dont usually exist in isolation. People build block structures because of premium land use or land scarcity. A tower block on a n open plain is better replaced with a number of lower buildings totally up to the same volume. yes residential tower blocks often are isolated, but that to include park space alongside high density housing amidst other developments.
You can get away with a lot if you claim that high rises were the only buildings to survive the desolation, however that fortells that you will want to produce an abandoned ruin look.

So some square high rise blocks, from Hawk or elsewhere. On this note I am not yet convinced Hawk will be a viable choice if their pricing trends continue, Hawks vehicles are small yet expensive, the blocks are big and are thus likely to be very expensive. I dont really want cardstock.

So it pays to have some high rise units surrounded by a 'suburb' of lower density structures. Kestels range looks good for this.



This unit for £12.50 for the set can make a fair amount of street. Individually priced at £4.15+ per unit, some more.



These two, priced £5.50 each look like a good trsnsition between Hawks high rises and the suburban buildings.



From other sites the idea for this piece is to paint some of the walls as concrete. its intended to be a 60's train station, But it can serve as any form of low city centre building, a former school perhaps. This costs £7.50



Two town centre buildings, the second one is intended as a fire station. £5.50 and £6.75




Large factory buuilding for under £20. I wouldnt have considered it a bargain until I saw the prices elsewhere.

I think there is certainly enough to work with. I think it needs a touch of grime, a few parking lots and a road system. Ruining them up would work well also, it might be better, a few blown roofs and exposed internal floor leave places to put stands of infantry.

I'm thinking about making my own terrain for this game but want to see the rules first.

A bit of pink insulation board and some textured plasticard should be easy to make several buildings of various size and look good. Maybe a few PVC fitting to make a tank farm. Might even be fun! Looking for little bits I can use for rooftop clutter!

I'm planning to just take a whole bunch of different sized small boxes, paint em gray and then use a sharpie or other magic marker to make little black window rows going across. I have a bunch of old jewelry boxes and stuff that sized that I plan to use. I'll have a whole city with about an hours worth of work

Necros wrote:I'm planning to just take a whole bunch of different sized small boxes, paint em gray and then use a sharpie or other magic marker to make little black window rows going across. I have a bunch of old jewelry boxes and stuff that sized that I plan to use. I'll have a whole city with about an hours worth of work

That would work to start but when you are trying to get more people in your area to play with you, having great looking terrain will help people immensely!

Lysenis wrote:That would work to start but when you are trying to get more people in your area to play with you, having great looking terrain will help people immensely!

Indeed. Which is why I am on the hunt for terrain now instead of a month from now.

Here you find an extensive list of N scale buildings:

These two mostly feature US buildings:
http://www.nscalesupply.com/CatalogStructuresKits.html

You can also search in the biggest (but not cheapest) supplier of model railroad products, Walthers: http://www.walthers.com/exec/page/search . They also sell European buildings (by Faller, Kibri and Vollmer).

Tomix and Greenmax produce rather cheap Japanese style urban structures, a.o. many affordable skyscrapers:
http://shop.strato.de/epages/62531443.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/62531443/Categories/6/7

Another cheap option is to use paper terrain and print it out in the correct scale, e.g. by http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/ :

yeah the box building idea is to get stuff done quick .. can always add in N scale stuff later on. And I'd imagine a lot terrain for FOW will work too even if it's a bigger scale, like trees and stuff.

xole wrote:

Lysenis wrote:That would work to start but when you are trying to get more people in your area to play with you, having great looking terrain will help people immensely!

Indeed. Which is why I am on the hunt for terrain now instead of a month from now.

God I remember a place that does terrain for 10mm. . . what was it they had dragon teeth for 28mm, ruins, broken walls etc. . .

Kroothawk wrote:Here you find an extensive list of N scale buildings:

These two mostly feature US buildings:
http://www.nscalesupply.com/CatalogStructuresKits.html

You can also search in the biggest (but not cheapest) supplier of model railroad products, Walthers: http://www.walthers.com/exec/page/search . They also sell European buildings (by Faller, Kibri and Vollmer).

Tomix and Greenmax produce rather cheap Japanese style urban structures, a.o. many affordable skyscrapers:
http://shop.strato.de/epages/62531443.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/62531443/Categories/6/7

Another cheap option is to use paper terrain and print it out in the correct scale, e.g. by http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/ :

I love the paper terrain in the last link. Any one in the states have recommendations on a place to do this at, would kinkos (FedEx office) or something similar be good or is there better options?

Oh not sure if it was said yet but thewarstore has a preorder page up for everything but the hawk wargames web specials.

Looks like card stock, if you do it at an office max/depot you will be spending about 75+ cents per page.

WorldWorks: DownTown Abandoned seem perfect!


I might buy it and try out, I do have a printing firm next door to my job, so getting good quality print on proper paper is easy...

BTW, what would be the proper printing shrink % to turn the WorlWorks stuff into 10mm/"N" -scale?

Email WorldWorks I'm sure they can tell you exactly .. but if you figure their stuff is 28mm, 50% would be 15ishmm, so maybe 70-75%?

Hawk Wargames is still overwhelmed by the flood of trade interest. They are in contact with their casters and packers to reorganise their release plan which will be finalized next week. They will then send all necessary information to distributors and retailers, including trade conditions and details on promo material. Consider this confirmed.

Sikil wrote:BTW, what would be the proper printing shrink % to turn the WorlWorks stuff into 10mm/"N" -scale?

Conversion multiplier from 25mm to 10 mm scale? That's a tough one

Kroothawk wrote:
Conversion multiplier from 25mm to 10 mm scale? That's a tough one

Perhaps it is.

25mm can be either absolute or 'heroic' scale.

If you want to scale down from 25mm to 10mm, you want the new one to be 40% of the scale of the old one.

If you want to scale down from 28mm to 10mm, you want the new one to be 35% of the scale of the old one.

If it was me, I'd keep it at 40% for slightly oversized buildings (11mm scale) that are a tiny bit less fiddly to assemble.

Just do a B&W draft print to fine tune the size (with an eye on the doors mainly).


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Found this interesting eBay auction for N scale buildings:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/230809610598?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

Unfortunately, that auction is just for a CD with the templates, not actual printed buildings.

True, but 150 templates for $20...if I read it correctly each template is already resized to several scales. For some of the high rise buildings you might want to reinforce with foam-core or just make the shell foam-core.