Armand wrote:I am order number 1067, and I haven't received a shipping confirmation yet...

Having ordered 4 premium mega armies and the rulebook, I hope they didn't forget me....

I asked Dave to redirect them to my house, hope you didn't mind.

Envy. I would just love to dump £1000 on this game right here and now.

Although it will probably be Wednesday, I'd love my stuff to turn up tomorrow, I've got an entire free day in which I could get it painted (off work, partner away until Wednesday, food in the house, no planned trips out)

I think the buildings got me the giddiest of everything today.

Riquende wrote:Although it will probably be Wednesday, I'd love my stuff to turn up tomorrow, I've got an entire free day in which I could get it painted (off work, partner away until Wednesday, food in the house, no planned trips out)

Meanwhile paint your orks, if you don't have any orks to paint get some. You know the green horde is right.

From reading the newsletter it seems that Hawk Wargames are having the same issue that Spartan had in their early days. They're already having to upgrade their tooling so they can double the rate of production. Can only be a good sign for the future of the company really if their first product is that popular.

Orlanth wrote:

Riquende wrote:Although it will probably be Wednesday, I'd love my stuff to turn up tomorrow, I've got an entire free day in which I could get it painted (off work, partner away until Wednesday, food in the house, no planned trips out)

Meanwhile paint your orks, if you don't have any orks to paint get some. You know the green horde is right.

I'll die before I play orcs in any game system!

Rulebook should be with me within the hour!

...but I have to go out until about 12, if nobody's answering questions then, I'll be more than happy to

Update: just had an email saying a courier will be here between 10 and 11 today with my stuff!

ITS HERE

EDIT: seriously, no questions?

wow, box the size of a land raider for a box of cards, don't think Hawk were prepared for small orders

...There's an errata sheet already, not great - but at least it was included with the book!

Mmmm new book smell...the book's really heavy, probably due to high gauge paper. production quality's great, very legible

...seriously, post some damn questions...

statline:
A - Armour
Mv - Move
CM - Countermeasures
DP - Damage Points
Pts - Points
Type - Type of unit
Category - place in army list (kinda like FOC slot)
S+C - Squad Size & Coherency
CQB - Close Quarters Battle - Essentially melee stat, infantry only
F - Fortitude - another infantry-only melee stat
LZ - Landing Zone - Aircraft only
Special - other rules

What...is your favorite color...?

Er...

In general, what are the rules like? Are they fairly similiar to 40k, to Flames of War, to Dystopian Wars/Firestorm Armada, to Heavy Gear, or are they radically removed from all of them?


Aircraft, can only dedicated AA guns hit them?

In general, how are armies organized (e.g. is there a 40k style FoC or is it more organized like say, Flames of War where a particular role has multiple unit choices?)

I know its a big question, but do you have any idea of the points difference between the starter armies?

Orlanth wrote:

Armand wrote:I am order number 1067, and I haven't received a shipping confirmation yet...

Having ordered 4 premium mega armies and the rulebook, I hope they didn't forget me....

I asked Dave to redirect them to my house, hope you didn't mind.

Envy. I would just love to dump £1000 on this game right here and now.

Well, it's probably the last time I spend some money on miniatures, at least for a while, since I found out I lost my job a few days after the order...

So, well, I hope they arrive...

I need to set up my expansion plans

Vaktathi wrote:What...is your favorite color...?

Blue

Vaktathi wrote:In general, what are the rules like? Are they fairly similiar to 40k, to Flames of War, to Dystopian Wars/Firestorm Armada, to Heavy Gear, or are they radically removed from all of them?

I haven't seen/played half of those
First impressions? very tightly written, VERY - there are rules for pretty much everything. This could lead to confusion or a lot of rulebook-flipping, so I guess it depends on what you like.
I have a feeling this is going to be an incredibly fun game, but hard to get into

Vaktathi wrote:Aircraft, can only dedicated AA guns hit them?

Unless they land, yes. AA weapons can also fire at ground targets, but not very well

Vaktathi wrote:In general, how are armies organized (e.g. is there a 40k style FoC or is it more organized like say, Flames of War where a particular role has multiple unit choices?)

Army is made up of Battlegroups

Battlegroups are made of Selections

Selections are made up of bases, the number of which is determined by the S+P stat for that selection

Number of selections in a battlegroup, and number of battlegroups are determined by the size of the battle:
skirmish: 500-999 pts
clash: 1000-1999pts
Battle - 2000-3000pts

Rat wrote:I know its a big question, but do you have any idea of the points difference between the starter armies?

Um..yes, it's a big question. If nobody else posts an answer this afternoon, I'll work out a detailed breakdown later, ok?

UCM starter looks, at a glance, to be 5-600ish points at a VERY rough glance.
3x rapiers - 135
3x condors - 93
3x sabres - 111

yeah, 600 seems roughly right

Gotta go SOON, so if you have any quick questions you desperately want answered, now's the time

EDIT: Little snippet to illustrate how detailed the rules are - you cross-reference the size of a building with the length of time they've been in there to determine the roll an infantry unit requires to get an objective

Great, thanks a lot for doing this Charax!

Wow I'm surprised about the level of detail in the rules. But, perhaps it makes sense as it looks like the model count isn't particularly massive compared to some other games, and especially at 10mm scale. Is that a correct assumption, what kind of army/point size do you think the game is recommended to be played at?

I hate having to work during the day. In theory my stuff will arrive between 11 and 12:45 but I won't be there to sign for it. I'll be lucky if I get my order this week.

Um..yes, it's a big question. If nobody else posts an answer this afternoon, I'll work out a detailed breakdown later, ok?

Awesome! Thanks very much for all the info.

Charax wrote:
[...]Little snippet to illustrate how detailed the rules are - you cross-reference the size of a building with the length of time they've been in there to determine the roll an infantry unit requires to get an objective

That is full of WIN. Seriously! Vary cinematic and feels "real"!

I hope my book sits on my doorstep when I get home from work!

I was going to come here and bitch about how Dave has been silent on his twitter account for a month now. Suffice to say, I've forgiven him. The scans of the rulebook found here and all the new stuff in the DL section on Hawk wargame's page is mouth watering. Only a few more days and I can order the rulebook from Maelstrom. Then it's a matter of consideration whether or not me and my friend are investing in this game as well. But it certainly looks promising.

Charax,

You say that battle groups are made up of selections, but is it possible for them to consist of multiple drop ships carrying multiple units? I'm just asking because the Standard Army Roster table would seem to be spread very thin otherwise. Example: If the two units of tanks from the starter box fill up an armor section each, but due to their drop ship size can't be increased in size, then does that mean you have to buy a bigger drop ship in addition to more tanks to play bigger games? I don't imagine this is actually how it works, but would like to know.

That said -- looking very forward to the arrival of my Shaltari. Most of what I've seen so far looks spot on.

To echo Nightwolf above, I asked this last page:

Any chance of more rulebook info, I.e. anything about force construction / limitations? All I know is "no all fighter jet forces" or the like.

Charax, thanks very much for posting the pic of the chart, but I don't understand what those categories are. Can I not put different things inside a dropship? I.e. infantry APCs and heavy tanks? I don't understand what category that would fall in.

And as Nightwolf said, can multiple dropships be a single selection... or multiple fighters, etc.

I would like to know about the missions, and the goal of the game. How many missions are there? Are some army specific? Could you describe one or more of the missions in detail?

Armand wrote:

Orlanth wrote:

Armand wrote:I am order number 1067, and I haven't received a shipping confirmation yet...

Having ordered 4 premium mega armies and the rulebook, I hope they didn't forget me....

I asked Dave to redirect them to my house, hope you didn't mind.

Envy. I would just love to dump £1000 on this game right here and now.

Well, it's probably the last time I spend some money on miniatures, at least for a while, since I found out I lost my job a few days after the order...

So, well, I hope they arrive...

I am currently out too, this is why I cannot buy in. Its frustrating. Damn recession.

The thing is when you're poor the discounts matter more, so for me its all about saving up realistic and responsible amounts of money to buy mega deals even though the amount of money for the buy in is very large. As by bills are all paid and I don't drink much or smoke 'realistic' is a sizable proportion of this months money.

Good luck in finding a new job, its tough right now.

YAY!

My order has arrived, unboxing now

Charax wrote:

EDIT: seriously, no questions?

My big question is the points breakdown, i.e which armies will be bigger and by how much.

Please fill in the blanks of the points list for the following for comparison:

Edit: Done and done, thankyou.

Note providing points for some is a 'review', providing points for all units is 'infringement'.

With those we will get a good idea of how the game scales, so let us say UCM will outnumber Shaltari an average of 4:3, or 3:2 or 2:1 etc.

On my way home, scan get back to answering, but just quickly - 1 selection is not always 1 model, it could be 1-3 tanks or 2-3 infantry stands, so multiple fighters as a single selection is possible.

Most dropships are transport options for selections, not selections themselves, not sure on mixed occupancy, but would assume so (I'm not filling a scourge heavy with 9 of a single tank!)

Mixed occupancy for large dropships is certain, the large UCM, Scourge and PHR boxsets cannot transport everything without it.

Basic Tank:

Sabre: 37
Hunter: 35
Ares: 50
Tomahawk: 38

Heavy Tank:

Gladius: 59
Slayer: 54
Odin: 63
Jaguar: 100 (!)

AA Unit:

Rapier: 45
Reaper: 39
Phobos: 63
Kukri: 45

Medium Dropship:

Condor: 31
Marauder: 41
Neptune: 45
Eden: 45

Infantry Carrying:

Bear: 16
Invader: 17
Juno: 27 (with cannon) / 18 (with miniguns)
Haven: 15

Stock Infantry:

Legionnaires: 26
Warriors: 27
Immortals:36
Braves: 32

Riquende wrote:Below.......

Thanks for that.


Basic Tank: - Pretty much similar all round
Sabre: 37 (111)
Hunter: 35 (105)
Ares: 50 (100)
Tomahawk: 38 (114)

Heavy Tank: - Again similar
Gladius: 59 (118)
Slayer: 54 (108)
Odin: 63 (126)
Jaguar: 100 (!) - you only get one per unit, the rest are in pairs.

AA Unit: - interesting how they all cost so much more than the tanks
Rapier: 45 (135)
Reaper: 39 (117)
Phobos: 63 (126)
Kukri: 45 (135)

Medium Dropship: - so your choice of carriage doesnt really efect the price much. If we go by the ratios already given 'a heavy dropship carries three times a medium and costs two and a half times as much' we get a good indicator of the amount of points sunk into transport, i.e not much compared to their presence on the gametop. In suppose this also means Shaltari gain little by lowballing the number of gates they use.
Condor: 31
Marauder: 41
Neptune: 45
Eden: 45

Infantry Carrying:
Bear: 16 (32)
Invader: 17 (34)
Juno: 27 (with cannon) / 18 (with miniguns) (54/36)
Haven: 15 (30)

Stock Infantry: - broadly similar in price structure.
Legionnaires: 26 (156)
Warriors: 27 (162)
Immortals:36 (144)
Braves: 32 (128)

Thoughts.
Ok, while the army boxes are not points balanced and Hawk never implied they were it appears they have some similarity. I was wondering that in order to fight a mega deals worth of PHR I would need as much as two mega deals worth of UCM. Now its more like having an extra dropship or two and cargo extra. Scourge despite having anti grav tech are actually cheaper, so they can have a proper swarm list. I like that.

well, posting a breakdown of the army deals seems a little redundant now Riquende's done that

Give me a sec to go back and grab all the questions I missed

spaceelf wrote:I would like to know about the missions, and the goal of the game. How many missions are there? Are some army specific? Could you describe one or more of the missions in detail?

Targets of Opportunity
a number of buildings (scales with battle size) contain objectives, uses Kill Points otherwise, looks like your pretty standard starter scenario

Recon
Any number of structures (suggestions of 5-10 for a skirmish, 7-15 for a Clash and 11+ for a Battle) containing Pieces of Intel (Objectives that may or may not be actual objectives)
This looks fun as all hell, to be honest

Encroachment
Deployment zones! (6" in)
6 turn slugfest, at the end you total up killpoints with the value of friendly units in the enemy's half of the table, infantry in structures count 3x!
This one's going to be messy.

Search
2-4 player objective grab. Even number of Possible Objectives (Pick up possible objective, roll to see if real) spread evenly over each quarter of the board (can be in the open), winner determined by VPs

Land Grab
2-4 players fight over control of 2-4 Focal Points (give VPs for friendly units in proximity)

Can't be bothered to summarize the rest, but they are:
Battle Royale
Strongpoint Raid
The Hunt
Demolition
Decapitation
Bridgehead
Gauntlet

No faction-specific ones (wouldn't have expected there to be, maybe for an expansion) but some scenarios alter the Army Rosters by having an Attacker or Defender:


In case anyone wanted a worked example of shooting:
Sabre MBT shooting Scourge Hunter MGT:
Scourge Hunter has Active Countermeasures, so the Sabre's railgun must use its Countered range of 24" (as opposed to its full range of Infinite)
Sabre railgun has an accuracy of 2+, hits. Hunter has no Passive countermeasures, so cant roll to negate the hit
Sabre railgun is Energy 10, Vs the Hunter's armour of 8 means it needs 3+ to damage, if a 5+ is rolled, 2 damage points would be inflicted
Hunter has one DP, so dies horribly.

Thanks for the post. How do objectives work? Is it the player with the most stuff/infantry nearby, or is it enemy models contest?

I like the fact that they cater for more than 2 players in their scenarios. I often play 3 way games.

spaceelf wrote:Thanks for the post. How do objectives work? Is it the player with the most stuff/infantry nearby, or is it enemy models contest?

Objectives are entirely neutral until picked up by a unit, at that point they give 1VP to the force of whichever unit holds them at the end of the game and 2 if you extract them off the board

There is no "contesting", there is only "Having the objective" and "Not having the objective" (and "Having the objective off the board")

You can "Contest" focal points, in that you get 1VP for having units near one and 2 for having the greatest points value of units near one (near being 6")


Oooh, knew I'd missed one!

Pacific wrote:Great, thanks a lot for doing this Charax!

No problem. Surprised I was first, but I thought people would appreciate it

Pacific wrote:Wow I'm surprised about the level of detail in the rules. But, perhaps it makes sense as it looks like the model count isn't particularly massive compared to some other games, and especially at 10mm scale. Is that a correct assumption, what kind of army/point size do you think the game is recommended to be played at?

well, you certainly won't be fielding 60+ units! the only other small-scale games I play are Mechwarrior and Epic, and it's a lot smaller than Epic in model numbers. I can't see myself wanting more than about 1750 points or so, I've never really been one of those "I love this game! MUST COLLECT LARGEST FORCE POSSIBLE!" guys, and there are some units I just don't want, which would be hard to avoid in larger points (Shame I cant have 3000 points of Prowlers/Minders )

Terrain related question for the lazy -

Has anyone sent the terrain sheets off to Kinkos or such a place yet? Curious if they will accept the job, and if so, what kinds of papers you used.

Charax, I am confused by the battlegroup chart. What's in a battle group? How big? Is there another chart for that?

Can a slayer (heavy), reaper (AA), and invader APC all be on a medium drop ship? Are they the same battlegroup, and in what category?

RiTides wrote:Charax, I am confused by the battlegroup chart. What's in a battle group? How big? Is there another chart for that?

Can a slayer (heavy), reaper (AA), and invader APC all be on a medium drop ship? Are they the same battlegroup, and in what category?

Yup, there's an extra step in the force org which is army specific:








that should cover everything:

Size of game determines number & type of battlegroups

Army determines what squads can be in those battlegroups

Squad entry determines number of models in each squad

Also no battlegroup can be more than 1/3 of the army's points


Automatically Appended Next Post:
would help if I answered the question wouldnt it?

Slayers can share with Slayers and Tormentors

Reapers can share with Reapers and Hunters

Invaders can share with another (single) Invader

so it looks like sharing is based on chassis

Charax wrote:In case anyone wanted a worked example of shooting:
Sabre MBT shooting Scourge Hunter MGT:
Scourge Hunter has Active Countermeasures, so the Sabre's railgun must use its Countered range of 24" (as opposed to its full range of Infinite)
Sabre railgun has an accuracy of 2+, hits. Hunter has no Passive countermeasures, so cant roll to negate the hit
Sabre railgun is Energy 10, Vs the Hunter's armour of 8 means it needs 3+ to damage, if a 5+ is rolled, 2 damage points would be inflicted
Hunter has one DP, so dies horribly.

Hello,
In this example, what determines the roll needed to do damage?

Mattman154 wrote:

Charax wrote:In case anyone wanted a worked example of shooting:
Sabre MBT shooting Scourge Hunter MGT:
Scourge Hunter has Active Countermeasures, so the Sabre's railgun must use its Countered range of 24" (as opposed to its full range of Infinite)
Sabre railgun has an accuracy of 2+, hits. Hunter has no Passive countermeasures, so cant roll to negate the hit
Sabre railgun is Energy 10, Vs the Hunter's armour of 8 means it needs 3+ to damage, if a 5+ is rolled, 2 damage points would be inflicted
Hunter has one DP, so dies horribly.

Hello,
In this example, what determines the roll needed to do damage?

A great big table, Weapon Energy (1-13) Vs Defender's Armour (1-10)

If Energy = Armour, you need a 5+, and from there it's fairly standard (so Energy 10 V Armour 9 is 4+, Armour 8 is 3+.. down to a min/max of 2+ and not being able to damage if you need more than a 6

If you get 2 points over your needed score, you cause 2 damage points.

So if you need a 5+ to damage, you simply cannot do double damage.

Thanks for the info!

Also, so an Energy 9 weapon shooting at DA 10 needs a 6+ to damage, and Energy 8 at DA 10 cannot damage?

There is a copy of the table in the downloads section of the hawk wargames site

Woo got my stuff, for once a courier actually left a parcel for me in the place I requested. Although looking at the KR case which came with my premium starter army it does look like the one of the trays is a PHR one which isn't much use for the UCM. I guess I'll have to get in touch with Hawk and see what they can do for me.

i would have got mine today too but the bloody misses went out at the exact time it was supposed to be delivered. Whos in the dog house now!

Charax, thanks. Is there a password to view the album? Can't read the text on my phone and it is asking for a password to view the album on my PC.

I don't like the UCM rank structure, only niggle so far with the entire game.

Squad Leader
Lieutenant
Captain
General
Field Marshal


Colonel (4th rank) followed by General (5th rank) would be better.

RiTides wrote:Charax, thanks. Is there a password to view the album? Can't read the text on my phone and it is asking for a password to view the album on my PC.

Opened it up just for you!

I'm surprised no one has started a painting blog yet....oh well.

Death Gear wrote:I'm surprised no one has started a painting blog yet....oh well.

Does this not count?
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/452967.page

Does this not count?
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/452967.page

I was thinking with every one getting there stuff. People would start making blogs.
Not trying to complain or any thing just thought it would be cool to see some awesome ideas.

P.S. Thanks for the link

There is a plog, further back in the thread.

Charax- You're awesome! So do 2 Invader APCs make up "1" troops selection in a warrior cabal battlegroup? So I could have 4 APCs in that battlegroup for a skirmish sized game?

Any chance you could make a sample force using one of all available units? Even if not, knowing 2 APCs = 1 space on the chart is helpful. I think it still takes 3 to fill a drop ship, though, right? Meaning mega deals have lots of empty space in dropships, and even the starter? Or maybe for the APCs and Heavies, 2 fills a medium drop ship, meaning no extra space in the army deal dropships after all?

Not sure what counts as support/exotic/air, hence my thinking a sample force (or even a single battlegroup) would be really helpful!

Thanks once again

A key concept of this game regarding army construction is that you don't buy transports (either dropships or APCs) and then buy stuff to fill them, all transports are bought as add-ons to squads.

So an Invader doesn't take up any space on any chart, because the Warriors it's carrying are the troop choice, and the Invader is really just an upgrade to them.

The invader is the APC, though, not the drop ship?

A squad of Warriors is 2 or 3 stands.
A squad of 2 can take an Invader APC - if they take an Invader APC, they can share a Marauder with another Warrior squad, as long as they, too are in an Invader, that's pretty much the wording

do I have to include one of everything? I really don't wanna have Despoilers

Can you give some examples of squad sizes max/min for some units like tanks, infantry, fighter?

And do the commanders have some special skills since they are pointed differently and can you give some examples?

I noticed you can have one air unit in a skirmish air battlegroup, yet cannot have air battlegroups in skirmish games.

Charax- Skipping the despoiler is fine. It's an exotic or HQ, I am guessing? Thought that was the only HQ option.

Thanks for clarifying the infantry stuff

Alright, let's work through a battlegroup or two.

Well, I love Prowlers, and it's only a small force so I want a Skirmish-level battlegroup that can take Scouts - the Scourge Oppressors or the Scourge Occupation Patrol

well, as it's a smallish game I dont want a Desolator, so the Oppressor battlegroup is out (as the Desolator is our sole Command unit, and the battlegroup requires one) so it's an occupation patrol for me

Occupation patrols have Scouts, Exotic Units and Support. Well, scourge have neither Exotic Units nor Support (which SUCKS, I understand forwards compatibility but I wish they'd given us at least a token unit) EDIT: The errata sheet changes the Reaper to Support, so there's that. still no exotic though)

So my Occupation Patrol has one mandatory scout squad. Scourge Scouts are Minders and Prowlers, so I'll take some Prowlers.

Prowler squad size is 4 or 8 models (not 4 TO 8), so I take 8 for 72 points. transport options are 1-2 Intruder dropships, so I take two for 48 points, so my first battlegroup is a pretty handy 120pt one consisting of 8 Prowlers and 2 Intruder Betas. Nice, versatile little scout unit which ups my activations

That's my 0-1 specials taken up, so I cant have another Occupation Patrol, which sucks...

let's go for some Infantry:
2 Warrior Cabals will do, fill up my Infantry formations and give me lots of stuff to capture objectives with - and scourge have a few nice cards to play for CQC too

Well, Infantry is basically Warriors, because we cant take Razorworms alone - they're an upgrade for the heavy tanks. Understandable, or you could sit a bunch of them in objective buildings and wait for people to come & die

The next Battlegroup will be my massed Infantry formation - warriors come in squad sizes of either 2 or 3, so I'll get 2 squads of 3 (96) in two Invader APCs (130) in a Marauder (171) - not massively more than the prowler swarm, but still pretty nasty, especially given what massed Warrior shooting can do...

My other Infantry will be the Special Ops detachment - 2 squads of 2 (108) upgraded to aged ones (For +X points a model. First mistake!) in Intruder Alphas (188)

This will be quite a good battlegroup - the intruders can fly in at low altitude, dump the aged ones directly into a building and extract them. Aged ones are great, and in larger games I'd probably upgrade the 6-stand formation to them, but a small, elite unit like this could tip the tide in smaller battles

Alright, so we have a 120-point Prowler battlegroup, a 171-point Warrior battlegroup and a 188-plus-whatever-4-Aged-one-upgrades-cost detachment, giving me 179. Time for tanks!

1 Armoured battlegroup is available to me, so I take a Vangard - 1-2 squads of Standard units, and the only Standard units are Hunter MGTs (Reapers, Slayers and Tormentors are Standard in the book, but got shifted around by the 0day errata sheet)

My hunter squads come in sizes of 3/6/9, and can have Despoilers or Marauders as transport. As I dont want despoilers, I'll take 2 units of 3 (210) in 2 Marauders (292)
As my Skirmish-level force can't take Aircraft, and my Scout slot is filled with prowlers - for now - I'd better grab my AA from the support slot. 3 Reapers (117) in a marauder(158)

So this battlegroup is 6 hunters, 3 reapers, 3 marauders (jesus I need a lot of Marauders) and 450 points - in a single battlegroup, youch. As a skirmish-level army, no single detachment can be more than 333 points, so I ditch one set of hunters+marauder for a saving of 146 points - I'm now at 304, scraping under the limit

so I'll only have 3 MBTs, but I'll have some AA, and the reapers can attack ground units, now for the elephant in the room:

I want prowlers, but I have only two battlegroups that can take them, and one's used up, and the other requires a Desolator, our only Command unit.

Oh what the hell.
Scourge Oppressors battlegroup:
1 Desolator - 140
1 8-person Prowler pack with 2 Intruder Betas - 120 (basically a carbon copy of the first battlegroup)
Scourge Champion - 55 pts
=315

So, my army consists of:
1 Scourge Oppressors Battlegroup - 315pts
1 Scourge Vangard battlegroup - 304
1 Aged One Warrior Cabal - 188-ish
1 Warrior Cabal - 171
1 Scourge Occupation Patrol - 120

that comes to 1098 - damn, bit big. for a skirmish, where can I trim some points? Desolator? nah, now I have him I'm quite attached to the idea. Maybe the reapers? it'll leave me AA-less, but in a skirmish there's not a ton of aircraft around...OK, ditching the Reapers & their transport marauders leaves an obvious hole in my defenses, but frees up 158 points, leaving me at 940 - juuust enough to afford another Scourge Champion commander who, freed from the constraints of having to sit in the command vehicle, I can put wherever I like. With the prowler battlegroup is tempting, but as I said, a lot of scourge cards benefit CQC and infantry, and my force is quite Infantry-heavy, I'll stick him with the massed warriors.

At least until the Aged One upgrade gets an actual points value, and I have to choose between a second commander and my kickass specops guys

So, looking at the force it's fairly commander-heavy - the despoiler's basically the biggest thing that will be deployed at that scale, and my two commanders mean that I am going to be playing cards pretty often, and when the desolator dies (IF it dies) I'm not discarding any cards.

I get my swarm of prowlers, but only because I took a big hit, that desolator's my greatest strength and biggest weakness, as my AA is pretty nonexistant

RiTides wrote:Charax- Skipping the despoiler is fine. It's an exotic or HQ, I am guessing? Thought that was the only HQ option.

Despoiler's the 9-tank dropship that looks like a vending machine, Desolator's the Mass Effect Reaper

Death Gear wrote:I'm surprised no one has started a painting blog yet....oh well.

Ask and you shall recieve, I've just started one for my UCM no paint yet but I've built a couple of models.

Can you drop one Intruder Alpha and half your Aged Ones. that will bring you under a thousand points, you still have plenty of infantry, and you still get a taste of Intruder Alpha use. If the Aged Ones are that good, see what only ten will do.

Everything counts in large amounts, and goddammit, if I'm going to take a unit whose purpose is to Die Hard the hell out of whatever building they land in, I'm taking them all!

(also, if I only take 2 it means that battlegroup only has a single dropship, so if someone takes it out my infantry have to footslog - it's the same situation with the hunters, but I'd rather not have it repeated)

ooh, fun idea - Call for Extraction is a scourge card that allows you to replace a destroyed intruder with a new one, in my command heavy force they'll probably come up quite a bit...

still, both valid options

Some of the review blogs mentioned models Dave showed that were (apparently) in the rulebook but not yet on sale.

Are there unreleased units in the rulebook to share with us please.

I am wondering if the UCM get a flamethrower tank or an artillery system.

Orlanth wrote:Some of the review blogs mentioned models Dave showed that were (apparently) in the rulebook but not yet on sale.

Are there unreleased units in the rulebook to share with us please.

I am wondering if the UCM get a flamethrower tank or an artillery system.

As far as i can see there are no units in the rule book that don't have models but from what I can remember Dave wanted to add more units in expansion books and via rules on the website to keep things fresh.

the Scimitar's the closest thing you get to UCM artillery short of the Kodiac Command's orbital strike, rules-wise and I dont see any models I dont recognise in the photos - although the Sabre and Rapier did make me double-take when mounted at an odd angle, so they could have been mistaken?

Or I could be, I don't claim an encyclopaedic knowledge of the DzC model range.

Some unreleased units get a call-out though - unique commanders with special abilities get mentioned as being released on the site later (we knew this from the livechat, but it's in the book too) and I dont see any faction's exotic units, so presumably they're for an expansion (Here's hoping for a Scourge-infested Shaltari Walker )


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Oh, apparently the Aged One upgrade is +18 points per stand, so 72 points - I may have to cut down or downgrade that Battlegroup after all...


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Oooh, could ditch the Aged ones detachment* entirely and spend the points on upgrading all 6 stands of my other Warrior detachment to Aged Ones - saving me about 80 points, giving me a total of 915 - plenty of change

Shame about losing an activation, but I'd only get a max of 5 in Skirmish anyway

Charax, this is awesome and so helpful! How many heavies can be in a squad? I hope at least 4, I bought 12

Cool that prowler swarms are a go

for scourge? slayers are 2/4/6 and tormentors are 2/4, so in a clash-sized Invasion host you can have 12 Slayers or 6 Slayers and 4 Tormentors (Tormentors are ridiculously good at clearing out buildings)

hey can you have an apc and a tank in a single dropship?

I thought I answered that in detail before.

TL;DR: No

O ok sorry for being anoying

Charax wrote:for scourge? slayers are 2/4/6 and tormentors are 2/4, so in a clash-sized Invasion host you can have 12 Slayers or 6 Slayers and 4 Tormentors (Tormentors are ridiculously good at clearing out buildings)

Awesome, thanks!

Also PM'ed you one additional question

Answered

Looks like we're done for the night, will pick up again in the morning.

Thanks for the Qs, peeps!

RiTides wrote:Charax, this is awesome and so helpful! How many heavies can be in a squad? I hope at least 4, I bought 12

Buying a massive army before seeing the codex.

Hey, looks like it worked out at least

With people slowly starting to get their books I am looking forward to seeing the appearance of eventual battle reports. I am curious to see how the different forces fair against one another.

Also, Charax, could you tell us how important vehicle facing is? Hawk has a template for it on his website under "game templates and tokens". I've noticed that the front facing is in green, the sides in blue, and the rear in red.

Updated list, as I added a few dropships to my Miniature Market order now that I know APCs and heavy tanks only fit 2 to a drop ship . Spoiler tagging since probably no one cares but me


Once again, thanks to Charax for all the info!!!


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Put together a sample 1999 point list for a Clash, based on what I've pieced together from this thread:

HQ: - 405
Master (commander) - 85
Desolator - 140
4 Prowlers in Intruder Beta - 60
8 Minders in 2 Intruder Betas - 120

Armour: 304
3 Hunters in Marauder - 146
3 Reapers in Marauder - 158

Infantry: 358
6 Warriors in 2 Intruders in Maruader - 237
2 Warriors in Intruder Alpha - 94

Special: 555
4 Slayers with 2 Razorworms in 2 Marauders - 370
2 Tormentors with 1 Razorworm in Marauder - 185

Special: 240
8 Prowlers in 2 Intruder Betas - 120
8 Prowlers in 2 Intruder Betas - 120

Fleet: 136
2 Corsair Fighters - 136

Total: 1971

Not totally sure how many warriors can fit in an Intruder Alpha, and whether you could choose to just take 2 stands of warriors in an Invader instead of 3. They add up quick! The list ended up a little heavy on armor, and a little light on troops and AA, I think.

Thoughts/Corrections/etc appreciated . I wonder if someone will be able to make files for this for army builder, or if the battlegroups will be too complicated for it?

I wonder if it is a good idea having that few basic tanks.

Doyou really hate Despoilers that much. Frankly they are one of the few miniatures in the Scourge that I really like, I am OK with the rest, but only the Desolator, Despoiler and Prowlers have any wow factor for me. Each to their own eh.

From what I see the Despoiler has the armament of a Slayer, so you get a 'free' heavy tank with each one. Tempted?

I actually don't mind despoilers, they're just pricey once filled up! Feels like an "all eggs in one basket" kind of thing.

Nightwolf829 wrote:Also, Charax, could you tell us how important vehicle facing is? Hawk has a template for it on his website under "game templates and tokens". I've noticed that the front facing is in green, the sides in blue, and the rear in red.

It's basically entirely for weapon arcs, there's no bonus for shooting someone in the rear

RiTides wrote:Not totally sure how many warriors can fit in an Intruder Alpha, and whether you could choose to just take 2 stands of warriors in an Invader instead of 3. They add up quick! The list ended up a little heavy on armor, and a little light on troops and AA, I think.

Warrior squads come in squad sizes of 2 or 3, the Intruder's an option at 2, the Invader's an option at 3, and a Marauder's an option if you have two Invader-mounted squads (so 6)

RiTides wrote:
Thoughts/Corrections/etc appreciated . I wonder if someone will be able to make files for this for army builder, or if the battlegroups will be too complicated for it?

I haven't used ArmyBuilder since they switched to their licensing model, I am making Battlescribe files though - it's a little bit complicated, but nothing that shouldn't be possible in AB, it's not significantly more complicated than Epic (which is why I keep calling battlegroups detachments)

Orlanth wrote:From what I see the Despoiler has the armament of a Slayer, so you get a 'free' heavy tank with each one. Tempted?

The despoiler Plasma Cannons are an Upgrade, cost nine points less than a whole Slayer and can't fire in the rear arc - so I guess it's up to you if you consider them worth it. That extra nine points buys you a lot of survivability, and the Slayer lets you get another unit of Razorworms, so if you're not tight on points I'd go with the extra tank, or both.

Charax wrote:
The despoiler Plasma Cannons are an Upgrade, cost nine points less than a whole Slayer and can't fire in the rear arc - so I guess it's up to you if you consider them worth it. That extra nine points buys you a lot of survivability, and the Slayer lets you get another unit of Razorworms, so if you're not tight on points I'd go with the extra tank, or both.

So one ought to model them with the gun turret off. As we only see them with turret on I assumed the gun was standard.

Is there a lower grade standard gun on a Despoiler? Also is the Marauder armament an upgrade also?

Is there a lower grade standard gun on a Despoiler? Also is the Marauder armament an upgrade also?

No (it's plasma cannon upgrade or nothing) and no (the plasma hose is standard armament).

Are there any other upgrades besides the above, and warriors to aged ones?

For the Scourge, only Razorworms.

For the UCM they have optional missile pods on all dropships, PHR have optional weapons on the strike dropships (it comes with nothing normally) and the Shaltari light grav tank has to choose between 2 options for its main gun.

That's all I can see for upgrades across all factions.

For scourge? Despoiler weapons, Heavy Tank Razorworms, Aged ones - that's it (if you dont count transport options as upgrades

And I guess Commanders "Upgrade" a unit too. Not a very upgrade heavy game - even the PHR walkers are distinct units rather than weapon options.

Ooh, that's interesting, the Triton PHR flyer is the only PHR unit with upgrades, and it has two - and they're not listed as mutually exclusive (they're probably supposed to be, though)

Riquende wrote:For the Scourge, only Razorworms.

For the UCM they have optional missile pods on all dropships, PHR have optional weapons on the strike dropships (it comes with nothing normally) and the Shaltari light grav tank has to choose between 2 options for its main gun.

That's all I can see for upgrades across all factions.

Interesting about the missile pods. Have they similar firepower and is it a replacement for the machine gun and does the upgrade price look good.
Ravens with teeth sound tempting.

Missile pods all have the same stats, do not replace machine guns and cost between 8 and 15 pts to equip, larger dropships paying more.


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Charax wrote:Ooh, that's interesting, the Triton PHR flyer is the only PHR unit with upgrades, and it has two - and they're not listed as mutually exclusive (they're probably supposed to be, though)

Why would they be mutually exclusive? Every Triton model Hawk has shown as both upgrades on it.

Riquende wrote:Missile pods all have the same stats, do not replace machine guns and cost between 8 and 15 pts to equip, larger dropships paying more.

Interesting. So the weapons are identical and price depends on the vessel. Hawk must believe that mounting missile on an Albatross is worth more due to survivability.
Hmm. I might magnetise underwing stores on the Raven A's gives them something else to do.


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Charax wrote:Ooh, that's interesting, the Triton PHR flyer is the only PHR unit with upgrades, and it has two - and they're not listed as mutually exclusive (they're probably supposed to be, though)

Why would they be mutually exclusive? Every Triton model Hawk has shown as both upgrades on it.

Orlanth wrote:Are the underwing chainguns upgrades?

Yes they are, both them (3pts) and the missile racks (25pts).

Riquende wrote:Why would they be mutually exclusive? Every Triton model Hawk has shown as both upgrades on it.

If it was intentional so be it, it's certainly not the strangest design decision in the book

I just meant it seems like an odd choice given that it significantly upguns the dropship and changes the role, it becomes roughly equivalent to a Falcon in points and firepower, while being more widely available and versatile.

and before you think of nitpicking that statement, we both have the rulebook, so pointing out every difference between the Falcon and the Triton would be redundant, wouldn't it?

What have I nitpicked before? Not sure what you're getting at tbh, I've just tried to answer questions from people who don't have the book.

I'd agree that the Triton and Falcon become largely comparable, but I don't see that it's more widely available - Falcons are Support choices and I can see plenty of places in the various battlegroups you could squeeze them in, whilst Tritons are dedicated troop transports & can only be taken with them.

That's one annoyance for PHR actually, there are no support choices at all, despite there being space for them in the army list. It'd by nice if the Phobos and/or Taranis could be considered Support, but I have to make room for my AA stuff by missing out on "tanks", which other factions avoid, and my ability to take "heavy tanks" is compromised if I want artillery.


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Actually, I did miss there that any heavy walker squad a Zeus joins becomes a command squad, so there's possibly options there for a massed, 2"-a-turn-moving, heavy walker assault.

Charax wrote:

Orlanth wrote:From what I see the Despoiler has the armament of a Slayer, so you get a 'free' heavy tank with each one. Tempted?

The despoiler Plasma Cannons are an Upgrade, cost nine points less than a whole Slayer and can't fire in the rear arc - so I guess it's up to you if you consider them worth it. That extra nine points buys you a lot of survivability, and the Slayer lets you get another unit of Razorworms, so if you're not tight on points I'd go with the extra tank, or both.

This goes both ways. 45pts is a lot, for just an upgrade. But on the other hand the Despoiler is a flyer and has several ?4? hit points. Its a nice chassis for a powerful gun, it gives further use to a heavy dropship, which look to me like a 'use once' proposition being a bulk transport. Furthermore the nine points extra for a whole new Slayer will require carriage of its own and another of its own kind etc and thus might be less convenient than to have a big gun floating in the air near the existing formation.

At 45pts it looks like a waste, but I think its too early to consider it a GWesque points cost brainfart.

Orlanth wrote:. But on the other hand the Despoiler is a flyer and has several ?4? hit points.

5.

If I may divert this discussion away from the rules briefly. I've been putting bits and pieces of my army together since yesterday evening and I have to say the resin Hawk Wargames have used is an absolute joy to work with. Cleaning up any flash is as simple as making a single pass with a file and tabs can be removed very quickly with a scapel.

Plus like they said it is strong and flexible, basically it's everything that GW's fincecast rubbish should have been.

Throw it at a wall!

No, I'm not going to go that far to test the quality of the resin.

I, too, would like to see it thrown against a wall.

True. I've noticed only a couple of air bubbles and nothing that has ruined the model, like I hear happens with Finecast (don't own any myself, don't go to GW stores).

The only I had with tabs was on the Athena's cruise missiles, the tab was joined right to the 'point' and I was unable to remove it without taking a slice out of the missile, but fortunately it's on the side that faces down.

That's great to hear Nick!

Also, just got an email from Hawk saying the courier needed my phone number. Folks waiting on delivery should check for that.

Both a friend and I have received a similar email about customs needing a phone number.

Hey, for anyone wondering about the King & Kerr 10mm terrain that would suit Dropzone Commander, I've got a couple of pics of some painted buildings with some roughly SM sized Heavy Gear models next to them here Obviously not the towering city buildings that Dropzone is eventually to come out with, but big enough to block LoS for many things and for more rural settings.

I am making Battlescribe files though - it's a little bit complicated, but nothing that shouldn't be possible in AB, it's not significantly more complicated than Epic (which is why I keep calling battlegroups detachments)

@Charax - If you manage this endeavour, I would really appreciate it if you could share the results of your labour. I use BattleScribe as well, even bought the Android version.

Rat wrote:

I am making Battlescribe files though - it's a little bit complicated, but nothing that shouldn't be possible in AB, it's not significantly more complicated than Epic (which is why I keep calling battlegroups detachments)

@Charax - If you manage this endeavour, I would really appreciate it if you could share the results of your labour. I use BattleScribe as well, even bought the Android version.

I'm currently not using BattleScribe, but if DzC files were made for it I'd seriously consider to buy it for my andriod cell!

I second the above!!

I will, it's just taking a while because Battlescribe is an unintuitive pile of crap to make files for

Those who have got the rules, any general comments? Reviews, opinions?

well, don't want to overstay my welcome by overposting, but as my posts so far have just been factual responses to questions:

Review:

This is a beautiful book. It's not quite up to the quality of something like Dark Heresy, but it reminds me a lot of things like the GURPS RPG sourcebooks - certainly beyond what I'd expect from a wargame that came out of nowhere. 152 full-colour glossy pages packed (PACKED) with photos, you can certainly see where every penny of the £15 RRP went

Background:
The book's surprisingly background-light: 9 pages of setting background and 5-9 pages of faction background, plus unit blurb (quite a lot of the faction background is breakdowns of weapons and technology.

The basic background is this: Mankind develops space travel (Foldspace engines) but it's inaccurate over any decent distance unless the destination contains a Foldspace Node. they expand a bit and encounter the Shaltari, who appear quite benificent and direct them to worlds that are hospitable for human habitation, which kickstarts Human galactic expansion - it turns out the Shaltari encountered were only a single tribe (called The Friends, because their alien name is unpronounceable, apparently), and wanted to use their Human allies as a plentiful meatshields in their war against another tribe - humans being fast-breeding and plentiful as opposed to the Shaltari.

The humans took one look at the advanced Shaltari weapons and went "Yeah...we're friends, but we're not THAT great friends", and refused to get involved, leading to frosty relations. Earth and the worlds settled with the help of the Shaltari were called the Cradle worlds and formed the majority of human space, with a few outposts beyond that

Suddenly, mysterious white sphere falls to earth, and when hooked into a computer system, hacks basically every computer it connects to , the facility studying goes dark and it's stolen. a few days later a warning is broadcast to ALL OF HUMANITY telling of a threat coming, and telling everyone to head for a certain planet one year later. When that day arrives, a ragtag fleet of mutinied UCM vessels, private ships and all manner of other things waits at the planet surrounded by a UCM blockade. they're all hacked (seriously, so much hacking) and a further message is delivered telling them to jump to a set of coordinates and that their engines have been made accurate so they can get there, the "Abandonist" fleet jumps out, with some larger vessels firing on the PHR. Big space battle, many casualties.

Long story short: Scourge arrive, UCM fleets too weakened by the abandonists to defend properly, Earth and the Cradle Worlds are quickly taken, UCM won't nuke anything because of resistance fighters, so mount guerrilla attacks on infested worlds, White Sphere created the PHR, PHR are unrepentant about the Abandonist's actions, UCM view them as traitors, Shaltari don't do much.

now, the background isn't bad, but...I don't like it very much. It's pretty lazy to be honest - the Shaltari and PHR feel minor compared to the main Scourge/UCM conflict - they're not exactly "add-ons", both forces are integral to the setting, but as far as forces that needed to be represented in the game, they could easily have been left out - there are some occasional skirmishes with them and the other factions but nothing significant. there's no great conflicts between any of the factions except UCM/Scourge, so it boils down to "frosty tension, occasional fighting"

add that to things like the blatant Macguffin of the White Sphere (It hacked the whole human empire. At once.) and the overuse of "oooh, spooky mystery" that the background seems unnecessarily sparse. There are a few plot hooks that may get expanded on later, but that wont raise the quality of the existing material.

Overall: The world-building is good enough, I guess

Rules:

Not overly complicated:
Phase 1: Initiation:
- Roll for initiative (if you win you can elect to act at Initiative 1)
- Discard unwanted command cards
- Draw new ones
- Clear up CQC
- Roll for reserves

Phase 2: Activation:
- Activate a battlegroup
- allow opponent to respond (if able)

Phase 3: Actions:
- Each squad in the activated battlegroup may move/shoot or shoot/move (or other actions)
- Each action must be declare in case your opponent wishes/is able to react
- Next opponent in initiative order activates a battlegroup, repeat 2/3 until all battlegroups have been activated

Phase 4: Roundup:
Your basic End Phase, you act on any special rules that say they occur here, check the scenario victory conditions and either end the game or go back to Phase 1 for the next turn.

So overall not very complicated, it's UGO/IGO as far as battlegroups go, but squads within the battlegroup all act before any of the opponent's. It's important to note that while Squads must maintain coherency with each other, Battlegroups have no such restriction - so my 8-unit Prowler Pack have to maintain coherency as a massive blob, but if I had two squads of 4 they could be on other sides of the table - when that battlegroup acted they'd both get to act before the initiative was passed.

Shooting's pretty quick, as I posted before, pretty standard hit/damage/counter thing. Active countermeasures are kind of a nice touch, in that they drastically change how an enemy unit can function against you, forcing an infinite-range sniper to risk advancing or reducing the distance your opponent can engage to below your own. It's not something I've seen as a core mechanic before, although functionally it's similar to special rules in other games (and pretty much all Scourge units have active countermeasures, so facing them is really about a gruelling short-range slugfest)

I really, really don't like the CQB rules, though. the rest of the game system is relatively simple but CQB really racks things up - it involves a LOT of dice and working out who attacks when and what unit counts for what. I would hate to see what a four-person scrum in a building looks like.

I understand the CQB rules are important, especially as the winner of a CQB can end up running off with a gamewinning objective, but it's just a daunting set of rules. At least infantry are heavily limited to a couple of battlegroups

Everything else though? I'm perfectly happy with, shooting's great, movement is pretty standard and aircraft especially look like they'll be fun to play around with.

Colour scheme showcases are quite nice, and Golem have done a nice job of presenting varied colour schemes. there's a two-page showcase of dioramas and more elaborate colour schemes too, but not much in the way of conversions (in fact, Scourge vehicles are specifically said to be identical to others of the same type, which was both an unnecessary and a disappointing statement that I, for one, shall be utterly ignoring)

If you have the money to spare, and have even the most fleeting, cursory interest in what all the fuss is about, you should pick up the book. It would be very hard for me to imagine someone being disappointed with it unless they has especially high/different expectations of the game.

Nice review! Didn't quite catch where PHR came from... The sphere in conjunction with some Abandonists?

CQB = close combat?

Very happy about Scourge active counter measures

the White Sphere was what sent the warning about the scourge and took the Abandonists away, and they returned 150 years later as the PHR

CQB=close combat, restricted to infantry in buildings

Ah, so Abandonists = PHR pretty much straight-up. I thought they were cyborgs, not humans, though? I.e. the whole post-human part...?

that's what the White Sphere did to them - Abandonists disappeared, found the white sphere which advised & directed them into becoming what became the PHR, cyborg upgrades & all (the upgrades aren't innate, they're caused by a nanotech injection during a coming of age called the Binding, and from there they can upgrade & adapt their implants as they see fit)

yeah, lots of unanswered questions, but that's a running theme in the background I guess

Fyi, I've done a little number crunching today as I'm looking at getting the large army deals for PHR and UCM.

Long story short, on Hawk site each set is £140 without KR cases, I've worked out the discounted prices on Maelstrom.

To get the UCM as parts works out to £152.55, 10% discount. as you spend over £100 you get a further 2% discount so £149,50. If you buy the starter set AND bits to make up to large set does save a little extra, £146.31 with discount.

However they also give you 1% loyalty so £14.63 loyalty.

Doing the same with the UCM gets to £142.79, but if you take off the loyalty the total price for both sets comes to.... £274.47

So in short... you CAN save a little over £5 going to Maelstrom AND use the second purchase loyalty to pay for most of the rule book.....

Worth the hastle? Not sure! Will it arrive later then direct from Hawk, probably.... But you do have the option of changing the set arround.... hmmm....

Just thought I'd share!

(OK I'm a sad little finance guy... sorry!)

Might not be a bad idea now, actually! Hawk posted about a slight delay to meet demand, but models are about to ship to distributors, so maybe they'd actually be faster now.

Edit: Although, you listed a number that is 10%, not 1%, for loyalty

Thats what you get for not checking! Doh!

1% loyalty changes the end number to £287.63... So still cheaper direct from Hawk! Damn....

Oh well, I guess thats my decission made....

Wonder if Maelstrom will honour their price match promise!


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Anyone worked out what the KR case direct costs?

One thing I noticed with regard to all the fluff in the book is that it's based on the UCM perspective. So in the UCM section we get a rundown of the "Big Dozen" worlds, detailed army/navy breakdowns etc.

However the other 3 factions are written about in a "What the UCM knows about them" kind of way... for example, for Shaltari worlds it just says that thy're scattered all over the galaxy but any vessel that accidentally goes to one is destroyed instantly. Similar with PHR, just says that due to a PHR ambassador mentioning "Home Soil" the UCM believe they must control at least one planet.

And I don't think it even speculates on where the Scourge actually come from, just talks about what UCM scientists have discovered about them from captured specimens.

As Charax said, it's really playing up the mystery aspect of it all, but it's perhaps a bit much to apply to EVERYTHING in the galaxy that isn't UCM.

Riquende wrote:One thing I noticed with regard to all the fluff in the book is that it's based on the UCM perspective. So in the UCM section we get a rundown of the "Big Dozen" worlds, detailed army/navy breakdowns etc.

However the other 3 factions are written about in a "What the UCM knows about them" kind of way... for example, for Shaltari worlds it just says that thy're scattered all over the galaxy but any vessel that accidentally goes to one is destroyed instantly. Similar with PHR, just says that due to a PHR ambassador mentioning "Home Soil" the UCM believe they must control at least one planet.

And I don't think it even speculates on where the Scourge actually come from, just talks about what UCM scientists have discovered about them from captured specimens.

As Charax said, it's really playing up the mystery aspect of it all, but it's perhaps a bit much to apply to EVERYTHING in the galaxy that isn't UCM.

yer i noticed that about the fluff on the website to0

Oh come on? Like 40k was as well developed as this when it launched?

This has to be one of the most comprehensive launches of a product ever. 4 Full factions, with their respective vehicles, the fluff leaves space for nice expansions and extra units to be launched to backfill the Universe. Look at the RT era 40k compared with today. Roman wasn't built in a Day, Gentlemen, he has however done all the foundations most of the blockwalls and most of the woodwork!

RT had models shown for SM, IA, Squats, Orks, Eldar and had snipits of other one off lines like the Adventurers, Ambulls, Tyranids and Zoats; but that was a differant age.

DZC seems to be rolling out a good basic coverage for this day and age, personally I'm not particuarly taken by either the models (from what i saw at Salute) or the rules (from here), but I would really like to see their plan for the buildings which are fantastic. It will come down to price really on that and I'm hoping that the huge enthusiasm here translates to sales they might rediuce the cost down from the £1 per tile the chap behind DZC told me.

mwnciboo wrote:Oh come on? Like 40k was as well developed as this when it launched?

This has to be one of the most comprehensive launches of a product ever. 4 Full factions, with their respective vehicles, the fluff leaves space for nice expansions and extra units to be launched to backfill the Universe. Look at the RT era 40k compared with today. Roman wasn't built in a Day, Gentlemen, he has however done all the foundations most of the blockwalls and most of the woodwork!

Sure, let's compare a modern tactical massed warfare game against a 25+ year old skirmish battle game and pretend they're comparable, that seems sensible - I mean it's not as if companies can be expected to learn from their predecessors, right? That would be insane - Every new MMORPG on the market starts utterly from scratch and doesn't look at things like Diablo or WoW or Guild Wars to see what went wrong and what went right, it's all just done from a blank sheet of paper, so the fact one of your comparison points has had a quarter of a century of developments in customer expectations and essentially predone market research to draw upon shouldn't be a factor at all.

No, none of that is the case, obviously, Rogue Trader is an apt comparison for DzC, whatever you say...

That being the case, have you actually got a copy of Rogue Trader to hand? More pages, smaller type, PACKED with background. All the space DzC takes up with pretty pictures (and they are pretty, no denying that - there's a snow board with red trees that I'd really love to see more of), Rogue Trader packs with flavour text. Pages 130-228 of Rogue Trader, you won't find a page of text (which isn't a full-page illustration) that doesnt have background on it. that's 98 pages containing background on the Imperium (and all the factions therein) Orks, Squats, Eldar, Slaan, Jokaero, Psychneuein and even down to plants and animals. By no possible measure does Rogue Trader have less background.

and it's not just quantity of background, it's quality - Dropzone Commander is riddled with holes for the sake of making potential future expansions (we assume, they could be holes for the sake of adding pointless mystery) - Rogue Trader tells us almost everything, to the point where later editions have to go back and re-mystify things.

Rome wasn't built in a day? Dropzone Commander was built over two years, same as Rogue Trader

Maybe the expansion books, if there will ever be any, will have the perspective switch?

Or, we get faction books! (yeeey)

I'm not sure if I'd rather see faction books or general expansions. The game seems pretty well balanced, and bringing out new units in a faction book would necessarily overpower that faction until the others catch up - whereas a general expansion that adds, for example, each race's Exotic choices would sell better (Scourge faction books sell mainly to scourge players, but if everyone gets a new unit from a book, everyone will have a reason to buy it)

A return to Earth is pretty massively hinted at - the remains of the UCM's original White Sphere research data are there - so that could form the basis for an expansion, or something involving the PHR/Shaltari, who need a little love at the moment

Charax wrote:

mwnciboo wrote:Oh come on? Like 40k was as well developed as this when it launched?

This has to be one of the most comprehensive launches of a product ever. 4 Full factions, with their respective vehicles, the fluff leaves space for nice expansions and extra units to be launched to backfill the Universe. Look at the RT era 40k compared with today. Roman wasn't built in a Day, Gentlemen, he has however done all the foundations most of the blockwalls and most of the woodwork!

Sure, let's compare a modern tactical massed warfare game against a 25+ year old skirmish battle game and pretend they're comparable, that seems sensible - I mean it's not as if companies can be expected to learn from their predecessors, right? That would be insane - Every new MMORPG on the market starts utterly from scratch and doesn't look at things like Diablo or WoW or Guild Wars to see what went wrong and what went right, it's all just done from a blank sheet of paper, so the fact one of your comparison points has had a quarter of a century of developments in customer expectations and essentially predone market research to draw upon shouldn't be a factor at all.

Perhaps Rogue Trader isn't the best comparison, but if you compare it to other games from smaller companies then he has a point. Thinking back recently to the likes of Malifaux, Infinity, Dust, I don't think any of those had an opening day release comparable with Dropzone Commander. It's great that I know I can go down to the shop in a week or two with a mate, and we can both pick up starter armies and be playing a reasonably balanced game within a day or two.

I don't expect it to be perfect, the important thing is that what Hawk are open to feedback from the community regarding various aspects of the game, and works with them to improve from what is already looking like a really solid foundation.

Druidic wrote:Fyi, I've done a little number crunching today as I'm looking at getting the large army deals for PHR and UCM.

Long story short, on Hawk site each set is £140 without KR cases, I've worked out the discounted prices on Maelstrom.

To get the UCM as parts works out to £152.55, 10% discount. as you spend over £100 you get a further 2% discount so £149,50. If you buy the starter set AND bits to make up to large set does save a little extra, £146.31 with discount.

However they also give you 1% loyalty so £14.63 loyalty.

Doing the same with the UCM gets to £142.79, but if you take off the loyalty the total price for both sets comes to.... £274.47

So in short... you CAN save a little over £5 going to Maelstrom AND use the second purchase loyalty to pay for most of the rule book.....

Worth the hastle? Not sure! Will it arrive later then direct from Hawk, probably.... But you do have the option of changing the set arround.... hmmm....

Just thought I'd share!

(OK I'm a sad little finance guy... sorry!)

I have been doing something similar at Firestorm Games.

As I havent got the money for a full buy in I bought a starter and rulebook now, with an order from Hawk later. Patience is key.

Mega deals offer the best discount approx 21% average, large deals yield a 17% discount and everything else is flat price at Hawk. By combining a starter plus the 10% discount a retailer is allowed you will find that stasrter sets and rulebooks from third party sites, plus individual package kits is cost effective. However you are better buying Mega deals over anything else.

If you want a buy in now I suggest you get the rules and one or two starters from Maelstrom with your loyalty discount, also look at those things you eventually want but are not included in a mega deal. For example I would like more Wolverines and Raven B's so I take into account the f Wolverines the army deal with contain and buy the rest now. When all is done hold out and save up for the Mega, not the Large. I wouldnt go for the large unless you know thats enough miniatures for you. If you want more plan to buy a Mega.

Coutesy of a fellow gamer with very little money and a desire to get into this game big time.

For my part, it's only a minor issue - as a PHR player I'd like to know more about the faction I'm playing as - whether I'm defending planets against any aggressors, who rules my society, what sort of names my in-game commanders might have, so on.

All I really know right now is that I'm mysterious, from parts unknown and that the White Sphere advises (but doesn't rule).

Fair enough, maybe Dave doesn't know right now and didn't think it important enough to work on whilst he was sculpting the whole range, painting it, writing the rules, playtesting the rules, designing & making the scenery, photographing battle scenes, so on.

Anyway, I have to rush - I'm going to go play it!

Riquende, report how your game goes!

About background- proclaiming RT GW to be all that when squats/zoats/etc got just plain dumped right after may not be the best argument. Additionally, a lot of it was pretty darn lame if you ask me, particularly squats! Dwarfs in space yes... But who decided on "squats" and the associated cheesy background?

Back from that aside, looking forward to seeing the fluff, although brief... Some mystery around my scourge with more to come later is OK, I think

To be fair, in the FAQ on the website he does give you a good idea what to expect in terms of background.


next to other games out there, I'm not too upset, firestorm armada doesn't have a ton of background either, but it's still an interesting universe. The visual in the case of DzC makes it almost compelling enough. If it gets fleshed out later/over time, I'm ok with that. This looks like a game that's really going to be carried by its rules and mini's more than anything else, whereas 40k has always been carried by its background.

Druidic wrote:Fyi, I've done a little number crunching today as I'm looking at getting the large army deals for PHR and UCM.

Long story short, on Hawk site each set is £140 without KR cases, I've worked out the discounted prices on Maelstrom.
To get the UCM as parts works out to £152.55, 10% discount. as you spend over £100 you get a further 2% discount so £149,50. If you buy the starter set AND bits to make up to large set does save a little extra, £146.31 with discount.
However they also give you 1% loyalty so £14.63 loyalty.
Doing the same with the UCM gets to £142.79, but if you take off the loyalty the total price for both sets comes to.... £274.47
So in short... you CAN save a little over £5 going to Maelstrom AND use the second purchase loyalty to pay for most of the rule book.....

Worth the hastle? Not sure! Will it arrive later then direct from Hawk, probably.... But you do have the option of changing the set arround.... hmmm....
Just thought I'd share!
(OK I'm a sad little finance guy... sorry!)

I'm hoping to stock DZC real soon - I have been talking to the guys and I am on their list. So if it's any use I'd see what deals I can compile to make it a bit more tempting.
And changing sets around is something I've got a reputation for

Bugger, I mentioned previously that I thought I had the incorrect foam shipped as part of my premium starter army. Now I've had a proper chance to look at it (too distracted by the models ) it turns out the foam in my case is the PHR set rather than the UCM one.

Oh well I guess I get to test how good Hawk's returns system is.

Shae-Konnit wrote:

Druidic wrote:Fyi, I've done a little number crunching today as I'm looking at getting the large army deals for PHR and UCM.

Long story short, on Hawk site each set is £140 without KR cases, I've worked out the discounted prices on Maelstrom.
To get the UCM as parts works out to £152.55, 10% discount. as you spend over £100 you get a further 2% discount so £149,50. If you buy the starter set AND bits to make up to large set does save a little extra, £146.31 with discount.
However they also give you 1% loyalty so £14.63 loyalty.
Doing the same with the UCM gets to £142.79, but if you take off the loyalty the total price for both sets comes to.... £274.47
So in short... you CAN save a little over £5 going to Maelstrom AND use the second purchase loyalty to pay for most of the rule book.....

Worth the hastle? Not sure! Will it arrive later then direct from Hawk, probably.... But you do have the option of changing the set arround.... hmmm....
Just thought I'd share!
(OK I'm a sad little finance guy... sorry!)

I'm hoping to stock DZC real soon - I have been talking to the guys and I am on their list. So if it's any use I'd see what deals I can compile to make it a bit more tempting.
And changing sets around is something I've got a reputation for

Hawk will only allow a 10% discount. But that wont stop you from making your own large and mega deals or equivalent and taking 10% off that.

If you do quickly enough and offer free shipping in the UK, I will buy a UCM mega and a PHR mega, and that is a promise.

I asked Firestorm to match the mega deal and they couldnt/wouldnt. You want my custom?

Orlanth wrote:

Hawk will only allow a 10% discount. But that wont stop you from making your own large and mega deals or equivalent and taking 10% off that.

If you do quickly enough and offer free shipping in the UK, I will buy a UCM mega and a PHR mega, and that is a promise.

I asked Firestorm to match the mega deal and they couldnt/wouldnt. You want my custom?

Dang, I did not know that about the 10% - still waiting on the Ts&Cs

But yes, for the UK I will do Free postage and make all kinds of mix and match deals!
And yeah, if you fancy giving me a try then I would love to provide you with toys!
And it ain't just DZC, I can do pretty much anything Maelstrom can Just PM if you have any questions about anything!

Can we get pictures of the models people have recieved?

Mick

Shae-Konnit wrote:

Orlanth wrote:

Hawk will only allow a 10% discount. But that wont stop you from making your own large and mega deals or equivalent and taking 10% off that.

If you do quickly enough and offer free shipping in the UK, I will buy a UCM mega and a PHR mega, and that is a promise.

I asked Firestorm to match the mega deal and they couldnt/wouldnt. You want my custom?

Dang, I did not know that - still waiting on the Ts&Cs :/

But yes, for the UK I do Free postage and make all kinds of mix and match deals!

Hawk have been very clever, by only allowing 10% discount it means that Hawk themselves have the lowest prices via their mega deals (20% off), thus Hawk sells diorectly as much as possible, maximising profit. However Hawk does allow sale of Starter deals at 10% also, so you get the saving of the starter deal plus the 10%. Therefore the only way to undercut Hawk is to match the deals Hawk do then take up to 10% off those. This shouldnt be a problem as you are directly reducing only by the agreed 10%. Hawk do not do a large or mega deal box, its all normal stuff just sold as a set.

Read the T%C documents carefully, trading regs ensure Hawk must allow a genuine opportunity to allow permitted third party retailers to undercut if only by an agreed amount so you should be able to match Hawk's army deals, even if not make your own.

I had to search your posts to find your website. Can you place www.shaekonnitgames.co.uk in your signiture so people can find you.

turns out my sample army will cost £86 direct from Hawk, so that kinda sucks, would be great if hawk or a 3rd party offered "Squad & Transport" combos, but given the T&Cs that Hawk are imposing, that seems unlikely.

Well I got a wind fall which I am instructed to spend on myself, and while I COULD buy 2 mega deals, I don't want to invest that far... have some plate armour I want to buy instead, however 2 LARGE armies give me and the wife something to go with which we can expand on later for a reasonable price and buying from Hawk gives me the cheapest deal.

Despite the quality I am deeply concerned about the pricing.

Now a Sabre or an ares is roughly similar to a 40K infantry figure in size. They are broadly similar in effect.

From what I am reading a Sabre hits on a 2+ (Ws roll) has an energy to match against opponents armour (S and T) and unless the unit is Shaltari or a Zeus it doesnt get a save. Units have a W stat but most have only 1 and a good S vs T roll may cause double damage.

So broadly speaking on a model to model basis it works broadly similar to 40K.

Ok then.

PHR 'counts as starter army'

2 'marines' £10.50
Jetbike sized transport £11

2 'marines' £10.50
Jetbike sized transport £11

2 'epic heavy tanks' £10
Jetbike sized transport £11
4 double sized stands of 'epic infantry' £11

We might be going wow at this game, but I am not happy wirth the cost of the buy in. with regards to the actual number of ground units on the tabletop this game makes GW seem like a cheap bargain.

How many models would you field in a '1500pt' equivalent game? It may cost more on a per model basis, but if you need far fewer models, then that's fine. Lots of games are like that, Heavy Gear and Infinity are typically $8-20 model, but you only need like 10-15.

Seems weird to me that people keep comparing it to 40K, but if you insist:
2 "marines", £20
1 Jetbike sized model: £12.30

another "Jetbike sized transport": £38!

1 Epic Heavy Tank: £12.30

It's all about perspective. Compared to skirmish and low-model-count wargames with multiple manufacturing centres and a largely plastic model range? yeah, it's kind of expensive. Compared to other games of a broadly similar scale (Epic, Flames of War - especially FoW) it's actually relatively cheap, if you want to construct a PHR force out of Epic models, go right ahead, but for the same cost someone else could buy an army twice that size from Hawk direct.

Right.. aren't the starter boxes ranging from 60-80GBP for the basic starter and premium starter packs respectively? If the game is designed to be played/enjoyed at that level, than that is several orders of magnitude cheaper than 40k/WFB. Flames of War as well for that matter.

I think the game is designed for the large army sets. Dave mentioned that somewhere.

Starters are like two squads a side intro games.

Yet again the starters themselves are intended as army boosters providing meat and potatoes units that players can and should have in volume.

I am seeing large army deals as a minimum game, even with the extra dynamic of dropships a large army deal is a small army by model count.


Doex the rulebook say anything about how to force org games over 3000pts? Is 3k a recommended hard cap for any reason?

xole wrote:I think the game is designed for the large army sets. Dave mentioned that somewhere.

That's what I reckon... Just like Epic40k, the bigger the force the much cooler the game will be.

And like anything else comes down to "What is it worth to you" and "is that more then the asking price"

Have 5x40k armies, 3 warhammer armies and all editions since rogue trader, plus gods know how much other stuff. Gradually over the last few year the "fun per pound" has decreased for me so I've baught less and less new stuff.

I just shelled out £355 on DzC... not sure if its worth it, but willing to invest to give it a solid go. To me its worth it.... I'll let you know if my gamble pays off!

Orlanth wrote:Starters are like two squads a side intro games.

Yet again the starters themselves are intended as army boosters providing meat and potatoes units that players can and should have in volume.

I am seeing large army deals as a minimum game, even with the extra dynamic of dropships a large army deal is a small army by model count.

I'm really not seeing any evidence of that in the book itself, if anything I think 1500-1999pt Clashes will emerge as the dominant game size, just because of the way everything scales up at Battle size making everything quite unwieldy and powerful - I certainly wouldn't expect to see 3 Desolators in a "minimum" game, and that amount of infantry is not a pleasant prospect when it comes to working out sprawling CQB. Still, if your local group wants to play 3K battles as the norm, go right ahead. The fact the scenarios are designed to scale at each level makes things interesting at any scale of battle.

Doex the rulebook say anything about how to force org games over 3000pts? Is 3k a recommended hard cap for any reason?

Over 3K you break the army up into as few rosters possible of one of the existing sizes. It doesn't say they can be different sizes but there's nothing restricting it (just that the examples given are of smaller armies of the same size). so your 4000 point force is organised as two Battle Rosters, not 4 Clash rosters. The scenarios don't scale past Battle level though, so very large armies could find things a little too easy

OOOkay, just got back from gaming night where our first game happened.

First things first: we played the "Targets of Opportunity" scenario, in which there were 3 buildings along the centreline of the table all of which held an objective. A player who retrieved 2 objectives won. None of our battlegroups deployed on the table, we were all waiting to come via dropship (or crawl on slowly in the case of the Taranis).
The forces were:

PHR (Me):

1st Battle Pantheon
1 Ares Walker & 1 Phobos Walker (with md dropship)
1 Ares Walker % 1 Phobos Walker (with md dropship)

1st Immortal Phalanx
2 Immortal squads in Juno IFVs (with md dropship)

2nd Immortal Phalanx
1 Immortal squad In Triton A-1

1st Heavy Pantheon
1 Taranis squad

UCM

1st Armoured Formation
1 Sabre Squad (with md dropship)

1st Legionnaire Corps
2 Legionnaire squads in Bear APCs (with md dropship)

1st Special Ordinance Section
1 Gladius Squad (with md dropship)
1 Rapier Squad (with md dropship)

1st turn: Not much happened. All the dropships entered via friendly table edge, I sent my 2 Juno Infantry squads centrally between the central and right-hand buildings, my opponent made a play with all his Infantry towards my left hand building. I was going to send the Triton’s squad there, but realised they’d be outnumbered heavily so decided to reinforce my centre (and hope to get 2 objectives to his 1).

2nd turn: Folly! I’d placed one of my walker squads on an elevated roadway to cover the entire middle of the board. Unfortunately, the articulated railguns on the UCM sabres popped up high enough to deny me any cover and they blasted the Phobos to pieces. This meant I had no AA cover in the middle of the board. Fortunately in this turn I was able to get all my infantry into the central and right-most buildings. My opponent’s Rapiers had now deployed fairly centrally though, and was covering a good deal of the central area.

3rd turn: The Rapiers went first and destroyed the Triton, stranding half of the Immortals in the central structure. If this wasn’t bad enough, the Gladiuses finally rolled round from where they had been dropped and destroyed the Juno the other half of the Immortals had arrived in. This meant I had 4 squads centrally looking for the objective, but no way to get them out of there! My other walker squad had now deployed and was repelling an infantry assault from my left, but I failed to consider the articulated turrets of the Sabres yet again and they started pouring fire into my rear from their position behind a crater. With the Gladiuses about to gain a bead on them, they wouldn’t last long…

Fortune struck as I was able to play the “Call for Extraction” card. This basically replaces a destroyed transport, and I gave it to the Immortals who had found the objective in the central building. A new Triton zoomed onto the battlefield, staying “close to the deck” to avoid AA fire.

4th turn: The objective carrying Immortals bundled out of the building and into the new Triton, which shot off towards a friendly board edge. The UCM forces continued their advance forward, the Rapiers blowing my medium dropships out of the sky. The Gladiuses took out the last two PHR walkers, and the UCM forces had retrieved the objective from my left-hand building. Overall, things were looking grim as I had had to pretty much concede the centre of the battlefield, and yet I still had the advantage...

It was now boiling down to the PHR squad in the right hand building. Having spent a turn already searching, they had a slightly easier roll this time and were able to find the objective. They immediately fled the building into their Juno (which had hidden for 3 turns from the UCM Sabres near it) and my last medium dropship came and picked it up. I now had 2 dropships with objectives a single move from safety, but my opponent’s Rapiers would get to shoot at at least one of them before they got the chance to get away, and if I lost Initiative he'd get a crack at both!

5th turn: Obviously, I lost Initiative and my opponent was able to move his Rapiers to take 2 shots at the Neptune and a single shot at the Triton. He only had to destroy one to put the game back into the balance, and if he nailed both (a strong possibility) then there was no way I could pull it back, with all my other forces destroyed save my Taranis battery.

He rolled on the Neptune first… 2 damage points! Not enough by 1, and with no other AA covering it had to concede that objective was coming my way.

I was worried about the Triton though, as it only has 1 damage point. He had 3 dice, needing 3s to hit and 4s to take it out, but only managed to hit once, and failed to damage it! In my next activations I got all my dropships out of there, winning the game (though leaving a lot of wrecked metal behind)!

Nice. I cant wait to begin playing.

How long did it take you to run this game?

Sounds like it was a blast, Riquende! Congrats on winning your opening match

Is it still too early to demand our own sub-forum?

Nice report Riquende. I should be getting my first game on Monday. It will be just a starter army vs starter army game, so there will be quite a large points discrepancy. However I think for learning the rules it should do the job.

Initial thoughts on the game/system

UCM armour (as in the armour that their armoured vehicles have). Wow. Even their lighter tanks and AA batteries are armour 10. In practical terms this is huge. For a while I was considering taking on the Sabres with my Juno IFVs until I realised that with an Energy 8 main gun it couldn't actually hurt them. I don't know how you'd go about clearing away a UCM AA 'nest' without bringing ridiculous amounts of ground-based firepower.

Dropships. Mid game we were both using our dropships as makeshift gunships to try and do a bit more damage to things, but you do need to keep an eye on the fact you may need to get off the board quickly. I was lucky in my last turn not to have moved my Infantry's dropship too far away pursuing missile targets.

Terrain. We'd rustled up a lot of buildings (a complete set of the old Epic stuff and a few small box-based buildings; supplemented by some 28mm-scale craters and hills), and Lines of Sight were suitably blocked. However they were all too short really, and when the UCM AA tanks got into the middle of the board they had pretty much unrestricted field of fire to shoot at whatever I had in the sky. I haven't checked out Hawk's paper buildings yet, but I hope some of them are 6" tall at least to allow fliers some respite from AA that gets to a central position.

PHR Walker squads. I tried to be tactical and split my walkers into having some AA and some Anti-tank in each squad. I'm not convinced it was a good idea though, when the Sabres activated I had to suffer 3 railgun shots coming in, and when the Gladiuses activated I had to endure 4. Meanwhile I only ever had a single railgun to fire back with in any squad's activation.

The cards. Given we weren't using command vehicles, and using the most basic commander level, we didn't get a lot of use out of these (most cards effect something in your Sphere of Influence, which for us was just 4.5" and with no other commanders or scouts to use as relays). However I was able to essentially win the game off playing "Call for Extraction" which replaced my destroyed Triton for free, as without it there was no way that squad was getting out of there. My opponent also played a card at tis point "Espionage", which would have cancelled my free Triton, but I had an "Espionage" card of my own and cancelled that!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orlanth wrote:Nice. I cant wait to begin playing.

How long did it take you to run this game?

2 hours I think... maybe 2 and a half. Obviously we were suffering from "flick through the rulebook continuously" syndrome so hopefully that'll start coming down in subsequent games, although I'm sure when we bring in Fast Movers and CQBs we'll stretch it out again!

Riquende:

Thanks for the awesome write-up on your battle! Since I am going PHR too, I realy appritiated to get a fellow PHR:ers' view on the first games.


But there must be others who have recieved their stuff and gotten a couple of games played?! REPORTS people! Please?

Armour 10 is as high as it is supposed to get. I don't like it that Hawk decided to cap out on armour with basic units, it means that to bring out big stuff like mega-tanks/titans/battlemechs or even a more ordinary siege tank equivalents you have to rewrite and expand the core system.

Not really, between Damage Points, Passive CM and special rules (which you would expect such mega-tanks to have) you can have pretty mega units within the core rules. The armour cap of 10 is mainly to ensure you don't encounter a situation where vast amounts of enemy fire have no chance whatsoever of hurting it

Armour 10 itself is pretty damn tough - you need something MBT-grade to crack it (barring specialist anti-armour weapons or special rules), it can only ever take one damage point per attack (except from a Scimitar) and can basically ignore anything else. An Armour 10, 6+DP vehicle with any kind of passive CM is going to be massive and dominate a battlefield, but it's not going to be unstoppable.

Really, don't you think you should read the core system before declaring that "you have to rewrite" it to represent something?

Been experimenting with scenery.

I have some old plastic signs which I use for stuff, cut and shapped into a box then stuck printed buildings onto... I think it works quite well! About 30 minutes per building and zero cost!

Druidic:


Great work! I had simular plans, but how did you get exact sizes for the box? Pro-cutting board and stuff or just got an eye for getting it right?

I mentioned earlier in the thread that I recieved the wrong foam with my premium starter army. Well I got a response to my email this morning. Not only are they sending me some replacement foam, they're also letting me keep the incorrect foam rather than having to return it.

Top notch customer service there.

Sikil, just measured the print outs, took thickness of the board off one end and roof and marked and cut. its quite a thick board I'm using, 3 mm but was not tricky really. the key is to picture how you will assemble the box and make the outside dimensions fit and go from there. went really well first time. want to pick up some spray mount however, the glue I'm using sucks, but cost nothing so not worried. I'm an engineer and an estimator so I may be over simplifying something which came natural!

Druidic wrote:Been experimenting with scenery.

I have some old plastic signs which I use for stuff, cut and shapped into a box then stuck printed buildings onto... I think it works quite well! About 30 minutes per building and zero cost!

Looks excellent! What are the dimensions of that?

RE: the armour. Just a quick look at the "battle line" stuff of each faction, the range of armours is as follows:

Scourge: 8 (8 is the highest of any Scourge armour, heavy tanks have 2 damage points. No passive countermeasures)

Shaltari: 7-9 (all the grav tanks are 7, the warstriders are 9. Damage points run from 1-4. Obviously all have passive countermeasures to deflect any attack on a 5+)

PHR: 9-10 (the regular walkers are 9, heavy walkers are 10 and have 5+ passive countermeasures, all have 2 damage points)

UCM: 10 (no passives, the heavy tank designs have 2 damage points each)

The issue is with the range of weapons that can target units of varying armour - lower armour vehicles with passive countermeasures & multiple damage points can still go down to sustained fire from Energy7 or 8 weaponry (which is plentiful) but those same weapons simply cannot touch a bog standard UCM Sabre with its armour of 10, despite it having no shielding or multiple damage points, it's totally safe. A UCM force I think will need a more specific list to counter it, featuring far more railguns, heavy lasers etc.

5x2 residential.

85mm tall x 180mm x 72mm.

So I cut 2x177x82, 2x69x82 and a roof 180x72.

Druidic, if you make more, can you post the dimensions used?

Nick, that's awesome!

Riquende, thanks for the analysis. I'm glad UCM are tough... Looks like my Scourge are scary but fragile.

The Hawk site down load gives you the basic dimensions.

Residential floors 17mm, commercial 21mm with segments being 36mm wide for all.

So 3x2 108mmx72mm.

Also makes it clear these dimensions match the card and resin they will be making!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
General I'm very impressed with the print outs, the roofs have been designed to match up with the buildings, which I had not noticed so I got this first one wrong, as cheap chuck together scenery however works really well!

Charax wrote:
Really, don't you think you should read the core system before declaring that "you have to rewrite" it to represent something?

Basic games design 101, if basic units have top tier anything then you cannot upgrade that particular stat. There are ways around, but no way to actually indicate improved armour beyond that point. So a 'titan' can have more hull but cannot have a thicker hull or better hull materials. Furthermore the Sabre is written up as being lightweight, fair enough, but it means if you want to go the other way and replicate superdense materials in game you cannot easily do so.

Orlanth wrote:

Charax wrote:
Really, don't you think you should read the core system before declaring that "you have to rewrite" it to represent something?

Basic games design 101, if basic units have top tier anything then you cannot upgrade that particular stat. There are ways around, but no way to actually indicate improved armour beyond that point. So a 'titan' can have more hull but cannot have a thicker hull or better hull materials. Furthermore the Sabre is written up as being lightweight, fair enough, but it means if you want to go the other way and replicate superdense materials in game you cannot easily do so.

Perhaps not all games designers have power creep as part of their design. Why would there be a need for a 'super unit'? Why cant we just have expansions with different units which are not necessarily super.

We might, but armour 10 implies something, the 'best' armour.

UCM tanks are written up as being made of lightweight composites.

This begs the question of what happens when you apply the same manufacturing tech to denser materials.

Your question necessitates that it is even possible to apply the manufacturing techniques to denser materials. It is not always possible to retool your manufacturing to deal with different source materials.

We are dealing with a game here, where you push toy soldiers around on a table. I wouldn't try to get too technical about it.

since you're fond of 40K comparisons:

AV is capped at 14. Land raiders have AV14, so how do you represent something with thicker or more improved armour than a Land Raider? it must be impossible! there's no way you could represent something like a Titan in 40K

No, wait, it isn't, because armour and AV arent the only methods by which the game system/s account for a unit's armour or resilience, they also include uncapped Hull/Damage/Structure points

Orlanth wrote:We might, but armour 10 implies something, the 'best' armour.

UCM tanks are written up as being made of lightweight composites.

This begs the question of what happens when you apply the same manufacturing tech to denser materials.

It becomes too heavy to be dropped by Dropship?

Or it becomes too unstable to handle vibrations from airlifting and groundtravel? It cracks under its own weight and preassure when vibrations from usage is factored in.

Charax wrote:since you're fond of 40K comparisons:

AV is capped at 14. Land raiders have AV14, so how do you represent something with thicker or more improved armour than a Land Raider? it must be impossible! there's no way you could represent something like a Titan in 40K

.....and 40K is badly designed for this reason. They capped out early by including S9 and 10 for early man portable weapons. Either that or not extending S and T to 15. The eventual brainfart solution we get is strength D weaponry.

Charax wrote:
No, wait, it isn't, because armour and AV arent the only methods by which the game system/s account for a unit's armour or resilience, they also include uncapped Hull/Damage/Structure points

Again bad design on GW's part as they ought to have used armour beyond 14 to represent armour beyond 14 and other rules to represent other factors. Structure points come from size, not armour. Hawk understands this. A Gladius is bigger thus it has 2Hp. Make a new tank of the same size with new improved armour they you are having to fudge the game mechanic because what you need is armour 11 when what you have got is 3Hp, wheras 3Hp properly indicates an even bigger tank of similar materials.

Sikil wrote:

Orlanth wrote:We might, but armour 10 implies something, the 'best' armour.

UCM tanks are written up as being made of lightweight composites.

This begs the question of what happens when you apply the same manufacturing tech to denser materials.

It becomes too heavy to be dropped by Dropship?

Or it becomes too unstable to handle vibrations from airlifting and groundtravel? It cracks under its own weight and preassure when vibrations from usage is factored in.

I am alrrady with you on this, it is to be expected. Say heavy compositie armoured units are transported two or three per Albatross, maybe they are defense only or even installations.

Take UCM composite technology, plus dense materials plus mobile bunker equals titan equivalent?

So whats to stop the table being expanded? Its currently capped at 10 as the max for the current available vehicles, lets say in a year he releases some sort of uber tank, it will have its own uber stats and an errata for uber toughness 11-12 armour...

Apocalypse DzC anyone? :-)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and uber weapons at higher stength obviously

Druidic wrote:So whats to stop the table being expanded? Its currently capped at 10 as the max for the current available vehicles, lets say in a year he releases some sort of uber tank, it will have its own uber stats and an errata for uber toughness 11-12 armour...

Apocalypse DzC anyone? :-)

I hope it is. I hope Hawk learns from GW's mistake.

it appears they might as 'Strength' already breaks the round number cap and the armour factor only goes to 10 because that is as high as it currently goes.

GW on the other hand couldn't make S11 or S12 guns because they had painted themselves into a corner with their games design doctrine.

In fairness HP is also how they represented the Colossals in Warmachine and Gargantuans in Hordes. Even though it was said they're the best armor in the land, their armor stats aren't obscenely high.

Armor 11 is possible from what I can tell but that is where it'd max out. Also, heavier armor isn't necessarily better. What matters is how the armor is applied and what it is made up of. There is a lot to take into account before adding in more armor as well. Since this is a game about mobility from what I can tell, heavier armor might be to big of a trade off.

I would say some exotics could have Armor 11. All this means is that you have to dedicate the heavy fire (such as rails which IIRC is 9 or 10) to destroy it. Light fire wouldn't be able to bring it down, and I think that measures heavy armor more than anything.

Rat wrote:Your question necessitates that it is even possible to apply the manufacturing techniques to denser materials. It is not always possible to retool your manufacturing to deal with different source materials.

We are dealing with a game here, where you push toy soldiers around on a table. I wouldn't try to get too technical about it.

Yes I think so too... let's see how it plays out. If Hawk Wargames doesn't have the concern of trying to 'codex creep' with each new release (and to be fair, it's mostly GW that has done this in the past, rather than the smaller game producers) then as long as it turns out to be balanced I'm not too bothered about the technical specifics as long as the suspension of disbelief isn't stretched too far.

Orlanth wrote:

Druidic wrote:So whats to stop the table being expanded? Its currently capped at 10 as the max for the current available vehicles, lets say in a year he releases some sort of uber tank, it will have its own uber stats and an errata for uber toughness 11-12 armour...

Apocalypse DzC anyone? :-)

I hope it is. I hope Hawk learns from GW's mistake.

it appears they might as 'Strength' already breaks the round number cap and the armour factor only goes to 10 because that is as high as it currently goes.

GW on the other hand couldn't make S11 or S12 guns because they had painted themselves into a corner with their games design doctrine.

There is no need to ever go beyond 10 in armor. To represent heavier armor you could just ad a -1, -2 and so on to the strength of the incoming attack to represent the armor absorbing the impact/heat wathever.
You dont need to errata anything or fiddle with anything.

Got my box in Maryland this morning!!

Unfortunately, missing 2 bits and 1 ship. I have emailed them and hope like Nick posted that they'll be sent out promptly.

Can't believe I didn't order the rulebook direct, doh!

RiTides wrote:Got my box in Maryland this morning!!

Unfortunately, missing 2 bits and 1 ship. I have emailed them and hope like Nick posted that they'll be sent out promptly.

Can't believe I didn't order the rulebook direct, doh!

Did you receive one of the "phone number" emails for customs, by chance?

Yes, I and all my friends who ordered direct did, I believe. No call, though, I think the number was just-in-case.

Haven't heard back from Hawk yet but will update when I do. Hoping it won't be after the weekend.

RiTides wrote:Yes, I and all my friends who ordered direct did, I believe. No call, though, I think the number was just-in-case.

Haven't heard back from Hawk yet but will update when I do. Hoping it won't be after the weekend.

Excellent. Gives me hope that my package will be waiting for me when I leave work. Huzzah!

You might be in the next zone, since I'm in an east coast state. Best of luck tho

I ordered my rule book today!

can't wait!

Some more buildings done

Just messed the last one up so stopping now!

enjoy!

They look great!!

My friend didn't get his order today, and obviously we're in the same state. Hopefully tomorrow/Mon

Ordered 2 large army and rules yesterday, 2 week wait I fear!

Bubbalicious wrote:There is no need to ever go beyond 10 in armor. To represent heavier armor you could just ad a -1, -2 and so on to the strength of the incoming attack to represent the armor absorbing the impact/heat wathever.
You dont need to errata anything or fiddle with anything.

He could, but that would be gak writing. You should never write two rules when one would suffice.

I'll be honest I want to invest but with no Idea of Points costs, average army sizes in points, and the unit platoon sizes I have no idea how to make an objective analysis of the different Army Sets from them Directly.

It's like FOW, if you buy a whole Company it rarely is exactly what you need to make the whole list and you need to buy odds and sods to round it out. It's these Odds and Sods buy's that drive the overall cost up and wipe out any saving.

I'm going to wait a few months and see who is still playing, in 2 months time and see if I can borrow a rule book.

Hopefully someone will come up with Battle Scribe or Army Builder files before then, even

Got mine in today. Impressed in some instances but disappointed in others. The pieces that are cast well are cast beautifully. Sadly, the few that I have that are cast poorly have some serious issues.

There is some pitting on quite a few models (similar to Finecast) but most aren't a big deal. The biggest issue has come with the spruce shoots. The models must be hollow, as on 4 or 5 of my models when I cut off the spruce shoot. It left a rather deep hole. One of my Zeus walkers has some really big and deep gaps in the back, further substantiating my thoughts that the models are hollow.

I did have two broken pieces when they were shipped as well as missing one of the plastic tabs that fits the acrylic flight stands, and frustratingly, the show piece, my large drop ship has some bad bubbling near the cockpit which is going to be really hard to fix.

With all that being said, I'm really impressed with the launch. The command cards are really nice and save for the minor problems affecting 4 models listed above, all the other pieces look great. Well see how the customer service goes from here, but I'm looking forward to painting these things up.

Some recommendations:
1. Use your hobby knife more than your clippers when cutting the sprues. I found the holes happened more often when I used my clippers to cut them off than with my knife.
2. Dry fit everything. Hawk wasn't kidding when they said the resin takes super glue well. It dries very quickly.

RiTides wrote:Hopefully someone will come up with Battle Scribe or Army Builder files before then, even

Scourge file's done, just sending it off to a friend to get all the validation added (I really do suck at that bit)

Next up...PHR seems to be quite popular?

Tada, first Neptune done

Very nice, hopefully I can blast it out of the sky on Monday.

Now now play nicely you two, looks good mark im swaying into buying but still wanna see how it all plays first!

Thanks Nick, but not before it offloads its cargo already eyeing up expansions to the force, very much want to get into Battle size games.

Gorillawizard wrote:

Tada, first Neptune done

Just a thought.
I dont like the block metal colour of parts of the superstructure, I would have painted the nose and engine cowling red or white or both. The piping and the fans work well as metal.

nice work, very different from the PHR schemes in the book.

You adding magnets to it?

Gorillawizard wrote:Thanks Nick, but not before it offloads its cargo already eyeing up expansions to the force, very much want to get into Battle size games.

I'm thinking about expansions too, I want a bit of everything really.

EDIT: started building some terrain, only got access to 200gsm card and some basic glue but the printable buildings go together really nicely.



Look pretty good too.

Awesome Neptune, Gorillawizard! Orlanth does make a nice suggestion to try, too.

Nick, did Hawk mail your replacement case yet? Building looks great!

Charax, can't wait for the battle scribe Scourge file

Not recieved anything yet. Got a big pile of printouts to build now. Including the enormous 3x3 tall commercial, that thing is 9 1/2" tall.

I'm 8 buildings down and counting, plus a trip to a local train model shop opened my eyes to thw N gauge world, I have plans for a municiple park surrounded by railings with hedges, trees and fountains surrounded by highrises and brown stones like a mini central park! I think I already have more better looking and cheaper terrain for DzC then for 40k! The print out building work great and the solid plastic core makes them absolutly solid!

OK. I promised earlier that I had a source of cheap buildings to show you and was going to write an article. The article is not done yet, but I have received an order of the stuff I was after and can confirm its quality as well as its price.

The companies and ranges I am going to recommend are both Japanese, one is called Tomix the other Greenmax. Unlike other N scale Japanese railway kits these are at a decent price. Tomix, also known as Tomytec deals with cheaper pre-constructed buildings, example here:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2035/3540571876_3633e89b7f.jpg?v=0

The building above is large, in scale and above all potentially very cheap.

Greenmax, which is the real prize deals entirely with plastic kit buildings. Their range is superb, and even cheaper. The plastic kits are the quality of what you would expect from a plastic model kit company and have sprues laden with bits.


http://www.greenmax.co.jp/Catalog/GMstract_2.shtml

Here is a link to the relevant page of the companies online catalogue. Now here is the problem, they only deal to Japanese toy shops and don't deal direct. So access is going to be difficult, thanks to Miguelsan for some research into this.. Two eBay webstore frequently get supply, neither have an off eBay presence (I asked). Search both under the words Tomix N gauge structure or Greenmax n gauge structure

ebay store: Hit-Japan
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Hit-Japan-Video-Games-and-Anime

eBay store: Plaza Japan
http://myworld.ebay.com/plazajapan/


One could try this website that deals inside Japan
http://www.1999.co.jp/

Buying in the UK is difficult as the one or two sites selling include a HUGE markup. I am resorting to eBay shop Plaza Japan for now, it is not expensive, but stock levels are fluid. Much is missing.

Yanks have it easier
http://www.bttrains.com/categories/Japanese-Prototypes/Structures/

BTTrains is reasonably cheap as are Lees Trains

http://www.leestrains.com/N%20Bldg%20Accessories.htm

For those in the US I recommend BT trains or Lees Trains as a source, here is the relevant page for Greenmax items. Take especially note of items 34, 44, 46-4, 46-6 and 46-7. All of which are cheap have as many of six buildings in the set that are assembleable many aways and can be kitbashed for spares. There are numerous kitbashing threads for Greenmax model kits, mostly involving making skyscrapers out of them. We wont need stuff that tall but could certainly use the versatility.

As a bonus most of these kits are flat roofed or can be modeled with removable roofs. This mans that with a little simple interior detailing (mostly just a top floor made of plasticard one can stand miniatures on or in them. as they are Japanese kits you can make them more futuresque for the most part. An exception being the factory I will review below, which pays back with its limitless versatility.



I bought a copy of this and it arrived today. images from net:


This little picture above fails to convery the awesomeness of this kit below.


This factory is BIG and stupid cheap. I paid less than £15 for it, and that was after translating the price from Yen to £ through Paypal.

Only buy the factory itself, model numberr 37. It includes all the other elements of the set, the factory, pipe farm extra bits and chimneys. I will however be using 37-x subkits to show you what is on the sprues.


Here is the chimney stack and bitz set. One of the chimneys is begging to be converted into an oil derrick objective (a way of having an out of the way, place anywhere objective which is small and a logical focal point for capture). The main chimney is not only awesome to place beside the main factory, it can kitbash into a fantastic looking cannon barrel for a Baneblade or an artillery installation.


Now this is a copy of 37 Set A. Now unlike the other sets where what you see you get in the main 37 set, you only get one sprue, exactly haldf of what you see below. So the shack is reduced to just a lean to to add to the factory. You do therefore gets plenty of industrial bitz, plastic building toppers, vats and barrels and an I beam loading rig.



The set includes this pipefarm:



I really like the pipefarm its gamer terrain gold.


I held off my review of Greenmax stuff until I saw it for myself. I bought the factory as a starter and its every bit as impressive as I hoped it would be. I \m going to buy a whole lot more Greenmax kits especially:

34 Houses (6)


44 Apartment blocks (2)


I am reading so much on how both or those kits are kitbasher gold. Cheap numerous and stackable. Kit 44 especially can be assembled as large tower blocks real easy. More thasn enough to cover 6" height buildings with roof space to place stands of infantry. Not only are they big but you get multiple models in the set, score.

46-4, 46-6 and 46-7




46-6 and 46-7 are different kits but have the same instructions.

Very Japanese, but also with a little work quite futuristic.


Think about stacking these kits high or wide as you might a GW bastion. So by omitting internal dividers a two unit kit can be either joined together or doubled up and built twice as wide and deep with the same walls. As the buildings are sold in pairs or sets of four you can do this from a single kit. You can easily make up flat rooved high rise buildings for objectives with this, many kits include extra base elements so you can convert those into extra roofs to allow for the doubling up. the kits also include a large choice in roof edging and toppers so you will have more than enough stuff to trim the roof edges, provide ventilation units etc and still have room for stands of infantry.

I will leave you to search the rest for yourself.
There is too much there to show here. I will be producing an article including kitbashing guides (mostly taken from model railways sites), my own kitbashing attempts as they progress and a sourcing guide. 10mm gaming is going tom be big thanks to Dropzone Commander and while Hawk Wargames are doing a fine job in providing accessibility for structure I know we can take it to a whole new level with Greenmax and Tomix kits.

I will end here with a Tomix 'skyscraper' that is 25cm tall and pre-assembled prepainted as seen here yet selling for only £17 if you look carefully.




If like me you liked the container range from AT-43 as decent non nonsense plausible LOS blockers you might be happy to note that Tomix can provide a container park for you at a fairly reasonable price if you look carefully. When searching make sure you get plastic kits not cardboard cut outs, the difference in quality is enormous.

For example
http://www.newhallstation.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=548
Mentioned for the picture links, you can shave half that price off by shopping around elsewhere.



All told even with the discounts it is easy to sink a lot of money into 10mm scale terrain,m but it is also possible to buy a lot of diverse and quality terrain items to fight your battles in around or over.

Enjoy

ah, so that's what it looks like when you're enthusiastic about something, I was beginning to wonder

Great review, I'd never have thought of importing terrain from japan as being a viable source of relatively inexpensive terrain, but you're right that the greenmax stuff looks like a treasure trove of bits - combines with the downloadable buildings and perhaps a few smatterings of Hawk's resin range you could end up with a very diverse, vibrant and, most importantly, full cityscape for a £50-100 or less

Charax wrote:ah, so that's what it looks like when you're enthusiastic about something, I was beginning to wonder

Great review, I'd never have thought of importing terrain from japan as being a viable source of relatively inexpensive terrain, but you're right that the greenmax stuff looks like a treasure trove of bits - combines with the downloadable buildings and perhaps a few smatterings of Hawk's resin range you could end up with a very diverse, vibrant and, most importantly, full cityscape for a £50-100 or less

I am not sure about £50, £100 maybe. The thing is this stuff is more-ish, I have been looking at model railway sites and there is a temptation to turn many of the kits you see above into an on table Manhattan. Just to give you some idea:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55063726@N00/3143888524/
http://jmtn.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/new-greenmax-city-building-kits/#more-611
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=804510

We wont be doing that, its against out interests to fill tables with tower blocks, but we will want LOS blockers, objectives some terrain over 6" tall. Don't deceive yourself the cost may well mount up, but I think it will be worth it.

Driopzone Commander is a wow game that deserve a wow battlefield. I have lit the path for you to have one. and yes Hawk resin kits will feature a part of that. However with the prices of Greenmax and Tomix it may take a minor role.

Gorillawizard wrote:

Tada, first Neptune done

It would be cool to see a 28mm model next to it for scale..

ChocolateGork, welcome back to your thread

Orlanth, cool finds on the buildings! For now I am going all printout with money going to models, but it's a great resource.

ChocolateGork wrote:It would be cool to see a 28mm model next to it for scale..

I can't provide any photos of a 28mm scale model next to a dropship but I have taken a comparison photo showing just how big a GW Space Marine is compared to UCM Bear and Sabre models, just click the link in my sig.

Just one warning to everyone painting infantry is really really fiddly. Still a few colours and a simple wash and they look more than good enough for the table top.

EDIT: I can vouch for both of the ebay stores Orlanth linked to, I've bought stuff from both of them quite frequently in the past. I used to build model railways and frequently imported stuff from Japan since it's so much cheaper than going to a UK retailer. Although why Hit Japan sells model railway stuff I've never been able to figure out, I've only bought old Saturn and PC Engine games from him.

Now I have seen the factory I have a second follow up order from Plaza Japan for two more buildings, the Tomix condominium linked to and a Greenmax office block, kit number 29.

c£15

c£13

Those containers are nice, working on a jap-side contact to secure a few to sample...

I may have to go dig this up to play with the Japanese scenery:

Why, just why, did I completely fail to account for that.

I have turned into oner of the cliche town planners from the films who thought of every possible disaster except kaiju.

nice senery

quick question: a scourge minder swarm what catagory are they in?

As per FAQ minder swarms are in Scout category.

thanks

Orlanth wrote:Why, just why, did I completely fail to account for that.

I have turned into oner of the cliche town planners from the films who thought of every possible disaster except kaiju.

To be fair it is somewhat difficult to plan for kaiju attacks unless being prepared to evacuate the city at a moments notice counts as a plan.

Huge package arrived from Hawk friday, and I must say that I am mightly impressed by the sculpts!

Updated my blog on the subject of 10mm terrain as the package inspired me to start building/planning the battlefield. Linky: http://sikilsworld.blogspot.se/2012/07/10mm-container-freight-harbour.html

Joyfull times ahead!

ok, regarding the Battlescribe files, would people prefer they're released as-is, one at a time or I do a release with all the armies?

Charax wrote:ok, regarding the Battlescribe files, would people prefer they're released as-is, one at a time or I do a release with all the armies?

I am fine with 'as is', dont know about everyone else.

As is is fine by me too.

Thank you so much for the terrain links, that stuff is excellent. o.O

I am actually starting to get excited again. Can´t wait to get my book in the coming days to see how well the game will work for me and thus which faction(s) to get.Luckily, a friend bought the PHR and Scourge starters, so we´ll be able to play in any case.

Here ya go: Battlescribe repository for DzC

Only Scourge at the moment, it'll be a template for the others. And yeah, it's a mess - the choice was between a nice clean file and no validation, or decent-ish validation and lots of unit duplication

PM bugs to me

Now to work on the others, should take a couple of days to do each army, but don't hold me to that

Just downloaded, seems cool! Thanks for doing this

I am not sure about bugs as I've never used BattleScribe before. Will PM you a few things in just a moment

My mega army deal has been "undergoing customs clearance" since Thursday. I can just imagine some government worker looking at the pieces of a Shaltari dropship, trying to figure out what it is.

Dave replied to me personally last night and they are going to ship out what was missing to me

Charax wrote:Here ya go: Battlescribe repository for DzC

Only Scourge at the moment, it'll be a template for the others. And yeah, it's a mess - the choice was between a nice clean file and no validation, or decent-ish validation and lots of unit duplication

PM bugs to me

Now to work on the others, should take a couple of days to do each army, but don't hold me to that

Can you explain how to get the info to load.

Please assume I am not fluent in gobbledigook while doing so.

1. Download and install Battlescribe

2. Run the Battlescribe Roster Editor

3. There should be a popup that says "Add data repositories". Click on that, copy the link from my post and paste it into the "Repository URL" box there.
3a. press "Add"
3b. press "Update Data"

there you go, should be all done. Now when you choose "New Roster" you should have the option of making a Dropzone Commander Scourge army.

1. Did thet yesterday.

2. I even downloaded some rosters, so long as they were in a format I could 'use'.

3. Here is the gobbledigook:

<dataIndex battleScribeVersion="1.12b" name="Dropzone Commander" xmlns="http://www.battlescribe.net/schema/dataIndexSchema">
<dataIndexEntries>
<dataIndexEntry filePath="/Dropzone Commander.gst.zip" dataType="gamesystem" dataId="375d1690-401a-4598-ab1e-3a244dcd356a" dataName="Dropzone Commander" dataBattleScribeVersion="1.12b" dataRevision="3"/>
<dataIndexEntry filePath="/Scourge.cat.zip" dataType="catalogue" dataId="e754a3eb-3ea1-ad5e-935d-1b433fd6802a" dataName="Scourge" dataBattleScribeVersion="1.12b" dataRevision="3"/>
</dataIndexEntries>
</dataIndex>

I has already tried to add and upload http://www.battlescribe.net/schema/dataIndexSchema which is the only address I could find in the above mess.


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Ok, worked it out.

Normally when you click a link to data the stuff inside is what you want.

No wonder I was confused.

You're clicking on the link, rather than copying the address

put " http://www.specialist-games.co.uk/dzc/index.xml " (no quotes) into the Repository URL box

I tried it this morning and it worked great!

I am pondering roster stuff and just want to make sure I understand the chart correctly. If Heavy is limited to 1-2 in my battlegroup, and I put 4 Slayers and 2 Tormentors in a Despoiler, I have used both slots, right? But if I put in 6 Slayers, no Tormentors, I've only used 1 slot?

Going to use the heck out of the battlescribe file and post some fun lists tonight/tomorrow. Thanks for doing it, Charax!

yep, the Slayers are one choice, the Tormentors are another choice and the Despoiler is a transport option that opens up if the battlegroup has a total of 6 of them to transport

So many possibilities!

@Charax
i just made an Skirmish Rooster with your file and the point cost of my Scourge Oppressor Battlegroup was not calculated correct .Your file has no pointcost for the intruder Beta in this Squad.

I did ask for bugs to be PM'd to me.

Anyway, Intruder Beta points added, revision uploaded

sorry did not see

I will do more bug checking once home

No matter what I do, I can't seem to get it to say the roster is "valid". I also couldn't figure out how to see what it thought was invalid, but it showed the list when I saved the roster.


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Here's my first go at a no-marauder list, with 5 Despoilers and lots of heavy tanks. I put 4 Tormentors and only 2 Slayers in one, hopefully that's legal! I also manually edited the text below to show the Intruder Beta for the 4 Minders, since it didn't show up in Battle Scribe.

Two things: 1) I decided keeping all the points on there is fine for now, since I think Hawk will want the publicity. If that turns out not to be the case, I'll edit this... 2) I can't seem to get the list to spoiler tag to hide it, unfortunately, so here it is!

+++ Despoiler Demo (2994pts) +++ +++ 3000pt Scourge Roster (Battle (2000+)) +++ Selections: + Battlegroups + (2994pts) * Battle Battlegroups (376pts) * Scourge Warrior Cabal (376pts) 4x Intruder Alpha (160pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Battle Battlegroups (399pts) * Scourge Vanguard Battlegroup (399pts) * Hunter MGT Squadron (282pts) Despoiler Heavy Dropship (72pts), 6x Hunter (210pts) * Reaper AAGT Squadron (117pts) 3x Reaper AAGT (117pts) * Battle Battlegroups (399pts) * Scourge Vanguard Battlegroup (399pts) * Hunter MGT Squadron (282pts) Despoiler Heavy Dropship (72pts), 6x Hunter (210pts) * Reaper AAGT Squadron (117pts) 3x Reaper AAGT (117pts) * Battle Battlegroups (864pts) * Scourge Invasion Host (864pts) * Slayer HGT Squadron (432pts) Despoiler Heavy Dropship (72pts), Slayer (54pts), Slayer (54pts), Slayer (54pts), Slayer (54pts), Slayer (54pts) * Slayer (90pts) Sinister Cargo (36pts) * Slayer HGT Squadron (432pts) Despoiler Heavy Dropship (72pts), Slayer (54pts), Slayer (54pts), Slayer (54pts), Slayer (54pts), Slayer (54pts) * Slayer (90pts) Sinister Cargo (36pts) * Battle Battlegroups (432pts) * Scourge Invasion Host (432pts) * Slayer HGT Squadron (180pts) Despoiler Heavy Dropship (72pts), Slayer (54pts), Slayer (54pts) * Tormentor HGT Squadron (252pts) Tormentor (54pts), Tormentor (54pts), Tormentor (54pts) * Tormentor (90pts) Sinister Cargo (36pts) * Battle Battlegroups (200pts) * Scourge Oppressor Battlegroup (200pts) Desolator (140pts) * Minder Swarm (60pts) Intruder Beta (24pts), 4x Minder (36pts) * Battle Battlegroups (204pts) * Scourge Attack Swarm (204pts) * Corsair Squadron (204pts) 3x Corsair (204pts) * Scourge Commanders (120pts) Scourge Overlord (120pts)

Looks like the Battlescride files work then, I must admit since I've not looked at the Scourge army list in the book yet I don't know what's wrong or not with the roster file but from a functional aspect everything seems to work ok.

Got my first game last night, I have to say I do like the ruleset everything works really nicely even the CQB rules were easy to work out.

Is there a community forming for DzC anywhere yet or are we basically it?

Also I'm releasing 1-2 patches a day, so most bugs should get squashed relatively quickly unless there's a good structural reason not to

A word of WARNING to eager Scourge and UCM players making lists here.

Please remember that unless you magnetise your medium and heavy dropships are configured as specifically large or medium vehicle carriers.

I wouldn't want to dream up a list using my Condors and implement it only to find that I would have been better mounting a different ratio of loading brackets. I think with the multiple lists we are seeing it is something easy to overlook. Yes one doesnt need to physically mount the vehicles, but I would argue that unless you 'counts as' a dropship configured for a different bracket type will only be able to lift certain units.

Not sure if anyone has spotted Errata 1.3 on Hawk's website yet. Spotted the following 2 additions.

Page 95: Corsair's Plasma Cannon should have the AA special rule
Page 99: Desolator's weapons should both have the ALT-1 special rule

@RiTides

Battle Battlegroups (288pts)
* Scourge Occupation Patrol (288pts)
* Prowler Pack (96pts)
Intruder Beta (24pts), 8x Prowler (72pts)
* Prowler Pack (96pts)
Intruder Beta (24pts), 8x Prowler (72pts)
* Prowler Pack (96pts)
Intruder Beta (24pts), 8x Prowler (72pts)

U have not enough Intruder Beta to transport the Prowlers.U need 6 Intruder not 3. Minder Swarm without Transport realy ?They only Move 2 Inch.

Orlanth, May I congratulate you on your fine pedantry. The vehicles shape remains unchanged, but on the locations of mounting lugs for the vehicles it transports you would insist on your opponent buying multiple dropships or magnetising them...... well done!

Orlanth did you thought about the Tokenset that made Hawkwargames for Dropships?

I downloaded the battlescribe files thank you they are amaizing!

schwarzewolke- Thanks for the catch! I'll change the Puppeteer to an Overlord and drop a Corsair to pay for the 6 missing Intruder Betas, I think. I had thought of them when preordering but not when making the list

Also, the Minders did have Intruder Betas, it just didn't show up. I believe Charax has already fixed the bug, though

No Problem .Is their any Reason why you play so many scouts ?

Just wanted to try some alternate lists

Here is the second no-marauader list (Prowler Swarm) fixed based on what schwarzewolke spotted (removed the incorrect version above). However, I still had to manually edit the text below when posting it, as I still can't get the point costs for the Intruder Betas for the Minder Swams in the Oppressor (HQ) battle group to show up.

I would probably drop one of the Desolators for another 2 Corsairs, or change out 2 of the Prowler Swarms (16 of the buggers) to Minder Swarms for more AA.

Definitely most of the cool list options open up at the Battle sized game, so I hope my local group wants to play somewhere in that range . Although obviously you could scale it down, too, it just wouldn't be as crazy!

+++ Prowler Swarm (2999pts) +++ +++ 3000pt Scourge Roster (Battle (2000+)) +++ Selections: + Battlegroups + (2999pts) * Battle Battlegroups (376pts) * Scourge Warrior Cabal (376pts) 4x Intruder Alpha (160pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Battle Battlegroups (786pts) * Scourge Vanguard Battlegroup (786pts) * Hunter MGT Squadron (282pts) Despoiler Heavy Dropship (72pts), 6x Hunter (210pts) * Hunter MGT Squadron (387pts) Despoiler Heavy Dropship (72pts), 9x Hunter (315pts) * Reaper AAGT Squadron (117pts) 3x Reaper AAGT (117pts) * Battle Battlegroups (360pts) * Scourge Occupation Patrol (360pts) * Prowler Pack (120pts) 2x Intruder Beta (48pts), 8x Prowler (72pts) * Prowler Pack (120pts) 2x Intruder Beta (48pts), 8x Prowler (72pts) * Prowler Pack (120pts) 2x Intruder Beta (48pts), 8x Prowler (72pts) * Battle Battlegroups (520pts) * Scourge Oppressor Battlegroup (520pts) 2x Desolator (280pts) * Minder Swarm (120pts) 2x Intruder Beta (48pts), 8x Minder (72pts) * Minder Swarm (120pts) 2x Intruder Beta (48pts), 8x Minder (72pts) * Battle Battlegroups (136pts) * Scourge Attack Swarm (136pts) * Corsair Squadron (136pts) 2x Corsair (136pts) * Battle Battlegroups (360pts) * Scourge Occupation Patrol (360pts) * Prowler Pack (120pts) 2x Intruder Beta (48pts), 8x Prowler (72pts) * Prowler Pack (120pts) 2x Intruder Beta (48pts), 8x Prowler (72pts) * Prowler Pack (120pts) 2x Intruder Beta (48pts), 8x Prowler (72pts) * Battle Battlegroups (376pts) * Scourge Warrior Cabal (376pts) 4x Intruder Alpha (160pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Warrior Horde (54pts) Warriors (27pts), Warriors (27pts) * Scourge Commanders (85pts) Scourge Master (85pts)

Me and my Playgroup will start with Skirmish (999 Points) i think,and then we will Clash .I like Maurauder fast some DP.If my Friends and i will play 1500+ i will buy a Despoiler.
I dont know if i like the Minder Swarm.

Yeah, I am sure we will start small, too

Druidic wrote:Orlanth, May I congratulate you on your fine pedantry. The vehicles shape remains unchanged, but on the locations of mounting lugs for the vehicles it transports you would insist on your opponent buying multiple dropships or magnetising them...... well done!

If you build a Leman Russ kit, do you just add any guns, or carefully choose one loadout.

While a stock Russ can 'count as' a Punisher it isn't quite right really.

Just a comment that people might switch over their Despoilers rapidly in the above lists, yet the models might be lagging behind.

I worked out that of my six Condors three will need two brackets all the time and one will need two brackets most of the time, two will need three brackets all the time, and one most of the time. Thus I only need to magnetise one Condor and I can work any reasonable combination.
Foresight can be useful.

I still haven't gotten my minis yet. hoping they come in so I can grab em this weekend. I preordered the PHR starter army. It's got 3 neptune dropships, 2 ares walkers, 2 phobos walkers, 2 Juno APCs and 4 stands of immortals. anyone know what else I might need to add to it to make it a worthwhile average army? or is that pretty much all I need?

although being able to physically mount your models in their dropships is a useful option, it's not an absolute requirement, so it's not the end of the world if you construct them in a way that stops them carrying their intended loadout

still, never hurts to be informed beforehand, it would suck if people, in their haste, ended up with dropships that they can't use in the way they wanted

I belive that hawk have carrage tokens on the website to down load so whats the big problem just use them!

Yeah it is a good point but I will not be magnetizing, except perhaps the gun.

Not sure about PHR, but I anticipate large army deals being normal game sized, so looking at that should help you figure out what to add to the starter.

Also I am the only one who has received my order out of my friends so far, just FYI for those waiting.

Also I am the only one who has received my order out of my friends so far, just FYI for those waiting.

Thanks for letting us know. I was starting to wonder.

What I meant was, someone who lives 20min from me is still waiting, so obviously some orders got held up in customs or the like- it is not location dependent.

Anyone playing this game in the greater Toronto area?

Regards

Orlanth wrote:

Druidic wrote:Orlanth, May I congratulate you on your fine pedantry. The vehicles shape remains unchanged, but on the locations of mounting lugs for the vehicles it transports you would insist on your opponent buying multiple dropships or magnetising them...... well done!

If you build a Leman Russ kit, do you just add any guns, or carefully choose one loadout.

While a stock Russ can 'count as' a Punisher it isn't quite right really.

Just a comment that people might switch over their Despoilers rapidly in the above lists, yet the models might be lagging behind.

I worked out that of my six Condors three will need two brackets all the time and one will need two brackets most of the time, two will need three brackets all the time, and one most of the time. Thus I only need to magnetise one Condor and I can work any reasonable combination.
Foresight can be useful.

I don't think WYSIWYG applies in this game to this degree. Could be wrong though.

Don't think wysiwyg applies unless your oponenet demands it in general...

The Deathless Host wrote:I belive that hawk have carrage tokens on the website to down load so whats the big problem just use them!

Carriage tokens are all well and good, but a dropship has brackets for large and medium vehicles.

As you can extract on any compatible dropship you could have a situation where Reapers come in on a Marauder then Invaders leave on it. At which point That Guy says, well you said it didn't matter how many brackets it has. Even if some dropships have different mixes of brackets its easier to pull a switcheroo deliberately or by accident. Also if a player wants to prevent all the Invaders getting off he know he deeps to kill the two bracket Marauders and the six bracket Despoilers. If you have a disguised one floating around, whose fault is ity that it is overlooked.


Putting carriage tokens on the wrong type of dropship is the same as putting a sticker on a Russ saying this is a Punisher. A good player is accomodating of 'counts as' but a good player also tries to minimise the amount of times they have to use proxies. It is far better if players carefully choose the dropships that they need and either magnetise or buy enough.

As for considering the issue pedantic, thats the attitude same as turning up with the wrong stuff because you really cannot be bothered and saying 'you gotta problem with that'. The extra effort is a courtesy.


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I relly think this issue will come to a head soon, funnily enough over PHR. Now PHR dont have changable brackets, thats all well and good, but what they do have is a highly variable loadout on Tritons.

Tritons either come cheap, or armed to the teeth. Both options have their uses and it is very likely it may be better to take a mix for various purposes. Sometimes you want a dropship to lift guys around a lot (Tritons carrying sirens), other just dump them there and can spend the game as a gunship (some Tritons carrying Immortals).

If I was playing against PHR I would like to know what Tritons are armed, hell I would want to know if I was playing them. A sticker will do but actually modelling some budget Tritons and some well armed ones is better.

Are you positive Invaders or heavy tanks can't get on a Marauder that carried light tanks, Orlanth? I.e., do you have the rules yet and can you quote the page number?

Additionally, I thought Scourge dropships were one-way, I.e. cannot be re-embarked. The flavor text on Hawk's site says so.

So, I think we need a clear look at the rules before jumping to conclusions either way on what dropships can pick back up.

RiTides wrote:
Additionally, I thought Scourge dropships were one-way, I.e. cannot be re-embarked. The flavor text on Hawk's site says so.

You are the one jumping to conclusions. Many scenarios involve extracting objectives claimed by infantry, Scourge use the same mission profiles.

The one way nature of Scourge dropships means they cannot climb the gravity well, they still provide aerial transport.

That'd be great! However, I take it from your reply that you have no idea if light and heavy tanks can re-enter the same drop ship. Which is fine, but you should say so, since others here have the rules already and could answer your question (since it should have been a question, not a statement).

Charax or others who have received their book, could you check whether or not a different kind of tank can enter another's drop ship? It is a good point to consider.

Its very obvious.

Look at what you can fit in an Albatross or Despoiler.

For example a Despoiler can include Slayers or Tormentors, you cannot add Hunters or Reapers, though you can squadron with them. The reverse is also true.

Likewise you can add Gladius and Scimitar to the same Albatross, you cannot add Rapiers to it, through you can have Rapiers in the same squadron and Rapiers can add to Sabres in the same Albatross.

Let logic be your guide.

RiTides wrote:Charax or others who have received their book, could you check whether or not a different kind of tank can enter another's drop ship? It is a good point to consider.

This should answer your question, from pg46 of the rulebook.

The transport/s are attached to the parent squad and cannot be used to move other squads

Obviously there are exceptions to that in the form of the shared dropships (UCM sabres and rapiers in one albatross etc).

I agree with you- however, it may simply not be in the rules. I will know myself soon enough either way- as I am hoping the US distributor will be shipping soon

Edit: Ninja'ed! I was wondering if they'd be tied to their own squad. Do Shaltari get an exception?

RiTides wrote:I will know myself soon enough either way- as I am hoping the US distributor will be shipping soon

Good luck with that. I ordered through FirestormGames who are based in the UK and they havent shipped to me yet, meaning they havent received anything yet. Seems as if only the direct orders have gone out smoothly.

RiTides wrote:Ninja'ed! I was wondering if they'd be tied to their own squad. Do Shaltari get an exception?

I've not even looked at those rules yet. They look "interesting."

Bummer Rat!

Nick- Get on it

Still waiting for packages to arrive stateside :(

Does anyone know of any shops that have the product?

My local will be, though I'm not sure how helpful that will be if yo don't live near San Diego

I just wanted to report I just recieved my order in Michigan. Unfortunatly I was missing a few models from my scourge army deal namely a set of hunters and a set of invader apcs.

RiTides wrote:

Edit: Ninja'ed! I was wondering if they'd be tied to their own squad. Do Shaltari get an exception?

They must have, as you can move from one gate to another on the battlefield. I'd check but have lent out my book for the week to another player.

gojira- Email them, Dave said they'd send out my missing Scourge parts.

My friend got his stuff this evening, as well! Including a rulebook but hasn't had a chance to look through it all yet.

Gates are bought for the army, they're not tied to a specific squad or battlegroup

Orlanth, it's probably my fault for the way I treat all wargamming, the models are extremely desirable, but entirely incidental. I pretty much NEVER play anyone other then close friends or family who feel the same way so never offend anyone with my radical ideas.

That is not to say I don't spend hundreds of hours re-sculpting models, casting my own parts for them, and in the case of one army hand sculpting iconigraphy on every figure, I just don't believe it is neccessary to play or enjoy the game, it's just an added bonus.

Been asked before if I'd play against a complete proxy army, I said sure and we stuck bits of paper on figures with blue tac so we knew what was what! Played against 2d printed out armies, played against bases with nothing on them but a postit note.


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And you probably don't want to see.my terrain collection!

But then again its all "stored" in a 19ft long £5000 log cabin purpose built for wargamming, so trust me, non of it's about being cheap or lazy either, it's just not as important to me as the game!


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Another Facebook live chat today, delayed till 11am! You got questions, ask the man direct!

Rat wrote:

RiTides wrote:I will know myself soon enough either way- as I am hoping the US distributor will be shipping soon

Good luck with that. I ordered through FirestormGames who are based in the UK and they havent shipped to me yet, meaning they havent received anything yet. Seems as if only the direct orders have gone out smoothly.

From what I understand firestorm should have received their stock yesterday and should be shipped out by the end of the week depending how many orders they have to fill.

UNCLEBADTOUCH wrote:

Rat wrote:

RiTides wrote:I will know myself soon enough either way- as I am hoping the US distributor will be shipping soon

Good luck with that. I ordered through FirestormGames who are based in the UK and they havent shipped to me yet, meaning they havent received anything yet. Seems as if only the direct orders have gone out smoothly.

From what I understand firestorm should have received their stock yesterday and should be shipped out by the end of the week depending how many orders they have to fill.

Not according to Rob from Firestorm, got an email from him today saying they are still waiting.

You are not the only one waiting for Firestorm. Everyone else round here has their except me.

I went cheap on startup.

Now that my friend received his order, I'm hoping for a test game this coming week. Not sure how I'll get ready, though, since I still need to read the rules myself

Orlanth wrote:You are not the only one waiting for Firestorm. Everyone else round here has their except me.

I went cheap on startup.

I hope the newsletter after the facebook chat will give more information on possible shipping timelines.

I did some analysis and buying a large army direct was cheaper, so I baught direct

Druidic wrote:I did some analysis and buying a large army direct was cheaper, so I baught direct

My problem was that I had to buy for myself and 2 friends, since they dont have the cash, so I settled for 4 starters + extras instead of 1 large or mega army.

Just a heads-up, beta of the UCM datafile is up. Skirmish battlegroups only (as they serve as the template for the others.

Again, PM with bugs, as well as things you like (I've done the same thing different times in different parts of the file, so if you like how the Albatross selection works in one battlegroup over another, for example, let me know.

Most validation is in place, including complex things like shared transports

Understood Rat, was considering the same, then came into some unexpected cash so splashed out on 2 large armies for the same reason!

My order arrived yesterday! I picked up two mega armies (UCM & PHR) along with a rule book. The models will require some cleaning of minor flash, but I think most of it will be taken care of by some warm water and a toothbrush. I've never bought Finecast, so I can't compare the resin. I do have a ton of DKoK models and I can say that Hawk resin is superior to Forge World just due to the fact that I cannot find any warped parts.

The only minor irritations were that two PHR models had air bubbles large enough to pretty much remove the forward scanners and Hawk didn't ship the Archangel Interceptors with my UCM army. I've already emailed them and am hoping they have quality customer service.

So many deals missing parts, it's definitely odd. He replied to my email within a few days, hopefully makes sending what was overlooked a priority.

RiTides wrote:So many deals missing parts, it's definitely odd. He replied to my email within a few days, hopefully makes sending what was overlooked a priority.

New company, tons of orders. If they're doing their own fulfillment and might have called in friends or temps who aren't as familiar with the product line, it's not surprising. Fulfillment of orders can be tough, especially if you're suddenly doing well.

Also, we are generally only hearing abotu the problem orders.

I am sure all of that is true. However, it's something they'll have to work out... and it makes me kind of glad I decided to only order the Mega direct and the rest through a US site, while they work through this crazy ordering phase.

I'm sure they'll get it sorted out, I think little glitches like this for a brand new company who have been completely overwhelmed by the volume of orders for their product are to be expected.

Do we know if order placed currently direclty to Hawk are taking long to be delivered?
Can't wait to get my hands on this stuff!