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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!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
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