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roadkizzle wrote:

I have no idea what went on with Spartans models before DW was released, but from what I see of the older UCS models they really seem to have gotten a lot better with design and mold making.

It's been a process of continuing evolution. Spartan has steadily been pushing themselves to include more and more complexity and detail in their models. For those of you who had miscasting issues, were you able to get replacement models from them? Spartan has always been good about that in my experience.

I have yet to play a game using planetfall rules, but their models are really, really sweet. They are very detailed and high quality, cheaper than DZC while also being a lot larger. DZC really surprised me with how tiny their vehicles are. The only thing I really dislike about Planetfall is how the models are only sold as boxed sets, rather than individually. At the moment, I am quite torn between DZC and Planetfall, but I feel that in a few years, when Spartan has fleshed Planetfall out some more and maybe starts selling individual models, it will clearly be the superior game (modelwise at least).

I have the same wonderings about the mechanics of both these games, as I am looking for a good game at this scale that is easier to get than Epic 40k, however much I would love to stay inthe 40k universe, it's just incredibly hard to justify collectors prices.

I'd like to hear more about the mechanical comparisons rather than about gripes over Spartans business reputation. The variations of resin models don't scare me either as I am experienced enough that as long as it's not finecast I can make the material work. Also, Spartans modern resin is NOT the same as the Dindrenzi fleet of years and years ago. Those were awful, lol.

I know I like the release style of Dropzone better, as I can make smaller purchases that still have a meaningful impact on my force. One question: aside from the obvious lack of speed they would suffer from, can ground vehicles (or troops in APCs) be fielded without having to buy a dropship for them? I don't want to have to buy a dropship when I buy a pair of tanks. Also, how well do aircraft function in-game?

You can field ground troops without dropships but its not a great idea unless they are very fast or they have very long range weapons. In my UCM army my Wolverines drive on (they are fast enough on their own) as does my Kodiak and Ferrum (the former has an unlimited range weapon and the latter is a drone carrier).

I do have a lot of aerial transports though, 6 Condors, 2 Raven As and 2 Raven Bs in 1500 points. It does make the army look very impressive in my cabinet however

Strike aircraft work in quite a realistic fashion, able to hit anywhere on the table quite hard but to vulnerable to AA fire (of which there will probably be a lot given DZCs emphasis on airpower).

hawk have released a free army builder that can be found here

Personally I really like the aesthetic of DZC and the rules themselves seem to create fluid games. I can't speak about the Planetfall rules as I'm not familiar with them although I disliked Spartans earlier games and I also don't like their design aesthetic.

Ok, that's good to know. I was always under the impression that vehicles were innately tied to dropships, rather than dropships being essentially an upgrade for a vehicle unit, which is the new impression I am taking away from this.

If I get into DZC, as I will really be the only one spending on forces (and will actually likely see more games at home with the wife than at the buddy's) I can essentially tailor the meta to anything I want. The downside about that is that I end up having to buy twice as much, but my games can actually be tailored to see more ground combat with dropships being a minor thing, as you aren't going to see a force that is dropship heavy coming in to trounce one that is mostly ground vehicles with it's far superior deployment.

How does Dropship work on tables that are not just urban terrain? I don't mean 40K-style soccer fields, but I wouldn't want to be heavily tied to the meta of using the buildings for positioning. I'd like to have lots of games where only 50% of the table is buildings, and the rest is lots of wilderness of woods, etc.

The thing about dropships is that they are basically required, certainly for infantry as they are the only realistic way of getting objectives of the table. Generally speaking ground movement rates are very low so finding, contesting and extracting an objective from the center of the board would be very difficult without dropships. Of course if you are controlling the game you could just use alternate victory conditions or houserules.

I understand the lack of interest in dropships, its something I share, but as the starter sets contain dropships its not really that much of an issue. All my Condors came from starter sets while I wanted to include the Raven As for objective stealing and the raven Bs are a compulsory purchase for Longbow artillery.

Just kind of a bummer as every new bunch of vehicles requires an additional purchase to function well, so that 17 dollar trio of tanks is more like 17+ the additional 17 for a Condor to hold them. Though I guess that trying to circumvent dropships is essentially trying to ignore a foundation mechanic of the system.

Part of that's me though, because as far as I know, I am the only player in the area, so if I want to play I typically end up buying both sides, so I am trying to figure put the most economic game I can access at this scale.

Thats why Planetfall is out, as they are following the ludicrous box set style of Armada, where every time you want to expand a force you have to spend 25 or 50 dollars at a time. Drop zone loomed much more palatable when online discounts are making each set of vehicles less than 15 dollars a pop. But the dropships are kind of a hidden cost along with that, unless it's a unit that typically does not use/need dropships (like artillery or the UCM drone carrier, or flyers).

Thanks for the info though!

The cheapest way to get 2 armies is the boxed game which contains about 500 points of UCM and Scourge. £100 will get you two 1000 point armies, granted they will both need fleshing out but the basics are there.

Oh I was definitely thinking of getting the boxed game first, it's an incredibly good value. Its the third faction that would probably make my wife kill me, as it would likely be Resistance.

It's probably the Epic player in me that makes me cringe at the thought of dropships hanging around after their job is done. (Extracting infantry notwithstanding).

In fairness most dropships have weaponry, at least as an upgrade, and as they can only be fired at by AA weapons they aren't completely useless when not transporting things.

Theres no reason to purchase a dropship mini with every model purchase. Unless youre playing very very large games, you will eventually reach a point where you have more dropships than you can use in a standard game.

Well, no, but if I was planning on adding to the main game with some tanks for both Scourge and UCM, wouldn't they also need dropships bought for them right away?

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Well, no, but if I was planning on adding to the main game with some tanks for both Scourge and UCM, wouldn't they also need dropships bought for them right away?

That depends on the tank. The best place to get medium tanks, unless you really want to use something like Fireblades, are the starter sets which come with dropships anyway. Heavy tanks will need dropships with the possible exception of the Scimitar.

2 Starters will get you 6 Condors, you are unlikely to need anymore for normal games.

The good about DZC it only costs $55 to start (except Resistance). You can play with what comes in the starter to learn the basics of the game. Later you buy a commander, the cards and other units.

Dropzone Commander is a game you enjoy at full when played 3,000 points or more, because you can use every type of unit available at this level.

Cons: the only cons about this game is the minis sometimes they come without bases. You have to write Hawk about it and it takes too much time for answers.

Most of the minis don't actually use bases.

No tank does. Only Infantry and air units use bases. It lets them actually fit in their transports.

The game's pretty enjoyable at 1500, which is in wargame terms 'Enough points for enough units, but you may be stretched thin in what you want'. AKA, Warmachine 35, or Infinity 300.

 Capt. Camping wrote:
The good about DZC it only costs $55 to start (except Resistance). You can play with what comes in the starter to learn the basics of the game. Later you buy a commander, the cards and other units.

Dropzone Commander is a game you enjoy at full when played 3,000 points or more, because you can use every type of unit available at this level.

Cons: the only cons about this game is the minis sometimes they come without bases. You have to write Hawk about it and it takes too much time for answers.

A Planetfall core force only costs a few dollars more, and it contains a whole lot more stuff. The price is actually farthest from being a good thing about DZC. The prices are huge, especially considering the models are tiny, even for 10mm. Even 15mm games such as FoW are cheaper to pick up than DZC. When you want a full force with lots of different units, DZC can easily reach GW levels of expensive.
Nonetheless, apart from those silly UMC tanks and Resistance hovercraft (more like hoverplatforms), I don't mind paying such a price. Tiny they may be, but they certainly are beautiful.
It is hard to decide which game has the most awesome miniatures:

While new to it, I'm a big fan of DZC. It's filled with tactical possibilities, and redeployment is certainly part of it, though players may be less apt to give it a go. I feel the game opens up the more you explore it, rather than vice versa.

 Killionaire wrote:
Most of the minis don't actually use bases.

No tank does. Only Infantry and air units use bases. It lets them actually fit in their transports.

The game's pretty enjoyable at 1500, which is in wargame terms 'Enough points for enough units, but you may be stretched thin in what you want'. AKA, Warmachine 35, or Infinity 300.

Not only minis with bases they come incomplete, also some without. For example: I opened a box of minis I bought and in the bottom there was a loose missile turret from the PHR Taranis. I was lucky I did not buy a Taranis but the poor soul who did not receive that part. Hawk really needs to put some tape to seal the blisters. Also a friend of mine opened a PHR plastic starter and a walker main body came partially wrecked.

All you guys complain about poor castings and crappy models, where is your head at? Send that stuff back to the manufacturer and demand either a refund or a replacement.

It's like people think they just have to live with a bad mini or something. It's retail dudes, get your refunds. If the company won't fix your wobbly toy spaceship, then maybe you can smack talk them.

I am much more likely to do this today, especially when dealing with a successful company. At the time, I didn't want to deal with the bother and did not expect replacements to be any better. I also feel reluctant to get on the case of what seems like a small company struggling to get by (as Spartan did back then). Rest assured I will be much more assertive on any other defective merchandise I receive.

I find the DZC minis practically paint themselves. A couple hours of work and I have a bunch of newly completed models.

Except the infantry, of course. Screw 10mm infantry.

I agree with some of the other posters, both on the "man, I thought this would be more maneuvering" and "wow, now that I've played this game more, there's a lot of maneuvering" and "man, if someone tags your dropship while it's in the air you could easily lose everything".

Fact is, war is risky. People read the rules for dropships and what happens when they get shot down, plus the consequences of moving units, and decide that once they're down, they're done. But if you take a decent amount of air defense, use the buildings or terrain to your advantage, etc etc you'll find you can set traps for your opponent's anti-air units like fast movers and leave them badly out of position.

And there's multiple ways to play each faction. Now that scourge have heavier walkers and PHR have faster walkers, etc. the game can be tailored to fit your play style, even within your own army.

Have you played in open terrain? I was planning on doing a game out of the city map. War is risky just like in the movie Edge of Tomorrow, all those dropships going down and killing the infantry.

4 month old thread but I think it's OK

DzC really needs terrain, not open ground... I would love to see more boards that are not the cityscape, but you definitely need to include some significant terrain on the board for the game to work (much like Infinity).

It's totally possible to play Dropzone in a forest area. The rules work for it, and my local area plays perhaps 25% of it's games out of the city area. All of our tourneys have at least one rural round to break it up.

Any house-rules? With de-facto flight-mode being 6" elevated, it seems like those transports would get shot down from half-way across the table.

Lots of "to the deck" rolls?

How much time that game did take? and how many transports died?

Getting back to topic. I read somewhere Dave from Hawk use to work in Spartan Games and he presented Dropzone Commander to the company bosses and they say no to the game. Funny few years later, Spartan is doing a game in the same scale.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think we shall countinue the discussions here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/654108.page

 Capt. Camping wrote:
How much time that game did take? and how many transports died?

Getting back to topic. I read somewhere Dave from Hawk use to work in Spartan Games and he presented Dropzone Commander to the company bosses and they say no to the game. Funny few years later, Spartan is doing a game in the same scale.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think we shall countinue the discussions here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/654108.page

Welcome to the boardgame/miniatures game industry, where our inability to copyright mechanics (and even very specific ideas) means a crap-ton of "me too" products, and "borrowed" ideas.

Well, its not like Spartan is particularly a fount of new, exiciting, and innovative ideas to begin with...

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, its not like Spartan is particularly a fount of new, exiciting, and innovative ideas to begin with...

That was precisely the point I was making. At least Dave at Hawk polished his stuff to a razors edge... something no one will ever accuse Spartan of doing. :-p