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People looked it over, said it looks cool, and the rules are solid....then turned around and went right back to playing 40K or Warmachine. It's dead as dead can be around here...

UK.

Four folks play it that I know. They love DFC.

At the local club AoS accounts for 80% of the games played.

Here in my local area, they dont like much games with smaller scale. As I said before X-Wing and 40K have taken all players

Asterios wrote:
problem is nothing wrong with the game itself, its just a matter of time and too many decent games to play.

The game play for DZC is great, the force org...... not so much. It is basically DST

The Talons here in the Phoenix Valley, Arizona, are starting up a Slow Growth league for Dropfleet. I'd be more interested but I don't have the funds to get in to Dropfleet, atm.

A lot of people (myself included) thought we were getting Battle Fleet Gothic 2.0, when in reality we got a sorta space game where you want to land troops on a planet and fight "ground combat" to win a game. You HAVE to play this way- eliminating the opposing fleet does NOT win you the game if you don't/can't land troops on a planet. So game play gets summed up as take 1/2 your fleet in transports, the other half in anti-transports. Race your transports to the planet/station, drop your troops off, and then they just become a nuisance. If your anti-transports can't destroy your opponent's transports before they drop their troops off (and it's actually pretty damn hard to blow a cruiser up in this game), then you are kind screwed. If your opponent lands troops before you on a planet, then you need at least a 2-1 advantage on that planet in the hopes of taking and holding that planet.

Instead of huge, awesome cruisers and battleships slugging it out in space, the most effective ships are carriers and corvettes, and the more you can take, the better. But oh wait! I need transports to take planets.

I love the space combat, but hate the idea of just how effective corvettes are. The ground combat is cluttered, feels like a total disconnect and separate game from the space combat, and nothing that happens in space affects what's going on the planet, and nothing on the planet affects the space combat in any meaningful way besides being a victory condition. Yes, there is planetary bombardment, but again, if your opponent lands troops on a planet and scores, and you nuke the planet, well, your opponent still keeps his score and you just lost any chance of scoring on that planet. You have to have boots on the ground to control a planet and win the game.

Don't get me started on Force Organization. Who ever thought Battlegroup was a great idea to describe Force Organization, a "squadron" of ships, and how you deploy... would it really have been that difficult to use actual nautical terms for groupings of ships and organization? They use the nautical terms cruiser, corvette, frigate, carrier, marines, admirals, etc. etc. DZC does a very, very poor job of explaining fleet organization and using the same term (Battlegroup!) to describe very different rules and concepts.

There has been a lot of mathematical proof showing that some ships are simply not worth taking, and that other ships (corvettes! Bombers) are way OP.

On the plus side, Hawk is listening, taking suggestions, and making errata where appropriate. I have every confidence that Drop Zone Commander 2.0 will be an even better game than it is now. There is some real depth to the game, but it's overly complicated force organization and disparate phases (space vs. ground combat) can really turn you off from playing more than a handful of games.

A little addendum to my last post:

I visited the Hawk Wargames forum and found that they have put out a good chunk of errata for more than a few ships. They have also retooled the ground combat portion of the game and marked it as "experimental", but they look good. It also sounds like they are aware of the Fleet Organization issue and working on that as well. It's not all doom and gloom, and I might have to go get a game in this weekend.

Hawk Wargames continues to impress me with how they are willing to listen to players and are not afraid to make corrections.

I remember someone was working on a pure space-combat version of the game. Did they ever finish that?

I have, for ideological reasons, refused to build any of my plastic cruisers into stupid, boring troop carriers.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I remember someone was working on a pure space-combat version of the game. Did they ever finish that?

I have, for ideological reasons, refused to build any of my plastic cruisers into stupid, boring troop carriers.

I bought two UMC Starter boxes and made one San Francisco and two New Orleans. The guy teaching me the game brought 90% of his fleet as Transports. He was like "At 1,500 points, you need at least five Transports, and six is probably better because most scenarios have 3 objectives". I was like "That's 800+ points! Over half my fleet! What am I going to shoot your fleet with?" He pointed out that I scored zero points on the table, and that taking planets is what wins games. So yeah, kinda disappointed that I really can't build the space fleet to fight in space the way I want to. The "Transports Tax" is too high.

Nothing to stop you playing different scenarios though. Generally at 1250p you want a troopship and 6 strike carriers, coming in at roughly 350p

It is sorta like that in Dropzone Commander as well you need infantry/troops to win scenarios. I play resistance who have scout bikes that count as troops and can enter building. They also have a rule that lets them embark the same turn they disembarked, allowing them to play hopscotch between buildings.

Lucky for me, I love that mechanic. If only I was any good at list building.

Central Coast California here.

Dropzone: No clue. Maybe something in Santa Barbara?

Dropfleet: Me and I heard from my FLGS that another person orders some on occasion. Mainly I just need to paint up some ships and demo.

I'm in the Oklahoma City area and no one plays DFC and no LGSes carry it.

There were some people that bought some stuff for DZC played a few games and promptly went back to 40k.

Something most be done to get more players. Is this happening to other games? not 40k or Sigmar

 Capt. Camping wrote:
Something most be done to get more players. Is this happening to other games? not 40k or Sigmar

Dropzone is still relatively new here in the States, and it can take a while for those things to take shape while facing the impetus of 40K, WarmaHordes, and X-Wing. It also doesn't help that Infinity got on to the scene before Dropzone, and Firestorm is trying to compete with it on roughly the same level.

The way to build up interest in the game is the same no matter the game: Exposure. People need to be aware of it, they need to see other people wanting to play it, and they need to find an army that they like.

That last one is probably the hardest since there are low-tech humans, medium-tech humans, high-tech humans, the hedgehogs, and the brain-sucking spiders. If you can't get in to one of those armies, its REALLY hard to want to get in to the game.

DZC+DFC seems to be popping over in EUR. In the states? Started slow and contained in small meta areas.

Most players are spread thinly in groups of 2-4. Another issue for DZC is the cardstock terrain/barrier to entry. If anyone is in NJ/Philadelphia - hit me up

I have yet to have a game on here that isn't my old roommate

I think the DZC rulebook could have used some more scenario maps that weren't implicitly urban. The photos in the book feature plenty of rural settings with woods, rivers and hills, but the rules themselves rather assume you'll have a lot of tall buildings.

Which probably reinforces the idea that you need a lot of specialist terrain to play this game, when you absolutely don't. Those rivers, hills and woodlands you already have for 28mm games will work for DZC too (in fact, the trees are probably more in scale!). If you've only ever played Warhammer using GW's Citadel Woods and Gaming Hills with all the skulls then it'll look odd, but anyone who's bought the traditional model railway layout trees will be fine.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I remember someone was working on a pure space-combat version of the game. Did they ever finish that?

I have, for ideological reasons, refused to build any of my plastic cruisers into stupid, boring troop carriers.

I messed about with it a bit - something I will likly go back to along with my rules for my varied Babylon 5 fleets

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I think the DZC rulebook could have used some more scenario maps that weren't implicitly urban. The photos in the book feature plenty of rural settings with woods, rivers and hills, but the rules themselves rather assume you'll have a lot of tall buildings.

Which probably reinforces the idea that you need a lot of specialist terrain to play this game, when you absolutely don't. Those rivers, hills and woodlands you already have for 28mm games will work for DZC too (in fact, the trees are probably more in scale!). If you've only ever played Warhammer using GW's Citadel Woods and Gaming Hills with all the skulls then it'll look odd, but anyone who's bought the traditional model railway layout trees will be fine.

I've found that FOW terrain works in a pinch. We've played a game in a desert village before (Bunker Assault) that worked out pretty well.

Doesn't matter if you don't need a certain terrain, what matters is that the game does a poor job of presenting that fact to players.

Yeah they need a better skirmish / rural outlook or style on the game.

Yeah, there are several missions which don't need a lot of buildings to work, but they're portrayed as always being urban missions in the rulebook.

Granted, unless you have a lot of high trees or hills (or you constantly fly at the deck), your aircraft aren't going to be able to get very close to the opponent.

Yes, it really boils down to those maps. That's what makes it look like you always need two dozen buildings for every game.

When we were running demos at shows last year, we had one table that was a city (using 4Ground buildings) and one that was rural, using Battlefront's rivers and Team Yankee roads, a selection of trees and one or two structures.

Actually, reducing the amount of tall scenery might help shake up the games - it'll either force aircraft to fly at the deck, which almost never happens, or it'll require armies to advance in waves - suppress the enemy's AA before bringing in the vulnerable transport planes.

And yes, Vertrucio, that was my point. It looks to me that Hawk offered a strong selection of model buildings (in resin, card or downloads) not because they intended you to play every battle using them, but because that was the only scenery type not already freely available. Unfortunately, that message got garbled.

I setup my table this weekend for a game - in a "Edge of the city" type of game. We changed up the deployment a bit so it was fair. Made for some fun shooting and close quarters building fights. I'd like to do any entire table eventually with rural town homes, gas station, and small parks/tree stands eventually and toss in hills.

Sorry for the Instagram filters, its how they saved on my phone at work. I have better pictures

Nice Kurita Jupiter there Sir.

I'm a Resistance player, and can play without aircraft, so they never let me set up tables :-)

We bought some low Blotz buildings (http://blotz.co.uk) to contrast the tall cardboard ones.

Anyone get their wave II stuff yet?

 FeindusMaximus wrote:
Anyone get their wave II stuff yet?

I've received tokens & Scourge station bits.

 FeindusMaximus wrote:
Anyone get their wave II stuff yet?

I got my tokens for PHR and Scourge. Waiting to hear on the store credit for maps still....

While I love that they listen to players and make chances, sometimes to little to late. The long delay in the KS didn't help. Once we got it, think 4 of us in PA played it. PHR was horrible to play, so much that I bought Shaltari. Ended up selling it off though as maybe 10 games later, it just felt meh.

BFG was my hopes, but it didn't fill that role. To much planetside stuff. also why was every planet barren of life....No attacker/Defender missions was mind blowing. As time drags on, more and more inclined to sell it off and cut my losses with DFC.

Dropzone on the other hand is a wonderful game and with 2.0 coming out (and getting to talk to dave at gencon about it) makes me very excited to play it again. 3 Of us play it in spurts. Usually when new waves of stuff or rulebooks come out, we spend a few months playing, then go back to something else til new stuff comes.

Dropzone 2.0 may bring the game back, but I do think they need more armies. Sadly, the setting they have currently doesn't support that unless they expand. There's been rumors of a new faction not mentioned in fiction so far (other than hints).

DZC was a good game marred by a lot of outdated design flaws that, so far, some key ones are getting addressed.

I'm waiting to see if they're really doing something interesting with their command cards, or if it'll be a banal and half-baked excuse to sell a pack of cards.

The changes to transports is welcome, as is air strikes. I do hope they do more with the terrain, and ditch the outdated mission/objective structure that's also helping to kill Dropfleet.