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Hi all,

Since Dropzone Commander was released yesterday and I got my army in the post today I thought I'd start a plog to motivate me to actually paint the army (something I've struggled with recently) and to give those still waiting for their orders something to read.

For those who've been living under a rock since this years Salute show Dropzone Commander is a 10mm scale sci-fi wargame based around dropship insertion. For more info go here

Anyway onto the army, I've recieved a United Colonies of Mankind starter army which consists of 3 Condor Medium Dropships, 3 Sabre Main Battle Tanks, 3 Rapier AA Tanks, 2 Bear APCs and 6 stands of Colonial Legionnaires. So far (ie in the last half hour) I've built a couple of models, one each of the Sabres and Bears. Sorry about the photo quality, not got a great camera and couldn't be bothered to set my tripod up.

So on to the pictures, first the Bear.

Here are the parts of the Bear, you only use one of the two hatches but I thought people would want to see it on the sprue (same goes for future repeat parts):



Really simple 3 parts model which looks like this when built. Some slight resin shrinkage but nothing a bit of greenstuff won't hide.



Now the Sabre, parts first:



More parts for one of these, a grand total of 4.



Finally here's a shot of the pair with a GW Space Marine to show just how small these models are.



I'm thinking that I'll paint this army in a nice urban grey colour scheme, any thoughts dakka?

The first item I bought for Dropzone Commander was this:



To cover over the excess vents to reduce them to a more reasonable number. I am Ok with vents, I am not OK with zillions of vents.

I also have a UCM starter on the way, so I will eagerly absorb your blog. If you come across anything that you would redo if you restarted give us a prompt heads up please. You are trailblazing for Dakka here.

I like the vents, I can see why some wouldn't though.

One thing I will say is that if anyone wants to pin or magnetise the UCM turrets so you can move the gun up and down you're going to need a really small drill bit and even smaller pins/magnets. But from what I can see it certainly is possible to do if you've got the kit to do it.

Are you planning on magnetizing the vehicles so that they can be carried in the drop ships? The UCM struck me as the most challenging force to magnetize out of all the DzC factions. If so, I'm sure that a lot of us will be interested to see what you discover.

As a future UCM (and PHR) general, I look forward to following your blog.

I'm not planning on magnetising this army. But I might give it a go in the future, maybe once I start the inevitable second army (with models this good I'd be mad not to right?).

About time someone did a size comparison to GW miniatures.

Can't wait to see some painted miniatures.

I'm interested to see how these guys shape up, subbed!

Definitely looking forward to see how these guys shape up, subbed!

Well here's the first model to get some paint on it, the Sabre I built yesterday. I'm quite happy with the colour scheme. Yes it's very simple but I think over complicating things at this scale would be a mistake and in my opinion it also captures the utilitarian nature of the UCM vehicles. I'll tidy it up a bit in the future but I think I've got the basics pretty much in line with what I wanted.



As ever the photo shows up far more flaws in the paint job than I can actually see, not sure how many of them I can actually fix given the size of the model and my lack of artistic talent.

Sorry about the flash, the light was awful when I took the photo.

I've also managed to build the remaining Bear and Sabres and the first Condor Dropship. So I'm starting to get some way into building the army.

I really want to start a ucm army, I love the seraphim fighters!

Got another update for you all this evening. I've finished building all the ground elements of the starter army. Just got the two remaining dropships to do now.



Those Rapier AA tanks were quite fiddly to put together as the socket for the gun when attached to the articulated arm is just a ball joint. Still it does allow for excellent posability.

Nice. Thanks for the shot next to the space marine... It's better to tell scale than them next to a coin like Golem Studios did, at least for me.

Great stuff so far, can't wait to see the drop ships.

Death Gear wrote:About time someone did a size comparison to GW miniatures.

Can't wait to see some painted miniatures.

Agreed. I had no idea they were that tiny.

No more painted models yet, how about some terrain though. Put together one of the card printouts Hawk have on their website.



Not bad for 10 minutes work IMO.

As a future scourge overlord I look forward to your painting Log.

Good show my man, good show.

No new models today but I have had my first game so here's a brief summary.

My UCM vs fellow Dakka member Gorillawizard's PHR, once we took commanders into account our armies were only 3 or 4 points away from each other at just over 600pts each. Not bad for some apparently unbalanced starter sets.

We played the simple 3 objectives in 3 buildings across the board mission with everything starting in readiness. The objective in the middle building was worth double points.

I went after the middle objective, grabbed it turn 3 and promtly ran away with it. Good thing too as if I hadn't I was going to be assaulted by PHR infantry which is not a nice prospect. After their failure to assault my troops the PHR went for one of the other objectives giving me a chance to shoot at the building with my Rapier AA tanks, causing a couple of wounds due to falling masonry (love this rule, makes the game seem very realistic). They got that objective fairly quickly and legged it too. I did shoot their dropship down but the APCs survived.After I got my objective off the board the infantry could come back on but I didn't have enough time to get the other objective (one more turn!). Elsewhere my Sabres got shredded by the PHR walkers and both players dropships were a bit of a nusiance acting as impromtu gunships.

At the end of the game I got 4 victory points (2 for getting the objective off the board, doubled for being the middle one) and my opponent 2 (got an objective off the board). A nice win and a very enjoyable game.

Really looking forward to more games and expanding the army now.

Cool thanks for the battle report!!

do you have any fast movers, because i was wondering how far they can move?

No fast movers yet, when I expand to 1500pts though I will be getting some.

The Deathless Host wrote:do you have any fast movers, because i was wondering how far they can move?

Fast movers follow a straight line on the board at one point, then straight off again, attacking their target and being fired on as they go; they then return to readiness for subsequent turns.

Thanks that seems a little inconveniant tactics wise

Right time for another update, I actually painted this lot over the weekend but never got round to photographing them mainly because it's hard to take photos of 10mm tall infantry.

So here they are:



I really did keep these guys as simple as possible, block colours and a wash. There's no way I was going to highlight them. I plan to paint the shoulder pads on each infantry squad differently to help identify them and will add some sort of marking to their APCs too.

All good so far. But finish those dropship and put up some pics, will yuu?

Sorry I've not posted anything for a few days been a bit of a slow week. Anyway I've finished the first infantry squad. Here's a quick photo I took of them. I'll try to take a better photo at some point as this one really isn't very good at all.