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Eldarain wrote:Really like those bases.

INDEED! They caught my eye earlier and I asked about them so I'm glad that they're detailing them.

RiTides wrote:On that base - Oh man, I think I'm in love. The color will show how "visible" that ship is to others, and the altitude indicator, along with damage, all right there... very cool!

It does look like the fire arcs won't come painted (it says "painting optional") - but as these are aimed at miniature gamers who will be painting the actual models too, that shouldn't be an issue (since they're raised and thus easy to paint white).

It looks like each arc is 1/4 the base (and 4 hull point hole markers). The 3 atmoshpere states look like they'll each have 4 energy status indicators that you twist the inner circle to indicate. What I don't know is how you'll indicate the damage though along with that. Unless the inner most circle with the damage numbers also twists around separately from the main middle circle, I can't figure out how you can make that damage with just one moving part.

edit: nevermind. Hurpadurp.. it says they're using a peg in the pic. I'm not a fan of that part though as I expect those pegs will be very fiddly and easy to lose.

Yeah, I'd like to see the peg they have in mind - and could see making different ones if the ones they supply are too small to see / too fiddly.

Rotating the base to indicate both orbital layer and ship status is really cool, though - will cut down on bookkeeping immensely and help you know which ships to target. I.e. the one that is lit up like a Christmas tree because it fired all its guns last turn or the one you can knock out of orbit since it has ventured too low...

 Hulksmash wrote:

I call a bit of bull. They were "hoping" this would pay for a plastic starter. Were they just going to put out the plastic starter with no support? Probably not. So they would then be planning on releasing I'm assuming the primary factions they have had since day 1. They even have said they thought PHR would be opened up like in week 3. So they obviously were planning beyond the starter and it's piss poor planning to me.

Dropzone Commander had the plastic starter set out about 15 months before they could do the plastics for any other factions. Until that point, the other factions were entirely resin. Even now, the Resistance faction is resin.

Hawk probably don't need to go to ks to release a resin based game. It's the sheer upfront costs of plastics that caused them to go to kickstarter.

Looks like you can add on after the pledge manager closes

Creator Hawk Wargames 25 minutes ago
Dear Andrew Rees,
You don't have to pledge up front - you can add on when we are at the pledge manager stage. you can also add in stages, pledging now, then upping (or if desired, reducing) your total pledge later. The other thing to remember is that for bolt-ons you can alter what you have pledged that money for - for example, if you added £35 to your pledge for a UCM starter fleet, you could (when deciding at the manager stage) use that £35 for a Shaltari fleet instead, or even something else up to the value of £35. It's very flexable to let you decide exactly what's right for you.
- The Hawk Team

Well, that settles that. I'll stay in at Commander and Mantic all over the pledge manager.

Having a flexible pledge manager will mean I'll probably be in for this as well.

New load of miniature unlocks have appeared - interesting

£250k - Kickstarter Exclusive Paper Radar Map (Bolt-on)
£275k - Miniature Unlock to be announced
£290k - Accessories Unlock to be announced
£300k - High Rank Backers - 1 Free Shaltari Frigate Sprue (makes 4 Frigates)
£310k - Miniature Unlock to be announced
£325k - Miniature Unlock to be announced
£350k - High Rank Backers - 1 Free PHR Frigate Sprue (makes 4 Frigates)

Probably cruiser bolt-ons?

 Mymearan wrote:
Probably cruiser bolt-ons?

Or battleships? Terrain? Here's hoping...

I highly doubt that they will give away anything else than Cruisers and Frigates through the kickstarter. They where adamant about not cannibalizing too many sales from stores.
Battleships, Dreadnoughts, Corvettes and whatever other shipclass will very likely be retail only.

I fully support their decision to do it like that.

The kickstarter is not about getting everything, it's "just" about getting the starter in plastic as to make the entry as cheap as possible for new players.

I reckon that we'll see Battleships make an appearance at the very least. We've already seen the UCM earlier and I think it's safe to say that the Scourge one is ready to go too. The question becomes, will they tool them for plastics.

Also, hoping we see Destroyer type craft. Good for hunting down those silent running types...

I would be pretty surprised if we saw Battleships get added to the kickstarter. The focus has always been just getting the plastic starters. I wouldn't complain mind you but I fully support them in this being limited. They want to support the local store after all and I think more companies need go keep that in mind when they do a kickstarter

I suspect the issue of adding any other plastic to the KS (beyond the 4 starters they hoped to fund) is time/slots in the plastic production schedule

They'll have at least a 'downpayment/hold' on the slots they need for the starters so should be able to fulfil ontime in one shipment assuming all goes well,

but given this is a very busy industry adding in the time needed to transfer a resin sculpt to plastic (not nessesarily simple), then get a mould cut, then get time on the plastic production machine and packing line could well see either a very substantial slip (6months to a year at minimum at a guess based on what renendra's workload is)

or a 2 wave shipment situation with all the hassle, unknown costs (postage keeps rising) etc of that

They'd probably be better off 'banking' the extra cash and using it to do plastics for some of the stuff they originally conceived as resin but outside of the KS (meaning they ships would be cheaper on release, more incentive for people to buy and play and stores to stock)

Yeah there won't be any more plastic but they've said they will add exclusive cruisers for all races, so that should be forthcoming!

I would love, even if not for the KS, for them to try to do more ships in plastic. But I totally understand they won't be added to the campaign / within their launch timeline (which is "only" the summer - injection molding takes so much planning!).

Yeah, for the reasons outlined by Orlando I'd expect any future ships offered in the KS to be resins or additional bolt-on parts for the plastic hulls.

In the BoW videos there's mention made of dreadnoughts, battleships, corvettes and flak cruisers that I'm not sure we've seen anything about. Plus it would be wholly unsurprising to see super-carriers.

Given the game's focus on an orbital invasion I doubt we'll see much in the way of civilian ships, but fleet tenders and pickets and similar support ships would be interesting too.

Civilian ships carrying refugees and trying to escape the planet would be cool

Question - did Renedra do the plastics for Dropzone Commander? IIRC wasn't it a softer plastic that used 3d files? That would imply a different manufacturer than Renedra.

The £290k accessory unlock revealed:

£290k - Dropfleet Commander Bases Pack (Bolt-On)

And...

£250k - Kickstarter Exclusive Paper Radar Map (Bolt-On and Free for High Rank Backers)

Captain and Admiral level

Hopefully they'll sell the bases separately at retail as well. I'd pledge for them if the shipping cost didn't kill that idea.

 judgedoug wrote:
Question - did Renedra do the plastics for Dropzone Commander? IIRC wasn't it a softer plastic that used 3d files? That would imply a different manufacturer than Renedra.

Hmm that might be an incorrect assumption on my part, I know the DZC plastic is produced in the UK so I'm assuming Renendra, but I could well be wrong

It is rather heavy plastics DZC uses.

 Krinsath wrote:

In the BoW videos there's mention made of dreadnoughts, battleships, corvettes and flak cruisers that I'm not sure we've seen anything about. Plus it would be wholly unsurprising to see super-carriers.

There is a model for the Beijing class battleship (the big one at the back) which will supposedly be the upper limit in terms of ship size
.
I think you mean flak Frigates, the Jakarta class frigate appears to be the UCM version
.

Corvettes/destroyers will probably be a thing but I'm not sure that Dreadnoughts will even exist if Battleships are the upper size limit although they could well be simply a type of Battleship, like the real world versions were.

 RiTides wrote:
Rotating the base to indicate both orbital layer and ship status is really cool, though - will cut down on bookkeeping immensely and help you know which ships to target. I.e. the one that is lit up like a Christmas tree because it fired all its guns last turn or the one you can knock out of orbit since it has ventured too low...

Do any of the videos show examples of how the dials work?

Although in theory they seem like a great idea to cut down on record keeping, I think it might create other issues, depending on how easy the dials turn. My concern is constant fiddling with the ships causes them to move slightly to fidget position. Some people might have an issue simply turning it, so I can see people picking it up to turn to put it back and having people arguing over position of where the ship was. If it turns too easy then I'd be worried about fudging the dials while I move my ship.

In reality though is it really cutting back on bookkeeping or simply moving it to a different place? I am thinking of X-Wing in this example. We usually have cards on the side, with markers on them for damage, etc. By putting it in the stand, it is the same book-keeping just relocated.

It is a neat design and something I had thought about doing for some games. The closest I've gotten without being too fuddly is using CorSec stands with dice holders for d6 that held them in the stand for counters. They were bulky enough for everyone to easily see, without there being an issue with someone moving a piece and 'changing' something accidentally (or on purpose in some cases).

The dials look like they should function like old rotary phones. Use one hand to hold down the rim, then put a finger from the other hand into the window slot of the disk and turn it. There's room for it to go wrong, but it doesn't really look any more complex mechanically than a heroclix base.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The dials look like they should function like old rotary phones. Use one hand to hold down the rim, then put a finger from the other hand into the window slot of the disk and turn it. There's room for it to go wrong, but it doesn't really look any more complex mechanically than a heroclix base.

Yeah but heroclix play on a grid so taking a piece off the board or if it moved from a space is easier to see. Granted spaceship games tend to not need to be that fiddly because there typically isn't line of sight to worry about, and I doubt 1/2-1 inch a different direction I doubt would make a huge difference. Just trying to think issues through from a game tournament standpoint and/or sometimes just pain in the arse players. LOL!

It looks like Space stations are incoming.

That's probably a PHR ship of some sort!

Stations? Awesome! Very curious to see what they'll come up with!

By the way, will there also be ordnance? Stuff like torpedoes, fighters, bombers, landers, etc?

 Mymearan wrote:
That's probably a PHR ship of some sort!

i really, really hope not. It also doesn't seem to match the PHR aesthetic.