Dropzone Commander New Site

The new Dropzone Commander website is launched today. Let’s take a look at the new features and it’s impact on the future of Dropzone Commander.

I’m delighted to release the new Dropzone Commander Website to the public today.

First of all, this is a massive change from the last one in every way. This should give an even better experience of the first look at Dropzone Commander and of course players interactions via the Force Builder. There is also a new way to manage leagues and a way to submit game results for future balance passes, so let’s take a look.

Website:
Is hopefully a more modern and cleaner design. It’s kept quite basic, however it will be expanded on in time as we have new content for it! Keep an eye here on TTCommunity for more info in the future.

Force Builder:
The Beta test feedback was excellent, thanks to everyone who submitted feedback and comments. We’ve made changes where we felt it was best, however please do continue to give your feedback so we can develop this further. Key to the new design is that it is much easier to make changes than the old builder.

There are a couple of changes to the public Beta which I shall run through here. First of all the print outs are now designed to work better with US Letter paper sizing, a big part of the problem is we often work to A4 size here, however that means a lot of wasted white space when it’s shrunk to Letter sizing.

Secondly. There is now a new feature. Competitive Army Codes. This is something that makes a massive change to how the builder works, and how it works with the Tournament Manager (more later.)

So these two buttons allow you to view competitive armies, and create your competitive army code. So, first of all, a Competitive Army Code is a snapshot of your army, at the time you make it. It cannot be edited, and you name it yourself. This is perfect for submitting to Tournament Organisers and for sending to friends. If you edit your army using the editor code then you will need to make a new Competitive Army Code to share the changes.

These codes also can’t be deleted, and names for obvious reasons, can’t be duplicated. Personally I use the format of my name, faction, points and if it’s for a tournament, that tournaments name. Feel free to come up with your own convention though! It is case sensitive, so keep that in mind.

Tournament Manager:
This was a secret feature that wasn’t in the beta. You can now manage your leagues, and – in time – knock out tournaments, via the official site. There are plenty of options for setting your league up, a passcode for the organiser to make sure only they can edit it and submit results and you can make it public so people can see, or keep it private and share the name with the players. All up to you.

You can also submit the results of one off games via the Tournament Manager too, this is great for submitting us feedback on your game, so please do this as often as you like! All you need is the Competitive Army Code of both armies, and you can give us the result, and make any comments for us to look at.

Balance Passes:
The Tournament Manager allows us to have some real data about units’ performance in games now. If you submit your games or manage your Tournaments via the site we can see what units are doing well, and which ones… well, aren’t. That and the usual feedback we get from the players will mean even better data to base our balance passes on.

Future Development:
There are more features planned for the future too. So the site will keep growing and developing. As always, any new developments will be announced here on TTCommunity.

Website and Force Builder Feedback:
Please keep this coming. Whether it’s via Email to info@ttcombat.com, on Facebook in the Dropzone Commander fan group or even on the Discord where I myself try to engage with the community on various matters.

All feedback is good feedback. We want to make this site perfect for all users and for players of Dropzone Commander to have a great resource. So please, any feedback, or even feature ideas you have, are greatly appreciated.

Quick Note on the Future:
I’d also like to take this opportunity to answer a few questions we get asked a lot about Dropzone Commander and what is happening to certain models and so on.

Covid19 has of course caused quite a disturbance to our release schedule. This has meant the Restock project was temporarily paused. This is going to restart very soon. The plan is to get all the old units restocked so we have our own moulds for them, release a few alternative sculpts and units with these restocks and then we shall be looking at moving onto Behemoths.

We have previously mentioned battle group box sets for each faction, so rather than buying miniatures individually, you can get a box set of them. This is something we still plan to do, and again, this will be done once the restock project is complete.

Once stores are able to do demos, and we can do events again, we shall be really pushing some Dropzone Commander content on here too as well as helping our TTAgents to get out there. We have some great plans for Dropzone Commander and we’ve been delighted with the great support we’ve received from the community during these testing times.

We are really excited to see how the future develops for Dropzone Commander, Dave has been making some truly stunning new sculpts which we can’t wait to share with everyone.

So if you need to grab some new miniatures, or you really want to jump into the exciting world of Dropzone Commander for the first time, head to our webstore.

Don’t Resist This Teaser Tuesday

More Dropzone already?! YEP!

It’s barely been three weeks since the PHR got their long-awaited Starter Army, and we didn’t want to keep Resistance players waiting long to finish the set!

The Resistance Starter Army is going up on pre-order this Friday!

We’ve seen massive increases in all the other army contents, and the Resistance Starter Army is no different.

Where it is different is that this set is entirely in resin! It’s not quite double what you got in the old set, since the resin pieces are a lot more detailed, but it’s pretty close.

In order to make this set as big as possible we’ve made some cunning adjustments to some of the classic Resistance designs so they’re easier to cast, and come in fewer pieces. Eagle eyed viewers might be able to see the changes, but we’ll have a closer look later in the week.

All of these optimisations mean that the new Resistance Starter Army will be retailing at…. £35!

That’s right, it’s the same price as the other Starter Armies, as £5 cheaper than before! :O

Oh and of course the set also has the standard fastplay sheets and acrylic blast template! What a bargain!

The kit also contains a new commander, the Hydra Relay Hovercraft. The Starter Army has a version that just makes that, but we’ll also have it on its own, which will be able to make a variant too!

This is the Circe Attack Hovercraft, which trades its missiles and Scanner Array for a very deadly looking turret mount!

And that’s not all! We have a couple of other surprises coming your way on Friday, but I think that’s enough excitement for one day. Stop back later in the week when we’ll reveal all and have a closer peek at some of these new models.

In the meantime, you can find the rest of the Resistance range over in the TTCombat webstore. And of course they’re the newest faction in Dropfleet Commander too, with over 10 billion different ships!

Incoming Resistance

A new spinner your way comes!

With the Resistance coming to pre-order this Friday we thought we’d show you a little more of the Hydra Relay / Circe Attack Hovercraft in 360.

As you already know these will be available to pre-order this Friday on the TTCombat webstore along with some other goodies. The Starter Set gets the Hydra Relay Hovercraft whereas purchasing the Hydra Relay on its own also gets you the Alternate Circe Attack Turret. We look forward to releasing these and we hope you’re as excited as we are.

Hovercraft Time!

What is this new Hovercraft? Let’s find out!

Tomorrow sees the release of the new Resistance Starter Army, and with it the brand new Hydra Relay Hovercraft! But what is it and why should you want it in your army? That’s what we’re here to find out!

Hydra Relay Hovercraft
This is a new Commander, so it’s a bit of a support role. Let’s look at the stats:

The Hydra is a pretty nippy, with a 10″ move. Of course, you mustn’t forget that the Hovercraft don’t go in any transports, so you’re going to have to be careful with that 10″ to make sure you’re getting stuck into battle. Once you’re there though, it’s great at relocating.

A decent Armour 13 and 3 Damage Points with Resilient means it’s the hardiest of our new Commanders, and although Evasion +1 isn’t full Skimmer stats, it’s still very handy.

A Double Rocket Battery is a nice weapon, a simple 2 shot version of the standard Resistance profile. However, thanks to the Hydra’s advanced targeting, those missiles stay effective at a longer range, giving it a pin-point long range of 18″ Countered. It’s a good sniper!

The big news here is the Scanner Array though, a unique special rule for this Hovercraft. It allows you to pick a single enemy unit each activation, and for the rest of the round, all friendly units re-roll hit rolls of 1 against that unit’s squad. That’s a big deal! It’s less useful against aircraft since they tend to only have squads of 1, but against Standard choices or even Infantry units bunkered down in a Garrison, it’s super useful.

The separate version of the Hydra comes with the option to change the turret, making the Circe Attack Hovercraft!

Circe Attack Hovercraft
This mean looking hover-tank is completely different to what the Resistance have had access to previously.

As with the Hydra, the Circe doesn’t have a transport, but moves fast on its own. It also benefits from the Hovercraft rule, which means it will move on Turn 1 with the rest of your Hovercraft transports. Very handy!

It’s definitely faster than your Hannibals, and while it’s not as well armoured, it does benefit from Resilient and the Evasion bonus too, as well as an extra Damage Point! All in all, it’s pretty tough really. Just watch out for multiple shot weapons, making Resilient less useful.

The 180mm Vengeance Cannon is a nice mid-way point between the Hannibal and Alexander, adding a longer range, an extra point of Energy, and Devastator 2 against Skimmers and Tanks. Note that the Vengeance Cannon isn’t all-powerful, so it doesn’t work especially well on Walkers. Choose your targets wisely!

It also has a great Flamethrower. A primary weapon on other vehicles, this is more like a nice bonus. A 9″ range means it doesn’t even have to be that close to occupied Garrisons to get its full use, so we recommend pushing it for tank hunting, and any infantry killed are a nice bonus.

So there we have it! Two brand new hovercraft, each very different. Who is excited to add these to their Resistance armies? Who wants a whole army of hovercraft (me)?

These will be going up for pre-order tomorrow (Friday) on the TTCombat webstore, and there are still a few surprises left as well!

New Resistance Releases!



Resistance Starter Army? Check. BRAND NEW UNITS? BIG CHECK!


It’s a really special release day today, Resistance players are going to be PSYCHED!

We teased on Tuesday that the brand new Resistance Starter Army is released today, but we have more stuff we kept a secret!

Resistance Starter Army
So let’s start with the obvious:



The Resistance Starter Army is here!

This set is fully made of resin (except the infantry bases I guess. And the blast marker. And the fastplay sheets and box and stuff whatever), which means more detail than you’ll get on the other Starter Armies.

It’s almost twice the size of the previous set, and is actually cheaper as well! Coming in at a paltry £35, this is the first time that it’s just as affordable to start a Resistance army as any other.

The set has a squad of heavy Hannibal tanks, a big squad of Gun Wagons, 12 bases of Resistance Fighters with 6 Jacksons to transport them in. There’s also 2 Kraken Hovercraft for Wagon transport, and 3 of the massive Lifthawks too! Add in one extra Hydra Relay Hovercraft to put your Commander in, and you have a great new set.

You may even notice some new designs creeping in there too. The Krakens and Lifthawks have been redesigned to be easier to cast (one of the ways we’re able to cram so many models in this set for even less than you used to pay), and you’ll see two new designs of Jackson in there too, which we thought we be a nice treat. Ours are painted up in army colours, but they’ve been designed to work brilliantly as repurposed civilian cars (or private security company ones at least).

Currently these new designs are exclusive to the Starter Army, as each has fewer parts to make assembling your army much easier and quicker. Don’t worry, the super multi-part Lifthawks are still available separately if that’s what you want.

Hydra Relay/Circe Attack Hovercraft
We had a look at the rules for these hefty hovers yesterday, and now they’re ready for you!



This brand new hovercraft design answers the question of “what if Kraken but smaller and guns?”

Sitting about half the size of the Kraken transport, the Hydra/Circe is a brand new chassis which functions as a fast paced heavy tank.

While you can only make the Hydra in the Starter Army (another way we’ve managed to squeeze more models in there), if you get this kit separately you’ll be able to choose to make either the commanding Hydra or the shooty Circe.

The Hydra is a great choice for putting a Commander in, since its manoeuvrability helps get your command radius into the right place, and its Scanner Array allows you to pick out enemy squads and re-roll 1s to hit – very handy, even in bigger games!

Meanwhile the Circe variant swaps that command nonsense out for straight up firepower. Sitting somewhere between a Hannibal and an Alexander in damage output, it also packs a Flamer for additional nastiness.

The Hydra/Circe is now available for £10.

Swifthawk Tilt-Jets
A brand new unit is spotted on the horizon!



Introducing the Swifthawk Tilt-Jet!

This little aircraft is the Resistance’s answer to light aerial transports. If you were missing the allied UCM Raven in V2, then look no further!

The Swifthawk is an extension of the Strikehawk Tilt-Rotor, just much smaller! It also replaces its propellors for jet engines, reminiscent of the Hellhog. It’s truly a hybrid design which also lends some of its look to the Cyclone as well. Inspiration from all over the place!

You get two of these little dropships in the set, and they’re very handy for your Exotic infantry. Able to transport two units, they are also armed with a minigun and a set of light missiles, continuing the Resistance’s idea of up-arming literally everything. Oh and did I mention that they follow their big brother’s standard of giving the occupants Rapid Insertion? Now that’s a light dropship you can count on!

The set of 2 Swifthawk Tilt-Jets is available now for £10.

Tempest Interceptor
Did you think we were done with new units? Nope!



This is the Tempest Interceptor.

Like a fever dream that combines The Phantom Menace with Flash Gordon, this retro-future design is perfect for joining the ranks of the Resistance.

An out and out interceptor, the Tempest fills a vital role in the Resistance army: it’s incredibly fast and offers great long ranged accuracy when taking down enemy aircraft. Send it after your opponent’s fast flyers and laugh as you get the first shot!

The Tempest Interceptor is £10 in the webstore, ready for you right now!

Urban Bases
Even more?!




Originally designed to make our lives easier when painting up the studio models, we had enough people asking for them (seriously, a lot of people asking), that we’ve had them cast up properly and we’re ready to sell them!

The bases come in packs of 3 slots or 5 slots, with 18 bases in each. There are 3 designs, so you’ll have plenty of variation. They’re modelled with simple ledges and curbs, which will allow you to decorate them how you like. These ones were painted with a layer of textured paint, then a little sand and flock added. Although I’d recommend adding the textured paint after your infantry are in the slots!

Each pack of 18 bases is £8.



We thought you’d probably all like to see just how big these new miniatures are, so here we go! That Interceptor is not messing around!

We’ll be back next week to have a closer look at the new Starter Army models in more detail, and Chris is peeking his head out in a minute with some brand new rules for these units and a cheeky update to some other Resistance units, so you can see just how they fare on the battlefield!

All of these new releases are available to pre-order right now in the TTCombat webstore, so make sure to head over there for plenty more pictures of these great new models!

Dropzone Commander Balance Pass October 2020


With the release of new units for the Resistance we took a look through the faction once again and made some extra changes to give more balance and some flavour to the faction.

We did a balance pass for the whole range last week. However with new releases on the docket, we kept a few back a week so we could surprise you with a faction specific balance pass for them. Let’s take a look.

First of all, we have two new units, so let’s not keep you waiting.

Swifthawk Tilt-Jet
A new transport is a big deal for any army, and the Resistance one is no exception!



It has a gun, it has missiles, and it’s fast as anything. What more could you want from a light transport?

Well how about Rapid Insertion for the infantry inside? That’s a big deal! Being able to enter from anywhere on a Garrison and not re-rolling hits means this is sure to be a favourite.


Tempest Interceptor
The brand new fast flyer for Resistance has some meaty stats.



While it doesn’t have any fancy unique rules, this big new flyer makes up for that in its regular statline. It’s incredibly fast with decent evasion (although it’s not super good – it is a very big ship), but also has good armour and 2 Damage Points.

The big draw here will be the twin Hailstorm Cannons, which have a massive range for an interceptor, and while they aren’t crazy accurate they have AA-4 which means hardly any enemy aircraft will get an Evasion bonus on those shots. Combine that with a huge 24″ range and that means this ship will force your opponent to play very defensively or recklessly aggressive – both good options for you!

M5 Napoleon
This one is actually an error correction. The version that went up last week had the main turret duplicated, which, though we wanted it to have a lot of dice, this gave it a quite frankly impossible amount of dice. The tabletop equivalent of bulletstorm!

So we wanted to correct that, however that meant we took another look at it, so we’ve modified the weapon profile for the main turret again since we liked the double entry to represent both barrels, but weakened the amount of dice, and potential max energy of each one.

Hopefully this version is the ideal version. We love this model here at TT Head Office and we really want the rules to represent how it looks.

AT-90 Strikehawk Tilt-Rotor
Some small changes to this one to align it with the new Swifthawk. This means an increased transport capacity, a new missile bank and a small points increase.

Skulltaker Assault Transport
Again, some balance changes for this one to specify it’s role more. It’s now faster but has a smaller transport capacity. This makes it more of a auxiliary gunship with transport capacity.

Resistance Veterans
These guys have been redesigned from the ground up. We are aware that removing Marine Force Recon teams was a blow to some players, and some have been asking for more Kalium focused infantry. Well we think this should satisfy all those needs.



Resistance Veterans now come armed as standard with Assault Rifles and Knives and Pistols. In fact they have nothing to separate them from standard Resistance Fighters, in fact, they are worse since they don’t even get the RPG. So what do they get for their extra 5 points?

Well that is up to you, the player. Before deployment (so this can be tailored to the opponent, or to the theme of your army) you get a choice of rules. Choose from 3 options:

Scourge Occupation: These get the Modified Scourge Rifles back.

Marine Force Recon: These gain Dodge and improve their CQ weapons.

Kalium Volunteers: These guys are like stone. Resilient and re-roll failed Fortitude tests.

Alongside the new releases this allows you to flavour your Resistance army a bit more.

Beserkers
A small change to these nutters, their CQ weapon has an Energy increase to 4.

Hellhog
Since this will no longer be the only Fast Flayer for the Resistance, it can go back to being a bit more flexible in its role.



It’s still Fast, however it now has a minimum distance of 6″, meaning it almost hovers in place, like it used to. However to get it’s full Evasion Countermeasures it must move over 18″.



These changes bring some more internal balance to the Resistance Faction and make all units useable and allows you to build a more themed Resistance list if that’s your thing!

If this makes you want to grow your Resistance army further, or has made you want to start one, with the new starter army released today, it’s a great time to start. Head to our webstore now for the whole range.

Final bit
One final thing before I leave you all to your experimenting with the new units and changes. We are aware the current FAQ is rather out of date and we are looking to get that fixed ASAP. With so few games being played the last 6 months it hasn’t been a big priority for us, but it seems people are starting to get some games in.

So if you have any questions, then William Martin, part of the Dropzone Comamnder Community on Facebook, and a part of the ever growing Discord server has started this document to collect questions. Please feel free to add your questions there.