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I've played a fair bit with a friend and it seems pretty balanced to me. Army building is also balanced so that you need to take a bit of everything. 'Spamming' is only going to bring you pain.

 ProfessionalAmateur wrote:
I've played a fair bit with a friend and it seems pretty balanced to me. Army building is also balanced so that you need to take a bit of everything. 'Spamming' is only going to bring you pain.

If it discourages spamming, I'm surprised that not all 40k players have switched already.

Ha Yeah it works like this: You have a few basic types of unit: Armour (tanks and such), Anti Air, Infantry, Dropships and Aircraft.

The only one you can possibly do without it Aircraft; Dropships are a fundamental core mechanic, Infantry are the only things that can claim objectives, Armour are what do your real damage and AA is vital to prevent your opponent from having free reign over the table.

As others have said, yes. Not specifically called out, it's balanced multiple ways.

Army construction is balanced - you need a good combination of infantry, tanks and AA when you construct your force, and have options to take other toys as well (fast movers, smoke, force multipliers, etc). There are tolerances to suit differing playstyles and there aren't cookie cutter armies, however.

Each faction is also balanced, as a general whole. Each does some things better than the others, and has units that are costed higher/lower than other armies, but because of army construction balance, it tends to work out. Each army also plays very differently, and even then, army construction can allow the same faction to play significantly different based on units selected and composition.

Play is also very balanced, in terms of turn structure, initiative, command cards, etc. I've never felt wholly outmatched on the table, nor wholly in control of any game. Nearly every activation feels like a hard choice, and nearly every choice, every roll (good and bad) has significant consequences. I really enjoy that.

I have found the game to be extremely balanced and easy to learn, but difficult to master. It is a blend of infantry for capturing objectives, AA to protect yourself from roving craft and fast movers, tanks for raw killing power, and the dropships themselves for speed and maneuver. Spamming hurts the internal balance of your force and thus is more damaging than useful in the long run.

That said, the game offers a diverse list of usable units that all fill similar roles, but play very differently. This allows varied forces that are also balanced. I will use the PHR as a quick example. They can take scout AA, Helios skimmer AA, and Phobos AA. Each unit is utilized for AA, but offers a unique way of doing it. The scouts are fast and help extend your commanders battlefield influence, but lack range and rate of fire. The Helios shreds aircraft with ease and is fast, but only has a very limited range and lower armor. While the Phobos gets half the shots that the Helios gets and is much slower, but at twice the range at a higher energy value. By mixing and matching you set the pace for your list.

TL : DR : The game is extremely well balanced while allowing for a lot of individuality. Spamming is generally bad and dropships (while not mandatory) are extremely useful in a game of maneuver.

I read a battle report using the spam technique and the game became boring and predictable according to the playtester. It is better in combined arms.

Seems like the only real bummer for me is that the game is so extremely centered around dropships that they have to be an auto-buy when you are getting a new unit of models (making that unit essentially twice the price), and that I wish that Infantry were of more of a use than just dropping next to a building to claim objectives. I wish it was possible to use them on the open battlefield like in Epic, without them basically dying wholesale to any decent attack..

With so much technology in the DZC universe having soldiers in the open is not productive. The reason they travel in vehicles to get quickly as possible inside buildings for cover.

Keep in mind that because of current terrain availability, it teens to be prayed on tables with buildings, making dropships very useful to get over and around buildings, and also able to hide behind them.

The game can be played on different retain setups, but so far it's not as common so it's hard to get an impression of other setups.

I'm thinking the new bunker terrain pieces will help in that regard.

I've seen a few focal point battle reports being done on rural boards. It works fairly well from what I have seen if terrain is dense enough and hills are utilized. Open killing fields are often slaughter-houses, but that tends to be the case for most games that lack sufficient cover. It goes from tactical action to massive tank battle with rapid redeployment options.

You'll need terrain at least 2-3" high at the very least so that aircraft, such as dropships, don't get shot out of the sky. They'll have to risk a rare crash by flying at the deck, which counts at 2" off the ground. Normally they count as 6" high when flying normally.

Honestly, if people are playing on a non-city board, I'd ignore the need to roll for crashes while flying at the deck, since at this scale 2" above the ground is still pretty high off the ground.

So, you can use some tall trees to make small patches of terrain that infantry can get into, letting aircraft and vehicles hide behind them. Hills are easy enough to get up to 2-3" tall. Honestly just use 2" stacking hills and declare that aircraft at the deck behind them are out of LoS.

Yeah, I think that if it could be proved to me that Dropzone could be playable in more varied forms of table like games of Epic 40K, I would be much more inclined to get the starter set, at least. It seems very much optimized for playing dense urban games, which would seem like it would get old very quickly.

I don;t have the rules or anything, so I could be wrong, but I would like to see some rules where infantry dies easily in the open, but can easily get "dug in" in dense areas of terrain making them hard to kill off without sending in your own infantry to counter them. Otherwise it seems like there is no need for actual infantry models, because they are really just tokens to put on top of buildings while they try to claim the objective inside, and then they "disappear" into their APC, then into the Dropship, to flee off the side of the board to get the points.

Seems like one of the largest issues, especially with urban terrain, should be how infantry are so hard to dig out of the spots they can hide in.

It's very much a balanced ruleset. It rewards tactical play and IMO plays more realistically than games like 40k.

Infantry can get shredded in the open because ... they're infantry! This doesn't mean they always will, I've seen 3 stands of infantry hold up for a couple turns out in the open, but it's not common. Why would infantry choose to run around on foot when they can use a vehicle to get to their objectives? Vehicles will always be faster than models on foot, so it makes sense to use a vehicle.

As far as the Urban environment goes, it's entirely possible to play on different terrain setups - it's just not popular right now. I attribute this to the quality and cheapness of Hawk's DZC card terrain. Were they to release an alternate set - let's say something called Canyons and Caves - you'd see more variation. As is, the game is just a few years old and hasn't expanded to that level yet. Given the effort displayed by the few folks over at Hawk, I wouldn't be surprised to see this!

I was also thinking of using high trees and mountains with caves. Will this game support water vehicles in the future? It will be a complete fun.

Water vehicles? Do you mean like submersibles, boats, and the like? The Resistance have hovercraft (and I could see them having other cruder technology like river-boats), but it would seem strange for the other factions to have that sort of stuff. VTOL and skimmer tech is simply too prevalent. The game takes place in an era defined by orbital assault with Naval assets primarily in space. Even large bodies of water are hardly an obstacle for heavy tanks unless, by some miracle, you've managed to de-dropship a large portion of the army in question and also cut them off from orbital reinforcement.

Edit: For clarity.

Now that you mention about the dropships you are right

There were a few design brainfarts, units that were too good or too bad for their points cost.

However it happened in a small minority of cases, most units werre right first time, which is impressive enough, and Hawk Wargames also fixed those that weren't and FAQed them as needed.

If only GW did the same.

Infantry can get shredded in the open because ... they're infantry! This doesn't mean they always will, I've seen 3 stands of infantry hold up for a couple turns out in the open, but it's not common. Why would infantry choose to run around on foot when they can use a vehicle to get to their objectives? Vehicles will always be faster than models on foot, so it makes sense to use a vehicle.

I don't look for infantry to wander around on foot, but is it even feasible/worthwhile to have the APCs loaded with infantry drive across part of the map to deploy their infantry in some terrain that is not necessarily a big building? Right now it seems like everything I see is "Dropship makes a half-distance move to deploy APC's within their movement of a building, APC's then move to building and deploy infantry inside". Tanks in a dropship do a variation of that move. Seems like that would get boring after awhile.

Without reading the rulebook I am worried that everything revolves super-heavily around the dropship angle of the game, which with AA kind of predicates using urban terrain for the buildings to block line of sight, and it seems to a layman to make the first foot or so of the player's table edge seems worthless as you are never deploying anything but very occasionally artillery there because even the half move of dropships takes you further into the table. Everything seems to revolve around the centerline of the table being a bloody combat after dropships deploy their cargo.

But as I said, I have not played a game of Dropship, so I am an outsider looking in with not much info about how the game plays other than what I have seen.

There are rules for area terrain using soft and hard cover. Once infantry get far enough into a forest, as an example, they can not shoot out and can not be shot at. So you have to go in and root them out.

It's important to note that any problem units, such as Ferrum, are actually still in experimental stage, the model is released, and the rules are available for download online, but several models have been tweaked from the current experimental units.

This just means that when the new book comes out this month, they'll have the properly tested and balanced rules.

I find the rules very balanced. So far I have not found any overpowering unit. Each unit has it's place and if you skimp somewhere ( don't take enough infantry) you will pay for it.

I also like that Hawk LISTENS to it's players and adjusts things accordingly.

So far my least favorite mission has been the kill point one. I enjoy the objective based game. Even though you might inflict catastrophic losses on your enemy if they get more objectives they win. Play to the mission

The game is very balanced, the o ly two times ive seen a skewed game were once I was playing a Shaltari player who made all his countermeasure saves, as in he didnt fail a single roll all game, I still won the game as I managed to retrieve all the objectives w only a single transport remaining. Thats more dice than a balance issue though, as he shouldnt have made so many saves to start.

The other instance is a game that I lost by list building. My opponent wanted to play a larger game than I could really play comfortably so I ended up fielding a list that was heavy in support/exotic/scout choices and not primary combat type units, etc. Game basically ended on turn 3 because I only had 5 models w weapons that have strength (or energy as its called) higher than 7, which my opponent destroyed all of relatively quickly, leaving me entirely unable to damage the majority of his remaining units in turn.

I do, however, wonder if the game could be played without the old style 6 turn limit.

After coming from Flames of War, it's so odd to be playing with that arbitrary turn limit.

There's a few missions objectives that I just don't like that only work with that limit. Stuff like focal point, which leads to silly pile ups around the focal point objectives.

Yeah the Shaltari are the odd ducks with the Passive Saves. To be fair - making that many saves is a rarity. Or you need to check their dice

Hes a Dark Eldar player, he's quite accustomed to making 5+ saves lol. But seriously it was unreal, he basically picked apart my entire army while I was entirely powerless to do anything in return because of those damned saves. Like, I think the first three turns of the game I just absolutely pummeled him and forced him to roll save after save and he just wouldn't fail, otherwise i'd have tabled him a few times over pretty quickly.

I've also failed all of my passive saves before and watched expensive units crumble to dust at a sneeze. The Shaltari typically pay through the nose for their passive saves and maneuverability. Usually in the form of points, armor, firepower, or a combination of all the above. I feel that it balances out really well.