Dropzone Commander

Greetings! The Folly of War is anchored in high orbit this week preparing for rapid deployment planetside. I am of course talking about the fabulous new 10mm scale Dropzone Commander. This game focuses on rapid deployment and re-deployment. This is key to the games design as ground forces are limited to very slow movement (infantry can only move up to 3" on average compared with a dropship's 24").

MINIATURES:

The sculpts on these bad boys are amazing and all of the factions have been handled with care. There are for armies to choose from; The United Colonies of Mankind (UCM), Post Human Republic (PHR), the Scourge and the Shiltari. Each faction has various dropships, aircraft, tanks, walkers and infantry. What stands out about these miniatures is that all (yes every single vehicle) can actually be carried by the transport models and dropships. A word of warning though depending on the faction you choose determines the modelling difficulty. Shaltari, being the easiest as they use portals so the models are not technically carried and PHR being the hardest as you will need to magnetise each model. The models are made of a flexible resin which in my opinion puts finecast to shame. They are quick to clean up and so far I have not had any detail loss, which I found happened far to often with GW's finecast.

This is NOT the Harbinger.

GAME: So, I have played a few practise games with the rules and have found them to be quite easy to pick up. The game focuses around battlegroup actions instead of the my turn your turn mechanics of 40k. My first proper game was against Heroes and legends own, Guy. He used his PHR which focus on slow movement but make up for it with the range and power of their weapons. The game went well for me and due to an error with his deployment Guy lost a huge amount of his forces to my desolator dropship (which in no way resembles the Reaper Ships from Mass Effect...). The game ended with me claiming more objectives than Guy but as with any newly learnt game I regard this win more down to luck than tactical acumen.

My Second game was against Mr. Birch, this did not go so well. I also learned how effective intercepting fire is (the hard way). The majority of my stuff died in my own turn due to the amazing amount of AA that came my direction. Interceptor fire allows unactivated units that have not fired to shoot at aircraft that move within their range. It is harder to hit though so the risk of waisting the shots is ever present. Unfortunately for me Mr. Birch hit with everything sending the Reaper.. I mean Desolator crashing to the ground. Dropzone is a balancing act between knocking out ground troops whilst maintaining good solid air superiority. Mr. Birch used our game as practise for a tournament coming up in few weeks, where as I used the game to bed in some of the more complex rules. Overall Dropzone (warning cliche alert) is an easy game to learn but a hard game to master.

I hope that this weeks post has inspired you to take a look at this very interesting and tactical game. You can find out more information at www.hawkwargames.com