Assembling the Dropzone Commander plastic miniatures & a building fix

[Ferb]

Hi all,

In this post I take a look at assembling the remaining UCM models and try out a colour scheme.

I also commented in my blog yesterday that I was disappointed with the card buildings so I've had another look at them and I've found a fix to improve things.

Ferb

[Nosher]

Cheers for these thoughts Ferb - following them with interest as I am looking for an alternative to Future War Commander for my various Sci-fi armies.

I'm a little put off by the price tag. Sadly £60 is twice my monthly wargames budget I noticed you can buy things individually - i.e the rules etc, templates, card sets etc which is a bonus, however I wondered if you could answer a few questions.

1. How 'portable' is DZC with other sci-fi ranges? Could the UMC say be Space Marines for example?

2. How big is the play area? I keep hearing about a games mat but can the game be played on a traditional wargames layout?

3. If DZC is a stand alone game that wont easily be adapted to play other sci-fi ranges, how much more kit do you need other than the boxed set? the contents look a little limited and individual itesm look very expensive!

Cheers in advance

Nosher

[Ferb]

1. How 'portable' is DZC with other sci-fi ranges? Could the UMC say be Space Marines for example?

The UMC, PHR and Scourge are all humans although the Scourge are parasites controlling humans (sort of like the Goa'uld in Stargate) The Shaltari are aliens 4' tall humanoids. So you could use 3 of the 4 races as generic human scifi.

You could certainly use all the stuff if you were playing sci fi games like Gruntz with its custom force builder

2. How big is the play area? I keep hearing about a games mat but can the game be played on a traditional wargames layout?

The starter forces are about 500pts and can play easily on a 4x4. The larger scale battles, usually 1500 to 2000pts play on a 6x4 table. The scenarios are based around infantry searching or holding buildings so you would need buildings but the rest of the terrain could be normal terrain instead of cityscapes. Although LoS is key and you wouldn't want lots of wide open spaces.

3. If DZC is a stand alone game that wont easily be adapted to play other sci-fi ranges, how much more kit do you need other than the boxed set? the contents look a little limited and individual itesm look very expensive!

The game has three levels of play.
Skirmish 500-999pts,
clash 1000-1999pts and
battle 2000-3000pts.
The starter set is fine for a skirmish level game but most players play at about 1500pts. There are army list limitations for each level to limit what you can take so no forces of all uber units.
To expand your forces you could buy a second starter set then just add a command vehicle (needed for +1000pt games) and some aircraft or possibly scout tanks which would get you to 1500pts depending on your unit choices and quality of commander you buy. So for about £150 you could have 2 1500pt forces. Or you could sell off the forces you don't want from the sets and the spare rulebook etc to recoup some of your costs.

I agree that the resin stuff is way too expensive and I'm not going to buy a lot of extras.


Hope this helps,
Ferb

[Nosher]

Cheers Ferb

Sounds like it might not transpose easily so I will probably give it a miss based on cost and non-portability to other races/genres.

I'm looking for generic sci-fi rules to cover Space Marines, Orks, Squats, Kraytonians, Andrayans, Pax Arcadians, Colonial Marines and Aliens. I'm looking at Quadrant 13 by TFL but am not enamoured by the IABSM mechanisms.

FWC is ok but its missing something I cant put my finger on...

[Ferb]

You should really check out Gruntz. They're a great set of sci-fi rules and use a fully customizable force builder so you can use any figures you want.

If you're not familiar with Gruntz it's a set of rules for playing 15mm sci-fi games (though I've used it with 10mm). This sounds pretty straightforward but what I like about Gruntz is not only that it's quick and simple to play and learn, while still having sufficient complexity, but also that it has a points based army builder system that lets you build any kind of force you want. In addition to the standard sci-fi type armies I've played games with alien lizards who had giant beetles acting as tanks (think Starship Troopers), weird WWII US troops with Shermans and mechs backed up by a group of super heroes and there's people on the forum building steampunk based forces. The system is just so flexible the only limiting factor is your imagination.

Here's a link to an AAR on my blog Mechs vs Sharkmen plus you can find much more on their excellent forums here.

Ferb

[GordonY]

Nosher, does this make it a little more affordable http://totalwargamer.co.uk/dropzone-commander-two-player-starter-set.html £48 is much better than £60

Ferb, damn your eyes sir, I had no interest at all in this twaddle until I read your posts, now I'm salivating like one of Mr Pavlov's dogs waiting for the postie

[Ferb]

Nosher, does this make it a little more affordable http://totalwargamer.co.uk/dropzone-commander-two-player-starter-set.html £48 is much better than £60

Beware of totalwargamer has a bad reputation for taking money and not delivering. I got mine for £54 inc p&p from Firestorm.

Ferb, damn your eyes sir, I had no interest at all in this twaddle until I read your posts, now I'm salivating like one of Mr Pavlov's dogs waiting for the postie

Lol my work here is done 

[GordonY]

Interesting, I've never had a problem withTotalwargamer, all the Dystopian Wars stuff I ordered turned up pretty promptly usually within a week. And FYI I also paid out £54 for my DZC set but from Trolltrader, but that was simply because I forgot about Total and had some extra pound notes this month.