Sunday, December 9, 2012

DropZone Commander

The folks at Hawk Wargames were nice enough to send out a sample set of their exciting Dropzone Commander for review.

The rulebook is absolutely beautiful.  The book consists of 154 pages chalk full of goodness, including game background, rules, scenarios, army lists (UCM, Scourge, PHR, SHALTARI), guest painter pictures and tokens & templates.

The images in the book are...well lets just say...mind blowing in detail.  The artists have blurred the line between reality and science fiction perfectly.  The landscapes and cityscapes used are what every gamer would dream of having on their tabletop.  Incredibly detailed buildings, city streets and outstanding paint jobs make each picture come alive.

The rules consists of 34 pages that are really easy to read, with plenty of examples and tables to follow.  Each Army is broken down into a background section, weapon details, unit specific stats, army lists and examples of armies and color schemes.  Guest painters strut their stuff showcasing some amazing painting skills that will be hard to follow.

The game has been designed around the concept of rapid deployment and redeployment of your forces by airborne dropships, thus the name of the game DropZone Commander.

The game is scaled in 10mm, a happy medium between 6mm and 15mm.  The figures I received came in an army box.  All the vehicles were resin and the infantry were metal.  The 3 dropships came with their own flying base.




Below are some of the parts that come in the box set.  The dropships are made up of 5 parts.  The walkers are composed of 5 parts.  The tanks are a 3 part set.  The starter army had 3 dropships, 2 tanks, 4 walkers and 4 stands of infantry.





Based on what I have seen, you will need a few tools including a good x-acto blade, a file and some cutters.  One thing I didn't like was the two piece mold for the Post-Human Republic tanks.  These have to be glued together with the seam line running down the middle of the tank.  A one piece version would have been much better, with the injection taking place in the underside.  This is something that is already done with countless resin vehicles and should be done here as well.  I also think, although it would increase cost, is to have metal bits for things like weapons.  Resin weapons always have a habit of breaking or warping, at least mine do, and metal bits just seem to last longer.

The metal troops are very nice and have plenty of detail.  Over all really like the look of the armies.


3 comments:

  1. This is a very very nice set of models! The figures are not great, but the vehicles are WOW!

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  2. Yeah, that's my one complaint over the model design, as the UCM Bear APC also shares the same split hull thing. I would've paid a bit more to have just a solid chunk, and with that resin it wouldn't be very heavy.

    As to the weapons, I've found this resin pretty hard wearing so far. No real warpage, beyond a little bit of bending, and with weapons, they're the things that tend to get bent out of shape. With metal I'd be worried about the constant flexing of them eventually snapping them.

    The book as you say is very well done. It's disgusting to think that not only is Dave the talent behind designing all the figures and writing the rules, but also took all the photos in the book. Too much talent for one person.

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