Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Dropping into Dropzone Commander


     So, due in part to games I'm playtesting, in part to the amount of interest we've been getting here on the subject, and in part to B97's continued nagging that I don't beat him in enough different games, I picked up the Dropzone Commander terrain kit and a UCM blister.  Oh boy...
     So, we've been talking about this game for a little while- nothing to serious because we don't own any of it, but mostly just bringing it up because it's out there and it blew us away when it first launched. And every time we bring it up, it becomes a hot article. We literally can't go a day without search engine hits for a game nobody is playing, which means there's got to be a lot of interest waiting to here more. Since that's kinda what we're here for, and since I mentioned Dropzone Commander on sale, I decided it was high time to take a look at this.


     Obviously I needed the Cityscape terrain. Not only would it be key for Dropzone, but also for playtesting Mecha Front as well.  Let me tell you, for simple cardboard terrain I'm incredibly impressed.  You get 24 two-sided 1'x1' plates. Now, befor you get too excited about "wow, 48 options!" I want to point out that it's actually 12 2-sided plates that all repeat once. Still, a solid deal.  You also get 20 building, ranging from four to eleven stories tall. Now, the box says that's enough for play on a 4x6, and it might be since I haven't played yet, but that seems a little sparse on that size table. However, it's probably perfect on a 4x4. Some of the tiles are "park-like", allowing for implementation of trees into the mix as well.  I'll have some home brew pictures of the buildings later this week.

    Now, I couldn't get the starter kit just yet (damned silly expenses like eating and shelter!) but I did pick up one blister to examine the model quality.  Let me tell you, everything you've heard it true.  The resin quality puts most of the products on the market to shame, the models while only 10mm have incredible detail, and I'm really enjoying painting them.  I had already decided on the UCM as my army of choice, so  decided to pick up the one model I really wanted that wasn't in the starter box: the Wolverines. I fell in love with these little buggers as soon as I saw them.  I wasn't disappointed. Four Wolverines in the blister, each coming with 2 turret options. The missile launcher is one piece, the minigun is a two piece turret. That's a total of 16 pieces. Not at all shabby, and I'm very happy the blister comes with all possible armaments.

     A couple words of warning with these guys. First, be very careful when washing the resin. These models will have very tiny parts which will try to escape.  If you can soak them all still sprue mounted, that's probably best. Second, be mindful of your priming. Use an airbrush if you can, or a very high quality micro-molecule primer. Also, don't be an idiot like me and spray them in a high humidity day. Suffice to say only one of the four will probably get pictured on the blog.

     Now, the next order of business is deciding on a paint scheme.  Army drab, or dust, or grey?  I'd love to try a camo on them, but I think at this scale that would really only look like bad stippling. I'm also thinking of a "unit stripe" of some type to identify formations just in case I have more than one. Anyone have anything they want to see?  



The Second Class Elitist

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