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ElectricPaladin
02-28-2013, 08:43 AM
After a rather disappointing showing of Relic Knights - I'm not totally sold against it, yet, but the game didn't exactly live up to its promise - I'm becoming curious about Drop-Zone Commander. I've heard good things about it on various podcasts, and got to admire some painted minis at the game store last night. The models are neat - especially the Posthuman Republic, which would be my faction - I don't yet play any game at that scale, and the starting cost is relatively low ($150 is a low initial investment... for a minis game).

What can my fellow BoLSers tell me about this new and fascinating game?

Houghten
02-28-2013, 03:29 PM
Ooh, ooh, I've been composing bits and pieces to make a potential article in my head, so I should be able to tell you a bit. Though I had been planning to wait until the rules for the new models came out to tie it together properly.

You've already seen the models in the flesh (resin. Whatever) so I shan't need to explain the scale to you, but for the readers who haven't, Dropzone Commander (henceforth DZC) is a 10mm scale game; a main battle tank is about the size of a Space Marine lying down, and infantry are only dealt with in terms of multi-model bases.

There are (currently) four factions:
One, the United Colonies of Mankind (UCM), who are your baseline humans on a campaign of Reconquest (that's Re-conquest, not Recon-quest) to take Earth and the Cradle Worlds back from the Scourge. Out of all the factions, they make the most use of wheeled and tracked vehicles, and have a lot of options for air power. You can think of them as like the Imperial Guard if you like, but if you insist on looking at everything in 40k terms you'll get a bit muddled later.
Two, the Scourge, an alien race bent on subjugation in the most literal and horrifying terms - they are parasites whose larvae take over their hosts' nervous systems, leaving them trapped in their own body as they mercilessly slaughter their former comrades with lethal plasma weaponry. Their hovertanks appear organic at first glance, but are manufactured chassis for those adult Scourge who grew to maturity without a living host. Scourge tanks are a bit less well-armoured than those of the UCM (as they could hardly fly otherwise!), but their plasma cannon pack a devastating wallop to make up for it.
Three, the Post-Human Republic (PHR), cyborgs under the guidance of a mysterious probably-an-AI known only as "the White Sphere." The White Sphere warned humanity of the coming of the Scourge, and the PHR are the descendants of those who listened to its warning and fled far, far away from Earth. The UCM view them as filthy traitors who abandoned humanity in its hour of need, and although in theory the two factions both stand against the Scourge, in practice many UCM commanders are quite happy to take potshots at PHR forces. The PHR make extensive use of advanced walkers in place of tanks. Though slow, they are heavily armed and armoured; Type-2 walkers in particular are so freakin' tough the rules give them honorary energy shields because their armour value can't go any higher.
Four, the Shaltari, your basic "advanced race" who somehow manage to glorify war and be terrified of death at the same time. They get around this by taking to the battlefield in armoured suits that are practically light tanks in their own right, and all of their vehicles (they couldn't decide whether to flaunt their obvious superiority with hovertanks or walkers, so they went for both; light, fast hovertanks and giant tripedal walkers) are equipped with energy shields. Their dropships are highly unconventional; where the other races must bodily convey their warriors into battle, Shaltari Gates are teleport mechanisms that can instantly transfer units from orbit to ground without any risk of getting shot down on the way.

With that out of the way, let's talk about the mechanics. Things they move, things they shoot, with the rolls-to-hit and to-damage being on d6s determined by the weapon's Accuracy (Ac) and its Energy (E) versus the target's Armour (A). So far, sounds kinda like 40k with the serial numbers filed off, right? Not so much, it turns out. Here's something to blow your mind: you can choose which way round an individual unit moves and shoots. There's no Movement Phase or Shooting Phase, instead any Squad can choose to move-then-shoot, or shoot-then-move. In the former case, how far they move will determine which weapons they can fire; in the latter case, they can't move further than the lowest Move-and-Fire value (MF) of the weapons they fired. Those weapons, by the way, can be fired at different targets if you so choose; after all, why refrain from firing your minigun at those infantry over there just because you're targeting that walker with your railgun? It is on a swivel mount.

On the note of "this ain't 40k," armies are divided into Battlegroups. Rather than have one player's whole army do its stuff at once, players take it in turns to activate unactivated Battlegroups (although close-quarter-combat only happens once per turn, at the beginning before any Battlegroups are activated).

As you'd expect in a game with "Dropzone" in the title, air units (and anti-air units) play a big role in DZC. Every faction can make a 100% air-mobile army (and, indeed, all the starter sets and army deals are 100% air-mobile). Not every air unit is a dropship, though. There are gunships and bombers, some of which move so fast that they're on and off the board in the same turn, and so the enemy anti-air guns can only fire on them off-turn at a nasty Ac penalty. Some of the Fast Movers are Interceptors, whose primary role is to blow up other Fast Movers before they can do any damage - but Interceptors are themselves vulnerable to enemy Interceptors, so you can end up with a giant aerial furball quite quickly (with the occasional AA gun joining in from the ground).
Side note: only AA weapons can ever shoot at aircraft (no, not even with Snap Shots. What are those?), unless they've landed. Even if those weapons are mounted on an aircraft.

As you'd also expect, the "Commander" part plays a role. You don't have to take a commander, but they allow you to play more Command cards per turn, and those can turn up some nifty bonuses. The command units themselves are also pretty nifty (Commanders can only give orders at half their normal range unless mounted in a command unit): the UCM have a truck that can radio in orbital death, the Scourge have a lazily-flying electric squid that zaps everything in a scarily large radius all at once, and the PHR and Shaltari both stuff their commanders in the toughest walkers they have and then beef up the shielding at the cost of one of the guns.

It's not all about killing things with big guns, though. In fact, I'd say it mostly isn't. Mobility is the key to victory in a game where you may need to recon an area and find the hidden intel, assassinate an enemy commander or locate and destroy a key building before the enemy notices you. When I look at the missions I wonder a little if they'd work better with a Dungeon Master rather than a straight-up opponent; DZC is definitely a narrative game, not a game of straight-up stand-up-and-fight.

I forgot to write a conclusion, so I'm just going to invite questions from the peanut gallery instead.

ElectricPaladin
03-01-2013, 12:32 PM
I forgot to write a conclusion, so I'm just going to invite questions from the peanut gallery instead.


I have a question! A few, actually.

1) You say it's a narrative game... that sounds really cool. Is there a campaign system for it yet?
2) The website lists several different army deals, from a small force to a large. What would you recommend for a starting player? Does the smallest starter army provide enough options? In particular, I note that while the starter army includes a command deck, it doesn't include a "Zeus Command Walker." Does that mean that it includes a command deck... but no commander? Or can I elect to make one of my other walkers a commander?
3) Relatedly, if one were to buy the smallest starter army, in what order would you rank further purchases to add to it immediately (below the level of just buying the next largest starter army, of course)?
4) What else can you tell me about the basic system? The shooting, the damaging... how does it work? Is it consistent, balanced, intuitive? Does it have flow, or is it frustrating?

I'll certainly continue to pepper you with questions. Hopefully some other posters will express some interest and ask questions I haven't thought of yet!

Houghten
03-01-2013, 03:01 PM
1) There aren't any particular campaign guidelines beyond "you could string multiple scenarios together" (no, really, that's what it says in the book). What I meant was that, with twelve very different scenarios, some of which use different army rosters and very different terrain, the game is very much one of "figure out with your friend(s)* what you want to do and do that. It'll be cool." I'm not at all certain how things would work in a tournament format.

*Oh, yes. You can have three-or-four-way battles, at least with many of the scenarios. Did I mention that? I don't think I did.

2a) Personally, I bought one of each of the smallest starter armies and then evened out the points costs with differently-sized squads of Scouts, but that's because I want to introduce DZC to my local gaming group and I need tasters for them to use. Given that you apparently already have a group that plays (or at least has the models), I'd probably say let the size of their collections dicatate whether you start with a Starter, Large or Mega army. Not much point having one of everything if you're only going to play Skirmish sized games, after all.

2b) The smallest starter armies all follow the same format - two squads of infantry, two APCs, one squad of main battle tanks, one squad of AA tanks and three medium dropships to carry all of the above. This covers all the bases you need to cover - units that can interact with objectives, units that can hurt tanks, units that can hurt aircraft, and aircraft to get all of the above where they need to go.

2c) You don't technically need a commander on the table to issue orders, but you'll be limited to a hand size of one command card and will only get any effect out of cards with an Area of "Global" (since the radius of your sphere of influence will be zero).

2d) A commander need not be mounted in a Command unit, nor need a Command unit have a commander mounted in it. However, if a commander is mounted in a non-command unit, the radius of their sphere of influence will be halved.

3) I'd say the first thing to add is a command unit. As for the second and third, I'd like to reserve judgement until we find out what the new units currently up for pre-order do.

4) The rules for Attack Runs (and, by extension, Intercepts), Reaction Fire and when you are and aren't allowed to pre-measure can take a little getting used to. Outside of that, shooting is pretty darn easy. You check whether you're in range, using your weapon's full value if the target doesn't have Active Countermeasures, or the Countered value if it does. Your roll to hit depends on your weapon's Accuracy - if the Ac is 5+, you hit on a 5+. If it's 3+, you hit on a 3+. No lookup tables required there. The roll to damage does require a table, but it's easy enough to remember that equal Energy damages equal Armour on a 5+ and go from there.

In close-quarters battle (which just happens in buildings, by the way - on the open field, CC weapons are just treated as shooting with a range of 0) it's marginally simpler; you don't bother rolling to hit, just to damage, with the roll being entirely determined by the opponent's Armour.

ElectricPaladin
03-01-2013, 03:14 PM
I will presently have more follow-up questions, but here's one that jumps out at me, and since you seem to be actually online as we speak...

Å) If different scenarios use different army list restrictions/allowances, does that mean that this game uses dynamic list-building (a la, for example, Malifaux, in which you figure out the terrain and the objectives before you decide which models to bring)? Or... what? How does that work?

Houghten
03-01-2013, 03:36 PM
You could, in theory, figure out a single list which would be legally splittable across Standard, Defence Force and Reinforcements rosters as needed for any of the twelve rulebook scenarios (with an extra command unit for when you play the defender's role in Decapitation), but I'm not sure it would be very satisfying.

ElectricPaladin
03-01-2013, 03:43 PM
So, you get to decide your list after you decide which scenario you're playing... interesting. I like it when games work like that. It seems more realistic to include elements of intelligence gathering to wargames, rather than some imaginary scenario in which "take all comers" military forces wander around getting into trouble.



*Oh, yes. You can have three-or-four-way battles, at least with many of the scenarios. Did I mention that? I don't think I did.


Awesome



2c) You don't technically need a commander on the table to issue orders, but you'll be limited to a hand size of one command card and will only get any effect out of cards with an Area of "Global" (since the radius of your sphere of influence will be zero).

2d) A commander need not be mounted in a Command unit, nor need a Command unit have a commander mounted in it. However, if a commander is mounted in a non-command unit, the radius of their sphere of influence will be halved.

3) I'd say the first thing to add is a command unit. As for the second and third, I'd like to reserve judgement until we find out what the new units currently up for pre-order do.


Makes sense.



4) The rules for Attack Runs (and, by extension, Intercepts), Reaction Fire and when you are and aren't allowed to pre-measure can take a little getting used to. Outside of that, shooting is pretty darn easy. You check whether you're in range, using your weapon's full value if the target doesn't have Active Countermeasures, or the Countered value if it does. Your roll to hit depends on your weapon's Accuracy - if the Ac is 5+, you hit on a 5+. If it's 3+, you hit on a 3+. No lookup tables required there. The roll to damage does require a table, but it's easy enough to remember that equal Energy damages equal Armour on a 5+ and go from there.

In close-quarters battle (which just happens in buildings, by the way - on the open field, CC weapons are just treated as shooting with a range of 0) it's marginally simpler; you don't bother rolling to hit, just to damage, with the roll being entirely determined by the opponent's Armour.

Sounds pretty clear to me.

So... pre-measuring is normally allowed, but not during reaction fire? Also, interesting...

Nightwolf
05-04-2013, 10:01 AM
You can pre-measure during the shooting sequence with a unit, but not in the movement sequence (sequence not being an official term, but one that I am using for clarity). The idea is that the unit does have rangefinders, but that they need to be in position to use them. I personally like the mechanic as it seems very intuitive to me. Get to where you want to shoot, but it turns that you are not within range? Then you can pick another target.

ElectricPaladin: I would suggest grabbing the medium starter if you are going that route. It sits at just under 1500 points if I remember correctly and that is about where the game hits the sweet spot. It provides a healthy mix of anti-armor, dropships, anti-tank, and infantry while also adding in your commander, an interceptor, and scouts.

Tenebris
05-20-2013, 11:59 PM
I just got through running a DzC tournament at Game Kastle last weekend. I will be running another tournament at Strategicon for Memorial Day 2013. I have starter armies to loan out.

I am trying to resurrect DzC at some game stores that seem to be letting it go. If interested, join the Facebook group, Norcal Dropzone Commander, and that's where I'll try to coordinate more DzC games.

Solomon

ElectricPaladin
03-11-2014, 11:16 PM
Now I'm trying to decide on a faction, because the possibility of me playing this game has gone up with the realization that DZC is now enormous at my FLGS.

Playstyle: I like speed, mobility, and other kinds of model placement shenanigans. I like it when I can move my models in unusual ways, or even force my opponents' models to move. I tend to prefer small elite armies over horde armies. My playstyle can be summed up as "smart aggression." I don't want to charge balls-out at the enemy, but I don't want to dick around with a finicky faction, either - as a result, I tend to favor factions that exhibit tactical synergies and some degree of durability as well.

Model Style: So far, I find myself most drawn to the Post-Human Republic, or possibly the Shaltiri.

Narrative Style: I don't need to play the "good" guy, but I have the most fun when I'm playing someone with a potentially heroic point of view. You know, I might play Tau and Eldar and various Imperial forces, but I wouldn't like Tyranids.

So... what do you recommend?

ElectricPaladin
03-12-2014, 12:20 PM
That's weird... DPZ was kind of huge here. Did all of BoLSs enthusiasm dry up?

DarkLink
03-12-2014, 07:55 PM
I've been getting into Infinity, if that counts;). Which is also an incredibly awesome game, btw.

ElectricPaladin
03-13-2014, 12:37 AM
I've been getting into Infinity, if that counts;). Which is also an incredibly awesome game, btw.

I'm kind of down on Infinity at the moment. I really don't like what link teams did to the game. They are a very powerful option - so much so that anyone not playing a link team is fighting a seriously uphill battle against an opponent who is - but at the same time, they turn the game into much more squad-based than the "true skirmish" that attracted me in the first place. And may the lizard have mercy on you if you're unlucky enough that the models you prefer within you faction don't technically exist as a sectorial...