Weekly? Progress #5

Heh, yeah, once again proving that I'm okay at making progress on hobby projects but absolutely terrible at documenting them. Instead of close ups, here's a picture of a battlefield with most of progress on it.

The elevations are all done now. The buildings that are 'based' are showing some progress—mostly the square one—and my trees now have forest bases to sit on during games.

I've also made some painting progress on more models for the army, but that'll be in a later update.

Weekly Progress #4

Yes, I know it's a week late. I did actually get stuff done last week, just didn't take any pictures. Until now.

 So, this is this week's project: Infinity reinforcements. At left is a Garuda (old HMG sculpt) converted to a Spitfire armed model. Centre is a Naga sniper. Had the model for the longest time, never used her much. On the right is an Agema with missile launcher.

The Agema uses a Dactyl body, and a missile launcher kindly 'donated' from a Yan Huo.

 And this is last week's project: Painting the elevations. Base coats, and a little shading at least.

This is the last elevation, and the closest to complete. Still feels like it's missing a little something, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Cities and Madness

So, two things occurred to me recently: 1) I don't post on this blog anywhere near enough; and 2) I tend to get into the flow of my hobby work when I'm working on it and forget to take progress pictures—or I may just be lazy.

Anyway, some significant advancements on the hobby front have been made sine the last post.

First up, completing all 8 tiles for my DropZone Commander board. Very satisfying. Now I just have to paint them. And the buildings. And the roads. And then get pictures of all of them together. Anyway, pictures.

 All eight tiles laid out in what turns out to be one of very few possible 2x4 configs.

 Viewed from the side.

Viewed from dropship altitude.
As I mentioned earlier, really need to get the scenery painted as well. (At least it's built.)









The next item is something being finished—or more accurately, 3/4 finished: Crawling Chaos, fully painted, from the Cthulhu Wars game. Only have Black Goat left to do.

 The entire faction, in all its glory.

 Cultists, each holding different spellbooks.

 Six Cultists, six spellbooks.

Nightguants. Not particularly strong in combat, but can steal off with cultists or unwary monsters.

 Flying Polyps. Somewhat better in combat, but it's their spellbook that makes them great—they get to stop an enemy monster from fighting at all by sacrificing their own attacks.

 Hunting Horrors. Good in combat. Even better with their spellbook which allows them to fly into any battle you have to fight.

 The great blue gribbly himself, Nyarlathotep. Weak in the early game, but late game he can be the most destructive Great Old One on the board.


















And Nyarlathotep from behind. Enjoy all those gribbly tentacles and other appendages.


















And last but not least, we have the start of the Black Goat faction, which I was airbrushing just this afternoon.

 Cultists and lesser monsters (Fungi and Ghouls).

Shub-Niggurath and her Dark Young.

10mm Terrain & Lasercut boards

So, about a week ago I got two things. First was my laser-etched road boards for dropzone. The other was another pack of small buildings from Blotz. Said buildings were assembled… creatively. This actually pretty nice, because it gives me some different footprints to play with when organising terrain.

So, have some of said buildings on one of the road tiles.

3 Industrial units and a warehouse to make small work district.

 The same layout from above.

And a model's eye view from the western edge of the board.

 More buildings laid out across 2 tiles. In all I have 8 tile designs that work together in at least 30 different configurations.

The same setup, viewed from the eastern side.

DzC Plog #2

 Getting some more paint on everything for the UCM.

 The Condor and Bears are nearly finished. Just need to touch up the tyres and do the Bears' engine blocks.

 Some focal points/scatter terrain. Wrecked dropships and a massive escape pod.

 Objective markers, a "wire device", a sentry turret, and a casualty.

Scatter terrain, "urban barricade". I'll be making quite a few like this.

Buildings. I'm loving the Blotz buildings, and the Hawk Wargames roof accents just seal the deal. Needs a lot of love from my airbrush, but I'm working on the fighting forces first.

Humanity Divided — UCM vs PHR

So, rolled up to Mark's today with two game ready (read: somewhat painted) forces for Dropzone Commander. Now, some of these things I've had virtually since the game released… three years ago. And despite my love for the game, I have been rather lazy; but finding willing opponents to play a new system isn't always easy. So that's why I've got two armies, plus terrain.

Anyway, on with the battle: A Skirmish level engagement, with 750 points a side. To keep things simple we played Targets of Opportunity. So that means 3 central structures, each with an objective.

The battlefield, a decent cluster of mid-sized buildings. We decided to rule that the leftmost objective building (white hangar) was small, rather than normal size. The central office block was large, and the rightmost office tower was normal.

Terrain density might not be quite right, but this is our fist game of DzC. For those interested, the central buildings are Blotz MDF terrain. The other bunches are old 6mm Battletech resin buildings.

 Mark won the initiative and started by moving up the UCM infantry Condor full speed, preparing to drop the infantry on turn 2.

 My response was to zoom one Triton up the right flank…

 …and one up the left.

Taking Tritons over Junos (APCs) is cheaper, and gives more tactical flexibility, but Tritons are very fragile, so need to be used carefully.

 Mark drops his Rapiers to threaten my Triton on the right flank. The Sabres dropped next to them a moment later.

 Both of my armour squads (one Ares, one Phobos each) move up at full speed. There's going to be a whole lot of targets soon enough.

 Mark flies on full speed with his Falcons, preparing to engage anything I might drop later.

 My Janus squadron zips up, preparing to deploy and rain hell on the central building.

Turn 2 starts, and Mark piles both Legionnaire teams into the central structure after once again winning initiative.

 I put Immortals into the left objective building…

 …and also the right.

Now both me and Mark have to wait a turn as our squads make their way through the structures to begin their search.

 One dropship from the UCM armour group fires a missile into the warehouse, hitting something vital and blasting a gaping hole in the roof that rains debris on the Immortals. 4 die in the chaos of falling masonry.

 After Mark's tanks have spread out, and the Rapiers have been picked up, I drop both my armour squadrons, knowing one of them is going to take some punishing fire.

 The Falcons on the far left engage the Phobos, but despite riddling it with heavy rounds, fail to breach its heavy armour.

In the centre the Janus squadron disembarks, their Tritons showering the central building with missiles. Their heavy fire is enough to remove an entire base of Legionnaires.

 Mark wins initiative for turn 3 and begins by searching with both Legionnaire squads. Neither manage to find anything of value in the massive structure.







My Immortals, on the other hand, luck out in the office tower, scooping the objective from the first floor before rushing back to their dropship.

The Immortals on the opposite flank are not so lucky, despite only needing a 4+ to find their target. Pants.

 The objective, held tight by the Immortals inside the Triton.

 Mark redeploys his Rapiers, ready to try and gun down the Triton as it moves next turn. One Sabre rolls up and gets line of sight to an Ares, managing to cause 1 damage.

Here Mark made good use of the Articulated rule to allow him to make the shot over the Rapiers that would normally have been in the way. The Condors also fire as many missiles as possible at the left objective structure.

 My armour group activates, the damaged Ares blowing apart the Sabre that shot it with a single round.

The Phobos on the far left takes a number of shots at the Falcons, but fails to hit anything.

 The Falcons bug out, flying back and strafing the objective structure as they pass. Only 3 DP left until collapse. Things are looking pretty hairy for the Immortals in there.

Turn 4 sees me finally win the initiative, but despite my best attempts at evasive manoeuvres, the objective carrying Triton is shot to pieces by the waiting Rapier squad.

The Immortals at least manage to escape unscathed, but are now stuck in the open with lots of enemy tanks nearby. Not good.

 On the opposite flank the Immortals in the warehouse fail to find the objective, and with the entire building on the verge of collapse, reluctantly board their transport, darting back behind the Phobos's protective AA bubble.

Mark activates his infantry group, finding the objective in the central structure, then bailing to climb aboard his Bears and dusting off with the Condor…

…which is shredded by rail rounds at flies through the corridor through which the Phobos could see. Everything survived in a barely controlled landing. The I activated the armour group, and the Ares put a single round clean through the Bear's engine block, putting it permanently out of action.

 Mark's Sabres engage my Immortals, wiping out the entire squad. Their Condor put on the last point of damage.

The Rapiers move up and fire—and not until later did we realise that Mark had already reaction fired. I repeated the mistake myself not much later.

The Januses, starting from behind the office block, dash out to the side and rain hell upon the Legionnaires from the destroyed Bear. They die just as horribly as my Immortals did.

 Mark's Falcons then sweep past, obliterating two of the light walkers.

 Turn 5 sees me win Initiative again, picking up and hot-dropping my surviving Januses on the objective. I did actually forget about the LZ is Hot rule, but I think I landed more than 3" from the Bear. The Januses would still have had enough movement if the Triton had to land further back.

 Mark retaliates by throwing the might of his Sabres and remaining Condors at the diminutive walkers, eliminating both in a display of total overkill.

 With the AO clear for now, the surviving Legionnaires jump out of their Bear, scoop up the objective, and re-embark seconds later. The Bear then begins what will be a very slow drive to the board edge.

Which is cut dangerously short by a pair of railgun rounds from my armour group, spilling the Legionnaires onto the pavement, but not harming any of them.

And they still hold that blasted objective.

Mark's Falcons take some potshots at my Phobos, but fail to damage.

 Turn 6 sees Mark winning initiative and trying to take out my armour with his Falcons. He does a grand total of 1 damage with those monstrous cannons.

My other Immortal squad blasts past in their Triton, but the Rapiers prove just as deadly as last time, turning the dropship into a pile of flaming wreckage carving a deep furrow in the asphalt. No one's walking away from that one.

I then throw everything I can at a single, damaged squad of infantry. They still have 3 DP left.

My last gasp is the remaining Triton, but Mark activates his Legionnaires first, and in sunning display of marksmanship, they take out the Triton chasing them, ending the game.

So, at the end of things, Mark wins 1-0.

Aside from a few rule hiccups, I'd say it was a fairly successful game. It really did seem to accelerate towards the end; but it takes a fair bit of getting used to the idea that you can't shoot when deploying, and that the average tank is only as tough as a single trooper in a 28mm skirmish game.

Mark made some good points about the tactical flexibility inherent in each list, but for now, most of the imbalance comes down to the models I have on hand (ie: actually built/painted). It's hard to make mirror lists though, because each faction works in distinctly different ways, and has trade-offs in either price or effectiveness of its units that reflect that.

Overall, it's likely a very balanced game, but at low points levels it's a bit harder to grasp that balance. Much reference was made to tactical rock-paper-scissors though, and that comment feels right for this game. Everything has a hard counter, which is fairly easy to see in most cases; but a lot of things also have soft counters that are more down to playstyle or resource management. There's quite a lot of depth there, and I'm looking forward to playing more.