Dropfleet: Shaltari Reinforcements

Small ship is a Glass corvette conversion.

Dropfleet Commander: Shaltari

Third starter fleet done - after many failed paint schemes and repaints....Shaltari!

DZC and Malifaux: Shaltari and Neverborn

Two Shaltari Crocodiles and some Neverborn Nephelim.

DZC Shaltari - Ronin and Samurai

Some Shaltari Ronin and Samurai. These guys are basically Shaltari in giant warsuits...as described in the story, the "step" between standard warsuits and promotion to the larger walkers.

DZC: Shaltari Reinforcements - Warspire Totems and Ghariel

Some quick Shaltari reinforcements - two Warspire Totems and a Ghariel command grav tank.

DZC: Resistance Attack ATV and Shaltari Firstborn

Been doing a lot of work on the new gaming room, but took a few breaks to finish off some infantry I picked up at GenCon.

DZC: Shaltari Reinforcements

Some Shaltari reinforcements I've had in the queue for a while. My Shaltari theme is super simple and fast to paint, so knock them out a few nights ago.

DZC: Shaltari Reinforcements

Remnants of a Shaltari starter box I picked up second hand. I don't really need anymore gates, but it was cheap and I'll make use of the Tomahawks.

DZC: Wrecked Coyote Warstrider

Got my hands on a small second hand Shalari collection. Just included the starter box and a Coyote. Since I'll never use two Coyotes (don't hold me too that), I ripped the head off to be an escape pod marker, and made the rest of the model into a wreck.

DZC: Shaltari Heavy Support

Two Firedrakes and a Caiman.

DZC: Shaltari Reinforcements

Some new additions for my DZC Shaltari. Decided to paint up some stuff to make them a somewhat competitive 1500pt tournament army. I'll take these to Templecon as a backup army, and something I can loan out to anyone who wants to play there.

Meet The Demo Armies: Shaltari

This is the third post in a series.

The next three two days will see consecutive posts introducing my demo armies for Dropzone Commander. Each army consists of the starter box as the core, and two additional blisters to add a third command battlegroup to each. This allows me to use the cards in the demo games and gives players a bit more firepower. At the bottom is a quick "cheat sheet" army list I have made for the army that lets the player's visually identify what i what, and uses only the stats and rules I feel necessary for a demo game (albeit a demo game geared towards folks who already have experience in other tabletop games).

Shaltari three battlegroup demo army

The new additions: a command battlegroup

Demo army cheat sheet. Made by me. Stats belong to Hawk Wargames. Reposted with permission.

DZC - A Faction Overview

In my ongoing posts about Dropzone Commander, I wanted to give a brief overview of each of the four factions and how they play. In my previous post, you can get a quick overview of the fluff and story behind each faction; here we'll talk about how the play on the table.

On a semi-related note, I will be running DZC demos at Huzzah Hobbies in Ashburn, VA on Saturday, November 24th, at 4:00pm, and Tuesday, November 27 at 7:00pm. All four armies and supplies provided for the demos!

The United Colonies of Mankind

The UCM (sometimes called the Terrans!) are your basic human grunts with guns in the far future. Their vehicles are relatively slow and highly armored, in fact, their tanks have the highest armor rating in the game. While many of their units cannot move very fast, they frequently can still fire effectively when moving their full amount.

Many of the UCM tanks have a special rule called "articulated". This represents the mobile arm attached their their guns, and allows the gun to shoot from an elevation 1" above the model. This means the tank can hide behind cover, or even out of LOS, and shoot over the top. Think Greek hoplites stabbing their spear over their shield!

The articulated rule in action - Sabres using their own dropship as cover!

The Kodiak can call in orbital strikes. The orbital strike hits with the strongest possible power level in the game, and does not require the Kodiak to be in line of sight - he can use other unit in the army as a spotter, and if the unit is a scout, he doesn't even take a "to-hit" penalty!

The Kodiak command vehicle calling in an orbital strike through the use of scout buggies, staying out of harms way....for now!

When infantry want to storm a building, they usually first need to make sure their entrance isn't covered by opposing infantry - your numbers are too small to go charging into a door through a torrent of machine gun fire! The UCM elite infantry, the Praetorians, can rope drop on to the tops of buildings and demo charge their way in through the roof, creating an overly dramatic and cinematic entrance!

Praetorians airdropping on to the roof of the building, preparing to enter by blasting a hole on the roof!

The Scourge

The Scourge (also frequently called the Zerg by yours truly) are your typical alien race. Their units are among the fastest in the game, and they use speed to make up for what they lack in armor. Most of their tanks are grav tanks, and in DZC, if grav tanks maintain a speed of at least 6", they count as concealed. They also have remarkably strong guns on the main battle tanks, but they also have the shortest ranges, so they must use their speed to close the gaps quickly.

Starting from far away, the Hunter MGTs must use their speed to close the gap...

...and unleash fire at point blank range!

The Scourge do not have an exotic, elite infantry choice they can buy, but they do have access to Razorworms. Razorworms are not purchased in squads like most infantry - they are upgrades to certain vehicles. When the time is right, they unleash the Razorworms to go feast upon opposing infantry.

OK, so these specific tanks can't actually drop Razorworms, but you get the idea.

The Scourge command unit, the Desolator, is a beastly six wound flyer. It's weapon can be a potent high strength, single shot attack, or it can generate an AOE pulse hitting everything (friend or foe!) within 12-inches!

Outnumbered? Eat this!

The Shaltari

The Shaltari (also known as the Protoss in some circles) are play pretty different than the other factions. Stat-wise, they have the lowest armor across the board, but like the Scourge, have grav tanks that can move quickly to gain a concealment bonus. Also, pretty much every Shaltari unit gets a Passive Countermeasure of 5+, meaning that they get a 5+ save against almost every type of attack. Saves are pretty rare in this game, and the Shaltari get more saves than anyone else!

Railguns can't penetrate those 5+ shields, baby!

Shaltari also have a different dropship system than everyone else. Instead of being physically transported in the dropships, the Shaltari dropships, called gates,  dematerialize the unit, which can then re-materialize from any other gate. This gives them superb mobility, as they can dematerialize on one side of the battlefield and materialize on a different side. It also means that if a Shaltari gate is destroyed, their are no passengers on board that will die in a horrible fire!

Sitting point blank in front of those Scourge Hunters is not where the Shaltari Kikri AA Grav tanks want to be...

So they pop out behind a nice, juicy flyer to shoot down!

The Post-Human Republic

The PHR (or Zel'Naga around these parts) are a race of slightly more evolved humans, having splintered off from the UCM after a brief civil war. Their main units consist of walkers, which can walk over small obstacles. The walkers also have two wounds each, which makes them fairly tough and survivable.

The walkers are purchased in squads of 2, 4, and 6, and you can pick and choose how you want them. So if you purchased 6 walkers, you can take 2 AT walkers, 2 AA walkers, and 2 anti-infantry walkers. This also allows PHR to get the ever important AA vehicles as a standard option, rather than a support option.

It's worth noting that the PHR also have the best (and most expensive) flyer support with the sleek Athena Air Superiority Fighter.

Having only taken a single point of damage, the two-wound Ares walker can shoot back at full effectiveness!

Who doesn't like giant stompy robots smashing cars. Monster Rally DZC Edition!

Dropzone Commander - A Not-So-Quick Overview of the Fluff

So I now have all four starter box armies painted up and ready to rock. The start box armies provide between 500-600 points each, and are all set up basically the same. Each one has two battlegroups - one armored, and one infantry. Each armored battlegroup contains a squad of anti-armor vehicles and a squad of anti-aircraft vehicles, each either their own medium dropships. Each infantry battlegroup contains two squads of basic infantry with two APCs and a medium dropship.

For demo purposes, I am adding a third battlegroup to each army - a command battleground with a command unit and one other option (scouts for UCM, PHR, and Shaltari, and AA tanks for Scourge). Expect to see those units painted up by the end of next weekend so I can start hosting demo events at the end of the month into December.

A stout observer will notice the missing UCM APCs!

So a quick overview of the fluff. In my next post, I'll put up a description of the armies and how the play.

 The story starts in the 22nd century, and mankind has pretty much ravaged Earth. Nations and politics fell by the wayside as mankind united for survival of their planet.  As great leaps are made in energy discoveries, mankind gains the ability to warp in space (albeit very poorly) by the 24th century. 

Warping through space and forming colonies farther and farther away from Earth, mankind first encounters the Shaltari, an alien race using technologies not even fathomable my mankind. The Shaltari were peaceful, and helped guide mankind to awesome places to inhabit (called Cradle Worlds) and improve upon their space travel tech. Over time, thought, mankind became to understand that the Shaltari were manipulating them, placing them between rival Shaltari tribes and such. The bond between the two races, while not reaching the levels of war, quickly deteriorated.

The Shaltari starter

In the 26th century, a sphere fell from the heavens onto Earth. A sphere with properties incomprehensible to mankind and any technology they had. Researches spent months working to figure out what it was. Once they had it connected to a computer, it shut down all the computer systems and sent a message that basically summarized an enemy is coming to Earth that you cannot beat. You have 50 years to come to planet Vega IV and meet us, or you'll all die. 

Tensions rose over the 50 years and civil wars broke out. One the eve of the date of the warning, several fleets of rebels warped off to Vega IV, sparking a huge in-fight among the humans. The rebels all received a coordinate to warp to, and the surviving rebels disappeared into deep space. The next day, like clockwork, an alien race, later designated the Scourge, descended upon Earth and completely owned mankind on the planet. There were few human survivors, but those who did escaped to the Cradle Worlds.

The Scourge starter

The humans on the Cradle Worlds formed the United Colonies of Mankind, and started a militaristic buildup like never seen before, intent on getting revenge against the Scourge. Were they sent by the Shaltari? Were the Shaltari behind the sphere that fell to Earth? Is it a completely separate, unrelated Alien race? 

The UCM starter

Overtime, the UCM scouted out Earth and planned an invasion to reclaim their home world. A date was set and fleets were prepared. On the Eve of the invasion, a foreign fleet came down to the lead Cradle World. They seemed to have come peacefully and met with the UCM diplomats. They introduced themselves as the rebels that escaped on the eve of the invasion - now known as the Post Human Republic. They warned against the dangers of the invasion and offered assistance, but the UCM was still spiteful of the rebel's actions, and sent them back on their way.

The PHR starter

So the day of the invasion arrives, the UCM start their fleets and prepare to warp off to Earth, and that's where the story leaves you for your games of Dropzone Commander!

Protoss Starter Box

Some quick shots on my Protoss (Shaltari). Still trying to figure out this camera deal. These guys are pretty sweet. I might go back and try to shade the blue sections with a wash, although the blue itself its already pretty dark, so I'm not sure how the wash will take.

Army shot

Protoss dropships are actually warp gates - they materialize and de-materialize troops rather than actually transport them around

Anti armor grav tanks

AA grav tanks

AA grav tank closeup

Their infantry are super elite, and only come in squads of two stands of 3, as opposed to the usual three stands of 5!

Infantry closeup