Luke's Scourge Review for Dropzone Commander

Scourge Review - Luke Melia

Dropzone Commander is a relatively new game from Hawk Wargames.  We received a starter set quite a while ago and due to some unfortunate postal issues, I am just now able to show these off.  Our good friend, Jeff Flint -  Sonbae from the forums -  painted these for me.

The game is set in the year 2760.  Mankind has been almost completely wiped out by an alien menace known as the Scourge.  Forced to flee Earth and establish far flung colonies deep in space to avoid extinction, humankind, now known as the United Colonies of Man (UCM), are ready to confront the Scourge threat.  In addition, the UCM must overcome the somewhat good guy aliens, the Shaltari and the PHR, Post Human Republic, although now more machine than human to see their dream of retaking their home on Earth and the annihilation of soulless Scourge.

So basically four races: humans, Scourge, PHR and the Shaltari all fighting each other.  The background story is a little weak and the overall feel of the game smells a lot like StarCraft to me.  I was hoping for a better bit of fluff back story, especially since I have been reading a ton of science fiction lately.  I just was not that impressed with the premise of the story.  It's just been done in one form or the other so many times.  I have not had a chance to actually play the game so I am not going to be talking about game play.

It is a 10mm game which really isn't that big of a change from laying 15mm FOW.  The infantry are tiny, but with a good base and highlights they look great. 

Over all the boxed set here retails for about USD$95.00.  This starter box set includes: 3x Marauder Medium Dropships 3x Hunter Main Grav-Tanks 3x Reaper AA Grav-Tanks 2x Invader APC's 6x Scourge Warrior Stands 1x Scourge Command Card Deck.  The models painted up pretty easy, although there is a change of approach you need to take when handling 10mm for detailing and still being able to make the model "pop" with the slightly smaller size.

The models are resin and the infantry are made of pewter.  We chose the shark skin color pattern for these guys and they turned out great.  I am not sure how the game plays, but the models look really neat.  I had a chance to look around at some of the more advanced models and admittedly they look even more interesting.  This picture of the Desolator that I took from the Hawk Wargames site, looks crazy.  DZC looks very cinematic and I am looking forward to playing a game soon.