Dropfleet Commander: Scourge Starter Fleet

Earlier we looked at the my demo fleet for the UCM - now let's take a look at their Scourge opponent! It mirrors a similar ship composition of three combat cruisers and one troop deploying cruiser, and eight combat frigates and four troop deploying frigates.

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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.

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DZC - The Urban Hunt - 1250pts

Joe and I got a chance to play a 1250ish point game. We decided to not overload the board with buildings like we usually do and went for the suggested 7-13 for a clash. It definately changed the gameplay a bit, and I spent a lot less time shooting buildings.

This was also our first attempt at an attacker/defender scenario, with the UCM defending agains the Scourge in The Hunt (Urban Varient).

Sabres deploy behind some cars

The Desolator and some grav tanks race on the board

Some more reapers advance up the other flank

Slayers take refuge in the part

While the Slayer's smaller cousins hide behind

Slayers emerge and take out the Sabres

Seraphim makes a bombing run and knocks out a Slayer...

Only to crash behind it.

The Archangels smash the boot's dropship, severly limiting their mobility

The Kodiak takes some fire

The Corsairs try to inflict pain on the Gladii, but there's too much AA covering fire

An underground monorial connects two buildings.,..

And another....

And another...for four connected buildings!

Archangels attempt to snipe to Tormentors still in their dropship, but are shot down by Reapers

The surviving Slayer continues to pray on the UCM light armor

Satisfied with their Kodiak kill, the Scourge grav tanks continue the prowl

The building at the center of the gigantic monorail, which happens to hold a "real" objective, becomes a showdown location.

The mass pile of UCM boots overwhelm the Scourge, only to get roasted by Tormentors afterwards

The Desolator doing what it does best...mass AoE!

Out of nowhere, a random Hunter MGT breaks command from his unit and suicide bombs the two Gladii...putting a wound on each but not destroying either.

Scourge boots move up to take the discovered objective on the last turn, ending the game on a 2-1 UCM victory. (The other objective was undiscovered)

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1200 pts Scourge vs UCM

Played some more DZC today. A quick semi-intro game against Joe T. with 1200 pts of Scourge vs UCM.

The UCM forces

The Scourge invasion

We always like to have a giant auto wreck on the board

Not-so-busy intersection

The board shot

The armored phalanx moves up

Rapier AA tanks take cover behind the massive automobile pileup

Praetorians doing what they do best - zooming up in the Black Hawk 'Chopper!

The Scourge Reapers move into position under the Condor carrying all of my boots.

And some other Reapers manage to take down the Praetorians dropship, but not before they rope dropped in to the building!

The first building crushed beneath the UCM warmachine!

The boots transport is smoked

Annihilator on the prowl

 Another building leveled creates a line of fire to the Annihilator

Whelp, I know bunching up these tanks would be a bad idea sooner or later...

And yet another building crushed! I enjoy blowing up buildings if you couldn't tell...

The Reapers pick up an objective dropped in the open....

...before it's grabbed by some Rapiers!

Sadly, the Scourge kill off a Legionairre in the open (because his building was about to blow up), which drops their objective, giving the Scourge a 2-1 win!

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