Salute 2015 – The News

Well, wow. Let me catch my breath for second. *Wheeze* Right, okay, I'm good.

What a day. What a great, knackering, exciting, debilitating, awesome day! At the risk of running cliché; it was the best Salute I have been to yet! If today was this good, I can only dream to think about how good the UK Games Expo will be!

But you don't care about that do you. You don't care about how I became the law in Judge Dredd, shouting in my gruffest voice I AM THE LAW at the gent demoing the game (my Dredd sounds a lot like Admiral Stone as it turns out). You don't really care that I tried to get a demo game of the new Spartan Halo game and because it was being run so inefficiently I walked off after 20 mins (FYI, basic simple boring rules system from what I saw). You don't even care about Captain 'Slippery' Pete, the Vaseline soaked sniper who navigated past a horde of zombies with some kind of golden box from Hitler's bedroom. No, all you care about is Hawk, Hawk, Hawk. You hunger for the information. In fact, I'm going to have to ask you to wipe away the anticipatory drool from your mouths; It is most un-fetching.

Well, as that drool is beginning to drip onto the floor and I'm worried about the space lino getting stained, you had best read below:

Dropzone Commander news:

• We are to expect new Infantry out in May (I imagine the release might coincide with the UK Games Expo, which is the last weekend in May).
• The new infantry are likely to be the UCM Mortar Squad and Immortal Longreach Team.
• There will be a third infantry release which is yet undecided.
• New Infantry displayed today were; Shaltari Heavy Warsuits, Shaltari Slave Race, Scourge Eviscerators, Scourge Vampires, UCM Hazard Suit Squad, UCM Mortar Squad, PHR Longreach Squad.
• The Scourge Screamer will be a de-buff unit. Where the PHR Mercury aids infantry, the Screamer looks set to do the opposite and reduce the effectiveness of opposing infantry. (Mercurys help search rolls, so maybe the Screamer makes them more difficult? This is pure speculation)

Dropfleet Commander news:

• Combat takes place in the orbit of a planet, and not in deep space. The Battlescape (board) will be of a planet / country
• Space stations as well as ships will be available at a points cost
• Three 'levels' will exist within the game; high orbit, low orbit, and atmospheric.
• Small ships can go atmospheric and interact with the planet, and this will greatly slow the movement of the unit but allow the deployment of troops and orbital bombardment of the planet
• Weapons will have no range. Instead each ship has a scan value and a signature value. Opposing ships who have a high signature will be scanned and thus targeted and shot.
• Shooting and other certain actions will cause 'spikes', which will raise signature.
• You can 'ping' enemies to detect them, and can go 'silent running' to avoid scans.
• Numerous DP on units, in the same ilk as BFG
• Hawk want this to link narratively with DzC
• It is a brand new rules set, but will feel familiar to DzC due to alternate activations and other Hawk nuances
• Release due to be the end of this year or early next year

So there we go! This Salute was very much about the battle in space, rather than in the trenches. For DfC (I guess we can call it that now?) we have a hoard of information, and for DzC (boy that's going to get confusing) a little more confirmation on rumours which had been sown at Invasion. Patrice has told me he is working silly hard to get art work done for it, so we can all but guarantee the book for DfC will look gorgeous when it is released.

This post would have contained pictures, but unfortunately Twitter is a big fat loser and won't let me save my pictures as JPEGs, and Google Drive is also being a big fat loser and updating at the rate of a slimeless snail. Basically, technology is being a big fat loser today. For now you can see our pics on our Twitter (@OBDZC) or you can simply wait until tomorrow, where I will endeavour to get a picture post up!