In low orbit, everyone can hear you scream....

.....and they are all screaming "take my money, TAKE MY MONEY"

Look at this!! That is a big ship!!

Pre-Kickstarter update incoming.

Dropfleet Commander Kickstarter is getting very close

An absolutely stunning piece of artwork. Bravo Patrice, bravo

Well hello there fellow fleeters. It seems that Hawk Wargames has completely disregarded the constant stream calling for this game to be called Orbital Bombardment: The Miniatures Game (I say constant stream, I mean Zombie and I dropping it in where we can). Hawk have settled on Dropfleet Commander. I like it, it ties in with the Dropzone universe nicely.

We have been getting a really good flow of information via newsletters, detailing Shaltari, PHR and other ship renders. But what I want to talk about is the Kickstarter itself.

Short Story: The Ritual

We're not all about tactics, reviews and tutorials here at OB. Oh nononono, every now and then we go a little bit deeper. Taking our old tugger to the middle of the Sea of Creativity, we take a deep breath and dive in; plunging down into the salty depths, past the painting updates and guides that make up the flotsam and jetsam, through the shoals of poemfish as they disperse around us in a panic, and even carefully navigating around the incredibly blue podcast reef. Every now and then our feet touch the bottom of the Sea of Creativity and we dig up something a bit more special... A story!

I penned the short story below for Hawk's first story competition on the forums. I really enjoyed the challenge of penning a unique perception into the dark belly of the Resistance, and decided to unearth it and share it with you all! It also has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we have zip prepared for today...

For those of you who aren't typically story readers, it's only 500 words long, so shorter than an average post. A tasty, salty, bite sized tale.

Hope you enoy!

The First Turn

The Resistance deploy at full throttle!

Back in my days of playing lesser, commercially designed, and some would say dirtier wargames, I was never really able to get the knack of deployment. It wouldn't matter if I were to deploy first or second, I would always get something wrong and then end up swearing at myself 30 minutes later when that expensive squad of combat specialists ended up being no where near any kind of melee. Frustrating times.

So you can imagine my happiness when I first discovered that Dropzone very rarely uses deployment in a traditional sense (i.e. I line up my toys, and then you yours, and then we dakkadakka), and even in the missions which you have an opportunity to do so you don't have too! Even more likely than this though is that the rules strictly forbid you from doing so (as is part of the course with my Scourge; everything is in a dropship). Now, as much as I don't like to be forbade (... forbidden... forbaden?) this very mechanic highlights part of what is so great about this wargame; the decision when to bring on your battle groups and in which order lies with you, and will change depending on how your opponent deploys and reacts to your activations.

But what does this mean?! It means boys and girls (I see one at the back of the auditorium) that turn 1 is incredibly important, as it is technically a 'rolling' deployment phase, and time and time again I see my adversaries get their priorities wrong. Well never fear, Dan is here to help in three easy steps!

UCM on the ground. What is this madness?

Hello and good day to you, our marvelous readership.

For the attentive reader, you will know that over the last few months I have been using my UCM Air Supremacy list, or as Techboy calls it; a Flying Circus (I don't like the name, it reminds me of a certain build of 40k army).

I think I have used it to great effect; when used correctly it can reduce opponents to tears.
It is not perfect though. It lacks any kind of CQB punch and focal point holding is very difficult with so many non-scoring squads. It is very aggressive though - which is how I like to play.

So every now and again I like to change things up. I want to look at the UCM from a different perspective. Some might say a re-build......from the ground up.

Variants on a Theme

Its blue moon time people!

Thats right, Edchopp is writing a blog post, like the occasional unwelcome fart in a space suit it is time for me to contribute what I can to this blog.

OB Podcast Episode 10: Postvasion and Chill

Join us faithful listeners, for an evening stuffed full of war stories, general moaning and maybe even some casual chill.

That's right, it's the next instalment in our Podcast series, and we are chatting and analysing Invasion Autumn 2015!

Scream For Me Baby!

Charlie Brown and Snoopy

Over the summer a new unit was spawned from one of Hawk's low hanging fleshy sacks, causing all sorts of controversy and mayhem. On seeing this gooey, amorphous state crawl onto the scene some shouted "overpowered!", and others "the winner of the summer releases". Of course, I'm talking about the Raider and Screamer.

Having taken the pair to Invasion and applied them in an active, competitive environment, I feel I am in a good place to write a critique on the most feared tag team in the Dropzone universe. To sum up this article quickly; they're not broken or overpowered. As to why not, you'll have to read on...

Revving Up The Engine Again

All I have so far, and this is about a third done...

With Invasion now in the past, I have decided to put my Scourge to bed (do Scourge dream of electric hosts?) and bring out the Resistance once more. I got my first game in with them for a while last Friday, against as fate would have it another Resistance army; even more coincidentally, the same one I played at Invasion (The gent attends our club, and had lent his army to my foe the evening)! Having stopped playing with our friends from Fury Road to practise with my Jelly's for Invasion, it was refreshing to jump back into a weather beaten, written off wagon and take it for a spin.

Flight of the UCM: Day 2

I'm back......sorry, you have to put up with me for now.

Team OB: Screamer - MegaMike, ZombieState and SkullSword (plus a rather disgruntled German in the background)

If you haven't read part 1 of my Invasion recap, firstly why not? and secondly it's here

Without further ado