Are we back?

.......Meanwhile in OB towers......

        "What's this? Looks like ancient technology, TECHBOY! Can you check it out, does it still work?"
        "11000011100001110000"
        "It's a bit dusty. Where's the Gimp when you need him. Eww, there's cobwebs EVERYWHERE!"
        "000111000000111010101000100100001000"
        "Alright, alright, no need for that language. Look, I've turned it on. Oh......it's this. Are you sure?"
        "00111001010110101010001"
        "Well ok then, here goes nothing........"

It's here, it's finally here. Dropzone Commander v2.0
...and I for one, am excited.

I have had the book since 31st May, as I picked it up at the UK Games Expo, where I also had a lovely chat with Dave Lewis (on the Sunday). I read through the Dropzone section during the following week, then went on holiday (to Cyprus, it was lovely - thanks for asking).

I arrived back to the cold damp post-apocalyptic nightmare that is Gatwick Airport in the early hours of Friday morning knowing that my first game of DzC 2.0 would be played in the evening, I should probably make a list.

I should have had another look at the rules, to refresh the unlearning I had to do.....oh well. At least I could rely on Joe to have read them, and bring his book and command cards.... nope, thanks Joe you're a star.

We played the first mission in the book, in old skool style (not a forest in sight). We chose 1200 as our entry point as we wanted to try lots of different toys out, this was probably certainly too much.

I went with 4 battlegroups:
Command
Phoenix (CV3 commander inside)
4 Wolverine A

Armour
6 Katana, 3 Rapiers, Albatross

Frontline
2 Legionnaires, 2 Legionnaires, 2 Bear APCs, Condor
2 Praetorians, Raven

Vanguard
2 Hazard Suit Teams, Raven

Auxiliary (non-transport)
2 Archangels

Joe went with 5:
Command
2 Enyo
2 Mercury, Triton

Armour
2 Phobos, Neptune
2 skimmer AA (can't remember their name DAMNIT!), Neptune

Armour
2 Phobos, Neptune
Zeus (CV2 Commander), Odin, Neptune

Frontline
2 Immortals, 2 Immortals, 2 Juno, Neptune

Vanguard
2 Sirens, Triton

Don't worry, this is not a long drawn out battle-report. Firstly because we only managed 3 rounds of the game and secondly, this is just a first impressions.

Things I liked:

• Garrisons and how infantry interact is a definite improvement
• Close Quarter fighting - really like the way it works now
• Collateral Damage - is great
• Fast Movers (or the new 'Fast' rule for aircraft)
• Heavy dropships are now worth taking
• APC movement and scan bonus
• Pre-measuring
• Scenery damage - specific units for the job now rather than everyone can do it.
• Criticals (the way it works now, you could feasibly crit on a 2 (as it's based on energy +D6 vs armour)

Things that are ok:

• Hidden objective searching - it's heavily weighted towards late game finding, whether you've been searching previously or not. Which doesn't make much sense (to me anyway). I think there should be a bonus if you have previously searched, maybe a bonus if there are multiple squads searching?
• Drop and Shoot - a sore subject with some of the OB crew. It heavily favours multi-shot weaponry where you can mitigate some of the down-side.
• No more half-movement when disembarking. Not sure how I feel about this. Makes engagement with enemy happen sooner, and buildings that were out of reach become easy to enter.
• Commanders
• Command cards - I really like where they are going, with customisable decks of 30 unique cards. Obviously we are not there yet. I don't like the card size. Just use standard size!!

Things that require clarification or I don't like:

• Some interactions with embark/disembark and entering/leaving a structure (garrison)
• Objective passing - can be by unit holding or receiving, make it too easy to chain a movable objective off the board
• I think that they have made the Ferrum almost unusable. It's too random and squads of starsprites cannot join up WtActualF???  
• Army builder is clunky, not really intuitive and does not print in a friendly way. There needs to be a front sheet that lists battlegroups and squads within.  
• The generic force organisation chart removes some of the flavour that factions had.

Well I think that is it from me. I want to keep writing and playing.
Lets hope that DzC is getting a resurgence and a second life.