Totally Unofficial Dropzone Commander V2 Errata

When a new game is launched there's bound to be teething issues, right? A typo here, a clarification there, a Traffic James every so often, and the new Dropzone Commander rules found in Battle for Earth have proven to be no different. Well, I suppose you could say it's a little different, considering the development time, competent play test groups (meant sincerely, before salt gets ground out) and a great core rules set to build from.

Let's not beat around that busy, bustling bush though, there are issues with the new rules. Completely setting aside the differences to V1 and whether they are better or worse, as this is a point of opinion, there are substantial holes in the core rules, which if followed to the word (and not to 'having fun rules', as alluded to in the second paragraph of the book) would make V2 almost unplayable. That's not an exaggeration, on my first read through I had over a dozen questions regarding mostly core concepts!

So with that in mind I have set about using my experience of V1 and war gaming in general (which to those of you who aren't familiar with me, is plentiful) to fill in gaps and make V2 a, well, playable game, by issuing a completely unofficial, I'm sure soon to be shut down / made irrelevant, errata for those of who require RAW to play our games! This is a list of clarification, rules expansion, and some amendments to rules, but always made with what I have presumed to be the book's intention. I'll include examples and explanations by number below the changes.

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........"

The More Famous The More Fabulous

Blogging can be a dirty job. Having to wipe away the dust from your keyboard and chase away the spiders hidden under the number pad when you have some news to report on can be a filthy and jump-scare filled experience. At least though we have something to post about!

We have three spanky new Famous Commanders for you all to feast your peepers on, as well as a Q&A from TT Combat! Go on, treat yourself, take a looksie!

TTCombat Acquires Hawk Wargames

It's been a while since I have penned anything Hawk related. Penned anything really, actually, I've been a bit slack of late. Sos 'bout dat. I assumed my next post on a subject associated with our favourite bird of prey studio would be related with Dropzone Commander V2, and although this article is a little about that, it's mostly about the ground breaking news (as of yesterday, that's still pretty quick for us at OB) that has left the best of us gobsmacked, shell shocked, and 'in all of a tizz'.

TTCombat, the wargaming wing of Troll Trader, have acquired Hawk Wargames.

I've always loved the word 'acquired'. It's just a fancy word for 'I've taken this, and it was yours but now it's mine. Hah.' I associate it with the Resident Evil franchise, where you basically either steal or loot gubbins by 'acquiring' it. Lucky that punk Leon didn't get shot, no good looting punk. I'm not suggesting that TTCombat looted Hawk, this is just an observation of the word...

Goodbye DzC Version 1: The Long Kiss Goodnight

Check out my mad MS paint skillz!

The end of an era, the passing of an old friend......

September 24th 2017 will be forever marked as the last day of the last Invasion for Dropzone Commander version 1. I will certainly miss it, but out of the ashes will rise a new version. A better version? Who knows at this time.

I digress, I want to talk about Invasion, and why the hell not. I won. Again.

For those that have listened to the Orbital Bombardment podcast, I have been planning a ‘secret project’ for a couple of years now. This happened to be an L.A.P.D. themed Allied Resistance army.

As this was the last chance to play the original Dropzone Commander I wanted to finish them and take them, alas I did not finish painting the army.

Autumn Invasion 2017: The Lists

This was taken many Autumns ago, in the fire of our youth

'All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey, I'm out for a walk on an Autumn's day, I'd be freezing off my nuts in Aberdeen, Croydon dreaming on such a winter's day.' - Croydon Dreaming, The Zone's and Fleet's

It's that time of year again. It's raining, it's windy, it's getting cold, and every single person is complaining about the weather. I mean rainier, windier, colder, and moanier of course, after all, our Summer's are English. Its's Autumn everyone, and with it we greet Hawk's annual September tournament; Autumn Invasion! If Hawk are able to release V2 this year it will also be the last V1 Invasion tournament, which heralds the end of an era!

Three of the six of us are going this time, Alex, Joe, and Mike, and is customary I have all their lists to cast my miniature, laser-sporting, electric, beady eye over and critique in this version for the very last time. Let's get on with it before I well up and romance about the good times...

The Occupiers of Atlantia

The crew on route to Invasion. I think this may have been taken whilst we were being given our hosts.

As is customary with all tournaments, and was noted in my last blog post, the three weeks before Invasion were spent mostly with me glued to my sofa painting tiny blocks of shaped resin. Normally for a gamer this would be a delight; to have a solid reason to chill out (or cotch as the street kids say) on your sofa, listen to podcasts and paint your hobby. However, it gets to a point when this stops being the case. In fact I'm going to let a selfie of myself from the day before Invasion highlight just how fed up with painting blue and pink I was:

Dropzone Commander: 2nd Edition

This is my new favourite piece of artwork. It is just bloody lovely

Official news, it's coming, this year too!!!

Here is Hawk's official statement:


"Hawk Wargames is excited to announce Dropzone Commander: 2nd Edition!

The current Dropzone Commander system is highly regarded and we are working on bringing you a new edition that retains its excellent core mechanics whilst improving many aspects to reflect warfare in the 27th Century.

We are in the stages of alpha testing the proposed changes and a closed beta will also take place with our Hawk Talon scheme. We expect a release in Q4 2017 with a release date announced closer to the time.

2nd Edition will bring balance to existing units and enhance a player's collection, not invalidate it. We want every unit to be playable. New units are in development which will be previewed over the next few months.

Beasts of War have interviewed Dave and they will have a video for you on Monday with more details including proposed changes and even more new artwork, including this incredible Archangel squadron!

Make sure to spread the news by sharing this post and let us know in the comments what you're looking forward to in the new edition."


Well, we are all giddy with excitement and really can't wait.

What do you want to see?

Critical Engagement 2017 - The Breakdown

What the hell is Pete afraid of? 

So what does it all mean? Well not a lot really, but we had a bloody brilliant time.

We had 20 players turn up on the day (including myself as the odd man). Unfortunately we had 2 drop outs in the week before and one no-show on the day (mentioning no names Hawk Sean!!! [Dan edit; you clearly mentioned a name there, Hawk Sean. Right there. It says Sean. Sean, of the Hawk. Seanus Hawkimus. SeanbotXX6k. Sean The Russian.]).

We set up 10 beautiful tables, with ALL custom scenery painted - no bare MDF in sight! A huge thanks to everyone who contributed to the team effort to get it all looking pretty and an extra big thank you to Betty for all the scatter terrain and bunkers.

Scatter Terrain Rules

Shamelessly stolen from Alex's blog, Epitude Rusk

ONE WEEK PEOPLE, IT'S ONLY ONE WEEK AWAY! ARE WE READY?!? WHERE'S ALEX, HE HAS ALL THE SCENERY!! CAN I PANIC? NO, DON'T PANIC!! MAYBE A HEALTHY LEVEL OF PANIC IS GOOD?? LIKE WHEN THE GOONIES SEE THE FRATELLIS ON ONE EYED WILLIE'S PIRATE SHIP!! NO, THATS TOO MUCH PANIC!! UH, UH, OKAY, MORE LIKE WHEN SOMEONE ALMOST DISCOVERS THAT HANNAH MONTANA IS HANNAH MONTANA IN THE ORIGINAL DISNEY SERIES, OKAY, COOL, THAT MUCH PANIC!!

It's almost time for us to stop banging on, and on, and on about Critical Engagement; however, that said, it is not quite time, so before I get to the meat of this post, I just have to say...

If you have no plans on Saturday 8th July, come down to London and play some Dropzone Commander with us at Critical Engagement! If you do have plans, cancel them, and make new ones with us!

Details can be found on this post and on Facebook!

OB Podcast Episode 20: Bigger Isn't Always Better

You look like you need to hit the gym! And by gym, I of course I mean our gym, Orbital Gymbardment. And when visiting the Orbital Gymbardment I will refer you to our two main (and only) areas, the massage parlour and the sauna, in the later of which you can join us for our latest podcast episode!

These intros are becoming increasingly tenuous, right? Maybe its the heat in the UK melting my brain, which is currently dripping from my tear ducts onto my keyboard. How do you get brain juice out of a keyboard?

Come and relax in the hot box with us whilst we have a chatet about upcoming events (including Critical Engagement), our time at the UK Games Expo and why we are running a 1000 point tournament, and more importantly why you should try the smaller points size out!

Critical Engagement 17: Missions and Prizes

Greetings valued readership

As I mentioned in a previous post about our annual tournament Critical Engagement '17, I have put together the missions pack.

Also we have locked in some of the finest event sponsors for prize support.... exciting times!

Invaders, They're Coming Over The Hills

Until I looked up the lyrics for the classic Iron Maiden, British Heavy Metal track 'Invaders' to paraphrase the title of this post, I had no idea that the perfect lyric "Invaders...Marauding" existed in the second chorus. Either Iron Maiden are fans of Dropzone Commander and managed to leave a note in the past for themselves (like a reverse Blue Peter time pod), Dave Lewis is a secret-but-not-so-secret Iron Maiden fan, or it's all just a big, rather deflating coincidence.

Anyway; Invaders... Marauding.

I wanted to experiment with something a little 'alternative' in my Scourge list and general army meta, and with Coastal Assualt approaching I deemed it a more than adequate staging ground for this test. What test? Why, using Invaders in a Scourge list of course!

Coastal Assault 2017

Sunday bloody Sunday............

No-one likes waking early on a Sunday, especially not me, but it was for a good cause; I got to play Dropzone all day whooo hoo

4 of us departed from the penthouse apartment of OB towers in Orbital Bombarmentonville and descended on Brighton for the third year running.

Just outside of Brighton, we all had a major dilemma. Do we sack off the tournament and head on to the 'Ladyboys of Bangkok' live cabaret show or carry on as planned........

New Mission: Forward Air Base V2

Took me a couple of goes to understand this one #brainpower

As the great Sun Tzu (great name, great hair, and just generally a great attitude) once said, back in the 80's I think, "No plan survives contact with the enemy". He was of course chatting about war, but this is a philosophy that you can attribute to a large number of different items too, for instance; No fruit survives contact with the work fruit-bowl, No toothpaste survives contact with my teeth, No Tory promise survives contact with reality, and this is true as well with missions design; No mission design survives contact with your friends, they will gut it and ruin it and deform your vision into something completely obtuse and repugnant. It's okay really, they haven't been too bad, and actually although I wouldn't like to admit it to them, they've been quite useful!

We are ready to roll out the second version of both our new missions, and I have for you today Forward Air Base V2!

Critical Engagement 2017

It's here, it's finally here.... Probably the greatest tournament known to man, woman or beast!

As last year was such a success we will be doing it again, same format but with some different missions. We had 24 players last July, let's see if we can top that.

New Mission: Forward Air Base

A week has gone by, allowing you lots of time to observe, bite into and digest our first new mission, Civilian Extraction. How did it taste? Like a juicy, medium-rare steak? Or perhaps more like a sweet piece of mama's pumpkin pie? Or maybe you didn't like it, and it tasted more like a glass of hot bin juice.

How ever you liked last week's mission, I have a new, fresh and steamy serving for your palate to experience today; Forward Air Base!

New Mission: Civilian Extraction

Other games may have distracted us from our blogging efforts for a while (although in the most golden of ironies not Ed), but I can report that we are trundling along in the background and still getting ready for Critical Engagement in July. One of my favourite parts of Critty E (as the event is broadly known on the streets, just ask your local rude boy for confirmation) is the freedom we have on rule and mission creation. After all, it's our tournament, and we'll do whatever we ruddy well like!

With that in mind, I have created the following mission, Civilian Extraction, which features a brand new rule and objective type to fight over; Survivor Markers and Survivor Objectives!

Developing the Warzone: Industrial Beginnings

So with Critical Engagement in a few months we've all decided that we want some more variance in the terrain on offer in the tournament just trying to break up the monotony of the urban environment. I'd like to make two boards, one industrial and the other a little more rural. So the easiest one to start with, in my mind at least, is the industrial one.

Developing The Warzone: Resistance Barricades part 1

One criticism of Dropzone I've heard is that although the game is tremendously cinematic with it's towering 10mm cityscapes, it loses some of the theme when you start to focus on the terrain and debris in the battlefield, or rather lack thereof. Although it's possible that the Scourge operate a 'tidy desk' policy on a world-wide scale, using a few of their years in charge to focus on breeding bin-men and ladies to clean our dirty streets (ideas are sparking for a Scourge road sweeper vehicle; the Sweepressor), it is unlikely that even in this scenario all the debris would have been cleared, due to sanitation strikes and the like.

It's with this in mind that I am approaching the beginning of our preparation for Critical Engagement, our yearly summer tournament. The tournament may be in July, which is so far away the Daily Mail haven't even started scare mongering about this being the 'hottest summer on record' yet, but I would like to see the streets of Orbitalbombardmentonville strewn with the debris of war and years left behind. So, we had better get started on making some scenery then, hadn't we!