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 Right Expo-sure.

Well hello there my spaceship loving fans, I am back.

The UK Games Expo 2017 is over and we are all hibernating as the four days of gaming, drinking, and generally being a bit silly has come to end. Also the weather here is like a normal English summer... RAIN!!!

This FAQ Is So On Fleet...

So Hawks difficult second album is here and as with any table-top game there are inconsistencies and typos. Now I, personally, am a big fan of Dropfleet. I love the models and the cinematic style of the system. It’s clever use of signature and scan mechanic makes for a very interesting way of looking at the concept of ‘Ranges’.

Now we have a lovely bunch of clarifications and a few little errata to help out. SO I’ll go through them and pick out the major ones (In my humble opinion at least) and mull over what they mean for the game as a whole.

Dropfleet Commander Battle Report: PHR vs Shaltari 1000pts

We've taken the liberty of setting Techboy up as a permanent projector, allowing us to share our latest games with all you lovely people out there. His model (the 2000) comes with a tripod for stability, a plug and adaptor (as to not overload the energy supplier, not Techboy; he's the source of all electricity) and even a popcorn machine in the back (just add kernels). We just need to pry his eyes open and jam the content into his data port to begin the projection!

Being shown this week is Mike and Ed taking to the vacuum for their first game of fleeting and dropping in space, Mike with his Shaltari and EN-S with the PHR. Much like the first game this was a 1000 points clash, Take and Hold mission, Column approach.

Warfare 2016 - The Army Lists

It's that time of year again. The days are short and dark, the trains forget how to keep time, and the cold is determined to slip into all my special places. That's right, it's November, and that means complete bleakness for the next four months in the UK, although politically England has been in a state of November for number of months now, so at least we're prepared for it this year.

A lighthouse in this Mist of Misery however is Warfare 2016! For those unaware the Warfare exhibition is traditionally a historical event (ranging from anywhere between WW2 to Ancient Egypt, and maybe even further back in time; Dinosaur War-Simulator [8.76mm]), and the horde (not hoard) of tournaments for these systems go to show that they are very much live and kicking! Starting from last year though a TO had managed to squeeze in something a little newer (although at a very familiar scale), all of our favourite Sci-Fi game; Dropzone Commander! The tourney is a two day affair with five games, set at 1500 points.

Much like last year all the boys are off to it except me, which gives me the joy of critiquing all of their lists; let the criticism begin!

Always Against The Grain

I can't help it guys. There's just something inside that forces me to do things differently to everybody else. By striving to be unique though, I often tend to make things difficult for myself (and everyone else around me, after I begin the whining that is sure to come). I've been told I play life on Hard mode, and it's probably true, I'm a gluten for punishment. Yum, punishment. The Scourge are finally in a better place, although those of you who have listened to the latest Podcast will know we think they are far from being fixed, but I just find myself yearning for something a little different. I did experiment with Resistance briefly (although it was a failed experiment, and was aborted early) just to break up my gaming a bit. I love you Jellys, but I think we should see other people for a while.

Hogs then.

Before you start thinking "Oh yeh, hard mode yeh, with the broken Shaltari, real hard." I have my own morals and benchmarks which are dictating my list builds. For a start, I've never liked lists harshly inclined towards demo, a little is fine, but a lot is sure to take the jam out of not just my opponents doughnut but mine also. It's just such a dull way to play the game! This opinion scores a hard line through a multiple Caiman and Ocelot build. Next up is Infantry; I still believe four is optimal for the Hogs, so no taking just three Pungari for me. Coming in hot from Scourge it's hard to go cold turkey on CQB, so Firstborns are a must for every list. Lastly, in order to avoid the greatest of hypocrisy, no Panthers. I'm whiny enough as it is, and we can't be subjecting my opponents through two hours of why the unit is bullshit.

Invasion 2016: The Lists

Like a sneaky, slippery Scourge, Invasion has crept up on us once again, and is bigger than ever! Tomorrow the Croydon Conference Centre will be packed to the brim with Zoners battling each other for the greatest of all prizes; a picture on the OB blog! Oh, and there's this trophy thing too. The six of us will all be down for the weekend, and I can't wait to meet up with old friends and hopefully make some new ones.

In order to wet your lips in anticipation of things to come, here are the lists we will be using over the weekend. Well, all lists except Tech Boys that is, apparently he couldn't find the two minutes to send one over to me, something to do with being 'busy at work'. Rubbish, if you ask me.

First Impressions: Phase 2 Shaltari

We're as angry as you are! What are we angry about again?

Next on the review conveyor belt, and I sense the most anticipated of the lot, are the cosmic Galagos (google it) and the most recent additions to their roster. It seems that in order to not break tradition these new units have been designed to be somewhat controversial, a trait that apparently the Shaltari seem to love being! We have touched on a couple of these already, but thought it worth a full review for the three newest units (and a couple of extras thrown in).

Unlike my positive review of the Scourge, before I even start writing this post I know it is likely to be full of cow pats, so grab your wellies and shovels and let's get knee deep.

Weekend At Alex's

Sunday 19th June was a good day. A very good day indeed. To say it was very, very, incredibly, amazingly geeky would perhaps be an understatement of fairly epic proportions. After a bumper breakfast cooked by yours truly (BYOB; bring your own bib, £10 feed fee, chance of salmonella included in the cost), Alex escorted me back to his war vault (although I'm beginning to think of it more as a Keep of Geek) for a day of gargantuan gaming. Alex is a half-silent OB member, being a regular pundit on our podcast. You can peruse his blog here!

Starting with a couple of Euro 2016 inspired Guild Ball matches (Alex being the Turkey to my Spain, as well as just being a jive-turkey in general), we entered the often abstract realm of cardboard. Quentin Quilt the Pedantic Pawn was our guide through Patchwork, a two player game about making a quilt tetris-styles, before entering a very-familiar-but-not-unwelcome dystopian world of Specter Ops, a hidden movement game about stealing genetically modified ice cream (or rather activating 'objectives'. I wish they'd been more specific in the theme, but oh well). Our hard paper escapade finished in the sepia stained land of Stratego, bringing back memories to Alex from before the war. Which war? Why, all of them of course.

We ended our day back in the future, in the more tangible plain of Dropzone Commander. Secure the Flanks was the mission. I was using a 1500 point Shaltari army for the the first time in about 70 years, and Alex his 22 infantry base Resistance army. The same army that finished above Mike at Summer Invasion. I'll never get tired of hearing that.

Fun jump break fact: I blog on my phone so much that the word Shaltari is in my auto-correct!

New Build, Red Horrizons

I love my yellow Shaltari. They were the first 10mm models I ever painted, as well as the first Dropzone models my brush had laid it's sweet bristles upon. These striking Hogs romped wildly about the DzC tourney scene for a while, blinding all in their way, and even made it into a copy of Tabletop Insider!

That yellow though. Oh boy, the yellow. I can't- I just can't. Even thinking about painting it again gives me the shakes! You see, I painted these a long time before I had my airbrush, and any of you out there who have painted yellow by hand can surely feel my pain. Starting with a red coat I built up to the yellow, which required a few coats because of the stupid, weak yellow pigment.

More new stuff. Spoiler alert, we're (mostly) happy!

Welcome back friends, to another installment of "Mike and Dan review the new stuff", as you will see we like it. Even better news is that I have even played with one of the new releases already! Now you're excited!

So without further ado, I bring you the Menchit A2, the Firebird and the Corruptor. Dust off your worms people, they are coming back!!

Woah Man, That's Heavy

Let's go back. Way back. Way, way back. Back to the time when Coyotes strode the land, proud and alert, and Sabre's slunk behind each other in conga lines of death, articulated rail guns raising up and down like a Giraffe's neck. This was a time when the Heavy choice was a dangerous one, and if an adversaries army fielded one of these units it had to the potential to radically adjust your game plan. You see, the Gladius used to be a hefty elephant of war, and if an Odin dropped near, well, pretty much anything, it was brown trousers time.

These two units are a great example of how the game has developed over the last year and a half, for either better or worse. Both embody the characteristics of what you would believe make up a heavy unit; they both pack dangerous weaponry, can take a bit of a kicking, but are as slow as a paraplegic turtle. You would use them as a hammer blow on a back to back activation, drop last and activate first next turn, and the results could be devastating!

The Horde

Hawk Wargames; not producing a document without a typo since 2012 

I don't know if any of you gals and guys out there had noticed, but we had some new units and rules updates from Hawk last week! Who am I kidding, of course you noticed, our page hits and amount of comments went crazy! It goes to show that people get excited if content is released - who knew!

We've all had time to dissect and gather together our opinions on the changes (mine are more or less all positive for once!), but in the OB camp there is a single rule which sticks out like a sore thumb for being the 'winner' of the latest errata; the Horde (Hoard) rule. Incredibly it features on everybodies favourite and formally mostly-useless Halo Grunt rip-offs, the Pungari Auxiliaries.

So why is this rule so good? Not only is it rich in theme, it oozes mechanical *bliss* too. The image of twenty Pungari tearing apart a building and tripping over each others feet like a bunch of Minions, (y'know, from that movie, Minions) whilst a Firstborn shakes her head in frustration makes me chuckle. On the other hand, the simplicity of the rule works so solidly with the objectives and intel mechanics.

We have a theory though, which seems to be shared by a few others. We think this subtle inclusion of the rule on the Pungari could be a playtest for a wholesale change to infantry squads of three bases or larger. What could that mean for Dropzone? Let's weigh up the pros and cons.

Major unit update, plus Reconquest 1.1

Looks like the Hawk team have been beavering away to bring us some updates to the experimental rules that are currently available, all in advance of the upcoming Reconquest Phase 2 book that is rumoured to be June time. I have taken it upon myself to read all the updates, and provide to you, my loyal readership, all the changes that have been made.

As an added bonus I have also gone through the Reconquest Phase 1, 1.1 rulebook that I picked up at Salute and highlighted the changes, all collaborated below.

I'll chuck in some thoughts too - you can ignore them if you choose, but do so knowing that, much like walking on the cracks in paving slabs, a bear will eat your mum!!

I hear there are new units?

We have new units - not only that but we have rules now too, aren't we lucky gamers?

Good gamers, you have been good boys and girls, come here and get a belly rub

A new unit for each faction as wave 1 hits us like the proverbial tsunami. Below I will talk about each one and give my (not asked for in any way) opinion on them within the current game.

Also you lucky lucky readers will have the privilege or reading Dan's comments too. Maybe lucky is the wrong word........

So onwards to the quick and dirty review

Rediscovering Shenanigans

I want to take you all on a trip, a journey like none before! I want to tear through the fabric of reality, and smash down the walls of physics. I'm talking time travel, my friends! Come back into history with me, back to ye olde year of 2014. That's right, the year of Ebola and Scotland making a nationwide bad decision (not the decision to abolish the Irn Bru bottle offer, that was 2015. No, the less important referendum). So come this way, and jump into my home made Tardis- yes, on appearance it may look like an old garden bin, but rest assure the smell will send you back in time!

I AM LADERLAPPEN

For an explanation, you will have to wait for the post-vasion podcast....

Invasion is over and boy was it a good event. I think the epitome of it's epicness was obviously me fighting off 49 other gamers to claim the top prize (after a bit of an awkward prize ceremony).

There was literally a ton of new stuff, not just in render form but actual physical models. this made me so very happy as I feel we have been a bit starved of DzC recently. Below is a bit of a picture dump of new stuff, followed by some info that Ravaner (aka Mr Russell the south coast Talon has put into word form on the forum).

The Final Wave

Hello fellow zoners, we have more new stuff to talk about, plus some updates to existing experimental rules. Exciting times on the horizon.

Yoo hoo big summer blow out?

With wave 2 we had models, but no rules for what seemed like an age, now for wave 3 we have rules but no models (I think I prefer it this way round!).
Not long to go until they are released though, unless you happen to have gone to GenCon, if so, I am jealous!

Summer releases: Wave 2

Forenote: Zombiestate here, letting you know that even though the article states Mike wrote this, it is all lies and was me! As such direct any praise and hate my way...

It's been what feels likes an age since the new units were released without rules. The cruel gods of time have been taunting us as the days roll by, and we stare longily at our new beautiful resin toys and just...sigh...

Well worry no more, we have rules to salivate over! Want to hear our opinion? Then read on! If not, well, you're probably in the wrong place. Maybe you took a wrong turn in google. Maybe knitting is more your thing. Try this blog instead. 

I suggest giving all the rules a download and a good read first before continuing. Done? Good! Let's get it on.

GenCon 2015D round up and other news

Up-scaled UCM Bejing class Battleship

So, we were expecting to be able to bring you all a thorough and well thought out review on all the wave 2 unit rules. Sadly, a combination of laziness and inefficiency- Sorry, I mean hard work and jet lag have prevented Hawk providing them to their eager and incredibly impatient public.

As such we have nothing else prepared, so have decided to bring you a round up of all the news from Gen Con, and also some other news too!