Reconqust: Phase 2 / UCM

I promised a post in a week or two. I got inspiration from somewhere and decided to make i straight away. How cool is that?

Reconquest: Phase 2 has been out for a while now. I want to talk about some of the changes that came with it. This time i will look into the UCM

The changes were these:

Flak teams

UCM Flak teams got their range extended by 6", both the R(c) and R(f). Personally i think this change was just the thing they needed. Before this almost no one played them for the simple reason that the range just was not enough for their points and the reason that they need to be transported with the bear and condor combo.

After the game i have played them in three or so games. Now i jsut love them. They wont cost much more than a squad of legionaires if you think the about the cost for a search roll. The range is good and a squad gives you 3+3 shots. Now if you couple of Minders or something like that floating too close you can happily take them out. Using a rapier to do this would be a waste. Also if you have something bigger comming, just fire both units at it. Or even better, becouse of the bear and condor combo, the other flak squad usually is not that far so you might get to fire it to the same target allso. What the Flak team gives you now is AA board control. Awesome.

Hazard suits

Hazard suits got hit by the nerf hammer. Twice.. Their points went up by three and their weapons got -1E. Well... i think we all knew that something would happen to them as they were just a tad too good. Do i agree with the double nerd? I do now. The -1E would have been enough. It lowers their damage output a little, but leaves them with enough power to do AT. I think more lists will use less of the Hazard suits now. My list will certainly go from two Hazard squads to one.

Retaliator

The new cool Retaliator fast mover got its Missile Cluster changed from L-2 to L-3 instead. This wont do much difference ans the Retaliotor suffers from the same problems as every other fast mover at the moment. They are too unreliable to show up for their points. The Retaliator suffers even more as it is not cheap.

Pheonix

The Pheonix Command gunship lost its Demolisher-2 from its missile battery. This is another thing i do not agree on. It was nice to have the ability to do building demo with the pheonix, as it is a little hard to get the Pheonix into a good position to do damage. The rather low range on the chainguns (12") coupled with even shorter MF makes it a little wonky (even more in bigger boards). The missile battery is nice, but its not great. Against skimmers it is good, but honestly when is the last time when you have got it to hit more than 2 skimmers at the time. People know how to face the Pheonix and wont make parking lots with their vehicles.

Thats it for the UCM changes in Phase 2. Feel free to comment.


-Nojis

Dropzone Commander: Reinforcements

Hello!

I just popped in to give you guys a quick update on what i have been doing. For start i had my first game of Frostgrave. My apperentice took a real beating from a skeleton... 3 of my warband members died, but i got some treasures in exhange. Its too bad i missed the second game of our campaing due to being really busy at work. It might be the same for game three also :(

Anyways. I've been using my childrens naptime to do some painting. Here are some Dropzone Commander miniatures i have finished:

Katanas

Fireblades

Gladius heavy tanks

Raven B's

 This model was painted for Asylum Wargames painting competition. This is the light dropship which will be the transport for my Preatorian elite infantry. I wanted to go out from the normal coloring of my army. This Raven A needed to have coloring suitable for night time operations while having something that brings out the eliteness of the preatorians. In my oppinion i achieved my goal or what do you think?

Here are couple norma Raven A's for comparison

First contact with Shaltari (Dropzone Commander)

As you can guess from the tittle. I had my first game against shaltari yesterday. I have played against Shaltari in 1v1v1 games before, but facing them alone is somehthing new to me.

I wanted to play the game with my Pheonix air heavy list. I knew that it would be a bad decision as the Shaltari has the awesome Kukri AA and even the Shaltari Jaguar walkers have AA guns.

Pheonix air heavy
Clash: 1502/1500 points
Standard Army
    Standard Roster [1502/1500 pts]

        Field Command [490 pts]
            Phoenix: Phoenix(General) [330 pts]
            Falcon Squad: 4x Falcon [160 pts]
        Armored Formation [276 pts]
            Katana Squad: 3x Katana [111 pts]
            Ferrum: Ferrum [165 pts]
        Legionnaire Corps [246 pts]
            Rapier Squad: 3x Rapier, Condor [166 pts]
            Legionnaires: 2x Legionnaires, Raven A [80 pts]
        Legionnaire Corps [160 pts]
            Legionnaires: 2x Legionnaires, Raven A [80 pts]
            Legionnaires: 2x Legionnaires, Raven A [80 pts]
        Expeditionary Group [196 pts]
            Wolverine Squad: 4x Wolverine A [72 pts]
            Praetorians: 2x Praetorians, Raven A [124 pts]
        Air Wing [134 pts]
            Archangel Squad: Archangel [67 pts]
            Archangel Squad: Archangel [67 pts]

The game was agains Jamo and his list is below:

Shaltari
Clash: 1507/1500 points
Standard Army
    Standard Roster [1507/1500 pts]

        Gate Group [253 pts]
            Haven: Haven [20 pts]
            Haven: Haven [20 pts]
            Haven: Haven [20 pts]
            Spirit Gates: Spirit [43 pts]
            Eden Gates: Eden [50 pts]
            Eden Gates: Eden [50 pts]
            Eden Gates: Eden [50 pts]
        Court of Elders [241 pts]
            Coyote: Coyote(Shaman) [145 pts]
            Firstborns: 2x Firstborns [96 pts]
        Warrior Clan [275 pts]
            Braves: 2x Braves [70 pts]
            Braves: 2x Braves [70 pts]
            Kukri Squad: 3x Kukri [135 pts]
        Warrior Clan [70 pts]
            Braves: 2x Braves [70 pts]
        Warfist [245 pts]
            Caiman Squad: Caiman [110 pts]
            Kukri Squad: 3x Kukri [135 pts]
        Warfist [315 pts]
            Jaguar Squad: 2x Jaguar [220 pts]
            Ocelot Squad: Ocelot [95 pts]
        Arrowhead [108 pts]
            Warspear Squad: Warspear [108 pts]



(Some of the units above might be listed into incorrect battlegroups, as i have no idea how the Shaltari does battlegroups.)


I wanted to make good use of the UCM Command cards and tought that i would want to have the inniative instead of giving it to hte Shaltari, i took a Pheonix with lvl 5 commander. The Pheonix was paired with a squad of 4 Falcons, for as they say in Orbital Bombardment blog. Together the Pheonix and Falcons are just "Horrible Bastards". This is indeed true.

Rest of the list is pretty standard. Two Archangels so i could benefit from the Ace in the making cards. I had a decent run with these but nothing spectacular as the Shaltari AA blanket was far too good.

Mission (6x4 Board)

The scenario was Targets of opportunity, which has 7 objectives in three difrent waves. 2 objectives at each palyers table side an 3 in the midle line, all in buildings. You can see the placement from the second picture down. All units started in Readiness and Fast movers in reserve. Neither Jamo or me got FM:s to the game on first turn.

The battlefied

Objective placement (Red dots)

Turn 1 and 2

I started out pretty strong getting my two squads of legionaires into the objective buildings in my table side. I Also got the light dropships wit legionaires next to the midle objective building and the far right objective building in the middle line, ready to occupy next turn.

My Pheonix and Falcons came in to the board from my right table side and started to pound the objective building in the far right, at Jamos table side. I got it down to 4 damage points with Pheonix, Falcons and Katanas firing at it. I had hoped that Jamo would have gone in to the building with some infantry before i started the demolition works, but he didnt. Now it was far too dangerous to go in to the building so i had secured one objective from Jamo.

Jamo got into the other building with objective at his table side. He also moved gates next to the middle building. The objective in my side on the left also started to take some hits from the Ocelot and Caiman which arrived via ground to the battle. Also two squad of Kukris materialised from the gates in Jamos side.

On turn two i made a huge mistake. I didnt activate my Preatorians and occupied the middle building with first activation. Instead the Shaltari got into the middle building first. I retaliated with Ferrum drones and took down the small gate which was used to get into the middle building. After this a squad of Kukri showed up and gunned down 7 of the 8 drones. This luckily left me one to give command range to the middle building for me to play cards to the Preatorians.

I tried to search with my both of me legionaire squads in my own table side, but neither found objective. Shaltari didnt find objective at their table side either. For turn two me and Jamo had got all our FM:s to play. I made a pass with both at a gate in Jamos side, one was aided by Ace in the making and got in some hits but they were saved by Shaltari cheese... i mean Shaltari shields...

 

Jaguars materialised into the middle of the board, ready to take on my Katanas and Rapiers in my side. Ocelot and Caiman gunned down the objective building in my table left side, taking my legionaires with it.

One objective building gone from my side.

Turn 3 and 4

Preatorians and Firstborns fought it out in the middle building. Braves had lost one to falling masonry. Preatorians got 5 hits in but all were saved by those darned shields... I lost 5 Preatorians, but i played a card to negate one failed morale test.

Took a beating with the Preatorians

Shaltari had a far to good AA coverage with 2 squad of Kukris and the Jaguars for me to do anything with my air units.

Shaltari AA Blanket

Turn Four the Ocelot one shotted a 10 damge point house. My Ferrum crew were going trough the field manuals like never before, searching for the part talking about "Ferrum out of cover", which only said "Have fun in the afterlife".

I had some time to lauch some new drones before the Ferrum would be gunned down, so i headed to the left objective in the midle line where shaltari got infantry into the objective building. The midle building were also reinforced by Braves to free up the Firstborns with the objective. I found objectives in the middle right buildings in the middle line and my side. I got these both out. My Preatorians whoopped the Braves, but couldnt do anything to prevent the Firstborns from leaving.

Shaltari Found the objective in their table side and got it into the gate which allmost managed to fly out of the table. I sent my Archangels after it. I lost one angel but whith the fire from both i got the gate down. The objective was now on the groung, but an infantry gate picked it up. I had antisipated this and moved my Falcons into position next turn to counter this. They came in 12" and fire at the infantry gate. They took fierce reaction fire, but only one went down. I killed the gate.


Turn 5 and 6

I flew back and behind the objective house with 4DP:s left and went to the deck. I lost one Falcon to this and were down to last 2. Shaltari infatry gate materialised on top the same objective that i prevented from leaving last turn.  Jaguars and Caiman shot at my Katanas killing some and taking 2 DP:s in return with one Jaguar.

It was now time to send the Falcons to earn their bread again. They came in 12" and faced same reaction fire again. I didnt lose any Falcons and they fired their shots. One hit the infantry gate. I rolled to damage but didnt sucseed. I sent one remaining Archangel to kill the same gate, but i was gunned down before it could fire.

Now the whole game hung on the objective and the middle line left side building. shaltari were inside and had found the objective. They had lost one from the six braves. I fired with the Phenix doing 10DP:s to house. 6 Falling masonry and the Braves went down. The game was now tied at 2-2.

We played of and the Shaltari cleaned the table from allmost all of my units. The game ended with Shaltari winning with kill points.


All in all, another great game. The Shaltari seems to be a tough nut to crack with my UCM. I just dont know how to face them. I need to get my new units painted and then start working on a anti-Shaltari plan.


Feel free to comment and if you like my Dropzone stuff, Subscribe! I try to do reports every time i can. Also i have been thinking about starting a small serie to talk about difrent factions and their units and what i think about them. I am by no means no guru in this game, and we might do things a little diffrent in our meta. For starters that we allwas paly on a 6x4 board.

-Nojis

UCM Heavy Hazard Suits. WIP (Dropzone Commander)

I have made some progress on the modelling front. I made some bases for my new Heavy Harzard Suits. The bases are still WIP. I need to get some fine aquarium sand for the open areas and to hide the metal under the suits. I must say that i really like the models for hte Hazard suits.

Here are some pictures. Tell me what you think?

Ace in the making... Not really. (Dropzone Commander)

One more Dropzone game for this year. Hurray!

I played against Herkko and his Scourge again. The mission was Search. Game was played on a 6x4 board which you can see below. As the table is so big, we decided to test how a deployment area of 24" in each direction would work. All units comming from Readiness

Lists were roughly something like this:

UCM
Kodiak CM5
Ferrum
Preatorians / Raven
Sabres
Longbows  / Ravens
Katanas
Rapiers / Condor
2x3 Legionaires / Bears / Condor
1x2 Legionaires / Raven
3 Falcons
2 Archangels

Scourge
Opressor CM3
2x Hunters / Marauders
Reavers / Marauder
Squad of crab AA things / In the huge fish looking transport with AA upgrade
2x2 Destroyers / Intruders
2x3 Warriors / Invaders / Marauder
Minders / Intruder
2x Reaver gunships
1x Corsairer

First turn The Scourge started strong as the Opressor aka Crab Daddy found and objective. This ment that he had to pass it to someone as Herkko didnt want to be without command cards for the second turn also. A squad of hunters in marauder were tasked to this.

Scourge infantry also deployed into buildings here and there, looking for the objectives. Couple of possible objective on the ground were checked by reapers and hunters but found nothing.

Scourge swooping in.

UCM mostly took positions by deploying into buildings and tanks getting into possition to fight the Scourge next turn. Longbows also deployed into good position to smoke or fire into the middle board if needed.

Herkko placed his reaver gunships into an akward position and one of my Archangels shot one down with the aid of Ace in the making card.

Kodiak did its thing and set up shop dialing the orbital satellite.

Turn two. My preatorians found an objective and flew it out of the table. Katanas and Rapiers drove forward cheking couple possible objectives. One of the Squad with Bears and Condor also found an objective. This left me in a difficult situation as one squad needed to go forward and the other backwards out of the table. I got a little greedy and chose to move the squad forward towards the table center with the condor giving the squad and its bear some extra movement. This also left it Exactly in the midle of the board, in the middle of a four way intersection with the Scourge hunters swooping in.... Oops... The bear got destroyed but two bases of legionaires survived.

The other squad decided to stay in the building where they found the objective from. I tought that their Condor would be able to return and pick them up with the bear next turn and get out later. The condor were shot down at the same time as the other bear got shot to molten metal by happy hunter palsma.

My Archangels also tried to swoop in for the kill here and there... but they missed. I think my Archangel pilots actually are commercial airline pilots, as they always just fly a straight line in and out from the battlefield missing with their guns.

Herkko measuring a move towards the middle building.

Herkko also sent a squad of Destroyers into the middle building. We were both pretty sure that there was an objective there as the table was running empty with places for objectives. Herkko got into the building with the destroyers. This ment that i had to demolish it as my only real fighting force the preatorians were out of the game having a cup of coffee as a reward for the objective. Even if they would have been able to get into the building, i prodably would have lost agains the destroyers. I fired a good number of shots into the building and got it down to 18/20 damage points.

Next turn i won inniative and used the katanas to demo the middle building taking the Destroyers with it. The building indeed had an objective.

Archangels did a flyby taking pictures of the pretty battlefield and their brothers in arms getting shot by plasma...

Another possible objective for the Scourge

Middle building after getting demoed.

This point there were only a few possible points for the objectives. One in the middle right of the board and a little toward my table side from there. The Crab Daddy started to push towards them taking on my Rapiers an Katanas. I shot 2 dp:s into it with the Katanas. Losing some of them.

I decided to concentrate on the Crab Daddy and shot it with my Kodiak, Katanas an Ferrum drones. I took it down. What i learned from this was that the Opressor is really not that tough against the Drones, aided by the Kodiak.

The middle right side, just after the opressor was killed.

The game was comming to the end. Without not much happening. I got the second objective out with the Bear. Herkko tried to prevent this by sending his Corsair. It missed and was shot down by Ferrum reaction fire! Yay!

The game ended me with 4 points and Herkko with 2. So a victory for the mankind!


Onto other things. Our order from Asylum wargames arrived today (Thanks Steve!) This will really shake our local meta around! Tough we only have 3 players, but still.

Next week we tought about doing a skenario of our own and starting our campaing. It wont be a normal kind of campaing of linked battles, but more of a story driven and with completely unequal armies even in some battles. We dont really know how that works with Dropzone but we will see. I will also blog abaut these games so stay tuned!

Also i promise that for the next game i will remember to bring my camera as the photos with the phone are crappy!

Bye!

-Nojis

In the year 2016

So how has your year 2016 started?

For me, i havent got any painting done :(

But on the other hand i have been playing Dropzone Commander (yay!). I have to say that the more i play the game the moreIi love it!

Couple of weeks ago, I played a great game against Herkkos Scourge. Little later we had a 1v1v1 game with Herkko, Jamo and I. Ill post pictures at the bottom of this post. The game was 1500pts a side. UCM v PHR v Shaltari. I still havent faced Shaltari that many times so i dont know alot about them, other than the gate schenanigans. This time i saw new unit in action tough. Jamo fielded the Ocelot which is a walker with a doom cannon on its back. Ignores passise saves... Its a good thing the UCM trusts in the power of good old armor! Also the Shaltari fielded a Fast Mover, a Warspear Heavy Fighter. I was relatively safe from it with two units of Rapier AA tanks.

The game involved 7 intel points all in houses and 2 focal points. The game was played of a 6x4 board. I dont have a picture of the board to show you im afraid. The battery of my camera died after the first shot, so i had to use my phone instead. Getting the picture from the phone to my laptop is a pain...


My list was roughly this:

Kodiak
Ferrum
Preatorians in a Raven

3 Katanas
2x Rapiers

3 Sabres
2 longbows

3x Legionaires in ravens
4 Wolverines


I know.. I Know... its not the best, but i already had to proxy the katanas so i wanted the rest of the list to use the models that i have. But i have to say that compared to the air heavy list with the Pheonix, i really liked the kodiak and tank based list instead.

Couple of highlights from the game:

Shaltari and PHR wanted to compare who have the bigger and better guns. PHR Hades took on the Shaltari eggbasket with 2 jaguars(?) and the ocelot and the command walker also participating in the fight. First trun the Hades landed from dropship and took in 4 DP. Turn 2 the Hades did minor damage to the jaguars as they saved most of the hits with their pesky force fields. The Shaltari returned fire and the Hades was no more... This was fine by me as this ment that for two turns the big guns werent aimed at my little UCM tanks. I zapped shaltari AA tanks with my Kodiak Orbital Strike and did some good damage here and there.

Both Herkko and Jamo scored couple of intel points as i rolled steadily towards a focal point with my tanks. During the game i landed infantry to four different intel points but every time i searched i rolled a 1... That ment that the intel was a trap and it blew up taking some of my men with it and i didnt score any intel points...! My legionaires had to be specialised into finding bombs as they did it four times!

The game ended with me and Jamo with 5 points and Herkko with 3 points. All in all it was a great game. And im looking forward to our next games. We also made a order from asylum wargames. UK based shop that had a good offer on Dropzone miniatures. They also sell a good variety of different miniture ranges so remember to check them out. Looking at the units we ordered i can say that our meta is changing quite alot!

Here are the pictures from our game

Jamos Shaltari

Herkkos PHR

My UCM taking positions

Shaltari v PHR after the Hades was downed

Couple of demolitioned building. We need to get some better markers for these

Now to the other stuff. There was quite alot i wanted to say, but now i really cant remember it all.

Hmm.. Lets start with that Santa brought me an air compressor and airbrush for xmas! Which is great. One of my goals for this year is to get me really set up to paint miniatures with the airbrush. I still need to get some stuff, like thinners and varnishes before i can start painting with it.

I dont think i will get that much miniatures painted this year, but i have set myselft some goals.
First is to get the Dropzone miniatures painted i just ordered. Second is to get my French foreing legion painted for Force on force. That is around 20-25 miniatures. Third and last is to get my Dropflee Commander space fleet painted from the kickstarter. Those should arrive some time in the summer hopefully. Thats it. All of it. Doesnt really sound that much but with small children and a job where the working hours are somewhat crappy it can be alot. Only time will tell, but i didnt want to bury myself with projects. Also if i get alot of my goals done and i have spare time, i have bolt action miniatures which i can paint. This year will hopefully be more on the gaming side, and i will try to get one game each week.

Also on side note, i have tried to recruit some new players to our Dropzone group but with no luck so far. I have been toying with the idea of contacting Fantasiapelit in Helsinki and see if they would like me, Herkko and Jamo to come and demo Dropzone in the shop. I still neet to talk more with Herkko and Jamo tough. If there is someone in Helsinki and reads my blog and you want to try Dropzone Commander drop me a comment!

-Nojis

Dropzone Commander: Pheonix rising from the ashes?

We all have had some time now to play with our new and shiny Pheonixes. As the model is awsome and the rules are still in experimental stage, i want to start a litle talk about the rules.


The Armor
As we all know the Pheonix costs alot and has the whopping 9 damage points, but the armor is 5. So my first question is that should it be 6 or not? and why? I dont have an oppinion on this matter yet, i still need to play more with it but what do you all think?


The Guns
Next thing is the weaponry. The ranges on the missile barrages, AA-guns and chainguns is fine as it is. BUT... i realy think that the chainguns scream for alternate fire mode, like the Vindicator AA-guns on rapier tanks. To be honest i think that the alternate mode should be just like the Vindicators focused fire pattern so E7 SH3 AC3 but with a range of 12 and MF of 8.

You may ask why? Well one thing i have noticed with the Pheonix is that while it has a potential to take out alot of stuff with the large template of the missile barrages. After they have been fired the Pheonix scares nobody.
For example i had a battle of 1500pts against Scourge. I fired my first missiles into a Reaper squad taking them out. Next shot was against 3 stalkers and 3 hunters, all under the template. I missed the shot, it scattered 6 and didnt harm anyone. After this the Scourge just swooped around and under the Pheonix as with the 2 shots together from the chainguns needing 5+ to hit the skimmers. The scourge player didnt really care about the pheonix anymore as it didnt have alot of offensive potential anymore.


The disc of doom
The Pheonix model has the awesome radar disc on its back. I think every UCM player out there was hoping a rule for it. As that didnt happen i have started to toying around with couple of rules for it

1. Tactical awareness
The Pheonix is well equipped in commnication systems, to keep a constant connection into the planets surface where ships like Orlando type strikecruisers keep an eye on the battlefield with diffrent kind of optics, therman UV-systems and sends this information back to the Pheonix.

Once Per game game on activation of the Pheonix, you may force the opponent to show his current command cards.

2. Operational support
The Pheonix is designed to provide close proximity command and support to any battlefield actions. It provides UCM forces a constant feed of information about all know enemy formations and their movements. This makes it easier for UCM to hold their ground as they know what they are facing on the battlefield

All UCM infantry units that need to make a morale check can do it with a +1 modifier to their dice roll

3. False communication
The Pheonix can use its systems to send falce comunications to enemy units, cousing confusion and loss of coherency in enemy formations and directing enemy fast movers to wrong targets

Enemy fast movers whos flight patch would cross the Pheonixes command radius must reroll their reserve roll. This may only affect one fast mover in each turn.



There is some of the rules i have tought about. Surely they will need some refining, but thats just to get started. Now im intrested that what have you tought about the Pheonix? Please comment and share your toughts.

Dropzone Commander: Mortars, Mortars everywhere

As most of you allready know. Hawk Wargames has released the UCM mortar teams and the experimental rules for them. You can find the rules in the Hawk website.

Hawk is also releasing new infantry for Scourge and PHR. Shaltari is getting somekind of heavy infantry walker thingys, which realy are not infantry.

As we can see from the mortar team rules UCM is also getting Heavy Hazard suits, and Anti-Aircraft teams. With all the infantry comming from Hawk, they are clearly making a change into the game and giving infantry more role than finding objectives and hauling them out of the battlefield.

I dont have enough gaming experience to really comment the rules. Ill just say that the concussion shells seem really intresting and will open up some new tactics. First that come in mind, is pushing the nasty Scourge warriors back from windows and preventing them from shooting those combined shots.

Also, if the mortar teams can shoot individual targets, so two bases fire on two targets. It will give some grey hair to enemy infantry. But on the other hand, when the role of infantry is to get objectives there wont be that much shooting at them with the mortars. We just need to wait how they will play out and how they will shape our lists.

Sadly for me the mortar teams need Bear APC:s so you can field them. And atleast for the moment i am aiming for pretty air based list without them. But i will surely be getting mortars at some point!

Dropzone Commander: Ferrum and the gang

I just finished my Ferrum and the drones. It has already been on the battlefield twice, but painted models are always more fun to play with.

Im really happy how the Ferrum turned out. The parts are all glued in place as im really not into them moving. In my oppinion the decals are a perfect last touch for the Ferrum.

Ferrum lifting more drones to the battle from the drone bay

Jerry the drone

 

I will be adding these photos to the UCM gallery later. Next posts i will show the Falcons, Archangels and Raven A:s. I did some more decal work on them.