British Airborne from Combat Group Dynamix

British Airborne coming soon from Combat Group Dynamix.

British Airborne

Combat Group Dynamix

Dropzone Commander Balance Pass v2.2 from TTCombat

It’s time for a Dropzone Commander Balance Pass. We’ve had a fair bit of feedback from he community and it was quite clear that there was a faction in need of focus for this balance pass.

We have had a fair bit of feedback from Shaltari players that they are really struggling to feel competitive across the range against all factions. So we’ve had a look and made some changes we believe make everything competitive.

Of course Shaltari should always feel like a Glass Cannon, they don’t do prolonged firefights, but when they get shots off they should be causing a lot of damage.  These changes bring  them to a suitable level.

Of course there are changes for other factions. Let’s take a look:

UCM

Only the one change for the UCM on this occasion. The last balance pass gave them some much needed heavy firepower. However the Braodsword being 75 points considering its firepower and durability was a bit too cheap, so a price increase to 85 points has been applied.

Price increased to 85 points for this beast.

Scourge

We’ve rebalanced the Annihilator to make it more usable now. It deploys as an aircraft and has had a points reduction.

The Screamer has had it’s rules clarified so it’s effect stacks with other effects that impact scanning.

The Overseer has had it’s special rule rewritten. This is too make it easier to use as well as uniforming it’s effect a bit. Now it grants rerolls to all damage rolls made with affected weapons.

We’ve also fixed the Erradicator’s claws to bring them in line with other CC weapons on vehicles.

PHR

We’ve renamed a few of the weapons to make them more uniform. No stat changes.

Those railguns had a strange name. They are now correctly Light Railguns

Shaltari

Many changes, and rather than list them all here let’s go through some key ones.

We wanted the Shaltari to have one vehicle that really exemplified the Glass Cannon strategy of the Shaltari. Easy to destroy but packed a punch that would rip apart absolutely anything it hit. We felt the Crocodile was perfect for this. As a skimmer, even E7 AA-2 weapons can hurt it, firepower from main battle tanks will tear through it. However, the Particle Cannon is now a Heavy Particle Cannon since it’s fitted to a more stable platform than the Ocelot. This gives it the highest Energy shot in the game at E14. The only real difference now is that it crits more often than not, and with Devastator-2 (ALL) when it does Crit that’s 4 damage in one single shot. With Unlimited range that ignores Active and Passive Countermeasures. Two of these will annihilate a Hades more often than not in one turn, so long as they get the first shot of course. With a M&F of 0″, you have to position this right and make sure the shot counts before you take any return fire.

We’ve also made the Gaia gate a little more survivable by increasing it’s damage points and allowing it to control it’s Charged Atmosphere a little more, now it can target Aircraft in it’s own activation. It’s still short range, but it gives you a reason to take this bigger gate.

The Kukri and Tomahawk have also been boosted. Both now have a 4+ passive save. The Kukri has a little more mobility too now.

Both Coyote and Puma have had an upgrade on their Passive save to 3+ to give them a little more survivability.

There has been general point changes throughout the faction, some up, some down.

Take a look at the full changelog to get the full rundown of Shaltari changes.

Resistance

We’ve fixed the Pizzaro’s claws.

The Attack ATV’s Incendiary Grenades now hit on 2+.

Summary

That’s all for now.  Please check the changelog here for more information. The changes are already active on the Dropzone Army Builder.

Please let us know your thoughts on any changes, as always, feedback from the tabletop is very appreciated.

TTCombat

Friday Reveal from Plastic Soldier Company

The Friday reveal this week shows off the final cover for the NORTHAG rulebook, the box set artwork, the T62 and the initial Russian infantry tests... who are blooming hard to photo when 10mm!

Battlegroup NORTHAG

Russian Infantry

T62

T-80 Company

BMP

As far as an update on production... it's all going well. Busy, but well. In regards the models, we are well on the way with testing and production moulds. In regards the book, it's all written and just requires photos and artwork to be laid out. This should happen during February and then it will be off to the printers.

This means we are still on target to make sure the pre-order customers get their toys well before the retail release at Salute 2020 in April.

Battlegroup Northag
The Plastic Soldier Company Ltd

Sukhoj Su-24M from Armory Models Group

Sukhoj Su-24M Ukrainian pixel camo (b/n 41) coming soon!

Sukhoj Su-24M

Armory Models Group

WIP from Warmonger Miniatures

Bob Naismith sent me some work in progress shots last night. The 6 new infantry are in there, as well as converted Knights, General and Riders.

WIP

Warmonger Miniatures

WIP Wed – 10 Years of Dropzone from TTCombat

It’s a big birthday this year!

2020 is upon us, and it marks the 10th birthday of Dropzone Commander!

I know what you’re thinking, veteran Dropzone fans: “But Dropzone came out in 2012!” and that’s true! However, the first work Dave did on the game was in January 2010. It takes a while to make a game, that’s for sure!

So for this WIP Wednesday, we thought we’d take a trip down memory lane to some very old WIP pics. Dave has very very kindly opened up his sketchbook to the viewing public for us all to have a peek at where our beloved game started off. Dave says:

There’s some pretty funny stuff in there (10 years ago, remember) but also the routes of the whole range really.

This was the very first stuff Dave came up with, so just take a look at your 10 year challenge before judging too harshly!

We’re starting off with the UCM, or – as they were known at the time – the Colonial Confederation. At this early stage Dave was sketching up a universal dropship, which ended up being the Condor we all know and love!

We move onto some light dropships, and we really like these designs! What would turn into the Raven started with a much more front-heavy design – a long way from the Titania pattern Raven we saw released in December!

You’ll also see Dave’s signature on the bottom, and dated the 6th January 2010!

Next we’ve got the Scourge, and you can clearly see a Tormentor taking shape. There’s plenty of detail here, and just so many numbers scrawled on! You can tell Dave has an engineering background from these sketches!

Of course we have the PHR as well, with a sneak peek at some walkers. Now, these originally started off as UCM walkers, which you can see in the cockpit of the bottom one and the nose of the top (it looks a lot like the Archangel). But these designs got moved on and turned into PHR walkers.

Finally today some of the very first pictures of Shaltari. These are quite different from what we ended up with! The shape of the fins look quite Scourgey here to me, but over the next few pages of the sketchbook Dave polished the design. One thing you can clearly see is the hole at the centre of what would turn into the Shaltari Gates – probably the most iconic style of the entire army. We’re glad they swapped the teeth for the geometric shapes though!

There we have it! Just a little dip into the goldmine of Dave’s old sketches. I’m sure we’ll take another look at them in the future, so let us know if you enjoyed this trip into the secret history of Dropzone Commander!

TTCombat

Ancient British/Celtic Chariots from Kallistra

Ancient British/Celtic Chariots now available in the new Ancients range.

Ancient British/Celtic Chariots

That's 30 packs in total so far for the Imperial Roman and British/Gauls Celtic range.

Kallistra