Dread Ball: The Upper City Slickers

Yes, I know I did not do a review of Dreadball Ultimate. BUT to be fair I could not wait to play it. As soon as it turned up I glued the teams together and roped my other half into playing it with me. (She is a mean ork) After half my team being killed by my darling Girl Friends Orks, I was hooked, and went straight for the air brush to paint up my first team.

The 'UPPER CITY SLICKERS' yeah i always did suck at teams names.

I also went slightly out of my comfort Zone, and decided to paint of Digital numbers instead of paying the £1.99 for the transfers, that's like 2 forge world shoulder pads i could buy with the saving.

Not to bad for my first touch of free hand, I'm at that point now where I even use my airbrush to lip the shoulder pads with gold now. so using a brush is a new thing for me. Any way they cam out looking pretty cool.

Whats in the Box: Dropzone Commander 2 Player starter set.

As far as starter sets go, they are great thing, they enable people to pick up a game, and play right out of the box, in most cases. Granted there is normally some assembly that is involved. But for the most part everything you need is right there. And then we Have Drop Zone Commander, the game its self has been out for a wile, but with small starter army's set at around £70 each. Not many people went out to purchase it. you where looking at around £200 just to get started. The main reason for this being the Models where expensive to manufacture being made of Metal, or Resin in some cases. But now Hawk Wargames have brought out a new line of Plastic Miniatures for the game, same great detail even on the 10mm scale, But by doing the plastic sets they are able to decrease the price a lot. (take note GW, when reducing the cost of your manufacturing, this means you CAN in fact reduce the price of your miniatures rather than increasing them)

And because of Hawk Wargames newly cheaper model line, They where able to produce a starter set.


If you ever wanted to know just what Dropzone commander is about you don't have to look much further than the stunning box art, Also as trivial as it may be, the box is not a normal slide the top off sort of box but more of a hinged lid one, and this makes life easier.

The Back of the Box shows most of what is includes in the 2 player starter set.

Inside the Box you fined the Full size A4 155 page full colour rule book. It includes all the rules that you need to get started, and lists all the units available for each army and there respective rules, and points costs. We also get Nice artwork throughout, and even a gallery of guest painters, that have painted up both scenery and models.

We also get quick reference sheets for the army's included in the box, Plus a quick start guide to get you into the action faster. These are full colour Card sheets, and are a really nice addition to the box set.

Also one thing I'm not used to seeing as of late, with all the forge world i have been building is instructions for the different models in the game. its worth taking a look as some parts fit in different places to allow the drop ships to carry the different APC's and tanks.

We also get some nice Card Stock, including objective markers, blast/landing zone templates, as well as an Arc of fire template. Its worth considering buying the Perspex set of templates for £9.50. as all though the card is thick, it does not seem as hard wearing as say the card items you get in X-Wing. But as a starter set it gets you playing until you want to go out and get the decent templates.

 Next up we have the Army's and first of all the Scourge. The Scourge are an alien race, And there is fluff and background included in the book, for you to learn all about the Scourges invasion of Earth. The army consists of a 500 point list, including 3 Drop Ships the Marauders, 3 Hunter tanks, 3 Reaper tanks, 2 Invader APC's (although you do get an extra one on the sprue) And 30 Warriors. This makes up 3 Battle groups.

As you can see from the picture below the Drop ship actually do carry the tanks and the APC's giving the Game a more active feel.

 The detail although only 10mm Scale, is very high especially on the scourge. The models are made of plastic, so you can actually use Plastic glue instead of superglue, So you can be assured a decent join between the components.
 

These are the Scourge troops as you can probably guess there is not that much detail, but there is enough, to make an effective looking troop, when painted.

Next up we have the UCM Army consisting of the same sort of units as the Scourge did the UCM army contains, 3 Condor drop ships, 3 Sabre tanks, 3 Rapier tanks, 2 Bear APC's and 30 legionnaires.

 Again as with the Scourge the drop ships can carry the APC's and Tank's into battle pictures below is a Condor carrying two Bear APC's

Also (and I love this) they provide enough dice to play the game without having to keep re rolling dice, and the addition of a small little tape measure rather than a red whippy stick also adds to the ease and completion of a rather nice starter set.

Also in the Box you Get two, huge Posters. But wile these are nice posters, what really counts is on the other side.

Flipping the two posters over gives you a very high quality printed Battle field to play DZC on. But they did not stop there.

Also included are 10 Full colour ready cut, ready folded Buildings, all 10 are different from one another, and are just the icing on the cake for this brilliant Starter set. The building can either be glued together, for a more permanent scenery of if space is tight can be left unglued and folded flat  and stored away. This gives you a 4' X 3' fully built city scape to fight in. Pictured below is just Half of what you get. 

Now i want to mention a few extras that Hawk provides on there website. You can add to the look of the building's by way of purchasing a bag of resin pieces, that can be painted up and glued, or magnetised to the card buildings ( my personal choice) And these include Lobbys for the building and fun details like the airconditioning, and air vents for the roofs. All os the card building are actual copies of Real resin building that where originally made for the game. However I am unsure if you are able to buy them. But wile on the subject of Building, If you so happen to have a decent printer. then you can also download all the building you want off of the Hawk wargaming website, print them out and build them. The building on the site are a perfect match for these ones, so you can stack a few on top of each other for huge skyscrapers, or just riddle the city setting with building. Also available on the website to download, are quick reference sheets for all the army's, A Army builder software for you to work out your army roster and even the road sections. although for the cost of a set of printer cartridges nowadays, you may as well buy the city scenery set for £30, £25 from Wayland Games. and this includes enough square card pieces to create a 6' X 4' city scape with 20 buildings. its also worth mentioning that both the poster layout and the card layout options, all have the ability to create multiple roadways, by turning the pieces around.


All in all this is the best starter set i have seen by far, retailing at £55 from most places. there is no reason not to grab one. Just invite a few friend and save the world.

Games Day UK 2013

 Well, like many others today I headed off to Birmingham for Gameday UK 2013.

The general theme for the whole day seamed to be Forge world, and Horus Heresy heavy. This was great for me however, being a Heresy player my self. The amount of new models on show was immense, and some stunning displays, Including a Zone Mortalis Imperial Fists VS Iron Warriors battle. And the stunning Drop site Massacre, White Dwarf did not do the Drop site massacre justice in its latest issue. I was going there expecting a huge Dark Elf themed Day, But there was very little Dark Elf stuff on display, Well compared too the HH and Forge World items anyway.

The Que for Forge World was massive, and when I saw it I was glad I pre ordered Massacre. As I walked right in picked up my copy, And was also able to get Alan Bligh to sign it for me with minimal waiting time. As every one else was still trying to purchase there copies.

Saw some of the new Supplements being released including the new Chaos Gods limited edition 4 book set. and the Farsight, and Black Legion supplement hard back editions. All the Model Sculptors from Forge world where out in force and willing to chat to us all about the new creations.

There was a huge Fantasy flight games stand there with there licenced GW based games, Horus Heresy, Relic, Talisman, and the stunning RPG book sets based on the Black crusades and heresy's.

Had most of the Evy Metal Painters doing live painting, as well as a sit and paint masterclass session using a supplied space marine figure, and following the instructions from the iBooks HOW TO PAINT SPACE MARINES.

Got a few pics, unfortunately, not all turned out that great, Models in Glass units with bright lighting........ war gamer problems.

So anyway onwards with the pics.

 

 New sicaran Venator

 

New Machanicus Models

 

Dread claw Drop Pod

Lorgar???????? Oh yes.

Forge world Seminar shed light on what is in Book III for the Horus Heresy.

New Dark elf Models

Is that Castle Greyskull?

Drop Site Massacre

The Next Supplement release for C:SM

The £7000 Ultramarines chapter on display

Fire Phoenix

Crashed Thunder Hawk Realm of Battle tile

The New Tau Riptide, NOT A FAN.

Chaos Gods Limited edition Supplements

Black legion Supplements

Eavy Metal Painter showing off some edge high lighting

A New Side Scrolling Beat' um up, Featuring an Angry Space marine with a chain sword and bolt pistol, looked a lot of fun.

A new Armageddon PC game, It was hard to  tell what was going on, I'm assuming its a Turn Based Risk sort of game.

And the thing that put a smile on my face today, Sighed copy of Massacre.

And a Massive congrats to David Soper, for winning the Slayer sword with his Scourge Diorama

Oh and did I forget to say something............. what was it now................... Began with something like Lerper....Lurper....Lorpa......LUPERCAL!!!!!!!

Thats right the 5th Primarch being released Is Horus Lupercal, the Warmaster.