Hawk Wargames not only updated their rules this morning but put brand new standard command units up for pre-orders! These are the ones we have been looking at through videos and hints from event coverage. There is a lot going on today in the world of Dropzone Commander, so lets get to it quickly.
We looked at a sneak peak of rule changes earlier on Thursday, and they go a long way forward to enhance and balance the game out. The new Standard Command Units are looking amazing. I really cannot wait to get into the rules for these, and get them onto the tabletop.
Here are the new Command Unit Pre-Orders!!!!
UCM Phoenix Command Gunship £30.00
Scourge Oppressor £18.50
PHR Nemesis Command Walker £25.00
Shaltari Gharial Command Grav Tank £12.00
Resistance NT-5 Thunderstorm Custom £40.00
These are available for orders now!. Not only that, but if you want to know more, or get your order in early...........
Here is the link.
http://www.hawkwargames.com/collections/new-standard-commanders
The new rules..........Careful Changes
There are two pdfs for you this morning that really takes great strides forward and keeps the integrity of the game stable. It should be noted, that in the newsletter this morning, Hawk Wargames really discusses that these are Careful Changes to the rules, and that they come from lots of testing and talking to their player base. Lets take a look at some of the new rules.
Rules_Update_to_1.1_Rulebook_2015.pdf
Update_to_Reconquest_Rulebook_2015.pdf
I have combined the two pdfs here for readers.
Core Rules
- Add the following sentence to the end of the Evasion Countermeasures Special Rule
Weapons with the Flame special rule ignore Evasion countermeasures.
- Add the following sentence to the end of the Hovercraft Special Rule
Disembarking and not moving further still counts as moving 1 inch for the purposes of shooting
- When entering the table from readiness, if a unit's Mv value is 1" or above and but not enough
for it to enter the board facing forwards, it may be placed on the board facing forwards with its
rear touching the table edge, this counts as moving 1 inch for the purposes of shooting.
- When scoring focal points, units of the "Command" category containing a Commander contribute
their full points (including points for commanders). This includes Aircraft.
UCM
- Falcon's points cost reduced to 40pts and gains E+2 Countermeasures
- Seraphim's Sledgehammer Bunker Buster changes its E to 11
- Seraphim's Sledgehammer Bunker Buster changes its Demolisher value to Demolisher-D3+3
- Scimitar's 'Marksman' Laser changes its MF to 1 and E increases to E11
- Kodiak's Tactical Orbital Strike gains Area S
- Praetorian Snipers' replace the Digital Ghillies special rule with E+2 countermeasures
Scourge
- Destroyer's points cost increased to 50pts
Scourge
- Corsair's points cost reduced to 60pts
- Slayer's points cost reduced to 50pts
- Tormentor's points cost reduced to 50pts
PHR
- Poseidon's points cost reduced to 70pts
- Neptune's points costs reduced to 40ps
- Triton A1's posts costs reduced to 29pts and its Twin Stealth Missile Battery upgrade reduced to
10pts
- Triton A2's posts costs reduced to 18pts and its Twin Stealth Missile Battery upgrade reduced to
10pts
- Menchit's RX-666 Flamethrower changes R(F) and R(c) to 9 and its SH to 8
- Taranis's Constellation Missile - Air Burst changes its E to 4
- Juno A1's points costs reduced to 20pts
- Juno A2's points costs reduced to 14pts
- Angelos' points cost reduced to 37pts
- Marcus Barros' RX1-L Railgun (Left Arm) and (Right Arm) changes its SH to 1
Shaltari
- Warspear changes its DP to 2
- Thunderbird Gunship's points costs reduced to 38 and gain E+2 countermeasures
- Jaguar's points costs increased to 110pts
- Ocelot's Particle Cannon changes its MF to 2"
- Haven's points increased to 20pts
- Braves' points increased to 35pts
- Dreamsnare's points increased to 85pts
Resistance
- Storm Wagon's points reduced to 25pts
- Occupation Veterans' points reduced to 40pts
- Freeriders' Sticky Mine changes its E to 9
- Berserkers' points reduced to 31pts
- Rocket Technicals' points reduced to 10pts
Still need more Dropzone Commander this morning......
Their new newsletter (which is not at this moment up on their sites, goes a long way to reveal what goes into the design of new units and rules changes. here is what they said...
3. How We Design (Part One)
We often get questions at shows and on our forum about how we come up with units, produce them and implement them in game. So we thought we’d offer some insight into the design, production and testing process for the new units in Dropzone Commander, including those that we’re currently working on.
We’re very keen on making sure that everything has a place in the world that the Hawk Team has created. There’s an overarching pattern and plan to the shape and character of the game universe, and each race’s character and flavour has to be maintained. While we have broad categories – small, medium and large dropships, APCs, MBTs etc – we want to make sure that the feeling of each model is distinct to each race; no armour 11, 10 DP, 30 inch moving PHR walkers for example. Everything has to fit.
Another concern is obsolescence. Nothing should be an auto-include in armies (except for some of the game's most standard units), and new units shouldn’t supersede old ones. We playtest extensively both in-house and with local gaming groups to ensure this doesn’t happen (as well as changing and tweaking older units to keep things up to date) but we try to include these thoughts in the planning process, which involves the whole team.
With that in mind we create a design document and mood board for each unit, stating what we want it to achieve and what it should be like. This will include the niche it fits into in an army as well as what we want it to look like and a rough outline of its features.
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Example of the design document for some work-in-progress units, including some of the bits we can currently show.
This, coupled with a mood a board of phrases, ideas, images and influences gives our designers the starting point to create the look of new units. Concept sketches are the next step, with several iterations of each idea taken forward. If the new unit is based on an existing vehicle chassis or infantry type, we spend more time on the new details. However many of our designs are brand new concepts so we have to start from the ground up.
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Concept sketches for a new UCM Infantry Unit
We feed in new written background, images and views from the team, under Dave’s direction. Once the finalised look and design of the unit are in place, the design team make a much more technical design of it. This will also go through a series of changes, which will result in a finished digital sculpt. From here we go to master production – which we’ll talk about in part two of how we design.
We hope this provides some insight into what we do at Hawk Wargames, and we look forward to sharing more with you soon.
We hope to see you at Adapticon or Salute in the coming weeks.
- The Hawk Wargames Team.
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