Dropzone Commander Boot Camp Day 3

It's all about the commanders on the third day of the Dropzone Commander Boot Camp and our guests start checking out their shiny new command decks and models.

We're giving away spot prizes today as people use their awesome new command cards. Tanya, aka Tanya, grabbed the first one after using an underground monorail to her advantage.

Kelvin, aka Lordnivlek, has got his hands on the mighty Scourge Desolator, whose Ion Storm is rightly feared.

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case here as not only did it not manage to hit the enemy, but one of the Scourge AA got blown up instead.

Mat, aka Rattman21, snags himself a spotprize as he completely annihilates his opponent's tanks.

Jon, aka Divineauthority, has brought the house down. Literally!

For his destruction of two buildings, thereby providing valuable work to the construction industry, he scores himself a spot prize.

The commanders have definitely brought an extra dimension to the games and plenty of the players are coming up with sneaky new tactics as they get to grips with this new mechanic.

Ben, aka Redben, has grabbed himself one of the last two spot prizes as he took down Lordnivlek's ill-fated Scourge Destroyer.

Buildings getting in your way? Not with the Resistance commander.

The Hawk guys have announced two new chances for the players to grab spot prizes; Awesome Moment and Epic Fail!

Kelvin and his Scourge are gutted this didn't happen earlier.

Warren and Lloyd have got themselves the camera and are heading out onto the gaming floor to ask some of the players how their experience with Dropzone Commander has been going.

As there has been so much gaming, not many of the players have had the time to fully paint their forces. However, Kelvin and Carmen are both fielding armies with a lick of paint and have now gone head to head on the tabletop.

I hear Kelvin cheated and brought his Scourge from home, but Carmen impressively managed to give his Resistance some colour over the weekend.

Tanya has got another spot prize, proving herself to be the best at Espionage.

Now only the Epic Fail and Awesome Moment are left up for grabs.

James from Hawk Wargames tells everyone to check out Hawk's forums and, of course, Beasts of War, to chat about Dropzone Commander, find the latest news and find players near you.

http://www.hawkforum.co.uk/

//www.beastsofwar.com/dropzone-commander/

Dave and James once again go head to head for an exhibition match, with Dave taking command of the Scourge while James fielded the PHR.

Dave made use of the Scourge’s superior speed to take the centre of the table quickly. James’ PHR advanced steadily, dropping his anti-tanks to deny the Scourge one flank. With nothing left to shoot at, Dave began softening up the objective building.

Dave’s luck from last turn seemed to have returned. James won the initiative, letting him get his infantry into the buildings. Dave brought his tanks to bear on James’ IFV, only to have the entire tank squad fail to take it out. However his luck turned as his AA managed to take out one of James’ transports. The AA found itself at the mercy of the PHR anti-tank, which managed to destroy one of them. With his own transport exposed to James’ AA, decided to risk moving it closer and sent his infantry into two of the objective buildings, hoping not to repeat yesterdays’ combat.

At the beginning of the turn, James’ AA quickly took out Dave’s infantry dropship. James soon got his revenge though as his own AA took down James’ anti-tank unit’s transport ship, before zipping back into cover. His tanks then poured fire into the building solely occupied by James’ infantry, managing to kill a couple with falling masonry. James’ IFV managed to take out one of Dave’s AA, before they moved onto close combat. Things went well for Dave, a welcome change, taking out over half James’ infantry and forcing them to make a test to see if they stayed. They passed, and continued to fight for the building. Meanwhile Dave’s infantry were unsupported in an objective building, but they managed to take out one of James’ AA.

For once, Dave managed to take the initiative. At this point things were looking very good for the Scourge. Dave had managed to get rid of a lot of the PHR’s transport, making it impossible for him to take any objectives off the field, while his tanks had been transported to the other side of the table, supporting the Scourge infantry and pretty much rendering the PHR anti-tanks useless. The close combat went well for the Scourge too, wiping out the PHR. Still, the PHR infantry did find an objective in the other building, letting them claw themselves a point as long as they were able to keep Dave’s hands off of it and if they could survive the falling masonry.

James managed to snag back the initiative, but his force was in a bad way, with most of their fire power too far away to prove effective. He kicked things off with his infantry, which managed to score one DP on one of Dave’s dropships. Dave also started with his infantry, managing to find the objective in both the buildings they were occupying and running them into their transports. Unfortunately his infantry dropship was also down, meaning he had to rely on their ground transports to get the objectives off the board. Still, James managed to take down another one of Dave’s dropships with his infantry, while one of his own dropships managed to inflict a DP on one of Dave’s vital objective carrying transports, before he went on to crush more of Dave’s infantry with falling masonry.

Dave started the final turn, passing off the objective to one of his much faster tanks. Meanwhile his other objective carrying transport was unable to get to the edge in time, so it retreated behind a building to keep its cargo safe. James didn’t have many options available. In a desperate gamble, he landed his last remaining dropship in front of Dave’s tanks to stop them from getting to the edge of the board, suffering two points of damage from reaction fire. However, he’d forgotten that the Scourge tanks were skimmers and could easily fly over it. The tanks quickly dispatched the dropship, but couldn’t make it to the edge of the table, so took cover to prevent James bringing any last minute fire power. In the end, Dave’s Scourge were victorious, skimming off into the sunset.

The last two spot prizes have been awarded, rewarding the very best and the most unfortunate moments of the day.

First up, the most awesome moment goes to Sergio, aka Bucketknight, who used his Scourge command cards to great advantage to blow up one of his own vehicles and take a bunch of the Resistance with him.

The ignominious epic fail went to Matthew, aka Rattman21, and Ben, aka Cornishdaimyo, whose game ended with all the Shaltari being killed except for the infantry carrying the objectives, who were able to head off the board and win the game 4 to 1.

The Dropzone Commander Boot Camp is drawing to a triumphant close. Armies were built, battles were fought, beer was drunk and Justin was the subject of many a merry jape. In short, we are knackered.

This was our first such event. Everyone seems to have had a blast, with plenty of the people here telling us that they fully intend to snag tickets for the next one we run after the Bolt Action Boot Camp.
Personally, while it was a lot of work, this weekend has been a ton of fun. I have been wanting to play Dropzone Commander for ages now and finally got the chance on the Saturday. I was instantly hooked and intend to finish painting my Shaltari later in the week.
The structure of the Boot Camp made the game very easy to pick up, with the guys from Hawk constantly on hand to give advice.

Of course, one of the best things for all of us was meeting everyone. We've been talking to most of you in the comments and forums for years now and it was a pleasure to finally put names to faces. It turns out most of you are at least as crazy as we are, and a bigger collection of friendly mad people there has never been.

All in all, this weekend has been a lot of fun. It definitely made all the preparation, all the blood sweat and flock that went into making it, worth while. I cannot wait for the next one.