With everyone in full 6th ed rumor control mode, I thought it would be beneficial to take some time and talk about something that won’t be in 6th ed: an Epic/Battle Fleet Gothic style for the 40k universe. I bring this up because by the end of July one of the most hotly anticipated new Wargames makes it début: Dropzone Commander.
Dropzone Commander is a 10mm sci-fi game that is best described as Epic meets Starcraft and has babies. For more details check out there website.
It begs the question, does 40k need a 10mm game? I typically assume it doesn’t.
The reason is 10mm games seem to have a mass market ceiling. Even if you have a tight rules set or lovely background, this sort of games just cannot compete or grab the attention of larger scale games.
Of course, a game like Flames of War is successful, but how high can it actually go?
There is only so many WW2 nuts and you cannot mode/convert a game like that too much, because it is so rooted in history. Even a game like Dropzone Commander cannot reach a large portion of the wargaming public; the ones that need human figures large enough to convert, sculpt, and paint.
Don’t get me wrong Flames of War and Dropzone Commander have and might have legitimate chance of success– just not the level to which Games Workshop enjoys.
There is a reason I think 10mm has a place in Games Workshop– even though it is currently wholly abandoned.
Campaigns.
Even with Apoc, it takes games like Epic and Battlefleet Gothic to fill the holes left by the small foot print left regular 40k games. I am not talking about national campaigns that can work because of the sheer number of games that could be calculated. I am talking about friends in garage to local FLAGS campaigns.
The 40k Universe is massive and to think my little skirmish matters even on a planetary scale let alone a galactic scale is ludicrous. That is where Epic and Battle Fleet Gothic’s roles should have fitted in more.
Instead, GW was half ass about it.
Epic and BFG never kept up with the main 40k game and GW did a poor job trying to unify all the systems together. It didn’t help that BFG has so too simplistic for its own good and Epic too cumbersome.
Regardless of all the drawbacks to both games, they could still be used to inform the way any campaign plays out. Have Space Battles determine supplies for ground forces. Have Epic Battles determine where smaller battles will be fought. Planetary Empires tile set is an admirable start, but without the 10mm scale, you cannot get a real epicness that defines the 40k universe.
The chances of these games ever getting updated or combined is next to nil. Still, Dropzone Commander got me thinking, what a marvelous world it would be if GW’s specialist games got some some new life…