New Miniatures for Dropzone Commander

With TempleCon in full swing, many miniatures wargaming companies are unveiling new stuff. The biggest reveal was easily the new Warmachine Faction from Privateer Press, the Convergence of Cyriss. Hawk Wargames has been busy as well, however. They used TempleCon to show off a number of new miniatures for all their 4 factions, including the Shaltari Firedrake, the UCM Ferrum Class Drone Base and, my personal favourite, the Annihilator for the Scourge. Have a look:

#1 – New Shaltari Miniatures

The Shaltari stand out to me as one of the most unique visuals in DZC. They obviously run on a native american and shamanistic theme. The new Firedrake brings some Heldrake visuals to the DZC range, adding a big, bad flyer sporting a big, bad template blast weapon and – on his tail – two microwave weapons. Its head is fully mobile in a (I think) ball and socket joint.

The Dreamsnare is a support choice walker allegedly specializing in anti-infantry. It fits nicely into the established line of Shaltari walkers, which are (in my humble opinion) among the nicest miniatures from Hawk Wargames.

#2 – New UCM Miniatures

This one, I believe, shows off Hawk Wargames’ flair for fun “playful” miniatures. A land tank type of aircraft carrier, which carries up to eight drones into battle (and replenishes them, if shot down).

It almost has a steam-punk/weird-science vibe to it. Without a doubt, it’s an interesting and – by appearances – high quality model kit. The runway or landings strip folds out, allowing you to start and land your drones, of which several (eight?) will be included in the kit.

#3 – New PHR Miniatures

The Post-Human Republic appears to be the one missing a new big “center-piece” unit. They do however get two new Type 3 walkers, including the Apollo and the  Erebos. The former comes with jump jets and the latter with stealth generators. So some mobility and trickery there for the PHR.

#4 – New Scourge Miniatures

The model that really made me sit up, however, is this one. The Scourge Annihilator.

To be frank, I have little love for the “first wave” scourge-ships (and most of their other things). For some reason, the “organic” look never fully worked for me on those, at least not in comparison to the (IMO better) miniatures for Shaltari, UCM or PHR.

This one is a stunner however. As with the other models, the legs sit in ball joints, allowing you to flip them in or out, switching from a flyer to a walker and back again. More importantly, it really looks menacing. The Scourge-style merging of organic and mechanical really works here.

The new exotic-choice Destroyers to his feet are twice the height of regular DZC-infantry, btw.

The Annihilator is huge!

#5 – Terrain and closing thoughts

Since launching last year, Dropzone Commander had something of a rollercoaster-ride in the gaming community. It started as one of the most anticipated and lusted for games for a while (yes, you can still do that without Kickstarter!), before getting some grounding with a somewhat confusing, tedious rulebook and finally hitting a shitstorm of controversy with their extremely expansive resin terrain.

On that last point, Hawk Wargames seems intent to take some financial sting out of their game by showing off their new card-board terrain. It is card-board, evidently, but by the picture it looks as nice as any card-board terrain is going to get. I’d definitely play on that.

According to Dakkadakka, $45 will get you 24 1foot x 1foot road tiles and 20 buildings.

Do you like what you are seeing? Do you have a DZC-collection already, looking to add some more?

Let me know what you think!

Z.