Since it released in 2012 Dropzone Commander has impressed fans of military sci-fi with its gorgeous 10mm scale infantry, tanks, mechs, and dropships. Publisher TTCombat is now raising funds to embiggen those miniscule minis until they’re the same scale as Warhammer 40,000, and is launching two new wargames to use them in, Striketeam Commander and Battlezone Commander.
Even better, the team plans to produce all the core infantry kits for the range from high impact polystyrene, the same material Games Workshop uses for its Warhammer 40k models. The firm already makes plastic sprues for its other games (including Dropzone Commander).
And it hopes to “convert planned resin releases into plastic sets too, complete with all the variants and options available on a densely populated sprue”. We hope that will include the tank kits, because they’re just plain neat – don’t get us wrong, the best Warhammer 40k tanks slap too, but some of these sculpts stand out as vehicles we really want to paint and play with.
Striketeam Commander features “close-quarters interior based combat” similar to boarding actions in 40k or Zone Mortalis in Horus Heresy, while Battlezone Commander is a bigger, army-scale game. Starter sets, faction packs, and add-ons are available for each game via a Kickstarter campaign, which will run until 12 noon PT / 3pm EST / 8pm GMT on March 14.
The deals are pretty compelling here: the two-player starter set for Battlezone Commander costs $82 (£65), and contains 50 infantry models, which holds up pretty well against the Warhammer 40k starter sets. The vehicles, which are currently set to be released as resin kits, cost from $32 (£25) to $44 (£35). You should factor in shipping costs to your mental maths, of course.
Costs aside, the vehicles are dope. We’re particularly fond of the gnarly bio-organic Scourge vehicles, and the esoteric Shaltari hovercraft. It’s pretty unusual for a new scifi wargame to launch with six factions that each have a main battle tank and a transport vehicle, but that’s the benefit of adapting miniatures from an existing wargame in another scale.
We’re keen to try out the game in its own right, but we can’t help but eye up the possibilities for using these models as proxies in our Warhammer 40k factions.
Editor Alex is keen on getting some UCM Bear APCs to serve as Astra Militarum Chimaeras, and I can see a lot of potential in the Scourge Eviscerators as Chaos Space Marine Obliterators. There’s nothing really suitable for the Space Marine chapters, but it’s not like they’re lacking for models…
Now is a great time for new sci-fi wargames with proper plastic miniatures it seems. We’ve just gotten our hands on some resin prototype minis for Zeo Genesis, a mech skirmish game designed by Warhammer 40k veteran Andy Chambers, which is set to launch with a completely plastic range – you can learn more about it in this article.
Source: Wargamer
