Wed Oct 01, 2014 8:36 pm
Those Planetfall bunker things have a real nice Hardened building look. The different aesthetic makes them immediately distinguishable and I think nicely obvious to newer players. Not sure they mix well with the 'curvier' Hawk stuff, but I'll have to see them on table together.
I have the beta rules on my desktop and it struck me more like Spartan's take on Flames of War rather than a direct take on Dropzone. Units have skill levels and make skill checks, vehicles can bog down, casualties are taken as a squad, sudden death objective captures, not moving increases firepower effectiveness, etc. It has a few other rules, setting a unit up for overwatch, reactive fire. Nobody with even a passing familiarity with Spartan games wouldn't notice their hallmarks.
The biggest point I noticed about the rules is that infantry and infantry-like combat armor seem to be a battlefield player rather than a separate (but critically important!) part of the game that spends all day in buildings. It wouldn't be hard to incorporate building and garrison rules, but that's not in the copy I have (which is probably hopelessly out of date). I don't know, I'm sure you guys can get your hands on a copy of the rules if you're curious.
Is it derivative of Dropzone? No. Is it a bandwagon on the 10mm Sci-Fi? I couldn't tell you. I do know that - at my store - if you can play all-infantry forces effectively, there's a few players that would prefer that type of game. Those guys are the hardest to sell on Dropzone because of the almost mini-game role of Infantry.
Do the Shaltari follow the Geneva Conventions?
Feels things about wargames and needs to talk with his hands about it.
Based at Pair-A-Dice Games in Rochester, the best store in all New York.