Loot call!: Dropzone Commander 2-Player Starter Set Unboxing

So I recently placed an order for the Dropzone Commander and Firestorm Armada 2-player starter sets and I received them. So here's my unboxing of the DZC set.

I went with the starter sets since none of my friends play them, and frankly, they've never heard of them. So I figure the 2-player sets would be a good way to try it out and get them interested and maybe I could run some demos at local game stores.

So anyway, here we are:

Pretty box. Open it up and...

Bubble wrap around the sprues. The two you see here are the Infantry bases (6 per faction) and the clear flight stands and posts. Just mentioning it as I don't take a picture of them separately.

Underneath the sprues is everything else. The rulebook on top is shrink wrapped with additional sheets of material. The rulebook is softcover with full color glossy pages. Lots of very nice photos in the book that set the scene. The gentleman who started Hawk Wargames put this whole thing together himself at the start including photographing the miniature dioramas, so it's an impressive feat. The book includes all the rules for the game and the 4 factions battling it out (United Colonies of Man, Scourge, Post-Human Republic, and Shaltari Tribes), scenarios, and also some paint scheme examples for the various factions. A very well put together book. The rules seem to be very well organized as well without a lot of jumping around. They're easy to understand, although are certainly layers of complexity when it comes to the scenery rules.

Shrink wrapped with the rulebook you have a Scourge and UCM quick reference sheet, a sheet of cardboard punch out tokens and templates...

And advertisement of other products available in the game line, assembly instructions, and a turn sequence reference sheet.

They're nice enough to include some dice and a mini tape measure.

10 cardstock paper buildings...

and two A1 size poster sheets that can be laid down to make a surface to play on including roads, etc. I think this is a great thing that they included. Since DZC is supposed to be played in dense urban environments, the fact that they include the buildings and table overlay is amazing. They offer a similar thing separately for about $35-50 at most online stores I've seen. Hawk Wargames also offers plastic/resin buildings where the pieces can be mixed and matched to make different buildings, but they are actually quite expensive. These cardstock ones will do the trick quite nicely. They're on fairly heavy bond too so they seem like they'll hold up well if they're no abused.

The first of three UCM sprues. To try to give something of a close up. (just a camera phone so no nice macro close ups)

And the other two UCM sprues.

And the three Scourge sprues. I have to say, originally I thought DZC was in resin. Maybe the original stuff was, but these are in ABS plastic. Not that it's a bad thing, it makes assembly easier. I have to comment on the fact that after giving the sprues a once over, there is almost no flash and mold lines are at a minimum as well. These are very, very well molded sprues. Nothing seems out of alignment and there looks to be very little clean up beyond where you clip them off the frame. I am very pleasantly surprised by this.

In all I have to say I am looking forward to putting this together and trying it out. The one thing I wish was included in the set was the commander cards for the factions, but then again, the two forces are set up as the "typical" Skirmish size game and don't include an HQ squad so you wouldn't need them anyway. So it's logical it's they're not in there and it's really just wish listing on my part and not a knock against it.