Unboxing: DropFleet Commander

Finally.

Today.  Is a big day.  A day long in coming.  A day that I thought might never get here.

Today, is Dropfleet Commander Unboxing Day.  Very Exciting.

Why wait so long?
We bought the game at GenCon, but until today the shrink wrap was still intact.  We don't have a dedicated hobby room, and no basement, so we shuffle things around the house and in/out of my closet as situations dictate.  I left the shrink on the box as a way to ensure no bits got lost.  And of course, it added something to the anticipation (and shame) that I hadn't made the plunge yet.

And like anything, time got away from me.  Blink your eyes, and 6 months goes by.

Two player starter box, still in shrink wrap.

Box top open.  You're greeted by a mini-box containing the manual and other printed items.  Box is a high quality "chest" configuration and will be usable for storage after (no glued box lid).

Sprues!  Scourge Player left, UCM Player right.  A handful of D6 and a branded HAWK tape measure.

Here's the big thing about DFC - the ships are modular.  The sprues give you the parts to build several different ships from the same basic hull/backbone.

The variants have different stats lines and abilities depending on what kind of fleet you want to build - the Cruisers for example can be built to represent 9 different ships (fleet carriers, light cruisers, troopships, etc.).  The starter box comes with a recommended Fleet build that we'll start with, and then experiment down the road with lists.

UCM Sprues on display.  Three are identical, the one on bottom is unique.

The two player box includes enough sprues to build a total of 7 ships per player - 3 cruisers and 4 frigates.  We also bought the first batch of Battlefleet Boxes available anywhere, so we'll add and customize our fleets.

I should also note that Hawk Wargames recently folded into TTCombat.  So any future acquisitions will be through that company, and it looks like mass production Battlefleet Boxes are finally on the shelf.

Punch card tokens, debris fields, and one of two foldable maps.

Other items included:

• Dropfleet Commander Rulebook.*
• A two-piece "poster" that creates a 3x4 foot game map**
• Cardstock debris fields
• Cardstock cities
• Cardstock tokens
• Ten D6 (black)
• Hawk branded tape measure
• Misc stat sheets and player aids

*The rulebook is 224 pages, softback, but high quality glossy print.  It's got some heft.  There's a fair amount of backstory/fluff for the overall universe plus some details on each of the four races.  Other content includes stat lines for ships, detailed game rules, campaign creation rules, and several scenarios.  I'll want to tab mine out with post-its, but it seems reasonably well organized and well constructed.

**The maps are really cool, but they're glossy and feel like they'd be a pain to remove the creases from.  I'll play on one of my X-Wing mats to start, but I have my eyes on a Deepcut Studio Orbital Mat for future games (if I can ever justify the huge shipping costs from overseas....).

I am still debating the color scheme for my Fleet, and will be running some experiments with colors sometime soon.  But for inspiration, I've been looking at pictures of my favorite ships from EVE Online.

EVE Online - Caldari:  Inspiration for painting.