Unboxing: Dropfleet Commander UCM Battleship

Assembled ships:  UCM New York top, UCM Beijing bottom

I feel like I've been neglecting the blog the past couple of months since most of what I'm doing I'm (for GenCon) not posting about.  Here's a quick post while I'm enjoying my morning coffee.

DropFleet has had a tough year.  I'm no expert on Hawk Wargames, but the gist of it is that after the DFC Kickstarter, the company struggled to make the transition from fulfillment and back to regular operations.  That meant that Dropzone Commander (their original ground-based skirmish game) as well as DFC got somewhat neglected.  Store shelves were empty, and planned product releases (including the Battlefleet Boxes that we bought last year at GenCon) were delayed and deferred.  TTCombat bought the line and is doing their best, but progress has been slow.

All that to say this:  it's been hard to find DFC stuff at times; items randomly go out off stock and there's few details on restocking. 

So, several months back, I noticed that the Scourge and UCM Battleships were restocked at the TTCombat Web Store.  It's based in the U.K., but I had to have them and put an order in.  Despite best of intentions, they remained in the blister packs until yesterday.  (Note:  They're still hard to find in the U.S., so my delay really didn't cost me much.)

With that out of the way, here are some pics:

I was somewhat surprised to see how they were packaged. When they say blister packs, they MEAN blister packs.

Package contents.  Model, stand, stickers for the stand.  There are bits (nose and guns) to make one of three configurations depending upon your mission.

I set out to assemble the New York class first (carrier variant) but found a molding error on the NY's nose piece in the first blister.  Here I'm showing the difference between the two blister's contents.  Note the missing geometry where my finger is pointing.

Another shot of the low-fill NY nose.  Since I wasn't intending to build two NY variants, I was actually ok (the Beijing uses the other nose provided), but I did notify TTCombat of the error and got a fast and friendly response.

Here the Beijing is partially trimmed and almost ready for assembly.

A few assembly notes:

1. No assembly instructions are included but they are available online.
2. This kit is entirely resin, so you're using superglue and NOT (not!) plastic cement.
3. Mold detail was very good and the resin is more rubbery and not as hard and brittle as other companies' material (*cough*FlyingFrog*cough*).  It was easy to clip with a sharp set of cutters or carve with a sharp hobby knife.
4. Assembly was straightforward but NOT as easy as I'd hoped.  After assembling the plastic models several months ago, I was expecting very little trimming, but was surprised/disappointed to find that almost every piece needed some adjustment, in particular all the little antennae that run along the bottom/keel of the ship.