Third Author arrives

 After years and years of complaining on Engel and Jinx to be allowed into their Blog I have finally been allowed a place among gigants! 

As a competitive Dropzone Commander 1 to 1.2 player, I had a small blog about DZC which later on died out making me seriously considering my life as I had put in quite a lot of time into those 350 blog posts. That was because version 2 came. And I didn't like it and it died off. But lately we have started to play version 2.2 and while I do not agree on many of the game´s changes from the first edition it is still the best looking game to date. 

So as my introduction on Nidavellir Shipyard I would like to talk a little bit about why I started to play the game again. And show some pictures on my games. As it is fun with pictures.

The main reasons I started again are the models and the gaming tables.  Both models and terrain are easy to get really nice, the terrain should be plentiful (which I like) and the number of buildings can easily be increased for an even better gaming experience. It all comes together to becoming one of the market's best looking game. And it is easy to get there. 

The two pictures above are my "failed table". I used 2 sheets of styrofoam (I think I got the term right) at 2x4' giving me a 4x4' table, marked out roads, a river and then raised the non roads with MDF. Then I painted it all dark grey and then made the street's markings and flocked some. I used water effect on the river and the result was...less than optimal. But I used it together with the classic paper buildings from the "Hawk Wargames"-times a short while ago, and the result is still better than most 40k tables I have seen in my days. As a matter of fact, I would claim the weakest tables in DZC are still better than the average 40k table. 

Disclaimer(!) because some moron will say they have seen nice 40k tables (most likely a 40k player would say that while the people playing Bushido, Infinity or Dropzone Commander laughs at him). They might be right - because I have played quite a lot of tournaments in 40k and there are tables that look pretty good and tables that are just amazing. But the average 40k table in a 20 to 50 man-tournament? Yeah... not so nice. 

But the cheapest DZC terrain is still leagues better than the average 40k table. That darn paper terrain gets you starting to game on a descent table right away. And when you add the different tables you could use like Blotz' MDF:

The above table is just amazing and really shows what you can do with the MDF buildings and some skill. My skill in regards of MDF is much lower but still the result is nice:

I since have upgraded from the paper terrain's bottom to a gaming MAT with autumn colors that fit better with the buildings. Hope to show some pictures later on. 

A normal gaming MAT can also really make the board pop - even with the cheap paper terrain:

If you wanna go expensive, the N-scale terrain is perfect. Kato is a manufacturer I recommend and I bought most of mine (should be "mine" as a buddy invested in half so we share of course). But it is a bit lost on me as I don't dare do anything with the buildings. Still they look really, really nice.

Then we of course have the models. The scale and the way the models are done means that quite basic skills means you get really good results. And it is really fun with magnets as well. 

So the terrain and models are just some of the best aspects of this game. The game itself, V2.2, is a bit slow, lost much of it's appeal from the V1 version and it seems I can't get the feel for the game as it just takes to much time for some aspects and that adds up to bogging it down. So I have started to play it again just as an excuse to move beautiful models on nice terrain, ignoring the possibility to play it as a tournament game. 

Me? I am a 40 year old male with wife and two small children and an aging cat. I have earlier played 40k extensively from 2nd ed to 7th ed with loads of tournaments played in third to seventh. I even ranked pretty goodd in Sweden. As a DZC player I attended Invasion four or five times and with one top ten, some top five and one with a total (and lucky) win. Then DZC 2.0 came and basically all selling points of the game were lost for me. The miniatures were there and the terrain was there but the game totally changed in some of the aspects that I loved the most! I have a large built up rant about this. As long as Engel and Jinx allow me I can complain a little about it. 

I hope to have some blog posts now and then to increase the amount of posts on this blog. Hope to hear from you.