DSC

 I had my first ever game of Dropship Commander on Tuesday night. I was at the Medway wargames club and the game was put on by Dave and Paul who do both come to the Rainham club so I knew I was in good hands.

I played against Paul and Dave was kind enough to guide me through the rules and provide some (well a lot really) of coaching. I know most if not all of you have seen DSC the figures and the terrain before. I will be honest that I was drawn to the game because of the look. But look aside it does seem to be a worthwhile game.

WE played the starter scenario. Paul went first and darted up the board. I reacted ready to contest the centre large building with my infantry. Moving alternate units Paul moved his AA vehicles and demounted them. I countered with my tanks. Paul moved his Tanks and I moved my AA vehicles.

Round Two Paul with the initiative again demounted his troops into the building ready to begin searching for one of the three objectives. I moved and fired my tanks. Both Dave and Paul thought that would be decisive and Pauls AA vehicles would be toast. This was the first time that Paul had encountered my dice rolling agility first hand. An average roll would see 2/3rds of his unit destroyed. I only hit one and failed to do any damage. So my firing was totally ineffective.
Paul returned fire and scooted to cover. My AA vehicles crawled forward and fired. Lots of dice and again no effect. And Paul took that as the cue to destroy my tank transport leaving my no ground bound tanks only moving 4" a turn.

Paul took his second infantry unit to another objective and I stormed all mine into the centre building out numbering Pauls troops 2 to 1. A sure victory everyone thought. And then I rolled the dice. I did some damage but Paul did more despite me rolling twice as many dice as him. Oh dear. Paul then went on to destroy my APC's and then AA vehicles. I was running out of things to have destroyed just my infantry my tanks too far away to do anything and a dropship. All I had destroyed in turn was a single drop ship for Pauls AA vehicles.

Paul discovered the second objective and then I got a single lucky shot in from a missile on my dropship. It managed to destroy Pauls troop dropship and one of his APC's. This left his troops with the objective a mere 2" move a turn to try to exit the board.

The centre building finally yielded to me and my troops lined the walls and fired personal antitank weapons at Pauls Tanks. It worked and I took out two of them. And then with the building cleared I was able to find (one of my few 6's during the whole game) the objective.

The game ended as a draw as the turn countdown turned to 6 and the game ended. We each had one objective marker and had each failed to leave the board. I think both Dave and Paul would agree the dice did not favour me in this game. I had only my tanks and some battered infantry left at the end while Paul still had 3/4 of his starting force. Still a draw is a draw and I was very lucky to get that.

I would like to thank Paul for being a good sport and not laughing too loud at my dice rolling ineptitude and Dave for his invaluable help and advice.

Conclusion: It was a good game and terrific set up. The price of the starter set is affordable and I am tempted. The rules are quick and easy to learn and the game fun. The only reason I have not to go and get the starter set is that several members of the club already have large forces and if I was to get the starter set it would not get used because they have so much.

Thanks for reading and I will try to keep posting alternate days from now on. All the best Clint.