Set Review: UCM Starter Army for Dropzone Commander

If you’re interested enough to want to start playing Dropzone Commander, the starter army boxes are an excellent place to start.

This review is going to focus in the United Colonies of Mankind starter, as this is the one that I have. However they all share certain similarities, as you would expect.

The starter army box contains between 500 and 600 points worth of models. This means the starter army is well named, as you can open this up up, assemble the contents, and immediately get started playing skirmish level games of Dropzone Commander. It is quite possible to get this starter and nothing else, if your preference is for small games.

The UCM starter contains a legal and entirely mobile force, in keeping with the spirit of the game. You get six squads of infantry with vehicle transport for all. You also receive two armoured units, a main battle tank unit and an armoured anti-air unit.

Aerial transports are provided, enough to carry each of your units of armour, and also the two armoured personnel carriers. This entire force is airborne if you wish it.

In game terms this gives you a very sensible starting army, that can see you through your first games and form the solid core of an expanded army.

The product itself is well package, effectively the box it comes in is its own carrying case. The foam on the inside is cut well, they even took the time to cut the Dropzone Commander logo there!

The quality of the models themselves is top notch. The infantry figures are metal and nicely details. They drop into little recesses on their bases. The rest of the force is resin and appears quite logical in terms of which bits go where. You can tell I haven’t tried assembling them yet. The square of foam directly below the Dropzone Commander initials is attached by just two points. This means once your models are assembled  simply cut along those two points and you’ll have another holding square for your now-complete models. Great to see.

You will see from the image above that the game cards for the UCM are also included in this box, making this a true -start army’. I’ve so lost count of the number of games companies that will sell you ‘armies’ that aren’t even legal (never mind logical!) within the game system, or ‘starters’ where you actually need to buy several other products before you start, that its refreshing to see an accurately named product here from Hawk Wargames.

Overall this is a great product. Put together with the basic rulebook it provides a real entry level into the game of Dropzone Commander that is well within budget for most gamers.

Additional” Jake Thornton over at Quirkworthy has a more in-depth review of the starter army product, using the Post-Human Republic as his example.