Dropfleet Kickstarter - Fully Funded!

AFTER A LONG MONTH, HAWK WARGAMES HAVE SMASHED EXPECTATIONS WITH THEIR KICKSTARTER - DROPFLEET IS ON THE WAY! 

At the end of August I posted some of the hints and tidbits Hawk Wargames had been dropping for their upcoming space game, Dropfleet Commander. Over three months and one very successful Kickstarter later, and we are that much closer to the final product hitting the shelves!

Here is a link to the Kickstarter page - just don't read the comments section.

The UCM Starter Fleet

The Scourge Starter Fleet

The Shaltari Starter Fleet

The USM fleet - fantastic looking ships very reminiscent of the Sulaco from Aliens

The Scourge ships - sleek and deadly, but I will need something to differentiate the different classes!

The Shaltari fleet in profile - spiky jewellery!

Anyone with the slightest interest in space-based miniature games should have picked up on the Kickstarter - it drew a LOT of interest and was advertised on a lot of different blogs. After a month of updates, reveals and Stretch Goals, last week it finally drew to a close with an almighty £629,222 raised by 3,918 backers! That should pay for a few plastic moulds!

The Battlecruisers in profile

The Avalon-class Battlecruiser is subtly different to the Atlantis-class Battlecruiser, featuring a different weapon along the underslung mounting. I like that they already have so many different loadouts and classes!

The Scourge Battlecruiser looks decidedly aggressive 

I'm not a huge fan of the Shaltari aesthetic, but this is a lovely ship

The Leonidas-class Battlecruiser is packed to the gills with broadside batteries!

I am one of these backers. Ever since seeing the first renders many months ago and especially after being drawn into the world of Dropzone Commander by my friend and local Talon Simon at the start of the year, I have been building towards this. The great thing about Dropfleet is that a lot of my friends who do not play Dropzone have pledged for Dropfleet, and some are even investing in Dropzone now to full the gap before the Kickstarter is fulfilled.

Interceptors, bombers, troop transports and even huge torpedoes, the Launch Assets set gives the fleet all they need 

Launch Assets look great alongside the larger vessels

The PHR fleet has not been fully revealed yet, but they might be my favourites, underbite and all. I love the sleek hulls combined with the rows upon rows of broadsides, their their beautiful propulsion systems. 

Kickstarter Exclusive - a giant Ajax-class Cruiser. I am very tempted by this one, and run it as a Battleship or Dreadnought

The smaller PHR vessels are sleek, matching the aesthetic of the larger vessels

Some of the ships have very large "underbites" but I think it looks great

Like the Scourge, the PHR exhibit natural feel to their ships - like fish rather than buildings in space

One of the great advantages of pledging for the Kickstarter has been the Free Unlocks for High Rank pledges - I went for the Commodore level, so should be receiving a huge amount of models - well enough for all four factions if I wanted! At this stage, I am thinking of concentrating on the PHR and the Scourge, but the UCM will also have their time on the painting table. I am mainly choosing Scourge because they look great, but also because a lot of people are not going for them - it's nice to be different! That said, the PHR and UCM ships are superb, and I look forward to painting them.

The Commodore Pledge Level includes even more than this by now, as the last stages of Kickstarter saw even more extras

Of course, there is the usual caveat with Kickstarter - after the horror of Alien versus Predator I was sure I would never pledge again. All being well, they are aiming for a June release, and I think they will be able to get it out on time. Hawk have always struck me as a company that knows what they're doing, clever enough not to get too greedy and overstretch themselves. Hopefully this will translate into a well-run and efficient Kickstarter campaign!

Now the long wait begins...

Thanks for reading,

George