Scenery

Battlefields of the future are hardly ever featureless wastelands, and normally include various kinds of scenery which can strongly affect the game. Dropzone Commander is best played on a table with plenty of scenery, which almost always makes a game more interesting, tactical and varied. There are hundreds of different types of scenery in a game, all of which follow certain rules. Simply agree with your opponent at the start of the game what rules each scenery piece uses.

Passable

A broadly horizontal space such as streets, fields, or snow to name a few. Small contours also fall into this category. Passable scenery has no special rules associated with it. Most of a board is passable scenery.

Impassable

Solid walls, massive piles of rubble, or lakes. Steep contours also fall into this category. Impassable scenery cannot be moved through unless specified.

Exceptional

Uninterrupted ground, made for fast travel such as roads and highways. Vehicles without the Skimmer special rule spending their entire move action on Exceptional scenery gain +2" to their MV value.

Tough

Tough scenery could be particularly rocky ground, fences, or dense foliage. Any move through Tough scenery costs 2" of MV for every 1" of it crossed.

Solid

Cliffs, buildings, or particularly advanced force fields. This scenery cannot have 27line of sight drawn through it, whether a physical line of sight can be drawn or not. For example, a building with open windows can technically have line of sight drawn through it, but it is classed as Solid, so cannot.

Soft Cover

Tall fields, chain link fences, or even more esoteric sources like artificial light dampeners. Infantry targets in or within 1" of Soft Cover impart a +2 penalty to Accuracy rolls on weapons firing at them, providing the Soft Cover is between them and the shooter.

Body Cover

Barricades, walls, or small piles of rubble. Infantry targets in or within 1" of Body Cover impart a +1 penalty to damage rolls on weapons firing at them, providing the Body Cover is between them and the shooter. Body Cover cannot be used against CQ weapons.

Destructible

Buildings, forests, or barricades. Scenery pieces with this rule have Armour and Damage Points and can be destroyed. Although most scenery could fall into this category, it's simpler to let mostly Garrisons be Destructible.

The Armour and Damage Points of a Destructible scenery piece can vary a lot, but for ease of play, several types are included in the Features section on page 40. When shooting at a Destructible scenery piece, weapons hit on a 2+ before Accuracy modifiers (for example disembarking and then shooting would hit on a 4+). Scenery cannot be Hull Down.

If a weapon scores a Critical on a Destructible scenery piece, it only loses 1 Damage Point. However, it also receives a Collateral Damage token. It's easiest to use a dice to keep track of Collateral Damage toekns. See Collateral Damage on page 39 for rules on resolving Collateral Damage.

When a Destructible piece of scenery with 10 or more starting Damage Points is destroyed, roll 1D3. Any units within that many inches (measured from the edges of the scenery piece) take that many automatic hits with an Energy value equal to the scenery piece's Armour. Body Cover may not be used against these hits.

Each unit inside a Garrison that is destroyed instead takes 2D3 hits. Roll once and apply the result to each unit inside. If an Objective that isn't being carried (see Objectives for details) is in a Garrison that is destroyed, the Objective is removed from the game.

After resolving the damage, remove the scenery piece from the game and replace it with a flat piece of Tough scenery no bigger than the original size. Any piece with 9 or less starting Damage Points is simply removed.

Garrison

Bunkers, skyscrapers, or forests.

These scenery pieces can be garrisoned by any Infantry unit. More detailed rules for garrisons can be found on the following pages.

Flammable

Forests, grass fields, or gas plants.

This scenery piece resolves its Collateral Damage at Energy 2.

Additionally, if this scenery piece or a unit inside this scenery piece is targeted by a weapon with the Flame special rule, the scenery piece receives an additional Collateral Damage token.

Garrisons

Interactions with Garrisons have several specific rules, and a few changes to other rules for open conflict.

Entering & Exiting

Any scenery piece with the Garrison rule may be occupied by Infantry units. A Garrison cannot hold more units at any one time than it has starting Damage Points.

If an Infantry squad is in coherency and at least one unit ends its moving action within 2" of an entrance, the whole squad can enter the garrison. An entrance refers to anywhere the unit could feasibly enter the garrison, such as doors or windows in the case of buildings, or simply the edge of the scenery piece for forests and other open garrisons. Infantry can disembark from a Transport straight into a Garrison (see Transports for more details).

Once infantry are inside, remove them from the table and indicate their presence inside in some way. The easiest way to do this is to place them in the middle of the Garrison. Indeed, it's often a good idea to design Garrison scenery pieces with a flat roof or clearing in the centre for this purpose.

When entering a Garrison, an Infantry squad may choose to occupy the centre, or any edge.

A squad may choose to leave a Garrison as part of their Moving action. Place them on the board within 2" of the Garrison in coherency and discard any remaining MV distance. Alternatively an Infantry squad may be forced to abandon the Garrison, in which case they are placed in exactly the same way.

A squad that leaves a Garrison (through moving out or abandoning it) can embark directly into a Transport, following the normal rules.

If a Garrison has more enemy squads occupying it than friendly squads, any squad wanting to leave the Garrison must first make a Fortitude Test. If it passes it leaves as normal, but if it fails it first loses Damage Points equal to the amount it failed by, before running away as per the Fortitude rules (dropping any Objectives they re carrying as normal). This damage is allocated by the opposing player with the most squads in the Garrison.

Moving in a Garrison

Infantry inside a Garrison may choose to move through it. While a Garrison may have multiple storeys, it's assumed that the Infantry squads cover all of the storeys in their time inside, so these levels have no bearing on gameplay.

All units are always counted as being within 1" of every other unit (friendly and enemy) in the same Garrison. This means that all Infantry squads count as being in coherency.

To move in a Garrison, simply choose an edge of the Garrison for your Infantry units to move to, regardless of its distance away. Units in the same squad can move to different edges, or not move at all, but no units can move to the same edge as an enemy unit. While this movement counts as an action, the units count as remaining stationary for the purposes of their weapons's M&F distance.

The easiest way of representing infantry movement inside a Garrison is to move the units to the edge they re occupying. While most scenery pieces have easy-to- identify edges, some will be a bit more complicated. In this situation, simply agree with your opponent at the start of the game.

Shooting in a Garrison

Any Infantry units in a Garrison may shoot at enemy Infantry units in the same Garrison. This type of shooting may only be done with Close Quarters weapons, which is covered in the Shooting section. Units may target any enemies no matter whether they are on the edge of a Garrison or not. A unit on the edge of a Garrison cannot shoot Close Quarters weapons and other weapons in the same activation (although only Close Quarters weapons can target units in the Garrison).

If an Infantry squad enters a Garrison that is occupied by one or more enemy squads and then makes a Shooting action against them in the same activation, they must re-roll any successful damage rolls as the occupying force has the advantage and is able to defend against the attack.

Any Infantry units that are on an edge of a Garrison may choose to shoot out of the Garrison, provided it has adequate space to do so (such as windows on a building). Line of sight, weapon arcs and range are all measured from any point along the edge that the unit is occupying, counting as a Front arc.

Shooting at a Garrison

Most Garrisons will have the Solid rule, which means any units inside cannot be targeted. However, if a unit has moved to the edge of a Garrison, they may be targeted as normal. Line of sight, weapon arcs and range are all measured to any point along the edge that the unit is occupying. Garrison edges count towards both Body Cover and Soft Cover if the scenery piece has those rules listed.

Linked Garrisons

Sometimes, Garrisons are linked by a walkways or similar structure. Garrisons no more than 2" apart may count as linked. Agree with your opponent at the start of the game which Garrisons are linked. Squads can move from one Garrison to another linked Garrison as a Moving action. In this case, the entire squad must move to the new Garrison. Treat this move as entering a new Garrison (including for choosing edges to move to or shooting penalties).

Linked Garrisons are a great way of making massive structures. Simply agree with your opponent which parts of a Garrison count as separate linked areas. This allows troops to occupy specific areas of a big Garrison, and allows for certain parts to be destroyed piecemeal!

Often a large structure that counts as a Linked Garrison won't come in multiple parts, which means that each linked Garrison won't be able to be removed when destroyed. In this situation it's best to just use your imagination! The scenery piece still follows the same rules, even if it cannot be physically taken apart.