Dropfleet Commander - Magnetising the PHR Starter Box

300 magnets should be enough, right?

Feeling good with the progress that I have made on Dystopian Wars painting recently, I felt that I would have a bit of time to start up a new project. Dropfleet Commander is a game I have had my eye on for a little while, and with the recent acquisition of Hawk Wargames by TTCombat, who have reopened their webstore after a brief hiatus, I decided to take the plunge.

DFC is set in the same universe as Hawk Wargames' Dropzone Commander, nearly two hundred years after the conquest of Earth and many of humanity's colonies by a parasitic alien race called the scourge. Now the United Colonies of Mankind (UCM) is beginning a reconquest of its lost territory, abetted by the Shaltari (an ancient, warlike alien race) and the Post Human Republic (PHR) (cybernetically enhanced humans who left Earth shortly before its conquest). Gameplay wise, the game is based around orbital combat, and landing troops onto the planet's surface can be more important than simply destroying the enemy fleet. This, combined with other key mechanics, such as ships gaining heat as they perform actions, making them easier to target, makes this a fun change from Firestorm Armada and Battlefleet Gothic (the other space games I've played).

I decided to go for a PHR fleet, as I really liked the sleek aesthetic, although the UCM was also very tempting.

The PHR starter fleet comes with 3 cruisers and 4 frigates

These ships are multi-part plastic, and the box is packed full of sprues

This box allows you to build up to 3 of each of the 10 varieties of cruisers (including heavy cruisers and troopships) and 2 of each of the 5 variants of frigates. As I had no real idea of what would work in this game, and didn't want to get stuck having built poor ship choices, I decided to magnetise the whole box. This was also something I wanted to try my hand at as a bit of a hobby challenge.


Magnetising the Cruisers

My previous attempts at magnetising models to be modular have been mixed... Fortunately, there are some excellent tutorials out there, and I started by following stages 1 and 2 of this one: http://thereluctantadmiral.blogspot.co.uk/. However, I did not follow it to the letter, as I didn't fancy trying to magnetise the different pieces to allow me to swap between all different varieties of heavy cruiser and dropship keel, so I took a bit of a mixed approach. In case it may be helpful, I've set out the steps I followed below.

Following stages 1 and 2 of the tutorial above, you should end up with a cruiser hull, weapons and keels that look like this:

4 2x2mm magnets on either side of the hull.

3 2x2mm magnets on the underside of the hull

Cruiser keels with a 1x1 magnet in the post. I also added a 2x2mm magnet as shown above, to connect to a magnet on the bottom of the bow weapons, as otherwise I found the cruiser keel would wobble too much. 

Cruiser bow weapons with 2 1x1mm magnets in the oblong raised section

I also added a 1x1mm magnet in the underside of the bow weapons to connect to the magnet on the cruiser keel above

A cruiser keel and bow weapon held together by magnets

And last but not least, LOTS of broadside weapons with a 1x1mm magnet on either side. Be careful not to drill all the way through - I ruined a couple of launch bays that way...

Where I am now allows me to switch between any variety of light cruiser or normal cruiser. I also wanted to be able to swap out heavy cruisers and troopships. Unfortunately, fully magnetising these would be very tricky:

As this photo hopefully shows, all three keels attach to different points of the hull, and all assemble in different ways. Magnetising would be a nightmare!

I therefore took a halfway house approach, assembling one each of a troopship keel, dual supernova laser keel, and a torpedo keel, and magnetised them as follows:

The troopship keel was mangetised as the normal cruiser keel above - a 1x1mm magnet in the post hole, and a 2x2mm magnet in in the keel to attach to the bow weapon.

The heavy cruiser weapons are magnetised largey in the same way as the normal cruiser bow weapons - 2 2x2mm magnets, but no magnet on the bottom. The weapon system is then glued into the rest of the hull as in the Hawk assembly instructions - the two magnets in the weapon are enough to hold it in place.

Magnetising the Frigates

The frigates were (with one notable exception) far simpler to do than the cruisers:

Assemble the frigate hull, then drill holes for a 2x2mm magnet into each of the post holes where the weapons slot into.

Then assemble the weapons, and drill holes for 1x1mm magnets into each of the posts....

... and the weapons will simply slot in as so.

The notable exception, is the Medea class strike carrier. The Medea optional component covers up the hole for the ventral fin, as well as the hole which would normally hold the widget, allowing the model to sit more easily on the flight stand. Magnetising this would just be far more trouble than it's worth. Fortunately, Medeas seem to be always useful (for their ability to land troops), so I simply assembled the two Medeas that the box allowed me to:

Honestly my least favourite model in the box - I find the lack of the big ventral fin unbalances the model quite a lot

Here you can see that the strike carrier optional piece covers up the rear hole for widgets (as shown on the other frigate above).

The contents of the bot assembled as recommended.

And with the power of magnets, it's suddenly different!

So there we go. Far too many hours spent with drills, tiny magnets and superglue, to achieve this result. I have to admit I really enjoyed doing this - it was a very satisfying challenge, and the end result is something I am very proud of. The models are currently sitting in my garage drying after being primed, and I hope to get a test model up on the blog at some point soon.

Hopefully this is helpful for anyone else wanting to try and magnetise their PHR models - I realise it got a bit long, so if you've made it this far, thanks for your perseverance! 

Expect a return to Dystopian Wars again relatively soon - I definitely haven't finished with that project yet! 

Any comments and criticism are very much appreciated - thanks for looking!