February 7, 2011

Discussion Monday - Operation Cyclone

So the end of this month starts the release of Operation Cyclone. With it brings artillery weapons, command squads, new heroes, snipers and spotters, and new tiles. I would like to talk about the expansion’s box sets that have come out so far.

The first is the Operation Cyclone box itself. In it comes new tiles that are amphibious landing crafts, 2 new heroes, addition crates and tank traps, and new rule and scenario books. I think it’s a bit pricy at $40 I would think like $30-35 for what you get, but it’s not my decision to set the prices. The 2 heroes look really neat one is Master Sergeant Rosie Donovan who is said to have designed the first walkers for the Allies. I think she’s pretty neat models with the little girl carrying a big gun.  She also has Tank Head which allows her to repair and restart walkers in mid battle. The other model is Manfred Kreuzer he is the one whom discovered the alien spacecraft in Antarctica. He gives his squad assault which allows them to move 2x in one turn and assault a unit in available. Instead of going with 2 heroes with rockets they gave him a smaller Panzerfaust which can still deal big damage to a walker.

The next release is the command squads. Both of them are the same and come with every member of a command squad (Officer, Mechanic, Medic, and Radioman). These tie into the Operation Blue Thunder box more than the Operation Cyclone. They have a special rule call Artillery Strike which improves artillery weapons accuracy. Other than that they do all the normal rules in Blue Thunder for a command squad and a MG. These are the reasonable price $15.

Another release is the Walker packs. These boxes come with 4 different configurations in the Allies Box and 3 in the Axis box. Both boxes are $25 which seems reasonable to me being that it’s a big object. I compared it to the Warhammer 40k Dreadnought and you get probably just as much plastic in the box and its half the price and you get 3 configurations. The dreadnought give you 2 on each arm. There is only one reason why there are 4 in the Allies. It’s because the one configuration with a mortar gun is the same as the mortar with missiles just without the missile attachment. This is where my article on how to magnetize walkers comes in handy so you can swap out configurations with any walker.

The last release is the Sniper Teams. These boxes come with one 2 man squad of snipers and one 2 man squad of spotters. The price is $15 which seems a little over pricy for 4 models compared to the 5 models you get in any other box for $15. I think it’s just they wanted to make all the box an easy number rather than be like 40k and have everything its own individual price. This is easy for us as the consumer and them as the supplier. Snipers are nice they can pick out individual models in a unit. So if their rocket guy is getting close to being able to shoot your walker then you can snipe him out of the squad. Spotters are useful also they allow a squad to hit on blanks instead of hits like fighting spirit. This can be useful when trying to finish off a tank or getting the upper hand on a squad to squad battle.

My only thing about this expansion is I wish they would also put out a big box so people who want to get everything can get in all at once. I like the smaller boxes also so I can get just extra stuff for myself to boost my army but I really like big boxes.

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