Uncle Vinny wants YOU for the Colonial Legions! edition

>taking ECM frigates against Shaltari
>cuck their particle weapons down to a 4+

The attack ignores armor saves, full stop

> Uncle Vinny
Who?

I would assume that "particle" is just the rule that causes every hit to be a critical hit, meaning no armor saves.

The Adamant also gives us some insight into the Granite and Onyx; effectively, they can only fire one particle lance on standard orders; it's only on weapons free that they can shoot both or all three, respectively.

It's also interesting to note that the disintegrators are functionally identical to heavy mass drivers in all but arc, meaning that the Amber has pretty much the same heavy weaponry as the Moscow in the front arc, and that the Obsidian has the equivalent of three banks of heavy mass drivers.

Uncle Sam is the recruitment mascot for the USA.
Uncle Vinny is the recruitment mascot for the UCM
as in, AD VINDICTAM

Do we know if they still do an extra point of damage if the ship's shields are down? It was mentioned in the beasts of war video, but that was a (relatively) long time ago.

I don't think so; 3 damage full stop, with or without shields down, is powerful for such an accurate weapon that bypasses armor.
We'll have to see when the rules get sent out.

The amber and the obsidian are interesting ships. A commonly quoted limit of the shaltari is their firing arcs, but like you say they do have cruisers that can put some heavy firepower across a range of arcs.

The Azurite light cruiser is also going to be interesting; on such a maneuverable frame, disruptors may actually turn out to be very powerful.

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I was quietly impressed when I saw that weapon statline. The Basalt and Emerald (and the Azurite as you say) can put out some decent firepower, more than I was expecting.

Definitely; It's not super powerful, but definitely enough to contribute to combat.

On a light cruiser, however, I have a feeling it's going to be worth a lot of bang for your buck.

>UCM light cruiser Osaka
>3+, 4 attack, 1 damage, F/S

>Scourge light cruiser Yokai (presumably, based on other Scourge profiles)
>3+ 1 attack, 2 damage, F, scald
>3+ 2 attack, 2 damage, F/S(L), scald
>3+ 2 attack, 2 damage, F/S(R), scald

>PHR light cruiser Perseus (presumably, based on other PHR profiles)
>5+ 6 attack, 1 damage, S(R), caliber-light
>4+ 4 attack, 1 damage, S(R)
>5+ 6 attack, 1 damage, S(L), caliber-light
>4+ 4 attack, 1 damage, S(L)

>Shaltari light cruiser Azurite
>3+ 6 attack, 1 damage, F(N)

Looking at all of this, the pros and cons of each faction are fairly visible.
>UCM
Pros: no need to go weapons free, no opportunity cost for standard orders, decent firepower in all arcs
Cons: least firepower overall

>Scourge
Pros: the most firepower in the front arc out of any faction. Equivalent side-arc firepower to the UCM. Scald is also a huge plus.
Cons: huge opportunity cost to not going weapons free, and due to each profile's reduced number of shots they'll either hit hard, or not hit at all. Paper thin armor, big signature, and nonexistent PD.

>PHR
Pros: the most firepower in the side arcs of any faction; effective against all ships, but especially against light ships.
Cons: no forward firepower, can be kited in front of and behind by factions with side arcs

>Shaltari
Pros: Excellent forward firepower, as well as being extremely maneuverable.
Cons: F(N) only, maneuverability will have to be fully taken advantage of to not be kited.

>can be kited from the front or behind

I can do the whole geometry but at least for the LC it's going to be exceedingly difficult for a ship to fire at the front arc of a PHR LC and not subsequently be able to be shot by the LC in its following activation.

Like if a Shaltari cruiser with shields down with no spikes comes up directly behind a PHR LC and fires at it on normal orders at maximum scan+sig range, then yes the PHR LC will fly right out of range of counter attack. Except that's true for every other non Shaltari ship in the game too.

Fair enough point, but at the very least the Theseus will be forced to come in from the flanks if it wants to keep popping guns off on approach; it doesn't have the benefit of a dinky laser or turret like the Ajax or Orion.

Which in its defense, is probably where it wants to be anyway. It only wants to be approaching at a 45* angle to its target which isn't exceedingly steep compared to the whole board once the LC is placed on the flank of the board. They also fly in mandatory pairs which should be pretty neat as fair as wolf pack tactics goes

It's not a huge loss just considering the average engagement range for spikeless ships is somewhere between 12-14" depending on who's shooting (besides dirty Shaltari) which in terms of board maneuvering is fairly close. At that normal distance it should be fairly trivial to switch from front arc focused steaming (rocketing?) to side arc firing.

T b h the scan/sig/spike system keeps fore focused ships from completely dominating like they probably should IRL

Oh yeah, definitely. As far as interesting tactics go, if you can get the Theseus between the central clusterfuck and whatever enemy flankers there are on the side, going along a course a third or a fourth away from an edge, you can support the central fight if in range, as well as being effective against flankers which will be, more often than not, its preferred targets.

We'll definitely have to see how the PHR (and Shaltari) end up working in regards to maneuvering, and whether a 4x4 field is actually big enough for some truly great maneuvers.

So guys, is Beksinski scourge manageable without looking shit? Unsure whether to go grey and white or add a little colour, also, how light do you think I should go for? Cobwebs or more scratched granite? I've seen conflicting opinions on how dark to make colour schemes in space games.

On a side note, so far the best thing I'm (theoretically) enjoying about DFC is that it lends itself to some serious mathhammering much, much more than DZC or other wargames.

There's very little terrain, and pretty much all ships are separated into two groups; ships that kill other ships, and troopships (that can also kill other ships). Everything can be reduced down to probabilities, averages, and geometry much more effectively than it can in DZC, what with all the terrain, AV, AA, troops, and all those interacting elements that make abstract analyzation much more difficult.

At the same time, the weapons and effects in DFC are diverse enough that there will likely not be one "perfect" list, especially as everything can be substituted by everything else in varying proportions, by preference, and by meta.

Also I realise the Juggernaut was Giger, but Beksinski needs more recognition, also it's a good example of the kind of theme I'm going for, dull but with gribbly bits. I think it's the 'dullness' I'm most worried about it being shit.

It's more interesting because DZC comes down to "does this unit kill it's intended target well enough to justify its point and slot cost?" If yes take it if no don't take it

DFC has a ton of maneuvering that's absolutely essential to fleet engagements and mechanics that are directly impacted by bad maneuvering versus mediocre maneuvering versus excellent maneuvering (broadsides and F(narrow) stuff to begin with)

I feel like Beksinski's work is recognisable by it's aesthetic, not it's colour palette.

As such I don't really think there's a way to paint Scourge ships that will really make them look Beksinski-esque.

Pretty much; those with an excellent understanding of how ships can move, and who can see possibly locations two or even three turns ahead, will be able to maximize the overlap of their potential firing arcs with potential enemy locations.
Both sides know where the enemy ships can, and have to, be within a turn or two; neither knows exactly where they'll be, however.

There's going to be a huge sub-game within DFC, trying to predict what orders your opponent will take and thus modifying their ship's potential positions.

Or being a gigantic badass PHR A E S T H E T I C madman and diving into the exact middle of your enemies fleet to give them the broadside double dicking

That too, and who knows, it may prove to be a good tactic

Don't mind me, just laying down some MOTHERFUCKING OPINIONS. Based entirely on NO EXPERIENCE of playing the game.

UCM, PHR and scourge were meant to be a bit more spread out and taking up more of the graph, and shaltari a bit closer in to the others, but I couldn't be bothered to redraw it.

Looks right to me

I'll be honest, I didn't expect that response.

I think to make PHR broadside fleets really work, you're going to have to be Gurren Lagann tier aggressive which most people are too wimpy to do.

I would make PHR and Shaltari about equal near the end but yeah

fxd*

So we're in a similar state of mind, although you're anticipating there's more to come out of the scourge than I did. Interesting.

Nice curves, btw.

>although you're anticipating there's more to come out of the scourge than I did. Interesting.
Definitely; once Scourge admirals start gitting gud with stealth and cautious aggression, I expect scald to really start bringing the hurt on other fleets.

>Nice curves, btw.
Thanks, it's all in the MSpaint curve tool :^)

Looking at the stats and extrapolating from there, I think we can roughly divide weapons into light, medium, and heavy gun categories.

>light guns
light mass driver (UCM)
occulus rays (Scourge)

>medium guns
medium mass driver (UCM)
occulus beams (Scourge)
small medium battery (PHR; Europa)
half disintegrator battery (Shaltari; Topaz)

>heavy guns
heavy mass driver (UCM)
oculus beam array (Scourge)
light battery (PHR)
medium battery (PHR)
heavy battery (PHR)
disintegrator battery (Shaltari)

Does this look like a fair enough comparison?

And of course, there are also the superheavy guns

>superheavy guns
heavy occulus array (Scourge)
large heavy battery (PHR)
large disintegrator batter (Shaltari) (Possibly? IFF the disintegrators on the battleships are more powerful than those on the cruisers)

...

Seems solid. Needs the disruptors added to the medium guns for shaltari though. Oh, and the prow guns for PHR in light.

Shaltari particle weapons are curious, they could go in heavy guns here, or they could go onto a separate listing for BTL type weapons, as it is kind of their equivalent to a burnthrough weapon.

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Darn it user, I thought there were new leaks for a moment.

> Known Ships of the class: Searing Truth, Archimedes, Fatal, Turing's Cipher
> Fatal

Eh, I wouldn't consider the disruptors or lances to be "gun" type weapons.

:^)

>fatal
post yfw Dave-senpai actually lurks on Veeky Forums

What exactly does the 'linked' ability on weapons do?

We're not sure, but it either means
>weapons with linked-N can fire together as though they were a single profile
or
>this weapon profile can split its fire amongst N+1 targets

In some other miniatures games, linked means that they can reroll misses due to massed fire. Is this also a possibility?

>Ajax doesn't need to go weapons free to do double broadside

It's been confirmed to mean that all weapons with Linked-X count as a single weapons system for the purposes of how many weapons can fire. This means most PHR ships can do double broadsides without ever needing to go weapons free, allowing them to conserve their spikes

Possibly

I still honestly don't think that's the case, until we get the rules. That would just make PHR ships far too powerful, since their prow weaponry is often negligible compared to their broadsides.

>it's only been 3 days since dispatch started
>feels like a week

...

I wonder if you can build a 1000 point force with just a starter set and the bonuses. 4 cruisers and 8 frigates. 6 Djinn would eat over a quarter of your points, and I assume there are some decently expensive cruisers available like Chimeras and Hydras. I'm really curious if a Shenlong, Hydra, Chimera, 6 djinns and 2 gargoyles could make a big enough force.

Looking at the Shenlong provided by Wayland, it may be possible.

Any anons play in the san diego area?

Might as wel repost the other statblocks from Wayland, as well

Considering all the math done here, a PHR cruiser needs to be trying to fish for double broadsides every turn to have any advantage over its UCM equivalent.
It's not an absurd rule and still only makes broadsides relatively equivalent to carrier fleets rather than straight inferior

I tried looking at it, and I don't think so? You might need to have taken a Battlecruiser as well.

So, the Basilisk is somewhere around 180, a pair of Stryx is 180, a Mothership should be around 90-100pts and a pair of Gargoyles WERE 50pts, but they might be up to around the 56 level since it seems all the Scourge Frigates got a few more points tacked on. Ifrits another 95 points, and you have 6 frigates to make, so I'm thinking 3 Djinns and 3 Bombardment or those things that shoot upwards. Not sure about those price costs, but if we give them an average of 30pts each then we have 129 for the Djinns and 90 for the others which leaves us with... 830.
So, take a 20pts Captain and you have 850.

Actually, at Skirmish level you can't take more than 4 battlegroups anyway, so upgrade that Ifrit to a Raiju and shove into the Basilisks vanguard battlegroup so they can both roll around with cloaking device shenannigans. So, add another 65pts onto that total to up it to 895 without the Command officer.

Unless Scourge Admirals are 5pts more than UCM, you can't make it to Clash level.

...

...

>low energy requirements allow the New York to do complex maneuvers without the conspicuous energy spikes of its sister ships
>Shaltari can shoot at it from 24" away with zero spikes

lets make a somewhat bold assumption then.

I'm going to assume the points cost of the Hydra Fleet Carrier, basing the numbers on the Basalt and cutting a little off just because we've been told the Shaltari are 'better' at launch assets than everyone else. Lets say a Hydra is about 10 points cheaper or so, putting it at 135 points.

A list could look like so.

6 Djinn as a pathfinder group, 258 points
Hydra as a line Battlegroup, 130 points
2 Gargoyles and a Chimera, lets say its 150 points going off and what was said there.
2 shenlongs, we know are 340 points. Add all that together and you get to 878.

Honestly? while that isn't at Clash level, I'm perfectly fine with that as your demo fleet. Gives Scourge some punch, along with launch assets, a mothership, a really heavy hitting forward group and a good stealth flotilla in the 2 shenlongs. That might be how I build my fleet if the points are about right.

>the Heracles has a 9/36 chance of just double critting my NY on turn 1, doing 6 auto damage and making it take a crippling roll

Then there's my UCM, where my Wallet couldn't extend to a Battlecruiser (and I'm not THAT enamoured with how either of them look to be honest). So, 4 Cruisers and 8 Frigates.

My plan was: St Petersberg, Rio class, Seattle and either a Troop Cruiser or the Bombardment Cruiser. Then for frigates, I'm leaning towards 4 Strike Carriers, 2 Taipeis and a pair of Lima's (if they have to be taken in groups of 2, a Lima and a Jakarta otherwise.) The Lima's go with the St Petersberg so I can set up offensive spiking snipes. The Taipeis pair up with the San Fran and the Rio for a really nasty close range combatant, and the Mothership/Bombardment Ship either get's the New Orleans (since they're open and it doesn't matter) or a Jakarta.

St Petes should be around 160pts
Rio should be 95
Seattle is 125
Bombard/Mothership I'm giving a ballpark of 100.
Cruiser totals: 480

Frigates
4x New Orleans: 100
2x Lima's, not gonna be cheap, at least 40pts, so 80.
2x Taipeis, also not cheap, gonna give them 40 as well.

260
740 total. With the most I can give in an admiral at Skirmish being 40pts for a total of 780.

Hmm. I'd probably see if my opponent would okay me proxying some empty stands for a trio of Corvettes and shove them into the Line Squadron, and set for a 850pt game. Those things look fun as hell.

>rio should be 95

My current prediction is 100-110, ballpark area. Just since I bet the Berlin got a points bump

I doubt very much that it's the case though.

Note that none of the Ganymede's guns are linked. Linked 1 most likely means you can divide fire between one more target than usual.

That said, I am hoping linked means both sides can fire at standard orders like it has done in the beta. That would make broadsides much more viable.

Bloom means you take a spike for shooting the weapon, right?

T b h it could just be for the Ajax, giving it a very strong specialization

Minor spike, yeah; anything within 2 feet, at the absolute minimum, will be able to shoot at the Heracles if it starts blasting away.

I thought spikes were 6"?

They are, but nothing has a scan under 6"

12" sig + 6" spike +6" scan = 24" minimum threat range.

They are, but don't forget the Sig rating and opposing scan ratings. Plus stuff get's to move as well.

Right, duh

so how exactly are the scanning frigates not going to be fucking annihilated the second they scan something since they'll be visible from at least 24" on a major spike?

Presumably, the Lima will only take a minor spike (or none at all).
They're also less of an immediate threat than that hugeass battlecruiser that can now hit you, thanks to it scanning you.

If the Lima only takes a minor or no spike then it's legit goty

and it's less of a worry about target priority from my targeted ship and more wondering why I wouldn't just dedicate a random BTL to knocking that Lima out. It just seemed to me that if they got a major spike for scanning then they would only ever get one chance to do it per game usually

>If the Lima only takes a minor or no spike then it's legit goty
To be fair, I think they're a rare choice (and fairly expensive for a frigate), so they could presumably be that good. It'd also give the UCM an EXTREMELY powerful unit in their toolbox, something to compensate for their baseline stats.

Presumably the Lima just has the Detector rule:

>Detector ships may always use the Active Scan special order even if their battlegroup has chosen a different special order for their turn. Every Detectors ship in a group may active scan, not just one.

So, yeah they're gonna get sniped out. But before they do, a pair of them are gonna put a major spike on something for your Heavy Cruiser to go weapons free on.

The rule for it is there:

hopefully this link works

The interesting trade off of course is that besides the Berlin, Beijing and Avalon the UCM lack a lot of alpha strike heavy single weapons system, meaning that to take advantage of that double scan spike you'll have to either

A) go weapons free with something like a Moscow or St Petersburg to really put the hurt on the target

Or (and/or)

B) concentrate normal orders fire from multiple ships to conserve your own spikes. This is pretty ideal and isn't much of a downside although depending on fleet arrangement this could be a little underwhelming.

Also consider that due to the alternating battle groups activation style of DFC, you won't actually be able to Death Star laser a major spiked enemy ship unless you have a battlegroup big enough to do it (plus the Limas), which is definitely possible. I predict the Lima bomb or Lima snipe strategy to be a cornerstone of low level UCM meta.

So all you fags who preordered a 2-player starter set;
What are you going to build your shit into?

I have no idea.

I think it's like, 3 CR 4 FR per side. I'm thinking 1x strike carrier, 1x [faction gimmick frigate], and then 2 for some combination of brawlers/escorts, followed by 1x troopship, and 2x line cruisers of some kind. At least one BTL.

Say;
New Orleans
Lima
???
???

San Francisco
Berlin
Rio (or perhaps something with launchbays).

I don't know anything about the scourge ships.

I have no clue, I have a two person starter and two abandonist starter fleets + BCs and I think I'm going to wait until I see some hard points values before I do anything

As far as UCM goes though I can't see you going wrong with a Moscow Seattle Berlin, all three are fab

I'm going to magnetize

>you won't actually be able to Death Star laser a major spiked enemy ship unless you have a battlegroup big enough to do it (plus the Limas), which is definitely possible. I predict the Lima bomb or Lima snipe strategy to be a cornerstone of low level UCM meta.
Considering how both the vanguard and flag groups have room for a single light group, there will definitely be room for that.
Double Avalon +Lima group will be extremely powerful.

Seems a shame, especially when you'll be getting a freakin' slot on the stand for the ship name.
What's the point of a naming scheme if you'll be turning them into every which model every match?
New Orleans: Juan Rico
San Francisco: Normandy

Two crippling rolls.

At max I think it can do like 12 damage.

>tfw you have to weigh the pros and cons of magnetizing
>pros:
>don't have to buy as many ships
>can quickly test out new ships on the fly
>movable turrets

>cons:
>can't forge stories around my ships
>possibility of losing bits
>don't have to buy as many ships

HELP

I'll be magnetising one UCM cruiser since I can't decide between a Troopship or Bombardment Cruiser and both will probably be more or less useful depending on the scenario, but that'll be it.

Also, another benefit of not-magnetizing is that I can greenstuff certain lines, like the Scourge heavy cruiser crest, the Scourge jaw inserts, the PHR heay cruiser prow, etc.

Fug, this is a harder decision that I thought.

Ya know we have a sayin' in the legion, " I'M WALKIN' HEEEEREEE"

>Lock 2+
Hnnnggg

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these field diagrams are pretty schway

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