/dcg/ Dropzone/Dropfleet Commander General

So the 3'x4' gaming posters they provide are both shit, and not big enough (default should be 4'x4') so I'm looking at the deepcutstudios mats...

Is this one the most aesthetic?

I actually would prefer a deepspace one like this, but they only have it in weird sizes 4x6, 3x6, etc

The deep cut maps are really nice. Shipping is murder though. I don't think anyone else has made maps yet for the game.

Oh fuck this is pretty cool

Where did that come from?

It looks like a kitbash from a land crab

Looks to be an Oppressor/Desolator kitbash.

Whatever the hell it is, I like it. Early battleship conversion, maybe? Although the dual prow makes me think dreadnought conversion.

Was on the FB group, I think it's supposed to be a BS conversion, probably whatever the one that doesn't have the torps is.

I'm reading thru rulebook, and I see that some ships (almost all shaltari) have normal save and pasive countermeasures (which seem to be inv save against crits). On every model it says 5+/4+.
Does it mean that ship have 5+ on regular damage, and 4+ on crits? Because that sounds retarded.

And If I'm using PD to stop close action attack, I have to use that 5+ hull save on regular hits that pass? And I can't use 4+ crit save because I used PD?

The two values are for shields down and shields up.

Putting shields up nullifies crits and lets you use the second armour value, but also makes you use the second signature value and doesn't let you use your PD (fighters still work though). There's more information on the stuff on the Shaltari-specific rules pages. The stuff about crits using different armour values is just future proofing, for Shaltari they just count as normal hits.

Basically, the way the shaltari work is that at the start of each battlegroup activation, as well as picking what order is going to be used, you choose shields up or shields down. If you pick shields down, the shields are down- you use the smaller sig value, you get PD against bombers and CA attacks, you do not get to save against crits, and you use your armour save.

If you pick shields up, then until their next activation the ships use the larger sig value, have no PD beyond fighter PD, can save vs crits, and use the shield save value for all saves.

I see, I was looking for analogy form 40k and that's where I failed. Now it all makes a sense.

Thank you guys for clarification.

They're not for full games, they're for starter box games.

Deep cut does look good though, waiting to see if there are options that are easier to get in the states.

A thought I just had- so we know that one of the main uses for each factions standard gun frigate will be hunting other frigates before they can murder your most important ships looking at you taipei and djinn, but I've been thinking about which way is the best targeting pattern to use

1- since each gun frigate has enough power that it can kill an enemy frigate in one volley, do you target 1 enemy ship per frigate of your own.

or

2- focus fire- use 2 frigates of yours per enemy frigate targeted, and focus fire on the centre of their formation to break group coherency

In just about any situation, I'd say always over-apply your firepower. Better to remove a target completely and waste a few dice, than not finish off a target since you decided to split your firepower.

doubletap because trying to guarantee half their forces shooting at you is better than having all their forces lightly damaged shooting at you.

Almost? DfC has been out for over a month now.

Yeah, it has for the general population. I'm still missing mine and just a little in denial about it. Gotta wait for a week or two more.

Its in transition still. There is hardly any marketing, no website, and no outside support because Hawk is focusing on putting out orders. Once it hits full launch things will pick up a bit more.

guys - is this the most aesthetic gaming mat? There are a couple of others... I'll post them now.

...

Depends on the fleet.

You know PHR vessels are repainted based on what theater they'll be operating in and what is the best A E S T H E T I C color scheme for that environment.

This one or

So anyway

The damage from bombers from the Seattle and from the Ikarus are almost identical in a vacuum but 3 UCM bombers will ever so slightly out damage 2 PHR bombers. 2.67 vs 2.44.

The Seattle puts out 1.775 damage against a 3+ target with its main guns

The Ikarus puts out about 1.11 with one of its broadsides and 2.22 ish with a double

So in a completely ideal scenario the Seattle will do about 4.43 damage and an Ikarus will do about 4.65, (add .55 if you count the fore gun for 5.2 total)

nearly identical.

The only actual advantage of the Ikarus is that it has 1 more HP and takes 1 more damage to cripple.

Oh and it's 15 fucking points less. If they had costed similar than it would be no contest but as it is the Ikarus is priced like a throwaway cruiser.

So it's an okay ship, especially when it's compared with the Orion (Ikarus can do more damage in one broadside than an Orion but less damage overall)

Any decent player finder for these games? I'd love to get into Dropfleet as naval games are near and dear to my heart, but wargaming is sparse enough in my area that I don't know if I'd get a game.

I will forever envy the Midwest and Southwest for being a gaming utopia despite the massively greater population in New England.

>About to comment on the KS
>realize you don't care anymore
Never going to do a KS again tbqh, or at least I'm never going to interact with other backers. Why are they so childish?

I like the desert one the most, but, fluffwise, the lush green one makes the most sense. The Cradle Worlds were meant to be beautiful and extremely habitable.

You have to consider fighter screens too.

Scalpers, mate. Or people agitated by them.

Yea it is very likely that is what a few of them were.

There have been a few ebay sellers trying to off load their orders for a lot of cash. One dude is in the US now trying to sell a commodore with 2-up for like 600 bucks.

I figure that the ships will get lost on the green one, way too much color. It might look like a mess.
Snow also to some extent.

Desert I feel will offer the most contrast?

There is a lot of color, but unless your ships are really plain (or the same green) they should stand out because of their height.

So, a thought. Deep space engagements are possible in DFC, but cuts out one of the key mechanics, namely Orbital Layers.

I was wondering if it might be possible to use the orbital layers mechanic in deep space engagements to represent Z axis plus, minus, or neutral (level?), with each one having its own pro's and cons relevant to the opponent you're firing at.

Would be a bit of work to get it all balanced and laid out, but I haven't really thought that far ahead. Mostly just spitballing here.

Oh, does anyone have those pics of the facbook conversation they had with Andy Chambers about some rule questions? Namely, he mentioned how much distance an inch represented, and I can't remember off the top of my head.

Honestly, I'd crunch it out something like as follows.

>3 layers as usual; considered z-levels
>normal penalties for firing and moving between layers applies
>for the purposes of cohesion and range, a flat 6" is added for distances between ships on a layer up or down; 12" for ships 2 layers away to represent the vast distances of deep space combat
>>practical consequence of this is that groups must remain on the same layer as each other, and moving between layers is more defensive with the lack of atmos
>CAW can be used on targets on a different layer, but the same range penalty applies; basically only ships with 7"+ scan will be able to do so
>if a ship would be subject to orbital decay, roll a d6 once it becomes so (but before any damage control rolls). On a 1, 2, 3, it goes "up" for all failed damage control, and on a 4, 5, or 6 it goes "down" for all failed damage control. Ships that leave the field this way are considered destroyed
>due to the high relative velocities of ships, all weapons suffer a +1 penalty to their accuracy UNLESS any of the following are true
>>target's heading is within 45 degrees of being the same as the attacking ship's heading
>>target's heading is within 45 degrees of being the opposite as the attacking ship's heading

>in Deep Space, there are infinite orbital layers
>'hahahaha, humans will never catch me behind 9000 orbital layers. Silly host-bodies.'

>deep space combat game
>all ships are on a 4' by 4' by 4' field
>but nearly all weapons are measured in terms of dozens of feet
>actual field is a 20x20x20 grid of cubes, all superimposed into a single physical field

Probably been asked dozens of times, but what frigates should I be making as shaltari? Im guessing the disruptor one and microwave one, as the particle one is kind shit?

Seems like the shaltari basically NEED a fleet carrier if not two because of their shitty point defence, is that right?

Honestly; all of the Shaltari frigates feel underwhelming to me for their points costs. I'm tempted to solely use Opal's.

I would take a squadron of Ame's if they cost 50 instead of 48; their points cost not being a multiple of 5 like the rest of the Shaltari is seriously triggering me.

Yeah their frigates just seem a bit shit. I'm predominantly a scourge player who has picked up some dropzone shaltari, and was considering dropfleet, and coming from Djinns theyre just all a bit shit.

It seems like in terms of cruisers I'm going to want a carrier, a mothership, and then an obsidian or some thing? I'm really fucking bad at working out what's good or not

>It seems like in terms of cruisers I'm going to want a carrier, a mothership, and then an obsidian or some thing? I'm really fucking bad at working out what's good or not

At 1500 points you'll want a minimum of two motherships, possibly up to three.
A Basalt is all but required, but taking a Platinum or 2Basalt instead isn't a bad idea.

The Obsidian is a good heavy cruiser, and so is the Onyx, but I prefer the Ruby for all the versatility it brings.

It has the same standard orders firepower as either the Obsidian or the Onyx, and when weapons free gains much more power than the Onyx and is slightly better than the Obsidian, albeit with four of its damage limited to a F(N) arc.

At the absolute minimum you should take two Opals, anywhere in your fleet, simply because of how great they are.

how would a deepspace battle occur feasibly in universe.

Foldspace drives allow instantaneous transition point to point, with the only limitation for the Scourge, PHR, and UCM being a beacon or set of coordinates required for accuracy, (shaltari who knows really). The only other limitation is that ships cant jump right into a gravity well so they have to be approximately 6-10 hours out from the nearest gravity well at sublight speeds (whatever those are since no numbers are given really).

Given this situation unless you were somehow at the jump point hanging about (an unlikely occurance) when the enemy jumped in, youd have only 6-10 hours to detect their fleet, and then vector towards them, since you werent moving at them to begin with they would have a pretty serious speed advantage likely the only way you could be assured of meeting them in a protracted engagement would be to go to wherever they are going and fight them there. Since planetoids of some sort are the only relevant destinations, it would seem that about 99% of all actual engagements will take place in orbit.

Any other engagement would be limited to a single pass as thee is little to no reason to stay on location and duke it out, at least one fleet wants to get to some place, so why would they wait around to battle it out.

Also what (other than complete destruction) would be the objective in a deep space battle?
Sounds like it would just devolve into close, then go weapons free everyone is then mostly dead by turn 3 call it a day?

Deep space station, maybe.

Fantastic, thank you have a (you)

Yeah they just seem really bad the topaz is passable I suppose as a slightly better Harpy, but not much.

The shaltari frigates really are absolutely cancer to assemble with those top fins

2 Opals and 2 Topazes/Amethysts for the first 4 frigates. Then repeat for the next 4 frigates. After that consider the other combat frigate you didn't make. Never acknowledge the existence of the Jade.

When it comes to scoring, only ground troops/artillery/tanks does it, or ships at low orbit next to clusters also score?

I've watched demo game and I was not sure what were they trying to do form low orbit at 4th turn.

In some scenarios (most?) the clusters are Critical Locations and the player with the most tonnage of ships in low-orbit nearby claims them on the scoring turns.

Yeah, there's scoring for controlling ground locations (specified in the scenario) and generally you can also separately score points for controlling low orbit around certain critical locations.

Ah I found that in rulebook, so it means I have to have droped units in sector AND ship in low orbit in order to score that points? I got less points if I only contest them?

No, the VP you get for controlling a critical location is totally independent to the VP you get for holding/contesting a cluster.

Any one that has played a few games, how is the ratios of troopship to strike carrier?

Seems like you want a troopship filling certain areas of the board with grunts and batteries that you know you have early control advantage for.

Strike carriers are for when you need to contest sectors. I want to leave my troops ships at one and bring more SC. Will I be suffer because of lack of batteries? Does the troopship need to be in th action to put down batteries to troll dropships?

While I havn't played any games yet, I've been mentally working off aroundabout 1 troopship and 4 strike carriers spread out over at least 2 battlegroups for 1k points, with 2 troopships and 5-6 strike carriers for 1500 matches.

The reason for battlegroup splitting is that it gives you better odds to have carriers on board early for split approach scenarios and because it gives you more flexibility in launch phase.

That sounds really, really complicated for something that can be represented by the current rules if you get rid of the atmosphere rules of layer 3 and just treat all 3 layers as high orbit

That was one of the little worries floating through my head when I tossed out my idea - that it's just needlessly complicating the rules when it functions just fine as it is.

Just seems like a waste to have these layer rules and not use them, so I had to meddle.

Where in New England? We've got the beginnings of a group (4-6) in central MA

Plastcraft are bringing out some new terrain for Dropzone.

Southwestern CT, unfortunately, although close enough to make the hike up there if you guys ever host events.

Drives me nuts that we have so many people packed into the greater NYC area and yet wargaming is so thin on the ground.

Oooooh, how's pricing?

Not on the site yet but knowing plastcraft probably not too expensive.

Those look really nice, too.

Well since I cant post on the Hawk forums I might as well put this here. Just learned that my local DZC group is basically destructing over this kickstarter. The other guy who was pretty interested is now going to sell everything he has and just go back to 40/30k. So basically its back to square one for me, I guess Im just gonna give up too, doesnt seem worth it anymore. Hype is officially dead.

That sucks user, sorry to hear that.

Pretty sad. Was your cell consisting of 2 players?

While these look good, how are you supposed to shoot from some of those buildings?

nah we had about 4-6 people but this guy was one of the more interested ones, and had a couple of months ago been ready to setup a demo game at a FLGS once the pledge stuff arrived. Having him turn about face and dump his stuff is basically a huge loss.

Why's he selling his stuff?

Wow, I don't understand that mentality at all. Okay, it's late and that sucks but how does selling everything (including Dropzone stuff if I'm reading correctly) solve that problem at all? Now instead of playing a game you like and a game you might have liked he's going to just... Not? And presumably get triggered everyone someone brings it up like a Fantasy player at a Signature event?

He'll probably be bitching about it long after a sane person will have shrugged it off and enjoyed the game for years. It's just fucking strange to me. Does suck for you though man, good luck.

I can't imagine someone getting that angry over a KS. Don't people understand that you need to build in at least a year of delay for any KS involving miniatures?

I'm getting into DZC just now, and my starter box for Shaltari is arriving today. I've got a few games set up at my FLGS with some other new players, and think I've got the beginnings of a group set up.

Since it looks like a community is forming around me, what's a good way to expand a Shaltari force? The Ocelot looks nice for its strong gun, and Jaguars seem like a decent general purpose unit.

Gates are a given, I know.

Caimans are pretty fucking awesome if you wanna tank, and dreamsnare+leopard brick is awesome for AV.

Pungari, Firstborn, and Spirit Gates are pretty handy on the infantry side of things.

A formation of walkers with a dreamsnare is a nice big fuck you unit to have.

Ocelots are alright, they're vicious against other Shaltari and buildings but suffer from the classic problem of only having one shot. Jaguars don't do AT quite as well as Leopards, but they still manage to stay relevant with their long range and AA.

Honestly the only hedgehog units I'd completely steer clear of are Thunderbirds, Warspears and maybe Samurai. Thunderbirds because a single E10 shot isn't worth the hassle and Firebirds do it better, Warspears because their effectiveness isn't worth dealing with the bullshit inherent in fast movers, and Samurai because they're slow and short ranged.

My local area's exploding back with interest again. People are just waiting for their shit.

Gamers are fickle and emotional.

not the best picture but I'm in the middle of painting my first cruiser. I think it probably needs more colour but I've found with scourge stuff it's really hard to decide where to actually put which colours.

Some metallics on those raised ridges, or even just some basic edge highlighting would look really nice and add some sharper definition to your mini.

Those little curved lines coming off those eyeball things at the front would really benefit from some chrome or flat steel too!

Thanks for the responses! I think I'll definitely go for a dreamsnare and some walkers along with some infantry with spirit gates for my next set of units.

I think my first game is against Resistance, and that's in a few days. If there's interest, I'll throw up a summary of the game when it's done.

I'd personally like to see a report.

I wish Shaltari ships didn't look so ass. I would love to play some shields and teleporter shennanigans

Any chance of the resistance coming to Fleet?

That gap cutting your ship literally in half looks horrible.

Good luck I think resistance and phr are the worst matchups for shaltari.

>Shaltari
>looking ass
Only their frigates are shit tbqh.

>Any chance of the resistance coming to Fleet?
Never, sorry user.

man Shaltari are such an interesting twist on Protoss now that I think about it. Similar tech levels, similar attitudes about war, but a few minor changes (not having access to the khala, being immortal through cloning rather than through physical perfection) makes a very interesting and different species and culture.

>Only their frigates are shit tbqh.
I can't stand all the bumps. I would like the ships more if there were some different textures, but it's like the entire thing is some kind of an alien dildo, because it's textured at every nook and cranny.

Hell, even the Scourge has flat spots on the fins/heads for some contrast

I think Shaltari were prototyped entirely from rack gears that someone bent in their garage.

That's pretty much their entire aesthetic, senpai; the Shaltari are supposed to be overly detailed and ornamental.

I quite like how they look in general, except for the frigates.

You could probably buy a couple of posters of unmarked "trippy" space scenes and just stick them under some plexiglass, if you don't wanna shell out all that scratch

So... I can get my VP for holding clusters with ground troops, and my oponent can score crit location VP form same area?

Guys... I know we don't like the kickstarter comments, but its gone from just Khell pissing into the wind, to a lot of normally silent people saying they've given up and are either re-charging their credit card or selling the stuff. Some of this will just be lies, but the volume of these messages really suggest that Hawk may have done some serious damage to the success of this game.

Just look at these threads as well. Completely fucking dead now, despite 90% of the orders delivered.

Yeah, the prolonged delay is disheartening. Sure, these threads are getting pretty slow. But anyone going into a miniatures KS without anticipating delays of up to a year didn't do their research, and DZC threads were a goddamn desert before the Kickstarter.

Hawk probably has derailed a great deal of the hype train by not preparing for the delays on their end of things (resulting in things like some minor retail push backs and a complete lack of Dropfleet advertising on their own website), but all I can hope is that they do a crazy good PR job once they're done with the shipping slog.