/dcg/ Dropzone/Dropfleet Commander General

Is four drop ships and no troop ships at 1250 pts "fuck my ship up"-tier?

Yes.
6 strike carriers or 4 strike carriers + 1 troopship is pretty much the absolute minimum you can reasonably get away with.

Generally speaking, at that point size, minimum "troop volume" is 6, preferred is 8, and reasonable maximum is 10-12, where a strike carrier has volume 1 and a troopship has volume 2.

Assuming your opponent brought zero corvettes, you'll still lose on objectives on account of having fewer strike carriers than there are clusters on the board in the average scenario at 1250pts.

...

You always want at least 4 strike carriers (more are generally better) and a troopship above 1k points.Without adequate ground coverage, you'll just get overrun in the ground war and lose the battle that way.

Switch the gates to 2-4 instead of 2-6 and yeah. It would concentrate Shaltari into fewer motherships and make Azurites more worthwhile.

Exactly; as it stands, Shaltari fleets already have a huge amount of disruptors in their ranks, even without Basalts.

How competitive would a PHR list be if it used mostly type 3 walkers and other fast moving assets?

That's pretty much what the current PHR meta-meta is, last I checked; lots of Apollos, Valkyries, maybe some Thors or a Hades for heavy fire support.

Where the hell in the USA do I find a PHR battleship? My local game stores dont stock dropfleet, and all the web sites I normally order from seem to be out of stock as well.
I was hoping to paint one for a model painting competition at work, but with stocks being super low I may be SOL.

I don't know, for some reason there's distributor issues in the US, and I have no idea why Hawk hasn't rectified it. There's obviously demand if all the online shops are out of stock, so I can't think of any reason why the US distributors aren't stocking it.

The one thing you can do is order direct from Hawk, but only if you're going to buy 100 pounds worth of stuff. Free shipping is GOAT.

How do you dudes feel about the Topaz? It doesn't seem as useful as, say, the Toulon, Harpy, or Europa to be taken in lieu of Opals, Amethysts, or preferably, an Amber.

It used to be pointless shit but it's alright now since they dropped the price. Now a group of 3 is about the same price as an Amber and can put out 50% extra firepower on standard orders. Not as good in a brawl, but better if you just want some extra firepower without going WF.

The price dropped? I'm assuming in the experimental rules, right?

...

Yep. Experimental rules dropped them to 37 points.
Amethyst got a slight nerf to attack numbers, Diamond is now 290 points and only cripples on a 4+, Glass got a well deserved beating with the nerf bat which made its ion lances CAW, and Jade is still bad but now has 2+ lock.

There is a serious stock issue in the US. We haven't been able to get hold of PHR starter boxes since the frigate and cruiser ones came out, battleships are running out and I wouldn't be surprised if the corvettes end up in a similar position.

Is the web based roster editor not working for anyone else?

DFlist is working for me, and I FFotR for dzc.

What about the solomander one?

...Nope.

>I would presume that the Type 5's will be part of phase 3 for DZC
Hoping that's the case. I'd also love to see some of the other factions get units in the same weight class as the Hades (the new shaltari walker that got previewed might be - render made it look a bit bigger than the jaguar family).

>Still hoping for those Type 6 and Type 7 Grand Walkers
See... that sounds SO cool, but it might be getting a bit "out of scale" for DZC, assuming from the description that they are something titan-esque in size. Back when the Hades dropped, we discussed a great deal about how adding such a large model skewed the whole feeling of the game. I don't know if I want to see DZC go the directions of warmachine colossals or 40K apoc where the models size detracts from the game. Plus it will lose some of its feel if you have elements that are literally too large to be airmobile (again, the Hades is already pushing it).

Static emplacements are definitely interesting though - opens up a lot of possibilities for asymmetric scenarios with an attacker/defender.

Wait a minute.

This doesn't say the medium batteries are being split up, just that they're being linked.

So... are both able to fire on standard orders now? The fuck?

I hadn't consciously noticed this shortage myself, but I guess that explains why I've been getting most of my ships and now command cards from eBay instead of a direct online retailer...

It's odd case only some of the medium and light broadsides are getting linked.

What do you guys think of this PHR list guys, I'm planning on getting a second hades and want to get to the range of 2.5-3k points.

That's exactly my point. I work for a lgs that also sells stuff online. All of our usual distributors are showing zero stock for the command cards, the battleships, most of the starter fleets and half the corvettes.

It's like Hawk stopped selling to the U.S.

>It's like Hawk stopped selling to the U.S.
But the thing is, they didn't. It's like the distributors stopped buying.

maybe the distributors stopped buying cause they weren't able to sell their stock?

But all the online stores are out of stock, so they're obviously selling, which means the online stores should be buying from the distributors.

>But the thing is, they didn't. It's like the distributors stopped buying.
They may be a little hesitant. There was definitely a crash with DZC where a lot of distributors and retailers got stuck holding stock. I picked up a ton of DZC stuff about six months ago at 50% - 75% off from some online retailer. Even if you don't have a physical store, that's still into "selling at a loss" territory.

What sellers were those?!

>Scourge frigate atmos-hopping
>PHR broadside drifting
What other interesting maneuvering tactics have you guys used?

what pray tell is broadside drifting?

>turn 1
>max thrust into midfield
>turn 2
>course change, but use only a single turn at the end of your movement, resulting in an oblique angle of attack that allows for broadsides to be shot "forwards"
>turn 3 onwards
>course change; turn 45 degrees to face heading forward, move, turn 45 degrees again to bring broadsides to bare
>resulting effect is a broadside drift where broadsides can be fired forwards every turn
>at the cost of spikes, of course

And with PHR armor/hull... Would you really worry about that shit?

PHR hull and armor alone isn't enough to save them from having a minor/major spike the entire game, but calypso or two is.

Ah, I thought there was some trick to moving without special orders that I had missed, although that is some sound movement, not sure itd be necessary to do it every turn though.

It's not necessary every turn, you're right, but it's good just for the fact that it extends the threat-arc of broadsides to a full 360 degrees on all movement.

oh for sure sounds like a good squadron of some orions with a leonidas pulling that maneuver could sneakily end some whole battlegroup. I think it might be even more fun to pull it out of a previous turn silent running for more maximum annoying.

Almost have two fleets table-ready except for paint s-shut up which of these do I bring to gameday, /dcg/?

--------------------------------------
no BB - 1241pts
UCM - 3 launch assets

SR12 Vanguard battlegroup (233pts)
1 x Moscow - 163pts - H
+ UCM Captain (20pts, 2AV)
2 x Toulon - 70pts - L

SR10 Line battlegroup (210pts)
2 x Berlin - 210pts - M

SR7 Line battlegroup (176pts)
1 x Seattle - 132pts - M
2 x Santiago - 44pts - L

SR12 Line battlegroup (250pts)
2 x New Cairo - 176pts - M
2 x Lima - 74pts - L

SR5 Pathfinder battlegroup (130pts)
2 x New Orleans - 64pts - L
3 x Santiago - 66pts - L

SR12 Pathfinder battlegroup (222pts)
2 x New Orleans - 64pts - L
2 x Madrid - 158pts - M
--------------------------------------
available for swapping: one more saratoga, one more santiago

>tfw no command cards
--------------------------------------
Scourge 2x - 1243pts
Scourge - 10 launch assets

SR10 Vanguard battlegroup (170pts)
1 x Shenlong - 170pts - H
+ Fleet Champion (40pts, 3AV)

SR5 Line battlegroup (110pts)
1 x Ifrit - 110pts - M

SR12 Line battlegroup (344pts)
1 x Hydra - 140pts - M
2 x Gargoyle - 64pts - L
1 x Hydra - 140pts - M

SR8 Line battlegroup (176pts)
3 x Nickar - 66pts - L
1 x Ifrit - 110pts - M

SR7 Pathfinder battlegroup (234pts)
4 x Harpy - 168pts - L
3 x Nickar - 66pts - L

SR7 Pathfinder battlegroup (169pts)
1 x Wyvern - 105pts - M
2 x Gargoyle - 64pts - L

>UCM
I'm a bit iffy; even with 5 corvettes, I feel like just 4 strike carriers isn't enough. I'd definitely bump them up to 6, or take a SanFran.

>Scourge
Likewise, I feel neither of these really have the troop capacity they'd need to work out as good as they could.

Between the two, however, I'm leaning towards the Scourge. It's got plenty of varied firepower and a lot of launch assets, and generally seems like it can compensate in orbit better than the UCM list.

UCM has bombardment, scourge doesn't. Both are basically 2x starter sets, and a corvette pack. I have a pair of BBs but I'm taking them very slowly and aim to paint before I assemble, so. Not ready. Because wiping two sectors a turn at 1250 points sounds pacha.jpg

Wish I had freakin' admiral cards for either list though.

Fair point; 2 Madrid, 4 Nawlins, and 5 Santiago might actually end up being enough to contend the ground game.

A Moscow, 2 Berlin, Seattle, 2 Cairo, and 2Lon is also a decent enough spread of firepower, but I'd recommend getting your hands on some Lima ASAP.

There's some Limas in the list.

That said, I'd recommend getting more Limas since the list has a bunch of lasers.

Oh jeeze, I did miss those. And yes, agreed on going up to 4 Lima.

...

Dave's seeded UCM defectors helping the Earth Resistance build up for "something", someone's been trolling the UCM and pinning it on the PHR and Shaltari...
Which faction do you think is going to be getting the worst cockblock in Phase 3?

Deploying aesthetic robot wife
Beep boop

Ok fellas.
I just bought the DFC rulebook and I am completely new to the game. Where should I start? How is the value in the starter sets vs faction boxes? What's a rough guide to how each of the factions play?

>How is the value in the starter sets vs faction boxes?
2 player starter gets you Scourge and UCM starters, a rulebook, and a bunch of other shit. Its better value than the faction starters but if you don't plan on playing both those factions (or one while giving the other to a friend) then it won't do you much good.

>What's a rough guide to how each of the factions play?
Scourge are glass cannons that like to sneak around until they're up close and personal before unleashing hot plasma all over the enemy's face. Expect to use the silent running special order a lot.

PHR are tough and have powerful guns, but they tend to put those guns in broadsides. They can outmatch even Scourge in terms of pure firepower, but careful positioning is required to get full use out of it.

Shaltari is the weirdo faction for weirdos. Insane scan distances, a unique troop deployment method, can switch between having the worst armour and smallest signatures in the game to having the best armour and biggest signatures, get armour ignoring guns instead of laser beams, etc.

UCM is a bit odd, as their playstyle is more specific. Fairly slow and tough, but not as tough as PHR. In most ways they're just all-rounders, but they have a few specific abilities that make them stand out. Their lasers are the best around, their turrets have the best arcs, their carriers double as gunships and perhaps most importantly they have a special ship (the Lima) that can very efficiently put spikes on an enemy ship to make it easier to shoot. This makes them fantastic at sniping and concentrating fire despite their bad scan range.

How many points is a standardish game for DFC? And roughly how many ships/starter boxes would I need for it?

I read the rules and background and they were pretty cool, so I'm just trying to suss out what kind of investment I'd need to get into the game

Usually people play at either 1250 or 1500.

Thank you. Yeah, I've a pair of Limas, but I'm limited to four frigates by >2x starter sets.

It's feeling like I might be going for, say, frigate box + starter set for each faction to round out the capabilities. +12 frigates, +3 CR- maybe swap the scourge starter set for another frigate box, or some of the divine BCs.

I want more 2lons and a St. Pete, by god.

If you're going that path, I'd recommend the following to build (based on what you already have)

>2x 2lon
>2x Lima
>2x Nawlins
>2x Jakarta
>Some combination of Nawlins, Jakarta, or Taipei to taste for remaining 4x frigates
>San Fran
>3rd Cairo
>2nd Seattle or a St. Pete (you already have loadsa beams, so I'd edge towards the carrier)

Is that user right though?

Under these rules those ships wouldn't have to go weapons free to fire both sides? That's what I'm reading too, I'm just not sure I believe it.

rd Cairo
Already got a third Saratoga.
I guess a fourth would allow me to use 2x 2 squadrons.
4x Toulon and 4x Taipei sounds nice and flexible.

Maybe SF, St. Pete, and another Moscow so I could have a nice double-moscow brick available. But maybe I should settle for a second SF, or another carrier.

For jellies (reeee) I'd imagine it'd be +2 or +4 gargoyles (esp with Chimeras being a worse San Fran) then +4 djinns and maybe +4 of whatever the bombardment or gimmick ones are. Maybe a pair of Yokai and/or a wyvern, and then just BCs when they're out.

It's true, and I can't say I necessarily like it.
It feels like a massively arbitrary departure from Hawk's normal regularity.
I mean, balance is balance, but there has to be a way to redesign the weapons themselves to not magically gives some ships both broadsides on standard orders, and others not.
WYSIWYG is generally Hawk's MO, and you can't really see anything on a PHR ship that would otherwise indicate it can fire both broadsides; you have to memorize each ship in particular.

Does Hawk go to Origins? I know they go to gencon, but what about other US conventions?
When do you think Dave will show off the PHR and Shaltari BB's?

To hit 1250 you'd want 2 starter boxes, a corvette box and maybe a frigate box. That should give you about 1250, and a little bit of wiggle room if you don't need that much.

>plotgerm I've had for a while
>PHR Shangri-La pocket, a disabled Menchit AI ends up the only survivor in its pantheon after getting overrun by a scourge force
>its later found by a scavenging feral human resistance type, who fixes up the walker as only a superstitious post-apocalyptic gadget-wizard callow youth can
>Menchits are actually really fucking good against Scourge infantry-things so this team reaches prophesied hero of legend tier pretty quickly in its survivor community
>even before this, the AI had been starting to brag to the kid about how much of a big deal she is in the PHR forces, how much Hades respects her, how jealous Ares and Phobos are of her, how all the Immortals are in awe of her...
>then one day they encounter a real PHR force...

As cool as all that sounds (and it sounds really fucking cool), don't PHR warforms require a mental link between pilot and machine?
As batshit crazy as resistance techies are, I don't think even they can synthesize neural implants and nanomachines from oil and rusty backhoes.

So, how do command cards work in dzc? How many can you spend, how much of a deck will you go through, how frequently do you not usethem?

Yeah im not sure how much control the AI's have either, although you could pull something with the mech communicating via body language or morse code or something like that being as the neural connections died with the pilot.

Command cards are a deck of cards some of which are common pool (shared between all races) and some of which are specific to a certain faction.

You draw a number at the beginning of a turn equal to the command value of your highest commander ie a command value 5 commander would allow you to draw up to 5 cards. You can only ever have a number of cards up to your command value, and you may discard cards before you draw at the beginning of the turn.

Each card specifies what it affects and when it can be played so you can then play that card whenever it would be legal to do so, you can play any number of cards a turn, the only restriction is that any squad or unit may only be specifically targetted once per player per turn by a card.

The cards range from neat to game-changing and can be either used or not used at the players discretion, some factions have cards that are agreed to be better than some others atlhough this has shifted a bit as new units have appeared making certain cards more useful.

Effectiveness ranking for command card decks is:

1. PHR
2. Shaltari
3. Resistance
4. Scourge
5. UCM

This should not be taken that the UCM cards are crap and unusable, just they are not as easily applicable and always useful as say the PHR cards.

Probably what happens is he notices the anomalous cycles going on in the existing control systems and at the end of it gives it a voice synthesizer. No actual neural link required, then.

>here's an idea user- originally he was going to just completely bypass it and have himself a joystick-controlled warmachine, but couldn't get it to really work
>getting to the root of the problem leads to discovering the original control systems, and getting the AI to help him out took negotiations, sacrifices, and propritiations, feeding the ego
>still a joy-stick interface for the Feral, and the AI handles most of the actual dull work privately
>the payoff to that would be the other AIs being able to say "I didn't think you could get any lower... and now you're a *horse*."

still probably a huge stretch, but well let it sit in some grey not quite fan-fiction area cause its fun

...

What makes the PHR's so good?

It can give a unit re-rolls to hit, give 5+ passive saves to a unit, give walkers +2" move, force an enemy vehicle to stop moving, force an enemy vehicle to shoot a friendly...
All sorts of one-turn buffs and hacks with strong general utility instead of highly situational tricks.

basically what he said.

you have weapon hack which you can play when an opponent goes to fire and fire at a target of your choosing, this is never not useful\

countermeasures hack which lets you temporarily have infinite range which can let you take a shot you might not otherwise have, which is always again really useful

Passive save is usually useful, and more movement for a slow faction is also useful

Conversely the UCMs best card is black project which makes one aircraft only hit on 6s for the rest of the turn, which while not terrible at all, is also situational it is not always useful, and works better for certain army builds.

Leaks of the new cards for Dropfleet have some very interesting effects.

UCM Bombers can enter Atmos for a turn and attack normally--- fuck you enemy strike carriers and cities, suck carpet bombing!

Sauce?

god bless

Oh wow, thats some fuck Freedom apply directly to the strike carrier

AERIAL SUPERIORITY ACHIEVED

Damn, that's a good one. A single Seattle can on average fuck up any non-PHR strike carrier.

DZC-scale Voidhammer model when

Thatd be some maximum aerial superiority right there

yfw several large blast E12 attacks

>still a joy-stick interface for the Feral

im seeing a possible conversion here

Jackson or Gun Technical, what do you say?

have to be a gun technical, jackson is too "nice" looking

>Hades with a technical instead of the command pod

I still want a looted Annihilator.
>legs replaced with wheels
>plasma bombard overcharged and made direct fire
>Hannibal turret strapped to the top
>machine gunners hanging off the sides with a chance to fall off when it takes damage
>Scourge pilot still inside and having very mixed feelings about the whole experience

...

10/10 title

Bump

I placed an order for two Saratogas on April 20th. It's May 6th and I still haven't received anything beyond the original order confirmation email. Should I be worried, or is this to be expected considering it's the event-exclusive model?

Shoot them an email.

Hawk has always been good about trying to help their customers.

So I tried to make a hawkforums account last sunday and they've still not sent me my confirmation email. should I wait til tomorrow or email them today?