/dcg/ Dropzone/Dropfleet Commander General

When they join the UCM :^)

The resistance fleet comes in the starter box, user.

What did you think those debris fields were?

NEVER

Unless you count replacing the cargo and command capsules of antique launch vehicles with high yield explosives and ramming them into orbiting ships, that is.

I'm UCM picking up a new faction for either fleet or zone. Sell me on your shitty alien scumbag race.

I can't, PHR are better humans who were right.

Murdering untold number of humans

"Right"

> Shitty
> Alien
> Scumbag

Sounds like someone's just trying to compensate for his pathetic lifespan and pitiable technology. There aren't enough smug hedgehog images in the galaxy to express my distaste.

We compensate with large railgun into traitorous hedgehog ass.

See you soon. We will be there after we finish making jelly stew.

>Writing up a rules mod for DZ. To add more utility to some models.

>Dave say he is releasing 2.0

>"I am the lord of resin user" Says Dave as sits upon the skeleton of the UCM Bejing model he has begun working on.

Exactly. You seem to understand why the old Earth Authority was in the wrong.

>Exactly. You seem to understand the old Earth Authority was in the betrayed.

FTFY

>was in the betrayed.
No, look, you're getting it all wrong now.

>killing Abandonists
>wrong

>reducing total number of survivors who might come back to remove jelly

I bet your hair is white and your eyes are red.

>more survivors to come back 270 years later
That's not how repopulation over the course of 13 generations works, user

Reminder that the spaceball could easily have not caused a civil war if it wanted to. It isn't retarded, it knew that such a vague prophecy about a future threat would only attract a small number of fanatics who'd gladly drink its kool aid. An actual explanation of the Scourge and their capabilities would cause a mass exodus, and that would invite far too many dissenting opinions that won't blindly obey the mysterious alien artifact with obvious ulterior motives.

Yeah, the ball was correct, but telling the truth once (in such a way that just so happens to give it a giant cult) isn't some kind of heroic deed. Shaltari told the truth a whole bunch when they were setting up humanity as meatshields, and look at what fine allies they turned out to be.

>Writing up a rules mod for DZ. To add more utility to some models.
Post your work fag

Reminder that more setting information will come and those who hold faith in the Sphere will be rewarded.

>and those who hold faith in the Sphere will be betrayed.
ftfy
They need a better excuse for PHR mirror matches anyway.

>Reminder that the spaceball could easily have not caused a civil war if it wanted to. It isn't retarded, it knew that such a vague prophecy about a future threat would only attract a small number of fanatics who'd gladly drink its kool aid.
That's not actually certain, desu. It could know very little about humans, be on a very tight timetable, or otherwise. Humans are not actually a particularly cohesive and rational species for the most part, perhaps that kind of warning is sufficient with most of the species it has encountered before.

>with most of the species it has encountered before.
We don't even know if it has encountered other species to do similar shit. The information we have seems to suggest against it, since the Shaltari would not take kindly to an outside force messing with the species they feed the Scourge

Its not quite there yet. Needs a demo game first which I hope to get soon.

Exactly. We don't know. For all we know humans are fucking wacko crazies and it genuinely didn't expect them to react so shittily to its warning.

>Dave stares at his computer; a teapot is present in AutoCAD
>he presses a single button
>"you are already modeled"
>a fully formed Hades materializes from his fax machine

...

Trying to plan a Dropfleet Day soon. Mind if I post potential demo lists?

go for it, something to keep the thread floating. Before you do though, you've kept in mind keeping things simple is important right?

A simple 999 point list for demo games:

--------------------------------------
999 Master Demo List - 985pts
Scourge - 0 launch assets

SR13 Line battlegroup (385pts)
1 x Wyvern - 105pts - M
+ Fleet Champion (40pts, 3AV)
4 x Charybdis - 140pts - L
4 x Charybdis - 140pts - L

SR8 Pathfinder battlegroup (280pts)
4 x Charybdis - 140pts - L
4 x Charybdis - 140pts - L

SR8 Pathfinder battlegroup (280pts)
4 x Charybdis - 140pts - L
4 x Charybdis - 140pts - L
------------- dflist.com -------------

Removes the launch phase, the ground combat phase, and most of the scoring for a smooth easy introduction to the game.

I see what you're going for, instead changing the objective to bombardment and sector destruction, but that's way too much bombardment and literally nothing else.

At that size of game I'd recommend, at most, 8 Charybdis, I'd even say go down to just 6; replace the rest with actual combat ships besides just a Wyvern.

Well the list was mostly a joke about the word "demo".

Some scenarios focused entirely on bombardment might be interesting, though. I think there's one in the book where you score based on it?

>Well the list was mostly a joke about the word "demo".
You got me, user

...

Finally made it to a desktop computer.

Scourge Demo - 741pts
Scourge - 0 launch assets

SR10 Vanguard battlegroup (205pts)
1 x Basilisk - 205pts - H

SR7 Line battlegroup (149pts)
1 x Chimera - 105pts - M
2 x Nickar - 44pts - L

SR5 Pathfinder battlegroup (193pts)
3 x Djinn - 129pts - L
2 x Gargoyle - 64pts - L

SR7 Pathfinder battlegroup (194pts)
2 x Harpy - 84pts - L
1 x Ifrit - 110pts - M

Shaltari Demo - 722pts
Shaltari - 4 launch assets

SR11 Vanguard battlegroup (213pts)
1 x Jet - 165pts - H
1 x Amethyst - 48pts - L

SR13 Line battlegroup (290pts)
1 x Emerald - 100pts - M
3 x Voidgate - 45pts - L
1 x Basalt - 145pts - M

SR8 Line battlegroup (145pts)
1 x Emerald - 100pts - M
3 x Voidgate - 45pts - L

SR2 Pathfinder battlegroup (74pts)
2 x Topaz - 74pts - L

cont.

PHR Demo - 725pts
PHR - 2 launch assets

SR11 Vanguard battlegroup (232pts)
1 x Leonidas - 195pts - H
+ Vice Director (40pts, 3AV)
1 x Calypso - 37pts - L

SR5 Line battlegroup (130pts)
1 x Orpheus - 130pts - M

SR7 Pathfinder battlegroup (193pts)
2 x Medea - 78pts - L
1 x Ikarus - 115pts - M

SR3 Pathfinder battlegroup (150pts)
3 x Pandora - 150pts - L

PHR Demo II - 730pts
PHR - 6 launch assets

SR10 Vanguard battlegroup (180pts)
1 x Bellerophon - 180pts - H

SR12 Line battlegroup (258pts)
2 x Theseus - 178pts - M
2 x Europa - 80pts - L

SR7 Line battlegroup (214pts)
1 x Orpheus - 130pts - M
2 x Andromeda - 84pts - L

SR2 Pathfinder battlegroup (78pts)
2 x Medea - 78pts - L

Give thoughts pls. I have a Hydra I could sub into the Scourge list somewhere to get launch assets and a bunch of other options for the Shaltari, but the two PHR lists take all my models and aren't all that flexible.

>Warstore having a 45% off sale on Hawk stuff
HNNNNNGG
I really hope this isn't a bad sign for the game's health. Any, here goes a fat hundo

It's probably fine. They're dumping a ton of Infinity stuff too just from overstock.
I just wish the cards were easier to get. I did a game with the UCM ones-- wow, they make a difference.

With the New York buff, I dunked three enemy strike carriers by running atmospheric bombers at them. Blam. All enemies destroyed. NY then carpet nuked the sectors I had no chance of taking to deny them.

I guess it's time to replace the frigates I wrecked with shit primer this spring.

P.S. Army Painter colored primer is an abomination.

Why is this game so dead everywhere yet on Veeky Forums it lives ?

Where do you see that?

>I really hope this isn't a bad sign for the game's health.

It's more likely a reaction to the DZC 2.0 Announcement.

I think the only thing I might do is switch the Chimera for more Gargoyles. I get wanting to demonstrate troop ships, and the Chimera is fine in larger games, but I've found it's too fragile to work well in smaller point games and you lose a big chunk of your drop assets too quickly. Might be fine against a new player who doesn't know to prioritize it though.

thewarstore.com/VIKDropzoneBasement.html

The power of autism and memes drives this thread, along with the occasional instance of discussion.

It's a *really* good game, user. Some autists have decided that if they can just keep its threads from sinking they'll be able to play it more.

That's a really good deal on the sector pack, but I still dread the thought of trying to paint them well.

And speaking of table features, how do other anons deal with the issue of point source ships vs. base placement when 3D clusters or moons are being used? I know "stacking" is allowed for big groups of frigates, but squeezing little abstract ship tokens between clusters and along a moon's surface doesn't seem very aesthetically pleasing.

Hawk is a tiny company so its kind of surprising they have any traction at all.

These two games are pretty great. The game is more popular in EU than US. Apparently, DF moves a lot more product than DZ does.

Dave actually puts in the time to made CAD-designed models look good instead of using it as a way to save time and cut corners.

So far I haven't found it to be too much trouble. Generally you'll only have one cluster that gets particularly hotly contested over, and when that happens I just switch out the resin tokens for the paper ones. Haven't had it happen with a moon yet, but I've got a paper printout of a moon to substitute it with if it does. The table just looks so much nicer with the resin I can't justify not using them.

The real problem is that the hardest one to paint, the industrial sector, is the most you get in a pack. I'm not that fast or good a painter so painting all those little pipes was agonizing. The other two sectors were pretty easy to get to an acceptable level though.

About how many do you need? Two boxes of regular and one special?

With the current scenarios, one of each. You'll only be short one commercial sector on the larger version of scenario 1.

>Thors and the Medusa are on sale
>they're both really cool units
>want to grab more DFC cruisers too while I'm at it
Sticking to a budget is hard.

The real battle of resisting it is knowing it'll just contribute to the endless extension of the painting queue and having to draw a line somewhere.

Yea that is it. The quene is so absurd. I haven't painted in forever.

I really want to start that PHR army too.

Oh yeah, backlog. Thanks for reminding me that Kingdom Death Monster is on its way soon.
Not that this does anything to dissuade the part of me that wants sci-fi escapism to balance out the fantasy itch, of course

...

>tfw STILL haven't gotten through KS stuff

I have everything basecoated, though my Scourge and Shaltari are crying for detail work.

I miss the olden days before rent payments, back when my building and painting couldn't physically keep up with my purchasing habits

would an airbrush help any?

>I miss the olden days before rent payments, back when my building and painting couldn't physically keep up with my purchasing habits

You *miss* that?

For Resistance, why take veterans?

They seem like crappy MF-R. Why bother sinking money into a troop that doesn't do anything special?

Anti-tank. That E11 shot is very reliable and has a good range. Combine with Battle Buses for delicious alpha striking. Being good at CQB is just a bonus, it's not the entire point of the unit like it is for MF-R.

Hey, total newb here. I'm kinda interested in starting Dropfleet Commander (love the ships), and made myself a 2000 points list of UCM, so that I have a "completion goal" (obv. not buying everything at once). Wanted to know if this list is complete and utter retardation or not.

UCM-2000 points:

SR 15 Flagship Battlegroup: (272 points)
1 Beijing Class Battleship
UCM-Vice Admiral (4AV)

SR 21 Vanguard Battlegroup: (452 points)
1 Johannesburg Class Battlecruiser
2 Rio Class Cruisers
1 Lima Class Frigate

SR 21 Vanguard Battlegroup (452 points)
1 Johannesburg Class Battleship
2 Rio Class Cruisers
1 Lima Class Frigate

SR 15 Line Battlegroup: (315 points)
3 Berlin Class Cruisers

SR 7 Pathfinder Battle Group: (175 points)
1 San Fransisco Class Troopship
2 New Orleans Class Strike Carriers

SR7 Pathfinder Battlegroup: (175 points)
1 San Fransisco Class Troopship
2 New Orleans Class Strike Carriers

SR 4 Pathfinder Battlegroup: (156 points)
4 Taipei Class Missile Frigates

Beijing and Johannesburgs/Rio's are the main brunt of the army, meant to smash through the enemy with brute force, Lima's are there for support.

Berlins are the "sniper squad",they are meant to flank and destroy a dangerous enemy asset (a carrier wing, for example, since I lack launch capacitiy apart from the Johannesburgs).

San Fransisco's and New Orleans are obviously objective scoring. Am I right in my assumption that all of these ships can operate independantly of eachother because of the New Orleans "Open" ability? That would be the goal, so that way I have six scoring ships that my opponent has to chase down individually.

Finally, the Taipei's are a small harrassement "hitsquad" that can put on hurt even to bigger ships due to 4d6+12 shots. Their main purpose is to hunt down enemy strike carriers that have gone down into atmosphere where my cruisers and such cant reach them anymore.

.....whaddoya think, Veeky Forums?

I just noticed Buses have firing points.

Do you combine two squads into one unit?

For DF, you are looking at 1250 as tourny size. FY I would start at 1500 as my completion goal. You probably need more strike carriers for 2k.

You have to combine units correctly so they are able to make the most of their activation.

You have two battle groups that don't bring a lot to the table here because they are all ground deployers. You could throw the Limas into here to take some weigh off the Large Strat Rating.

I would drop one of the Johannesburg and a Seattle group. Seattle is one of the strongest ships in the game. Go 3 Seattle and add in some Strike Carriers and you got a powerful launch group that can hang mid range and punish dirty jelly with its guns.

4 Taipei is a super sexy group.

You three Berlin group might be better suited as a quad New Cairo. Lasers pull double duty as spike generators. If you put them in the fast NC you can flank up the board and laser the shit out of anything option it up for shots from your various UF-6400 ships.

Switch out 1 Sanfran for 2 extra Norleans. Strike carriers are your main objective grabbers. Troopships are only there for support, and it's rarely worth taking more than one. Also Norleans don't really need to be put in with other objective ships, just toss them whereever.

Limas are a worthwhile addition to any well armed battlegroup, but I find they work best with lasers. And if you're planning on flanking with your beams then New Cairos are better at that. Berlins are there as a reliable core that may survive the whole game, they're not flankers.

Taipeis make a good murder team, but they can't hunt strike carriers. CA weapons without the air to air rule cannot fire into atmosphere. You need Santiagos for that.

The brawler teams are unconventional in composition, but not bad. With the battleship around you might only need one, though. The other could be replaced with something more specialised like more beams or some Madrids.

Not a big deal, but you really don't have many frigates. I'd recommend getting some because you can get a whole lot for cheap in real money, and they're very nice options in the game.

2000 points probably won't see much play. 1250 is a more realistic thing to build a list around, even if you end up with 2000 points worth of stuff. You should at least know for sure what to drop when playing a smaller game.

I still can't believe how long it took me to notice that the Seattle has heavy mass drivers instead of the usual 4+ secondaries. That class is so fucking good

>Switch out 1 Sanfran for 2 extra Norleans. Strike carriers are your main objective grabbers. Troopships are only there for support, and it's rarely worth taking more than one. Also Norleans don't really need to be put in with other objective ships, just toss them wherever.

While I prefer NO as well, SF can be very useful for the placement of batteries and ground saturation. At higher point levels you can't rely only on NO.

I like the idea of adding Santiagos, but I would say I prefer putting them into a dump group because of their rules. Having the Taipei as an ultra small SR means you can sneak them in last activation and then activate first to strike before someone can sneak away for a double volley. They can punch way above their weight in this way. SC tend to loiter over clusters and because of the atmo rules there is less chance they can get away.

>That class is so fucking good

I know right!

Its super cheap, never has to go WF, has launch assets so you can fit in five, its main gun is fucking murderzone.

True, but one is enough. Even if you take 2 you still need more strike carriers. Strike carriers are always the core, troopships get maybe 1 or 2 drops before they inevitably die and while those drops are very nice they don't carry the game the way SC do with a constant stream of ground assets. 4 is very iffy at 1250 points, let alone 2000.

Taipeis and Santiagos don't really compete for a spot, they have completely different roles. Taipeis can't fight strike carriers (unless your opponent seriously fucked up) and Santiagos can't fight big things.

>Do you combine two squads into one unit?
Hm? Do you mean for the plasma combined fire? No, each base has to roll for combined fire separately.

I mean like with 2 BB, you have 1 filled with 4 Vets and the other filles with 4 Fighters?

It is awkward to fit them in the list because the Jackson lifthawk combo requires a lot of troops. There is not smaller transport option to give them more flexibility.

>Taipeis and Santiagos don't really compete for a spot, they have completely different roles. Taipeis can't fight strike carriers (unless your opponent seriously fucked up) and Santiagos can't fight big things.

I mean just leave the Taipei BG alone so it has a low SR. It will always have targets.

The Santiagos can go in anywhere because of outlier. You def need both just not necessarily combined.

>I mean like with 2 BB, you have 1 filled with 4 Vets and the other filles with 4 Fighters?
You can do that, yeah. They're still different units though, you can split them up at any time just like with any other APCs.
Also remember that you don't need to fill Buses, filling up one with 4 Vets and the other with only 2 Fighters is a valid tactic. You can use the former to blow holes in tanks while the latter does boring objective work elsewhere.

Oh definitely. I wasn't suggesting to change the wolfpack, just pointing out that the other user seemed to mistakenly believe Taipeis could go after strike carriers.

What is the best ship and why is it the Beijing?

Its the Seattle bro we were just discussing it.

I think you mean Lima

Thanks for all the useful tips, I'll get right back to listbuilding.
I wasn't going to focus on Launch Assets, since I read somewhere that UCM have the worst fighters and bombers in the game, so I thought it would be a good idea to just skip dedication to that phase alltogether.
I read a bunch of times that strike carriers are the core, and that having only 4 at 2000 points is apparently a MASSIVE problem, so since 1250 seems to be the format, how many should I be aiming for at that size of game?

Also, are madrids worth it? It seems like they are cheap and effective at bombardement, but you lose an entire group for a unit that won't do much other than deny enemy troop scoring, rather than just getting more strike carriers.

Having worse launch assets doesn't negate their usefulness. UCM fighters and bombers are a little worse, but all their platforms are kind of the best. The closed other ship is the Bellepheron.

They let you do strike outside your scan range and can bring a lot of punishment to supplement an already strong platform. A standard Seattle can launch 3 bombers that give 6 3+ attacks. They are mitigated by PD, but without Aegis ships that is some serious damage. A pair of Seattle is a devastating combo.

At 1250 points you are looking at like 1 Troop ships and 4 strikes carriers for your base. Maybe a few more to cover if ships die.

Madrids are pretty nice. A pair of them can effectively give you the edge on the ground game as they can take out a sector a turn. They are great for stopping annoying comm stations or orbital gun sectors.

Ok, back with a new list. Lets see how this goes: (for 1250 I'd assume it makes most sense to drop the Rio's? And maybe a Lima? Or just drop the Beijing and get another Seattle? No idea...)

UCM - 1500 points

SR 15 Flagship Battlegroup: (272 points)
1 Beijing Class Battleship
UCM-Vice Admiral

SR 20 Vanguard Battlegroup: (415 points)
1 Johannesburg Class Battlecruiser
2 Rio Class Cruisers

SR 14 Line Battlegroup (314 points)
2 New Cairo Class Light Cruisers
2 New Orleans Class Strike Carriers
2 Lima Class Frigate

SR 12 Line Battlegroup: (328 points)
2 Seattle Class Fleet Carriers
2 New Orleans Class Strike Carriers

SR 4 Pathfinder Battlegroup: (156 points)
4 Taipei Class Missle Frigates

Once more unto the breach:
Bejing and Johannesburg/Rio's as Bruisers.
New Cairo's flank the field and light up whatever the Bruisers need to kill.
Seattle's stay in the back and deliver support via Fighters and Bombers.
Taipei's just go kill stuff. I also stuffed all the New Orleans' into the different Battlegroups like said. Still not sure if 4 New Orleans' is enough for the points, though.

With no Bombardment or Corvettes your opponent is going to crush you in VPs.

Drop a rio go with 2 more SC and 2 Corvettes

I am thinking of getting into dropzone for the hobby and maybe gaming (chances be slim though) Are the starter boxes good value? I am looking at the PHR specifically.

If you're more interested in modeling/painting, maybe? The plastic starter infantry are pretty ugly compared to the metal ones sold separately. If that's not as big a deal to you it's a good value; the three Neptunes alone bought separately are almost equal in cost to the starter box.

I second what the anno said about the plastic infantry. I would say it is worth the extra money to go metal.

You will def need the Neptunes and will make good money with the Type-1 walkers. Immortals aren't the best choice, but every army needs some basic troops.

Have you considered a visit to the fine city of Tokyo? You could use some bombardment, and switching the Beijing for it would give you enough points to add another New Orleans or a Jakarta.

Belated question: do Distortion Bubbles roll d6 damage for each ship, or d6 applied flat across the AoE?

I'm fairly sure it's a single d6 roll to determine the damage against all ships (basically determining the strength of the distortion), but I'm not sure.

I thought it was the opposite. It doesn't say.

What's generally more important for Scourge expanding off a starter's worth of ships, frigates or cruisers?

Both. Getting another starter is the best way to go from there.

Scourge cruisers in general are actually quite strong (get some Hydra and Strix), but you also shouldn't need more than 16-20 frigates to start off with, for variety.

Word of warning: Chimeras are SHIT, so always go pure Gargoyle for your troops; at 1250, this means 6-8 Gargoyles.

Chimeras are okay. They're definitely the worst troopship and you can easily go without one, but taking one for the defence battery can be a good idea. Play it smart and you can get a couple of drops fairly reliably.

Maybe, but I personally think that 3 Gargoyles far outweigh a single Chimera.

Maybe if the Chimera was on a light cruiser frame, then maybe.

Troopships serve one very, very valuable role in the game.
They can land turn 1. And land while moving.
Strike carriers must go into low orbit turn 1, and then can land turn 2. And then they're stuck at that location, and can only land in another area on turn 4 after a turn of extreme vulnerability.

Troopships just kinda cruise ahead and spit out troopers, while withstanding moderate enemy fire. That's a pretty big reason to always do one troopship, and the rest being strike carriers.