Available in the Bioficers core ships box, the Fugue Frigate is one of many Frigates you'll need to hurl at your foes. Kitted out with a Light Vice this ship can decimate hulls but only in close action. Luckily closing the distance to your enemy is easy due to a hugely powerful thrust!
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slyphic wrote: Double the price if ordered separately. It's direct order only so they don't have the excuse of packaging cost, they can just throw them in a plastic bag. What donkey-cave cash grab dick move.
Yep. I've asked my 3D printer friends to keep their eyes open for any counts-as STLs, or I'll just kit-bash them.
They get no points for 'responding to customer requests' but being a bunch of dicks about it.
It's a wash. Not better, not worse, just kinda even. Par for the course (for TTC). I expected nothing better from them and was not disappointed to see them squander the opportunity to extend an olive leaf to existing players, and instead shove their hand in their face, making the 'pay up' gesture.
Irrespective of the morality of it, I don't like the model at all, but that might be just be the single angle we have of it. God forbid they pay their photographer to take a second picture of a product.
£12 for six small resin models isn’t exactly cheap but I don’t really think it rises to the level of spitting in the community’s face. Its pretty much the same price as a single cruiser and if you are buying the stand alone pack, you likely already have the other sectors so you are only buying them once. I don’t really understand the vitriol here?
I’d probably wait and buy the whole sector token set with the hangars eventually, but only because I am using the tokens as conversion bits for ships and stations.
Enlist with the Post Human Republic! They have cool cybernetics and built in Bluetooth options for all citizens. PHR vessels of light tonnage are highly advanced, resilient killers. Some, like the Ariadne, Castor, and Echo, are focused gun platforms built to excel and survive in a specific tactical position, be that defensive or offensive. Others though are specialists which offer unique and useful capabilities. The Ourania exists solely to assist the fleet in targeting, and the Pollux is a dedicated escort.
No hate to DZC, but I kinda want someone to photoshop an arrangement of 6 real world looking military vehicles that are all just different arrangements of the same parts.
Looks like there is only enough bulk lander bays to make one drop destroyer…which is fine by me, but a weird choice. The Pollux monitor design is the most different we’ve seen so far between the plastics and the resins. I’m not sure I like the Michael Bay Transformers look they have now. The corvettes are also pretty different, but they still look great.
Looks like there are new options for the destroyers, the cutters, and whoever those torpedoes are for.
I like the ships in this new starter set, reminds me of the Normandy from Mass Effect mixed with the Pillar of Autumn from Halo. This game has been on my radar for a while. Still need more info on the new edition before taking the plunge though. If it ends up being a downgrade that would be a shame.
Many Bioficer ships are able to carry Cells on a specialized hardpoint, while deployed these Cells provide a variety of support functions in a Bioficer fleet. Almost immobile themselves, Cells are able to be dropped off and picked back up by Porter capable ships with the matching hardpoint. Getting Torpedoes, Bulk Landers, and Bombardment Cells into position will be crucial to a Bioficer victory.
I expect most Bioficer players will either glue them to the cruisers or leave them off completely. Playing Lego with the ship components mid-game seems one gimmick too far to me.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I expect most Bioficer players will either glue them to the cruisers or leave them off completely. Playing Lego with the ship components mid-game seems one gimmick too far to me.
It would be fine if the parts were designed that way with magnet slots built into them even if you had to buy magnets on their own. Right now the resin exclusive ship and the early images we have suggest that whilst you can "pop them on and off" they aren't made with magnets in mind so it won't be a clean option to magnetize them or anything.
So yeah I figure as you get 6 in a box and most cruisers take 1 then most people will just mount them and keep a tab on which ships have them on/off manually.
Yeah problem is you need to be able to deploy them on the board independently of the ships as they drop them off, etc. and you can't buy them separately. It's the factions whole gimmick and shtick apparently that they have these little deployable mini space stations that provide dropship, bombardment, point defense and torpedoes capability that you need to actually be able to play the faction successfully and which the ships themselves do not offer (and apparently the cells can't be used until deployed off ship). If you glue them in then you basically can't play unless you get yourself some alternative tokens to represent them or whatever.also it's not just cruisers that take them, one of the frigates is also a cell-pusher.
chaos0xomega wrote: Yeah problem is you need to be able to deploy them on the board independently of the ships as they drop them off, etc. and you can't buy them separately. It's the factions whole gimmick and shtick apparently that they have these little deployable mini space stations that provide dropship, bombardment, point defense and torpedoes capability that you need to actually be able to play the faction successfully and which the ships themselves do not offer (and apparently the cells can't be used until deployed off ship). If you glue them in then you basically can't play unless you get yourself some alternative tokens to represent them or whatever.also it's not just cruisers that take them, one of the frigates is also a cell-pusher.
But there's only 3 cruiser hulls and 6 central parts. So you can still have 3 left over after building most cruisers (exception is the one that looks like it can take two)
I'll go out on a limb here and say there has to be a way to magnetize the cells. That's such a core gimmick and so mostly well executed in Dropzone that surely they're designed to work that way.
Like look at the cruiser's cell divot. There's a male plug looking thing sticking out where the female socket on the back of the cell is. I'll bet they either push fit onto it like a peg and/or you can pop a magnet in both sides. Yeah, it looks like a long lever for the weight, but if they're all plastic and small, maybe it works?
The other thing is stability - at least on the resin one the front of the attachment kind of wants to sit/be glued onto the front of the ship as well as the peg at the back.
Overread wrote: The other thing is stability - at least on the resin one the front of the attachment kind of wants to sit/be glued onto the front of the ship as well as the peg at the back.
I had to glue it on the front as well. Hopefully the plastic version will fit better.
One of the UCMF's premiere electronic warfare ships, the Nuuk EM Harasser uses the ultra-fast frame of the UCM Cutter to position itself for optimal disruption. Its Haywire Blaster is able to focus its disruption effect on the target's defences, scanners, or navigation, allowing the rest of the fleet to close in for the kill.
Will you be deploying this ship?
It looks cool, but I hesitate to play with these kinds of gimmicky ships with their special rules I’d have to look up every turn. So, I’ll just have one to have it.
The Cataphract Heavy Cruiser is a horrifying example of Bioficer ship design. Armed with a Ghost Orb and Heavy Lightvice, this ship is best used in close action and can easily cripple enemy ships at this range. Better yet, thanks to its Porter S-1 special rule, this Cruiser can hold and deploy Cells!
Of course, the mix of close action and main weapon means it gets more from standard orders than other likely heavy cruisers, so I guess the game is still pushing ugly designs on the players.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I wonder if it would look better with two of the heavy cruiser mounts, each glued horizontally on each side…
Within the mighty UCMF, ships of light tonnage contribute the largest numbers and the greatest tactical flexibility. These mainstays come in dozens of classes such as the Rekyavik, a fast and lethal hunter, to the Vienna, a tough defender.
Many offer unique and useful capabilities such as the Lysander which specialises in stealth or the Santiago’s atmospheric strike power. Most are specialist vessels that excel at certain missions while offering the economy and evasiveness that comes with their compact size.
As we get closer to Dropfleet 2.0's release next month we'll start covering some Bioficer weapon rules! Let us know in the comments what you think of the Bisector?
I only heard about this dropfleet commander recently. Its been such a long time since I got excited about a new spaceship mini game, I totally want to get some kind of starter box for it. Looking forward to seeing what will be available to get.
BanjoJohn wrote: I only heard about this dropfleet commander recently. Its been such a long time since I got excited about a new spaceship mini game, I totally want to get some kind of starter box for it. Looking forward to seeing what will be available to get.
If you like the UCM and Bioficers, they have a new 2-player starter coming out in October. Otherwise, it looks like a rulebook and a core box of cruisers and frigates will be the best option for the new edition.
If you’re interested in 1st edition, you might be able to find the UCM and Scourge starter, or the old rulebook and fleet boxes on sites like Kick-Ass Mail Order, Noble Knight or Gopher games. The old fleet boxes were a better deal you wanted to get battlecruisers and corvettes along with a solid core. Hopefully they’ll bring them or something like them back when/if they redo the core plastics or heavies in plastic for all factions.
The Battle Cruisers for the bioficers are in resin so I think anything large is going to remain a resin product. I'd expect to see battleships and dreadnoughts remain in resin.
I would have expected that, too. However, we have the artwork of the redesigned UCM battleship they’re saving for another wave, so there’s still a slight chance.
BanjoJohn wrote: I only heard about this dropfleet commander recently. Its been such a long time since I got excited about a new spaceship mini game, I totally want to get some kind of starter box for it. Looking forward to seeing what will be available to get.
If you like the UCM and Bioficers, they have a new 2-player starter coming out in October. Otherwise, it looks like a rulebook and a core box of cruisers and frigates will be the best option for the new edition.
If you’re interested in 1st edition, you might be able to find the UCM and Scourge starter, or the old rulebook and fleet boxes on sites like Kick-Ass Mail Order, Noble Knight or Gopher games. The old fleet boxes were a better deal you wanted to get battlecruisers and corvettes along with a solid core. Hopefully they’ll bring them or something like them back when/if they redo the core plastics or heavies in plastic for all factions.
nice, thanks for the info! Those are some nice looking ships I see in the preview for the new starter, I might just get that.
Overread wrote: The Battle Cruisers for the bioficers are in resin so I think anything large is going to remain a resin product. I'd expect to see battleships and dreadnoughts remain in resin.
Huh I missed that, I assumed they were fully plastic
(The bioficer battlecruisers/faction as a whole I mean)
Overread wrote: The Battle Cruisers for the bioficers are in resin so I think anything large is going to remain a resin product. I'd expect to see battleships and dreadnoughts remain in resin.
Huh I missed that, I assumed they were fully plastic
(The bioficer battlecruisers/faction as a whole I mean)
I thought that too, but the Battlecruisers page says "Resin miniatures supplied unpainted and unassembled".
There is the potential that its just a cashflow choice. They are putting out a new plastic sprue for every faction and two for the Bioficers. It might be that, along with the other costs of the 2.0 release; they just couldn't budget for another plastic sprue. So they went with resin and might go into plastics in the future or with a future update to the battlecruiser kits.
Or its part of a plastic battlecruiser wave that will come in the future for all factions at once.
The Caracas is a hulking Heavy Destroyer equipped with Orca Missile Bays ideal for close action combat and the HB-8800 Bombardment Spikes for those looking to attack cities or ships in atmosphere. What do you think of this ships unique design?
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Dave Lewis has answered your Dropfleet 2.0 questions!
Did a quick transcribe from the YT auto-transcription of the non-joke answers. Some paraphrasing for clarity because Dave rambles and stumbles a few places.
Q: "What problems with 1.5 were you most concerned with addressing when writing 2.0?"
Its major problem was it just took too long to play. Now instead of rolling 20 dice you roll two, or instead of three separate dice rolls there's now just one, that sort of thing.
Fighters and Bombers stick around now. They behave more like actual Fighters and bombers, so you deploy them, they can move independently, you can build up a big wing from multiple carriers and the big wig will hit harder for various reasons in the rules but you can then fly those around asteroid belt scenery, things like that.
Q: "How does the new activation work?"
Battle groups are gone. There's no not battle groups anymore, it's done by group. You're going to have more activations than you used to have maybe 10 I don't know 15 Max.
You're not doing the planning phase anymore, that's gone so you're reacting more in real time. The planning phase was one of those stop the game moments. I did like it strategically, like that whole feel that you're planning out everything in advance, I do like that, but also it's just another layer that wasn't really necessary and you can react more to your opponent in real time which you know there's pluses and minuses there.
Crucially you can't out activate your opponent cause there's a new rule, pass tokens, that if your opponent has more groups left than you, you gain a few pass tokens. So you can spend a pass token instead of activating so you can't write a list to take advantage of this new system because your opponent's just going to get pass tokens to get past that so you can't break the game that way.
Q: "What happened to close action weapons and point defense?"
Close action weapons still exist, they're still in the rules, they still fire at scan range just like they used to, but now they're more like regular guns. They take up normal gun firing slots, so if you can fire, say, two weapons and you've got three guns and one of them is close action, one of those is just treated like any other gun now, apart from the range there's a few other things that affect only close action weapons but that's getting into the nitty-gritty.
Point defense is now rolled up into your kinetic and energy saves which are a new mechanic in this Edition. We haven't just taken things out we've added stuff too, so now all weapons are either kinetic or energy weapons and you use the appropriate save against them. There's also core weapons that bypass both and you can only use backup saves against those. Point defense is a prime example of slowing the game down, there's a lot of moments like right I've been hit by this close action weapon I roll two point defense dice that are on a five plus and maybe you'll get one and then you've got to apply that. That's all gone now, fluffwise it still exists, it's just rolled up into that save effectively. The ship has a ton of Point defense lasers, say it might have pretty good kinetic save because it's got a ton of Point defense lasers, that that kind of thing, it's all wrapped up into those stats now which makes things a lot more streamlined.
Q: "Has strategy rating been removed from the game altogether?"
Yes. You have an admiral value and your admiral value does make a difference to certain things like initiative. Your admiral generates command points and you can spend those on certain abilities during the turn so having a high level commander is relevant, but yeah, strategy rating is no more. There are certain moments where heavy ships go later, it starts getting into the nitty-gritty.
Q: "How is Fleet building going to work in the New Edition?"
You build your Fleet around medium ships, that's Cruisers largely, so the number of Cruisers you take then dictates how many things you can take of other things like light ships, dreads, battleships, all of those kind of things. You can't have a whole Fleet of battleships, you can't have a whole Fleet of frigs, you've got to have a core of Cruisers and you build around that. There's a few other restrictions as well but in general that's what you're looking at
Q: "will the rule book be free online?"
Yes, at some point it will be free. Downloadable rules are nice because people can look at the game before they play it which is cool. It's not going to be there at lunch but it will be there at some stage because we know it's important.
Q: "Are we getting faction specific launch asset packs?"
[No] I'd like to do faction specific ones at some point. It's actually much more worthwhile to have tokens for launch assets now than there used to be. Half the time in the old Edition they would resolve and they'd be gone, now they're sticking around and they're doing things so it's cool to have Miniatures for them. So yeah there's there's a damn good reason for us to do them so we'll see
Q: "What specific changes have been made to speed up ground combat?"
Ground combat was a prime example example of something that a lot of players were like yeah this is it's cool that it's there but oh god there were multiple different versions and there was movement and it was clunky.
Now you're literally resolving one against the other. It's a single dice roll or sometimes no dice roll, it depends on certain things. There's only one type of ground token, it's a battalion now. They can do a bit more actually in this Edition than they could before and in some cases they're more important but the resolving of combat is very much simplified. Most of the time, seven times out of 10 perhaps, the end result is the same with the new rules than it would have been with the old rules it's just taking you a ton less time to resolve. End of turn you still resolve your ground combat at the end of turn like you used to but it's the case of go around resolve this one boom that's done next one boom that's done there's still a little bit of movement within um within sectors and thing within um drop sites, they're called drop sites now that cities and space stations are all drop sites, there aren't separate sectors necessarily in every one anymore so that's simplified as well, but there's there's more to it than that there's Features which I'll be covering ... they're going to be a major part of this Edition and they're new and factions will be able to deploy features which is a new thing so ground combat has being shaken up but not necessarily is still there and it's still an integral part of the Game
Automatically Appended Next Post: Q1 (v1 problems) - I like rolling fewer dice. I like the change to launch assets. I'm here for both of those.
Q2 (activations) - I do not like these changes at all, they are a mistake that is literally the dumbing down of the rules he said he wasn't doing in the opening. The feth, Dave?
Q3 (close action) - indifferent? As part of the fewer dice rolls I'm here for it, really need to see the details still.
Q4 (SR) - Not a fan of cutting SR, it was a cool mechanic. But I like the idea of ditching the deck for admiral abilities, but have to see how it's handled
Q5 (force org) - Cool with it.
Q6 (free rules) - Get the feth outta here. "important" no it fuckin' ain't if you aren't doing it.
Q7 (faction launch) - still the models I most want. And LOL that even Dave sounds like he's frustrated with TTC about it.
Q8 (ground combat) - I like where this is going, sounds good so far.
I expect the community to create a hybrid rule set with SR, battlegroups and all that, but with the new launch, armor saves and drop. Maybe TTCombat will even support it as some kind of advanced rule set or something after the third or fourth FAQ and rules update.
TTCombat may not plan to release the rules for free online at launch, but I bet someone will.
Equipped to the Fresco Frigate, The Winnower is a savage piece of Bioficer technology!
Spoiler:
The Monarch Monitor is a truly unique-looking ship even by Bioficer standards. It is not particularly fast and its signature makes it a tempting target for enemy ships, Yet, thanks to its load of Fighters & Bombers, it's certainly worth taking. What do you think of this ships sculpt?
If so, then I guess the forgot to paint them on this one? Because they kind of resemble the ones on the cruiser, but those were painted silver, and iirc had a split to them like they opened. These are just raised squares. I dunno, "forgot to paint the mission operant part of the model" is a very TTC thing to do.
Whilst I like bioficers I am going to say that their visual language for launch capable ships appears to be lacking/confusing.
The lighting ships are exactly what I thought, ships with weapons that can arc to the sides giving them their broadside options in the fleets. Short range ,but made up for by the Bioficers being swift and speedy on the battlefield.
Big simple lots of dice gun! Love the idea that it just reduces a ship to not even a dust-cloud but a molecular cloud (though part of me wonders how they bioficers harvest when ships moving through space would keep moving so now you've got one really long cloud noodle of molecules)
Either they wildly changed the core attack mechanics and that doesn't mean the number of dice you throw, or that part at the beginning of the interview where Dave said "Now instead of rolling 20 dice you roll two" is greatly exaggerating the 'dice' savings, or this is the toned down version and the initial design was something crazy like 50 dice.
The messaging around this game is bizarrely contradictory.
The thing is this is a battlecruiser and it seems like it basically has just this one big gun rather than lots of sub-guns. So 12 for a singular very big gun that you might only have one or two of in an entire army isn't too bad dice-wise
I assume the dice reduction bit was hyperbolic and probably didn't necessarily reger to the dice you would roll at once but rather eliminating a series of sequential rolls and reducing it to just one roll, etc.
slyphic wrote: The last one had an ATT of 5. This one is 12.
Either they wildly changed the core attack mechanics and that doesn't mean the number of dice you throw, or that part at the beginning of the interview where Dave said "Now instead of rolling 20 dice you roll two" is greatly exaggerating the 'dice' savings, or this is the toned down version and the initial design was something crazy like 50 dice.
The messaging around this game is bizarrely contradictory.
I got the impression he meant reducing the number of times you needed to roll saves or whatever, not that each ship would roll fewer attack dice. This is a battlecruiser after all.
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chaos0xomega wrote: I assume the dice reduction bit was hyperbolic and probably didn't necessarily reger to the dice you would roll at once but rather eliminating a series of sequential rolls and reducing it to just one roll, etc.
No, I trimmed the quote, but Dave mentioned both reducing the total number of dice and the number of times you rolled as distinct changes. If that's a BC/BB and its only gun, I guess I can see that as reducing the number of dice you roll?
I really hope they haven't made a whole faction of big forward guns, because as we've already seen with the same design in the PHR, it makes for boring sucky alpha strike gameplay. Which has me wondering if Orders are still in the game, because one big guns means no need for WF, and I haven't seen anything like Fusillade on them that would make the order matter. I really really hope they didn't ax orders, that would an instant write off for a lot of people I play with.
And if that's not the only guns, then it's pretty close to the same number of dice as before. Skimming the BBs, not counting CAW, they're throwing 12-18 dice.
I'd just like to see a demo somewhere, or any of the 'playtesters' to break NDA so I can decide whether to be genuinely excited or not. I've had a couple people locally ask about the game, which has lead to them kind of fading back into lurking when the few people that do still play talk about the uncertainty of the new edition and all the houserules we've had to adopt for the 1st edition. People want to like this game, but I'm watching it wither on the vine with all the needless uncertainty everywhere I look. Twice now I've found myself the least upset with TTC in a conversation which feels real weird.
So far the Bioficers have shown 3 core weapon types
The Main Gun type where the ships have one massive forward firing gun
The Lightning ships with have a a weapon capable of firing left, right and forward. These have also been generally shorter ranged weapons
Carriers - which as fighters/bombers stick around might be more combat ready this edition
With most ships having one but a few having a mix. In general they seem to have very few weapons per ship and each ship is very much a specialist role.
So right now the faction feels like its got a mix of close-range ships and long range snipers.
So far we’ve seen images of at least 3 Bioficer cruisers with two weapons, only one of which was two of the same weapon. The hard points are similar to UCM ships, in that there’s a weapon on the front and sometimes a weapon on top near the back. And the UCM has the big BTL laser BC and the all-turrets BC, so it wouldn’t be unusual for the game for the Bioficers to have big gun or big battery BCs. I don’t think we’ve seen any complete stats for their cruisers or BCs showing they have no auxiliary guns or CAW, although it looks like maybe the little CAW backup weapons every ship used to have are gone.
I’d be shocked if they got rid of orders altogether. However, the last few rules updates seemed to streamline things, such as St Pete getting one linked laser instead of two frustrating lasers or the Beijing having all linked turrets and one big laser instead of a cruiser laser and a mallet set of linked turrets and then some more, other linked turrets. My guess would be they want players to have to choose between one of two good options for big ships and WF both options with spike/other limitations so that players will still need to use WF to get the most out of bigger ships but won’t feel resentment for having difficult to use big ships that feel lackluster on standard orders.
That actually makes sense, historically primary weapon systems were all kinda linked by common firecontrol. Having each turret be it's own separate weapon system that targets and attacks independently doesn't make a lot of sense.
I'll save everyone 6 minutes: Dave holds something up you can't really see and says "I'll talk about these some other time".
Interesting bits: the sunset looking circles with orange bars are spikes, there's 4 levels of them now. So I guess they cut high/low and we just have atmo now? The cluster sheets actually do have ruin spots and are literally the exact same as in the original box, which doesn't match what they have up on the store, but maybe they just threw some old ones in here or used incomplete art?
And I found the interesting bits to be both factions’ sprues containing one cruiser and two frigates, and that the Bioficers get a panel sprue for optional detailing. I really hope they sell that Bioficer bits sprue separately.
The Resistance employs a huge variety of light tonnage vessels, and many offer unique capabilities not seen in capital ships. Some, such as the Aldrin colony ship, are among the oldest vessels still operating anywhere, proving their endurance. The Newton and Galileo monitors were once lynchpins of orbital defence lines, and they still excel in that role.
**AVAILABLE NOW**
It's time to continue your commander universe story! Our latest digital lore book can be found in the resources section of the TTCombat website for FREE...
Find it here:
https://ttcombat.com/pages/dropfleet-commander-downloads
Overread wrote: So far the Bioficers have shown 3 core weapon types
Carriers - which as fighters/bombers stick around might be more combat ready this edition
.
Oh have they changed them - one of the rules elements I really did not like in previous edition, I prefer a ACTA/BFG style where you can defend your ships from bombers by CAF etc
I guess (I hope) they're doing Bioficer lore in a separate release of some sort. Maybe updating the "Core Rulebook Generic Fluff - Dropfleet Primer" pdf that has the good deets on the other factions? This one - https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0965/1274/files/Dropfleet_Primer.pdf
I think they want to draw out the Bioficer mystery as long as they can - perhaps waiting to flesh them out even more until they've got ground models ready to go as well
That lore primer has two more images of the new UCM battleship design. I don’t think they would be so consistent showing only this battleship if they weren’t planning to replace the current battleship with it in a future release wave.
chaos0xomega wrote: Don't think they are replacing the current design, considering they returned it to sale
Perhaps superseding would be a better choice of words? I expect the new battleship to be sold widely, not direct only. Hopefully the old one will stay around, too, even if it’s only a direct only item. I’d also be surprised if they spent the resources to redesign the battleship and didn’t have it cast in plastic for mass appeal.
Yes, with the same load out as the Beijing, just as the new starter cruisers have the same options as the old cruisers (plus a few more). They already released new BB classes in resin with the Hanoi; this looks more like a redesign of the original BB in the style of the new redesigned cruisers. I’m hoping it will be available in plastic.
I don't know they might be keeping resin for smaller selling units. The Battlecruisers for Bioficers are resin not plastic.
My guess is plastic is for the cruisers and lights because they expect to sell multiple of them per customer; whilst battlecruisers, battleships and such are often sold far fewer per customer. Even with alternate build options they are slower sellers and might just suit resin better.
Also they can go with finer details on resin and some angles you can't get with plastics so it lets them be a bit more creative/wild with the bigger iconic ships in fleets.
Of course it could be that bioficers are new and won't have as large a sale rate as existing fleets; so could be they did them in resin for them for that reason alone
Or they simply ran out of cash for more plastic moulds.
Or they made resin battlecruisers for the release date to have something bigger than a cruiser, even if they eventually plan to release plastic. I also wonder when the Bioficer battleship will drop. Will there be a wave of redesigned battleships for all factions?
It may just be wishful thinking, but I’d love for them to release more plastics.
It's not as bad as I feared, but it's also oddly generic feeling. Like there's no real innovative new ideas.
The biggest changes are the ground game, but it's basically the old cancellation system the forums came up with in 2018 and which everyone I know was already playing. So anti-climactic, but I like it.
Spikes becoming more granular and tracked at the group level is trying to fix a problem I can't see.
I don't miss the loss of high/low, and the idea of atmo being damage instead of instadeath I actually kinda like.
Coherency rules worry me, it feels like it's open to abussive play to no real benefit. We already know Dave likes to slip in 'tricks' like that from the stupid teleporter lockout trick in DZC.
Force org is disappointingly boring. And there's no more launch cap which feels like a huge mistake.
The replacement of the command cards at least doesn't list 'cancel another action' as an option in the generic list, which I like. Cancel cards are the most boring thing you can include in almost any game. I hate them.
I can't decide how the new fighters and bombers will play, I need to see those in play on a real table. But with no launch cap, and how the save cancellation works, I forsee some early degenerate launch heavy fleets leading to un-fun games.
The Mantle Monitor weilds one of the Bioficer's most perculiar weapons in Dropfleet. The Gravitic Pulveriser affects a targeted area with a field of oscillating gravity. When used against ships this can cause them to shake apart as the gravitational waves wash over them. The lingering effects cause havoc with navigation, reducing a ship's thrust until its dissipation. The Gravitic Pulveriser can also be turned downwards, bombarding cities and causing them to crumble to dust under their own weight.
That sounds like one of those overly complicated special weapons that either does nothing or neuters dreadnoughts. Why do the coolest looking designs always have to be the annoying ones?
Still no solid idea how burnthrough works now, but I'd hazard it's a reroll of some kind, or armor save reducer. The 'Focused' special worries me, I hope they didn't just port over that same exact rule from DZC. TTC loves that rule, and I despise it.
I understand the desire to speed up gameplay by reducing rolls, and in a vacuum (ba-dum, tish) Burnthrough looks like low hanging fruit, but I actually liked how the mechanics invoked the feeling of cutting deeper and deeper into the hull of a target.
slyphic wrote: I did my best to capture and collate readable copies of the pages TTC had up, and it's a good chunk of the book, enough to form a reasonable opinion.
Thanks! My inner Ork is annoyed you can't spend AP to make the ship explode...
It seems like a good chunk of the rules must be in the faction books. If the page numbers and chapter divisions are correct, then the special rules aren't in the core book. But the website also says the rulebook is 64 pages, but the previews go to 67. That's odd. 64 is a common number in cheap book print runs for a good reason, those extra pages cost a disproportionate amount.
Either I'm not clocking it or it's on one of the missing pages, but I also don't see how drop assets move around once on the ground. Could just be they don't now?
Maybe we'll see one of the alluded to demos this week?
I think that sectors are now gone and you deploy to clusters directly, so there isn’t really anywhere to move to (unless the shaltari keep their ability to redeploy troops between clusters)
I'm downloading all the current unit profiles and rules and holding on to them. I'm not a fan of a number of the changes ive seen so far. I have very large fleets so playing 1.0 will be an option if 2.0 doesn't do it for me.
So clusters are now called Dropsites which encompasses space stations and cities, which are the old 2/3/4 circle tokens. Features go on the circles. Battalions go on features. It says you assign battalions to features to destroy them, but there's no limit and it's always better to assign them to the nebulous city pool because of how dropsite damage is assigned. I can't figure out how you would end up with any 'leftover' battalions assigned to a feature beyond just not understanding how the resolution rules work. I'm finding that section difficult to parse.
Join Dave Lewis as he takes us through each faction's light ship sprues that will be available in the latest edition of Dropfleet. You'll tell from the enthusiasm in his voice how excited Dave is!
I have wanted this game to take off for so long, and I need to give that dream up. The new rules are not intuitive or even an improvement from what I've seen so far.
I'm just waiting for a gameplay video or demo on youtube for the new edition. I heard they're working on one. I can't really get a feeling for how the game will feel and flow based on what info i've seen. I have built a couple of the 1st edition PHR and UCM cruisers recently and i'm a big fan of these models.
Hopefully they don't screw things up, with SW armada being dropped and no BFG return on the horizon there isn't really a whole lot of other games like DFC.....or at least not many with such good miniatures.
Thargrim wrote: I'm just waiting for a gameplay video or demo on youtube for the new edition. I heard they're working on one. I can't really get a feeling for how the game will feel and flow based on what info i've seen. I have built a couple of the 1st edition PHR and UCM cruisers recently and i'm a big fan of these models.
Hopefully they don't screw things up, with SW armada being dropped and no BFG return on the horizon there isn't really a whole lot of other games like DFC.....or at least not many with such good miniatures.
DFC should have already swept the market up after BFG and Firestorm Armada ended before. Starwars Armada was a new-face on the scene and should have entered a market of space combat games dominated by DFC. Of course Starwars is an insanely powerful IP so it was always going to at least sell well. But yeah I really hope that this might be turning point that DFC actually makes it outside of its shell and into the open. Not just because it looks like BFG and FA are likely to be a very long time before they return to the market (IF either returns); and SW Armada closing shop again means that DFC basically has the entire market to itself barring much smaller one-man-band setups like FullThrust and Billion suns
The miniatures were always the best part of DFC. The rules were always too fiddley (especially the ground combat rules). I’ve played three games using the actual rules and about 50 games of Starmada using the ships. I’m hopeful the new rules are decent, but if not, oh well.
Duskland wrote: The miniatures were always the best part of DFC. The rules were always too fiddley (especially the ground combat rules). I’ve played three games using the actual rules and about 50 games of Starmada using the ships. I’m hopeful the new rules are decent, but if not, oh well.
Do you use the drop objectives when you play using Starmada rules? Or do you play it as a straight space-combat game the way the diehard players insist is wrong and ruins everything?
I ask because every time it comes up, some diehard player assures me the worst thing TTCombat could do to widen the game’s appeal is remove those fiddly tournament player-friendly objectives and complex mechanics.
Generally it’s a straight space combat game. I’ve run it with drop location objectives as a con game (8 player with GM), but it’s not easily balanced in one on one.
Scourge ships of light tonnage are some of the fastest combatants in theatre and frequently pack a punch beyond their size. Packs of these slippery killers are rightly feared by experienced opponents, often above the more obvious might of capital ships.
I don't believe I've ever encountered someone that really defended the ground game in DFC. It's been pretty universally recognized as a pain point in the game.
And as always whenever someone asks why it isn't yet another deep space battle game, I have to wonder if they even read the rules, because that has been a supported playstyle since release. The scenarios without dropsites are right in the rules. No one has ever stopped you from playing DFC sans drop.
Also find it odd to call Starmada significantly simpler, I'd peg the two about even. It's certainly more detailed ships and movement.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Video up with some better shots of the 2P starter contents. You can almost make out the stats for some of the new ships on the quickplay sheets, but the printing on them is actually pretty hard to read https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm0yhM8nSDA
I feel like I’ve been bombarded by gamers defending the ground game/objectives as the big thing keeping DFC from being some generic failure. Heck, Dave himself talks about how the objectives are what make the game good in one of his videos.
That attitude definitely comes across in the rulebook and any discussion of the game online.
The ground game is very much one of the USPs. It's also been the area most in need of revision,damned near universally agreed upon.
There's no need to remove the systems from the game because you can just play in space without them to no detriment whatsoever. Removing them from the game would be dumb, just cutting out cool mechanics for no gain (RIP nuking and ramming).
What they need to do is advertise how you don't have to use the ground game better. But TTC has always been colossal failures at communicating.
I agree the ground game parts shouldn't be dropped, but if its a key part of the game then they need to provide more model content for it to help make it more engaging.
At the same time a few live video games and marketing shots of full space battles would be great.
I agree, they don't have to drop the ground game and it would be a mistake to do so; but they do need to market the full space game side of just big fleets fighting each other. Hit both markets and in theory get more people in for straight space fights and then get them tempted to use more ships for the drop-games.
slyphic wrote: The ground game is very much one of the USPs. It's also been the area most in need of revision,damned near universally agreed upon.
There's no need to remove the systems from the game because you can just play in space without them to no detriment whatsoever. Removing them from the game would be dumb, just cutting out cool mechanics for no gain (RIP nuking and ramming).
What they need to do is advertise how you don't have to use the ground game better. But TTC has always been colossal failures at communicating.
Yes, I agree.
The messaging from TTCombat, the fans and even Dave has made this a sore spot for me.
Not all Bioficer Battlecruisers need to be in close action to attack. The monstrous Stature is armed with the hulking Decon Executioner that's 12 Att stat and FN Arc make it a nightmare for any ship unlucky enough to cross its path.
Closer look at the new starter box ships. Despite the new cruisers being sleeker the old ones still have a certain appeal. The heavy cruiser turrets on the Moscow being mounted up front instead of far back on the top of the hull leads to a more aggressive look.
This is something which Dave mentioned in a recent video but lets cover it again. Tell us your thoughts in the comments.
Spoiler:
Dropfleet Commander 2.0 release date is getting closer so let's take a better look at the updated token set. Tokens will be made available post-launch outside of the new starter set.
Spoiler:
Shaltari warfleets thrive on speed, reflexes, and hyper-advanced firepower. Their light tonnage vessels exemplify this and are among their most feared hunter-killers. Ships like the Mercury, Chromium, and Caesium are all focused little executioners. However, classes like the Selenium, Cobalt, and Helium serve to augment and reinforce the Shaltari’s voidgate network, adding priceless tactical utility.
One of the most exciting new features coming to Dropfleet Commander is scenario generation. The latest rulebook contains several detailed tables outlining how to make numerous unique scenarios for your tabletop.
A mighty new generation of utilitarian warships and vengeful soldiers rush to the frontlines, but the UCM’s alliances with other human factions are crumbling, the parasites are fighting back viciously, and a new threat has emerged. The mighty UCMF must respond, or humanity is doomed. This is the new plastic core ships sprue with three available in the UCM core box.
You can find the FREE pdf rulebook now in the TTCombat resources section or by clicking the download button below. Updated ship stats will be added to this section of the website 18-10-24 with the fleet builder being updated next week.
Little bit of a shame that the Bioficers don't have any of the little lore tid-bits that the other factions do. I know part of their thing is being all "unknown" and new, but some fluff would have been nice to see
I think I follow the new rules well enough to get a game in next weekend to try them out, except for one part.
I don't understand how admiral abilities work.
Say you buy a level 2 admiral for a UCM fleet. You generate 1 plus the admiral's level (2) points at the start of the round and you can spend those points to activate any of the 4 basic abilities. That all makes sense.
The UCM roster has a table of faction abilities. But those are only available to 'famous and faction' admirals.
Does the 20 point admiral get access to any of them? It sounds like they don't.
A level 3 admiral would cost you 40 and still give you nothing from that list, right?
A level 3 'faction' admiral though would get Overcharge Laser and Push Engines and one ability from the table.
A level 4 admiral would be back to a non-faction admiral and only gets the 4 basic ones which why would anyone ever take one?
So maybe you can have multiple admirals and then they can each provide abilities? But page 12/13 make it sound like maybe you only get the points from the highest admiral and say nothing about ability access. And that's to say nothing of the 'no duplicate' rule.
It being an entirely new system, I can't really tell what the RAI is here.
Is Faction Admiral a term that is defined? Or do they just mean only admirals from this faction can use these rules, such as a UCM admiral not being allowed to use PHR abilities?
robbienw wrote: Good to see all the new UCM crusier and frigates that can be made from the new sprues, a lot of new variants!
Did they really need to retcon the Moscow and St Petersburg though? Seems silly.
Yeah without delving into politics I get the rationale and support the same side of the conflict as TTC, but... it's just a game. I could understand changing the name of the UCM Behemoth for DzC, but that was done prior to release, at this point like... I dunno.
And yknow, there's a few other names there that might be ill advised, Caracas - Yeah maybe shouldn't have gone with that when there are concerns of Venezuela invading Guyana, and there's a chance they'll need to rename the Beijing before the next edition releases. If you're going to name fictional stuff after real world things, you have to accept the risk that world events may eventually overtake your fiction and render some of your choices unpalatable, where do you draw that line?
All that being said there is fluff justification to support the renaming of Moscow. With Kalium claiming Moscow as their own and abandoning the triumvirate, it makes sense that the UCM would not want to have their ships named after a territory owned by rival factions for political reasons. St Petersburg probably falls into the same situation given their relative proximity. Plus Warsaw is a much cooler sounding name.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Is Faction Admiral a term that is defined? Or do they just mean only admirals from this faction can use these rules, such as a UCM admiral not being allowed to use PHR abilities?
Undefined. There's two instances in the rulebook, pages 12 and 13.
"Faction and Famous Admirals grant players additional Abilities."
"Each faction also offers unique Faction and Famous Admirals—you may only take one of either of these."
The faction books all read like this:
"Famous and Faction Admirals may take additional Abilities from the following table. Each Famous and Faction Admiral will state the amount of additional Abilities they may take. Each Ability can be taken multiple times, but each Admiral may not have duplicate Abilities."
That last sentence has us flummoxed. If you can only take one 'faction' admiral, how can you ever have duplicate abilities if there's no other way to access them? They can't take the same ability twice, so what is it even saying with "each ability can be taken multiple times". It feels like the rules don't say what TTC meant them to, like they forgot a paragraph somewhere.
My usual dropgroup is really confused by this section. None of us are surprised that we've hit what feels like a major day-zero rules problem, but still. Aside from the loss of SR and BG activation, we've been generally positive about the changes we've seen so far.
I think what hey mean is that you can only take 1 Faction Admiral and 1 Famous Admiral, but they've worded it like you can only take one or the other.
That would explain the restriction on abilities not being duplicated between more than one Admiral. Otherwise its a waste of a comment as it would only apply to non-standard games (more than one admiral if one admiral is the real hard limit)
Game's not even out yet, and there's already 6 pages of FAQ up. The first page alone is a bunch of "add these sentences to the rulebook", not even explanations but just missing content. Those imbeciles really did publish the rules before playtesting them. Again.
I'm (sadly) more surprised that the 3rd party stores don't appear to have any stock.
Firestorm, Incom Gaming and The Outpost have nothing; Wayland is showing preorder for the25th; Goblingaming is also showing preorder (no date); Ebay only has TrollTrader listings;
Which is surprising considering they shut down orders and such for over a month. A period of time I figured they'd use to build up a huge order so that 3rd parties and own store would have stocks for launch day a plenty.
Now I've no idea if any of those stores got stock to send out to customers (though its odd that they'd all only get exactly the pre-order allocation and nothing for the shelf); but it sounds like they just sent out stuff today possibly to 3rd parties (at best)
At least TTC is showing stock for everything (or at least no out of stock)
slyphic wrote: Game's not even out yet, and there's already 6 pages of FAQ up. The first page alone is a bunch of "add these sentences to the rulebook", not even explanations but just missing content. Those imbeciles really did publish the rules before playtesting them. Again.
Absolutely pathetic launch mates.
So... not a lot different from most companies then.
The latest Bolt Action v3 is being panned on all the Facebook groups, and, well, anything GW releases in print is like this.
As tabletop gamers, we seem to be accepting this when we purchase, much like video game players do with all the crappy bugs on release.
Nothing good comes out of Facebook, especially discussion. But yes, BA3 already having errata is another sign of a bad publisher. Though BA3 has actually been well received around here except for that one WAAC donkey-cave that hangs around the tables at our usual store whining about something that might require him to actually exercise strategy and tactics instead of staring at a list with a calculator.
But much like TTC's track record, I expected nothing better out of Warlord after the absolute dog's dinner that was Cruel Seas launch (boat movement was wrong, AA weapons didn't work, airplanes only half worked...)
British isle's certainly not taking any trophies this year.
Folk from TT were telling people earlier today on FB that they should be able to get it from Wayland on release and didn't understand why they'd changed their date (and they weren't saying buy direct from TT either)
I'd thought TT would be distributing Dropfleet itself, but i guess they could have put it into 'normal distribution' and whoever is doing that has messed up
chaos0xomega wrote: Is Wayland sabotaging the release to try to steer business towards dystopian wars?
I doubt Wayland would want to bother sabotaging, they stock SO many model lines and Dropfleet isn't even in anything Warcradle does (and its going to be years before they are in a position to bring Firestorm Armada back into their game roster)
EDIT 0 Firestorm are now listing stock on a bunch of stuff
The new rules are different enough that I don’t have any kind of a feel for them. Would the new drop/battalion rules transplant onto 1st edition easily?
Have all the weapons been nerfed? Even with weapons free, it reads like it could take 3 or more turns for a cruiser to kill another cruiser.
Wayland are saying TT changed the release date (image from FB):
Spoiler:
.
I've got two orders with DFC pre-order in them with TT - I received a shipped notification for one of them today (arriving Monday) but nothing on the other. People on FB started getting their pre-orders from Wednesday.
Are Shaltari shields now scald-proof? Otherwise, are they only useful against C-damage attacks?
I can see why the new edition would be really frustrating for gamers who want every decision to matter and bad decisions punished. A lot of the big trade-off choices have been reduced, such as WF for a F(N) ship, or shields vs PD.
The ships all seem to be more survivable due to the change to crits, and in addition the weapons seem generally weaker.
tl;dr I don't like it more than the 1e with houserules for ground combat I've been playing for years, but I think the new strike craft system might be worth backporting.
Thanks for the review. I’m interested to hear your thoughts about the Bioficers.
Personally, I would houserule Aegis ships to have the scythe ability or some way of killing bombers, as that is what they were doing in V1 with their PD. It feels wrong for ships covered in weapons designed to shoot small targets not to be able to shoot small targets.
The whole save situation seems off to me, mostly because it makes the combat feel very different than 1.7, where the number of shots and lock meant more. Now I don’t see as much difference between two different K guns when one is, like 2 2+ and the other is 4 4+ when crits don’t matter.
That Aegis ships can't swat fighters feels deliberately left out, it's such an obvious thing. Might mean they need to cost a lot more, or they have to disable it until they activate again, which would actually be pretty cool now that I'm writing it out. I like decisions like that.
The energy types is something I just revised the review to expand upon:
The new energy types system is designed to make weapons differently effective against targets. Differences not in behavior or usage, but in raw stats. It's a system that can work, Dropzone is actually a good example here. You can broadly categorize weapons into low, medium, and high energy, and each is best against its respective targets. But importantly there, every faction has a mix of energy types and armor types. Building an even mix is important, exploiting holes you blow in the enemies list is important.
The problem in DFC 2e is that the distribution is uneven within factions and at the same time integral to each of their design ethos. PHR has better energy armor. UCM has better Kinetic saves. Scourge has mostly energy weapons. UCM has mostly kinetic weapons. There's a darling here that needs to be killed, and I don't know whether it's faction save consistency or the new system. It's a problem that overshadows everything else in the game. It's too central to scrap, and it's why I think it will take years and many revisions, if it ever happens, to see it really work well.
For the different armor saves, could they just change Aegis to reroll K or E hits? In 1.7, PD defended against Scourge plasma CAW just as well as it stopped missiles and bombers. Well, except for scald.
Otherwise, yes, the different fleets seem more designed for rock-paper-scissors than matched balance, so far as I can tell.
I don’t enjoy the. tough risk-vs-reward choices as much as you do, but wouldn’t mind your Aegis idea.
Changing Aegis to apply to both K and E wouldn't really fix it. Scourge have no Aegis whatsoever, you still have the 2 point spread of average armor saves. And fundamentally I don't think removing the differences between attack types is 'fixing' the system so much as removing it.
I think it's doable. I think it's not going to be any simple change any one place, but a whole lot of carefully balancing stats holistically. The problem is that TTC doesn't want to do that.
Everything, except for the Genitor Tower should be playable in some fashion. Are the stats completely balanced? Doubtful. Are the points perfect? Nope. But its an ongoing effort and any feedback/suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Additionally I am sure there are countless typos. so don't be too harsh. 😃
Fireships, Senecas, and more a cleanup of sloppy build rules than a nerf for the cruisers. But it was an update exclusively to the Resistance.
Fireships are still frankly the strongest weapon in the Resistance's arsenal. They're basically a dedicated Close Action cruiser class weapon. On cruisers they have an alt-fire mode of bulk landers.
Thanks for the writeup, mostly mirrors what I've been thinking. Never got around to V1, but I might try it just to compare after getting some games in for V2.
It sounds like a community updated V1 will be the way to go.
Interesting that Battleships are plastic whilst the battlecruisers were resin. Interested to see what they come up with for the different factions and what the Bioficers get! We know from the video they get at least one that has the array of "cut your ship in half" lasers
I could not get the Imgur page to load, so I snapped some screenshots off FB.
My thoughts: they all look good. I don’t see a single dud here. The Scourge one looks radically different from any other Scourge ship—more like a Babylon 5 baddie—yet it still works. The UCM diverges the second most from its resin sculpt with the double-prow look of the cruisers, which I find a bit of a downgrade. The Bioficer BB looks beefy and badass. It might be my favorite of this batch.
Which ones do you like best? Which ones dollars a downgrade from the resins for you?
definitely love the new style of Scourge, I was a bit meh on the previous designs despite liking them as a faction but I can see myself getting a fleet of those beauties
I dont know that its valid to compare them to the resins, word is these are "super battleships" and whole new classes of vessel rather than necessarily being plastic resculpts? Sounds like they may do a counts as type thing where they build new classes of ahip that are visually dufferent from the old but have the same stats.
If you go by the video, when he shows the back of the scourge box there are 4 classes shown, but there are 5 classes of scourge battleship currently
It might be that 2.0 ends up being a mix period where there's old and new classes of ship and then as more plastics come out the 3.0 region or 2.5 starts to become dominated with plastics with resins being replaced with "new but similar" or just dropped.
At some point I'd expect them to drop resins since in theory moving to plastics would be about lowering operational costs and such so why keep the old resin ships around if you've replaced them.
I suspect the “super” battleship idea comes from the way the kits are assembled, showing off multiple options at once. Perhaps there will be super battleships, but the artwork we’ve seen indicates the kits can make old classes (or their equivalents) without supersizing.
For example, the UCM battleship has the New York launch bays glues on and the Hanoi mass drivers, as well as some new wing-mounted weapons. The Shaltari ship also appears “super” while the PHR ship does not appear “super”.
Automatically Appended Next Post: As for keeping resins around, they still have two big lines of resin minis, which means they operate in house and with economy of scale. They don’t have to ship their resins across an ocean, so they might not be too much more expensive than plastic.
If they drop resin ships from regular sales, they might still offer them as event exclusives. Those seem to do well for them.
Allegedly the only (non-exclusive) ships staying in resin long term will be dreadnoughts. This is per statements on the Discord from people who went to Weapons Free and talked to Dave.
Dave is planning to redo the battlecruisers in plastic once they're able (read: once they can afford to). We may see those once the plastic battleships are out the door.
I wonder why they didn't do the Bioficer battle cruisers in plastics as the battleships were surely done before the launch of the new edition (I'm assuming run-up times are longer than the month or so since launch for them to fully tool, test and go into production of the battleships to have them on show now).
That said most other factions did have a second wave of battlecruiser additions so perhaps it was just factored in that when Bioficers got theirs they'd shift to plastics in one go for all factions for the battlecruisers. Which wouldn't be a daft policy to shift fleets over for all of X kind of ship in one go.
I can well see Dreadnoughts and a few other exotics remaining in resin for sure in the long term.
One thing that I think is interesting to note is that with the new plastic smalls set the range is going to shrink quite radically in terms of sku. To me that isn't just an investment in plastics but also potentially an investment in either expanding most fleets to become much larger or adding more factions to grow the game.
Reduced SKUs is a big driver. Warcradle has been singing the praises of multi-unit sprues for a while in the industry, it's worked out fantastically for their Dystopian Wars line. 120 total boxes for 8 factions with more than 400 different models. Takes up about a third of the shelf space that Spartan did, and by forcing people to buy combined unit sets you have less dead stock.
Really, the only people it sucks for are customers that want a specific model, mitigated with about a 20-30% savings if you figure the cost of individual resin models from their packs vs the new plastic sprue composition.
UCM will go from 12 SKUs to 4 (core, light, BB, BC) plus the direct only DN.
The real question on my mind is after the BC and BB plastics... what next? Will we see new individual ships in resin every 4-6 months like we used to? Or is it going to be months of teasing a new sprue we get every 12-18 months? No actual preference here, just curious how they'll play it. Moving to plastic-first would be a drastic change in direction both in production and marketing.
The thing I'm most excited for is actually the 'staff tournament' TTC has alluded to. "Designers must play their own games, extensively, and post battle reports" is a hill I will gallantly die on. Also there were some fantastic looking ships in the teaser shots.
Yeah I'm curious where they will go as well. Especially since they don't really have any marketing outlet besides releasing new models.* So the only action they really get is new models going out to the market.
Which is great right now, but as you say very few plastic kits means very quickly getting armies out there and then what?
My mind they'll start doing special ships and unique versions in resin to drum up interest, but I can also see htem flat out doing new factors or in-faction sub-factions or such to try and keep new kits appearing
This might even be something we are seeing with the new Battleships. Scourge one in particular is a big departure from their classic designs so perhaps its the start of a whole new subfaction of Scourge ships with a very different style.
* they don't even seem to really sponsor anything either. I was kind of surprised how few youtubers appear to have been approached/hired or such. Even those who aren't big names didn't seem to get free kits or demo kits very much for the 2.0 launch to drum up some hype
A hill i will die on is that games should go wide rather than deep. Id rather see new factions with the occasional new unit for existing factions than continued focus on developing existing factions. Lots of small factions is better than a handful of big factions.
Each has their up and downsides. I think the big thing is that however the designers go the army size should scale to the intended game size.
Plus be willing to change the intended game size if you keep pushing in a new direction. Or basically if you've just made your factions have a huge roster; be bold and move from skirmish to wargame; don't keep trying to be a skirmisher (yes looking at you Warmachine 2.0).
But in general larger army games often breed players very loyalty their single army. Of course as GW has shown many times over (and Infinity too); you can make healthy sales just updating existing models even if you don't increase utility of the models in the game.
Lots of new factions can be a problem for developers in terms of spreading out customers. If you've very few armies you can easily focus on them marketing wise and each faction should bring in healthy sales. Going wide has the risk of creating dud factions that don't pull their weight well but you don't quite want to "squat them" from the game. Plus it means more marketing legwork to keep all the factions in focus. Look how people in 40K and Old World dropped off when their factions got "ignored" for long spans.
Also I don't know if this is sales or supply but Wayland seem to be running down Dropgames. Their stocks are really low and they've even some models (including the Scorn Titan) at 50% off right now for Black Friday. Not sure if this is just Warcradle not having production to catch up and supply more or if Wayland are just seeing a trend in really slow/low sales.
Perhaps but they sock loads of GW's similar scale game and loads of other model lines too. Plus at least for Dropfleet; I don't expect to see Firestorm Armada appear on sale for at least several more years. (one year at absolute best and that assumes that they go straight from their latest game into FA and not into another game)
So its a perhaps, but honestly I don't see it as some tactical move to clear the board for their own game.
GW is on a different scale though, not stocking GW is more directly harmful to wayland than stocking it, as most warcradle games players will probabky start out as gw game players.
TTC games on the other hand are already barely stocked and poorly distributed imternationally, losing another retailer and distributor is actively harmful to the dropverse, and while GW and Waecradke arent really competitors, Warcradle and TTC very directly are.
If they are, I'd bet Wayland is winding down dropgames for the same reason every other major online retailer did. TTC is consistently miserable to work with at the distribution level. They changed shipping dates around DFC 2e launch with no notice, then missed those new shipping dates, shipped incomplete orders, and just shrug when you ask them about any of it. This killed DZC distro in the US previously. They're blacklisted at two of my local stores for their gak. I know for sure that's why both GameKastle and GameNerdz dropped them as well.
Yeah as I recall Wayland were a week later on orders for Dropfleet.
And we all know that messing around with orders (yourself or at distributor level) can kill you; that was one of the issues Privateer Press had for ages.
The plastics I hope to see after BCs are faction-specific launch assets and space stations/features/defenses.
For resin, I enjoy the character ships and the alternate designs for different shipyards, subfactions or theaters. But what I would really like to see them make are logistics ships for each faction, for convoys, and maybe even some shipyard bits for each faction’s stations to add a feeling that more is at stake in a particular battle.
Nice - wasn't expecting to see any movement on that until they did the Battleships considering that they appear primed to be out the door before Christmas (at least based on them already teasing us with them)
The T-Type was once a common sight across many shipyards. Due to the size of many pre-war ships, a way of moving these gargantuan vessels out of drydock was needed. T-Types were devised to be the answer to this sizable problem. You'll be able to find this adorable ship on our website in time for Black Friday.
All aboard the party bus! Okay, its real name is the Hyperyacht Somniferum but it's basically filled with all the illegal substances and crime you'd hope to find in the Commander Universe. This new exclusive ship will be available for Black Friday!
P.S. It has its own stats and scenarios.
Did you spot the M-Type Barge being attacked by the Resistance yesterday? This barge is the larger cousin of the L-Type. Produced at the same Tharsis Manufacturing shipyards over Mars, the M-Type was designed for corporate bulk shipping. Now these relics from a simple time have been deployed by all factions seeking a reliable Hauler.
Coming Black Friday!
That ship looks significantly more robust than any UCM ship of the line. While I quite enjoy the design, I can only imagine it being part of the EAA “Chonk Era” of ships, like the Aldrin and the dreads. Personally I’d have preferred for it to be more container and less armor plating.
The Affluence Class Luxury liner was the one of a kind personal liner of the media mogul Jacen Board. No expense was spared when this ship was designed. Featuring the most advanced propulsion systems available on any civilian vessel, the Affluence is able to travel at staggering speeds, often only matched by ships half its size. This proved incredibly useful when the Affluent was able to outrun several Scourge ships and make an emergency fold space jump to safety during the opening hours of the Scourge invasion.
That’s worse than leaving your Starbucks cup on the roof.
I’m trying to figure out which franchise this ship looks like it’s from. I see hints of Stargate and Star Wars, but I feel like there’s something closer…
Automatically Appended Next Post: The old OOP exclusive Remnant Centurion is available again as an exclusive for anyone who missed it and didn’t want to pay eBay prices.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The old OOP exclusive Remnant Centurion is available again as an exclusive for anyone who missed it and didn’t want to pay eBay prices.
Bah! Missed it when I was looking earlier - looks like I'm placing another order...
Orders over 75 GBP get a free Lucury Liner ship, too. So, if you’re placing a big order, splitting it into two is worthwhile so long as you meet the free shipping threshold.
I’m trying to figure out which franchise this ship looks like it’s from. I see hints of Stargate and Star Wars, but I feel like there’s something closer…
Automatically Appended Next Post: The old OOP exclusive Remnant Centurion is available again as an exclusive for anyone who missed it and didn’t want to pay eBay prices.
Only until Jan 1st. The 4 core starting factions each get their original KS exclusive (and I believe they also featured in the early Battle Force sets) Battlecruisers back whilst the Bioficers and Resistance get new ones. The originals come in two variation builds (with the UCM having two separate ones listed as there was more unique resin in their versions) whilst the brand new factions have just 1 build each; but they are more unique parts in there I suspect.
Personally I think the Bioficer one looks really awesome. Sleek design really works for "really long supergun". Looking at the front they've got a redesigned gun part so it won't take the original parts off the BCs; but it gives you one built for a unique ship.
How does a ragtag rebels surviving in the rubble using repurposed old tech like future toyota gun trucks get space battleships? That's like having ISIS having its own space station now... I actually like the ship design though other than the B-17 plexiglass bubbles.
warboss wrote: How does a ragtag rebels surviving in the rubble using repurposed old tech like future toyota gun trucks get space battleships? That's like having ISIS having its own space station now... I actually like the ship design though other than the B-17 plexiglass bubbles.
The in-world argument is that they are the same force but different divisions
The Rag-Tag guntrucks army is what's left of humanity on Earth itself fighting against the Scourge. They have some advanced weapons and sleek tanks too; left over from whatever armed forces remained on the Earth.
The forces in Space are different and represent the survivors who fled to other worlds that weren't part of the UCM military group. Think of them like the poorer worlds that rallied with what they could. Again with that mix of sleek new ships and old repurposed. Their whole thing is that they don't have enough resources to make everything modern super-tech so they fight with what they've got alongside it.
"Space Resistance" is three factions in a trenchcoat.
The remnants of the original Earth government space fleet that stayed to fight instead of escaping to the colonies.
The civilian fleet that escaped the invasion but didn't choose to go with either the PHR or the colonies but rather chose to stay in space.
The lost colony of Kalium that mostly kept making old earth designs and arming up and is basically North Korea.
The problem is the design language doesn't really support this at all. You can't field a fleet all of one type, you can only field mixed fleets of 2-3. There's no real distinction between Kalium and old Earth. The civilian stuff should not have battleships, full stop. They might have colony ships, manufacturing ships, other very large vessels, but they should not have any large warships whatsoever.
warboss wrote: How does a ragtag rebels surviving in the rubble using repurposed old tech like future toyota gun trucks get space battleships? That's like having ISIS having its own space station now... I actually like the ship design though other than the B-17 plexiglass bubbles.
Because land Resistance and Space Resistance are not actually the same faction. Space Resistance does include what they call scrapfleets, survivors who fled the Scourge and have maintained their aging ships for 200 years. But it also includes colonies like Kalium, developed industrialized worlds with the same tech base (and presumably ship plans) as the old EAA. To add another layer, the UCM has captured some of the original shipyards around the Cradle Worlds and is using them to pump out ships.
There was even a period of time where they outright said that Resistance wouldn't get spaceships.
In the end they caved because people who are resistance players wanted ships and honestly the modular kits they've done for them are some of the most creative spaceship kits out there. They are more complex modular designs than just "stick different gun in the gun slot".
The dreadnought they designed for them is honestly really outstanding in how creative you can be with the kit; its way more than most modular designs which are just "stick different gun in gundeck slot".
As a resistance player in both games, id have preferred if resistance didnt get spaceships. It was an unnevessary compromise that broke the artidtic integrity of the setting for the sake of appeasing fans.
chaos0xomega wrote: As a resistance player in both games, id have preferred if resistance didnt get spaceships. It was an unnevessary compromise that broke the artidtic integrity of the setting for the sake of appeasing fans.
How?
The background makes sense. It stands to reason not every colony would join UCM. And the existence of old or scrap fleets also make sense. In fact, they’re a fundamental trope of “lost the earth” Sci Fi, like BSG and Titan AE.
They’re also the most “your dudes” faction in the game, which Dropfleet desperately needed. While we still know very little about PHR, Scourge and Shaltari societies, Resistance is very accessible and customizable. Even the minis are the most customizable. There’s no way the game is better or more successful without Resistance in DFC.
Kalium or "rogue colonies" are perfectly fine and could have been a distinct faction, but 100+ year old scrap fleets somehoe surviving in the interstellar void without meaningful access to essential goods and resources makes zero sense.
It's playing to the Battlestar Galactica style of a fleet. Only where the civilians were able to get of most of the ships and then bolt some weapons onto them.
. Also a lot of the "scrap fleet" is the style they've painted them in - give those ships a slightly newer lick of paint and they don't look like scrap. At least not like the scrap vehicles for land.
The background for EAA ships is that they are built to last and ridiculously robust. The Vega scrapfleet is a stretch, I’ll grant, but the idea behind colonizer ships and the modular space stations implies an explorer fleet can build up all the infrastructure it needs to maintain itself if they find a viable colony system.
Resistance now can be built as an entirely military/expeditionary force, excepting the use of Seneca cargo ships in battle. Nothing about the fleet needs to be built as a scrapfleet, unlike land Resistance where bolted plates are sculpted on.
So, can anyone recommend a good web resource (preferably text over video) that's a good "so you have that Battlefleet Gothic itch and are wondering if Dropfleet Commander can scratch it" overview of the game and current edition?
Also, are there any solo/co-op rules for enemy AI?
Because I have that Battlefleet Gothic itch, but I've also always been curious about DFC but never made any headway into researching what's different/good about it.
Psychopomp wrote: So, can anyone recommend a good web resource (preferably text over video) that's a good "so you have that Battlefleet Gothic itch and are wondering if Dropfleet Commander can scratch it" overview of the game and current edition?
I can't even recommend a good video. Most of what I've seen written about the current edition presupposes familiarity. There doesn't seem to be anyone out there that's fallen in love with DFC 2e to the point of producing good long form anything about it. There's a few shallow spon-con things I've seen, there's a few people enamored with the new ground combat, but it's not really new, they just refused to use the beta rules that have been out for 6 years. Everything beyond that one major change is somewhere between "conflicted" to "immediate mistake" to "gets worse the longer you examine it".
In skimming my old (and a lot of them are dead now) links for overviews of 1e, what I can still find isn't really accurate anymore in a lot of fundamental ways.
There's a couple people working on a final edit of the now abandoned 1st edition. Most everyone I know that plays tried 2e and either just stopped playing or went back to 1e with houserules.
Also no solo/coop rules whatsoever.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Or put another way, I've played a huge swath of space fleet combat games so you need to be more specific about what you liked about Battlefleet Gothic that you want more of, unless it's just spaceships in general, in which case I'd probably direct you to Starmada (30th anniversary edition) https://mj12games.com/starmada/mjg0160.html
It surprised me a fair bit that for a new edition it didn't seem like they paired up with a single youtube channel or similar to get some game previews out there.
They did loads wtih Beast of War back in the day with earlier editions
That's kinda surprising - I know Warcradle gets a good chunk of stuff videos from just sponsoring and sending out material to smaller channels and it really helps exposure when you search and there's a bunch of fans talking about stuff for what - the cost of a handful of boxed sets.
Sure bigger channels require paying (or a very good working relationship); but even getting stuff into smaller channels is a start.
slyphic wrote: TTC didn't do any marketing. The one channel that did anything for the new edition approached THEM and did it for free merch.
I can never figure out if it's incompetence, hubris, laziness, or disdain.
Which channel is that? Gopher Mafia did the most videos I’ve seen on 2.0, but they were mostly rules changes overviews, ship rankings (in terms of mechanics) and a couple battle reports. But they are one of the few stores who sell DFC in the US, so I gathered it was self-advertising.
For basic lore, Arvandus put out some good intro videos for the setting and factions. For introductory reading on the rules, Fandom put out tactics pages for each faction for 1.7 edition which I found a good starting place/refresher. I still recommend them to get an idea how the basic parts of the fleet are supposed to work together, even if the rules are outdated.
I haven’t had a chance to play 2nd edition, so I’ll recommend 1.7 edition with houserules. The rules are available online for free somewhere. I have a copy of you can’t find them anywhere else. For me and some of my friends who used to play BFG, the game scratched the same itch way while also feeling a bit more modern and a little sleeker.
I forgot about Gopher, I guess they count as a second? I think the game overview and ship specific or fleet tactic 1e articles are more inaccurate than informative about 2e.
If there's anyone singing the gospel about DFC2, I haven't found them yet. Lots of people looking for it though. Wish I could offer them something, but every game of it I played I enjoyed less and less compared to the most recent 1e+houserules DFC games I played until I hit the point that I'd just rather playing nothing than 2e. Same exact place I landed with Dropzone.
I forgot about those guys because I tended to tune out their videos and lose interest.
The tactics pages may not be accurate to 2.0, but since you recommended playing 1.0, that seems like less of a problem.
2.0 is still shaking out. It will need a couple updates before I am ready to call it a failure or not. They went for some big changes, and it will take time for them to figure out what works or not. Even longer if they’re relying on customers for all their play testing.
They had 'playtesters'. Said testers had the game for months, enough time to play a lot of games. Then TTC rewrote a bunch of rules and published them untested at the last minute, many of which had nothing to do with or outright contradicted the feedback. TTC just do gak because who cares, it's just a game, it's just an excuse to sell models ENDQUOTE
The problems with 2e aren't small tweaks and fixes, they're fundamental concepts that would necessitate v3. Which I could see one day being published, but I'd be amazed if it were less than 6 years out.
Is there a link to the rules that the play testers intended for 2.0?
I’m still in the headspace of mentally translating everything to 1.0 to understand how it works in the setting and then having to retranslate it back to 2.0 for game mechanics. The new mechanics change the flavor of the setting in a way that doesn’t jibe with 1.0.
I’d love to see the different saves combined into one save, and same with the weapon types. Maybe keep the backup save as something new to make big ships more survivable due to their bulk. I also don’t understand the intention behind WF preventing launch, or for launched assets to move so slowly. I don’t find these issues game breaking, but only because I already house rule away everything I don’t care for.
I could see them retiring the resin ones in the "fullness of time" if the game does well and if they move everything over the plastics and can expand more and more into them.
So I'd class them as "potentially vulnerable"
Also I want them to hurry up and show the Bioficer ship!
Last year we brought you more details about an upcoming game we nicknamed Project Hunter. Since this tease, Dave and our team have further developed the game which will be launching next year. Firstly we should outline its name, Dropzone Commander: Operation Artemis. As the name would suggest, this will be a subgame under the Dropzone Commander name.
The armies and Grand Fleet of the Post Human Republic have completed their conquest of the Tlalocan Moons, annihilating most alien Scourge forces there. The PHR chose the system as a beachhead in this galaxy-wide conflict due to its vast resources but also for its ancient connection to a new foe—the
Bioficers. Many relic technologies, listening posts and more eldritch remnants of their mysterious past lurk there. It has been a primary goal to silence Bioficer beacons and study their technologies to slow their advance and perhaps, one day, to stop them.
We all know the commander universe is filled with a hideous array of Fauna which are often lethal to human life. Today, we’ll be looking at just one of the Fauna you’ll discover whilst on deployment.
Minotaur
One of the largest megafauna encountered by mankind, multiple are PHR Walkers are required to take down a single Minotaur. As dangerous as they are large, Minotaur’s can tear apart metal with their claws and crush opposition with their alien strength. Seeing without eyes, the Minotaur is a hunters ultimate foe. The Minotaur will be just one of several imposing Fauna that you’ll find in the Operation Artemis box.
Commanders, are you ready to start a new adventure in the of the White Sphere and progress?
We’re back with more information about Operation Artemis…
Previously we covered some information about the story behind Operation Artemis and got a closer look at a Megafauna you’ll encounter. Today we thought it would be a good time to look at one of PHR Walkers you’ll be piloting during your deployment.
Type 9 Heavy Walker – Agas
The Type 9 Heavy Walker is available to pilots with a variety of weapon and chassis options. The Agas is best suited for engaging hostile Megafauna from range. Equipped with RX-1 Firehammer Railgun along with a pair of Miniguns attached directly to the torso, this walker can easily decimate enemies under a hail of fire. If engaged in close quarter combat, the Agas is adequately prepared. Armed with the electrified Beastslayer Blade capable of cutting through the toughest of hides, this augmented arm has a powerful thrust.
The Agas is always on over watch, ready to incinerate any beast foolish enough to get to close.
2025 is shaping up to be a great year for fans of the commander universe. With this in mind, we’re thrilled to say the Bioficers will be making their Dropzone Commander debut. Instead of reading about this exciting development, we’ll let Dave explain it.
As Dave said, he is currently hard at work sculpting the Bioficers for Dropzone Commander. You can tell from the passion in Dave’s voice that he and everyone here at TTCombat are excited to get this faction on your tabletop.
The tank looks a lot better as a model than as the render that we saw ages ago. Also nice to see the tank look just a touch more "tank" and a touch less "moving gun" designs that we've seen in space. It's great to see some design variety
1) This plastic is REALLY nice to work with. I'd say its very much on-par with being as nice to work with as GW plastics. Cleans really easily; holds detail; feels good and all.
The previous/first generation plastics from TTC were just that little bit "harder". Sharp detail, but a bit of a pain to clean.
2) Ships go together really well and cuts are smartly placed to hide the joins well within the natural detail of the ships
3) Assembly is easy
4) I'm confused why all the peg slots on the ships are half-slots with the side missing. It creates a weak point for the larger ships when attaching them to their flight stems/separators.
5) I swear there's a missing part for the Cruisers that never made it onto the sprue. If you compare them to the Anomaly exclusive ship, there's a large gap on the underside at the rear on the plastic ships which, on the Anomaly, houses a large cylinder "engine". It feels like the plastic cruisers were meant to have this part too as something that glued in; but either got lost and never added to the sprue or they couldn't add it in/work out a way to part it clean. It's a small thing, smaller still by their nature of being strange designs and once you put the wings on; but I do notice it when comparing across.
Overall these are really sweet ships to build and honestly if this is the quality of plastic they can achieve now that's really fantastic and I'm excited to see a lot more done with this new production method.
The Anomaly is also much thicker through the hull, with extra triangle plates on the side of the prow and under the chin. It’s all around a beefier ship than the plastic heavy cruisers. I suspect the plastic cruisers were made thinner and smaller to fit more easily in the sprue. Perhaps they were the original ship designed by the Bioficer’s creators?
The half-slots for base pegs bothers me when it cuts into detail that should be there, such as on the Seneca cargo ship. I get why they switched to using it, but I wish they would stop.
I just don't get why there isn't the other half on the sprue in some form. Some ships have them (eg the little probes) but the big cruisers have them missing.
I do agree the Anomaly has differences to the plastic ships, but the large chunk at the back is the only bit that really looks like something is "missing" from the design based on the structure of the other ships.
Overread wrote: I just don't get why there isn't the other half on the sprue in some form. Some ships have them (eg the little probes) but the big cruisers have them missing.
I do agree the Anomaly has differences to the plastic ships, but the large chunk at the back is the only bit that really looks like something is "missing" from the design based on the structure of the other ships.
It's a really minor point just one I noticed
I see the piece you mean, and it is a shame it’s missing. It would have been a cool way to differentiate between light cruisers and cruisers, besides the dinky top weapon.
Automatically Appended Next Post: In the video, Dave says they’ll have plastic for the Bioficers. That leaves Resistance as still the only force with no plastic minis for Dropzone. I hope they’ll take the opportunity of a Resistance vs Bioficers starter to release them in plastic.
Since our last FAQ and errata we’ve had plenty of feedback on both rules and balance. After no small amount of help from our Agents compiling this feedback and testing these changes, we’re ready to set these changes out into the wild!
New Rules!
To aid in the unintentionally underpowered Shaltari regaining some of their lost damage potential, we’ve added in the new rule Reave-X. Reave functions similar to Scald, in that crits grant an amount of negative modifier to the targets save value against that hit, but works at any range, not just within Scan. This rule has been added to many Shaltari weapons as well as a small amount of weapons throughout the game (like Bioficer Scythes instead of their previous Burnthrough rule).
The second new rule isn’t new per-se, you’ll have already seen this on Bioficer Scythes and the Shaltari Strontium. This update just codifies it into a generic named special rule, Anti Wing, that you’ll find listed in the weapon stats instead of separately on the ship stats sheet.
Often Posited Conundrums Many new FAQ’s and answers have been added, we’ve tried to include as many of these as possible, including whether Space Stations are Dropsites, and how High Power interacts with Orders and other special rules.
Balance Updates A great many ships have had their stats adjusted, from simple points changes to complete overhauls of weapons, you can find a list of all the changes in this update at the end of the FAQ document. The big changes in this update are sweeping points adjustments to carriers, as well as points increases to Famous and Faction admirals.
To make up for that last point, we’re also introducing Admiral Level 1 Faction admirals, these allow you access to a single optional ability as well as coming with a single ability of their own.
Since our last FAQ and errata we’ve had plenty of feedback on both rules and balance. After no small amount of help from our Agents compiling this feedback and testing these changes, we’re ready to set these changes out into the wild!
I don't think Reave as applied is enough to fix the core blunder of Energy/Kintetic weapons and saves, but it's a step in the right direction. The significantly faster launch assets was sorely needed, and Aegis got the nerf bat to the head it deserved. Feels like a relaunch with actual playtesting, and last year was the open beta.
A good few changes like making the bioficer scyth weapon ability standard for taking out fighter wings. Nice to see a few more guns in their roster got the Reave1 ability to give a bit of flavour and more punch to them. Interesting to see burnthrough removed on the scythe weapons, but it was likely just a bit too good on those guns.
I agree about pulling in the power of Aegis and the nodes for bioficers got bumped up to 2hull now that they can't abuse stacking Aegis
TTCombat wrote:Are you ready for new plastic battleships? This hulking brute is a Carthage Super Battleship equipped with enough armaments to destroy any puny Scourge ship.
Honestly I really like those wing designs on the new scourge, its a huge redesign but really looks good. I do wonder if they are going to change up their cruisers when they get a new kit as well.
I absolutely loathed the first version of the Beelzebub for its stupid big guns hanging off the front wings. I hate the new one as well for its tacked on looking forward gun tube things.
The whole game seems to be increasingly "huge guns" as a design style and I just hate it.
Still haven't gotten my starter box yet, still want to get it, just so busy and too many things/money/etc. So um, the rules have been FAQ'd/updated? If I do get the starter/beginner box will the FAQ/updates change the game significantly from whats in there?
BanjoJohn wrote: Still haven't gotten my starter box yet, still want to get it, just so busy and too many things/money/etc. So um, the rules have been FAQ'd/updated? If I do get the starter/beginner box will the FAQ/updates change the game significantly from whats in there?
Since our last FAQ and errata we’ve had plenty of feedback on both rules and balance. After no small amount of help from our Agents compiling this feedback and testing these changes, we’re ready to set these changes out into the wild!
New Rules!
To aid in the unintentionally underpowered Shaltari regaining some of their lost damage potential, we’ve added in the new rule Reave-X. Reave functions similar to Scald, in that crits grant an amount of negative modifier to the targets save value against that hit, but works at any range, not just within Scan. This rule has been added to many Shaltari weapons as well as a small amount of weapons throughout the game (like Bioficer Scythes instead of their previous Burnthrough rule).
The second new rule isn’t new per-se, you’ll have already seen this on Bioficer Scythes and the Shaltari Strontium. This update just codifies it into a generic named special rule, Anti Wing, that you’ll find listed in the weapon stats instead of separately on the ship stats sheet.
Often Posited Conundrums
Many new FAQ’s and answers have been added, we’ve tried to include as many of these as possible, including whether Space Stations are Dropsites, and how High Power interacts with Orders and other special rules.
Balance Updates
A great many ships have had their stats adjusted, from simple points changes to complete overhauls of weapons, you can find a list of all the changes in this update at the end of the FAQ document. The big changes in this update are sweeping points adjustments to carriers, as well as points increases to Famous and Faction admirals.
To make up for that last point, we’re also introducing Admiral Level 1 Faction admirals, these allow you access to a single optional ability as well as coming with a single ability of their own.
Since our last FAQ and errata we’ve had plenty of feedback on both rules and balance. After no small amount of help from our Agents compiling this feedback and testing these changes, we’re ready to set these changes out into the wild!
I don't think Reave as applied is enough to fix the core blunder of Energy/Kintetic weapons and saves, but it's a step in the right direction. The significantly faster launch assets was sorely needed, and Aegis got the nerf bat to the head it deserved. Feels like a relaunch with actual playtesting, and last year was the open beta.
I’ve had problems with the oversized guns since the Resistance plastics. Those did grow on me, but the Hanoi, the PHR dread and new battleships, and especially the Scourge big gun BBs just look like toys. The old Hercules and Shaltari BB integrated their huge cannon into their hulls in a way that worked. The new trend of huge guns hanging off the ships like GI Joe vehicle guns is unfortunate.
For me, the bioficers work because they really are just sentient space guns. The weapons are integrated into the ship in a way the hangdong guns on the 2nd wave battleships aren’t.
BanjoJohn wrote: the rules have been FAQ'd/updated? If I do get the starter/beginner box will the FAQ/updates change the game significantly from whats in there?
Yes and yes, but in a good way. The game as published at launch was bad, real bad, should not have been published/take it back to playtesting bad. The rulebook it comes with is a tatty little thing of no value, the rules are effectively digital only and should be treated that way.
That really is the problem in a nutshell. Biggus Dongus guns make the ships look like toys, in spoils my ability to think of this as an interesting hardish SF game and instead it's a silly wacky space toy thing and I just have no interest in that kind of game.
BanjoJohn wrote: the rules have been FAQ'd/updated? If I do get the starter/beginner box will the FAQ/updates change the game significantly from whats in there?
Yes and yes, but in a good way. The game as published at launch was bad, real bad, should not have been published/take it back to playtesting bad. The rulebook it comes with is a tatty little thing of no value, the rules are effectively digital only and should be treated that way.
That really is the problem in a nutshell. Biggus Dongus guns make the ships look like toys, in spoils my ability to think of this as an interesting hardish SF game and instead it's a silly wacky space toy thing and I just have no interest in that kind of game.
Thanks, that's kinda sad because I love/prefer a nice physical book instead of having to look at PDFs, or print off PDFs. I know they won't change the miniatures so I'm a little more likely to get the box now, but using lulu or something to print off a new/updated physical book of rules seems like a hastle if they might update the rules again in a few months, unless it seems like these are the final update? But I doubt there'd be a final update in today's world.
