So first kickstarter pledges are beginning to arrive and we have had a couple of test games at the local club.

My initial thoughts - look forward to hearing other people's!

Rules / Mechanics:
Quite similar to Battlefleet and ACTA which is no bad thing, more than enough differences to make it its own game.

The Scan/Signature/ Spike mechanic for targeting is interesting and different - need to see how it play out more to see if prefer it to given effective range for different weapon systems. Looking forward to seeing dedicated Scouts.

Movement and turning is simple and easy – I am disappointed that all the ships so far just have the one 45 degree turn - was hoping for frigates and smaller to be a bit more agile than their bigger brothers and sisters.

The fleets seem to play differently - mainly tried Shalatri and PHR and hugely different which is good.

Terrain seems essential (which is normal for space ship games tbh) - especially when one fleet has such a larger range advantage.

I prefer having fighters, bombers and the like on the table doing stuff but many people will prefer the simplified version I think where they act pretty much like weapon systems.

Special orders seem pretty standard again no bad thing

As far as I can see ships operate pretty much normally until they lose the last damage point – I like degradation of ships myself – even if it’s just when “crippled”.

Good to see explosions and ramming in.

I think its a shame a lot of the special rules were not used on the first wave of ships – was expecting advanced vectoring frigates (or even Cruisers), regenerating Scourge, etc. Lots of cool rules – need to use them.

Models
The main reason I held off the KS was unsure of the models – I loved some images and hated others (bit like DZC really). The models are very nice in reality – lots of cool detail and modelling potential and conversions beyond the great base variety. Having seen the Shalatri cruisers will be buying them – and proxing others for the Frigates as can’t stand them.

They also scale nicely with my BFG and ACTA ships which is great.

Bases

Good – they have the fire arcs on them – awesome!
The damage pegs are horribly fiddly and resulted in ships being inadvertently shunted all over the place – we are likely to just use dice. Turning the dial seems no picnic either once you ships are in multi-ship close range melee.
All in all seems a good game – have ordered starter set and a few other bit and pieces, At least it will get some my older ships dusted down for some games.

How are other people finding the game?

 Mr Morden wrote:
Movement and turning is simple and easy – I am disappointed that all the ships so far just have the one 45 degree turn - was hoping for frigates and smaller to be a bit more agile than their bigger brothers and sisters.

Frigates and Light Cruisers are actually more manuverable than the other ships in a subtle way that doesn't appear immediately obvious to most. Since the only order that lets you shoot ALL weapon systems a ship has is Weapons Free, a lot of cruisers and above waste their full firepower potential if they spend orders executing Course Change or Maximum Thrust etc. Frigates and Light Cruisers, generally only have the 1 weapon system to begin with thus they can make use of the full array of orders, including Course Change and Maximum Thrust for manuverability without hindering their firepower potential.

I've never been much for space fleet games, but the PHR fleet is bloody gorgeous and I'm probably going to pick up the starter box. I really like the level of effort the Hawk guys have put in --- a lot of sound design decisions. Modular models are fantastic etc.

So when you say it really needs terrain, like Asteroids or?

Waiting to get mine still so curious. I know lots of maps are right above the planet and you get to the special terrain outposts by sending troops there

str00dles1 wrote:
So when you say it really needs terrain, like Asteroids or?

Waiting to get mine still so curious. I know lots of maps are right above the planet and you get to the special terrain outposts by sending troops there

You have debris fields rather than asteroids as such but pretty much the same thing - also very large objects - vast space stations, habitats or small moons - they block LOS and kill anything that moves into them

I missed the kick starter for this because it sounded far too ambitious and an awful lot of promises were made (I got burned on the Robotech KS from Paladium and didn't want to spend that kind of money again).

I played a demo at Gencon and really liked it, the models look very well done, and I'm going to get this game when it finally comes out. Glad to hear mostly positive things about it so far (and I wish I had gotten in on the KS for it).

Well I can't share initial thoughts yet as I'm waiting on it but seriously looking forward to checking it out! Would love to hear more reviews, too

Well, I have a pretty solid/firm grasp on just about all of the game except for the some elements of the drop/troop deployment side of it, so would be happy to answer any questions about how the game works. xP I made my praise for it already in the N&R thread.

I think it's pretty simple to pick up and learn the core rules and how shooting, movement etc works, but has a lot of tactical depth between the Order system, and the Scan/Signature system, along with the need to land and safe guard your ability to deploy and keep boots on the ground to contest objectives. That and the fleets look awesome and thus far, on paper, are pretty well balanced it looks whilst also being unique in their playstyles from each other. Time and development of the meta post-launch will truely tell balance, but it looks good to me.

Of the two factions you played with, how did they differ?

 ProtoClone wrote:
Of the two factions you played with, how did they differ?

They were very different:

Shaltari have long range - ie they have great sensors and low signiture so hard to hit back. They have lots of tricks - esp with regards to troop deployment which is the central feature of the game and looks to eb themain way to win scenarios. They can teleport their tropps via gates - this keeps the troop ship (mothership) safely away from the front line. Shalatri guns often do stuff like auto crit.
They also have crap armour, they can balance this with shields with can even block crits *armour is usually ignored) but then they loose point defense and they signiture jumps massively.

PHR are broadside focussed and well armoured, they want to get in close and have enemy ships on either side so they can tear them up. Did not see any tricks yet for them.

To add more note, PHR also have probably most decent Strikecraft. Their fighters are above average and they have probably nastiest bombers in the game. They tend to be "undergunned" however in that, they have more firepower than the average ship, but it's split between two broadsides, meaning if you utilise just 1 side, you'll often be outgunned, and even when utilising both broadsides, you can't quite focus nuke with the same strength like the other fleets can. This tends to mean they'll often output more damage than a regular cruiser, but it will be split between two targets. They do have the toughest and more durable ships though to compensate for this.

Some neat features they have is the only Frigate sized ship with Strikecraft launch capability, as well as only Frigate sized ships with the cool Burn Through Lasers..! Also have a nifty little ECM frigate that can disrupt enemy gunnery targetting a friendly ship. Oh.. and also a battleship with a very scarey big gun called a Dark Matter cannon, that is probably second scariest gun in the game next to the Shaltari Particle Lance Triad.

I thought I read somewhere that Hawk Wargames was going to make the rules for this game free online. Is that true?

Thanks for posting your thoughts. I had a hard time deciding two years ago between this and Halo Fleet Battles but ultimately chose HFB as it was coming out sooner and had more info available... I chose poorly. :(

 Tamwulf wrote:
I thought I read somewhere that Hawk Wargames was going to make the rules for this game free online. Is that true?

No, Hawk is generally against that sort of thing. I understand the reasons, but int his age it's not always the best call.

I still dislike the card based command system. Everything else in the game is interesting and fluid, that system is not.

 Vertrucio wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
I thought I read somewhere that Hawk Wargames was going to make the rules for this game free online. Is that true?

No, Hawk is generally against that sort of thing. I understand the reasons, but int his age it's not always the best call.

I still dislike the card based command system. Everything else in the game is interesting and fluid, that system is not.

I have heard this about DZC yea.. which has me abit concerned for when DFC command cards eventually show up, but at present they're mentioned in the rulebook but that's about it. Also got my rulebook today, woop!

I plan to just commit and write a command system replacement for DZC/DFC, community supported and edited. Unless they handle the DFC command cards vastly differently, I won't even bother touching them.

It's a great game and company, but they have a few areas where they just refuse to live up to their own standards.

It'll be handled similarly to how there's entirely different mission card systems written by fans for Infinity to replace ITS.

I'd be really interested in that, Vertrucio! You might even be able to get support on it for playtesting in different places through Dakka (they might be OK with it on the official forums, too). I wasn't a huge fan of the cards for DzC but didn't play it competitively enough for it to really throw us. In general, we just wished that it had a bit more variability in play... that has me a little nervous for Dropfleet with the talk of objectives and troops holding them, which always felt like it made things a bit tic-tac-toe in DzC to me. I'm hoping Dropfleet has more of the fluidity of BFG and the like... would love to hear more reviews as folks try it, as our group went all in!

Well, DZC got a bit stale because of the combination of more rigid army creation, combined with (until recently) few variations on units. DFC is launching with more variation and possible units than DZC currently has years after launch.

But yes, besides the command cards, I'm also not a fan of the old fashioned strict 6 turn limit, rush for the objective zones and hover over it style of missions that DZC has, and it seems DFC for some reason is keeping that despite it being space ships. So this might coincide with a different and variable mission system.

I don't want to spend too much of my time on this, and I don't want to make it alone. I have my own game to work on first and foremost, but I have always liked what Hawk Wargames put out and want an excuse to buy and play the game more.

I'm anxiously awaiting my pledge to arrive, I'm a high level backer with just about 3 armies worth of stuff coming to me.

My UCM will likely be build gun heavy, the Scourge will be light and fast, and my PHR heavy on launch assets.

 Vertrucio wrote:
Well, DZC got a bit stale because of the combination of more rigid army creation, combined with (until recently) few variations on units. DFC is launching with more variation and possible units than DZC currently has years after launch.

But yes, besides the command cards, I'm also not a fan of the old fashioned strict 6 turn limit, rush for the objective zones and hover over it style of missions that DZC has, and it seems DFC for some reason is keeping that despite it being space ships. So this might coincide with a different and variable mission system.

I don't want to spend too much of my time on this, and I don't want to make it alone. I have my own game to work on first and foremost, but I have always liked what Hawk Wargames put out and want an excuse to buy and play the game more.

I'm anxiously awaiting my pledge to arrive, I'm a high level backer with just about 3 armies worth of stuff coming to me.

My UCM will likely be build gun heavy, the Scourge will be light and fast, and my PHR heavy on launch assets.

No idea what the card system is like in dzc, for dfc its "your fleet consists of battlegroups, each battlegroup has a card assigned. each battlegroup consists of groups of ships (eg 1 cruiser (group of 1) and a group of 4 frigates) and has a command value equal to the total tonnage of the ships in it.
you stack your activation cards the way you want, and each player draws one - the one with the lower activation gets to choose who goes first, then that player may move and shoot all ships of the battlegroup, where groups have to shoot and move together. if you use special orders you get to choose on a group level between the battlegroup special order and running the standard order.

Those are Activation Cards Nekooni, they're a different thing. Command Cards are previewed and talked about on page 72 of the rulebook but do not exist yet for DFC. They seem more akin to Tac cards from Firestorm and Dystopian Wars etc. Or like those special one off ability trick cards you could play in 40k Armageddon stuff.

And well, as for the objective taking and deploying of troops. You basically deploy ground assets via your troopships and strike carriers to the Clusters on the map. Clusters within them have seperate Sectors which you need to hold majority of to control cluster and score VPs.
You get 3 types you can deploy, Infantry, Armour and Defense Batteries. It's abit rock paper scissors in that, Infantry are pretty medicore fighters, but they're very resistent to Orbital Bombardment attacks. Tanks are VERY good at fighting on the ground and attacking other ground assets, but very vulnerable to orbital bombardment. Defense Platforms are resilient to both ground and orbital attack, but cannot attack ground assets themselves. Instead they attack any Dropships/Bulk Landers that attempt to land assets into the cluster they're deployed in, and shoot them down before they land.

Ground assets can move between the Sectors in the Clusters they are deployed, once you've moved all ground assets, they then basically fight it out if you have any assets in same sector as enemy assets etc. That's the general jist of it, you can orbitally bombard sectors to do some purging of ground assets and also use bombardment to outright destroy sectors etc to deny them.

I'm not a fan of the activation cards as a thing.

What I plan on doing is just finding counters number 1 to 7 or so, then writing then on my army list by their battlegroups.

Hmmm.. not sure how that.. will work. The point of the Activation cards are that each turn, you have to choose your activation order in advanced and so with the cards you arrange them in the order you will be activating your battlegroups and then draw the top on to show your first, then next etc, and so that your opponent cannot see either you planned order of activation. How will you manage that with counters in a way that your opponent can't tell what your activation order is, and they can trust you've not potentially re-arranged the order too?

Put the counters on top of each other

Hmmm okay, yea, that works. I think the cards look cool so i'll use them. x) But that's fair then!

The way I see it, there's no real way to get round printing or writing our an army list before a game. But also having to write out a half dozen cards, each time even if all you decide is "you know what a Rio is better than a Berlin in this group"

Having something more reusable is more practical for me

A solution for the activations cards could be to use sleeves and dry erase marker, since most battlegroups should only have a couple ships in them

Are there any painting guides out there? I'm getting a serious case of inferiority complex looking at those Scourge studio models D: don't have an airbrush, so I'm wondering what's a good scheme that doesn't involve all those gradients and blending

GenRifDrake wrote:
Hmmm.. not sure how that.. will work. The point of the Activation cards are that each turn, you have to choose your activation order in advanced and so with the cards you arrange them in the order you will be activating your battlegroups and then draw the top on to show your first, then next etc, and so that your opponent cannot see either you planned order of activation. How will you manage that with counters in a way that your opponent can't tell what your activation order is, and they can trust you've not potentially re-arranged the order too?

Maybe use something akin to the Heroscape Turn markers?

Rabidaskal- I've only seen one painting guide that was a bit worthwhile.
I tried airbrushing my scourge ships, using transparent paints over a gold primer. and really did not like the results. I ended up just brushing on inks over the gold, then doing the detail work with a brush. I am satisfied with the result, though it's not up to the studio paint jobs.

I played two learning games with the fleets in the starter box this afternoon. I enjoyed it. We didn't use any of the ground combat rules today.
I only played Dropzone v.1, and I remember the Scourge were much better than the UCM- at least, it was a real challenge to beat them. In Dropfleet, the Scourge seem a bit better than the UCM, but not to the point that it felt unfair.
A few things we decided, from a simple gameplay point of view:
1. We need to play on a 4 x 4 foam mat, a la X-wing. The paper maps provided are just too slippery.
2. I know the idea behind the bases was to eliminate the need for counters cluttering up the map, but...
2a. The damage pins on the bases are too fiddly to bother with. Dice, or dials, will henceforth be used to track damage.
2b.We are probably going to use counters or dials to record spikes, too. Trying to twist the dial on the bases resulted in ships getting nudged all over the map. If we make each counter represent a minor spike, and just place 2 counters for a major spike, that should be easy to keep track of.
3. The line-laser is your friend. In fact, we used 2 together to trace the front/narrow arc several times, and it eliminated any need for argument.
4. Some people don't have the dexterity to manipulate the thin, flexible tape measure, or they are unscrupulous to a fault; at any rate, a straight-edge is useful for making sure ships move in a straight line and don't sort of... drift a little sideways.

The fleets:
UCM:
Battlegroup A: Moscow heavy cruiser, Berlin cruiser (rating 15)
Battlegroup B: Seattle fleet carrier, Jakarta aegis frigate (rating 6)
Battlegroup C: Toulon frigate, 2x Taipei frigate (rating 3)
I magnetized my basic cruiser and my heavy cruiser, so I can build any variant. I could not think of an easy way to magnetize the rear cowlings, so I am stuck with a Seattle fleet carrier and no light cruisers at this time. I built one of each frigate (except the Lima) and we just proxied them as needed.

Scourge:
Battlegroup A: Shenlong heavy cruiser (rating 10)
Battlegroup B: Ifrit cruiser, Wyvern cruiser (rating 10)
Battlegroup C: 2x Harpy frigate, 2x Djinn frigate (rating 4)
I could not think of a way to magnetize the Scourge ships that didn't involve a lot more work than I wanted to do, so wysiwyg all the way, there.
Definitely going to be buying another fleet box for both Scourge & UCM, and battleships when they are released. Painting up my PHR fleet now.

I plan on just lifting up the top half of the engine and hoping the paint doesn't scrape too easily

@fellblade
Thank you! That guide was very useful quick question, i see both you and the guide writer used a metallic base coat(?) - is this how you achieve the metal sheen? I don't have an airbrush, so if i just apply a silver layer and ink and glaze on top of that, would it achieve the same effect? Never really painted ships before so this is new to me ^^

 Vertrucio wrote:
I plan to just commit and write a command system replacement for DZC/DFC, community supported and edited. Unless they handle the DFC command cards vastly differently, I won't even bother touching them.

It's a great game and company, but they have a few areas where they just refuse to live up to their own standards.

It'll be handled similarly to how there's entirely different mission card systems written by fans for Infinity to replace ITS.

I live the command cards in principle but in DZC at least the right card (which is randomly drawn) can win games, I lost my last game due to a command card.

Hawk seem to want to write tight rules but can't help themselves to include fiddly elements. In a game with supposedly no record keeping why on earth are frigates subject to crippling damage and its cumulative damage/status effects?

What size magnets are people using - I have not really tried this before but might do so when my own ships arrive.

I've heard 2x1mm and 3x1mm

@rabidaskal: Yes, I think using the metallic primer gives a really nice effect when used under inks. I still have some ancient GW inks, and Privateer Press ink works well also. I used GW Reikland Flesh wash where I wanted to shade the red, and Coelia Greenshade over the green.
I'm not sure about the photo policy, so rather than stuff a lot of pixels into this post, I will post some pics to the gallery (if I can figure out how to get them off my phone).*

As for magnets, I'm using 3x 1mm. They fit nicely into the hole in the model. I cut the peg off the turret or laser, and replaced it with a magnet as well. A small blob of green stuff, a tiny drop of superglue, and you're in business.

*Success! Go to the gallery and search 'Dropfleet' and you can see some of my crappy pictures.

Thanks guys - will have a go

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Vertrucio wrote:
I plan to just commit and write a command system replacement for DZC/DFC, community supported and edited. Unless they handle the DFC command cards vastly differently, I won't even bother touching them.

It's a great game and company, but they have a few areas where they just refuse to live up to their own standards.

It'll be handled similarly to how there's entirely different mission card systems written by fans for Infinity to replace ITS.

I live the command cards in principle but in DZC at least the right card (which is randomly drawn) can win games, I lost my last game due to a command card.

Hawk seem to want to write tight rules but can't help themselves to include fiddly elements. In a game with supposedly no record keeping why on earth are frigates subject to crippling damage and its cumulative damage/status effects?

Yea, here's hoping command cards when it comes to DFC will be somewhat better done in that regard, as having not even played DZC i've heard that the card system in there is too much RNGesus tricksy. As for the frigate thing, it's not hugely much to keep track of, for one crippling damage isn't cumulative outside of super weapons, it's an affect that happens once when you lose half your hull points. There are Crippling weapons that make you roll on that chart each time it scores a Critical Hit but those are monstrous super weapons at present that if one did shoot a frigate, it would be dead in all honesty... So at worst you'll take 1 crippling affect you may or may not have to keep track of and attempt to repair depending on the affect, if you even survive the crippling affect in the first place since a fair few of them make you take an addtional 2-3 hull damage which means the frigate will just go pop anyway.

 Brunius wrote:
I've heard 2x1mm and 3x1mm

Are there pre-made magnet holes? Would love to see a magnetizing tutorial!

 RiTides wrote:

 Brunius wrote:
I've heard 2x1mm and 3x1mm

Are there pre-made magnet holes? Would love to see a magnetizing tutorial!

I hear some preexisting holes are the right size, but don't know. There's some magnetisation tutorials out there (Scourge, PHR, UCM)

GenRifDrake wrote:
As for the frigate thing, it's not hugely much to keep track of

Its not but such extraneous dice rolling cuts across the ethos of the game. In BFG escorts were simply dead when they got crippled, I don't see why this couldn't have been reused in DFC when that's effectively what will happen anyway.

There is no way that I am going to be using the bases to track anything. The pegs fall out and finding the correct orbital layer/spike combination is far too fiddly. They are a nice idea in principle but in practice I only used them until my ships started to get damaged before I resorted to using marker dice. I will make some Warmachineesque ship cards and get them laminated I think.

If the Ethos was to eliminate record keeping entirely, it failed not just with frigates but with everything. No crippling result is recorded on the base at all, that's all done with tokens still. And I like it that my frigates have a chance of surviving crippling damage to go on fighting, so I guess that's just me. *Shrugs* Corvettes at least auto-die from it.

As for the bases, eh, they seem hit and miss to most people. Mine seem to work fine, pegs included, they don't fall out at all and I use them infact sometimes as a handle to turn the wheel. xD I don't often view it as that fiddly as it's mainly to keep track of spikes for me, since most fighting is done in High Orbit less you risk being in Low Orbit, suffering a cripple hit and decaying into Atmo and burning up. Mostly Low Orbit exists for bombardment, troop ships and Frigate to manuver in to make it harder to hit them.

I do hope the command cards are a lot better then DZC ones or they wont be used. I understand they give flavor and some more options, but the DZC ones are just to random/not worth it/ just a bother. Plus the fact that the cards are shaped different. My main deck has square edges and my commander specific cards are rounded and not glossed...

There's no way I'm going to magnetize my PHR. After getting a few games in with a friends stuff as I await my pledge, seems like 3 starter boxes of your army is the best base for the game then go on to other things. To much of a pain to magnetize such small minis.

So far we use tokens for spikes and where we are in orbit. Makes it go quickly. Ill try to smooth out the stands so they turn easy when my stuff comes and see what I like more. Damage is also done with dice at the moment

I'd double check you've got the correct cards in your main deck. A lot of the first run (with square edges) have incorrect numbers of cards: check here

Game is not too bad.

 FeindusMaximus wrote:
Game is not too bad.

My first boxed sets should be arriving today/ tomorrow.

Likely be using some of my BFG ships and B5 ships as well as the official ones (ad maybe doing some rules conversions for them)

Well 2/3 of the Crippling Damage rolls inflict an auto 2 damage which kills Frigates outright (Apart from PHR) And coming from DZC, DFC runs a helluva lot smoother. I don't have any issue with the Activation cards personally but the pegs are a bit of a pain.

Also with regards to the Objective rush it makes sense both narratively and Hawks desire to avoid a bunch of fleets beating the crap out of each other over sod all in deep space so it seems to have been the lesser of evils on that front. As per the usual, it seems that the main rules are really simple but the advanced ones could get real complex real quick.

Really, really wish I had backed this on KS now. Ah well. I managed to get a rule book last week. Out of the five FLGS I've queried, only two got any product in at all- it was limited to a couple boxes of two player starter sets that were bought by the same guy, some decks, and a couple rule books (it's where I got mine). at one store. The other store got in a small shipment of a variety of stuff that sold out within a day. Of course, they all offered to order it for me... LOL

My review on the Dropfleet Commander rule book:

Still reading through the rule book. Initial impressions:
I do not like the A7 Landscape style of the book. Makes it very difficult to reference during a game. You can't really hold it in one hand while turning pages in the other. The overall quality is OK. Love the heavy weight, glossy pages, but the cover is just a little thicker than the pages, and it's already showing signs of use (wearing of corners, scratches). I can tell that my spine is falling apart and I really haven't been using this in a "gaming environment". All I've been doing is reading it. 31 pages of fluff... oof. 37 pages of rules, 21 pages of Fleet Building and Playing (missions, campaigns, etc). Then we get 102 pages devoted to the four initial factions, including fluff and ship stats. Then we get two pages of tokens for photo copying. These are a bit disappointing as they look very generic in style. I think they could have spent a little more time and effort into the graphics on these. Last couple pages are an index, which is awesome! and then splash artwork.

Where are the reference pages? As in, why did they not consolidate some of the most used charts- Orders Summary, damage tables, maybe a short summary of the more used rules into a couple pages at the end of the rule book? I am sure if I poke around online, I'll find some home made reference sheets already, but it just feels like an oversight.

The artwork is good, and really captures the Dropfleet universe. Really like the UCMS Avenger schematic in the center of the book. Too bad it wasn't a fold out so you could take it out and hang it up on a wall.

The diagrams are clear, but show a lack of style and/or use of graphics. They are rather plain and bland.

No painting guide? No hobby guide?

Overall, I'd give the book a C+. It's physical construction is on the cheap side, the diagrams are bland and uninspiring, and there are no reference pages with a summary or consolidated most used rules like what you would expect in a rule book. No hobby section hurts a new player to table top gaming. A7 Landscape in a soft cover makes the book almost unusable in one hand. The layout is very good; it flows form one section to another well. Each section is clearly marked. This is not a beginner friendly or inexperienced rule book/game. Finally, no reference to Hawkwargames.com , which is an excellent resource for Dropzone Commander, and I was hoping it would be the same for Dropfleet.

Since I posted this to a local group/Facebook, I got a few replies that informed me that in the two player starter set, there is a reference sheet, and each fleet starter has a reference sheet for that fleet. We had a lively discussion of "Noob Friendly" vs. "Experienced Friendly". IMHO, the rulebook is experienced friendly. No reference charts, no hobby/paint guide, limited/bland diagrams, few play examples limited to only the most complicated rules, no example or how to build a fleet, no "play this scenario first!" make this an Experienced Player book. From what I understand, as I don't have the two player starter set, it comes with reference charts, instructions on how to assemble the models, a "how to play" starter scenarios, and a recommended fleet for the UCM and the Scourge. Dropzone is referenced in the book, mostly in the campaign section. It's rather cool that you can integrate Dropzone Commanader into your games of Dropfleet Commander.

If you are an experienced table top player, then you should do fine grabbing a starter fleet box, commander cards, and a rulebook. You might have to visit hawkwargames.com for some pointers/help, but shouldn't be too bad. New players/first time table top gamers, should look for a two player starter set. BTW, the two player starter set is a good deal. The fleet starter boxes are MSRP US$60. The Two player starter set is MSRP US$100, comes with UCM and Scourge starter fleet, rulebook, dice, tokens- so not a bad deal!

Hawk Wargames has also promised a revamp of the website to include Dropfleet Commander and online resources. It's a small company, and they have been very busy getting the Kick Starter pledges mailed out.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Really, really wish I had backed this on KS now. Ah well. I managed to get a rule book last week. Out of the five FLGS I've queried, only two got any product in at all- it was limited to a couple boxes of two player starter sets that were bought by the same guy, some decks, and a couple rule books (it's where I got mine). at one store. The other store got in a small shipment of a variety of stuff that sold out within a day. Of course, they all offered to order it for me... LOL

My review on the Dropfleet Commander rule book:

Still reading through the rule book. Initial impressions:
I do not like the A7 Landscape style of the book. Makes it very difficult to reference during a game. You can't really hold it in one hand while turning pages in the other. The overall quality is OK. Love the heavy weight, glossy pages, but the cover is just a little thicker than the pages, and it's already showing signs of use (wearing of corners, scratches). I can tell that my spine is falling apart and I really haven't been using this in a "gaming environment". All I've been doing is reading it. 31 pages of fluff... oof. 37 pages of rules, 21 pages of Fleet Building and Playing (missions, campaigns, etc). Then we get 102 pages devoted to the four initial factions, including fluff and ship stats. Then we get two pages of tokens for photo copying. These are a bit disappointing as they look very generic in style. I think they could have spent a little more time and effort into the graphics on these. Last couple pages are an index, which is awesome! and then splash artwork.

Where are the reference pages? As in, why did they not consolidate some of the most used charts- Orders Summary, damage tables, maybe a short summary of the more used rules into a couple pages at the end of the rule book? I am sure if I poke around online, I'll find some home made reference sheets already, but it just feels like an oversight.

The artwork is good, and really captures the Dropfleet universe. Really like the UCMS Avenger schematic in the center of the book. Too bad it wasn't a fold out so you could take it out and hang it up on a wall.

The diagrams are clear, but show a lack of style and/or use of graphics. They are rather plain and bland.

No painting guide? No hobby guide?

Overall, I'd give the book a C+. It's physical construction is on the cheap side, the diagrams are bland and uninspiring, and there are no reference pages with a summary or consolidated most used rules like what you would expect in a rule book. No hobby section hurts a new player to table top gaming. A7 Landscape in a soft cover makes the book almost unusable in one hand. The layout is very good; it flows form one section to another well. Each section is clearly marked. This is not a beginner friendly or inexperienced rule book/game. Finally, no reference to Hawkwargames.com , which is an excellent resource for Dropzone Commander, and I was hoping it would be the same for Dropfleet.

Since I posted this to a local group/Facebook, I got a few replies that informed me that in the two player starter set, there is a reference sheet, and each fleet starter has a reference sheet for that fleet. We had a lively discussion of "Noob Friendly" vs. "Experienced Friendly". IMHO, the rulebook is experienced friendly. No reference charts, no hobby/paint guide, limited/bland diagrams, few play examples limited to only the most complicated rules, no example or how to build a fleet, no "play this scenario first!" make this an Experienced Player book. From what I understand, as I don't have the two player starter set, it comes with reference charts, instructions on how to assemble the models, a "how to play" starter scenarios, and a recommended fleet for the UCM and the Scourge. Dropzone is referenced in the book, mostly in the campaign section. It's rather cool that you can integrate Dropzone Commanader into your games of Dropfleet Commander.

If you are an experienced table top player, then you should do fine grabbing a starter fleet box, commander cards, and a rulebook. You might have to visit hawkwargames.com for some pointers/help, but shouldn't be too bad. New players/first time table top gamers, should look for a two player starter set. BTW, the two player starter set is a good deal. The fleet starter boxes are MSRP US$60. The Two player starter set is MSRP US$100, comes with UCM and Scourge starter fleet, rulebook, dice, tokens- so not a bad deal!

Hawk Wargames has also promised a revamp of the website to include Dropfleet Commander and online resources. It's a small company, and they have been very busy getting the Kick Starter pledges mailed out.

So to your points....

The books layout is homeage to Battlefleet Gothic rulebook as theirs was like that. Not saying I agree with it as it takes up a lot of space, but that's the reason.

Reference pages are in the starters. 2 player and single player starter boxes come with ref sheets.

Really its the same, as you cant just play with the rulebook, you need the models so..

The tokens are cheap because its a good deal getting them in the 2 player set. They are/will sell nicer ones later they stated.

Why would there be a painting or hobby guide? Kinda silly as its a rulebook. Dropzone doesn't have either of those. They do tell you in the starter fleets what colors they used though.

A lot of what your asking for is in the actual sets where you buy ships. Your opinions your option, just I think its a fairly uneducated one. Not to be rude, you just may not know all that stuff is in the starters.

str00dles1 wrote:


So to your points....

The books layout is homeage to Battlefleet Gothic rulebook as theirs was like that. Not saying I agree with it as it takes up a lot of space, but that's the reason.

Reference pages are in the starters. 2 player and single player starter boxes come with ref sheets.

Really its the same, as you cant just play with the rulebook, you need the models so..

The tokens are cheap because its a good deal getting them in the 2 player set. They are/will sell nicer ones later they stated.

Why would there be a painting or hobby guide? Kinda silly as its a rulebook. Dropzone doesn't have either of those. They do tell you in the starter fleets what colors they used though.

A lot of what your asking for is in the actual sets where you buy ships. Your opinions your option, just I think its a fairly uneducated one. Not to be rude, you just may not know all that stuff is in the starters.

Actually, I don't think you read my entire post. Looking at your comments:

The books layout is homeage to Battlefleet Gothic rulebook as theirs was like that. Not saying I agree with it as it takes up a lot of space, but that's the reason.

I've met most of the staff of Hawk Wargams including Mr. Chambers. Who, coincidentally wrote Battle Fleet Gothic, and the A7 Landscape idea was widely considered a bad idea and failure back then, so why bring it back? And why would a game company want to associate it's own, totally different space battle game to the space battle game of another company, and one that is not nice at all to other companies? At least the BFG book is only 160 pages, and not 224 that this book is.

Reference pages are in the starters. 2 player and single player starter boxes come with ref sheets.

See this:

...there is a reference sheet, and each fleet starter has a reference sheet for that fleet.

Really its the same, as you cant just play with the rulebook, you need the models so..

Actually, no it's not, because most players will trade or not even use the extra fleet that comes in the two player starter, not to mention the dice, tape measure, and punch out tokens you get. To play this game, you need: Rulebook, Command Cards, a fleet, some d6 dice, a 4'x4' gaming area, and tokens that you can photocopy out of the rule book. A friend or opponent with their own fleet helps too.

The tokens are cheap because its a good deal getting them in the 2 player set. They are/will sell nicer ones later they stated.

They stated where? on their very poorly organized forums? I mean, A+ for communication, but F for the website when it comes to Dropfleet Commander. That should have been built and done prior to the launch of the game.

Why would there be a painting or hobby guide? Kinda silly as its a rulebook. Dropzone doesn't have either of those. They do tell you in the starter fleets what colors they used though.

Pick up any rule book for any table top miniatures game that requires you to assemble and paint, and you will find a hobby section. Go for it. I'll sit and wait as you rack your brains to find one that doesn't have one. Oh, except for Dropzone Commander. Which is made by... Hawk Wargames.

A lot of what your asking for is in the actual sets where you buy ships. Your opinions your option, just I think its a fairly uneducated one. Not to be rude, you just may not know all that stuff is in the starters.

As I am talking about the rule book and not the actual starter fleets or two player start box, my opinion is a very educated one. If you would have taken the time to read my entire post, you would have read:

...in the two player starter set, there is a reference sheet, and each fleet starter has a reference sheet for that fleet.

and

From what I understand, as I don't have the two player starter set, it comes with reference charts, instructions on how to assemble the models, a "how to play" starter scenarios, and a recommended fleet for the UCM and the Scourge.

Right there in the title:

My review on the Dropfleet Commander rule book:

(emphasis mine)

TLDR; Reading is hard! Comprehension is even harder! But not I don't want to be rude about your ignorance about my post.

Negativity aside, it's a fun game, I like it, and looking forward to more from Hawk Wargames!

Offhand, without going through everything single rulebook I own, literally none of mine that aren't GW books from 4+ years ago have a painting and hobby guide in them.

This includes
Batman hardback (the new suicide squad starter box does have assembly instructions but nothing more)
Marvel
Dropzone Commander
Every Single Mantic Rulebook.
X-wing and Armada (well, obviously, but for the sake of completeness I'm mentioning them)
Imperial Assault doesn't even mention the possibility of painting your miniatures, or show any painted minis at all.

Remember rule #1 on Dakka is "be polite"... let's drop the argument and just stick to discussing this great game.

Thanks all

I've now played two games using the 2-player starer box, and run two public demos at a show yesterday.

Compared to other space combat games (Armada, Full Thrust, Battlefleet Gothic), the ground Sectors make a big difference. Not just the idea of orbital altitudes and landing ground troops; BFG had a scenario which did something similar. It's the "take and hold" nature of holding clusters that makes the game play differently.

There's more that needs explained up front than with DZC; altitude, orders, the scan/signature range concept and spikes all need to be introduced right from the start. Nothing particularly complicated individually, but it all adds up.

4-HP ships being Crippled - I'm not sure that's really necessary. Most of the time they blow up anyway, so it might have been easier to just give them 2 HP and be done with it (and adjust the other rules interactions accordingly, of course).

With just the 2-player starter game, the effects of signature spikes doesn't really make much difference - everyone glides in under Silent Running for the first two turns, then everyone's so close that it hardly matters whether you've got a major spike or not. With a bigger mat, different deployment options and cluster positions and a wider selection of ships, it will probably become more important.

I'm a little worried about the Shaltari ground capability. Warp gates are extremely effective for their price and they are even (sort of) more survivable than other strike carriers due to their lower hit points and the dubious frigate crippling rules. The fact that they also act as a defense battery doesn't help matters either.

I have only played starter games so far though and when Corvettes become available Warpgates will become a lot more vulnerable and chaining them will become problematic so it may work out in the end.

Yeah, I get the feeling they're missing a lot of the in atmosphere game right now.

Destroyers, for example, aren't even statted. Corvettes are just one entry.

After getting the demo/learning games out of the way, I think I'm going to jump straight up to some 2000 and 3000 point test games using proxies for Battleships and other things, just see if the game holds up.

I'm a huge fan after playing a few games, including a linked Dropzone / Dropfleet battle, where our ships kept blowing up in the air over the battlefield, scattering burning wreckage on the poor ground pounders fighting below.

To review the contents of the starter set:
Rulebook: B+. Honestly, it's good quality. Paper's glossy, great illustrations, nice detailed fluff. Rules are well explained, though some rules are hard to find. All rules illustrations are clear. Main issue are a few contradictory rules sections that need errata, since those were parts that clearly changed from the playtesting (which visibly has improved the game: See terrain and new clusters changes).

UCM Fleet: A+. Best spaceship models I've had yet from a minis game. They're gorgeous, and are intelligently designed as to cover each other's seams. They magnetize easily and lend themseves to modification for converters. Wonderufl.

Scourge Fleet: B. Solid spaceship models and I do like their look more and more. The ventral seam on Scourge Cruisers needs care to go together correctly, and the frigate sprue is a little fragile. They still look great when assembled though, but are not as elegantly designed as the UCM ones.

Tokens: C. They're functional, and little more. It certainly is no FFG token fest.

Bases: A-. They do their job well, the dials move smoothly and they track statuses well. The Pegs suck though, and stickers need care.

Reference sheets: A. They're perfect. All the stats and key tables are kept together on a pair of sturdy double-sided sheets, one for each player. Or both for yourself if you need it. Same with the 'quick start' mission to rapidly get you playing. Model building guides are solid.

Overall: A-. I'm going to be playing this game a lot more, especially as new models come out.

(vs other Space games I play)

vs Star Wars Armada: Dropfleet Commander is more dynamic, and less finnicky. Pre-Painted vs not and the Star Wars IP are personal pref, but I prefer Dropfleet. The scenarios are more interesting, and you get a wider range of movements. Armada's mostly decided at a few key points in the game, and you generally are commited to a plan at Deployment. Dropfleet has more diversity of how you can act to counterplay your opponent. Also, fighters are more elegantly handled in Dropfleet IMO. I initially had really high hopes for Armada, but the issues of how the game is easily 'decked' and how meta the scenarios get soured it slightly over time. Plus the slow releases mean most fleets look rather similar around 1-2 archtypes. Also the damn FFG card-chase model...

vs Battlefleet Gothic: BFG's issue was always that the super diverse races virtually all played their own game, leading to some negative play experiences (particularly as Eldar or Necrons were involved) and poorly balanced races like Orcs. DFC is much tigher balanced, though the forces a little more symmetrical in their mechanics. I feel no need to break out the old BFG now that DFC exists, though I did in a way like how sturdy BFG ships were.
Improvements to the Orders system in DFC clearly reflect an issue in BFG, where nearly all the 'half your firepower' orders sucked hard. I do miss Brace for Impact though.

vs Firestorm Armada v2
Firestorm is a much simpler game. It's solid, but every faction plays fairly similarly and it's a lot less scenario based. The model differences are your preferences of course, and I do like some Firestorm forces. Again like the above, I find DFC more interesting due to orders and the general issue of weaker ships suffering due to Firestorm's DR/CR system.

Battlereport and a good general game review at the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5AELr9IZis

I finished putting my PHR fleet together yesterday. I've done some various methods for them, including some being pushfit, some being magnetised, some just straight glued on.





Will probably type up a bit more about the specifics tomorrow.

I have two UCM Starter fleets in the mail coming my way soon. I'm getting more and more excited for this game! Really looking forward to playing with the "final" rules (they used beta rules at GenCon, and I have no idea what the differences were/are between then and now). Had to go online for my fleet as only a couple FLGS's even got an order in, and it was pretty small and apparently it was all bought out by the same guy... Hey, if he wanted to spend a couple thousand dollars on it, all the power to him. I just wonder what he is doing with 12 Two Player Starter Sets, and what looks to be about 12 each of the starter fleets. /shrug Curiously enough, he didn't buy up all the rule books or command cards.

I'm kind of confused about something in regards to the Frigates and crippling damage. Pg. 48 of the rule book says

Ships with a starting hull value of less then 4 are never subject to being crippled and do not roll on the Crippling Damage tables.

Starting Hull Value of less then 4 is every frigate in the game, so... ? Or are you reading this as any ship with 1, 2, or 3 hull points and I'm reading it as 1, 2, 3, or 4 hull points?

About the tokens- there was a kick starter not too long ago about using custom d6's with whatever you wanted on the sides. I'll dig for it later, but I thought why not do something like that? Get a 16mm d6, and have the sides marked:
1. Minor Energy Spike
2. Major Energy Spike
3. Crippled
4. Low Orbit
5. Atmosphere
6. ??? Maybe Special Orders?

At most, you would have three dice next to your ship (Spike, Crippled, and Orbit). Possibly 4? The only other option I can think off to get rid of tokens on the map would be a card sized sheet in a card sleeve for each ship that you would write the status effects of the ship in dry erase markers.

That would beat the heck out of cluttering the map up with tokens and fiddling with a ship base every time it took damage, changed orbit, got a spike, etc. etc. It doesn't solve the problem of a lot of record keeping (not that this game has a lot), but it moves it from the map to the side of the table.

I'd think that energy spikes and orbit would still have to be represented on the table. I'd hate to spend a lot of time during my turn asking "OK, what orbit is that ship in? Does that ship have a spike on it? How much damage has that ship taken? What was the orbit of that ship again?" Anyone that plays Star Trek Attack Wing, X-Wing, or Heavy Gear is all too aware of what too many tokens next to a ship looks like.

Frigates commonly have a hull value of 4 or 5. - This means they suffer 'crippling damage'. But it's fine, 2/3rds of the damage results in the crippling table cause 2 damage points or more. - In other words, autokilling most frigates.

There are however ships that do have less than 4 hull points, specifically corvettes and most importantly, void gates for the shaltari.

This makes Shaltari Void Gates a real pain in the rear to deal with, as you need to do all 3 damage to them to kill them, as opposed to, most of the time, just the 2 on a standard frigate.

I would probably suggest continuing to mark orbit on the base - the High/Low/Atmo sections are pretty widely marked so don't need too much peering.

Major spikes, minor spikes and 'silent running' could be done with tokens though, like X-Wing. Spikes are effectively analogous to stress tokens and you could use a focus token for silent running.

While I wait for mine, one person in our group bought it post KS in the FLGS.

We used lots of tokens and dice, as it was most often quicker.

Damage = Dice. I understand what they did with the pegs and all, but most people ive seen talk about it in the FB group is its crappy, they fall out, get lost, and hard to see unless painted. So D10s or so see to be the way to go

Orbits - We have tried the spin dials. If you don't smooth it down very well and cut it nice, its very hard to move them. I prefer this way, but we used FFG colored chips to mark where we are. Blank if in space, Blue if low orbit, and green if atmosphere

Spikes - Same as above with dials. Also used FFG chips for this. Minor is a gold chip, Major is a red chip. No one silent ran so we didn't use anything for that.

It was quick, but when my stuff comes im going to try my hardest to get the dials to spin easily as id rather use that then color chips.

On the dials I found that filing them down a mm makes them ideal to spin without any trouble.

Sure, you get a (very) narrow band of the sticker below showing through but it's still massively clear what the order/orbit is and the ability to just push to spin without having to hold down the base and knock over your models is more than worth it. I honestly don't know why Hawk thought they had to make the spinning part of the dial such an exact fit to the base.

(Note, be sure to leave a 2-3 bits are not filed down at all otherwise there will be no contact with the base and the dial will spin like crazy when you move your ships)

I had my first clash game the other night (UCM Vs PHR) which I managed to lose due to a combination of not properly reading the deployment rules (my entire fleet was effectively 1 turn of movement behind where they should have been so the PHR got to the central clusters first and set up defense batteries) and some sloppy orders which severely limited some of my strike carriers which again limited my ground objective grabbing.

At least it was close in the end and my Avalon managed to get 23 damage in 3 turns of shooting (out of a maximum of 24) with its gigantic laser before being eaten by swarms of bombers.

Larger games are a lot more tactical; minor things really do matter, things tend to die fast and PHR bombers are evil.

I converted some UCM corvettes this morning. The burnthrough laser from the Cruiser sprue fits perfectly with the Frigate 'wings' so its an easy conversion to do. The sensor spikes are from the Cruiser troopship module and the engines are Tau fusion gun muzzles.

Sweet little things.

Nicely done

Does anyone know if the assembly instructions for the various factions have been posted online anywhere? I received my kickstarter pledge a couple of weeks ago and it was missing the instructions for the PHR and Shaltari. Or if they haven't, does anyone have them and can make scans of them and post them? I'd greatly appreciate it.

Did you check your kickstarter box for an A4 brown envelope that probably camouflaged itself and is attached to the bottom of the box? Most of the extra instructions and bonus transfer sheets are in there.

 Compel wrote:
Did you check your kickstarter box for an A4 brown envelope that probably camouflaged itself and is attached to the bottom of the box? Most of the extra instructions and bonus transfer sheets are in there.

Also, for reasons unexplainable my shipment had those two fleets instructions and reference sheets folded in half and actually somewhat difficult to notice if I wasn't paranoid about such things. If you did find the envelope, double-check that they didn't just decide to put creases into it for no reason and they slipped by.

I think they're folded in half because normally you can only find them in the starter fleet boxes - Which are less than half the size of A4.

 Compel wrote:
I think they're folded in half because normally you can only find them in the starter fleet boxes - Which are less than half the size of A4.

Fair enough if they were folded at the printers I suppose; just mildly bothersome when you grab everything else at once and they don't come with.

On more important matters, what ships make up the "solid core" in a competent list for any fleet? Am I correct that a couple of Strike Carriers and a troopship are good ideas for all four factions? Trying to plan out building of models and while they seem like they'd magnetize really well, I have a feeling I'm going to want them "finalized" in their classes like my BFG fleets.

On more important matters, what ships make up the "solid core" in a competent list for any fleet? Am I correct that a couple of Strike Carriers and a troopship are good ideas for all four factions? Trying to plan out building of models and while they seem like they'd magnetize really well, I have a feeling I'm going to want them "finalized" in their classes like my BFG fleets.

The number of troop delivering ships that you use in any list is extremely important. I cannot speak for anyone else, but my current plan is three strike carriers for quick insertion and three bulk landers for key contested areas at 1500 points. In DZC I always go with the following rubric: One unit of infantry plus one more for each five-hundred points you are playing. It is not a perfect analog to ground troops in DFC, but after playing a few test games with my KS stuff I feel that it is a safe direction to go.

As for the rest of the list? It really depends on your strategy. I've found the game is often about the art of engagement initiation. Once the initial salvos are complete and the ships close in the combat is incredibly brutal and ever changing, but the first couple of turns are extremely important for setting the tone of the fight. Who spikes first? Are the return salvos all in weapons free orders or does the enemy try to hide a turn longer and take a few pot shots on standard orders? Do your ships utilize weapon outfits that favor massed weapons fire (like the Moscow) or orders that only allow you to fire a single weapon (like the Berlin)?

There is a lot of nuance involved. Especially once you start adding in fleet carriers (for fighters and bombers) and close action specialists. I am honestly hard pressed to pick a specific ship that is must have. Other than maybe suggesting a fleet carrier in every list (for the tool box value).

It's really hard to tell how the meta is going to evolve right now.

For example, right now, the only real "authority" on the game is from one of the beta players blogs at http://thehotlz.blogspot.co.uk/

Who recommends

The HOTLZ wrote: I recommend 1 for every 750 points if you are the Scourge and UCM. For the PHR and Shaltari it is 1 for every 500 points.

He then recommends 4 strike carriers at 1500.

However, coming from games like X-Wings, I think it's kind of up in the air, really. - If everyone starts following that 'rule' and that becomes the meta, someone will then do something to break the meta - Like say, 1 troop ship and 10 strike carriers(!)

To be honest, I'm kinda just grumpy that, after following the recommended build from the starter set, I'm probably going to have to assemble my Scourge kickstarter as 2 troopships and 2 Hydra Carriers, without going into any of the other fun toys...

I still have yet to play my first game- that's coming up this week.

Using my two UCM Starters, my gut told me to make two Strike Carriers and one Troop Ship. After that, I went for just about one of each, sticking to battle cruisers, heavy cruisers, and cruisers and avoiding light cruisers. The rest of my frigates are two of each except for the Aegis and "ECM" firgates. I mainly concentrated on the ships with the big lasers (Cobra's), because I just can't see myself using "Weapons Free" all that much due to the lack of turning and a major spike. I'm thinking one attack each turn will be the main way to play.

I had a hard time deciding on a Madrid (bombardment cruiser) or Seattle (fleet carrier), and ended up with the Seattle figuring that fighters and bombers from the Seattle would be more important than a cruiser whose primary job is to bombard a planet... I dunno. We'll see after I get some experience, but destroying sectors/clusters just doesn't seem like the way to win the game, and when it comes to destroying a cluster, there is always the Nuke It From Orbit option...

Played my first proper game this week.

Enjoyed it - it was like and unlike other space combat games.

The Initiative system was interesting, looks a bit convoluted from game to game but intersting as I am used to activating ships or squadrons at wll. It does mean that the battlegroup composition is important and you need to think about it when creating your fleet list.

The Spotting distance for range is also very interesting - although most games have been quite brawl like so distance for many ships means can see. I like the ability to use a firgate to light up the enemy with an active ping.

Love the fact that terrain matters.

Small game so the the small flights of UCM bombers were usless against my Scourge.

Turning is an absolute pain, not used to it being that hard to bring ships, expecially frigates around. Would have prefered that they had 2 x 45 degrees.....

Hittign ships in the atmosphere is very very hard, will be proxying my Shadow Scouts as Corvettes in the next game I think.

All in all - good game

I think the general thing to remember with frigates is that, most only have one weapon system, so station keeping or Course Change orders aren't unreasonable

 Compel wrote:
I think the general thing to remember with frigates is that, most only have one weapon system, so station keeping or Course Change orders aren't unreasonable

Yeah I picked up on that but its early days so still feels odd to me downside of playing other space ship games - same thing happened with the All Ahead Special Order - both of us had just assumed we could not turn but then read the rules..............

 Compel wrote:
Did you check your kickstarter box for an A4 brown envelope that probably camouflaged itself and is attached to the bottom of the box? Most of the extra instructions and bonus transfer sheets are in there.

I did have that brown envelope, it had the bonus stickers and such and another set of Scourge/UCM instructions but nothing for the PHR or Shaltari. So I have 2 sets of Scourge/UCM instructions, but nothing for the other factions. I've seen a couple people on the kickstarter comments with the same issue so probably just a packing error. I've emailed Hawk, but no response as of yet.

Been building and painting my 4 PHR starters. Almost enough to do 2 of every large ship and way more then needed of every frigate.

Ive read that they are the most popular from design but right now not a ton of fun to play as broadsides are fiddly. Hoping to get a game in Friday so will see how they play for the first time.

Anyone happen to kitbash PHR corvettes? Theres so many extra bits id like to make some

I'm thinking at 1500, your 'standard' should be 2 troopships, 4 Strike Carriers. Maybe a bombardment cruiser.

Total objective package: That's about 400-ish points.

You could go heavier, or just run 1 troopship. Or not take the bombardment ship(s). But that's a matter of taste and fleet.

 Krinsath wrote:

On more important matters, what ships make up the "solid core" in a competent list for any fleet? Am I correct that a couple of Strike Carriers and a troopship are good ideas for all four factions? Trying to plan out building of models and while they seem like they'd magnetize really well, I have a feeling I'm going to want them "finalized" in their classes like my BFG fleets.

Personally I am using 1 troopship and 4 strike carriers in 1k point games. I have played against people who have taken more but they lacked actual firepower in space which allowed me to win despite having less ground assets.

Corvettes are a must though, strike carriers are near enough invincible once they are in atmosphere and you need to clear them if you want to capture clusters.

My current UCM list:
--------------------------------------
999 UCM - 996pts
UCM - 3 launch assets

SR16 Vanguard battlegroup (311pts)
1 x Avalon - 195pts - H
1 x Lima - 37pts - L
1 x Madrid - 79pts - M

SR9 Line battlegroup (240pts)
2 x Santiago - 44pts - L
2 x New Orleans - 64pts - L
1 x Seattle - 132pts - M

SR6 Pathfinder battlegroup (226pts)
4 x Taipei - 156pts - L
2 x Toulon - 70pts - L

SR9 Pathfinder battlegroup (219pts)
2 x Santiago - 44pts - L
1 x San Francisco - 111pts - M
2 x New Orleans - 64pts - L
--------------------------------------
http://dflist.com/s/#/share/09f6479810837
--------------------------------------

This has enough ground assets to contest every cluster on the board, some bombardment capability to help clear out sectors and sufficient corvettes to be give you air superiority in 2 key clusters.
The Avalon is frankly awesome, its laser is utterly deadly, for me it almost always does 8 damage a shot, and the Lima gives it more firing opportunities.
The Toulon are handy frigates, nothing special but can pump out some reliable damage and are a significant threat to enemy frigates.
The Taipei are a really good unit, in a recent game they one shot a Ganymede troopship and then crippled a Battlecruiser in the following turn although that was pretty lucky
UCM are pretty poor when it comes to strike craft but at least the Seattle has some nasty guns.

Trying my first 1000pt game on Thursday - likely against Shaltari

Vanguard BG - Akuma (H), Ruiju (H), Charybis (L) - likey use the Firgate to light up enemy and bombardment latter if need be

Pathfinder BG - Chimera (M), 2 Gargoyle Frigates (L)

Pathfinder BG - Chimera (M), 1 Gargoyle frigate (L)

Line BG - 2 Hydra (m)

no idea if it will work

THis is my 1500pt list I built, still need to test.

UCM - 1495pts
UCM - 0 launch assets

SR17 Vanguard battlegroup (374pts)
1 x Perth - 195pts - H
1 x Berlin - 105pts - M
2 x Lima - 74pts - L

SR17 Vanguard battlegroup (374pts)
1 x Perth - 195pts - H
1 x Berlin - 105pts - M
2 x Lima - 74pts - L

SR7 Line battlegroup (175pts)
1 x San Francisco - 111pts - M
1 x New Orleans - 32pts - L
1 x New Orleans - 32pts - L

SR9 Line battlegroup (260pts)
1 x San Francisco - 111pts - M
1 x New Orleans - 32pts - L
3 x Taipei - 117pts - L

SR5 Pathfinder battlegroup (140pts)
1 x New Orleans - 32pts - L
2 x Jakarta - 64pts - L
2 x Santiago - 44pts - L

SR6 Pathfinder battlegroup (172pts)
2 x New Orleans - 64pts - L
2 x Jakarta - 64pts - L
2 x Santiago - 44pts - L
------------- dflist.com -------------

Anybody else had problems with the Frigates staying on the stands? It's the one thing I wasn't happy with in the 2 Player Starter set I've just bought so magnetised them whilst I was sorting out the Scourge Frigates.

Models are excellent and pretty easy to swap parts out or magnatise which is very much appreciated. Rules seem pretty straightforward so I'm looking forward to getting some small games in soon before expanding the fleets.

Did you remember to glue the "Hawk Widget" plastic thingie to the bottom of the ships?

I din't, I was hoping I could get away without that, the cruisers certainly stay on fine..

They stay perfect, if you use them as intended with the widgets

Ive seen the articles on magnetizing, and its way more trouble then its worth (unless said model owner has tons of free time)

Myself being busy, its far easier to buy starter sets and assemble as I want then swap around parts.

I've finished assembling my ships, and getting ready to paint them, but for storage and transport, I don't want them on the flight stands, and gluing that widget into the ship.... ugly. So I'm just going to use magnets on the flight stand peg and in the hole on the ship. Looks about 7/16"?

This game strikes me as requiring multiple small ships like frigates (and maybe destroyers and corvettes eventually), a couple medium (cruisers) ships, and few large (battleship) ships. I see no reason to try to magnetize frigates- that would be an exercise in futility. I could see maybe magnetizing a cruiser or two, but it just seems like a large amount of time for little pay back. You might be able to field cruiser X/Y/Z with magnets, but what do you do when you need multiples of cruiser X/YZ?

Battleships- yeah, these I could see magnetizing. You can only field a couple at normal point costs, so it would make sense to be able to swap 'em on the fly instead of spending the money on multiple Battleships.

I dunno. Some people just have to magnetize everything. And there is nothing wrong with that. I play far too many table top games as it is, and my time is limited. Spending more time and money to magnetize a single model gives me less time to assembles and paint another model. That, and DFC models are pretty different from each other. Very few share more than a couple common pieces. For example, UCM cruisers all have the same lower hull, but different "wings", engines, upper hull, weapons... that's a lot of magnets for one ship. You could definitely run into a "Is that a Berlin or New Cairo?"

 Tamwulf wrote:
I've finished assembling my ships, and getting ready to paint them, but for storage and transport, I don't want them on the flight stands, and gluing that widget into the ship.... ugly. So I'm just going to use magnets on the flight stand peg and in the hole on the ship. Looks about 7/16"?

This game strikes me as requiring multiple small ships like frigates (and maybe destroyers and corvettes eventually), a couple medium (cruisers) ships, and few large (battleship) ships. I see no reason to try to magnetize frigates- that would be an exercise in futility. I could see maybe magnetizing a cruiser or two, but it just seems like a large amount of time for little pay back. You might be able to field cruiser X/Y/Z with magnets, but what do you do when you need multiples of cruiser X/YZ?

Battleships- yeah, these I could see magnetizing. You can only field a couple at normal point costs, so it would make sense to be able to swap 'em on the fly instead of spending the money on multiple Battleships.

I dunno. Some people just have to magnetize everything. And there is nothing wrong with that. I play far too many table top games as it is, and my time is limited. Spending more time and money to magnetize a single model gives me less time to assembles and paint another model. That, and DFC models are pretty different from each other. Very few share more than a couple common pieces. For example, UCM cruisers all have the same lower hull, but different "wings", engines, upper hull, weapons... that's a lot of magnets for one ship. You could definitely run into a "Is that a Berlin or New Cairo?"

First time I've tried magnatising with these and I've done it with the starter set because it lets me try things out with a small 500pts ish fleet, when I expand I'll have a much better idea of what I want and wont have to bother with it. As far as the UCM ships go, the Frigates don't need any magnatising or even gluing, they're brilliantly designed. With the cruisers the wings/engines don't need to be glued in place, they stey put securely as is so no need to magnatise, and whilst not quite as secure the two top parts go on OK without needing to be glued, the only thing I have magnetised is the weapon attachments.

I'm scratching my head to build balanced lists for all 4 factions at the 999 level (b/c I only got a Commodore pledge and the starters for each). It's a lot to take in. My gut instincts say:

5-8 fighter/bomber launches - though I'm not sure if I should split them between groups of keep them together
2 bulk landers/turn
2 dropships/turn - presumably in the same battlegroup as the bulk landers, though spreading 2 of them in 2 different groups enables a lot of land grabbing.
At least 1 bombardment weapon if possible - in the lander battlegroup, or a different group to soften up the approach of the landers?

I also wonder if I should bother withe KS battlecruisers or wait until I can do higher values, given that it forces me to use a Vanguard.

At the 999 point level, I think you can take the battlecruisers, if you're not taking the heavy cruiser. - Broadly speaking.

It depends though. PHR Battlecruisers can be seen as 'better' Light Cruisers rather than 'better' Heavy Cruisers. So I could foresee a list that had a Leonidas but no Theseus.

I think 5-8 Fighters/Bombers is quite a lot, for the UCM at least. - That would mean taking 2 Seattles minimum, which seems like a lot.

Throwing together a quick list.

Vanguard (aka Spikes R Us)
Avalon Battlecruiser - Commodore
2x Lima Frigates
Berlin Class

Line Battlegroup
Seattle Class
2x New Orleans
1x New Orleans

Line Battlegroup (Go for the eyes.. Err, Middle Cluster, Boo!)
Madrid Class
San Francisco Class
2x Jakarta Class

Pathfinder Battlegroup (Sneaky sneaking)
2x Touloun Frigates
1x New Orleans

I might have overdid the Spike generation there, possibly worth dropping to 1 Lima, then replacing the Berlin with your 2nd Seattle Class if you wanted to. - I'd be tempted to instead bulk out the Touloun's to 3 though and keep the Berlin class. Heck, I could even drop the second Jakarta class and bump up the Touloun squadron to 4. - I'd then want to move the New Orleans in the Pathfinders to a different battlegroup though, as I'd still want to stay below the magic Strategy rating of 5.



For the PHR fleet, I had a go at playing to the PHR strengths. - Launch Assets and Ground Control.

Vanguard Battlegroup
Scipio Battlecarrier - Vice Director
Hector Heavy Cruiser
Calypso Frigate (I'm pretty sure this is rubbish but hey, it goes on points on the nose)

Line Battlegroup
Ikarus Carrier

Line Battlegroup
Orpheus Assault Troopship
2x Andromeda Escort Frigates

Pathfinder Battlegroup
Ganymede Troopship
2x Medea Strike Carriers


I kinda wanted to fit in more Strike Carriers, but didn't have the points. I also don't have any combat frigates. On the other hand, that's a heckuva lot of launch assets for a skirmish game. The other thing to remember is that the Orpheus is pretty much an Ajax Cruiser that can drop troops. I foresee the Scipio and Ikarus bombing things, whereas the Andromedas are more likely launching protective fighters.




So, the Scourge, I've thrown together even more quickly than the other two... I'm not too happy about how the battlegroups work out, but hey...

Vanguard Battlegroup
Manticore Battlecruiser (I'm sorry, it's a torpedo in the skirmish game, gotta do it...)

Line Battlegroup
Sphinx Cruiser
3x Gargoyles (I'm wanting to keep the Vanguard group low on the Strategy scale)

Line Battlegroup (Fun Fact: None of these need the Weapons Free order)
Ifrit Cruiser (I kinda wish I could put this in a group on its own as well... Oh well)
Hydra Carrier
2x Harpy

Pathfinder Battlegroup (The 'Central Cluster' express)
Chimera Troopship
2x Scylla Frigates
1x Gargoyle Carrier


I'm not too sure of the Scylla's but I really want to try them out

I don't have a Shaltari fleet, so I've not really looked at their rules at all. You're probably wanting at least 2 Motherships though. I'm not too sure if 3 is that crazy an idea.

So I've been playing around with what I got (PHR Fleet is already built, UCMs frigates and Battlecruisers are built but 6 or 7 more Cruisers can be made).
I plan on playing an intro level (=standard Starter Fleet as is on the quick start carts) game first and then maybe show off both fleets in a 1500pts game afterwards - I've only played once at Spiel and the other guy hasn't played at all yet. Will these fleets work well on their own and when facing each other? Any suggestions for stuff that I should swap?


UCM
I've got 4 Taipeis, 4 Toulon, 2 Lima, 2 Jakarta, 4 New Orleans, 1 Avalon and 1 Atlantis built and 7 more cruisers will be built this week.
I'll definitely build 2 San Franciscos, 1 Moscow, 1 Berlin and 1 Seattle - but I plan on making the "wings" interchangeable with only the main hull being fixed and will look into making the chin mount magnetized - I'll probably build these if that fails for some reason:
2 Seattle/Rio/Osaka
1 Moscow
2 Berlin/New Cairo
2 San Francisco


SR11 Vanguard battlegroup // snipe from afar? not sure how Limas work right now,
1 x Atlantis
1 x Lima

SR14 Vanguard battlegroup // Just get in and kill stuff
1 x Avalon
4 x Toulon

SR6 Line battlegroup // Carrier Group to protect other groups
1 x Seattle
1 x Lima

SR16 Line battlegroup // Fast but deadly and hopefully survives long enough to get the Taipeis into close-action
2 x New Cairo
2 x Jakarta
4 x Taipei

SR7 Pathfinder battlegroup // Drop stuff
1 x San Francisco
2 x New Orleans

SR7 Pathfinder battlegroup // Drop stuff, too
1 x San Francisco
2 x New Orleans

---

PHR
I've already finished building these and have available:
16 Europa/Pandora/Andromeda/Calypso (limited to 8 of a single class)
4 Medea
1 Achilles
1 Bellerophon
1 Leonidas
1 Ikarus
1 Orpheus/Ajax
1 Ganymede
1 Theseus
1 Hector/Orion

SR10 Vanguard battlegroup // Carrier Group
1 x Bellerophon
+ Fleet Vizier (2AV)

SR4 Pathfinder battlegroup // Carrier Group 2 - should I leave them solo or merge them with the Bellerophon?
4 x Andromeda

SR19 Vanguard battlegroup // Broadsides everywhere
1 x Leonidas
1 x Theseus
4 x Europa

SR7 Line battlegroup // Drop own stuff, kill enemy ground stuff
1 x Ganymede
2 x Medea

SR7 Line battlegroup // Drop own stuff, kill enemy strike carriers
1 x Orpheus
2 x Medea

SR8 Line battlegroup // Attack Carrier / Burn Squad - should I swap the Ikarus with the Theseus from the SR19 Vanguard group?
1 x Ikarus
3 x Pandora

EDIT: This was aimed at Compel, nikooni ninja'd me on the positng.

I'm not too sure I agree with you on the PHR fleet, I think Calypso's will be excellent at keeping your Battle/Heavy Cruiser or Battleship alive for longer when facing off against Shaltari ships with multiple Particle Lances (Obsidian and Diamond especially), or UCM and Scourge ships with multiple Burnthrough weapons. I'd be more inclined to drop the Andromeda's for Europa's or Pandora's, I don't see a frigate with a single launch asset being a whole lot of use, especially when you've already got a Scipio and Ikarus.

And to be honest, I'm not that sold on the PHR Battlecruisers either, I can see a Leonides taking the place of a couple of Theseus thanks to the Linked broadsides and being a little cheaper overall, but I'd much rather have a Bellerophon than a Scipio and spend the saved points on more frigates.

 Imateria wrote:
EDIT: This was aimed at Compel, nikooni ninja'd me on the positng.

I'm not too sure I agree with you on the PHR fleet, I think Calypso's will be excellent at keeping your Battle/Heavy Cruiser or Battleship alive for longer when facing off against Shaltari ships with multiple Particle Lances (Obsidian and Diamond especially), or UCM and Scourge ships with multiple Burnthrough weapons. I'd be more inclined to drop the Andromeda's for Europa's or Pandora's, I don't see a frigate with a single launch asset being a whole lot of use, especially when you've already got a Scipio and Ikarus.

And to be honest, I'm not that sold on the PHR Battlecruisers either, I can see a Leonides taking the place of a couple of Theseus thanks to the Linked broadsides and being a little cheaper overall, but I'd much rather have a Bellerophon than a Scipio and spend the saved points on more frigates.

Not sure about the Andromedas - They're the cheapest Launch Assets we've got. Sure, they're not bringing anything else to the table but I'd imagine running them well clear of the enemy while hitting stuff with bombers should work out fine.
The PHR Battlecruisers aren't straight-forward to use, but I gotta say after thinking about their roles i regret building mine as a Leonidas.
- The Leonidas is just pure broadsides and while Theseus are cheaper and have more hit points the Leo has better PD. Not sure which one will be better, but I'm leaning toward the Theseus'.
- The Scipio is really odd but I think it could work well if you think what it's designed to do - go fast and deep into the enemy lines and try to get between two targets, breaking up the battlelines and taking out frigates. The Scipio can do that without ever going weapons free and still fight 3 targets at the same time while being really tough to kill. I could see this being a tactic you'd assign other ships to, too - like a flight of Europas or Theseus'

Played a game with the intro fleets (500p I think). First reaction: Jesus this game is complicated! There's so much to keep track up, from persistent damage effects that need rolling every turn down to damage on individual sectors, tables upon tables, and on top of this the core game mechanics are already quite complicated due to the number of different orders, all with differences in speed, turning, shooting etc, weapon ranges varying depending on what your opponents have been doing in the previous turns, etc. I mean it was fun and I enjoyed it but I almost got a headache from thinking. And we didn't even use any launch assets (fighters/bombers/missiles). And this was with about 7-8 ships per side, can't even imagine double or triple the amount! Am I too casual for this game?

I guess it's all theorycommander at the moment, as I don't yet have a PHR fleet I can't even test them out so I'm yet to see whether multi role ships, specialised ships or a mix of the two is going to be better. I will say that I think the Bellerophon could be an auto include, especially for Skirmish games. Having Pandora's or Ajax use their Supernova's to light up enemy cruisers for the Bell's twin supernova to take out at range whilst the 4 bombers can be used elsewhere makes for an excellent ship that doesnt need to get into the middle of the fight, and is only 12pts more expensive than 4 Andromeda's with better firepower.

 Mymearan wrote:
Am I too casual for this game?

Yes

I had a 2500 point 4 payer game on Saturday and it took us about 5 hours (one of the players hadn't played a wargame before) which is probably about average for a wargame.

I am looking to get a set of 'ship cards' made up and laminated to use in place of the frankly terrible bases as well as sourcing some kind of semi circular token that will easily fit around the flight stem to keep track of orbital layers and spikes. This will significantly cut down on the more irritating aspects of record keeping and keep things nice and neat.

Fighters seem largely pointless, 3-4 extra PD dice just isn't impressive.

 Mymearan wrote:
Played a game with the intro fleets (500p I think). First reaction: Jesus this game is complicated! There's so much to keep track up, from persistent damage effects that need rolling every turn down to damage on individual sectors, tables upon tables, and on top of this the core game mechanics are already quite complicated due to the number of different orders, all with differences in speed, turning, shooting etc, weapon ranges varying depending on what your opponents have been doing in the previous turns, etc. I mean it was fun and I enjoyed it but I almost got a headache from thinking. And we didn't even use any launch assets (fighters/bombers/missiles). And this was with about 7-8 ships per side, can't even imagine double or triple the amount! Am I too casual for this game?

I've had limited play experience, but I'll tell you that it only gets worse. Some of it is mitigated in the small ships with few hull points and not rolling on one of the damage tables. If you spread your fire power out doing a little bit of damage here and there, the game will take forever. Try to concentrate on a couple ships at a time.

When you add in the Launch Assets, it will just add a another phase to the game and make it take a bit longer.

One of the things that really caught me off guard was the ground combat. It's like an entire sub-game within the game. The more clusters and sectors on the table, the longer it takes. My initial reaction: You need at least two ships that can launch Drop Ships/cluster, along with at least one ship that can land Bulk Landers. Ideally, you should have one ship with fighters/bombers per group of Drop Ships/Landers. Finally, one ship with Bombardment will go a long way. Most of the scenarios are all about Victory Points via Clusters and Critical Locations. Only a couple scenarios in the book use Kill Points- killing the enemy fleet. Those are the only scenarios where you can win by blowing up the enemy fleet.

I was really looking for a game more about space combat then rushing to a Cluster, landing ground forces, and letting them fight it out for ultimate victory in the game. I still like the game, and it is fun. I just don't know how a tournament will work with 1,500 points of ships and only 2.5-3 hours of play time for six turns. If it's a three round tournament, you could be looking at spending 10-12 hours at a game store.

 Tamwulf wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:
Played a game with the intro fleets (500p I think). First reaction: Jesus this game is complicated! There's so much to keep track up, from persistent damage effects that need rolling every turn down to damage on individual sectors, tables upon tables, and on top of this the core game mechanics are already quite complicated due to the number of different orders, all with differences in speed, turning, shooting etc, weapon ranges varying depending on what your opponents have been doing in the previous turns, etc. I mean it was fun and I enjoyed it but I almost got a headache from thinking. And we didn't even use any launch assets (fighters/bombers/missiles). And this was with about 7-8 ships per side, can't even imagine double or triple the amount! Am I too casual for this game?

I've had limited play experience, but I'll tell you that it only gets worse. Some of it is mitigated in the small ships with few hull points and not rolling on one of the damage tables. If you spread your fire power out doing a little bit of damage here and there, the game will take forever. Try to concentrate on a couple ships at a time.

When you add in the Launch Assets, it will just add a another phase to the game and make it take a bit longer.

One of the things that really caught me off guard was the ground combat. It's like an entire sub-game within the game. The more clusters and sectors on the table, the longer it takes. My initial reaction: You need at least two ships that can launch Drop Ships/cluster, along with at least one ship that can land Bulk Landers. Ideally, you should have one ship with fighters/bombers per group of Drop Ships/Landers. Finally, one ship with Bombardment will go a long way. Most of the scenarios are all about Victory Points via Clusters and Critical Locations. Only a couple scenarios in the book use Kill Points- killing the enemy fleet. Those are the only scenarios where you can win by blowing up the enemy fleet.

I was really looking for a game more about space combat then rushing to a Cluster, landing ground forces, and letting them fight it out for ultimate victory in the game. I still like the game, and it is fun. I just don't know how a tournament will work with 1,500 points of ships and only 2.5-3 hours of play time for six turns. If it's a three round tournament, you could be looking at spending 10-12 hours at a game store.

We played a game on Thursday night and it took a couple of hours at 1000pts but that's mainly because we were unfamiliar.

As space ship games go I would say its medium complexity and I would agree that the ground / orbital levels elements do add the complexity and time elements. The previous Space ship games we have played have a lot of similar rules (BattleFleet Gothic and ACTA) - both had a few more orders. If you do find this rule set complex avoid Star Fleet Battles!

I think it would work just fine as a "normal" space game in space and also agree would be quite happy to play games like this as much as the full game. Obviously your ships choice would be different but that's fine - Make sure plenty of cover for ships and go for it.

The bases are ok but we use dice for damage and counters for the rest - they are too fiddly. Ship cards are a must - I was hoping for official ones but have templates from previous games so will convert some of them.

Some odd design choices - ships with less than 4 hull points don't get crippled - makes void gates extra annoying and they are already bordering on broken IMO. You can't use your fighter assets to intercept bombers - rather than having them on Point defence - would rather they just remove bomber counters and themselves. Quick and easy and intuitive.

A few comments scattered about.

One think to keep in mind Nekooni, is that Lima Frigates are 'Rare' choices, which means in smaller points games, effectively you can only have a single group of them containing 1-2 frigates. I also believe that in smaller games (I don't have the book to hand right now, cause making dinner), you're only allowed a single Vanguard Battlegroup, but it can have up to 2 Heavy tonnage ships in it (EG my Avalon and my Moscow). The other thing is, at skirmish scale, you're only allowed 4 battlegroups total. In saying that, I haven't pointed up your list there to see whether it was skirmish (999) or Clash (1500-ish)

As for the Calypso, the thing with it is, it only nerfs the accuracy of one Weapon System once per turn, with a weapon system effectively a single 'line' on the weapons stats sheet. So a ship hits you with multiple particle lances, ONE of them gets a -1 to accuracy... Which for something like an Obsidian, means that it's hitting you just about as much as your typical PHR medium battery. Sure, a -1 accuracy is helpful, especially with burnthroughs. But dedicating an entire frigate to it, and it only helping once a turn? I'm not convinced. In saying that, I did include it in my list there anyways.

I've not tried out the Andromeda's yet, - I've only played the starter game with my PHR but I think the fighters would help at the very least discourage any Manticore / Wyvern style driveby's for them to convince to target another ship. But yeah, Pandora's do seem really neat and I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to include them instead.

I've got a good feeling about the Scipio, but yeah, the Bellerophon is really, really good. You could quite happily swap the Hector and Scipio in my list for a Bellerophon and Leonidas, maybe.
It's worth clarifying that the Leonidas has more HP than the Theseus. - In my starter game, my poor Theseus got one-shotted by a Moscow class.

 Compel wrote:
A few comments scattered about.

One think to keep in mind Nekooni, is that Lima Frigates are 'Rare' choices, which means in smaller points games, effectively you can only have a single group of them containing 1-2 frigates. I also believe that in smaller games (I don't have the book to hand right now, cause making dinner), you're only allowed a single Vanguard Battlegroup, but it can have up to 2 Heavy tonnage ships in it (EG my Avalon and my Moscow). The other thing is, at skirmish scale, you're only allowed 4 battlegroups total. In saying that, I haven't pointed up your list there to see whether it was skirmish (999) or Clash (1500-ish)

Sorry - I removed all the points cost, they're both Clash sized (right below 1500). You're correct for a Skirmish, I've pretty much maxed out on the Clash sized slots available on both fleets:

PHR: http://dflist.com/s/#/share/603f481537104
UCM: http://dflist.com/s/#/share/c74d481539191

 Compel wrote:
A few comments scattered about.

One think to keep in mind Nekooni, is that Lima Frigates are 'Rare' choices, which means in smaller points games, effectively you can only have a single group of them containing 1-2 frigates. I also believe that in smaller games (I don't have the book to hand right now, cause making dinner), you're only allowed a single Vanguard Battlegroup, but it can have up to 2 Heavy tonnage ships in it (EG my Avalon and my Moscow). The other thing is, at skirmish scale, you're only allowed 4 battlegroups total. In saying that, I haven't pointed up your list there to see whether it was skirmish (999) or Clash (1500-ish)

As for the Calypso, the thing with it is, it only nerfs the accuracy of one Weapon System once per turn, with a weapon system effectively a single 'line' on the weapons stats sheet. So a ship hits you with multiple particle lances, ONE of them gets a -1 to accuracy... Which for something like an Obsidian, means that it's hitting you just about as much as your typical PHR medium battery. Sure, a -1 accuracy is helpful, especially with burnthroughs. But dedicating an entire frigate to it, and it only helping once a turn? I'm not convinced. In saying that, I did include it in my list there anyways.

I've not tried out the Andromeda's yet, - I've only played the starter game with my PHR but I think the fighters would help at the very least discourage any Manticore / Wyvern style driveby's for them to convince to target another ship. But yeah, Pandora's do seem really neat and I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to include them instead.

I've got a good feeling about the Scipio, but yeah, the Bellerophon is really, really good. You could quite happily swap the Hector and Scipio in my list for a Bellerophon and Leonidas, maybe.
It's worth clarifying that the Leonidas has more HP than the Theseus. - In my starter game, my poor Theseus got one-shotted by a Moscow class.

I can only speak to PHR and im no expert only getting in 3 games in but ive tried a few things, and at least read as much material/reviews as I could

Over all, they are the "worst" of the 4.

The big issue, which is highly discussed on hawk forums is the broadsides are just crap. 1 or 2 turns of great shooting chance doesn't make up for the other 4 turns of not doing much. Most weapons not being good for Forward arc really cripples the faction. What the white sphere was thinking I cant imagine. Maybe the magic 8 ball is broken.

I am pretty sure Calypso is all of the ships weapons though. I don't have the book on me at the moment but thought RAW it was everything shot at it from a single ship. At least it also stacks, so doing it twice gives it 2 harder, etc.

Andromeda is really good if you take it in its own group of 4. It can swarm the enemy very quickly. I like them a lot. Still rather take Bellerophons but if you have space they fill it great. But only in big groups. 1 or 2 isn't going to do much

Pandora is also great. Big weapon on a little ship. These are also good to take in groups of 2-3. I haven't tried 4 of them but I want to. Flash is good to really light up the enemy.

It does feel mandatory to take 2 Bellerophons in any list. One of the best ships PHR can take.

I tried Leonidas, hes ok. Nothing amazing but his speed is good so it helps get him into position.

Hercules is really good, but I expect it as hes a battleship.

Still need to try more lists out before I fully give up on them til they are fixed, but as a whole they are disappointing.

Special Rule - Advanced ECM Suite: Once per turn, when a friendly ship within 4" is being targeted by an opponents weapon, you may add 1 to one weapons systems Lock value for the remained of the turn. In order to be affected, ships must be on the same orbital layer as the Calypso. In addition the calypso can choose to target itself. This is cumulative with other advanced ECM suites.

So to do it twice, you're needing two Calypso's, so spending near enough the points for a Theseus class...


I'm not sure what ship you're referring to when you say 'worst of the 4' - The Scipio? Or the PHR in general. I mean, yeah, my gut instinct is that the PHR are kind of the weakest, Andy Chambers still seems pretty confident with them though.

 Compel wrote:
Special Rule - Advanced ECM Suite: Once per turn, when a friendly ship within 4" is being targeted by an opponents weapon, you may add 1 to one weapons systems Lock value for the remained of the turn. In order to be affected, ships must be on the same orbital layer as the Calypso. In addition the calypso can choose to target itself. This is cumulative with other advanced ECM suites.

So to do it twice, you're needing two Calypso's, so spending near enough the points for a Theseus class...


I'm not sure what ship you're referring to when you say 'worst of the 4' - The Scipio? Or the PHR in general. I mean, yeah, my gut instinct is that the PHR are kind of the weakest, Andy Chambers still seems pretty confident with them though.

Hum, guess we played it wrong then. Its really horrible then... I mean its great to try to ruin an opponents Dark Matter Canna/ParticleTriad etc, but wow. Rather take more ships.

And yea, sorry I should have clarified. PHR is the weakest faction of the 4 at the moment.

Did Chambers post anywhere why he thinks they are still good.? Id love to know his testing data.

Like I said, one or two turns weapons free and people on either side of you is great, but it may only happen once or twice and your ships have to make it there and be able to live. 3+ Armor on everything is hardly a guarantee when so much is critting you.

Im pretty shocked the bigger ships don't have shields like the bigger walkers do in DZC.

My next idea is to take lots of ships and literally go straight ahead, being as aggressive as possible to try to get more side shots off

It was on the Facebook pages, possibly his own. Basically someone had written out a statistical chart of effectiveness of the various ships (I think the Sphinx won surprisingly).

str00dles1 wrote:

 Compel wrote:
Special Rule - Advanced ECM Suite: Once per turn, when a friendly ship within 4" is being targeted by an opponents weapon, you may add 1 to one weapons systems Lock value for the remained of the turn. In order to be affected, ships must be on the same orbital layer as the Calypso. In addition the calypso can choose to target itself. This is cumulative with other advanced ECM suites.

So to do it twice, you're needing two Calypso's, so spending near enough the points for a Theseus class...


I'm not sure what ship you're referring to when you say 'worst of the 4' - The Scipio? Or the PHR in general. I mean, yeah, my gut instinct is that the PHR are kind of the weakest, Andy Chambers still seems pretty confident with them though.

Hum, guess we played it wrong then. Its really horrible then... I mean its great to try to ruin an opponents Dark Matter Canna/ParticleTriad etc, but wow. Rather take more ships.

And yea, sorry I should have clarified. PHR is the weakest faction of the 4 at the moment.

Did Chambers post anywhere why he thinks they are still good.? Id love to know his testing data.

Like I said, one or two turns weapons free and people on either side of you is great, but it may only happen once or twice and your ships have to make it there and be able to live. 3+ Armor on everything is hardly a guarantee when so much is critting you.

Im pretty shocked the bigger ships don't have shields like the bigger walkers do in DZC.

My next idea is to take lots of ships and literally go straight ahead, being as aggressive as possible to try to get more side shots off

Yeah, I think going straight at the enemy might be a solution.

Bellerophons and Scipios can deal all their damage without going weapons free ever, and they're tough. Slap Calypsos to their sides and they're even tougher.
Orpheus' are also lending well to an aggressive style, same with Europas and Pandoras.

Maybe something like this? http://dflist.com/s/#/share/25f3481574244

I'm not a fan of the Ajax myself, I tend to feel like you might as well try to rejig points to get another Orpheus instead. But since you have 2 already in that list, maybe an Orion? Lots of points tweaking needed though.

 Compel wrote:
At the 999 point level, I think you can take the battlecruisers, if you're not taking the heavy cruiser. - Broadly speaking.

It depends though. PHR Battlecruisers can be seen as 'better' Light Cruisers rather than 'better' Heavy Cruisers. So I could foresee a list that had a Leonidas but no Theseus.

I think 5-8 Fighters/Bombers is quite a lot, for the UCM at least. - That would mean taking 2 Seattles minimum, which seems like a lot.

Well I was thinking Atlantis + Seattle as a Vanguard group, maybe with some Toulons in escort for extra railguns. It would be a costly unit, but very punchy once it opens up. I don't want to make my fleets too specialized just yet though.

 Compel wrote:
I'm not a fan of the Ajax myself, I tend to feel like you might as well try to rejig points to get another Orpheus instead. But since you have 2 already in that list, maybe an Orion? Lots of points tweaking needed though.

Yeah, it's a bit slow - I've swapped the Ajax and 2 Europas for two Theseus, but I gotta say I'm not that convinced. But the Theseus are as fast as the Europas and more flexible, so I guess that could work out fine.

You probably need to read the article Andy references first for context. I tried, it gave me a headache.

Andy Chambers" wrote wrote:The Crunchy bits
I was enjoying reading Adrian Beale’s blog where he does some number crunching on the ships from Dropfleet Commander: https://dzcau.wordpress.com/2016/12/06/standard-cruiser-damage-output/
The point he’s making is that contrary to current thinking the damage output for cruisers of one faction, the Post Human Republic, are equal to the others despite appearances. There’s also some good debate in the comments countering the refutation etc.
My first thoughts were ‘well of course they balance out in theory, I did the theory too’ but then it struck me that Adrian doesn’t know that, nobody knows that because I don’t talk about the crunchy bits very often, by which I mean numbers.
I’m no mathematician but back in the day Jervis Johnson taught me the value in rendering things into cold, hard statistics. It won’t tell the whole story of how a unit will work in a game, but it gives a solid and common starting point for comparing one thing against another even when they aren’t really the same.
So in this example for Dropfleet Commander I actually kept little damage output tables for the different ship designs we had in mind to ensure that I had a clear idea of how fighty they were. Here’s a fairly late one for the UCM Rio class cruiser:
1 Sys Max Avg Crit Close
2.56 8.0 4.56 24% +2.25
Note I haven’t checked this one against the current stats so it might be out of date.
‘1 Sys’ is firing one weapon system only, assuming the best one. ‘Max’ is best possible on Weapons Free orders, ‘Avg’ is what you’ll get with average rolls on Weapons Free, ‘Close’ is the average bonus damage for close action weapons when within scan range.
This was a useful guide when it came to looking at points values as well as general balancing. Dropfleet Commander went through a lot of tuning during its development. Early on cruisers used to have less hits (8) and their guns were on average one point less potent (say hitting on 4+ in the old and 3+ in the newer versions). Energy spikes were also +2-3” each but you accumulated an unlimited number of them until you shed them by silent running (i.e. never as we discovered in testing).
We ended up changing things because it felt like shooting could often be ineffectual and bringing in better hit rolls also made for more critical hits (very important because they bypass armour) so more action happening. To compensate the ships gained some extra hull points, although not enough to turn things back into a slugfest. Through the course of such relatively (on paper) minor tweaking the damage output changes were useful to track.
Naturally the raw damage output doesn’t tell the whole story of ship’s usefulness. It misses a lot of the nuances in the balance between speed, armour, hull, sensor range and fire arcs, let alone special capabilities like launching strike craft or bombardment capability in a ground-objective oriented game. It’s just a starting point and the rest of the game balance (in terms of unit stats) can be built out from there.
It’s perhaps worth noting that at the outset I statted up ships purely for what ‘felt right’ rather than in accordance with a pre-planned scheme, the numbers were a little off as testing showed (too conservative) but easily adjusted later. Morale of the story; don’t be afraid to mess with your initial stats, but do try and keep track of what you’re doing.

 Compel wrote:
Special Rule - Advanced ECM Suite: Once per turn, when a friendly ship within 4" is being targeted by an opponents weapon, you may add 1 to one weapons systems Lock value for the remained of the turn. In order to be affected, ships must be on the same orbital layer as the Calypso. In addition the calypso can choose to target itself. This is cumulative with other advanced ECM suites.

So to do it twice, you're needing two Calypso's, so spending near enough the points for a Theseus class...


I'm not sure what ship you're referring to when you say 'worst of the 4' - The Scipio? Or the PHR in general. I mean, yeah, my gut instinct is that the PHR are kind of the weakest, Andy Chambers still seems pretty confident with them though.

Now here's an important question, how does ECM work with Linked systems?

Linked only counts as the same weapon system for 'activation purposes' - so ECM would only affect one of them.

str00dles1 wrote:

 Compel wrote:
A few comments scattered about.

One think to keep in mind Nekooni, is that Lima Frigates are 'Rare' choices, which means in smaller points games, effectively you can only have a single group of them containing 1-2 frigates. I also believe that in smaller games (I don't have the book to hand right now, cause making dinner), you're only allowed a single Vanguard Battlegroup, but it can have up to 2 Heavy tonnage ships in it (EG my Avalon and my Moscow). The other thing is, at skirmish scale, you're only allowed 4 battlegroups total. In saying that, I haven't pointed up your list there to see whether it was skirmish (999) or Clash (1500-ish)

As for the Calypso, the thing with it is, it only nerfs the accuracy of one Weapon System once per turn, with a weapon system effectively a single 'line' on the weapons stats sheet. So a ship hits you with multiple particle lances, ONE of them gets a -1 to accuracy... Which for something like an Obsidian, means that it's hitting you just about as much as your typical PHR medium battery. Sure, a -1 accuracy is helpful, especially with burnthroughs. But dedicating an entire frigate to it, and it only helping once a turn? I'm not convinced. In saying that, I did include it in my list there anyways.

I've not tried out the Andromeda's yet, - I've only played the starter game with my PHR but I think the fighters would help at the very least discourage any Manticore / Wyvern style driveby's for them to convince to target another ship. But yeah, Pandora's do seem really neat and I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to include them instead.

I've got a good feeling about the Scipio, but yeah, the Bellerophon is really, really good. You could quite happily swap the Hector and Scipio in my list for a Bellerophon and Leonidas, maybe.
It's worth clarifying that the Leonidas has more HP than the Theseus. - In my starter game, my poor Theseus got one-shotted by a Moscow class.

I can only speak to PHR and im no expert only getting in 3 games in but ive tried a few things, and at least read as much material/reviews as I could

Over all, they are the "worst" of the 4.

The big issue, which is highly discussed on hawk forums is the broadsides are just crap. 1 or 2 turns of great shooting chance doesn't make up for the other 4 turns of not doing much. Most weapons not being good for Forward arc really cripples the faction. What the white sphere was thinking I cant imagine. Maybe the magic 8 ball is broken.

I am pretty sure Calypso is all of the ships weapons though. I don't have the book on me at the moment but thought RAW it was everything shot at it from a single ship. At least it also stacks, so doing it twice gives it 2 harder, etc.

Andromeda is really good if you take it in its own group of 4. It can swarm the enemy very quickly. I like them a lot. Still rather take Bellerophons but if you have space they fill it great. But only in big groups. 1 or 2 isn't going to do much

Pandora is also great. Big weapon on a little ship. These are also good to take in groups of 2-3. I haven't tried 4 of them but I want to. Flash is good to really light up the enemy.

It does feel mandatory to take 2 Bellerophons in any list. One of the best ships PHR can take.

I tried Leonidas, hes ok. Nothing amazing but his speed is good so it helps get him into position.

Hercules is really good, but I expect it as hes a battleship.

Still need to try more lists out before I fully give up on them til they are fixed, but as a whole they are disappointing.

Have to disagree, I think PHR are one of the better factions, maybe a little more difficult to use effectively but definitely deadly when done right.

First you need to remember that as you've not got any forward facing weapons worth mentioning you might as well just stay on silent running for the first two turns, this massively limits the oppositions chances of doing any damage to you before you are in position anyway as they cannot shot what they cannot see. Second, split the force between upper and lower orbit - you can always swing it back around on turn three when you're ready to smash the opposition apart, this'll force your opponent to split his fire or to shoot between layers increasing your chances of surviving if he does manage to get any shots off.

This should get you into the middle by turn three with a near complete fleet, then you just open up with the broadsides and watch as your opposition tries to handle your damage output.

Only one I struggled with with this plan is the Shaltari due to their huge scan, in that case I've found all ahead full in the first turn to be a god send. It means they only get one turn of shooting before you are in the middle of them all, and the fact most of their guns are F(N) means once you get past them your broadsides are a huge benefit as you just 'dance' around in a circle whilst they try bring their guns into arc.

In short, yes the PHR are different to most factions in that you need to think how you are going to get in position, but I'd not say they are weak.

Got to play with the Starter Fleets now (UCM v PHR) and yes, the Broadsides are much harder to use than say the UCMs turret batteries. The starter sadly uses a Hector instead of a Bellerophone, and it wasn't THAT effective. Got two lucky high-crit capped burnthroughs off, but couldn't utilize the broadsides on it at all. The Belle would've done a much better job I'm sure. The Europas impressed me, managed to get them wedged in between the enemies Seattle and Berlin, their broadsides do a ton of damage once both sides are firing - and they're pretty tough. Having to deal 3 damage on 3+ armor makes quite a difference when comparing them to the other gun frigates.

Over all I'd say - even having lost - that the PHR should be doing fine. Moving is even more important to them, and I don't think all the classes are equally valid - you gotta play to the factions strengths.

Played more PHR games.

Still consider them the weakest. They have a great air game, and a great ground game, but their damage power and staying power just isn't there. Which seems odd as they have the most HP and all 3+ armor. But all factions are cheaper then them, so your mostly always outnumbered.

This game is all about critical. How many can you do. PHR mostly standard is 4/6 where other races are mostly 3/5

They do have some good ships, but the lack of doing any damage or any effective damage for a solid 3-4 turns is just bad.

I did try the silent running first two turns, which did help, but to get into position where you can weapons free doesn't happen very often if you are play any bit competent opponent. They realize that's all your trying to do, so they can avoid it most often, while shooting their fronts at you. By the time you do get your double sides off, you get maybe a turn with only a few ships of doing it, before the opponent flies past you and your out of position again.

This also seems to be the general consensus. On FB, in Hawk forums, while people like them and their are about the most popular selling faction (least according to MM and Warstore) they are weakest out of the three.

I have all hopes though that Hawk will be fixing them as they care about game balance.

str00dles1 wrote:


I did try the silent running first two turns, which did help, but to get into position where you can weapons free doesn't happen very often if you are play any bit competent opponent. They realize that's all your trying to do, so they can avoid it most often, while shooting their fronts at you. By the time you do get your double sides off, you get maybe a turn with only a few ships of doing it, before the opponent flies past you and your out of position again.

With the exception of Shaltari you have the range on all other factions, if you're on silent running then you should be able to get your broadsides in range of the other ships BEFORE they get their front arc in range of you (and to get you out of silent running they have to active scan which gives them a major spike). Remember that the PHR don't do very well going head on, the side arcs mean you do much better spaced out, forcing the enemy to move their ships into arc.

Maybe it's different play styles, but I find PHR to be the strongest faction personally.

Would going frigate heavy help? I've come up with a list for that, any thoughts?

997/999 Skirmish

2x Pathfinder: 4 Europas each at SR4
1x Line: 1 Orpheus & 2 Medeas at SR7
1x Vanguard: 1 Bellerophon, 4 Pandoras & 1 Theseus at SR19

Not sure where else to stick the Theseus, that way I'd just let it roam free. Still thinking about dropping one Pandora to upgrade the Theseus to a proper cruiser, too.

Any thoughts on dropping the Theseus and two Pandoras for another Belle?

The only bad thing about frigate heavy is the cascading exploding damage that can occur. Fig 1 blows up and causes 2 damage to next fig w/in 3, crippling it. Then is takes a crit and explodes causing damage to the next one. I know it wont happen every time, but in my 3 games I've seen it happen multiple times.

 FeindusMaximus wrote:
The only bad thing about frigate heavy is the cascading exploding damage that can occur. Fig 1 blows up and causes 2 damage to next fig w/in 3, crippling it. Then is takes a crit and explodes causing damage to the next one. I know it wont happen every time, but in my 3 games I've seen it happen multiple times.

That is annoying - especially since 3HP ships don't get crippled for no apparent reason when 4HP do.

 FeindusMaximus wrote:
The only bad thing about frigate heavy is the cascading exploding damage that can occur. Fig 1 blows up and causes 2 damage to next fig w/in 3, crippling it. Then is takes a crit and explodes causing damage to the next one. I know it wont happen every time, but in my 3 games I've seen it happen multiple times.

Did it happen with PHR frigs though? It shouldn't happen all that often for them - PHR frigs got 5 HP so you'll need 3 damage to cascade. And they have 3+ armor which will prevent 2/3 of the damage unless it's critical (no save allowed).

Oh - and spacing your frigates is really important. Frigates blow up D3 inches, so if you keep them as far apart as possible that'll also reduce the risk of cascading damage a lot.

Stranger83 wrote:


With the exception of Shaltari you have the range on all other factions, if you're on silent running then you should be able to get your broadsides in range of the other ships BEFORE they get their front arc in range of you (and to get you out of silent running they have to active scan which gives them a major spike). Remember that the PHR don't do very well going head on, the side arcs mean you do much better spaced out, forcing the enemy to move their ships into arc.

Maybe it's different play styles, but I find PHR to be the strongest faction personally.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but that could really do with a picture / diagram, I'm kinda confuddled.

Stranger83 wrote:
With the exception of Shaltari you have the range on all other factions, if you're on silent running then you should be able to get your broadsides in range of the other ships BEFORE they get their front arc in range of you (and to get you out of silent running they have to active scan which gives them a major spike). Remember that the PHR don't do very well going head on, the side arcs mean you do much better spaced out, forcing the enemy to move their ships into arc.

Maybe it's different play styles, but I find PHR to be the strongest faction personally.

Sounds like the Firestorm equivalent of Relthoza Cloaking mixed with Sorylian weapon focus, almost.

 Compel wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:


With the exception of Shaltari you have the range on all other factions, if you're on silent running then you should be able to get your broadsides in range of the other ships BEFORE they get their front arc in range of you (and to get you out of silent running they have to active scan which gives them a major spike). Remember that the PHR don't do very well going head on, the side arcs mean you do much better spaced out, forcing the enemy to move their ships into arc.

Maybe it's different play styles, but I find PHR to be the strongest faction personally.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but that could really do with a picture / diagram, I'm kinda confuddled.

Not the best of images I admit, as I knocked it up in 30 seconds, but you can see that the attached image that the two opposition ships have moved up the same distance on the table, but the PHR ship is able to shoot at the one that it hasn't gone head on against (as it's in side arc), whilst it isn't able to shoot the one it has gone head on against (as it's in front arc). This is the key for PHR, you need to not fall into the trap of closing head on as it plays to the opposition strength, spread your fleet out and you should always be able to draw a line to something.

I think too many people take them head on in the hopes of getting a weapons free in turn two/three - the problem with this is that three turns of shooting from one side = more shots that 1 turn of shooting from both sides.

Edit to add image 2, this one shows the effect plan better. Whilst the green ship will be able to weapons free on both ships in a future turn you can see that the two red ships are both able to shoot the opposition on all turns due to being spaced out, and as I said three turns of shooting from 1 side = more shots than 1 turn of shooting from both sides (again, a very rough image so forgive the really bad arc lines - but you hopefully get the point)

Stranger83 wrote:

With the exception of Shaltari you have the range on all other factions, if you're on silent running then you should be able to get your broadsides in range of the other ships BEFORE they get their front arc in range of you (and to get you out of silent running they have to active scan which gives them a major spike). Remember that the PHR don't do very well going head on, the side arcs mean you do much better spaced out, forcing the enemy to move their ships into arc.

The problem with this is that it will give you opponent at least 1 turn of unopposed troopship deployment, thats a huge drawback.

With my own PHR I am planning on going strike craft heavy.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:

With the exception of Shaltari you have the range on all other factions, if you're on silent running then you should be able to get your broadsides in range of the other ships BEFORE they get their front arc in range of you (and to get you out of silent running they have to active scan which gives them a major spike). Remember that the PHR don't do very well going head on, the side arcs mean you do much better spaced out, forcing the enemy to move their ships into arc.

The problem with this is that it will give you opponent at least 1 turn of unopposed troopship deployment, thats a huge drawback.

With my own PHR I am planning on going strike craft heavy.

Not really, silent running doesn't hinder your speed at all so you can still get into position at the same time, once you're in range to open up obviously you stop silent running - it just allows you to get your broadsides in range without being shot to pieces by the oppositions front facing fire.

Plus, PHR have pretty much the best bombardment ships in the game as they are also the troop ships - I'm generally not too bothered if the opposition gets to the sector first as I'm usually able to clear them off the sector with the bombardment before I start to drop my own troops. I prefer the Ganymede for precisely this reason, though I suppose if you take the gun troopship, I forget it's name, this does mean you'd need to alter the plan a little.

Strike craft heavy is good (PHR do have the best in the game IMO) but it also what people expect if they are playing PHR, seems everyone is going that way. Nothing funnier than having your opponent take 4 of the Aegis frigates as he knows he would be playing PHR and then turn up with no bombers meaning he just wasted a buttload of points.

Stranger83 wrote:

Not really, silent running doesn't hinder your speed at all

It does as you won't be using full thrust.

PHR troopship bombardment haven't been an issue for me as they tend to get cut in half at around the time they reach a cluster

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:

Not really, silent running doesn't hinder your speed at all

It does as you won't be using full thrust.

PHR troopship bombardment haven't been an issue for me as they tend to get cut in half at around the time they reach a cluster

Ah, well yes, if your opponent wanted to full thrust then yes they'd get their earlier - but then of cause they have put a major spike on their force giving you the perfect opportunity to turn side on and blast away whilst out of range of reprisal.

If you lose all the troop ships before they get to the cluster then yes you don't need to worry about being bombarded, but with a scan of 8" they really should be bombarding before they can be shot at by anything except Shaltari as nothing else has range to hit them before they start firing - unless your crazy enough to full thrust the troopships but that's just a recipe for disaster!

I promise when tourneys come out, if they are not fixed in some way, you will not see PHR anywhere near the top.. IF you do, it will be mass launch assets and as much burn through lasers as possible.

the problem with your pics is/ strat is you cant figure in the opponent. Anyone who plays this game knows you not let PHR get right up between you. They are very easy to out maneuver with the other 3 races.

Turning sideways doesn't work. Ive tried it a few times. Your still being pinged to death to be Red and lit up from weapons free forward facing attacks, while you try to hold your own with crappy single side cannons.

Check out top pick rates on DF list

Light

Media - Troppship duh
Europa - Linked so doesent need to weapons free
Pandora - BTL weapon

Med
Gaymede - troopship and bombard
Ikarus - A front gun and carrier
Theseus - dirt cheap for what it "could" do. Chances are it might get 1 weapons free chance a game, but only being 9 hull means a quick death. Still its worth 89 pts

Heavy
Belleorphon BTL and 4 carrier, amazing ship
Hector - Shocker twin BTL and side options
Leonidas - Linked guns, so at least your side is a lot of shots. Still I dont like the ship personally.

Super
Herc more then minos, cause its Dark Cannon is second best gun in the game

The theme? Air and either cheap cheap sides or BTL. Why? Because that's good for them. The side cannons, right now suck because they don't pull their weight like front facing does. I will say it a million times. the game is about crits. You have a 3+ to hit, its vastly better then a 4+ as your hitting more and critting, bypassing the 3+ armor

str00dles1 wrote:
I promise when tourneys come out, if they are not fixed in some way, you will not see PHR anywhere near the top.. IF you do, it will be mass launch assets and as much burn through lasers as possible.

the problem with your pics is/ strat is you cant figure in the opponent. Anyone who plays this game knows you not let PHR get right up between you. They are very easy to out maneuver with the other 3 races.

Which is exactly what I was showing, so what you should do is split the fleet up and focus on more turns of one side shooting as opposed to 1 turn of weapons free from both.

We’re obviously gonna disagree on this, but I’ve played about 14 games so far, won 12 and the two I lost have been really close. I’m just not seeing PHR as being underpowered at the moment, more difficult to use ‘right’ sure but definitely powerful when they are.

Stranger83 wrote:

Ah, well yes, if your opponent wanted to full thrust then yes they'd get their earlier - but then of cause they have put a major spike on their force giving you the perfect opportunity to turn side on and blast away whilst out of range of reprisal.

Only Shaltari have the scan range to reliably get in range, I always full thrust my troopships

For opposing troopships I have my Lima and Avalon combo....

Stranger83 wrote:

str00dles1 wrote:
I promise when tourneys come out, if they are not fixed in some way, you will not see PHR anywhere near the top.. IF you do, it will be mass launch assets and as much burn through lasers as possible.

the problem with your pics is/ strat is you cant figure in the opponent. Anyone who plays this game knows you not let PHR get right up between you. They are very easy to out maneuver with the other 3 races.

Which is exactly what I was showing, so what you should do is split the fleet up and focus on more turns of one side shooting as opposed to 1 turn of weapons free from both.

We’re obviously gonna disagree on this, but I’ve played about 14 games so far, won 12 and the two I lost have been really close. I’m just not seeing PHR as being underpowered at the moment, more difficult to use ‘right’ sure but definitely powerful when they are.

But that's my point. Multiple turns of shooting mediocre side guns does not make up for them shooting weapons free at your fleet turns before you do. It math wise just doesn't work. Your single side guns do not match weapons free of the other races front guns. We are not going to agree, but theres many more people who are vastly disappointed with PHR then happy with them. To which i'll keep voicing it in hopes Hawk changes them

str00dles1 wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:

str00dles1 wrote:
I promise when tourneys come out, if they are not fixed in some way, you will not see PHR anywhere near the top.. IF you do, it will be mass launch assets and as much burn through lasers as possible.

the problem with your pics is/ strat is you cant figure in the opponent. Anyone who plays this game knows you not let PHR get right up between you. They are very easy to out maneuver with the other 3 races.

Which is exactly what I was showing, so what you should do is split the fleet up and focus on more turns of one side shooting as opposed to 1 turn of weapons free from both.

We’re obviously gonna disagree on this, but I’ve played about 14 games so far, won 12 and the two I lost have been really close. I’m just not seeing PHR as being underpowered at the moment, more difficult to use ‘right’ sure but definitely powerful when they are.

But that's my point. Multiple turns of shooting mediocre side guns does not make up for them shooting weapons free at your fleet turns before you do. It math wise just doesn't work. Your single side guns do not match weapons free of the other races front guns. We are not going to agree, but theres many more people who are vastly disappointed with PHR then happy with them. To which i'll keep voicing it in hopes Hawk changes them

But their not going weapons free - by spreading out you are forcing yourself into their side arcs, which means they cannot bring all their guns onto you. With PHR you need to play to your strengths much more than any of the other factions.

It's not a play style to everybodys flavour, positioning and keeping out of the enemy front arc whilst maximising your sides is the name of the game with the PHR - but I think that they currently play exactly like Hawk expect them to. If you want to charge up the middle with all guns firing then UCM are probably the faction for you.

And I still don't see how they are shooting you 'turns' before you are shooting them. They shouldn't be able to shoot more than 6" range until you are in position without forcing themselves to light up like a Christmas tree (and also stopping themselves going weapons free as you can only do 1 order a turn). As an honest question can you explain what I'm missing that is allowing your opponents to get these multiple rounds of shooting at weapons free on you before you can even react?

Thanks for the pictures!

There's always the active scanning frigate situation to take account of, as well as the UCM being a faction that's typically based around turrets.

It's also potentially just the sheer trickiness of it all. Your also needing to take into account a potential 45 degree turn at the start of their move, followed by a half speed movement.

I'm not saying what you're suggesting is wrong, however I suppose the way to think of it is, of your doing all this stuff and you're doing it successfully in a way to compete with your opponent it already suggests your personal skill level is way higher than theirs, therefore you'd be way more successful if you just picked another faction.

 Compel wrote:
Thanks for the pictures!

There's always the active scanning frigate situation to take account of, as well as the UCM being a faction that's typically based around turrets.

It's also potentially just the sheer trickiness of it all. Your also needing to take into account a potential 45 degree turn at the start of their move, followed by a half speed movement.

All true, though it you do get them to start splitting up their force to come after your ships you're already starting to break up their battle plan - always good if you can get them to react to you rather than the other way around. And yes, the UCM frigate is definitely something you need to be mindful of - but it is rare so you're not going to face too many and at least it's one less combat or troop ship you need to worry about.

 Compel wrote:

I'm not saying what you're suggesting is wrong, however I suppose the way to think of it is, of your doing all this stuff and you're doing it successfully in a way to compete with your opponent it already suggests your personal skill level is way higher than theirs, therefore you'd be way more successful if you just picked another faction.

Possibly true, but I prefer the PHR style of play, which I guess is the point I'm trying to make. They aren't 'weak' they just have a different style of play to other factions, which is kind of the point or you just end up with 4 factions that play the same but with different style ships.

There is nothing wrong with going hyper aggressive, but really Scourge excel for that. Nothing wrong with floating in all guns blazing, but UCM excel for that. Nothing wrong with sitting back and blasting away whilst out of range, but Shaltari excel for that. With PHR you've chosen the 'Get around you're sides we are better than you' faction and that's what you should be focusing on, to say they are weak because they aren't as good as what other factions are supposed to excel at just seems strange to me, and indicates you may have chosen the wrong faction.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:

Ah, well yes, if your opponent wanted to full thrust then yes they'd get their earlier - but then of cause they have put a major spike on their force giving you the perfect opportunity to turn side on and blast away whilst out of range of reprisal.

Only Shaltari have the scan range to reliably get in range, I always full thrust my troopships

Are you sure on that?

Assuming a 48" standard table width lets make some conservative assumptions.

Turn 1
Opponent moves his ship on 7" in turn 1, most ships will move more than this but it's a good low end figure to work from
You then flat out your troop ship 14" in turn 1, giving you a major spike

There is now 27" between the two ships

Turn 2
The opposition moves his ship forward 7" again, there are now 20" between the two ships

Lets assume you have the worst scan possible of 6" and that you are Shaltari (I assume you're not as you mention troop ships) with the best signature of 3", plus a major spike of 12". This given a shooting range of 21", meaning they are in range by 1", so from turn 2 I'd be shooting your troop ships even if we work on the worst possible distances in the game.

Ok, fair enough this is assuming we are facing head on, but it's also based on the best possible situation with scan/signature, against PHR and Scourge you'd be in range with 6" to spare!

Stranger83 wrote:

str00dles1 wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:

str00dles1 wrote:
I promise when tourneys come out, if they are not fixed in some way, you will not see PHR anywhere near the top.. IF you do, it will be mass launch assets and as much burn through lasers as possible.

the problem with your pics is/ strat is you cant figure in the opponent. Anyone who plays this game knows you not let PHR get right up between you. They are very easy to out maneuver with the other 3 races.

Which is exactly what I was showing, so what you should do is split the fleet up and focus on more turns of one side shooting as opposed to 1 turn of weapons free from both.

We’re obviously gonna disagree on this, but I’ve played about 14 games so far, won 12 and the two I lost have been really close. I’m just not seeing PHR as being underpowered at the moment, more difficult to use ‘right’ sure but definitely powerful when they are.

But that's my point. Multiple turns of shooting mediocre side guns does not make up for them shooting weapons free at your fleet turns before you do. It math wise just doesn't work. Your single side guns do not match weapons free of the other races front guns. We are not going to agree, but theres many more people who are vastly disappointed with PHR then happy with them. To which i'll keep voicing it in hopes Hawk changes them

But their not going weapons free - by spreading out you are forcing yourself into their side arcs, which means they cannot bring all their guns onto you. With PHR you need to play to your strengths much more than any of the other factions.

It's not a play style to everybodys flavour, positioning and keeping out of the enemy front arc whilst maximising your sides is the name of the game with the PHR - but I think that they currently play exactly like Hawk expect them to. If you want to charge up the middle with all guns firing then UCM are probably the faction for you.

And I still don't see how they are shooting you 'turns' before you are shooting them. They shouldn't be able to shoot more than 6" range until you are in position without forcing themselves to light up like a Christmas tree (and also stopping themselves going weapons free as you can only do 1 order a turn). As an honest question can you explain what I'm missing that is allowing your opponents to get these multiple rounds of shooting at weapons free on you before you can even react?

Theres tons of math posts on hawk proving the broadsides are not that good at all. Not as horrible as particle cannons currently, but close.

Your missing the point also if it being objective based. Your not going to pull them away and split them up. They need to go to the objectives just like you do. Even if you silent run, you can be pinged to death and lit up . Turn two they can light you up and start shooting. You can only return fire if you also play the ping war and have burnthrough lasers.

The full intent is having best armor and most hp, getting in the middle and blasting away. Which is a cool and good idea (though stupid in the far future tactics wise but I digress) but in actual game play, it doesn't work. If you like them that's fine, but don't say anything about how people are not playing them correctly or "the right way to play them is" because people have tried it. Your opponent (provided they are competent) knows exactly where you will be going and what your trying to do, so it is easy for them to react and prevent that.

PHR need fixed. Bottom line. I enjoy the game a lot, but I wont be playing my 3k+ points worth of PHR until then

Stranger83 wrote:

You then flat out your troop ship 14" in turn 1, giving you a major spike

I don't move flat out, I move enough to get within 6" of a sector on turn 2 and my troopships activate last on turn 1 which makes it difficult to predict where they will go. So far they haven't received effective fire before turn 3.

This doesn't work against Shaltari though

Ah, we’re talking about sectors/spaceships that are quite far into your own deployment half – fair enough then, though in that case I’d argue that the fact you are getting there before me isn’t THAT much of a thing I should be worried about, if it’s something that is in your half of the table I’d be expecting you to get there first anyway.

Keeping in mind the idea that half way up the table is 24” and you want to get there by turn 2. With a 6” drop you need to be 18” up the table by the end of turn two if you want to get to a sector that is ‘half way’. You’d be looking at an 11” move from your max thrust in turn one which with anything other than Shaltari still puts you in a potential danger zone, though admittedly a limited one. (Scan/sig + major spike usually adds 24” so your opponent would have need to have moved 9” in turn 1, 7” for PHR. -2” if you play as Scourge)

Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t do it, just that it has an element of risk involved.

EDIT, my numbers are a little off, your opponent would need to have moved 13" in turn 1, or 11" for PHR. You therefore probably can make this and JUST be out of range from being shot in turn 2 if you get the distance just right, which is something I've just learned so is good to know.

They need to go to the objectives just like you do. Even if you silent run, you can be pinged to death and lit up

Just on that - its not certain you can break the run Silent - you haev to roll 4+ and then all you do is take the roder away - you don;t give it a spike.(p43) - and you def get a major spike.

Only played a few games but frigates behind terrain are good for scanning.

I did not realise quite how complex the whole secetors stuff is which is a little off putting.

Stranger83 wrote:
You therefore probably can make this and JUST be out of range from being shot in turn 2 if you get the distance just right, which is something I've just learned so is good to know.

If I get a troopship to a cluster first I will be deploying a defense battery which is a huge advantage for subsequent turns, not to mention an extra turn of troop deployment if the troopship manages to survive into turn 3. Basically if a troopship gets to a cluster uncontested it will probably not be lost throughout the game (without concerted and disproportionate effort on the part of the opponent).

That and it doesn't need to be the Lima frigate that's doing the active scanning.

Any frigate squadron on the first turn could quite happily have the furthest back ship active scan. - Sure, that one frigate might immediately die, but who cares? Heck, even two or 3 frigates, each from a different group or battlegroup might as well do it against a single ship if it means 1 turn KOing a troop transport, it's worth the sacrifice.

 Mr Morden wrote:

They need to go to the objectives just like you do. Even if you silent run, you can be pinged to death and lit up

Just on that - its not certain you can break the run Silent - you haev to roll 4+ and then all you do is take the roder away - you don;t give it a spike.(p43) - and you def get a major spike.

Only played a few games but frigates behind terrain are good for scanning.

I did not realise quite how complex the whole secetors stuff is which is a little off putting.

But its well worth it to do that if you can fire forwards. Its a frigate. A cheap few shots ship that's only purpose is to scan usually, and if ignored, can cause some damage if it swarms.

Stat wise, 2 Limas take a ship out of Silent. Then another Frigate in the group can scan it for yellow, then another group can scan it for red. Granted, your hard pressed to be able to hit turn one phr unless you double moved, but if you get to go first next turn, your going to smash that red ship. This can affect all races, but PHR don't have that option to really return fire, unless you have lots of BTL, which is the only way to play them currently. Mass BTL

str00dles1 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

They need to go to the objectives just like you do. Even if you silent run, you can be pinged to death and lit up

Just on that - its not certain you can break the run Silent - you haev to roll 4+ and then all you do is take the roder away - you don;t give it a spike.(p43) - and you def get a major spike.

Only played a few games but frigates behind terrain are good for scanning.

I did not realise quite how complex the whole secetors stuff is which is a little off putting.

But its well worth it to do that if you can fire forwards. Its a frigate. A cheap few shots ship that's only purpose is to scan usually, and if ignored, can cause some damage if it swarms.

Stat wise, 2 Limas take a ship out of Silent. Then another Frigate in the group can scan it for yellow, then another group can scan it for red. Granted, your hard pressed to be able to hit turn one phr unless you double moved, but if you get to go first next turn, your going to smash that red ship. This can affect all races, but PHR don't have that option to really return fire, unless you have lots of BTL, which is the only way to play them currently. Mass BTL

Can you active scan with non detector ship in the same group as a Detector ship that has already scanned or vice versa - can you active scan with a detector if a non dector in the group has laready scanned.

Detector allows you to scan regardless if the group is on other orders and any number of Dectors can scan but can both Dectors and non Detectors in a group Active Scan in the same activation or does it depend on the order you activate them?

 Mr Morden wrote:

str00dles1 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

They need to go to the objectives just like you do. Even if you silent run, you can be pinged to death and lit up

Just on that - its not certain you can break the run Silent - you haev to roll 4+ and then all you do is take the roder away - you don;t give it a spike.(p43) - and you def get a major spike.

Only played a few games but frigates behind terrain are good for scanning.

I did not realise quite how complex the whole secetors stuff is which is a little off putting.

But its well worth it to do that if you can fire forwards. Its a frigate. A cheap few shots ship that's only purpose is to scan usually, and if ignored, can cause some damage if it swarms.

Stat wise, 2 Limas take a ship out of Silent. Then another Frigate in the group can scan it for yellow, then another group can scan it for red. Granted, your hard pressed to be able to hit turn one phr unless you double moved, but if you get to go first next turn, your going to smash that red ship. This can affect all races, but PHR don't have that option to really return fire, unless you have lots of BTL, which is the only way to play them currently. Mass BTL

Can you active scan with non detector ship in the same group as a Detector ship that has already scanned or vice versa - can you active scan with a detector if a non dector in the group has laready scanned.

Detector allows you to scan regardless if the group is on other orders and any number of Dectors can scan but can both Dectors and non Detectors in a group Active Scan in the same activation or does it depend on the order you activate them?

Every group can scan, and by group I mean how the battle group is broken into.

Lets say In my battlegroup (card) I have 2 Hectors and 2 Medea's. In this battlegroup I can scan 4 times. Hector is G1, and Medea is 1-2. I can choose to put both Medeas in a single "group" of 2 or leave them as each their own group of 1 and 1. If I leave them as a group of two, I can then only scan 3 times.

In your example its the same. It states as the last sentence "Every Detector ship in a group may active scan, not just one"

Why that is important is for the above example. If I wanted to scan 4 times, I need my Medea I separate groups. Detector lets you keep them in a group.

The big reason why some need to be in groups is to maintain coherency with the others in the group.

Might seem confusing, but think of it as Battlegrouop your Card with its total tonnage, and your groups, the sections you split out in the battlegroup. They act as one, but one group at a time moves and fires, then the next on the card.

Realistically, there is no reason to take 2 Lima in a single group. They are 1-2 so take them a separate, then you get past the coherency rules.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:
You therefore probably can make this and JUST be out of range from being shot in turn 2 if you get the distance just right, which is something I've just learned so is good to know.

If I get a troopship to a cluster first I will be deploying a defense battery which is a huge advantage for subsequent turns, not to mention an extra turn of troop deployment if the troopship manages to survive into turn 3. Basically if a troopship gets to a cluster uncontested it will probably not be lost throughout the game (without concerted and disproportionate effort on the part of the opponent).

another reason why I prefer the Ganymede - doesn't matter if they get there first and deploy defensive batteries - I'll just clear them out before i start to drop my ships.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

str00dles1 wrote:


Every group can scan, and by group I mean how the battle group is broken into.

Lets say In my battlegroup (card) I have 2 Hectors and 2 Medea's. In this battlegroup I can scan 4 times. Hector is G1, and Medea is 1-2. I can choose to put both Medeas in a single "group" of 2 or leave them as each their own group of 1 and 1. If I leave them as a group of two, I can then only scan 3 times.

In your example its the same. It states as the last sentence "Every Detector ship in a group may active scan, not just one"

Why that is important is for the above example. If I wanted to scan 4 times, I need my Medea I separate groups. Detector lets you keep them in a group.

The big reason why some need to be in groups is to maintain coherency with the others in the group.

Might seem confusing, but think of it as Battlegrouop your Card with its total tonnage, and your groups, the sections you split out in the battlegroup. They act as one, but one group at a time moves and fires, then the next on the card.

Realistically, there is no reason to take 2 Lima in a single group. They are 1-2 so take them a separate, then you get past the coherency rules.

I don;t ave my book to hand, but I'm fairly sure that isn't correct. Only one ship can active scan per activation, unless you have a detector ship in there also. Otherwise I could take a battlegroup on 1 hector, 1 pandora, 1 europa, 1 medea, 1 Ganymede, ect and scan 15 times as my first battlegroup action each turn.

I don't have my rulebook to hand, but I'm pretty sure you are playing that one wrong - which might explain why you are getting shot up so much before you can get your ships in position.

Essentially, without a detector ship then your opponent needs to activate and give an active scan order to a minimum of three battlegroups to be able to move you from silent running to a major spike, and that would be assuming he gets lucky with his first 4+ roll to get you off silent running and would only be on a single ship

EDIT: Actually, just googled the rule and it does say group, not battlegroup. so seems I may have been playing the wrong after all. Wonder if it's a typo as it seems like an odd restriction to put in otherwise, generally you only get groups of one, unless they are maybe wanting to stop you from spamming it with frigates.

Seems like I might need to spend a little bit of time and rethink my tactics a little bit.

Stranger83 wrote:

another reason why I prefer the Ganymede - doesn't matter if they get there first and deploy defensive batteries - I'll just clear them out before i start to drop my ships.

I haven't yet lost on to bombardment and the last Ganymede that tried to bombard had an interesting encounter with a Viper superheavy laser

I'm not that sure on the worth of troopships in this game to be honest. They are a priority target who need to be in engagement range to perform their role and while they can certainly drop a lot of troops they are pretty poor troops (aside from defense batteries of course). For 1 troopship you could get 3-4 strike carriers who will almost certainly live longer due to being in atmosphere, will give you much more flexibility and can attack defended clusters far more easily.

At the moment I always field a San Fransisco and it is inevitably flaming wreckage by turn 4 at the latest.

str00dles1 wrote:

Lets say In my battlegroup (card) I have 2 Hectors and 2 Medea's. In this battlegroup I can scan 4 times. Hector is G1, and Medea is 1-2. I can choose to put both Medeas in a single "group" of 2 or leave them as each their own group of 1 and 1. If I leave them as a group of two, I can then only scan 3 times.

When I was over at the Hawk forums, I was surprised to read an interpretation (backed by RAW) that no, you don't actually have the option to split the Medeas nor Hectors even though the latter are G1. Per page 40 of the rulebook:

All ships of the same class in a Battlegroup automatically form a group together

Emphasis added. Apparently the G stat matters for list building, but not gameplay which the poster was lamenting was really kind of poor rules writing for the obvious confusion that causes. In light of that reading of the rule, your example Battlegroup can Active Scan twice.

You can split the Medea's sure to the 'Open' rule but the Hector's would need to be together.

 Compel wrote:
You can split the Medea's sure to the 'Open' rule but the Hector's would need to be together.

Split them, yes but they still form a single groups so you can only active scan with one of them.

 Compel wrote:
You can split the Medea's sure to the 'Open' rule but the Hector's would need to be together.

Open doesn't allow you to split them into different Groups, they simply ignore coherency and penalties normally attached to being in a group. Thus they're still a group, they can just operate on opposite sides of the board while the Hectors have to maintain 6" from each other (but do not have to be within Battlegroup coherency of either Medea due to Open). For the purposes of orders such as Active Scan and activation, they are still in the same Group.

The conversation was jumping all over the place a bit there

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:

another reason why I prefer the Ganymede - doesn't matter if they get there first and deploy defensive batteries - I'll just clear them out before i start to drop my ships.

I'm not that sure on the worth of troopships in this game to be honest. They are a priority target who need to be in engagement range to perform their role and while they can certainly drop a lot of troops they are pretty poor troops (aside from defense batteries of course). For 1 troopship you could get 3-4 strike carriers who will almost certainly live longer due to being in atmosphere, will give you much more flexibility and can attack defended clusters far more easily.

At the moment I always field a San Fransisco and it is inevitably flaming wreckage by turn 4 at the latest.

Whilst I agree with you to some degree, the PHR ones are much more than 'just' troop ships so I think they are worth taking. Essentially they are the same cost of the light frigate with the same guns, plus the Medea but with more drop capacity and more HP. I do think that the Scourge/UCM ones suffer however as you say however.

I assume since you mention strike carriers being safe in Atmo that you're not currently playing with Corvettes? When you do you'll start to see why troop ships are worth their weight in gold as being in atmo is no longer a guarantee of safety.

The other reason the people I play tend to prefer the three troops over the strike carriers 1 armor is precisely because I go for 2/3 Ganymede's, the advantage of being safer from the bombardment isn't lost on them.

 Compel wrote:
The conversation was jumping all over the place a bit there

Yeah, one thing I'm not a big fan of with the Dakka forum re-org is that people seem reluctant to make more threads about a single game in the "Misc." forums. I will be unusually positive and assume it's out of courtesy for others and not wanting to split discussion and end up spamming all the other games for a conversation that's going to peter out after a couple of posts.

On the core topic of "are the PHR underpowered," I don't really have enough experience with the game to really say but I did see that mis-reading of the rule that I myself was doing until I was pointed in the direction of that one sentence in the rulebook. Seemed relevant to share.

I did make the thread as a general discussion thread

Ty for clarifying they form groups together.

So active scanning isn't at 4 like I said, but it can easily be at 3 from one group.

For example:
SR9 Pathfinder battlegroup (274pts)
2 x Gargoyle - 64pts - L
2 x Charybdis - 70pts - L
1 x Hydra - 140pts - M

Point still stands though, you can be detected easily and lit up, Detector could let the following list for UCM scan 4 times

SR9 Pathfinder battlegroup (276pts)
2 x Lima - 74pts - L
2 x Toulon - 70pts - L
1 x Seattle - 132pts - M

IMO this makes Lima the tbest support ship out of the 3. Shaltari is second as reroll your shield saves is good, but only matters if you have shields up, and PHR is worst, as it only affects a single profile line weapon.

Jeez why is the army building in Hawk Games so bloody complicated.

So there are Battlegroups which are then made up of Groups which may or may not form themeselves of their own accord if the ship is the same?

Basically just pretend in the army builder and statlines it says "squadron" and everywhere else it says groups.

So in a light Battlegroup you can have 2 squadrons of 4 Taipei Frigates which on the board function as a single group of 8 frigates

 Compel wrote:
Basically just pretend in the army builder and statlines it says "squadron" and everywhere else it says groups.

So in a light Battlegroup you can have 2 squadrons of 4 Taipei Frigates which on the board function as a single group of 8 frigates

Pretty much what it sounds like the intent was. Certainly lamentable that nobody at Hawk said "using the same word for two different things is probably not a good idea" and just, you know, swapped one for "squadron" or "division" or something. Would have made things easier to understand I think.

Yea. They did a mess up like that with Shaltari also on the whole gate void gate issue on wording.

Building a army is super easy.

http://dflist.com/#/

I dont know who made it but bless them. Its also optimized for ipads (tablets) so its nice to use on them also.

I hope the maker does the same for dropzone as ffor is a pain to use on tablets

PHR pulled the gakky end of the stick for race mechanics.

Broadsides and Armour, the broadside idea could work in a fleet game such as FA or BFG where you are just fighting fleet to fleet. Not so much when both you and your opponent know exactly where each other are heading, plus if by some miracle of overly complicated tactics you nuke there fleet chances are they got the ground game vp and win anyway.

The Armour bonus is worthless when 50%+ of attacks ignore it completely. Even at 2+ it would not be that great(we actually tried this and while it helped it still made little difference).
Ironicly except in the case of a PHR v PHR battle as then neither side could crit worth a damn and it was painfull to watch to the point that PHR v PHR games are banned or settled with a coin toss.

Short version- PHR suck and are a fun tier force, unless you ignore the fluff and race bonuses a fill your fleet with carriers and btl.

Stranger83 wrote:

I assume since you mention strike carriers being safe in Atmo that you're not currently playing with Corvettes?

I have and I use them myself. They aren't all that scary (military sectors are what tends to kill my strike carriers ) and a Strike carrier in atmosphere has a significantly longer life expectancy than a Troopship in low orbit.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:

I assume since you mention strike carriers being safe in Atmo that you're not currently playing with Corvettes?

I have and I use them myself. They aren't all that scary (military sectors are what tends to kill my strike carriers ) and a Strike carrier in atmosphere has a significantly longer life expectancy than a Troopship in low orbit.

Military sectors cannot kill ships in Atmosphere though so you are safe there. Escape Velocity forces you to shoot at a layer higher than yourself. Dave confirmed at Bootcamp there are only 3 layers (High Orbit, Low Orbit and Atmosphere). Since the sector is in Atmosphere and Escape Velocity weapons must always target an enemy in a higher layer a sector will never be able to shoot a ship in Atmosphere.

Forgot the rules for linking other sites but here is my FAQ for Dropfleet on the companies official forum: http://www.hawkforum.co.uk/hawkforum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=9133&p=79573#p79573

Thats a pretty massive faq list - scary but well done for compiling ! I did try and sign up for the Hawk forum but never got authorised.

SeanDrake wrote:
PHR pulled the gakky end of the stick for race mechanics.

Broadsides and Armour, the broadside idea could work in a fleet game such as FA or BFG where you are just fighting fleet to fleet. Not so much when both you and your opponent know exactly where each other are heading, plus if by some miracle of overly complicated tactics you nuke there fleet chances are they got the ground game vp and win anyway.

The Armour bonus is worthless when 50%+ of attacks ignore it completely. Even at 2+ it would not be that great(we actually tried this and while it helped it still made little difference).
Ironicly except in the case of a PHR v PHR battle as then neither side could crit worth a damn and it was painfull to watch to the point that PHR v PHR games are banned or settled with a coin toss.

Short version- PHR suck and are a fun tier force, unless you ignore the fluff and race bonuses a fill your fleet with carriers and btl.

Not sure anyone can make proclomations like this since the game is so new.

I REALLY wanted to play PHR but ended up with shaltari due to availability.

PHR have the second biggest scan, highest armor, and fantastic broadsides. Combine that with short movement and that is a nasty combo.

Being able to cross the enemy at will due to high scan resolution and massive hp is a huge advantage in this game.

The issue I am seeing in this game is that the PHR and Shaltari both seem to be excellent at line of battle tactics where as the other two have to depend on tricks to win.

If you line up your PHR fleet on the left or right edge and make sure to bring some fast stuff to kill drop units you will win alot imo.

 sfshilo wrote:

SeanDrake wrote:
PHR pulled the gakky end of the stick for race mechanics.

Broadsides and Armour, the broadside idea could work in a fleet game such as FA or BFG where you are just fighting fleet to fleet. Not so much when both you and your opponent know exactly where each other are heading, plus if by some miracle of overly complicated tactics you nuke there fleet chances are they got the ground game vp and win anyway.

The Armour bonus is worthless when 50%+ of attacks ignore it completely. Even at 2+ it would not be that great(we actually tried this and while it helped it still made little difference).
Ironicly except in the case of a PHR v PHR battle as then neither side could crit worth a damn and it was painfull to watch to the point that PHR v PHR games are banned or settled with a coin toss.

Short version- PHR suck and are a fun tier force, unless you ignore the fluff and race bonuses a fill your fleet with carriers and btl.

Not sure anyone can make proclomations like this since the game is so new.

I REALLY wanted to play PHR but ended up with shaltari due to availability.

PHR have the second biggest scan, highest armor, and fantastic broadsides. Combine that with short movement and that is a nasty combo.

Being able to cross the enemy at will due to high scan resolution and massive hp is a huge advantage in this game.

The issue I am seeing in this game is that the PHR and Shaltari both seem to be excellent at line of battle tactics where as the other two have to depend on tricks to win.

If you line up your PHR fleet on the left or right edge and make sure to bring some fast stuff to kill drop units you will win alot imo.

There is a lot of math in this very thread that proves how badly the broadside mechanics come up short in this game. Scan might matter in the first couple turns of a game, but everyone runs silent orders those two turns anyways. Its also is a moot point when you know exactly where you and your opponent are going to be. Armor doesn't help against crits, especially against UCM and all the burn through they have. Maneuverability doesn't matter in this game as everyone moves exactly the same- only the distance is different. The only way to win a game is by moving to a specific point on the table and dropping assets on planets/stations. Play more games and you'll see how much of a disadvantage playing PHR can be.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Thats a pretty massive faq list - scary but well done for compiling ! I did try and sign up for the Hawk forum but never got authorised.

Thanks! You have to poke Hawk Liam to get activated. They are way behind because of the Kickstarter. Facebook seems to be a good way to find him as he posts there once and awhile looking for people to activate.


As far as PHR go...well armour and hull don't matter to much in this game from what I have seen and experienced. Ships die extremely fast! Even in a demo sized games a full cruiser can go from full health to exploding in one turn of shooting. Using debris fields is more important than having hull and armour as if your opponent can see it they can probably kill it in one go if they want to. This is making my life as UCM easier since my guns have range, Limas cause spikes and nothing costs a huge amount.

Cry of the Wind wrote:
You have to poke Hawk Liam to get activated. They are way behind because of the Kickstarter. Facebook seems to be a good way to find him as he posts there once and awhile looking for people to activate.

Which Facebook page do I poke him on? It's been almost two weeks since I submitted the registration.

In addition, for Christmas I received my first Hawk starter set, but whole sets of pieces were missing (flight stands, infantry bases). I emailed the info email several times, but have had no response as yet. I feared part of the problem is that my emails I sent from were gmail, yahoo, and hotmail (easily made for spamming ).

The way they handle their board is a nightmare, plain and simple. It seems like the unregistered account is automatically deleted after about 24h hours, so I've re-registered three or four times in a row, dm'd them on FB and still nothing. It's ridiculous. Just send a fething link to click in the registration confirmation mail like every other goddamn board does, it's not that hard. But hey, can't even give them that feedback since their mail is swamped with KS, their FB is run by apparently noone and the board I can't get in.

Looking at how that is setup I'm starting to see why they had the issues in the KS delivery process - if they do everything in such a complicated, manual way it's no wonder it takes them ages to pack a single box full of plastic.

 Charistoph wrote:

Cry of the Wind wrote:
In addition, for Christmas I received my first Hawk starter set, but whole sets of pieces were missing (flight stands, infantry bases). I emailed the info email several times, but have had no response as yet. I feared part of the problem is that my emails I sent from were gmail, yahoo, and hotmail (easily made for spamming ).

I don't think the mail source is an issue, it's the recipient - they're still swamped with the Kickstarter "aftermath" and running anything else on on the side, if at all. Try asking the place your starter set came from, maybe they'll help you (well, unless it was ordered directly from Hawk - then you're out of luck).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On the PHR - I've only done a Starter match as PHR so far, but going by the stats and how ships performed, I'd say the "Broadside" concept just falls flat a lot of the times. When I'm thinking about a PHR list I very heavily prefer the ships that AREN'T broadside ships. Those are just all over the place, especially when it comes to what is or isn't linked.

All of the frigates make sense and seem fun to play, but the Cruisers are really lackluster - at least on paper.

UCM for example has very clear designs that work much better:
Light cruisers: BTL or Turrets
Cruisers: Add smaller turrets to a light cruiser
Heavy: Add another matching primary weapon to a Cruiser
Carrier; Troopship; Bombardment Ship
The only UCM ship I dislike is the St. Petersburg, it's pretty hard to use both BTLs at the same time but I can see the appeal - if you pull it off, it's great.

PHR capital ships are all over the place.
Heracles, Minos, Ganymede, Orion, Ikarus, Orpheus, Hector and Achilles all feel like their batteries should be linked like in the Europa, Ajax or Priam, but they simply aren't.
The Theseus, Agamemnon and Perseus seem like they'd make sense as a Broadside ship, as they're actually able to fire a broadside as one weapon.

So that leaves me with choosing from 3 broadsiders, 3 "dual siders" and a BTL carrier for ships that look sensible to me. Sure, the others bring other things to the table (eg. Launch, Crippling shots), but it's still weird and makes most ships really hard to use.

My Scourge fleet. More pics in my gallery: http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-44465-53910_Dfc%20Scourge.html

FiendusMaximus, those ships look great and sinister. Really like the corvette conversions, too.


Anyway, I've built a battleship from plastic DFC parts. I call it the Chang'an class, as it would be used as a Beijing in the unlikely event I get to play the game. The basic hull is quick and easy to make, but gribbling it up proper took a long, long time. There are still some blank turrets that I plan to use when the space station kit arrives. What do you think--missile turrets, mass drivers, or sensors?

Also, is there any resource online that describes what those large cooling vanes/massive mass drivers on the station sprue are actually supposed to be?












What do you think?

I always enjoy conversions - looks good.

Will try and post up my combined Scourge / Shadows (Babylon 5) fleet

 Mr Morden wrote:
I always enjoy conversions - looks good.

Will try and post up my combined Scourge / Shadows (Babylon 5) fleet

Thanks!


And you stole my idea!!! Sort of. I thought the Scourge frigates looked like evil Minbari ships, so I assembled them that way. Not so sure they count as conversions, since the instructions do say the joint is positionable. Cruisers are begging to look super-Shadowy, though. I look forward to seeing your take and stealing your ideas.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
I always enjoy conversions - looks good.

Will try and post up my combined Scourge / Shadows (Babylon 5) fleet

Thanks!


And you stole my idea!!! Sort of. I thought the Scourge frigates looked like evil Minbari ships, so I assembled them that way. Not so sure they count as conversions, since the instructions do say the joint is positionable. Cruisers are begging to look super-Shadowy, though. I look forward to seeing your take and stealing your ideas.

Will try and post tomorrow Mianly reversed some of the cruiser "wings" and put extra tendrils on the Frigates - played a bit with some ideas for stating B5 ships but waiting till they sort out the faqs.

Minbari, Vorlon and Shadow Ships might be a bit strong for Dropfleet but EarthForce and Centauri would work as well as Narn and Non-Aligned Worlds, although 40K ships esp Marines fit the whole theme.

Athough also thinking of making a streamlined version for straight fleet battles.

Shaltari seem like a thematic fit for Vorlons, and their ships are kind of tentacly. Centauri ships would be fun to convert, but for rules, I guess PHR?

I would definitely love to see some streamlined, spacebattles-only rules.

Still very much wip





I'll look to start another thread about a fleet battle system

Very nice looking fleet. Would you mind posting some close-ups of the DFC minis and also the Shadow Stars?

Mr Morden wrote:Still very much wip





I'll look to start another thread about a fleet battle system

Is that Babylon 5?

Those are the Agents of Gaming Shadow ships. You can tell because they are anatomically incorrect. Still, best Shadow ship minis on the market.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Those are the Agents of Gaming Shadow ships. You can tell because they are anatomically incorrect. Still, best Shadow ship minis on the market.

Mongoose Publishing ones actually

Those were the same molds, just with the prices jacked up.

I think there were only two or three sculpts unique to Mongoose, the Excalibur and a couple Ranger ships.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Those were the same molds, just with the prices jacked up.

I think there were only two or three sculpts unique to Mongoose, the Excalibur and a couple Ranger ships.

I'll try and get some more pics up over the weekend and will pm you re MGP ships