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The rules and stats for Dropzone Commander models are not in the Battle For Earth book; they're now handled separately with an online army creator - which doesn't seem to be linked to from the TTCombat website.

there are new units discussed in the BfE book - huge "behemoth" units for each faction, and probably others too.

I figure they are holding the new website app with stats back until nearer the launch of the book itself.

It's a bit of a shame they didn't put the Dropfleet Commander rules fully into the new book to make it a proper combined rules edition; seems a bit silly that one game gets all the rules and no stats whilst the other gets the stats but not all the rules

Yeah, not having stats is an odd choice (and has upset some people).

Anyway - https://thetrolltrader.com/dzcbuilderbeta/

Modern day wargame stats is a game developers can't win.

If they go with printed fixed stats gamers whine about having to print out updated stats.

If they go with an ap. gamers complain about having to use support material (tablet) to run the game

If they go with printable cards the quality of the final game product degrades( most will print them at home)

If they try to do it all they run the risk of spreading their resources thin and costing them more than they should, though honestly it perplexes me how simple apps for recording stats appear to be difficult to program and keep up to date for many of the companies; though I put it part down to them having to run through 3rd parties and communication/focus issues (a 3rd party app company might be managing a LOT of apps and a wargame app might not be top of their priorities).

That's something to be said for most gaming products. They're always going to be a compromise that will hopefully leave a larger number of people satisfied enough to keep buying.

I'm excited for it. There's a guy in my area with a fleet and DFC was a lot of fun. Bare minimum the ships are fun to paint and can be done in a weekend so I'll probably get a second fleet and see if anyone wants to try it again

DZC was fun but has a lot higher buy in and people in my area are terrified of painting anything under 28mm in regards to ground models. I can convince them to drop about 100 or so on a fleet pretty easily. 2-300 for a ground army is a lot harder.

Either way I really like the universe and the art and hobby pictures are gorgeous in his books so bare minimum it'll be a nice read. It's not gonna set the world on fire but I'm glad a small core is getting back into it. Hope it catches on, anything that's not 28mm ground combat is a refreshing change of pace. Especially since DZC seems to be implementing some much wanted changes like universal dropships, thank goodness

I had high hopes for DFC to be the space fleet battle game I always wanted once GW stopped supporting BFG. Huge plus in my book: Andy Chambers was involved in both games. Played some DFC and was very impressed with the space combat. Unfortunately, there is a HUGE disconnected between what happens in space and what happens on the planet. Nothing that happens in space affects who wins/loses the game. That's the planets. Consequently, the player that brings more troop ships and gets troops on stations/planets wins the game. You can wipe out your entire opponents fleet, but if he has more troops on the ground, he wins.

The focus of the game is not space combat, it's getting troops onto the planets. The ground combat phase is totally different from the space and orbital phases, and that's a disconnect. It's like two different rules sets in one game. In my mind, TTCombat (formerly Hawk Wargames) already has a game about planetary invasion- Drop Zone Commander.

What would I like to see in a second edition? Shift the focus back to space combat. Rework the ground combat phase. Make it more like just a modifier like "gain 1 VP point for each troop you land on the planet. At the end of the game, the player with more VP's wins". And assign VP's for destroying ships, or meeting scenario objectives, etc. etc. Give me a reason to bring something besides troop ships and frigates/corvettes, because in the current game, that's how you win. Troop ships and frigates/corvettes. Last item: Fleet building. Why is this so complicated? You really have to study the charts. I've seen veteran players mess this up.

Overall, I really like the space combat aspect of DFC. The other parts? Ground Phase and the Fleet Roster could use some serious rework.

Considering DZC 2.0 is said to drastically open up list building, along with dropship rules not being so arbitrarily restrictive, I'd say they'll want to fold in that mentality into DFC.

Another problem with DFC is that the information on the bases didn't work as well as they'd hoped.

 Vertrucio wrote:
Another problem with DFC is that the information on the bases didn't work as well as they'd hoped.

Yeah, the pegs on the bases... very fiddly and distracting from the game. Not to mention inadvertent movement of the model when adjusting the base. My group gave up and used dice or chits.

I had thought about putting 1mm magnets in the peg holes and using a ball bearing instead of the peg, but couldn't be bothered adding all the magnets.

 Vertrucio wrote:
Another problem with DFC is that the information on the bases didn't work as well as they'd hoped.

We use dice next to the base for damage, then coloured mini clothes pegs on the stem for spikes & layers. Not perfect (as you can still knock the facing) but works well enough.

I got the Battle for Earth book, I only browsed it for now.

It is mostly re-written backstory from the 3 previous books with the added section concerning the Battle for Earth itself and the 3-way alliance and the situation that led to striking Earth.

the DFC and DZC are at the end, about a 100 pages or so together, with the new resistance fleet, dreadnaughts, new rules for DFC and the 2.0 rules for DZC. No units images or nothing, so it will be quite hard to get people intrested when you only got a fluff book really, not to mention the rest of us without tablets, printer or such things.

I'll see how my local scene goes with that, we may play DFC normally but fall back to the 1.0 rules for DZC

I'm more likely to buy it if there's a lot of fluff. Thanks for the review.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I'm more likely to buy it if there's a lot of fluff. Thanks for the review.

Oh you'll be pleased, but keep in mind that's it's not written as were the other books, it's its own style.

Asterios wrote:
problem is nothing wrong with the game itself, its just a matter of time and too many decent games to play.

absolutely. We are in a golden age of wargaming, but that means some treasures collect dust.
To add to this, everyone here is waiting for the re-launch. We'll see if it sticks.

Update: reaciing the new rules in more details, the 2.0 version seems decent, but a few flavouful rules were dropped in favour of streamlining I suppose. Melee is more open so it can be deadly when your troops are getting jumped by CQB experts units. Lots of rules regarding terrain and how it can be destroyed.

The Resistance fleet looks great, their concept and fleet creation is rather intresting. Short of the big battleships, every cruiser and lower tonnage models are basically bare-bones, and you must pay to add 1 to 5 modules on the ship, depening on the tonnage and model; so a Heavy Cruiser gets 5, while a troop transport gets 1. Special rules are good as well; remove a major spike per standard order and some vessels have a 'linked' type speacial rule on them.

Seeing the Kalium army with all of their pre-invasion gear sould be good fun for DZC.