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So far the Bioficers have shown 3 core weapon types

The Main Gun type where the ships have one massive forward firing gun

The Lightning ships with have a a weapon capable of firing left, right and forward. These have also been generally shorter ranged weapons

Carriers - which as fighters/bombers stick around might be more combat ready this edition

With most ships having one but a few having a mix. In general they seem to have very few weapons per ship and each ship is very much a specialist role.


So right now the faction feels like its got a mix of close-range ships and long range snipers.

So far we’ve seen images of at least 3 Bioficer cruisers with two weapons, only one of which was two of the same weapon. The hard points are similar to UCM ships, in that there’s a weapon on the front and sometimes a weapon on top near the back. And the UCM has the big BTL laser BC and the all-turrets BC, so it wouldn’t be unusual for the game for the Bioficers to have big gun or big battery BCs. I don’t think we’ve seen any complete stats for their cruisers or BCs showing they have no auxiliary guns or CAW, although it looks like maybe the little CAW backup weapons every ship used to have are gone.


I’d be shocked if they got rid of orders altogether. However, the last few rules updates seemed to streamline things, such as St Pete getting one linked laser instead of two frustrating lasers or the Beijing having all linked turrets and one big laser instead of a cruiser laser and a mallet set of linked turrets and then some more, other linked turrets. My guess would be they want players to have to choose between one of two good options for big ships and WF both options with spike/other limitations so that players will still need to use WF to get the most out of bigger ships but won’t feel resentment for having difficult to use big ships that feel lackluster on standard orders.

That actually makes sense, historically primary weapon systems were all kinda linked by common firecontrol. Having each turret be it's own separate weapon system that targets and attacks independently doesn't make a lot of sense.

I'll save everyone 6 minutes: Dave holds something up you can't really see and says "I'll talk about these some other time".

Interesting bits: the sunset looking circles with orange bars are spikes, there's 4 levels of them now. So I guess they cut high/low and we just have atmo now? The cluster sheets actually do have ruin spots and are literally the exact same as in the original box, which doesn't match what they have up on the store, but maybe they just threw some old ones in here or used incomplete art?

You’re leaving out the man’s immense charm.


And I found the interesting bits to be both factions’ sprues containing one cruiser and two frigates, and that the Bioficers get a panel sprue for optional detailing. I really hope they sell that Bioficer bits sprue separately.

Panel Sprue is very good to hear and I agree I hope it becomes something you can purchase later to really customise those ships

For those in the US, this website has put a lot of the existing 1st edition range of stuff on sale until the launch of the 2nd edition;

https://kickassmailorder.com/dropzone-fleet-commander/dropfleet-commander/?sort=priceasc&page=1

18 usd for the advanced sector pack is tempting.

Kickass is legit, I've had multiple orders with them, last one less than a year ago.

Looks like it’s mostly 20% off, with 30% off the Dreadnoughts.

The Resistance employs a huge variety of light tonnage vessels, and many offer unique capabilities not seen in capital ships. Some, such as the Aldrin colony ship, are among the oldest vessels still operating anywhere, proving their endurance. The Newton and Galileo monitors were once lynchpins of orbital defence lines, and they still excel in that role.

I don’t see any new options. There’s the new bulk lander hangar bit for the Aldrin, but I don’t see and really new options.

There’s a free lore PDF dropping on the TTCombat site tomorrow.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
There’s a free lore PDF dropping on the TTCombat site tomorrow.

**AVAILABLE NOW**
It's time to continue your commander universe story! Our latest digital lore book can be found in the resources section of the TTCombat website for FREE...
Find it here:
https://ttcombat.com/pages/dropfleet-commander-downloads

Direct link - https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0965/1274/files/Commander_Universe_Lore_Primer.pdf

More lasers are always welcome in Dropfleet Commander.

 Overread wrote:
So far the Bioficers have shown 3 core weapon types

Carriers - which as fighters/bombers stick around might be more combat ready this edition

.

Oh have they changed them - one of the rules elements I really did not like in previous edition, I prefer a ACTA/BFG style where you can defend your ships from bombers by CAF etc

Ha, suck it PHR


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 slyphic wrote:
Direct link - https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0965/1274/files/Commander_Universe_Lore_Primer.pdf

(Referring the the last page of this)

I guess (I hope) they're doing Bioficer lore in a separate release of some sort. Maybe updating the "Core Rulebook Generic Fluff - Dropfleet Primer" pdf that has the good deets on the other factions? This one - https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0965/1274/files/Dropfleet_Primer.pdf

I think they want to draw out the Bioficer mystery as long as they can - perhaps waiting to flesh them out even more until they've got ground models ready to go as well

That lore primer has two more images of the new UCM battleship design. I don’t think they would be so consistent showing only this battleship if they weren’t planning to replace the current battleship with it in a future release wave.

Don't think they are replacing the current design, considering they returned it to sale

Might just be a new battleship class/design

Seems logical to me

chaos0xomega wrote:
Don't think they are replacing the current design, considering they returned it to sale

Perhaps superseding would be a better choice of words? I expect the new battleship to be sold widely, not direct only. Hopefully the old one will stay around, too, even if it’s only a direct only item. I’d also be surprised if they spent the resources to redesign the battleship and didn’t have it cast in plastic for mass appeal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
Might just be a new battleship class/design

Yes, with the same load out as the Beijing, just as the new starter cruisers have the same options as the old cruisers (plus a few more). They already released new BB classes in resin with the Hanoi; this looks more like a redesign of the original BB in the style of the new redesigned cruisers. I’m hoping it will be available in plastic.

I don't know they might be keeping resin for smaller selling units. The Battlecruisers for Bioficers are resin not plastic.

My guess is plastic is for the cruisers and lights because they expect to sell multiple of them per customer; whilst battlecruisers, battleships and such are often sold far fewer per customer. Even with alternate build options they are slower sellers and might just suit resin better.

Also they can go with finer details on resin and some angles you can't get with plastics so it lets them be a bit more creative/wild with the bigger iconic ships in fleets.


Of course it could be that bioficers are new and won't have as large a sale rate as existing fleets; so could be they did them in resin for them for that reason alone

Or they simply ran out of cash for more plastic moulds.

Or they made resin battlecruisers for the release date to have something bigger than a cruiser, even if they eventually plan to release plastic. I also wonder when the Bioficer battleship will drop. Will there be a wave of redesigned battleships for all factions?

It may just be wishful thinking, but I’d love for them to release more plastics.

The new lore drop also gave me the first inkling of a desire to own a Shaltari Dreadnought, so good job, Dave.

Speaking of Dave, he dropped a new rules video:

Not able to watch, anything interesting?

I did my best to capture and collate readable copies of the pages TTC had up, and it's a good chunk of the book, enough to form a reasonable opinion.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i-rJ-fOpR_PoYgu91x_2PlReg14jYNlc/view?usp=sharing

It's not as bad as I feared, but it's also oddly generic feeling. Like there's no real innovative new ideas.

The biggest changes are the ground game, but it's basically the old cancellation system the forums came up with in 2018 and which everyone I know was already playing. So anti-climactic, but I like it.

Spikes becoming more granular and tracked at the group level is trying to fix a problem I can't see.

I don't miss the loss of high/low, and the idea of atmo being damage instead of instadeath I actually kinda like.

Coherency rules worry me, it feels like it's open to abussive play to no real benefit. We already know Dave likes to slip in 'tricks' like that from the stupid teleporter lockout trick in DZC.

Force org is disappointingly boring. And there's no more launch cap which feels like a huge mistake.

The replacement of the command cards at least doesn't list 'cancel another action' as an option in the generic list, which I like. Cancel cards are the most boring thing you can include in almost any game. I hate them.

I can't decide how the new fighters and bombers will play, I need to see those in play on a real table. But with no launch cap, and how the save cancellation works, I forsee some early degenerate launch heavy fleets leading to un-fun games.