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Is there any reason why the UCM don't have a troop carrier capable of bombardment? Is it a balance issue? It seems like it would be fairly simple to convert a heavy cruiser troop carrier with bombardment cannon, or failing that some frigates with bombardment cannon. From a background perspective, it seems like they should exist.

Pretty sure any explanation will include a healthy amount of hand-wavium so pretty much for balance reasons.

However, a plausible fluff theory could be that they are trying to retake useful, habitable worlds and they'd be worried that the captains of troopships would be too prone to use the bombardment cannons to save lives of the legionnaires normally on the ship at the cost of future rebuilding effort. If the bombardment ships are only in the hands of "cooler" heads, that'd ensure they're only used when desperately needed to achieve an objective. Somewhat cynical, but it works.

It'd also account for why the PHR have so much bombardment (they don't care) and why the Scourge have even less (they HAVE to take things intact to get more hosts).

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Is there any reason why the UCM don't have a troop carrier capable of bombardment? Is it a balance issue? It seems like it would be fairly simple to convert a heavy cruiser troop carrier with bombardment cannon, or failing that some frigates with bombardment cannon. From a background perspective, it seems like they should exist.

Military doctrine throughout history has proven that you are almost always better off creating module systems that are great at their primary mission. The moment they try to do to much that is degraded.

The UCM believes it is better to have two ships that are great at their job than 1 ship that is crappy at both. They have a lot of heavy industry so it works. PHR is far small so it is more useful for them to build more durable ships that are multipurpose. Also they are better at miniaturization so their ships would have more space.

Krinsath wrote:Pretty sure any explanation will include a healthy amount of hand-wavium so pretty much for balance reasons.

However, a plausible fluff theory could be that they are trying to retake useful, habitable worlds and they'd be worried that the captains of troopships would be too prone to use the bombardment cannons to save lives of the legionnaires normally on the ship at the cost of future rebuilding effort. If the bombardment ships are only in the hands of "cooler" heads, that'd ensure they're only used when desperately needed to achieve an objective. Somewhat cynical, but it works.

It'd also account for why the PHR have so much bombardment (they don't care) and why the Scourge have even less (they HAVE to take things intact to get more hosts).

nedTCM wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Is there any reason why the UCM don't have a troop carrier capable of bombardment? Is it a balance issue? It seems like it would be fairly simple to convert a heavy cruiser troop carrier with bombardment cannon, or failing that some frigates with bombardment cannon. From a background perspective, it seems like they should exist.

Military doctrine throughout history has proven that you are almost always better off creating module systems that are great at their primary mission. The moment they try to do to much that is degraded.

The UCM believes it is better to have two ships that are great at their job than 1 ship that is crappy at both. They have a lot of heavy industry so it works. PHR is far small so it is more useful for them to build more durable ships that are multipurpose. Also they are better at miniaturization so their ships would have more space.

See? Two very nice, fluffy reasons why. It's hard sometimes to decide "Do I go with two San Francisco's or a San Fran and a Madrid?" and I think it really depends on the scenario and opponent's fleet. If I know my opponent will be able to get to a location before me and start unloading ground assets, then I'd be more inclined to take a San Fran and Madrid. At least both ships have other guns, so they won't be out-gunned too badly in a fleet engagement on Standard Orders.

I'm really starting to think that taking as many troop ships as possible might be the way to go in this game. Ground assets win games, fleets can only contest, and it's almost impossible to shoot an entire fleet off a table in 4-6 turns. Only dedicated bombardment or other ground assets can dislodge enemy ground assets. Dedicated bombardment can only ever destroy ground assets/locations, never take them. I still don't have enough games under my belt to make definitive strategy, but this seems like a good approach so far.

Im going to disagree Tamwulf. Ground is the waybto win but mass ground wont do it for you.

Ive had many games now where someone is usually tabled by turn 4 or has so little left they cant win. Controlling space around sectors is 2 vp in most missions. Also when their fleet is dead, you get free reign to shoot the crap out of the sectors or nuke them all to hell and win via space conrol.

The good balance seems to be 2 troop carriers and 4 to 6 of the strikecraft. Rest is ships to kill their ships

2 troop carriers and 6 strike craft out of how many ships?

Are there any deep space scenarios that don't involve ground assets?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
2 troop carriers and 6 strike craft out of how many ships?

Are there any deep space scenarios that don't involve ground assets?

Well the standard is 1500 points, so that's what I base it off of.

Currently no, you need troops for all missions. The games all focused on objectives and no so much kill em up

What you can do with each faction (from what i have seen/read):
UCM: your typical Smerf(40K) can do anything
PHR: Run up the bord ten do two turns o do broadsides
Scourge: practicaly denise your armour
Shsltari: Snipers nuff said

I am a UCM player though so i cant solidly say what is what. But While i am here one big complaint, WHY IN THE WORLD CANT I GET BATTLECRUISER'S AS A NORMAL BUYER!!!!!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

str00dles1 wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
2 troop carriers and 6 strike craft out of how many ships?

Are there any deep space scenarios that don't involve ground assets?

Well the standard is 1500 points, so that's what I base it off of.

Currently no, you need troops for all missions. The games all focused on objectives and no so much kill em up

Not toataly true. If you want to you dont have to any objectives. Just earn points based on destroying ships (depends on the size.11110

Thanks again.

Dregos, do you mean buy them at retail? I think I heard that battle cruisers are coming to retail next month. If you really can't wait, you can convert them from the plastic cruiser sprue.

XxDregosxX wrote:
What you can do with each faction (from what i have seen/read):
UCM: your typical Smerf(40K) can do anything
PHR: Run up the bord ten do two turns o do broadsides
Scourge: practicaly denise your armour
Shsltari: Snipers nuff said

I am a UCM player though so i cant solidly say what is what. But While i am here one big complaint, WHY IN THE WORLD CANT I GET BATTLECRUISER'S AS A NORMAL BUYER!!!!!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

str00dles1 wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
2 troop carriers and 6 strike craft out of how many ships?

Are there any deep space scenarios that don't involve ground assets?

Well the standard is 1500 points, so that's what I base it off of.

Currently no, you need troops for all missions. The games all focused on objectives and no so much kill em up

Not toataly true. If you want to you dont have to any objectives. Just earn points based on destroying ships (depends on the size.11110

You can make up a mission, but the 8 missions in the book, yes you use troopships to control them. Either bulk landers or strike craft. None of the missions are just kills ships. But like I said, you can make up your own

As for Battlecruisers, no idea when yet.

It was stated Jan 20th is Frigate Box and Cruiser Box 6, and 2 respectively, then I heard Feb is the resin ground locations they haven't made and corvettes. I would guess Battlecruisers March maybe? You can convert your own though. Tons of bits on the sprues to do so for all the factions

I've heard about the two cruiser box, but there is a six cruiser box coming? Do we know the price yet? If it is a savings over three of the duo box, I'll be pretty stoked.

Don't know if this is the place for general DFC discussion or if we need a new thread, but is anyone else disappointed that the two-sprue frigate box is 33% more expensive than the two-sprue cruiser box? What gives?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I've heard about the two cruiser box, but there is a six cruiser box coming? Do we know the price yet? If it is a savings over three of the duo box, I'll be pretty stoked.

Don't know if this is the place for general DFC discussion or if we need a new thread, but is anyone else disappointed that the two-sprue frigate box is 33% more expensive than the two-sprue cruiser box? What gives?

Perhaps I wrote that wrong, and my number was off, but its a cruiser box with 2 cruisers in it and a frigate box with 8 frigates,

As to why its more expensive, I dunno.

What I tell new people and my own rule of thumb is buy 4 starter boxes if you want to play this game. Or work to owning 4 boxes. That's 12 Cruisers and 16 Frigates. More then enough frigates youll ever need really, and a good core for cruisers.

I personally will probably buy 2 more Cruiser boxes for my PHR just to fill out stuff I don't have,

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I've heard about the two cruiser box, but there is a six cruiser box coming? Do we know the price yet? If it is a savings over three of the duo box, I'll be pretty stoked.

Don't know if this is the place for general DFC discussion or if we need a new thread, but is anyone else disappointed that the two-sprue frigate box is 33% more expensive than the two-sprue cruiser box? What gives?

The Frigate box actually makes eight frigates, not two. You are getting extra sprues and lots of extra bits.

 Tamwulf wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I've heard about the two cruiser box, but there is a six cruiser box coming? Do we know the price yet? If it is a savings over three of the duo box, I'll be pretty stoked.

Don't know if this is the place for general DFC discussion or if we need a new thread, but is anyone else disappointed that the two-sprue frigate box is 33% more expensive than the two-sprue cruiser box? What gives?

The Frigate box actually makes eight frigates, not two. You are getting extra sprues and lots of extra bits.

Right, but they fit on two sprues. Each frigate is 5 pieces, 7 for the turreted ones, compared to the huge, involved cruisers. So, why are frigates more costly per sprue? Are they used less in the game? Is this a hidden corvette tax for converters?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I've heard about the two cruiser box, but there is a six cruiser box coming? Do we know the price yet? If it is a savings over three of the duo box, I'll be pretty stoked.

Don't know if this is the place for general DFC discussion or if we need a new thread, but is anyone else disappointed that the two-sprue frigate box is 33% more expensive than the two-sprue cruiser box? What gives?

The Frigate box actually makes eight frigates, not two. You are getting extra sprues and lots of extra bits.

Right, but they fit on two sprues. Each frigate is 5 pieces, 7 for the turreted ones, compared to the huge, involved cruisers. So, why are frigates more costly per sprue? Are they used less in the game? Is this a hidden corvette tax for converters?

Most corvette conversions are actually done with Cruiser bits thus far.

I wouldn't say used less. UCM Scourge and PHR will take 4-6 Strike craft, then usually PHR will have 4 Pandora and or 4 Andromeda. UCM uses its close action murder ship, along with Scourge running packs of 6 or so Djinn.

Like I mentioned, if you really want to play this game and be cost effective, buy 4 starters. About 200$ and youll have really everything you can ever need til they release new ships

Almost all of the corvette conversions I've seen so far were made from frigate sprue leftovers. Scourge have a natural frigate in the heavy cruiser crest bits, though, and I've seen some scourge and PHR conversions using troop carrier bits. I would love to see corvettes made from the UCM and Shaltari cruiser sprues, if you wouldn't mind linking to some images.

As I am mostly interested in conversions, I'll probably just buy Shaltari cruisers since their frigates are fairly boring. Starters for everything else seem like great fodder, though.

New list that worked really well, shaltari really struggle with space station fights btw....

990/999 point list
Vanguard SR 15
Jet
Emerald

Line SR 12
Basalt
2x Jade
Granite

Pathfinder SR 8
2x Amethyst
3x Voidgate

Pathfinder SR 5
2x Amethyst
3x Glass

The glass is FANTASTIC at killing rare frigates, fast, low flying, lots of dakka.

I use to just fly into trouble with the jet but I'm finding it more useful as a mid table denial unit. Put it at 12 inches from mid line and dare people to get into range of the drop sites.

Two separate units of amethyst can really make you more flexible instead of one big blog due to the unit coherency. And it gives you the option of hitting them end turn or early turn reliably with their low Strategy rating.

The Seattle is the bane of my existence lol.

 sfshilo wrote:
New list that worked really well, shaltari really struggle with space station fights btw....

990/999 point list
Vanguard SR 15
Jet
Emerald

Line SR 12
Basalt
2x Jade
Granite

Pathfinder SR 8
2x Amethyst
3x Voidgate

Pathfinder SR 5
2x Amethyst
3x Glass

The glass is FANTASTIC at killing rare frigates, fast, low flying, lots of dakka.

I use to just fly into trouble with the jet but I'm finding it more useful as a mid table denial unit. Put it at 12 inches from mid line and dare people to get into range of the drop sites.

Two separate units of amethyst can really make you more flexible instead of one big blog due to the unit coherency. And it gives you the option of hitting them end turn or early turn reliably with their low Strategy rating.

The Seattle is the bane of my existence lol.

Because they cant get into Atmo and be safe? I can see that, only going to low orbit doesent help the gates stay alive to long in that circumstance.

I'm sure glass will be good, not worth taking at all currently with how their points are misprinted. Should be 20 some points, not 30 some but that will be fixed in the errata.

2x Amethyst works in low points like 1k, once you hit 1500 though the 4 group Amethyst will be the way to go. That pretty much guarantees almost any ship crippled or even killed when they strike. Good alpha strike unit start of turn 2

Man, I really want to step into a jeweler's shop right now.

Is there an online fleet recognition page for all these ships with less-than-descriptive names?

Only one Emerald at around 1k sounds really dicey.

i personaly hate the shaaltari. think about it: strait from the starter they are the only faction to have a ship with air to air capilbilies(no more 6's in atmosphere) they act like defence bateries and can move infantry around. to top it off one of the battleships makes you roll cripling damage if it hits you. TO FREAKING OP MAN.

As to the PHR fleet

Their heavy cruisers are mixed. Achilles has poor damage output, Hector's over-generalized... and Bellerophon is the most powerful carrier in the game. By being both a capable beam ship AND heavy carrier.

Their standard cruisers are obsoleted mostly by the fact that the troopships are comparably armed.

Theseus is pretty good
Perseus is utterly useless beyond measure.

Their frigates are all useful, though the escort carrier's really more of a general support and defense ship rather than an offensive unit. Calypsos really mess up UCM beams something bad though---

Just an FYI, i have talked to a monerator about getting our own section and they said they'll pass on the idea