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Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Teaser Tuesday: Monitors and Cathedrals

Resistance Monitors
That’s right, the Resistance are continuing their… resistance and catching up with the other factions, filling in holes in their battleline.

And now we’re filling in one of the last ones: Resistance Monitors!

Spoiler:


What you see there is the Resistance Newton Kill-Sat.

The Resistance are a little different in that they’re mostly made up of old ship designs, and their Monitors are no different! The Newton Kill-Sat is an old relic, from a time before the Scourge invasion. This design is the epitome of military excesses in peacetime: a light, slow satellite armed with one of the biggest and least subtle weapons in Earth’s arsenal: the XN-40 “Godray” Orbital Mass Driver.

As with other Monitors, expect the Newton to be very slow, but with a big gun that tilts up, down, backwards and forwards, who needs to move fast?

But what if you’re a scientist, not a fighter? We got you covered.

Spoiler:


The Newton can also be built as it’s alt: the Galileo Orbital Telescope!

The Galileo really shows that the Resistance will use whatever they can: these are mostly refugees that escape the Scourge invasion. Who cares whether your ship has a gun or a telescope when a sea of jellyfish is coming for you? You run away!

The Galileo is actually an incredibly useful part of a Resistance fleet. These long-range telescopes are able to pick up movement from a massive distance, warning the fleet of impending enemy attacks, and helping the otherwise quite dated scanning equipment to lock onto their targets more effectively.

We’ll be looking more at both Monitors later this week.
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

Holy crap. I need these. Sure, I’ve been converting my own Big Gun satellites, and these make them obsolete, but I gotta have them.

I’m thinking that telescope offers some scan boost or something.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/03/30 17:28:13


   
Made in nl
Did Fulgrim Just Behead Ferrus?





The Netherlands

Is it just me or does the Resistance have a new colourscheme nowadays? Makes them look very interesting!

Bits Blitz Designs - 3D printing a dark futuristic universe 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

It’s not just you. They used to be painted darker Kalium colors or rusted to hell. Now they look newer and shinier.

   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

I wonder if there's a third version (like the others)? A torpedo or fire-ship launch platform would be cool.
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Offensive Satellites? Resistance Monitors!

Spoiler:
Offensive Satellites? Resistance Monitors!

We’ve got new spaceships, so let’s see what they do, shall we?

You might be used to satellites being super helpful. Letting you chat on your phone wherever you are (hah, who actually uses their phone as a phone anymore?), streaming TV worldwide, and providing charming covers of David Bowie songs.

But in the future of Dropfleet Commander, satellites do a lot more than that!



These are the Newton and Galileo, the newest additions to the Resistance fleet. The Monitor class ships are something a little weird – half satellite and half attack ship, they’re pretty slow but pack a punch!

So what exactly do they bring to your fleet? Well, how about a telescope?

Galileo Orbital Telescope
The Galileo is a rare ship in Dropfleet Commander in that (aside from limited Point Defence lasers) it’s entirely unarmed.



The Galileo boasts and extremely good Scan range… although without weapons it’s not a huge amount of use hah!

Unfortunately for this little spaceship that could, its Thrust is real low, and while a 4+ Armour save is okay, it’s not quite on par with some of the other Monitors. Although considering this thing is a telescope I’m not sure you should expect much more!

The real draw here is that these ships have Detector, which is always handy. Although I know Resistance Frigates can all have Detector, so what makes this one special?



The Space Telescope rule means that basically your Active Scans boost up an extra Spike! The usual Minor turns into a Major, and if you ping a ship on Silent Running (provided you get the 4+) they get a Minor Spike too! There’s also something a little extra and secret, but we’re not revealing that until the full rules go up tomorrow!

Newton Kill-Sat
Of course, for those that like their ships a little more killy, you can always go for the Newton (although with the poor Scan ranges in the Resistance, that Galileo is worth its weight in gold).

That massive gun is just as dangerous as it looks:



Nicknamed the “Godray”, this is your standard sci-fi space laser. It’s big and blows things up real good! A rare 3 Damage is a big draw here, as this weapon can rip through anything smaller than a Frigate in one shot, and a squad of them spells a lot of trouble!

Although that’s not even the main draw here. Particle is a special rule not seen much outside of Shaltari, but this gun is massive. Particle causes all hits to become Criticals, so have fun breaking through even the toughest armour. A whole group of these can seriously threaten even the largest Dreadnought!

The Godray is on a swivel mount as well, so if you want you can angle that weapon straight down and turn into a true kill-sat, blowing up entire city blocks in a single volley.



The Newton and the Galileo are up for pre-order tomorrow (usually around 3pm GMT fyi). We’ll be chatting about them (and the new Sci-Fi Gothic terrain) then, so make sure to stop by here or the TTCombat webstore to pick yours up and rain fiery death from a distance (or just see things a lot bigger than before, if that’s your jam).
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

That scan boost is welcome. I wonder what the secret text says.

As for the gun, it’s cool, but it doesn’t change the whole dynamic of small ships doing the most shooting since they shoot forwards, cruisers launching, and heavies doing the gunlines.

   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Newton Monitors store link and rules PDF.


Bank Holiday New Releases!

Spoiler:
It’s a bank holiday release day, but that just means that I’m typing this while relaxing in a hammock and getting fat eating chocolate eggs.


Ahhhh this is the life! I’ll stop munching for a minute, because we’ve got some big releases this week to go through.

Resistance Monitors
First of all, we’ve seen them all week and the Resistance Monitors are now available for pre-order!



The Newton Monitors set contains three of the new ships, able to be built as three Newton Kill-Sats or three Galileo Orbital Telescopes (or both if you’re careful with the magnets).

These ships may be slow, but what they lack in speed they make up for in versatility or flat-out firepower.

The Newton boasts the massive XN-40 “Godray” Orbital Mass Driver – a Particle weapon that does 3 Damage per shot. it’s really, really dangerous. The Galileo on the other hand trades its big gun for an equally big telescope, which is useful for Active Scanning your enemies. When it does so, you put a Major Spike on them instead of a Minor Spike, and it also helps friendly ships to target that enemy: they do Critical hits on one over the Lock value instead of two. That’s a lot of Criticals!

The set of three is available to pre-order now, for £20.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
(They've also release the V1.2 digital rulebook).

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2021/04/02 14:46:52


 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

Holy crap is that going to make the Max Guns cruiser builds more effective. All those low power shots are getting a boost. Heavy frigates with fusillade or squadron (I forget the rule names) will be even more killy.

But more importantly, they look cool and distinct, adding flavor to the faction.

   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

The event exclusives are back on sale this weekend. They have a lot of their resin minis back in stock, too.

   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Quick FYI - Updated DZC rulebook released today, and some new units/options in the pipeline (thanks to Mark McKenzie on FB):

Scourge
Raptor Spider Drones
Subjugator Arthropod
Eradicator Chameleopod
Corsiar Interceptor (Arc Castor)

UCM
Wolverines (flame turret)
Gladius (mortar)
Titania Albatross

PHR
Hermes Disruption Walker
Menchit (Styx Autocannon)
Athena (Shooting Star)

Shaltari
Alligator Gravcharger
Obelisk Ionspire
Jaguar (Bio-atomiser)

Resistance
Strikehawk (Sentinel Defence Turrets)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
https://community.ttcombat.com/2021/04/16/new-dropzone-new-mdf/

(I'll make a better post when I get home after work)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/16 15:36:56


 
   
Made in us
Member of the Ethereal Council






Those are pretty cool.
Man I really wish this game kept it's steak over here, I have a resistance force that never even saw the table.

5000pts 6000pts 3000pts
 
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

New Dropzone Rules

New Dropzone, New MDF!

Stop eating my posts Dakka!

This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2021/04/16 16:21:37


 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

A lot of the new units look fun, visually and conceptually. However, the Shaltari obelisk is something I’m more likely to use in Dropfleet as a space station or something.

   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Those are pretty cool.
Man I really wish this game kept it's steak over here, I have a resistance force that never even saw the table.


Strongly agree with this. I love DZC, maybe my favorite tabletop game to actually play. But it never got very big in the states and the Hawk -> TTCombat transition sucked the wind clean out of it here. Not that Hawk's distribution in the states was ever great, but it existed.

Some of these new units look phenomenal, but I have to think very carefully about buying more units for armies that are fairly large and rarely see the outside of their case as it stands.
   
Made in us
Member of the Ethereal Council






Honestly.
Dropfleet killed the steam I think. It was too big and took too much away from the main game.

5000pts 6000pts 3000pts
 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

More restocks, rulebook update, etc.

Dropzone Rules Update
We’re back with rules!

Phew! Last week was a massive week for Dropzone. Aside from around 60 restocks (and plenty of new alternate weapons and builds) going live on the webstore, we also had an update to the digital rulebook, and a massive balance pass go live.

With such a lot to do, there were some errors (classic Traffic James) and what’s more, the army builder went a bit nuts pushing all the changes at once. Lesson learned there!

So we’ve gone through to update things and we’re fairly sure that the army builder is now running okay. We’re still expecting some downtime in the coming weeks while we migrate all the servers for all the sites, but we’ll let you know ahead of time when that’s coming (it’ll likely be a Monday morning when most won’t notice).

In the meantime, feel free to head over to www.dropzonecommander.com and check out the updated stats.

We’ve also updated the stat cards on both the Dropzone site and the TTCombat Resources section. Any units that had errors on now have a 1.1 in the bottom corner to let you know they’ve been changed. You may even find some pre-playtest versions that went out this morning by mistake. Oops! One of which was this beast we saw in the advent calendar:



You’ll notice some changes still happening on the army builder as well. We’ll be carrying on updating photos as we go, as well as getting some juicy background lore from Dave. And of course a whole load of other visual and practical changes. Keep an eye on things; we’re not done yet, we’ll be tweaking and improving things for a while. One thing we’re currently working on is a better system for replacing or upgrading weapons. You’ll notice a few that have multiple upgrades listed separately where they should be one choice (there’s a category on our to-do list which is specifically how annoying PHR weapons options are!) – that’s top of the list, so we should see some changes soon.

Feedback

Although we’ve done our best to catch any errors, there are likely still a few floating around. With around 150 units updated, it’s inevitable. If you see any inconsistencies between the cards and the builder, let us know! You can submit feedback directly onto the army builder, or pop us an email at info@ttcombat.com and we’ll send it to the right people to get looked at.

And of course, if you have feedback on rules or unit stats, we’re keen to know about those too! All your feedback is what we pay attention to when doing balance passes. We do heavily favour games played, although we know that isn’t possible or very practical right now. We’ll be looking at another balance pass later in the year, and plenty of new releases between as well. The benefit of a living rule system and digital stats means we can keep tweaking So when it’s safe, get some games in and let us know how it goes!

Thanks for your patience over this massive update! Check out the rules, and if something tickles your fancy, don’t forget that loads of Dropzone is now on the webstore for pre-order!

   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

Now there is a Dropfleet wiki: https://dropfleet-commander.fandom.com/wiki/Dropfleet_Commander_Wiki

   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Battleteaser Cruiser Tuesday

Spoiler:









Spoiler:
Battleteaser Cruiser Tuesday
Back with our second Teaser Tuesday this week, there are some big new Dropfleet ships on the horizon!

Wait, is there a horizon in space? An event horizon maybe? I don’t know, I’m no scientist.

However, I do know cool spaceships when I see them, and this week we have 10 new cool spaceships for Dropfleet Commander.

We’ve seen teases of these in the advent calendar and previous WIP Wednesdays, but we’re happy to announce that the brand new Battlecruisers are out for pre-order this Friday!

Each Battlecruiser comes in a set with options to build two different variants. Although we’re not going to show all of them today, sorry!

UCM Rome

First of all we have the UCM Rome. A strange hybrid design of Battlecruiser, this ship fills a role between heavy-hunter and escort. Armed with two heavy torpedoes, you’ll be able to make a mess of even the most dangerous enemy ships, and armed to the teeth with point defence lasers galore, this ship is safe from return fire and helps out friendly units too.

All of our new Battlecruisers use parts from the original designs (well, second versions if you count the Kickstarter exclusive ones) and add on brand new pieces, making completely new ships. The Rome is no different as it draws on the Kiev’s triple prow, making something that bridges the gap in the design style between the two.

Scourge Shadow

The Scourge are receiving a new Battlecruiser too, in the form of the Shadow.

This new Battlecruiser has a mixed offensive output, trading its stealth away for just a really scary amount of potential damage. Armed with the classic combo of Oculus and Plasma weapons on the prow, the Shadow pairs those with Launch on its fins, and a dangerous new weapon on top.

Known as the Magnetron Lash, this big ol’ multi-cannon array is the Scourge’s first Mauler weapon. I can’t say much more about it than that at the moment though! Stay tuned for more info.

PHR Pompeius

The PHR Battlecruiser is definitely one of the biggest changes! With a brand new hull that echoes the shape of the PHR Monitors, the Pompeius does something that the PHR don’t often excel at: shooting straight forwards!

Armed with a giant version of the Castor’s weapon, the Heavy Quad Battery can deal out a lot of damage, especially when targeting larger ships. That makes this a Battlecruiser that doesn’t focus on small targets – a welcome addition to any PHR fleet!

Shaltari Hematite

Now for my favourite! Which is unusual, because Shaltari cheat and rely on Shaltnanigans and I can’t deal with their tricksy tactics. But here is a ship that really speaks to me. One Burnthrough laser is good; just look at the Chromium! However, four Burnthrough lasers are so much better. For once a Shaltari ship that I can get behind!

Resistance Senator

Finally we have the Resistance who are also getting their third and fourth Battlecruisers! Bedecked in the classy Kalium scheme, you can tell this Battlecruiser means business.

It’s got about a thousand missiles, which is a nice start! Seriously, that’s a lot of missiles. It’s also got some super fancy scanner arrays, which look like slightly different versions of those found on the Lima. Oh and did I mention those big ol’ green torpedoes? What on earth could they do? I’m sure it’s nothing good for your opponents.

All of these Battlecruisers are coming to the TTCombat webstore on pre-order this Friday, and each has an alternate build that we’ll be looking at later this week. As a little teaser, how about one alternate? I’ll leave you with the PHR Agrippa!

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/05/11 16:48:07


 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

I dig all of these designs. The PHR ship is the biggest departure from their old BC, and my favorite. The Resistance ship looks like a close-up beast. I’m not sure about how I would use the UCM BC in game or in fluff, except maybe to escort support ships or something? The Shaltari ship looks pretty similar to the older version with another impractical F(N) Weapons Free failgun.

   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




I just cannot get over how goofy the massive torpedoes are, and how much space they take on the ship for a weapon that cannot be reloaded during game. Painting them in nerf colors doesn't help...
That being said, the scourge and PHR are the winners, the two human ships are meh due to said missiles. Shaltar always look like someone playing with fractals so no opinion on them.
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Cronch wrote:
I just cannot get over how goofy the massive torpedoes are, and how much space they take on the ship for a weapon that cannot be reloaded during game.

I wonder if Andy Chambers was just trying to do torpedoes 'different' to BFG...
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

I thought the Resistance torpedo domes were supposed to be a bigger version of the mauler laser from their destroyer. I’ll just pretend that’s what they are.

For the UCM ship, I dunno. Their torpedoes were always awkward. They would make sense if they were designed as autonomous small craft in order to increase their range, but humongous missiles that can only strike near targets, and only after a delay, don’t really seem worth their real estate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The Pungari torpedoes, however, are perfect.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/11 17:58:15


   
Made in us
Raging Rat Ogre





Texas

I'm actually a fan of those oversize torpedoes...reminds me of my childhood watching Uchuu Senkan Yamato and Arcadia of My Youth.

Still happy with the releases for the UCM...just wish I had time to play.

Urusei Yatsura, Cerebus the Aardvark, Machiavelli, Plato and Happy Days. So, how was your childhood?

DC:70S+G++M+++B+I-Pat43/f+D++A(WTF)/eWD079R+++T(R)DM+ 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

They were probably aiming for realistic naval torpedoes, so they had to make them unreasonably large in order to justify why they can't be reloaded during combat.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





The Battle Barge Buffet Line

chaos0xomega wrote:
They were probably aiming for realistic naval torpedoes, so they had to make them unreasonably large in order to justify why they can't be reloaded during combat.


I think just mounting them completely outside of the ship as opposed to an internal bay would have accomplished that without going the naval space combat equivalent of JRPG massive sword on the model.

We Munch for Macragge! FOR THE EMPRUH! Cheesesticks and Humus!
 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





West Michigan, deep in Whitebread, USA

Yeah, they could have been large rockets about half the existing size that just jettison and fall away from the ship and then accelerate toward the target. As-is they look like a 28mm scale bit glued onto a fleet-scale ship.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/05/11 20:58:05




"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."  
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

That Resistance ship is amazing, a flying city. It just needs to paint those big warheads in a matching color.

Historically Battlecruisers were upgunned cruisers, smaller ships with the guns of a battleship but the armor and mass of a cruiser. Pocket battleships or glass cannons basically.

 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

 warboss wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
They were probably aiming for realistic naval torpedoes, so they had to make them unreasonably large in order to justify why they can't be reloaded during combat.


I think just mounting them completely outside of the ship as opposed to an internal bay would have accomplished that without going the naval space combat equivalent of JRPG massive sword on the model.


*shrug* it was just a theory

Historically Battlecruisers were upgunned cruisers, smaller ships with the guns of a battleship but the armor and mass of a cruiser. Pocket battleships or glass cannons basically.


Thats incorrect. Battlecruisers generally were larger than battleships in terms of length and comparable in terms of displacement in order to accommodate the additional equipment needed to facilitate the higher speeds, as well as the hydrodynamic shaping needed to achieve it - a longer hull is capable of achieving a higher top speed than a shorter hull of the same beam, thus Battlecruisers tended to be longer than battleships, but not really narrower. In terms of armament, they were generally comparable to battleships though often (but not always) the caliber of the main battery was slightly lighter to facilitate higher rates of fire - we're talking 15" guns instead of 16" guns, or using a /45 caliber instead of a /50 caliber. There were a couple weird scenarios where this wasn't the case- the British Courageous-class ships, for example, which were often referred to as "light battlecruisers" or "large light cruisers", and the Japanese Tsukuba and Ibuki classes which were built as cruisers and later reclassified as battlecruisers. Generally this was the result of politics rather than something that was considered a sound approach to warship design or exemplary of the type.

In terms of armor, it really varied by time and place, as well as whether or not you consider fast battleships to be battlecruisers or rate them as a distinct class - the fast battleships (many of which started out as battlecruisers) generally had comparable armor to normal battleships (in some cases even heavier armor than contemporary battleships did). The first Battlecruisers (the Invincible class in British service), for example, were built alongside HMS Dreadnought (but completed sometime later) - they were 40 feet longer, weighed only about 600 tons less, and had one less turret of slightly larger caliber (305mm on the Invincible vs 300mm on the Dreadnought). The armor, on the other hand, was barely half of Dreadnoughts at its thickest points and no heavier than that of the typical contemporary armored cruiser. In reality, armor schemes for battlecruisers varied dramatically over time and space. Generally, the "typical" battlecruiser is thought of as having an armor scheme intermediate that of a cruiser and a battleship, i.e. heavier than a cruiser, but lighter than a battleship - but that wasn't always true.


In terms of British battlecruiser design, the armor generally lagged that of battleships, but the armaments remained comparable - in general British battlecruisers were about as protected as contemporary cruisers were, but in some cases they were arguably less (the Renown class for example had less armor than any of her predecessors in British service, and the Courageous class which had even less protection than that). The flip side of that is the HMS Hood, which when launched was the largest vessel in the Royal Navy and had armor and armament equivalent to that of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships that were her contemporaries in service. In the post-WW1 era the Royal Navy came to define any battleship with a speed in excess of 24 knots as a battlecruiser regardless of intended role, etc. which meant that later British "Battlecruiser" designs (chiefly the never-built G3) were better armed and armored than the battleships which preceded them.

The Germans on the other hand prioritized armor, as such German battlecruisers had significantly heavier armor than British battlecruisers often sitting between a British battlecruiser and a German battleship in thickness, but lighter armament (usually lagging that of comparable British battlecruisers by 1-2 inches in diameter). By the WW2 era there was a very blurred line between battlecruisers and battleships in German service owing to their generally well-rounded designs. Depending on who you ask the Bismarck was either a fast battleship or a battlecruiser for example, and likewise there have been forests destroyed in the debate about the categorization of Gneisenau and Scharnhorst.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/05/12 00:57:16


CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




chaos0xomega wrote:
They were probably aiming for realistic naval torpedoes, so they had to make them unreasonably large in order to justify why they can't be reloaded during combat.

While reloading torpedo tubes in combat was hard, they didn't displace anywhere near the same space.
My main issue isn't with the size per se (though they are thicc) but that they're housed inside the ship (except for PHR ones I think?)...except for the exit of their tube. So they decided to put an armor box all of the missile except the part that houses sensors and possibly the boom-boom part.
It'd look (imo) so much better if they were on external rails instead, like space-katyushas.
   
 
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