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Yep, eg the scourge buildings are only an "Event Exclusive" item sold at random times and not generally.


Part of it is the limit that they wanted all the fights on just Earth and around Earth, so in theory just human and scourge buildings would work. However they still have no real model tokens for infantry, troops, fighters, torpedoes and such for each faction.

They started with the Human faction options but never really grew them outside of that.

TTCombat wrote:With our team continuing development of Striketeam Commander we'll be periodically updating our Kickstarter page with new art, renders, and information about this exciting project!
Follow the campaign here ahead of launch:
https://kck.st/3ymRS6v

A podcaster on Facebook posted some clarifying information…with a bit of speculation mixed in.

As a summery
DfC 2.0 is out around September/October.

There are currently 20 new plastic sprues with more possible, not sure if these are all kits or some might have more than 1 sprue in a kit.

We are getting plastic monitors and light frigets so I assume 10 of the 20 sprues will be dedicated to this for total of 4 plastic kits for each faction, old and new that is.

I would assume the new bio boys are getting 4 new similar plastic kits, leaving 6 plastic kits unaccounted for.

Again I assume that that means each of the 6 factions in 2.0 will get a 5th plastic kit from the remaining 6 plastic sprues, could be faction based space stations, another medium class ship, faction inspired fighters or more generic terrain. But this is guess work on my part

fingers crossed for faction launch/drop asset packs.

Still no solid rumors about the changes to the game itself though...

If they are launching in sep I'd have thought we'd have some gameplay ideas and such from the recent convention cycle and all

I'm guessing plastic battlecruiser/battleship for each faction maybe?

I could see plastic battlecruisers - battleships and dreadnoughts I feel are big and sold in smaller quantities that they'd likely still be better in resin.

Same might even be true for the battlecruisers.

 Overread wrote:
I could see plastic battlecruisers

on fire off the shoulder of Orion, I bet.

We will monitor this model line with great interest.

Thing is the "traditional core" for most naval games are frigates, cruisers, and battleships. 2/3rds of that trifecta is plastic, would make sense to make the battleship plastic too so players can do all-plastic basic fleets

True, but at the same time unless you have highly modular designs; most games iwll only have very few battleship classes to choose from and most armies might only have 1 or 2 at a time.

Meanwhile cruisers and frigates (esp cruisers) often have many different specific variations and can be taken in greater numbers. So the number of "per player sales" for battleships is likely to be much lower than that for Cruisers and Frigates.

Yeah that's true. Counterpoint, they may have taken to heart my comments from a few months ago about how naval wargaming gets the nature of battleships wrong and treats them as singular entities backstopping a fleet of smaller vessels wrong, and that battleships were in actuality typically formed into squadrons of 3-6 ships that formed the core of a proper fleet - which is to say DfC 2.0 will have more battleships

As a fan of more ships on the table I'm all for that!

Honestly I'd love to see them use movement trays for cruisers and frigates as well so that you could squeeze even more ships for a real fleet feeling without the number of entities you have to move around becoming too great to manage.

 winnertakesall wrote:
Sadly TTCombat have mismanaged the game from start to finish on this, I hope second edition is able give it a bit of a boost

I'm hard-pressed to think of an existing company and game system(s) more neglected and poorly managed. Here's hoping they get that new energy and direction they want.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I could see plastic battlecruisers

on fire off the shoulder of Orion, I bet.

We will monitor this model line with great interest.

Quoted for exultation.

Also 20 new sprues

Never played DFC but I loved building the UCM and Resistance Fleets.

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

 winnertakesall wrote:
Sadly TTCombat have mismanaged the game from start to finish on this, I hope second edition is able give it a bit of a boost

I'm hard-pressed to think of an existing company and game system(s) more neglected and poorly managed. Here's hoping they get that new energy and direction they want.

The strange thing is that they have money to push into the game (mostly because they've got Troll Trader behind the firm as backup); and they clearly put a lot into it. Those titanic behmoth models for dropzone are really huge; the resistance battleship is one of the most modular battleships on the market in terms of variety of build.

Somewhere there's a lot going into this and all the new plastic sprue is a big investment along with a new faction and new edition. Hopefully 2.0 turns a big corner. I'd love to see this genre of game get more attention and see Dropfleet get back on its feet.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I always picture a mainstream space battle enthusiast buying the box with a big smile on his face, then reading the rules and realizing he’ll have to build 1/4 to 1/3 of his fleet as joyless token droppers and gradually losing that smile.

You're not wrong unfortunately. The worst part is that they're actually cool models and I loved that (at least initially when the game was first released under Dave) the ground models actually fit under the dropships.

Warcradle and TTCombat are both fairly similar companies when you look at how they are organized, what they do, and what kind of financial backing they have.

TTCombat had several years headstart with DzC and DfC over Warcradle with Dystopian Wars and the other Spartan properties. If you compare what Warcradle has accomplished to what TTC has accomplished, it's clear the two companies are operating at completely different levels of competency and capability. Dystopian Wars is a much bigger game after 3 years than DfC is after 6 - with more factions, and wider range of models and kits and products, way more plastics, better rules, more rules support, more regular rules updates, etc. And I say that as someone who isn't a Warcradle/Dystopian fan - I'm morbidly intrigued by the game but also kind of resent it's existence.

Armored Clash will probably be bigger in a couple years than DzC is after a decade or so on the market. It's pretty clear that TTC has mismanaged the game when you compare it to other options.

Warcradle know what they're doing, for sure. Some Friday nights in the private Discord you can also see some quality rants about what other companies are doing wrong.

Warcradle also spent about 5 years just building up to bringing Dystopian Wars back onto the market. Which was honestly a good move but also surprising considering they'd spent a lot to get hold of something that they basically had to start over from scratch and leaving a big time gap like that meant a lot of earlier customers will have drifted away. So very much blank-start.

TTCombat instead bought a firm that was running and just in dire need of finances to help get over a Kickstarter supply. They didn't have to pause production for half a decade to rebuild from a messy shutdown. In theory that gave them even more advantages over WC.



The other thing I notice is that WC are really pushing quality in what they do. The plastic sprue get revised and updated; they tinker with what they are doing.



Honestly you just feel like Warcradle as a firm really loves what they are doing and working with; whilst TTC feels like they are keeping the lights on and there's a talented designer but not as much passion in the firm. And yet they've kept the game going for ages and invest heavily into it so clearly there's a desire to see it do well.

Perhaps all they really need is one or two staff who just know how to run things better.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly you just feel like Warcradle as a firm really loves what they are doing and working with; whilst TTC feels like they are keeping the lights on and there's a talented designer but not as much passion in the firm.
...
Perhaps all they really need is one or two staff who just know how to run things better.

I think that's the crux of it. I had the misfortune of a couple conversations and interactions with the TT owners, a pair of brothers, and they were absolute dicks that seemed to look down on wargamers as pathetic nerds and man children (and talked to some people in the industry off the record that had similar stories about them). I've never seen a company thrive when the head is that rotten. Hence why my real hope is that the truckloads of money Warcradle is making compared to TTC one day allows them to buy them out and consume them.

I really love the models and concept for Dropzone Commander, btw. The ground units mixed with air are more my thing, and it would be super cool to see this re-surge. I remember a decade ago when it was on the shelves at game shops in my region.

I still play Dropzone and Dropfleet about once a quarter maybe, just a one-off one-on-one game not a pickup thing at all. Probably an even mix of the current rules and houserules or the old DZC beta edition. I've still not found a 10mm SF game I like better than the beta, it's just a much harder sell than the current rules to new players, and even the old players know the beta rules with me have mostly moved on to games that require less work.

I'd love to grow both games locally, but I need TTC to give me something better to work with, which is a total non-starter as they've to date refused to acknowledge any problems with it.

I really want new editions to be good, but they've squandered all my good will and forbearance.

With the new Bioficer threat looming, the UCMF have been pushing their shipyards to the limit! Dropfleet Commander 2.0 will introduce the new Bruges Cruiser with its Cobra Heavy Laser and Taipan Laser Turrets.

So it’s a laser ship with frickin’ laser beams on its back?

While I enjoy the lore implications of the UCM fitting that battlecruiser laser on a cruiser, with additional laser turrets, I’m not sure where that fits in the game space. Didn’t they just tweak the St Pete into a grande laser cruiser?

Are they weaker burn-in lasers do we think?

I would imagine so, like the space station laser turrets.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

While I enjoy the lore implications of the UCM fitting that battlecruiser laser on a cruiser, with additional laser turrets, I’m not sure where that fits in the game space.

The 'Cobra' laser is the class the St. Pete/Berlin/New Cairo was packing. The BC sized one was the 'Viper' class laser. So I think this is literally just a Berlin with the mass driver turrets swapped for laser turrets. And I can't say I'm a fan of the laser design, it's got a retro rocket thing going on that clashes with the rest of the UCM aesthetic. It literally looks almost exactly like some of the guns from Warcradle's Dystopian Wars, which is goofy victorian scifi.

Huh. You’re right. I was thrown off by the size of the laser. It looks about 50% longer than the current Cobra laser, so it’s more of a step back.

To me the laser nozzle looks like it’s been designed to be cast in plastic as one piece (with the hull?), on its side. The emitter reminds me of a bottle, but it should be simple enough for me to snip the nip and drill a concavity similar to the current UCM lasers.

I wonder if the primary and secondary hulls are being redesigned to cast as single pieces that scissor together to make the cruiser, with only some antennae and turrets as separate pieces? The new New Orleans class looks like it was designed to cast as a single piece in plastic, which is why I fear they’re going for minimal piece sprues.

If you side-by-side it, they changed the model a few other ways actually.

Looks like the top front piece is wider and maybe a tad longer. And the laser used to be 2 pieces, the body and a very tiny end cap, just the silver bit in the Berlin pic above. The new model has a much larger end piece with an underslung sight looking thing and stacked rings on the end? I don't really get why they changed it at all, probably an ease of casting thing? Otherwise it really is just a Berlin with laser dildo turrets.

The UCM ship designs were always my favorite in the line as an admittedly outside observer. Noice! *smack*