Author Topic: Dropfleet Commander  (Read 13610 times)

Ruckdog

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3049
  • Number of Times Thanked: 188
  • Dive! Dive!
    • View Profile
    • Man Battlestations!
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #45 on: January 31, 2017, 01:55:31 pm »
An Errata sheet was issued today.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0159/4298/files/Dropfleet_FAQ_s_and_errata_1.1.pdf?10209811200625327151

Interesting...after a quick glance through, looks like the Shaltari are getting tapped with the Nerf bat slightly (gates go down to 2HP, and the Glass goes to 18pts per ship). I also spotted a few things in the FAQ that I realize I was doing wrong last Saturday!

Ruckdog

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3049
  • Number of Times Thanked: 188
  • Dive! Dive!
    • View Profile
    • Man Battlestations!
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #46 on: February 01, 2017, 10:47:29 pm »

Dakkar

  • Rear Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1175
  • Number of Times Thanked: 25
  • Mobilis in Mobili
    • View Profile
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #47 on: March 03, 2017, 02:42:46 pm »
Locally, Gamer's Haven has just the rulebook on the shelf now. Noticed it last night.

I flipped through it, and began trembling as the cool pics and ship images began seizing my brainstem and impulse centers while flooding them with dopamine. Eventually I had to fling it from me and flee, lest I succumb.

Seriously, Spartan has *real* competition here, on looks alone. Don't know why the looked so much better in the book versus the KS pages ...
"History is-a made at night. Character is what you are in the dark!"
-- Lord John Whorfin, Red Lectroid Leader

McKInstry

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 130
  • Number of Times Thanked: 3
    • View Profile
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #48 on: March 03, 2017, 06:07:39 pm »
Well, I have 3 cruisers and 16 escorts finished for the Scourge. I probably won't get to start on the UCM until next week but by April I should be ready to start the basic scenarios.

The models are gorgeous and all in all, not terribly demanding to paint.

MajorMcNicol

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 205
  • Number of Times Thanked: 2
  • Regret #9
    • View Profile
    • Andy G. and Ian C.
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #49 on: March 10, 2017, 12:05:17 am »
I'm very happy to come back* to the forum and see a good discussion about DFC underway!

I hope by now everyone has received their Kickstarter. I did not receive mine in the mail until mid-January, but I can't hold it against them. I set about reading the rulebook and building frigates - SO MANY frigates. I went all-in for UCM, and so far the Toulon (basic UCM turret frigate) is my favorite model, and ship class. (I say that without having played a game, of course.)

Personally, I find the focus on orbital combat refreshing. As much as I love open-space combat, I like the emphasis in DFC on what is being fought over. I find it also helps capture the relative scale of the warships and the planet. That said, I do have a star-field gaming surface I would like to be able to use. Maybe for taking on highest-orbit space station over Olympus Prime?

Anyway, I have started building and painting a fleet when I can. I was not very interested in building the recommend starter fleet for the UCM, so instead I have been focusing on getting a points-equivalent fleet ready for gaming. Namely, it consists of: a full group of 3 Osaka-class light cruisers, 1 Madrid-class cruiser, a full group of 4 Toulon-class frigates, and 2 New Orleans strike carriers. I believe it comes int at just 2 points over the standard Moscow-Berlin-Seattle fleet. So far, I have built everything but the Madrid, and even gotten the three Osakas fully painted.

I did not think I would, but I really like the ship bases. They've gone together easily enough, and have enough room to put ship names on them. In a move that surprised no one, I have started naming the ships in this battlefleet with Rush song titles.

Thanks for the blog content on the game, Ruck! I enjoyed it a lot when first digging into my Kickstarter box. Is anyone else following the "building the Avenger" series on YouTube? Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/hawkwargames


* - My laptop was stolen out of a locked hotel room last June, and I was not able to afford a replacement until January. This marks my first post back on an online forum since! (The lawsuit against the hotel is ongoing.)
http://andygomez.wordpress.com/
UPDATED Canons de Zibeline DW Merc Company rules: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_gsuBDmdvmLNFduUHRWMEtVbTA/view?usp=sharing

Check out my brother's novel on Amazon: Out From the Chasm by Keenan Cross

McKInstry

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 130
  • Number of Times Thanked: 3
    • View Profile
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #50 on: March 10, 2017, 01:33:06 pm »
I'm certainly excited by DFC. Trying to crank out UCM to get a game going but Scourge was my initial painting effort. I've got PHR but won't get there for a while.

Ruckdog

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3049
  • Number of Times Thanked: 188
  • Dive! Dive!
    • View Profile
    • Man Battlestations!
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #51 on: March 22, 2017, 01:14:28 am »
New Kickstarter update!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hawkwargames/dropfleet-commander/posts/1835808?ref=activity

Quote
Dear Backers,

We hope everyone is having a good Sunday, and the first few months of 2017 have been full of great games and Spaceship and Space Station building activities.

This is a fairly long update, but hopefully full of a range of interesting things for you all. We know there are some of you who are still waiting on missing parts, and a few waiting on missing pledges altogether. We are working on these and every week are sending out missing parts and pledges as quickly as we can.

We are also putting together details to share with you soon on Wave 2. This will come in one of the next few upcoming updates.

We have also been working on a range of content specific for backers which we will be sharing soon too - we have been prioritising getting remaining pledges and missing parts out to backers, so this has taken longer than we had hoped to get to you all. This will be being sent out via an update in the next few weeks, which will be followed by regular updates on other content that will be specific to backers too.

The UCM Saratoga Class Light Cruiser

We are pleased to be able to present to you all the web only model in celebration of the relaunch of our website.

This highly detailed resin ship is the UCM Saratoga Class Light Cruiser, an alternate sculpt for the popular New Cairo Class Light Cruiser. It will be available exclusively on our website until April 21st. After this date, it will be on sale at Salute 2017, along with a few other select shows that Hawk Wargames are attending. After that, this miniature will not be available again, so get yours while you can!

The Saratoga is an experimental development of the New Cairo class Light Cruiser with a focus on efficiency, incorporating the very latest systems. While the New Cairo inherits many core attributes from the older Rio class (itself several decades old), the Saratoga features an entirely new prow and amidships superstructure, conceived from the ground up.

Early field reports of the class in action have been exemplary, showing the ship able to provide equivalent combat performance to the New Cairo while consuming less energy and requiring fully half the crew to operate effectively. The few in service have served with distinction and none have thus far been lost to the enemy, leading officers and enlisted to declare it a uniquely lucky class.

Unfortunately for the Admiralty, the Saratoga's were built exclusively at the FSI (Ferrous Shipping Industries) yards over the planet Ferrum which were entirely destroyed during the Scourge onslaught in late 2671. The yards had turned out a meagre 12 vessels for early void trials before their loss, making this one of the rarest ships in the UCMF. Compounding this, several proprietary systems were integral to the design and the subsequent collapse of FSI makes future construction of the class unlikely.

Famous ships of the class: Saratoga, Angelfire, Heaven's Ire, Stygian Light

Along with this model, we also have a range of models available for a limited time to celebrate the relaunch of our website. They can be found here in our Website Relaunch Sale > and include a selection of the show only models from previous years.

Dropfleet Commander Corvettes

We are also pleased to present the Corvettes for each faction.

Each Corvette Blister contains 6 highly detailed resin Corvettes, along with 6 flight stands and bases. These Corvettes are now available to pre-order from the Hawk Wargames Website >

Some Experimental Rules Updates

Below is a brief summary to induduce this experimental Rules update document, which can be found here >

"To all Dropfleet gamers, Firstly, we’d like to thank you all for playing the game and for your continued enthusiasm and feedback. Since Dropfleet’s release, we’ve been watching and listening to the community as it gets to grips with this new and exciting game. As always, balance, competitiveness and enjoyment are extremely important to us and going forward we intend to always work to keep the system as good as it can be - To that end, we’re always open to making changes if they will improve the gaming experience. The aim is always to make every unit viable and to give players many and varied routes to victory.

Normally (as regular Dropzone Commander players will know), we release rules changes and errata online as the system evolves. We have already released the first Errata and FAQ documents for Dropfleet and after taking in sufficient feedback, we feel it’s time to make some adjustments. Since Dropfleet is a brand new system, we’re making this document experimental and optional. If you like, please try these new adjustments, mull them over, talk about them and give us feedback. These are in no way final and are open to changes! In this new experiential format, we’ll run through our rationale behind many of the proposed changes. Once we’ve taken in this feedback, we’ll re-release this document in a revised and official form. Changes #1 and 2 would be incorporated into the official Tournament Pack rather than in Rules Changes.

Thanks again for your support and enjoy the game!
David J Lewis and the Hawk Wargames Team"

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on these experimental updates!

Whats Next

We have a range of campaign material that we are working on, in addition to the backer content that we are preparing. This will also start to be disseminated over the next month or so. Alongside that we have a number of tournaments and organised play events popping up around the world, and will have more information about this available on our website in the next few weeks.


We have our first official Hawk Wargames run Dropfleet Commander One Day Tournament at UK Games Expo on Saturday 3rd June 2017. For tickets and for more information about this event, click here >

We also have a Dropzone Commander One Day Tournament at the same venue on Friday 2nd June. We are excited about both events, and of course exhibiting at the UK Games Expo as well.

In the UK Hawk Wargames will also be attending the Salute 2017 and Carronade 2017 over the next few months.

In the US, we will be at AdeptiCon 2017, Origins 2017 and GenCon 2017.

We look forward to seeing many of you at these shows.

Lastly, we are also working on the remaining sectors that have not yet been released, and are happy to show how these are looking:

Thank you again for all of your continued support, and for sharing some of the amazing games, painting and construction that you have been doing! We look forward to seeing even more and starting to share some of it in the Gallery on our website.

Kind regards

The Hawk Wargames Team

If they have any new goodies on display at Adepticon this week, I'll be sure to get some pics!

McKInstry

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 130
  • Number of Times Thanked: 3
    • View Profile
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #52 on: March 22, 2017, 01:28:30 am »
Anxious to see any pictures. I've got three Saratoga CL's and a box of the UCM and Scourge corvettes ordered but I'd really like to know when we'll see the Battlecruisers.

MajorMcNicol

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 205
  • Number of Times Thanked: 2
  • Regret #9
    • View Profile
    • Andy G. and Ian C.
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #53 on: June 21, 2017, 03:54:43 pm »
Anyone up for some thread-necro?

I have painted a 750 point fleet, played one game, and was completely destroyed by the end of turn 4. We are hoping to get together for another game this weekend, and while I have not painted any more ships, I have been reflecting on why I lost so hard against some Scourge - the Great Enemy.

• I think my current 750 point fleet is not spread out enough around battlegroups - I underestimated the importance of each battlegroup's Strategy Rating (SR). SR makes a big difference for which models go first, and especially in a smaller game where you only have so many models, going first can change the game.
• I am not sure the Osaka light cruisers in a squadron of 3 are worth it in this size game - although I do think there is credence to the idea that more hulls are a better choice than better armor. Ships die faster and more often than I was anticipating.
• Unlike DW or Firestorm (which probably informed my list building more heavily than I realized), having full squadrons does not seem so advantageous. Spreading around frigates across battlegroups may be a better choice than having larger squadrons, to reduce SRs and/or to provide flexibility for orders like active scanning, etc.
• Launch assets are about as powerful as I expected, and then next ship I paint should be either another fleet carrier or battlecruiser with launch assets.

Here is the fleet list I ran last game:

--------------------------------------
Basic Skirmish Fleet - 745pts
UCM - 3 launch assets

SR15 Line battlegroup (258pts)
3 x Osaka - 258pts - M

SR7 Line battlegroup (196pts)
1 x Seattle - 132pts - M
   + UCM Commodore (40pts, 3AV)
2 x New Orleans - 64pts - L

SR6 Pathfinder battlegroup (111pts)
1 x Madrid - 79pts - M
1 x New Orleans - 32pts - L

SR4 Pathfinder battlegroup (140pts)
4 x Toulon - 140pts - L
------------- dflist.com -------------


TL/DR: I need to paint more
http://andygomez.wordpress.com/
UPDATED Canons de Zibeline DW Merc Company rules: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_gsuBDmdvmLNFduUHRWMEtVbTA/view?usp=sharing

Check out my brother's novel on Amazon: Out From the Chasm by Keenan Cross

Ljevid

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 16
  • Number of Times Thanked: 3
    • View Profile
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #54 on: June 23, 2017, 10:14:33 am »
The Scourge are like a silent Shotgun killer – they creep up on you with silent running and jump out of hiding with a double shotgun blast to your face. If they hurt you enough with the first attack they will obliterate you.

Their disadvantage is their low armor, huge sig and the low Hull (HP).

Their advantage is their incredible punch, their speed and their ability to lower your armor (Scald) once they are in scan range and they always hit on 3+.


Your list has possibly a couple of weak points:

- 3 New Orleans is not enough drop in a game that is won on the ground.

- The Madrid is an interesting addition, but seems like a luxury in a list that isn’t tailored on destroying enemy ground assets.

- No corvettes (yet)?

- Too few battlegroups.


I like the rest actually – now it is important how you play them.

- Watch out for max thrusting Scourge that try to get your transports before they enter atmosphere.
- Don’t forget about active scanning
- I’m using a 3 New Cairos instead of Osakas, this is really about taste and the Osakas have a better firing arc. But I’m supporting the New Cairos with two active scanning Limas on the backboard to give their targets major spikes.
- The Toulons are nice and can overwhelm an enemy (don’t forget that they attack together with 8 Close Action attacks and that the Point Defense of the enemy has to defend against all these attacks at once)
- See to it that the Toulons are spaced 3” apart to avoid chain explosions.
- Your bombers can attack silent running Scourge 24” away – no matter if you “see” (scan+sig+spikes) them or not.
- Every shot counts. You got a New Orleans in atmosphere that hits enemy ships in orbit on a 6+? Always give it a try!

This is all the smart stuff I can come up with right now…  ;)

I hope it helps a little  :)


jjakaalbinoboy

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 4
  • Number of Times Thanked: 0
    • View Profile
Midlands Maelstrom - Dropfleet Commander 1250pts tournament in Worcester!
« Reply #55 on: August 31, 2017, 04:39:58 pm »
Redditch Wargaming Society is proud to present its first Dropfleet Commander Regional Tournament!!

If you are a Dropfleet Commander player in England, and especially the West Midlands area, this is a fantastic opportunity to meet and compete with other Dropfleet players, no matter your previous experience.

This tournament aims to provide a testing ground for those planning to attend Winter Invasion 2017 in Croyden, and as such the top-ranking players from Summer Invasion (UKGE) will be in attendance. However, this tournament also provides a brilliant opportunity for newer Dropfleet players to broaden their experience and get used to Dropfleet's tournament setting. All for the bargain price of £6 a ticket!

For ambitious players, Midlands Maelstrom also provides an opportunity to further your statistics towards Hawk's World Rankings.

Sign up and ticketing details on the link below. Please contact me if you have any further questions.

http://www.hawkforum.co.uk/hawkforum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=10227&sid=4843c4a666b3a70f184c8a6a97c9c126

jjakaalbinoboy

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 4
  • Number of Times Thanked: 0
    • View Profile
Scanners Offline - A UK Dropfleet Commander Podcast
« Reply #56 on: March 12, 2018, 05:50:56 pm »
Hey everyone!

In case anyone missed it, we've launched a UK-based Dropfleet Commander podcast, inspired by the guys over at The Hot LZ! To fill you in - we've been publishing Dropfleet Commander podcast episodes, roughly once a month, since November of 2017. We try and keep our fingers on the pulse when it comes to Dropfleet Commander news and attend as many UK tournaments as possible. Which we share to our listeners as soon as possible. Outside of exhibitions we talk about the latest news, tournament results that are shared with us, we answer any questions that come our way, and just generally discuss Dropfleet Commander.

If you get a chance check us out! Our cast members are based in the Midlands in the UK. Give us a listen, check out our episodes in the archive, our write ups on our blog site, and if you like us let your friends know!

But if you have any questions please reach out to us! We are more than happy to answer your questions, critique your lists, help you promote and run events, and anything else we can do to grow and solidify our gaming community!

Thanks!

Our Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/scannersoffline
Our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/scannersoffline/
Our Website/Blog Site: http://scannersoffline.com/
Our Twitter: https://twitter.com/scannersoffline
Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scannersoffline
Our Email: ScannersOffline@gmail.com
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scannersoffline/
Follow us on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/scannersoffline/
Subscribe to our channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYHIHFd9zn4btP6Y183yDIQ
Our Podcast on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/scanners-offline/id1312292995?mt=2
Our Podcast on Google Play: http://bit.ly/2DbN0yT

hammurabi70

  • Lieutenant J.G.
  • *
  • Posts: 54
  • Number of Times Thanked: 3
    • View Profile
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #57 on: December 23, 2018, 10:57:18 am »
Here are my initial thoughts on the game:

http://www.manbattlestations.com/blog/2017/02/02/dfc-first-impressions/

I was interested to read your review and wondered how matters had progressed.  I was particularly struck by your comments about the integrated nature of space and surface combat.  In our campaigns, we have always assumed that space combat would be around planets rather than in deep-space but have had no effective way of integrating space marines on the ground with ship combat in space.  How does it work with these? 

Dropzone Commander is currently at £2 on the website so this looks an interesting package.  Dropfleet Commander is still at £20 and I am not sure what each of these does.
6mm wargames group: 6mm+subscribe@groups.io
http://www.olivercromwell.org/

Covertwalrus

  • Lieutenant Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 411
  • Number of Times Thanked: 90
    • View Profile
Re: Dropfleet Commander
« Reply #58 on: May 22, 2019, 09:43:52 pm »