Dropfleet Commander: What Is It?
Hawk Wargames' new spaceship combat game, designed by Hawk's Dave Lewis and Big Name Andy Chambers. Fun Rules, Sexy Spaceships.
How is it Different from Other Space Combat Games?
Well, the spaceship combat itself is actually pretty standard, in a good way. Movement is (typically for spaceship combat games that aren't super beardy) more or less based on waterborne naval combat, with minimum and maximum move distances depending on ship class, limited turning, and such, with the added wrinkle of movement between orbital layers, shooting between which is at increased difficulty. You can give your ships different orders to turn more, move more, shoot more, and what have you, and different weapons have different accuracy ratings and special rules and all that jazz.
The big innovation in terms of space combat is how shooting ranges are worked out. All weapons except the really short-range and easy-to-block weapons like missiles and such ("close action" weapons in DFC parlance - they can only shoot at short range and enemy ships can use their point defense lasers and missiles to shoot them down) have infinite range - given the right circumstances, you could shoot at anything on the tabletop*, with the same chance of hitting as you would shooting at things that are nearby. You calculate range by adding your own ship's "scan" range - the sophistication of your sensors, if you like - and the target ship's "signature" - its heat signature, noisiness to sensors, whatever you want to call it. Ships have a base signature rating, which is different depending on faction and ship class, and their signature will increase and decrease as the game goes on as they use special orders and get "energy spikes". Want to burn thrusters to close with the enemy or make a rapid course change? It'll make you easier to target. Want to fire all your weapons systems? It'll make you a lot easier to target. Want to go "silent running" and coast silently through the void? It'll make you much harder to target. It's a clever system that allows for wrinkles like active scan orders, a sort of sonar "ping" that gives a spike to an enemy ship at a cost of taking a spike yourself - useful for kicking an enemy ship out of silent running as well.
*Practically, of course, that doesn't really ever happen. The longest signature + spike + scan range currently in the game is 42" for a big Shaltari ship with its shields up and a big spike, being shot at by an enemy with a very good scan rating, but most ships are going to be valid targets from only up to about 20" or so.
The introduction of orbital layers is another unusual mechanic. Most ships will operate in high orbit, but objectives (which I'll discuss anon) will require you to get ships in low orbit or even down into atmosphere, each of which introduce their own potential problems. If you have a big ship in low orbit and it takes critical damage, its orbit might decay, sending it burning up into atmosphere. Atmosphere-capable ships are relatively safe down there, as shooting down into atmosphere is, from an orbital perspective, like shooting into a rather murky lake, and Mythbusters have shown us how hard shooting even into a clear swimming pool is. But in atmosphere you're limited to atmospheric speeds, which are only a couple inches per turn on a 4' x 4' board.
But really, the big thing, the big huge thing that makes Dropfleet different from, and potentially much deeper than, most spaceship combat games, is its heavy focus on objectives. The basic assumption is that battles are being fought in orbit, with the overarching goal of getting men (or, as the case may be, men possessed by evil alien brain parasites) onto the ground to capture critical locations - industrial or commercial sectors, military or orbital defence facilities, power plants or communication centers, and the like, or even space stations in low orbit. Even if you wipe up in orbital combat, if your opponent has more critical locations under his control on the ground, you've failed your fundamental mission and lost the game. Balancing your force between fighting ships and transports, and your transports between light strike carriers bringing small numbers of elite troops and bulk landers bringing large numbers of ground-pounders, is going to be the key to victory. Frankly, this aspect of the game looks potentially very deep, and makes the game much more than a simple exercise in choosing the shootiest ships and maneuvering around to blow up your opponent. I mean, you do that, and space combat is plenty fun and very satisfyingly explodey, but you absolutely must keep an eye on the objectives on the ground, which ones your opponent is moving troops towards, whether you can get troops there to contest, and what kinds of troops, and whether you want to give up ship-to-ship combat capability for specialized ships to bombard enemy troops for orbit, softening them up for your own brave troops on the ground. Lots going on in this part of the game, and I think it's what will really set it apart.
What About Factions?
Factions are the same as Dropzone Commander, less the Resistance who don't have spaceships, and plus hints sprinkled throughout the rulebook of a forthcoming sixth faction. Basically:
The United Colonies of Mankind, the "viewpoint" faction, militarized and frankly kind of fascist human remnants who were kicked off Earth a hundred and sixty-odd years ago and whose launch of a campaign of Reconquest is what kicked Dropzone off. Their ships are solid all-rounders, with good armor, reasonable speed, good defenses and lots of railguns.
The Scourge, the evil alien brain parasites what kicked humanity off Earth (and captured about 99% of the population for implantation of said brain parasites). Not nice guys. Their ships are, compared to the UCM, sort of glass cannons. Fast, very dangerous at close range, with relatively weak armor. They've got about a dozen ways to deliver hot plasma to you, and have (at the moment) the only stealth ships in the game to speak of.
The Post-Human Republic, who split off from humanity just before the Scourge attacked because a little white ball told them to. Said little white ball is a very powerful and very mysterious alien AI, which (completely benevolently, I'm sure) has guided their development, turning them into a small, hard-hitting force of elite art deco cyborgs. Relatively slow and tough, with weapons that roll lots of dice at the expense of limited fire arcs.
The Shaltari, literally immortal aliens who like warring amongst themselves almost as much as they like warring against everybody else. Very much the "shenanigans" faction, with teleportation and energy shields and weapons that ignore armor and weapons that ignore point defense and weapons that turn enemy ships in other directions and all kinds of probably bothersome nastiness of that sort.
Note the models. Dave Lewis is a wiz at designing mecha, and this game is no exception. Beautiful, beautiful stuff.
What's this about cheap starter fleets?
Oh gosh yes! A starter fleet of three cruisers and four frigates, which will set you up with a solid 500 points where 1000 is a tactically-interesting game that fills out a 4 x 4 table nicely, has an MSRP of 40 GBP, with the usual retail suspects offering the usual discounts. A box of two cruisers is half that, and a box of 8 frigates is 25 quid. All quite reasonable, for satisfyingly chunky and really I can't stress just how beautiful models. It looks like the resin releases (of which the very very sexy battleships are the first) will be a bit more pricey, but each cruiser sprue has everything you need to build any cruiser or heavy cruiser, so you'll be really well set with just the plastics.
Even having played just a couple demos, I'm quite comfortable saying: s' a good game! If anybody locally wants to give it a shot, MiJ and myself have fleets, and I believe at least one other forum member, maybe more, bought into the kickstarter. Ask around!
It's based on my reading of the rules and so far extremely limited experience with the game on the table.
Is this intended as a reference for info or is it somewhere others (ie me) can post DF related ramblings, too?
