Drop-verse Faction Intro: Resistance

ARE YOU READY TO DIE HISTORIC ON THE FURY ROAD?!

WITNESS MEEEEEEEE!

Welcome to the Resistance, the Drop universe’s post-apocalyptic humans. As you can tell by the opening of this post, we're gonna have a lot of fun here. The faction itself encompasses a wide variety of actors in the Drop-verse. They might be a group of ragtag freedom fighters making due with their pick-ups and whatever old tanks they can get their hands on. They could also represent the rogue colony of Kalium, using older designs, but manufactured recently. They might be the remnants of the Earth fleet sent to Vega to stop the Abandonists. Or they’re just batshit crazy marauders loosely obeying the will of a feral warlord. Either way, buckle up, because the Resistance is full of possibilities.

When we talk about the Resistance, we’re not really talking about a single unified faction. The Resistance is just a term for all the various non-UCM, non-PHR fighting groups that are found all over the Drop-verse. The most common variety is the survivors on Earth and the Cradle Worlds. For the last 160+ years, they’ve been eeking out an existence in Scourge occupied territory. They’ve either gone underground, holed up in a remote area, or just stayed off the radar somehow. These groups have had to live with the intense terror of the omni-present Scourge for as long as they can remember. These factions vary wildly from location to location. Some Resistance groups don’t get along with each other at all. While there are plenty of good ol’ fashioned freedom fighters, there are just as many petty tyrants more concerned with their own little bit of power than fighting, much less defeating, the Scourge.

Another flavor of Resistance are isolated space vessels that survived the Scourge invasion, but didn’t make it to the colonies before the jump points were disabled. The most significant example of this time of Resistance cell is the Vega Scrap Fleet. During the Battle of Vega, the bulk of the fleet departed, leaving disabled ships behind to await repair crews. Those repair crews never arrived thanks to the chaos of the Scourge invasion two days later. Those left behind disabled the Vega jump node, isolating themselves in the same manner as the colonies. The crews managed to cobble together spare parts from the wreckage of the battle to keep their ships running. Imagine if Battlestar Galactica went on for 160 years. That’s the Vega Scrap Fleet. Their relations with the UCM have been frosty, if amicable enough to avoid any conflict. During the Battle for Earth, the Scrap Fleet decided to reinforce the Triumverate at a critical moment, turning the space battle in favor of the human coalition. Their ships, despite being so old, held together remarkably well, a testament to expert crews born and raised in the void.

AA technicals, straight out of Gorkamorka

Watch out for the school bus

Finally, there’s the rogue colony of Kalium. Shortly after the flight of humanity to the colonies, the colony of Kalium refused to join the fledgling United Colonies of Mankind, instead deciding to close itself off from the rest of the galaxy. They disabled their jump nodes and cut off all communication. Since then, there have been several civil wars, eventually developing into a militaristic authoritarian society. Their entire society is mobilized for war, with universal conscription and a sprawling military industrial complex. Rather than innovate new designs however, Kalium relies on old Earth Alliance Army designs. That means big, tough tanks and big ships with big guns. They’ve just been manufactured recently rather than preserved through generations. The look and feel of this subset of Resistance is very intentionally that of Space Soviets.

On the tabletop, Resistance is the most wonderful hot mess you can imagine. It’s a faction held together by duct tape, rusted weapons, and probably more than a little bit of insanity. Seriously, they’re fighting alien hovercraft from pick up trucks. You gotta be nuts to do that. The defining feature of the Resistance is just the sheer chaos and customizability of their fleets and armies. No two Resistance cells are alike, and neither should your collections. You will have heavily armed, top-of-the-line old Earth cruisers right next to settler ships, and mole people drill-transports supported by heavy tanks. That dichotomy is at the heart of what makes the Resistance so stupidly fun to see on the tabletop. They make no sense, but you’ll love every second of it.

In space, the Resistance mainly represents Kalium and the Vega Scrap Fleet. However, there are plenty of opportunities for you to make up your own background. The defining trait of Resistance fleets is customizability. Unlike other factions, who have defined classes with specified weapon loadouts, the Resistance can mix and match weapons and systems as they see fit. Right now it’s a bit of a mess of balance, with some choices being pretty obviously superior to others. Still, the bones are there for a very cool mechanic that is perfect for the type of player the Resistance is likely to attract. For example, it’s hard to see a reason to take a regular frigate when a heavy frigate gains ablative armor and more hardpoints for just a 7 point investment. That said, it is probably just a balance pass away from being a total blast.

Resistance fleets also tend to have wide use of the ablative armor rule. This means that Resistance ships can be pretty tough up until they are crippled. Their heavy and super heavy ships, for example, can get up to a 2+ armor save, but that drops to 4+ once reduced to half health. Ships below half health tend to go down quickly, so it is overall a solid deal for the Resistance. You get to be tough when it matters, but you get to be cheaper than PHR. Their weapons, like the faction itself, are all over the place. There are weapons with scald, unstable, overcharge, mauler, fusillade, and more. Where the Resistance is weak is scan range and speed. Actually, I shouldn’t sugarcoat it: they straight up have the lowest thrust and scan values in the game. However, being a build-a-bear faction, Resistance cruisers can boost scan range and thrust value with hardpoint slots, so you can compensate for the wider weaknesses of your fleet with a few customized cruiser groups.

These are the seven ships you get in the starter

And so are these. That's how customizable this faction is.

It is on the ground that I think the Resistance is at its ludicrous best. This really is Mad Max: Fury Road the faction if you want it to be. You have pick-up trucks with rocket launchers bolted on. One of your main transports is a giant tunneling drill. You’ve got all manner of improvised weapons right at home in an insurgency. And right beside these things, you can have some seriously heavy tanks and brutal aircraft. The Hannibal tank is the toughest standard tank in the game, and comes loaded with a wide range of weapons. The Hellhog is channeling the very best attributes of the modern A-10. Hellhog go BBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTT. Resistance infantry are some of the most flexible in the game. Resistance Veterans are able to choose their exact loadout just before deployment rather than in list building. Berserker Assault Troops are nasty in CQ. Freeriders, basically freedom fighters on Harleys, are able to jump on and off their bikes as needed to either move quickly or occupy a building. Finally, Resistance are able to exercise a lot of the same lateral mobility as the Shaltari, though with a low tech vibe. Whereas the Shaltari use mobile teleporters, the Resistance achieves something similar with their tunnel networks. Don’t sleep on those mole people.

We hope you enjoyed our introduction to the Resistance and will join us on the Fury Road soon. If you have questions, feel free to jump into the Blissfully Ignorant Gaming Discord at https://discord.gg/77EQzSF. We’ll do our best to answer your questions there. Thanks for stopping by!