Top Five Reasons to Try
Dropfleet Commander

Hey everyone! It's Truthiness here bringing you our first entry of the Blissfully Ignorant Gaming Blog! Unlike our CYGSO blog, which focuses on Star Wars Armada, this section of the website will focus on some other things. Today, I'm talking about a game you may have heard Shmitty and I raving about, or seen played on our YouTube channel: Dropfleet Commander. The game wasoriginally published by Hawk Games and resurrected by TTCombat. It isan absolute blast to play, so much so that you'll probably see a fair number of blog entries from me in the near future. To start us off, Shmitty and I had a chat and came up with the top five things we love about the game.

#1- The Models

I mean, have you seen them? Go look again. We can wait.

The DFC fleets are stunning. The models in this game continue to amaze us, especially since each faction has a very distinct style. To paraphrase Snipafist, you have six options: average joe, H.R. Giger aliens, anime porcupine aliens, better than humanity, angry geometry and die historic on the fury road. If anything, UCM have a brutal utilitarian look. They look like a fleet of flying guns. PHR have sleek lines and awesome high tech feel. Scourge are so fluid and monstrous. Resistance look exactly as kitbashed as you would want and expect from jury-rigged spaceships. The Shaltari look utterly and totally alien. The flying saucers are an especially nice touch. The brand new Bioficers somehow managed to find yet another angle for unique, distinctive design. 

Some of these designs might not appeal to you, but the brilliant part is that there is probably at least one design that does. While each army visually evokes popular sci-fi franchises, they are put together in a way that is uniquely Dropfleet. Both the Scourge and Shaltari look completely alien, both from the human forces and from each other. Even the three human-based armies have their own distinct flavor, from the hyper-advanced PHR, the utilitarian sci-fi of the UCM, to the retro futuristic equipment and post-apocalyptic forces of the Resistance. If one of these factions doesn’t reach out and grab your attention...you might want to get your head examined, because there is something missing deep in your soul.

#2- Free, Recently Updated, Rules

The rules are 100% free. You can read them right here before investing a penny: 

https://ttcombat.com/pages/dropfleet-commander-downloads 

The Drop-verse manages the impressive balancing act of simple, yet deep. What we mean by that is the games rely on their core rules to provide distinction between units, with special rule exceptions kept to a minimum. These are our favorite type of game systems, as they make for an easier introduction for new players, while simultaneously providing tactical depth for veteran players. Games shouldn’t be about “gotcha” moments trying to remember an ever increasing number of special rules. It is not an easy accomplishment, but we think DFC really nails it. Dropfleet updates have been consistent and frequent. The new edition rules have been streamlined, but not in a way that takes away from the tactical depth of the game. TTCombat has consistently followed through with regular updates, going so far as to make some seriously bold adjustments to the games if needed. Dropfleet has had a flood of new units at the launch of the new edition. Now is the perfect time to jump in.

#3- The Universe

We love this universe. No grimdark, but no flawless protagonists either. As you read the background material you can see why each force has a clear motivation for fighting in the wars of the Reconquest. The reasons for alliances and betrayals are all internally consistent. It never feels too random when a new force appears in a theater, and just about any matchup can be justified in universe. The best part is the studio has shown a willingness to push the story forward, giving us more background in an increasingly rich universe.

Here’s a very quick synopsis of the story so far: 

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Mankind became a spacefaring race, quickly encountering technologically superior aliens called the Shaltari. The Shaltari gave humanity advanced travel abilities (jump nodes) and some choice colony worlds. However, it turned out the Shaltari were a highly factional race. Some other Shaltari tribes attacked the human settlers. It turned out those first tribes were hoping to use humans as meat shields for Shaltari civil wars, as Shaltari breed very slowly. The humans told the Shaltari to sod off and an age of peace reigned for a while, with Earth and the Cradle Worlds becoming beacons of human civilization.

Eventually, an object called the White Sphere crashed on Earth and broadcast a warning of impending disaster for mankind. It gave coordinates for an exodus away from Earth and its Cradle World colonies. Some tried to leave, but the Earth Navy tried to stop them. This resulted in a battle where the escaping ships fired first, crippling the Earth Navy. Shortly after, Earth and the Cradle Worlds were simultaneously invaded by a race of parasitic aliens called the Scourge. Only a faction of humanity escaped to the poorer outer colonies, where they turned off their jump nodes. Contact with Earth, the Cradle Worlds, and the colony Kalium was lost at this time. The outer colonies formed the United Colonies of Mankind (UCM) who organized their societies with the sole purpose of reconquering the Earth and Cradle Worlds.

For the next 160 years, the UCM spent their time building up a massive fleet. They sent scouting parties to the colony worlds to plot for an invasion, making contact with human Resistance forces. These forces were usually cooperative with the UCM, but some were occasionally run by belligerent petty warlords. The Resistance used a combination of old Earth Alliance Army (EAA) equipment and militarized civilian equipment. On the eve of the first wave of the Reconquest, an emissary of the Post Human Republic arrived at the UCM capital to warn them against the planned invasion. The UCM recognized the PHR as the “Abandonists” who had followed the White Sphere and told them to sod off. The Reconquest went generally in the UCM’s favor early on, with a few colonies liberated. As the campaign drew on, however, setbacks caused some systems to turn into a meat grinder. The Shaltari and PHR frequently intervened, although seemingly at random. Eventually the PHR conquered a system of their own and the Shaltari cut the UCM out of another.

The Scourge contacted the UCM and let them know that humanity was one of many races the Shaltari had thrown in their way in the hope that they would grind each other up. The UCM responded that they would kill the Shaltari after they were done with the Scourge, which led to a Scourge invasion of some of the UCM outer colonies. It became obvious at this point that Shaltari intervention was geared at causing maximum casualties on both sides of the conflict, but no one knew what the hell the PHR was up to. Things had ground to something of a stalemate when an opening was blown in the Scourge defenses on Earth by a Resistance force. The UCM didn’t have the manpower to exploit the opening, until they were approached with an offer of alliance by both the PHR and the lost colony of Kalium. Kalium had been cut off but maintained a vast army of old Earth Alliance Army (EAA) equipment. Together the “Triumvirate” invaded Earth. The fight for which is still ongoing, but the meat grinder largely shattered the alliance. Kalium unilaterally pulled out and the PHR slowly drew down their participation.

The latest entrance into the universe is the Bioficers. The background on these guys is somehow even worse than the Scourge. It’s the Matrix, but if the robots started just throwing humans into a meat grinder and reusing the constituent parts to make their bodies. They are AIs that exist to fight “worth” opponents. They’re hoping humanity gives them a good fight while the Bioficers relish the stuffing. These were the guys the PHR was afraid of attracting. It was recently revealed that the PHR’s seemingly random actions were a targeted attempt to silence Bioficer listening posts. Unfortunately for humanity, the Reconquest has been way too loud. This has cause a split in the PHR. Those most devoted to the White Sphere are pulling back to PHR home soil to regroup and rearm. Others are sticking by their UCM allies, now more forthright in their actions.

#4- Objective Based Play Enabling True Combined Arms Warfare 

While Dropfleet models are fairly close in scale to other fleet games, it manages to put a whole heck of a lot more models on the table. Thanks to the simple-yet-deep rules, it makes for games comparable in length to Star Wars: Armada and Battlefleet Gothic, especially in the latest edition of the game. All those ships on the table make it feel like a fleet game, more so than any other game around. That scale helps the game escape a problem that many other miniatures games have. Let’s face it, in many games, one type of unit tends to dominate over others. With less models on the table, there is less space to create unique roles and capabilities. One option almost always tends to dominate over another in a binary situation like that. In a lot of ways, that comes back to scale. The smaller the scope of the game, the more single assets can swing things. 

The larger scope of Dropfleet allows for more roles and a better balance between those roles. Nothing is going to be good at everything in the game. Your line ships have the big guns. Your drop assets bring the landing units you need to secure objectives. You have units dedicated to reaching into atmosphere to hunt down dropships. And you have carriers that either keep the sky clear or punish weak defenses. If you don’t bring enough line ships, your drop assets are going to get hunted down badly. If you don’t bring enough drop assets, you are going to lose the objectives, no matter how many enemy ships you blow up. It is a delicate balancing act in list building that really highlights the benefits of the objective based focus of the games. To truly succeed, you can’t really skew hard toward one unit type in either game. At the end of the day, skew is noticeably bad in DFC, rewarding a true combined arms approach. That is a huge and wonderful achievement.

#5- If You Can’t Hold It, Blow It to Hell

Not convinced so far? OK, well here’s one last thing: if you can’t hold it, just flatten it! For real. Can’t secure a sector? Bombard it from space. How is that not amazing? It is not a small thing to do, but the fact that it is an option tells you how much fun you can have in the Drop-verse.