This FAQ Is So On Fleet...

So Hawks difficult second album is here and as with any table-top game there are inconsistencies and typos. Now I, personally, am a big fan of Dropfleet. I love the models and the cinematic style of the system. It’s clever use of signature and scan mechanic makes for a very interesting way of looking at the concept of ‘Ranges’.

Now we have a lovely bunch of clarifications and a few little errata to help out. SO I’ll go through them and pick out the major ones (In my humble opinion at least) and mull over what they mean for the game as a whole.

Errata:

Most of the Errata is actually just correcting Typos and also clearing up little loop holes that if followed would be a programming error.

The meat of the Errata is actually in the Shaltari section. Which makes sense, the Shaltari as the wildcard ‘rulebook-meet-window’ faction are always going to be the faction that will be needing clarification.

• Voidgates can now only kill bulk landers on a 5+ which is a very, very good change. Voidgates are numerous and in atmo, tricky to kill. So the Shaltari player is usually gonna have a couple around a cluster. So the battery effect needed to be downgraded as the previous 4+ was far too good a force multiplier.
• Voidgates are now Hull 2, again this needed to happen. As before they were harder to kill than PHR Strike cruisers due to not being high enough hull to create the need for a crippling roll, which made zero sense.
• A drop in the PD of Shaltari Fighters to +4, which is fair enough considering the monstrously good PD on non-Shielded Shaltari ships. (Although considering a later clarification on Close Action attacks this extra PD would be very handy!)
• Glass Cloudfliers are now 18 points, which seems harsh at first but I think could balance out, as they are only 1 Hull point and need to be taken in quite large groups anyway.
  [EDIT: THESE ARE NOW HORRENDOUSLY BROKED! XD]
• They’ve also added the ability for Voidgates to be used to gate onto Space stations as they couldn’t before…. Ooops!

Missing?

I’d like to see the Scan characteristics of frigates get another pass, Frigates having the same scan characteristic as Cruisers is very difficult to swallow. I can see thematically why this is the case (I also see a good Theme case the other way), but mechanics wise the Scan should force the Frigates to close with the enemy. At the moment they can stay a good distance from the capital ships of an opponent’s fleet and fire with impunity knowing that it’s difficult for an opponent to manoeuvre to engage. It also allows them to almost guarantee a good alpha strike before the opponent has a chance to pick them off.

Scan and Sig on Frigates I (and Mike) feel should be closer to each other. The mechanic of Spikes already more than makes up for any lost distance and would force the Frigates to actually get stuck in and take the beating they rightly deserve.

Core FAQ:

Some good clarifications in this section, for instance the Voidgates can’t use their charged atmosphere while in range of stations, so interestingly Shaltari may struggle to hold stations. Some of the clarifications I personally thought wouldn’t need clarifying but I guess different people read the same words differently!

An interesting clarification on damage effects, which can be used for any effects across the board. For a ship to be effected by a specific effect that takes place after armour rolls it needs to be damaged. For example the Crippling damage, impel, and corruptor weapon qualities must actually damage in order to cause their effects. So if a Passive is passed any weapon effects can be safely ignored. Which is good to know.

Scald works against Passive saves which is very cool, hands Scourge a nice element to use against Shaltari, especially as otherwise Shaltari could Turtle up as soon as Scourge get near.

Torpedoes are also clarified as being absolutely horrendous! Much like the terminator they just keep coming at you. Until the ship is gone, enters atmosphere, shakes it off, or scrapes it off with Debris Fields the torpedo just keeps rolling till it hits. Naughty! I’ve heard the logic behind this is because Torpedoes are very limited in army’s to have them miss on a 1 and disappear would be incredibly annoying. 

Plus it amuses me that torpedoes follow ships like a Mario Cart red shell!

Now for a rather unfortunate Bug-bear in this FAQ…..

*WARNING THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS MATHS* 
*AND TABLES!*

*CONTINUE ONLY IN THE INTERESTS OF FULL* *NERDERY!*
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One particularly important clarification is the one I’ve been dreading, the Close Action (CA) grouping mechanic. Ships in a group now pool all of their CA attacks into one bunch and the defending ship gets their Point Defence (PD) against the hits from that pool. This is assuming all the attacking ships are in range of the defender. Now with this ruling in place the CA orientated groups are very, very dangerous. Now it’s very easy for a group to overwhelm PD through sheer weight of fire, add into that the PD result needed is 5+. If you look at the table below you’ll see what I mean.

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Ship Name	To Hit/To Crit	Random Amount/Highest to Lowest CA result per unit	Group Availability per BG Min to max.*	Group CA Min to Max Ship number/min to max CA	Special
Taipei (UCM)	4+/6+	D6+4/ 5-10	2-10	2 (10-20) 10 (50-100)
Amethyst (Shaltari)	3+/5+	D3+2/ 3-5	2-6	2(6-10) 6 (18-30)	Ignores PD
Turquoise (Shaltari)	3+/5+	D6+3/4-9	1-3	1 (4-9) 3 (12-27)	Ignores PD
Jet (Shaltari)	3+/5+	D6+3/4-9	1-2	1 (4-9) 2 (8-12)	Ignores PD
Wyvern (Scourge)	3+/5+	2D6+4/ 6-16	1-3	1 (6-16) 3 (18-48)
Djinn (Scourge)	3+/5+	D6+2/ 3-8	2-9	2(6-16) 9 (27-72)

(*= per battlegroup max is based on what is considered standard tourney size list of 1250pts)

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So what we can say here is that CA is a HUGE part of combat in this system with this change. Now considering the major culprits of this are Frigates, combine the low signature with the sheer weight of firepower and you have a recipe for a 1-turn battleship killing scale of an alpha strike, at the extreme end of the potential list build. CA are all Front/Side/Rear fire arcs, so there’s very little you can do to manoeuvre your way out of it, which is a shame. I’d like to see some major restructuring in the amount of available CA and the to hit values in each fleet. Currently it’s too big a part of the game, considering the following:

1. You can’t get away from it with clever manoeuvring, the Arcs are too wide and movement rarely takes you outside a Scan/Sig Bubble.
2. PD against a fair amount of the larger CA dedicated groups like pissing into a strong headwind. Whether through sheer weight of fire, or if against Shaltari it’s completely ignored, the average PD value of most ships is no real defence.
3. The average to hit roll of a CA weapon is 3+ that means half the hits that happen are twice as hard to get rid of, and ignore an armour save straight away. Something here really needs to change.

Crunching some numbers (with Maths Mike help, cheers Buddy!) I’ve compared the major Close Action boats in the game getting an Alpha strike vs the Heracles/Minos Battleship in the PHR, for the following reasons;

• It’s the toughest ship in the game (Like your Mum).
• It’s the most expensive ship in the game (Like your Mum).
• It’s slower than a Reliant Robin going uphill, so will likely get hit first (Like your…no….Wait. I don’t condone that).

So using the hardest thing to kill in the game I would think is a good benchmark in order to give an idea of whether or not Close Action stats need another pass.

*Things to bear in mind though; is that attacking ships involved here are alpha striking (i.e. striking first), against no external modifiers. (ECM etc)*

* I’m only using bald median averages for the shots randomisation and I haven’t included any other Primary armaments, the Taipei, Wyvern and Djinn all have other pop guns to add damage potential.

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Points	Ship Qty	Median Dice Average		Normal Hits	Crit Hits	Minos PD Average	Crits getting through	Hits getting through after armour saves	Damage Done Total Before Crippled Roll
	Taipei Qty		4+ Hits (avg)
78	2	15	7.5	5	2.5	4	0.5	1.67	2.17
117	3	22.5	11.25	7.5	3.75	4	1.75	2.50	4.25
156	4	30	15	10	5	4	3	3.33	6.33
195	5	37.5	18.75	12.5	6.25	4	4.25	4.17	8.42
234	6	45	22.5	15	7.5	4	5.5	5.00	10.50
273	7	52.5	26.25	17.5	8.75	4	6.75	5.83	12.58
312	8	60	30	20	10	4	8	6.67	14.67
351	9	67.5	33.75	22.5	11.25	4	9.25	7.50	16.75
390	10	75	37.5	25	12.5	4	10.5	8.33	18.83
	Amethyst Qty		3+ hits (avg)
48	1	4	2.67	1.33	1.33	0	1.33	0.44	1.78
96	2	8	5.33	2.67	2.67	0	2.67	0.89	3.56
144	3	12	8.00	4.00	4.00	0	4.00	1.33	5.33
192	4	16	10.67	5.33	5.33	0	5.33	1.78	7.11
240	5	20	13.33	6.67	6.67	0	6.67	2.22	8.89
288	6	24	16.00	8.00	8.00	0	8.00	2.67	10.67

	Djinn Qty		3+ Hits (Avg)
86	2	11	7.33	3.67	3.67	4	1.67	1.83	3.50
129	3	16.5	11.00	5.50	5.50	4	3.50	2.75	6.25
172	4	22	14.67	7.33	7.33	4	5.33	3.67	9.00
215	5	27.5	18.33	9.17	9.17	4	7.17	4.58	11.75
258	6	33	22.00	11.00	11.00	4	9.00	5.50	14.50
301	7	38.5	25.67	12.83	12.83	4	10.83	6.42	17.25
344	8	44	29.33	14.67	14.67	4	12.67	7.33	20.00
387	9	49.5	33.00	16.50	16.50	4	14.50	8.25	22.75

UPDATED DJINN TABLE WITH CORRECT FORMULA

	Wyvern Qty		3+ Hits (Avg)
105	1	11	7.33	3.67	3.67	4	1.67	1.83	3.50
210	2	22	14.67	7.33	7.33	4	5.33	3.67	9.00
315	3	33	22.00	11.00	11.00	4	9.00	5.50	14.50

UPDATED WYVERN TABLE WITH CORRECT FORMULA (HOPEFULLY...)

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• The Left hand columns in Red represent the points worth of group overtaking the Minos in amount.
• The Right hand Columns in Red represent the point at which the Average Damage over takes the half way point for a Minos Hull points.

So from this we can read that the Taipei currently represents best value Close action ship vs a Minos (remembering the Minos/Heracles is the toughest ship in the game bald stats wise without resorting to special rules/Passives) seeing as its 12pts cheaper as a group for 7 Taipei to cripple a Minos on average. Now importantly remember that this is pure averages we are playing with here, barring whatever luck modifier you feel you have attached to yourself.

A large close action group roaming around the board is a very, very dangerous prospect considering that most of the time they will be going after much smaller targets with lower PD and Hull. Let’s imagine conservatively that you wander the board with a large group of Taipei say around 7-9, this power group will easily cripple/destroy a ship a turn. Add in the usual ablative loss of a couple of frigates and this group is extremely dangerous for a good few turns, especially early game as they zoom around after the early appearing troopships that are lacking the protective escort assault battlegroups.

Currently the only thing stopping mega power CA battlegroups forming is because this game is still early days and this ruling isn’t well known yet! (Sorry to be a signal booster for this…Oops)

I will caveat this statement with the fact that Frigates are fragile so if hit and going pop they can chain react pretty strongly. This is not however guaranteed, not all explosion radius will be large enough to really push a chain reaction and not all explosions are strong enough to cause one in the first place. Importantly one weapon system can target one ship a turn, and eight-nine frigates can saturate one chosen target and sneak pretty quickly for an alpha strike, by a kind of reverse ‘shoaling’. For example a group of Taipei spreads out and tries to keep 2”-3” gaps between themselves to provide protection from chain explosions. Then in the chosen alpha strike turn they manoeuvre into scan range and overwhelm the chosen target with sheer weight of fire.

Alpha Strike a gogo!

So is Close Action broken? 

I would actually say no, not hugely, but it is bent and will skew the way the game is played. By discouraging people from taking larger points sink ships, if only to see them fall to marauding mondo-huge groups of Frigates. 

Which I’m sure you’ll agree just doesn’t feel right.

Now my team mates have said a few things that will change up the way Close Action is done:

Mike:

• Limit Close Action to 6” range across the board.
• Close Action shouldn’t Critical.

Dan:

• Limit the Firing Arcs more to force manoeuvring.
• Close Action shouldn’t Critical.

Joe:

• Didn’t answer…. Just picked his nose and giggled.
• It’s alright he won’t read this article, he never reads these things.

In my case I disagree with Mike on the pure limitation of Close Action, it’s too big a change to the core system to me. But I see the underlying point that Scan range on Frigates in general is rather high considering relative Signature Ratings. I agree with Dan about Firing Arcs being more limited, having a solo front arc on some of the CA focused ships would force a style of play that means a ship would have to commit to a manoeuvre. I disagree with both after some deeper thought on the CA shouldn’t Critical roll, I think that’s a very big change that would warrant a lot of shifting of stats in the end. But then I prefer the softly, softly approach to changing rules, preferring stats changes to big rules changes. But usually takes me a lot longer to work through my suggestions, my off-the-cuff suggestions tend to be awful.

Ed:

• Up the Taipei’s points 5-7pts a piece.
• General rebalance of the Scan characteristics of Frigates (Especially Shaltari, 12”?! Are you kidding me?)
• Limit Close Action weapons to Front Arc on most ships. (Means a ship can blast past a pack of frigates to force escape, Scourge would find this especially useful as they are speedy mofos)

OR

• Add the following line to the close action rule, “Close action Criticals on one higher than a normal rolls, I.e. +3 as opposed to +2” (Have to fit in a big a sweeping change somewhere otherwise it wouldn’t be an OB Post. ;-)

But anyway that’s all pie in the sky. So for the moment make hay while the sun shines and all hail Drop Frigate Commander!

Anyway that’s that rant over onto the next knotty problem.

Command Cards:

Rather brilliantly, command cards aren’t out yet and they have hilariously the largest set of clarifications as to the usage of them. But purely in their usage. What I can glean from the FAQ clarifications is that there are four main types of card target, Ship, Group, Battlegroup, and Fleet. The clarification goes into how the cards interact with each other. But effectively you can kind of, sort of, stack but can’t target a ship and its group with extra cards. 

From what I can tell here is my understanding of card targeting;

Eds Key of understanding:

(Imagine this as if all played in one turn, order in which they appear is order in which cards are played. If type appears between slashes it means pick one of those using restrictions as already detailed)

• Ship + Ship = No
• Ship + Group = No
• Group + Ship = No
• Group + Group = No
• Battlegroup + Battlegroup = No
• Battlegroup + Group/Ship = Yes
• Group/Ship + Battlegroup = Yes
• Fleet + Fleet = No
• Fleet + Battlegroup/Group/Ship = Yes
• Battlegroup/Group/Ship + Fleet = Yes
• Fleet + Battlegroup + Group/Ship = Yes
• Group/Ship + Battlegroup + Fleet = Yes

Players targeting opponent’s follows the same restriction but ignores their opponent’s card targets plays.

1. I hope that makes sense
2. I really hope I’ve got that right!

Anyway I’m really glad this FAQ/Errata came out its good to see Hawk continuing to support its second game! I really like the potential in this game with its clever mechanics, but it’s still early days and we’ve a ways to go till it’s as tightly balanced a system as Dropzone.

If I’ve missed anything out important let me know in the comments and I’ll respond accordingly.