Dropfleet Commander/Tactics/PHR

A Brief Treatise on Pinko Abandonist Punks

With Battle For Earth out, dreadnoughts and destroyers now have official rules, along with the new monitors.

The new fleet builder made a lot of the community errata official, which made a broadside-based strategy for PHR much stronger than it was before. Most of these weapons are now linked and have Fusillade on top of that. So they can put out their full firepower on standard orders, and even more than that on weapons free!

Main tactics page

Why Play PHR

Maybe you think transhumanism is the future, and extravagant AI-laden vessels are the way to show those baselines the error of their ways. Maybe you think capital ships that are sturdy enough to make broadside battery tactics work in space through brute force are awesome. Or maybe you're just expressing you childhood desire to fuck that robot from Flubber.

Whatever the reason for your technophilia, you've come to the right place.

Special Abilities

Calibre (X): Many PHR ships have their standard guns fall into light, medium, or heavy calibre categories. If you target a ship of a tonnage that corresponds to the calibre, your lock value is reduced by 1. Additionally, calibre(H&S) guns only need to roll 1 higher on their lock to get a critical hit, as opposed to the standard 2 higher.

Launch assets: PHR have the only bombers with a 2+ lock, although they have 3" less range than Scourge or Shaltari bombers. Their fighters are second best compared to Shaltari, giving equal PD but having 4" less range.

Assault troopships: While UCM/Scourge troopships are based off their standard cruisers and lacking in weaponry (while Shaltari are their own thing), PHR troopships are the equivalent of their heavy cruisers for the most part, and come equipped with weaponry equal to a standard cruiser. You'll likely see multiple of these in a list due to how good they are.

Overcharge (OC): PHR Dreadnoughts are fitted with a super advanced power management system which lets you divert power to an OC weapon system (or a series of linked OC weapon systems) to overcharge it. If you elect to do this then the ship needs to use the Weapons Free order and the nominated weapon system has its Damage attribute doubled, but you can't fire anything else this turn with the exception of Close Action weapons or Launch assets.

Design ethos: PHR ships are the toughest in the game, with the best armor and more HP than the other races, and Scan stats second only to the Shaltari. In addition, while the PHR Close Action weapons are generally little more than an afterthought, a single PHR ship will often (barring a few exceptions) have DOUBLE the primary weapon firepower of ships of the same class for the other races - this is usually mitigated by the broadside layout, making it impossible to bring all of that firepower to bear against a single target. This means that they benefit greatly from claiming the center of the map in bold 'spearhead' style tactics, and liberal use of the Weapons Free order to get the most out of those powerful broadsides.

Ships of the Line

• Light Tonnage:
  • Echo-class Corvette: The toughest corvette, which doesn't mean too much considering it still only has two hull points. The only corvette with a regular gun on top of the close action weapons they all have, it's capable of popping out of atmosphere and posing a threat. The only PHR ship with stealth, although taking advantage of that is difficult considering the ship only has a signature of 2" anyway.
  • Medea-class Strike Carrier: With a single piddly bombardment cannon for armament, this ship won't be scoring any kills against other ships. However, with 5 Hull and 3+ armor it is practically impossible to kill once it gets into atmosphere.
  • Europa-class Gun Frigate: With three shots on each side arc, this frigate does wonderfully in a first-wave linebreaker battlegroup alongside a Theseus, Orion, or Leonidas/Agamemnon.
  • Pandora-class Laser Frigate: One of the few PHR ships with a focus on forward arc firepower, and even a lone Pandora is useful for adding spikes.
  • Calypso-class ECM Frigate: Once per turn, this escort can apply a penalty of +1 to the lock values of one enemy group when targeting a nearby friendly ship. Not only great for causing misses, but a single Calypso can render a ship immune to critical hits from 4+ weapons. Stackable, but you're limited in how many you can take. Either dump multiple of these on a single ship that you plan on diving into the thick of things, or spread them out to protect critical ships such as troopships.
  • Andromeda-class Launch Frigate: Has a happy chin hangar with Launch 1. Great for flanking and getting bombers far down field sooner. A boost to their close action gives them a secondary role.
  • Castor-class Monitor: With just 4" of thrust and no ability to go Max Thrust, this thing isn't exactly going to be shooting at your opponent's backfield. But with 10" of scan and forward facing weapons (that double their number of shots on Weapons Free), it can be good for defending your own territory. It also ignores penalties for firing between orbital layers.
  • Pollux-class Escort Frigate: This delivers exactly what it promises, an escort for your larger ships. Aegis (7) patches one of the PHR's biggest weaknesses, and the Pollux itself isn't easy to get rid of with 2+ armor. Use this along with a Calypso or two to make your Romulus completely indestructible. (Note that the Escort rule was taken out during development, you can ignore it)
  • Electra-class Destroyer: The first of the PHR’s new destroyer line, the Electra takes notes from the Pandora’s playbook and eschews broadsides for a quartet of front arc Heavy Calibre railguns. Looks to be the best delivery platform for the PHR’s black sheep armament if you’re eager to bully battlecruisers, just remember that you have to go Weapons Free to fire both gun pairs.
  • Ariadne-class Destroyer: Two heavy railguns and a single-capacity bulk lander chin. Considering two of these are the exact same cost as an Orpheus, it’s hard to say why you’d take them for anything other than their extra 1” of relative Thrust.
  • Jason-class Blockade Runner: Replaces the Electra’s gun wings with booster engines and a few tubes of unique Orbit-to-Atmo Close Action missiles. While this gives it something of a contradictory dual mission profile, it has some advantages over the Perseus. For one, nothing else the PHR has is capable of Orbit-to-Atmo fire. For another, the Jason is fast enough to chase down whatever target it wants to go after.
  • Odysseus-class Bulk Runner: A single bulk lander hangar with a bunch of engines strapped to it. Want a defense battery in your opponent’s backfield on turn 2? Take this guy and pray to your spherical ivory god that he doesn’t get shot down mid-transit.

• Medium Tonnage:
  • Theseus-class Light Cruiser: The only light cruiser that can be taken as a single ship. Can keep up with frigates and has solid broadside weaponry and armor, and it's cheap for PHR. The biggest weakness is awful point defense; frigates have better PD than this ship. The addition of Fusillade on all of its broadsides lets it put out some serious firepower on Weapons Free.
  • Ikarus-class Vanguard Carrier: A mixed gunship-carrier that has a couple shots in each of its F/S arcs to supplement its two bases of fighter/bombers. Gained Fusillade on its broadsides.
  • Perseus-class Cruiser: Bad. Even with Fusillade.
  • Ajax-class Cruiser: While it's not a bad cruiser, it suffers from two things: you often overkill frigates with your twelve dice per side, and for only thirty points more you can get an Orpheus with the same weaponry and troop dropping ability. The Ajax does have linked broadsides going for it, and one more inch of thrust. The Ajax benefited a lot from the recent updates. Its broadside weapons were split in two, but remain linked. This allows them to split their fire and avoid overkilling frigates. Fusillade is just gravy on top of that. This is an outstanding frigate killer.
  • Orion-class Cruiser: The standard gun cruiser. Eight 4+ dice per linked side isn't too shabby. Fusillade makes it even less shabby.
  • Ganymede-class Assault Troopship: Bombardment batteries can help clear out enemy tokens in a cluster before you drop your own down.
  • Orpheus-class Assault Troopship: Slightly cheaper than a Ganymede, and you trade out bombardment for light broadsides. Rolling twelve dice per side lets you roll for sixes while attacking strike carriers competing with you for a cluster.

• Heavy Tonnage:
  • Bellerophon-class Heavy Cruiser: One of the best ships PHR has to offer. Launch assets complement the burnthrough laser very well. They tend to do better staying back.
  • Achilles-class Heavy Cruiser: Can be good for reliably putting a couple points of damage on a target thanks to the heavy calibre broadsides. You're mostly paying for the torpedo though, and torpedoes aren't too great at the moment.
  • Hector-class Heavy Cruiser: An Orion with a burnthrough laser slapped onto it and a few more hull points. The problem with the Hector is the difficulty in using both the linked broadsides and the laser, as going weapons free prevents you from turning and lining up the three weapons systems in an optimal way.
  • Priam/Scipio-class Battlecruiser: PHR battlecruisers are interesting in that they're as fast as their frigates. While the Bellerophon wants to hang back and snipe with the laser, the Priam is different in that with its higher thrust, more hull points, better PD, and light calibre broadsides, it wants to dive in and project bombers as far down the board as possible. The fleet builder split its broadsides, just like with the Ajax. This makes the Priam an outstanding frigate killer.
  • Agamemnon/Leonidas-class Battlecruiser: Weapons-wise, essentially two Theseus stapled together in terms of total dice. Each side of the ship has both light and medium broadsides, but what can pose difficulty is in that the two light and two medium broadsides are linked with their counterparts on the other side of the ship, so in order to fully utilize a facing you need to go weapons free. The addition of Fusillade and the split with the light broadsides really improved this ship's killing potential. Kill six frigates at once or just throw a bunch of dice at a target on either side.

• Superheavy Tonnage:
  • Minos-class Battleship: With two torpedoes, heavy calibre cannonades, and a crippling close action weapon, the Minos wants to get up close and brawl. Torpedoes suffer a bit as they do generally, but the neutron missiles go well with the cannonades.
  • Heracles-class Battleship: While the Minos wants to dive in, the Heracles does better hanging back and sniping with its dark matter cannon. It functions as point-and-delete with enemy cruisers thanks to the crippling ability of the DMC. Firing it does give you a minor spike though, and it can be harder to take advantage of your heavy cannonades with a front narrow arc weapon.
  • Romulus-class Dreadnought: Behold, the single toughest ship in the game. With 30 hull, 2+ armor and a respectable 18PD, this thing can tank an entire fleet's worth of firepower and still keep fighting. It's no slouch on the offensive either - the Hypernova Laser will shear a cruiser clean in half with contemptuous ease, and will more reliably hit its 14 damage cap when overcharged, easily outperforming the UCM's Viper. Even more terrifying though, are the Energy Glaive Batteries - 18 3+ lock dice arranged into three linked banks of 6 per broadside means that you can either spread the damage among multiple enemies, or nuke a single priority target however you wish. Overcharging one of these linked broadsides will do enough damage to outright obliterate anything short of another dreadnought in a single barrage, to the point where it's sort of a waste firing it on anything less than a battleship. The price you pay for all this is 500 points, and any last shred of humanity you had left.
  • Remus-class Dreadnought: Just as difficult to destroy as the Romulus, but noticeably cheaper and with a slightly less absurdly powerful armament. It replaces the bottom row of Energy Glaives with four Torpedoes and an upgraded CA weapon, and the burnthrough laser is replaced with the ridiculous-looking Apocalypse Cannon, the single most devastating bombardment weapon in the game. Just remember to cackle madly after stating "If I can't have that cluster, then NO-ONE CAN!"

Building a Fleet

The PHR's uniquely capable assault troopships give them the option to invest points in ground assets and decent combat output at the same time. Be prepared to plug an Orpheus into at least one of your medium slots, but also bear in mind that these assault troopships are very slow. If you rely on these for your ground game, you have to be prepared for the fact that you will be arriving at clusters after your opponent has already been dropping troops for a turn.

The PHR are "topheavy" in terms of fleet choices. Their frigates are intended to support their capital ships, many of their standard cruiser classes (and their only light cruiser) are best off picking off enemy light ships to keep them from scoring or from harming the heavy hitters. The PHR fleet's real muscle is in their heavy cruiser and battleship classes, and it's them that will be doing most of your dirty work. Buy the big guns first, then pick everything else to compliment and support your choice of flagship.

Your battlecruiser is astoundingly fast. Never be afraid to sail it up the map with a squadron of frigates in support, then throw out linked broadsides on all sides as the enemy are just moving into position.

Tactics

Most combat cruisers with broadsides are linked in the L and R arcs, allowing you to fire both with a single weapon allocation. Expect to use Course Change orders frequently, either to drift a single side arc onto a target dead ahead or to slip between two of your opponent's battlegroups for a double broadside.

PHR have some of the strongest command cards in the game. It is definitely worth it to pay for a high level admiral and cycle through your deck as much as possible to reach them.

Counter-Tactics

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Common Playstyles

Beams and Bombers: One of the weaknesses of PHR is the difficulty in getting the most out of their broadsides. Bombers don't care about facing, and burnthrough lasers aren't as difficult to aim if you don't need to worry about lining up for weapons free. Relies largely on the excellence of the Bellerophon.

Spearhead: Take an Agamemnon, a couple of Theseus, and if you're feeling extra spicy, a squadron of Europas in one battlegroup. Bring them on last if possible to gain the best positioning, then fly them straight into the heart of your opponent's fleet. Once you're in position, switch to Weapons Free orders and unleash havoc. Pulling this off relies on the superior toughness of PHR ships in general as well as the surprising speed of the Agamemnon and Theseus, in addition to the massive set of brass balls that you'll need to try such an aggressive move. The addition of Fusillade on your broadside weapons just makes this even stronger.