Dropfleet Commander/Tactics/Shaltari

Conflict is eternal. No less so am I.

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

Why Play Shaltari

Reliable damage output

Zippy jousters

Long range shooting

Weird drop compared to other factions allows you to do a lot with a little

Special Abilities

Energy Shields: At the start of a battlegroup's activation, they may choose to raise their shields to grant them a crit-proof save at the cost of a major boost to their Signature and reducing their Point Defense to 0.

Particle: These weapons automatically score Critical Hits, ignoring armor

Mauler: These are close action burnthrough weapons whose lock value is equal to the target's armor, making them lethal against PHR.

Motherships/Voidgates: Shaltari don't just drop troops like other factions do. Instead, they teleport soldiers onto the battlefield from motherships to voidgates to gates(the equivalent of dropships for other factions). This lets you fly your cheap, expendable voidgates forward while your motherships hide in the back (though they can't hide in the atmosphere).

On top of this, voidgates can be used to redeploy troops that you've already dropped. So if you find yourself with more tokens than you need in one cluster, send them somewhere else.

Ships of the Line

• Light Tonnage:
  • Voidgate: Not actually a ship. Take one for every point of Gate assets in your fleet, then take a few more. Don't forget that the voidgate can act as a defense battery since Shaltari have no way to drop them normally.
  • Glass-class Corvette: Once the game’s most spammable combat ship, now just a tiny CA glass cannon. pew pew pew pew pew
  • Topaz-class Gun Frigate: Basic Disintegrator jockey. Two shots with Front arc targeting only, but with 3+ Lock it puts out reliable damage (and crits!) at long range.
  • Amethyst-class Close Action Frigate: Thanks to the power of microwaves, this frigate's d3+1 Close Action (Beam) shots cannot be countered by point defenses. Expensive but deadly.
  • Jade-class Lance Frigate: One particle lance. Averages less damage than a Topaz in a smaller arc, so you're best off skipping them in the starter box and building something else.
  • Opal-class Shield Booster Frigate: Allows one nearby vessel each turn to reroll all failed Passive Countermeasures saves against a single group's worth of shots. Use these to keep a valuable target from getting oneshot.
  • Silicon-class Monitor: The slowest ship that the Shaltari have (it can't even Max Thrust or Course Change). However, it can fire its powerful Quad Ion Cannon between orbital layers with no penalty. Two hits from a group of these will inflict energy surges onto the target, preventing it from taking special orders until the damage is repaired. This can seriously cripple an enemy ship, making the Silicon extremely powerful for defending your side of the field.
  • Selenium-class Heavy Voidgate: Twice the drop capacity of a voidgate but half the thrust mean that the Selenium won't be the first to arrive at a cluster, but it can be effective in the second wave if you're worried about your voidgates being destroyed. It also has better weapons, armor, and shields to defend itself against corvettes and whatever else might target it.
  • Jade-class Lance Frigate: One particle lance. Averages less damage than a Topaz in a smaller arc, so you're best off skipping them in the starter box and building something else.
  • Chromium-class Destroyer: The first Shaltari Burnthrough Laser vessel, with a basic BTL(3) profile given Lock 2+. More fragile and expensive than the comparable PHR Pandora, but packing extra weapons and the usual double digit Shaltari Scan and Thrust stats.
  • Mercury-class Destroyer: Another close action brawler. Instead of unblockable microwaves it carries a Pulse Ionizer that makes the first use of the Mauler rule. This is a Close Action Burnthrough attack that uses the target’s Armor as its Lock value with a max damage cap of 6. Note that it is subject to PD rolls!
  • Cobalt-class Homeship: Mini-mothership able to materialize a single asset per turn. Also has a set of basic Disruptors for when your opponent decides to press your lines.

• Medium Tonnage:
  • Aquamarine-class Light Cruiser: Impel has the potential to seriously mess with an opponent. Turning their ship can ruin their entire plan and win you the game. Unfortunately, it's pretty unreliable. Each Aquamarine has a 30-52% chance of turning something (depending on the target's armor).
  • Azurite-class Light Cruiser: The same fast but squishy body as the Aquamarine, but replace those impel weapons that have the potential to win the game with a the Emerald's weak guns.
  • Emerald-class Mothership: The chewy nougat at the center of every Shaltari fleet. All their ground assets are aboard this ship, but they require Voidgates within range before you can actually deploy.
  • Basalt-class Fleet Carrier: Shaltari launch assets are funny. Their bombers are fast, but ultimately nothing special (and you already have long range). Their fighters on the other hand are the best in the game, and they work even when shields are up. So if you want to laugh at enemy bombers and close action, here's how you do it.
  • Turquoise-class Cruiser: The smallest Shaltari vessel mounted with their unique bombardment/CA (Beam) Ion weaponry.
  • Granite-class Cruiser: Two particle lances! Has to go Weapons Free and probably miss arc on its intended target to fire both!
  • Amber-class Cruiser: Two Disintegrator Batteries, one in each F/S(x) arc.

• Heavy Tonnage:
  • Jet-class Heavy Cruiser: Essentially a Turquoise with a Disintegrator Bank added up top. The Jet is able to bring all its firepower to bear against other ships without going Weapons Free as long as the Ion weapons are being used in Close Action mode.
  • Obsidian-class Heavy Cruiser: Three particle lances! This time with Linked on two of them, so it can still execute turns and put out a reliable mean of 2.6 unsaveable damage in the same activation.
  • Onyx-class Heavy Cruiser: Three Disintegrator Batteries. The standard "Weapons Free whenever possible" heavy for the Shaltari, though its damage potential isn't too shabby.
  • Sapphire/Palladium-class Battlecruiser: The combination of Gravity Coils and Ion Aura arrays make this an odd ship. It can't put out damage like the Ruby/Adamant, but provides a mix of situational utility.
  • Ruby/Adamant-class Battlecruiser: Particle Cannon Pair + Disruptor Banks = vaporized primitives

• Superheavy Tonnage:
  • Platinum-class Supercarrier: Remember how I said Shaltari bombers are nothing special? Seven of them is still a whole lot of damage. The Platinum is overshadowed by the Diamond, but it can do some work, and it can drop one gate per turn to support your motherships.
  • Diamond-class Battleship: Has the distinction of carrying the single most devastating weapon in the game (before dreadnoughts came along). Prior to the nerf that decoupled the Particle and Crippling rules, its Particle Triad could reliably delete a cruiser every turn with guaranteed cascading crits. Also drops one gate per turn to support your motherships.
  • Plutonium-class Dreadnought: Shaltari dreadnoughts pay a pretty big premium because they're also motherships. The Plutonium is the most expensive dreadnought across all factions. Does that mean it's not worth it? Are you crazy, of course it's worth it! The distortion cannon alone is one of the most fun weapons in the game, and can one-shot a battlecruiser. Add in the other weapons and this is one scary ship.
  • Uranium-class Dreadnought: The same body as the Plutonium, including the four gates, but with a slightly more manageable price tag. Unfortunately its weapons are also far less impressive. On the one hand, you get to fire four guns on standard orders, which is huge. On the other hand, your big expensive dreadnought that's also a source of drop has to get close to the enemy to attack...

Building a Fleet

Unlike the other races, who have to decide on a balance between strike carriers and troopships, Shaltari are only concerned with how many Motherships they want and how many Voidgates are necessary to absorb casualties while still deploying their Gate cap every turn.

Another interesting advantage that the Shaltari have is that their bombardment weapons can also be used against ships. If you brought ion ships for bombardment but the mission doesn't give you any bombardment targets, you didn't really waste any points. Keep this in mind when you're building an all-comers list.

Tactics

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Counter-Tactics

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Common Playstyles

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