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.

The new fleet builder made some serious changes to Shaltari, buffing a number of ships that didn't see much play previously.

Main tactics page

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. These recently got nerfed and can't deploy ground assets after using Max Thrust orders (probably for the best).
  • Glass-class Corvette: Once the game’s most spammable combat ship, now just a tiny CA glass cannon. It is Shaltari's only anti-atmosphere ship, so you're stuck with it if you want to kill strike carriers. 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. Even the addition of Fusillade failed to save them.
  • 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. Note that battleships and dreadnoughts require two shield boosters to protect them.
  • 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.
  • 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! These things can be downright terrifying when they go after heavily armored ships. A group of three will have a fair chance of one-shotting a PHR battleship. Even if you end up playing against Shaltari, they're never worse than a Topaz.
  • 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). Wait, what's that? The new fleet builder gave it Impel 1 while also reducing the point cost? Why yes, I would like to turn my opponent's ships in whatever direction I want to.
  • 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 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! The fleet builder added Fusillade to its guns, which is huge. It isn't any easier to get shots off on Weapons Free, but it is now worth it to try for a potential 8 unsaveable damage. Definitely a high-difficulty, high-reward ship.
  • Amber-class Cruiser: Two Disintegrator Batteries, one in each F/S(x) arc. A strong mainline combat ship.

• 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. As with the Granite, this got Fusillade on its lances, making it far more worth it to go for that Weapons Free. On the other hand, two Granites would be 16 damage instead of 12 for the same SR and only 35 more points. Something to consider.
  • 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. And with the Gravity Coils changed to Impel 1, it can be quite a lot of utility.
  • Ruby/Adamant-class Battlecruiser: Particle Lance Pair + Disintegrator Banks = vaporized primitives. Tough to set up arc for Weapons Free, but worth it, especially with Fusillade on the lances.
  • Pungari Thresher: The Pungari Thresher is a mercenary ship that all factions have access to, though only Shaltari can give it a 6+ Passive Countermeasures save. This thing is completely at odds with the rest of the Shaltari fleet, but that isn't a bad thing. Slow, extremely durable, and carrying bulk landers, the Thresher is perfectly happy to fly straight towards a cluster and dump troops while soaking up enemy firepower. Weapons with Corruptor and bombers with 4 weak attacks make this even more of a DISTRACTION CARNIFEX that can seriously mess with your opponent and take pressure off the rest of your fleet.

• 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. The recent buff to the close action weapon is just icing on the cake.
  • 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. Like the other ships with particle weapons, it got Fusillade in the new fleet builder. Unlike the other ships, this was a nerf as it lost a shot when not on Weapons Free. This is not the auto-include that it once was, but it's still a force to be reckoned with.
  • 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

With less hull and armor than everyone else, Shaltari need to be smart if they want to survive. One of the most important aspects of this is knowing when to raise shields and when to lower them. With their save working even against critical hits, shields offer even better protection than PHR armor, but at the cost of a massive increase to signature and the complete loss of Point Defense. Knowing when to make this trade-off is entirely situational, but you should usually raise shields if you expect to be shot at either way. Even with your top-tier Point Defense, shields usually offer better protection against a dedicated close action assault or large bomber wave (the only exception to that rule are the super-heavies which have truly ridiculous PD). Your main consideration should be if the extra signature will allow enemies to shoot at you that wouldn't be able to otherwise.

With all of your Particle weapons now having Fusillade, you now have a bunch of F(N) weapons that want to be fired on Weapons Free. Actually getting an enemy in arc to do this is easier said than done. There are two basic strategies to accomplish this. One is the classic last-first activation. You activate the Particle ships last on one turn and first on the next while targeting an enemy with a higher SR. You get to line up your shot and then take it before they get to act. The other is to give your opponent something else to worry about so that they can't be bothered by a couple of cruisers trying to line up F(N) shots. Simply having a dreadnought on the table may be enough to accomplish this, but if your opponent is familiar with Shaltari you may have to be trickier.

Your teleportation shenanigans can give you some serious advantages over other factions, but they also require you to have motherships which can't hide in the atmosphere. If your opponent is smart (or just not stupid), they'll try pretty hard to kill these motherships. You'll need to do everything that you can to keep them safe. Hiding behind, or even inside of, debris fields is one way to accomplish that. With shields raised, you should take less than one damage per turn from the debris. The Emerald can withstand that easily enough, and even the Cobalt would rather take some rocks in the face than face down a swarm of angry Djinn.

Counter-Tactics

The nature of Shaltari drop means that they will always have Motherships (be they Emeralds, Cobalts, or super-heavies) outside of atmosphere. Killing these early has the potential to win the ground game immediately, even if you have to sacrifice some ships in order to do it.

Common Playstyles

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