Dropfleet Commander/Tactics/UCM

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Reconquest

Why Play UCM

Railguns with forgiving firing arcs and damage-spiking lasers with narrow arcs cover all the basics of firepower

Your ships look like Mass Effect/Halo/(200X sci-fi franchise) rifles with engines

Special Abilities

Aegis (X): all friendly ships on the same orbital layer within 4" of this ship (including itself) add X to their Point Defense pool.

Detector: this ship may always use Active Scan orders even if their battlegroup chose a different order this turn. All Detector ships in a group may Active Scan, instead of just one.

Ships of the Line

• Light Tonnage:
  • Santiago-class Corvette: A cheap corvette without any gimmicks. Bring them in large numbers if you go the corvette route, and get them into atmosphere as quickly as possible. Don't be afraid to attack enemy frigates as well as strike carriers
  • New Orleans-class Strike Carrier: Your bread-and-butter scoring unit, don't forget their gun. One New Orleans won't be killing anything, but four of them can defend themselves reasonably well.
  • Toulon-class Gun Frigate: Three baby turrets give these little skirmishers three 4+ shots each. A flotilla of these can sweep in to bully the enemy's back line and force a response from your opponent. Just watch out for chain detonations.
  • Taipei-class Missile Frigate: When the UCM build a close-action vessel they go all-in, this little nightmare unleashes massive missile swarms...once it gets into range. Don't expect an opponent to let you do this after the first time he's seen it happen. Can be valuable for sheer distraction value - make sure the enemy has to pick between the Taipeis and something equally painful.
  • Jakarta-class Defense Frigate: The Jakarta's Aegis rule provides a Point Defense boosting aura to ships within range. Extremely useful against bomber-heavy lists and Close Action battlegroups, but useless against main guns and Shaltari Beam CAWs.
  • Lima-class EWAC Frigate: A little ship with a big claim to fame. As the only ship with the Detector rule, Limas can ping enemy ships with Active Scan regardless of their battlegroup's orders. Use this to light up targets with spikes and make burnthrough alpha strikes that much better. Keep in mind that they can remove Silent Running status on a 4+ as well.

• Medium Tonnage:
  • New Cairo-class Light Cruiser: Armed only with a Cobra Laser, this ship is literally hit-or-miss in combat but comes in twos or threes. A full group of these caps out at 18 damage and is nice for Flash spiking even if the dice gods hate you.
  • Osaka-class Light Cruiser: Carries a single set of heavy mass drivers. Wide arcs and high speed make this an excellent class for flanking.
  • San Francisco-class Troopship: Big scoring ship with tough UCM armour and no frills. Don't rely on the wing turrets, and use Max Thrust orders to make quick passes over your dropsites.
  • Seattle-class Fleet Carrier: Has Launch 3 and a set of heavy mass drivers for a reasonable price, making this a popular workhorse for UCM fleets.
  • Madrid-class Cruiser: The most cost-efficient bombardment ship in the game. A pair of these can turn even the sturdiest of sectors to rubble in a single volley.
  • Berlin-class Cruiser: Wing turrets and a laser makes for a more durable Cobra platform than the New Cairo. Just don't expect those side turrets to see much use if your opponent is paying attention to your facing.
  • Rio-class Cruiser: Basic gun cruiser with a bank of heavies and two medium wing turrets at just over 100 points. Good at getting stuck in and holding a battle line, though unlike the Seattle it has to go Weapons Free to access its full damage output.

• Heavy Tonnage:
  • St Petersburg-class Heavy Cruiser: Two Cobra Lasers. With some good rolling on Weapons Free, this heavy can cripple a battleship or delete a cruiser outright. If your opponent keeps their ships out of the F(N) killzone, it can take Standard Orders and divert power to a single Laser to boost its Burnthrough cap from 6 to 8. Think of it as a sniper rifle with the option to go noscope.
  • Moscow-class Heavy Cruiser: All the guns. Two sets each of light and heavy mass drivers give it 12 shots in the front arc on Weapons Free. Good at camping over clusters in low orbit and daring other ships to contest them.
  • Perth/Avalon-class Battlecruiser: Proud bearer of the Wave Motion Cannon Viper Superheavy Laser. Faster and sturdier than a St. Pete and able to fire its more reliable handful of Burnthrough dice on Standard Orders, although it does take a Minor Spike for doing so. Makes for a nice aggressive flagship.
  • Johannesburg/Atlantis-class Battlecruiser: Heavy turrets AND fighters sound potent, but the Atlantis can be a bit hard to use as the guns want you to advance aggressively but the launch assets make you want to hang back. A good cheap command ship if you don't want to spring for a battleship, the Atlantis is best used aggressively as part of your battleline with her fighters defending friendly ships or making quick strikes against targets of opportunity.

• Superheavy Tonnage:
  • Tokyo-class Battleship: For when you absolutely want every last motherfucker on the ground to die. Loses the main battery weapons of a Beijing and kinda commits you to a bombardment-heavy strategy, but is very good at executing that strategy. Quite popular as a cheap battleship that brings battleship-grade HP and defences, if not the heavy firepower of her cousins.
  • New York-class Battleship: A heavy carrier with a huge launch asset wing (recently buffed to 7) and torpedoes. Torpedoes aren't that great at present but they're supposedly up for buffing in the next FAQ. You won't miss them with those immense hangars. Pair with a Seattle to have the smaller carrier launch defensive fighters while you gut enemy capitals with massive bomber wings.
  • Beijing-class Battleship: An all-rounder battleship with heavy firepower, equally heavy armour, and lots of different weapons. This last is the ship's weakness as it forces the ship to go on Weapons Free orders all the time to actually dish out the pain. Unpopular in the meta simply because the other two battleship classes are so useful, but the Beijing is still a mighty ship - note her increased scan range, which can give Scourge and Shaltari a very nasty surprise.

Building a Fleet

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Tactics

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Counter-Tactics

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Common Playstyles

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