Thoughts About Designing Fleets

Medea doing what they do best.

I've been thinking a great deal about designing fleets lately for Dropfleet Commander.

What with the Adepticon tournament coming up soon, I've been working hard to get my fleet painted in time. It's a bit of a challenge, life is hectic right now so getting dedicated hours to paint is always an exercise in extreme scheduling.

That being said, I was at the halway point for my 1250pt fleet which featured a very sweet looking Heracles battleship as my centrepiece model. As beautiful as the Heracles is though, I initially had a pretty hard time justifying the 285pt expenditure in my fleet. The folks on the Hawk forums did manage to convince me to give it a try though and I centred my list around it.

I managed to get a game in yesterday against a Shaltari opponent and I've got to say, I was incredibly underwhelmed by the Heracles' performance.

I started off the game with everything in my favour, to the point where my opponent had all but given up, but I'll admit, I completely shit the bed in the last half and in the end the score was somewhere around 44 for my opponent to 8 for myself.

The list was solid, my critical errors were that I ignored his Diamond class battleship, which waltzed

How to Shit the Bed: The Naval Edition.

right through the centreline of my fleet and gutted everything in its path, including my Heracles.

However, the Heracles' whopping 12" signature radius coupled with the Bloom characteristic on its famed Dark Matter Cannon meant that I was projecting an absolutely eye-blisteringly bright signature at 18"! With Shaltari on the board, that meant that they were firing at the battleship from up to 30" without factoring in movement! As awesome as 22 hull points seem, they wilted under the focused fire of the Shaltari fleet and in the end I felt that, even though my positioning was pretty terrible, the utility behind the Heracles left something to be desired.

The Medea and my Echos have continued to be star performers and while my troopships and Bellerophons did become casualties of war against the Diamond, I have seen what they can do under normal circumstances and have recognized that they are key performers.

So after much though, I have decided to double down on my original list philosophy which is to overwhelm the ground game and present a strong presence in prow mounted Burn Through Lasers.

When their carrier and battleship are sitting above your
hometown, things have gone wrong.

I took out my battleship and have added in 2 more Orpheus; they're SO good with 12 Light Cal broadsides on the port and starboard sides and a BTL on the front. I also had points enough to add an additional Medea.

In all honesty, I do debate whether 4 troopships with 6 Medea is overkill and have wondered if I shouldn't take out a troopship and Medea to find the points to add a 3rd Bella and a Calypso, but I'll stick with this list for now and see how we fair.

Here is what that list looks like now:

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Task Force B - 1239pts
PHR - 8 launch assets

SR20 Vanguard battlegroup (360pts)
1 x Bellerophon - 180pts - H
1 x Bellerophon - 180pts - H

SR7 Line battlegroup (213pts)
1 x Ganymede - 135pts - M
2 x Medea - 78pts - L

SR7 Line battlegroup (208pts)
1 x Orpheus - 130pts - M
2 x Medea - 78pts - L

SR7 Line battlegroup (190pts)
1 x Orpheus - 130pts - M
2 x Echo - 60pts - L

SR7 Pathfinder battlegroup (190pts)
2 x Echo - 60pts - L
1 x Orpheus - 130pts - M

SR2 Pathfinder battlegroup (78pts)
2 x Medea - 78pts - L
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I do have to say though, while I was at the halfway point for painting my fleet, with the additional ships now I have not a small amount of painting to get through now with a half a Bella and his brother, 2 more Orpheus, 4 Echos and a Medea to complete.

Not to mention that I need to look at what my Dropzone Commander army will look like for the ground game tournament... There is some comfort in that I have just a bit shy of 7 weeks before the tournament to get everything done in time.

So long as I keep a decent pace, I should get everything done, so long as I don't get ambitious and put too much to paint on my DZC list...

A Njord/Odin wrecking ball could be fun... <looks at unpainted pile of minis...> Hmmmm...