General Gameplay

#### Objectives

The most important thing to remember in a game of Dropfleet Commander is that the game is won and lost based on objective points, and not always on the damage done to the enemy fleet. Many games have been lost in which a player focused on destroying their opponent's fleet, even as their opponent snuck past their lines and achieved the scenario objectives.

Always keep in mind which targets pose the biggest threat to your fleet's game objectives and try to prioritize dealing with them, instead of the ship placed closest to you as bait. Ships that have already activated can also be dealt with later in the turn sequence, as they cannot act again and therefore have less threat than ships that haven't activated yet.

Keep in mind where you plan to engage the enemy, and what each group and battlegroup in your fleet is built to do. We go into more detail in the Fleet Construction section.

#### Movement

An important aspect to keep in mind is that unless a ship is placed on *station keeping* orders, it will always move at least half its Thrust characteristic. A ship can use this to its advantage and either slip past an enemy’s firing arcs before they can open up, or allow an enemy vessel to close before moving into range.

While moving your groups, consider the facing of each ship and where its firing arcs will be in relation to the enemy fleet. Planning at least one turn ahead will let you direct and predict your opponent’s maneuvering in relation to yours, setting up their ships to be square in your sights while your ships are safely out of the firing arcs of the most dangerous enemy weapons. Not keeping the angles of movement of your groups and battlegroups in mind can lead to the ships bunched up together or too far apart. Too close and the group becomes susceptible to chain reactions of ships blowing up due to catastrophic damage, but too far apart and the group cannot receive special orders, limiting your ability to react to your opponent.

Another important subject is ordering your battlegroups in your strategy deck. The battlegroup with the lowest Strategy Rating can choose whether to act first or second, which makes it able to dictate the flow of battle better. That said, putting battlegroups with high Strategy Ratings deeper in your strategy deck will force your opponent to make more moves before it comes up, letting you decide when and where that group can strike. If you want to ensure your dreadnought is in range, you might want to choose to activate it later in the turn to force your opponent's hand, while your frigates might want to activate first so they can hit their targets before they get hit themselves.

#### Range

One of the unique aspects of the game is the variable weapons ranges determined by Scan, Signatures and spikes. *Active Scanning* special orders are one way to increase the spikes on a vessel hidden further back by your opponent. Keep in mind which ships you use to scan with - a major spike on an expendable frigate matters less than one on an important battlecruiser that the entire enemy fleet can suddenly target.

Attacks with the *Flash* special rule can also be used to add spikes to their target, even if they do not do much individual damage.

The range bands are:

* Long - Outside of your scan and your opponent’s signature. To target vessels in this band, you will need some way to add spikes to your targets so you can lock on. Most launch assets can also operate at this range due to ignoring Signature limitations.
* Middle - Inside the combined total of your Scan range and your opponent’s Signature range. This is where most of the action takes place.
* Close - Inside your Scan range. This is where you can bring all of your ship's weaponry to bear, including close action weapons.

#### Scenery

Debris fields are primarily used to reduce the Scan range of ships with or without spikes. Larger vessels can use this to their advantage and ambush the enemy by going through the field. Cruisers and larger vessels can usually take the potential damage of moving through a debris field, while smaller ships will often be unable to sustain it.

Furthermore, keep in mind that launch assets and light ships such as frigates and corvettes are also potentially destroyed when moving through a debris field. This can be an effective way to thin out launch assets launched beyond their Thrust range before they attack or to get rid of torpedoes.

Use orbital layers to your advantage. It costs 4” of movement when moving up an orbital layer, which can be used on slower ships to keep them where you need them without issuing a *station keeping* special order. Ships with the Atmospheric special rule can hide in atmosphere*,* which forces all Lock values to 6+ to try and hit them. Offensively-minded ships can use this safety to force your opponent to dislodge them before they rise up to strike, while more defensive ships will enjoy the added protection. Atmosphere-capable ships can also dive into atmo to shake enemy launch assets if necessary.

#### Drop capability

Finally, we come to the drop capability of your fleet. Your troopships and strike carriers are key to deliver your troops to the objectives and hold them, which is generally how you accumulate enough VPs to win a scenario.

When deciding between infantry and armour assets, examine your opponent’s fleet. If they have numerous Bombardment-capable vessels, infantry units make the most sense due to taking less damage from orbital bombardments. On the other hand, if your opponent mostly invested in strike carriers with dropships, they can deploy armour units that will make quick work of your infantry. In this scenario, responding with armour units of your own is a good counter.

Remember that it is harder to dislodge an enemy from a sector already under their control than it is to capture an unowned sector. Bombardment can help soften up an enemy-held sector before you drop your troops, however.

Experienced opponents will attempt to neutralise your troopships and strike carriers before you are able to capture or recapture an objective. Use the rest of your fleet to engage the opponent, allowing your strike carriers to slip through.

Bombardment acts as anti-drop, both destroying dropped assets and the sectors themselves. Some fleets are better at bombardment then others, but all fleets have the capability to bombard points. If all the sectors in a cluster are destroyed, then that cluster does not give any points on the scoring turns. In addition, bombardment can destroy drop assets, which can compensate for lower drop on a cluster.

#### Scoring

Scoring occurs on turns 4 and 6. Unless there are scenario specific objectives, generally scoring is done by **holding** or **contesting** a cluster. To hold a cluster, you must **hold** sectors that have more points value than your opponent. Sectors vary in value - Power Plants are worth 4, while Commercial Districts are worth 1, for example. You need to have more armor or infantry tokens in a sector then your opponent to **hold** it. Destroyed sectors (via bombardment) are worth zero points towards cluster control. To contest a cluster you need to **hold** a single sector in that cluster. If all sectors are destroyed via bombardment the cluster is considered destroyed. Depending on the scenario specific rules this may result in victory points or a lack thereof.

Clusters provide victory points based on their size (2/3/4 for small/medium/large). A cluster may also be a **Critical Location.** In addition to the victory points supplied by holding or contesting that cluster, the player with the most tonnage in low or high orbit within 6 of that cluster on turns 4/6 also gets an additional 2 victory points.

From a scoring perspective then, cruiser-based bulk landers are the most efficient scoring ships, as they tend to provide the most infantry tokens and contribute to holding critical locations. However these ships are vulnerable to enemy fire as they cannot hide in atmosphere, and bulk landers are more susceptible to defense batteries. Strike carriers are faster, can deploy armour tokens (which are more effective vs. infantry tokens), and they can hide in the atmosphere layer where only specialized ships can easily destroy them. Armor tokens are more susceptible to bombardment, and can be overwhelmed by infantry tokens if enough bulk landers arrive to swing control of a cluster.

As such, players should choose a mix of strike carriers, troop ships, bombardment ships and anti-atmospheric ships so that they have a broad set of tools at their disposal in a tournament style, take-all-comers list.

There are variant scoring objectives used in various Tournament Packs and basic scenarios. These can be combined with or replace the basic scoring. The most common of these are:

* Havoc: Destroying a cluster grants one-time VPs equal to the value of that cluster
* Critical Locations: As discussed above, a player must get ships within 6" of a cluster and have more tonnage present than their opponent to score on turns 4 and 6.
* Surveying a Cluster: A ship must be in low orbit, within 6" of a cluster and on standard orders. Roll a d6, and on a 4+ you gain 1 VP, on a 5+ you gain 1 VP and the cluster becomes a Critical Location.
* Kill Points: Some missions award VP based on the amount of Tonnage you destroyed during the game.

#### Weapons

There are a broad variety of weapons in Dropfleet, but in general they can be condensed into a handful of categories: normal weapons, close action weapons (CAW), burnthrough lasers (BTL) and launch. Special rules can often change the behavior of specific weapons further. Normal weapons may be mass drivers, directed plasma weaponry, or strange direct fire energy weapons. In contrast, burnthrough lasers are beams of energy slicing through the target. Close action weapons are swarms of short-range missiles and large suicide drones. Finally, launch consists of classic fighters, bombers and the massive, hardened, ICBM-style torpedoes.

### Common Tactics:

#### Fleet:

##### Spike and Snipe:

This tactic revolves around using two ships with the Detector Rule (such as UCM's Lima frigates), and a ship with high firepower on Weapons Free orders (such as the UCM's Perth battlecruiser). The Group gets **Weapons Free** orders, but the detector ships can use their special **Detector** rule to use Active Scan orders instead. The **Active Scan** order allows the player to place two spikes (one for each detector ship) on a target, adding up to 12" to the target signature and hopefully putting it now in range of the main ship. For example, a Perth on weapons free orders firing at a Scourge Shadow can move 8", has a scan of 6", and can add the target's base signature of 8" + the 12" for the energy spikes, for a total threat range of 34". PHR and Scourge have variants of this that instead use their more unique special rules such as **Full Cloak, Stealth** and **Targeting Link**. See their individual fleet pages for more details.

Note that ships without **Detector** can Active Scan, but only one ship per group can do so and the battlegroup cannot use a Weapons Free order at the same time.

##### Last/First Activation:

This tactic takes advantage of your strategy deck order. By holding ships for a late activation in one turn, then going first in the next, they are able to line up a shot and fire before an opponent potentially can react. In the prior turn, the late activation allows you to position the ships to attack in relative safety. For example: A group of Shaltari Granites (which need to use **Weapons Free** orders combined with a F(N) gun) can use the first turn to line up their weapons on a target ship after that ship has already moved. Then, in the second turn they activate first, hopefully before that target ship activates, and go **Weapons Free** to fire on the hapless target.

Another variant of this tactic is used by frigates, such as the infamous Scourge Djinn. These frigates have very strong CAW weapons, which normally need to get close to a target to fire. The first turn they will wait until other ships have activated and then use Max Thrust orders to zoom from a safe position in the rear of the map (where their low Signature meant that enemies could not get a target solution) to a spot much closer and usually much more dangerous to a potential target. On the following turn, they take advantage of the low SR of frigates, as well as being the first group to activate, to hopefully go first and attack their chosen target before the opponent has time to react. This often leaves the frigates open for retaliation by other enemy ships, but at that point they have severely damaged or destroyed a key opposing ship. The Djinn's thrust of 12" means that they can potentially target a ship 42" away (24" from the Max Thrust order first turn, then 12" from normal thrust second turn, and finally 6" scan).

##### Popup Attacks:

A tactic used by ships with the **Atmospheric** rule (mostly various frigates and corvettes), These ships will descend into the atmosphere and wait until enemy ships come into range, then use a late activation to rise up an orbital layer and attack. While in the atmospheric layer they are relatively safe from enemy attacks due to the Scan and Lock penalties for firing into that layer. Some ships, such as the Shaltari Selenium and the Scourge Scylla, have **Escape Velocity** guns which let them fire out of atmosphere without penalty as well, meaning they don't even need to perform a pop up.

##### Jousting:

Less a tactic and more the consequence of the rules and armament on certain ships, jousting is when two ships using F(N) weapons target each other. Due to the need to keep each other in the F(N) arc, these ships end up flying directly at one another. This is most commonly seen in UCM and Shaltari fleets, where powerful F(N) weapons are common, but can happen to PHR and Scourge players as well. When jousting with another ship, usually the one that fires first is going to win, all else being equal. Thus, you generally want to be the initiating jouster and make your jousting ship an early activation in your SR deck. One counter to jousting is the Course Change order, which can allow ships like the Hanoi or Heracles to slip off the line between the opposing ship and themself while keeping their main weapon on target. This is done by using the Course Change order, turning 15-20 degrees at the start, moving, and then at the end of the move bringing their main gun back onto the target with another turn. Your opponent must now turn in order to bring your ship back into the correct arc, (assuming their ship still exists). This Hanoi Hustle/Heracles Hot Step can prevent a Diamond, Hematite or Amazon from being able to go Weapons Free with their main gun against your ship, as you will constantly be moving off the line.

#### Ground Game:

Generally, it is good to focus your ground assets in as few sectors as possible to control the cluster. This makes them more resilient to errant dice and avoids one or two sectors being overwhelmed. However, if an opponent has a large number of assets in one sector, a common tactic is to move first and send an expendable infantry token to lock those assets in place, preventing them from being sent to attack other sectors and keeping control of a cluster during a critical scoring turn.

#### Launch Tactics:

##### Fighter Cancellation:

Some fleets are heavily reliant on fighters for point defense, notably Shaltari and Resistance. Shaltari ships lose innate PD when raising their shields, and Resistance have poor PD in general. Their fighters however both provide +5 PD each. In this case, an opposing player may choose not to use their full launch capacity for bombers, and reserve some for fighter support. If an opponent chooses to forgo bombers to provide more fighters, then the offensive player can use their remaining fighter capacity to cancel those fighters on a 1:1 basis. As UCM and Scourge only provide +3 PD for a fighter, and they are cancelling a +5 PD fighter, it does give a small mathematical advantage over just going all in on bombers.

##### Space Stations vs. Torpedoes:

Space Stations are uniquely vulnerable to torpedo attacks, being unable to use Course Change orders and due to the torpedoes always resolving that turn, rather than the next turn as is the case vs. ships.