Where do they live? How do they work? And why?

Today we’re going to answer all of these questions as we have a little look at the new Space Stations!

This week sees the release of two new scenery sets for Dropfleet Commander: the Astrobotanical Lab and the Defence Grid. Both of these new kits are designed to be fully modular, and work with the existing Space Station kit, allowing you to make the craziest stations you’ve ever thought of. Now with more guns! Or plants, I guess, if that’s your thing.

What Do They Do?

In-game, Space Stations provide an alternative for drop sites. They’re not on the ground, but floating around in space! That means that troop carriers with Bulk Landers can really make the most of their launch capabilities.

Although up until now, Space Stations have always been an optional part of scenarios, with the release of these new sets we thought it was high time for them to be rolled into the main game and let people use their lovingly crafted orbitals to their heart’s content!

With these new rules, you will be able to include Space Stations in your fleet, paying for them with your points just like normal.

When you’re setting up the board, you may replace any uncontrolled Space Station or Cluster with your own Space Station (rolling off if more than one player has Space Stations in their list). The friendly station follows all the regular rules for Space Stations, and isn’t controlled by any player until they get some ground assets in there. It simply gives players a little more control over how their games are going to go – paying points for the option to replace the existing locations with one of your choosing.

Upgrades

But – as you can see above – you can also upgrade your Space Stations! You already have the choice over Small, Medium, or Large (the stat lines of which will be familiar to you), but you’ve also got a choice of upgrades!

While Space Stations in some of the scenarios are already armed with weapon systems, if you’re bringing your own, you have to pay for them! The larger your Space Station, the more options you get from the Armaments list. From the standard weapon options to a couple of extra bonus special rules, you can kit your station out your way.

Defence Grid

It’s not just small guns though, what about some big guns?

Your Defence Grid comes with a whole load of weapons! That huge Quad Mass Driver is certainly very scary. 4 Attacks with Damage 4?? That’s going to be a really scary gun to face. And they’re also Unhackable, which means your opponent cannot fire these weapons.

However, they can be stopped by controlling the station. So get your carriers forwards quickly, or that 35-KL is going to be raining fire down upon you! With this particular upgrade, you have to carefully decide where to deploy your Space Station. Do you keep it in the back field to get access to the weapons early? Or do you put it further up the board so you get the most out of its Close Action weapons? Space Stations don’t have the best Scan range, so it’s a difficult decision!

Astrobotanical Lab

Of course if you’re a gardener and not a fighter, you could try an Astrobotanical Lab. Or you could take a Large Space Station and have both!

The Astrobotanical Lab doesn’t come with weapons (although has plenty of spots to place Armaments from the plastic sprues), but its Signature Bloom is a powerful secondary ability in its own right!

Astrobotanical Labs literally light up the night sky, confusing enemy scans and throwing their equipment out with crazy readings. In game-terms, this means that any friendly ships close enough don’t have to worry about Minor Spikes! Although a minor buff, it actually helps out a lot, keeping your forces more hidden when positioning, or ignoring Flash weapons entirely.

So who’s excited to add some Space Stations to their lists? Although we’re not giving everything away today, these are super useful for changing your games up a little with a relatively low points cost. Although if you start fully upgrading your stations, you’re going to start to feel the pinch on points for the rest of your fleet.

The Defence Grid and Astrobotanical Lab will be available tomorrow for pre-order, and the full rules will be available for free download as usual as well! Check back with us then, and don’t forget to head to the TTCombat webstore have a look at the rest of the Dropfleet Commander range.