Building Your Army

The battlefields of the 27th Century are dangerous places, with armies fighting for supremacy over entire worlds and solar systems, trying to take control of the galaxy for resources and survival.

Armies in Dropzone Commander are built following a structure. This represents the typical sorts of compositions of forces in a battlezone, from the largest Behemoths all the way down to the humble infantry soldier.

Players can build armies in thousands of different ways, but unless otherwise agreed with your opponents, your army should follow the guidelines laid out here.

The Army Roster

This is a framework which defines the overall composition of armies. It shows how many Battlegroups of each type are required and permitted in an army for a given game size.

The size of a game is agreed with your opponent beforehand. Dropzone Commander is best played at up to 3000 points. Larger game sizes are certainly possible, but will need multiple army rosters to be fully balanced. A standard game of Dropzone Commander is a 1750 point Clash.

Numbers in the table represent the number of Battlegroups of a given type that are permitted. Fixed values indicate compulsory numbers of certain types, while a range of some types may be allowed.

Unless otherwise stated, a single Battlegroup may not come to more than 33% of your army's total allowed points cost for Clashes and Battles, and 50% for Skirmishes. This does not include the points cost of any mounted Commanders, who are bought outside of the Army Roster structure. A Battlegroup containing a Behemoth cannot have any other units and can exceed the points percentage limit in an army.

Skirmish 500-999 points

HQ	Frontline	Armour	Vanguard	War Engine	Auxiliary
0-1	1-2	1	0-1	0-1	∞

Clash 1000-1999 points

HQ	Frontline	Armour	Vanguard	War Engine	Auxiliary
1	1-2	1-2	0-2	0-2	∞

Battle 2000+ points

HQ	Frontline	Armour	Vanguard	War Engine	Auxiliary
1-2	1-2	1-2	0-2	0-3	∞

Auxiliary Squads

Squads that have the Auxiliary category are picked outside of the Battlegroup structure, and a player is allowed to use as many Auxiliary squads as they like. Auxiliary squads are often Transports, chosen to ferry units to and from the battlefield, but could also be more esoteric units.

Auxiliary Transports must begin the game with at least half Capacity filled.

Unlike normal squads, Auxiliary squads do not belong to a particular Battlegroup. Instead, each time a player activates a Battlegroup, they may choose to activate as many Auxiliary squads as they wish as part of that Battlegroup, acting as any other unit in that Battlegroup. Simply declare which Auxiliary squads are being activated at the start of the Battlegroup's activation. Auxiliary squads may still only be activated once per round.

If there are Auxiliary squads left over which are yet to complete their actions after every available Battlegroup has been activated, then these remain inactivated that turn (so don't forget to activate them with a Battlegroup at some point).

Making Battlegroups

A typical Battlegroup will contain between 1 and 6 squads. Battlegroups normally consist of complementary squads which together can fulfil a specific battlefield role.

For example, an Armour Battlegroup will contain large numbers of tanks, while a Vanguard Battlegroup will contain more specialized squads.

Each unit has a Category, represented by a symbol on their stat sheet. This Category is used to determine which units are allowed in which Battlegroups. Their compositions are defined by the Battlegroup Sheets, which are shown below.

Numbers in the sheets represent the number of Squads of a given category that are allowed in a single Battlegroup. Fixed values indicate compulsory numbers of certain Squads, while some categories may allow a range.

HQ Battlegroup

Command	Scout	Heavy
1-2	0-2	0-1

Frontline Battlegroup

Troops	Exotic	Support
1-3	0-1	0-1

Armour Battlegroup

Standard	Heavy	Support
1-3	0-2	0-1

Vanguard Battlegroup

Scout	Exotic	Support
0-2	0-2	0-1

War Engine Battlegroup

Behemoth
1

Weapon Options

All units in a squad must be armed identically, so if one unit choose to replace its weapons, all units in that squad must also do so.