Tactics - Resistance

This is the Tactics Page for Resistance and is written for V1.2 (May 2021).

Why Play Resistance

• You are a unique and precious snowflake
• You appreciate the underdog
• You don't mind living in a swamp, a cave or underground
• You like hovercrafts
• You like rusty pieces of shit
• Your favourite film series are the Matrix, Terminator and Mad Max
• You think that today's kids are soft and coddled by all their fancy technology
• You consider a bus filled with C4 to be legitimate military hardware

Resistance have the most units and viable playstyles of the 5 factions in DZC. You have an enormous roster of units with odd profiles that are variously fragile, undergunned, slow or short-ranged, but combine together as a machine to cover each other's weaknesses. They don't have an inherent faction skew but in broad strokes:

• Resistance units are generally tough, either because they have thick armour or because they are dirt cheap for what you get. Units with the Resilient rule and/or and multiple DP are very common.
• Resistance guns tend to suffer from short ranges and low E values relative to their peers. High-E weapons are a rarity and you tend to get by with volume of fire and/or Focus to break armour.
• Units are drawn from 2 pools; the EAA (Old military hardware) and civilian equipment used in non-standard roles.
• EAA units have high armour and lots of DP for their class. They are covered in guns but have low Move values.
• Civilian units tend to be fast, cheap and made of paper. They are inflexible and designed for a single role. Civilian units do not have Countermeasures.
• Transports are heavily armed and armoured, but have a smaller capacity than other factions. As a result they take up a larger proportion of your force and tend to contribute more directly to the fight than just delivering cargo.
• Resistance have the best selection of infantry of any faction. You have a range of excellent units to support your armoured elements, dig out garrisons and extract retrieve objectives. Infantry form a major part of the faction and players are advised to get comfortable with running large numbers of them.

Special Abilities

• Hovercraft: Resistance have access to hovercraft-based vehicles which offer a number of useful abilities:
  • All hovercraft ignore the Aerial Advantage rule, allowing them to move on to the board from the first turn as though they were aircraft.
  • When disembarking from a hovercraft transport, their contents suffer a reduced penalty to accuracy and are able to fire at aircraft on the same turn, as well as having a slightly longer disembark range.
  • In terms of stats, hovercraft are treated as skimmers with more DP but lower E than is typical. They have exceptionally high movement and are reasonably well-armed.

Hovercraft transports are iconic to the Resistance and significantly change the way that some units can be used. They are not true aircraft and so they don't have to land to deploy units, allowing you to reach well up the board when you disembark. They are tough enough that they are immune to most conventional AA guns, requiring AT guns in large numbers to overwhelm their DP and E bonuses. They provide their contents with a relatively durable ride, a long threat range, and the ability to drop and pop effectively, making them excellent for enabling alpha strikes even against faster enemies. The Circe and Hydra benefit from a Move and M&F that is more like an aircraft than a tank, and don't incur any wasted cost from transportation or loss of firepower following a disembark.

• Breaching Drills: Resistance are also able to utilise drilling machines to deploy from underground tunnels:
  • Drills always begin the game in Reserve and can be placed on the board from Turn 2 onwards. They can be placed anywhere they can physically fit.
  • A unit carrying an objective can re-enter a Drill and remove it from the board instantly, rather than running the gauntlet back to your own board edge.
  • Drills have low transport capacities and can only carry smaller models. However, they will always give you the first shot.
  • Drills are Rare and you are limited in how many you can take.
  • In previous rules, Drills imposed a +1 penalty to Accuracy for disembarking units. It is worth noting that this is no longer true.

Drills provide an excellent capability for landing alpha strikes and for extracting objectives. They are very resilient for your points but ideally you will be in and out before the enemy can respond, at which point the Drill has already done its part. Drills provide an excellent tool for suddenly dumping a volley of rockets into something your opponent thought was safe and then yeeting his home objectives back underground.

Having access to ground-based transports gives Resistance the unique option of playing with minimal or even zero aircraft present, potentially leaving your opponent's AA guns forced into an anti-vehicle role. This unpredictability and flexibility in deployment allows for an enormous range of unit combinations and potential list styles that other factions simply cannot replicate.

Unit Analysis

• Command:
  • M3 Alexander:
  • Pizarro Class Walker:
  • Hydra Relay Hovercraft: If you've bought the Resistance Starter Army, this is your first Commander. Extremely cheap and very zippy, but very little firepower. It has the ability to mark a target for destruction, but this is more like insurance to ensure your shots hit rather than a serious damage boost.

• • Karl Foley, Prince of New Troy:
  • Jessie Adams, Guide of the Damned:
  • Salakhan, Tyrant of Atlanta:
  • Gunnarr of Elysium, The Ferryman:
  • Lieutenant Colonel James Rodriguez:
  • Rakkon Krell, The Headhunter:

• Standard:
  • Rocket Technical:
  • Gun Wagon:

• Troops:
  • Resistance Fighters:

• Heavy:
  • M5 Napoleon:
  • NT-5 Thunderstorm Custom:
  • M9 Hannibal:
  • M20 Zhukov:
  • Mehmed Siege Tank:
  • N2 Circe Attack Hovercraft:

• Exotic:
  • Attack ATVs:
  • Sappers:
  • Resistance Veterans:
  • Berserkers:

• Support:
  • Remote Bomb Bus:
  • Storm Wagon:
  • Thunder Wagon:
  • Flame Wagon:
  • Barrel Bomber:
  • AH-16 Cyclone:
  • AH-16 Typhoon:
  • M22 Constantine:

• Scout:
  • EAA Columbus Battlewalker:
  • Gun Technical:
  • Freeriders:
  • Scout ATVs:

• Auxiliary & Transports:
  • NT-1 Kraken:
  • NT-4 Leviathan:
  • AT-77 Lifthawk:
  • Battle Bus:
  • MT-90 Jackson:
  • Skulltaker Assault Transport:
  • AT-90 Strikehawk Tiltrotor:
  • Hellhog:
  • Model 109 Breaching Drill:
  • Model 209 Bertha Breaching Drill:
  • Swifthawk Tilt-Jet:
  • Tempest Interceptor:

Building an Army

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Tactics

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Counter-Tactics

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Common Playstyles

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