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I checked out the rulebook in an LGS yesterday. And was so surprised that I actually bought it.

It looks like a full, complete, interesting game now. Everyone in my area bought Firestorm v1 when it came out, as it had some good spaceship models and was cheap. But after a dozen games, it became stale as the ruleset was poorly balanced and over simplistic.

However, V2 looks TOTALLY different. Lots of nuance is possible now, while maintaining simplicity. The models keep getting better, so we may well break out our old units from the foam and give it a try.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Reminds me of the old ork ships from BFG with the big ass jaws, only built by a race capable of space travel.

As far as I know the Battlecruiser class is new to the game.

The underslung "jaw" is the landing/launching runway.

I think this means the battlecruisers will fit into the game a light carrier/cruiser role.

The minis for this are looking a hell of a lot better than they did the first time around.

What are the rules like? As good as Full Thrust?

Make sure you get the new templates and fleet lists from Spartan's site. The basic lists in the book are just examples and a bit outdated (the beta for the core fleets was still on going while the book was at the printers).

 scarletsquig wrote:
The minis for this are looking a hell of a lot better than they did the first time around.

What are the rules like? As good as Full Thrust?

I don't think I ever played vanilla Full Thrust, but I played various permutations, and this version of FSA seems a little simpler but offers the same level of tactical depth. The rules are well laid out and read quite easily with nice examples and illustrations. The MARs (think USRs from 40k, but for FSA) are simple and work together without any significant issues.

The balance between factions appears to be pretty good too.

*Edit* By the way, to anyone over at the Spartan forums (looking at you Bob and Andrew), I go by TwoToneWyvern over at those parts.

 scarletsquig wrote:
What are the rules like? As good as Full Thrust?

Ha ha. No. They're very casual. Very beer and pretzel, if you know what I mean. One could even say they're forging a narrative.

Just a wonder, as I like the look of the Directorate (Remind me a lot of the new Dalek ship aesthetic) but is V2 an improvement over the last edition? if so what changed? and is gameplay changed now as well?

Hope they do a 2 player set for DW I really enjoyed my KoB but no one players it in my area anymore so was hoping on waiting for a 2 player box to buy and set that in motion at my FLGS..

Blacksails wrote:

 scarletsquig wrote:
The minis for this are looking a hell of a lot better than they did the first time around.

What are the rules like? As good as Full Thrust?

I don't think I ever played vanilla Full Thrust, but I played various permutations, and this version of FSA seems a little simpler but offers the same level of tactical depth. The rules are well laid out and read quite easily with nice examples and illustrations. The MARs (think USRs from 40k, but for FSA) are simple and work together without any significant issues.

The balance between factions appears to be pretty good too.

*Edit* By the way, to anyone over at the Spartan forums (looking at you Bob and Andrew), I go by TwoToneWyvern over at those parts.

Well hello there!

happygolucky wrote:Just a wonder, as I like the look of the Directorate (Remind me a lot of the new Dalek ship aesthetic) but is V2 an improvement over the last edition? if so what changed? and is gameplay changed now as well?

Hope they do a 2 player set for DW I really enjoyed my KoB but no one players it in my area anymore so was hoping on waiting for a 2 player box to buy and set that in motion at my FLGS..

I haven't played 2.0 yet (US distributors seemed to have dropped the ball on this, so I won't get my 2 player starter til the new year) but the concensus is that 2.0 is a vast improvement over the previous rules. But its still new so there's a lot of players seeing doom like with any game edition change, they seem to be in the minority though. Others could probably answer better than me.

A lot has changed with the new edition. All ship stats have been updated, boarding, short range spacecraft (fighters and such), weapon types, victory conditions, and cards are all different now with a focus on maintaining the easy to play nature while adding more tactical flexibility. There are also new rules for table setup and a handful of new scenarios along with a few things Im sure Im forgetting! Every aspect of the game has been touched in some aspect or another but the core basics are still the same (movement, exploding 6's, etc...)

I'm interested in spamming wings so it looks like I'm Relthoza or Aquan, or RSN. I also really like the look of the Directorate, judging by the pdf fleet manual it's very much a toolbox faction with a few debuffs. The natural ally rules are also awesome. I want to dive in with a core fleet and some of their natural ally ships, which I can expand into an Alliance/League fleet.

2.0 seems to have a lot more options and better balance, as well as more robust rules. Very impressed.

A lot of Firestorm v1 was legitimately bad game design. Stuff like how boarding was an auto-kill and pretty much the only way to remove a battleship from the board. Or how every weapon was the same damn thing, and every game became 'circlestrafe around the guys who have poor fire arcs'. Or how terrain was either 'nothing' or 'cannot possibly harm anything you fire through'. Oh, and how fighters and/or torpedos were useless, since everything shot them down instantly.

I've found a few things in 2 to be very positive. The battlelog system is a really interesting mechanic that I haven't seen before in terms of 'spending special points for bonuses midgame'. Weapons are less one-note, and I DO like the rules for orbitting terrain and space motion. That's sorta neat.

The tweaks to specific roll values is pretty big, as is fixing up the damn crit tables. Sniping subsystems seems pretty cool too.

The rulebook isn't too well organized in terms of what chapters are about what, but it's pretty at least!

I calculate that my wallet will be growing teeth and sinking them into my backside now that I gone knee deep into starting up a Dystopian Wars collection.

First time Spartangames done this to me and first c-c-combo breaker from the GW trap...

Heavy Metal wrote:
I calculate that my wallet will be growing teeth and sinking them into my backside now that I gone knee deep into starting up a Dystopian Wars collection.

First time Spartangames done this to me and first c-c-combo breaker from the GW trap...

Almost the same for me, my wallet cries itself to sleep most nights. X-wing and Malifaux broke me out of GW products first though. Bolt Action and Firestorm Armada are filling out as well too now. I still love my 40k army but I am spending very little on GW products. I feel you get more bang for your buck in a lot of other companies but the issue is the small player base in most areas.

 Boblogik wrote:

Heavy Metal wrote:
I calculate that my wallet will be growing teeth and sinking them into my backside now that I gone knee deep into starting up a Dystopian Wars collection.

First time Spartangames done this to me and first c-c-combo breaker from the GW trap...

Almost the same for me, my wallet cries itself to sleep most nights. X-wing and Malifaux broke me out of GW products first though. Bolt Action and Firestorm Armada are filling out as well too now. I still love my 40k army but I am spending very little on GW products. I feel you get more bang for your buck in a lot of other companies but the issue is the small player base in most areas.

I was this close into purchasing Malifaux although I'm still waiting to play a game of Infinity before making my final decision. So many games so little time during the weekends to do so.

We agree on purchasing from another venue. The small player base is an issue although no longer the case for games such as Warmachine which as exploded in my area. You couldn’t find a warmahordes player to save your soul a few years ago and now you can practically bump into one blind folded. Seems to me you get an overall better deal with Privateer Press as far as start up costs and what you need to have a decent game versus GW has to offer with 40K in the like.

The smartest thing Spartan games did with their starter sets is they have "demos" you can cut out of the back of the book to have a thorough demonstration of the game's mechanics and play style. I confess it was Full Thrust that took me away from going further into Firestorm Armada than I had. So many games so little time.

Heavy Metal wrote:

I was this close into purchasing Malifaux although I'm still waiting to play a game of Infinity before making my final decision. So many games so little time during the weekends to do so.

We agree on purchasing from another venue. The small player base is an issue although no longer the case for games such as Warmachine which as exploded in my area. You couldn’t find a warmahordes player to save your soul a few years ago and now you can practically bump into one blind folded. Seems to me you get an overall better deal with Privateer Press as far as start up costs and what you need to have a decent game versus GW has to offer with 40K in the like.

The smartest thing Spartan games did with their starter sets is they have "demos" you can cut out of the back of the book to have a thorough demonstration of the game's mechanics and play style. I confess it was Full Thrust that took me away from going further into Firestorm Armada than I had. So many games so little time.

Definitely try the games first if you can, I've heard positives and negatives for both. I'm happy with my choice of malifaux.

I look forward to joining the spartan vanguards for firestorm armada. I'm going to apply as soon as I paint up my starter set (ordered today from the warstore) and get a few games under my belt so I can answer rules questions with confidence.

 Boblogik wrote:

Definitely try the games first if you can, I've heard positives and negatives for both. I'm happy with my choice of malifaux.

I look forward to joining the spartan vanguards for firestorm armada. I'm going to apply as soon as I paint up my starter set (ordered today from the warstore) and get a few games under my belt so I can answer rules questions with confidence.

I'll definitely consider it.

I played V1 and if this has fixed many of the issues I had with V1 then I am buying my Ryushi and Hawker fleet!

Any more thoughts now that the new rules have been out for a bit? Do they make the game worthwhile?

 Boblogik wrote:
So which minor factions are you looking at? Personally I like RSN (go figure, dindrenzi) and for the kurak I like Hawker Industries, both have sweet looking ships.

Those are my two favourite ship lines, with Works-Raptor close afterwards.

Anyone else prefer the allied fleet looks more than the core ones in general?

Why would you play Dindrenzi instead of RSN? It seems like the latter has basically the playstyle of the former, with very few less AD across the board but with starboard/port batteries (that are good, no less) on the crux ships, cloaking, more wings, speed and better torpedoes at the very least.

I've only played a few games of this so far, yes, but I don't see any reason to continue my Dindrenzi fleet from BFV when RSN looks like such a no-brainer. I've already experienced the Dindrenzi death spiral that I've read about on the net twice where your big ships that are decent for about 1-2 turns suddenly become gak because your enemy runs rings around you and all you have left to fight back with is naff Gun Racks and the rare railgun shot sneaked in while the complete lack of shields just means that your supposed superior firepower is very quickly lost.

RSN has a lot of mixed beam and kinetic weaponry. They also suffer a lot from getting most of their AD from overlapping weapon systems. This combines to make it less likely that they'll be able to get the focus-fire bonuses on their weapons (which are really great on kinetics), as well as having odd range-band issues where their firepower will drop off. Finally, with more overlapping systems being the main source of firepower, damage will cause them to degrade a lot faster.

Dindrenzi are putting more damage out to longer range and getting a boost to crits from their kinetics. The RSN are more flexible in terms of firepower dispersal, but Dindrenzi knock them out of the park for number of dice in a given range-band.

Just look at the Banshee vs. the Retribution. The Banshee isn't even getting its fore beams until 20" but the Ret is doing 21AD by the time it is in 24" (and is tossing 15AD at 36" when the Banshee is only doing 11AD). 15AD is enough to reliably crit most dreads and battleships. 11AD is not. And since the bonus to kinetics is all about crits, this is a good thing. The Ret is also putting out more torpedoes (10AD at each range band), and since it will do damage earlier and more often, the torpedoes are that much more valuable early on. And of course, the Ret has an extra 2HP meaning it will be harder to down (thus denying a big point-sink to the enemy). The Banshee has AP, more flexible arcs, better DR (good early damage mitigation against long-range fleets, though less useful against knife-fighters). Their theoretical top speed is the same (the Ret starts off +1" faster, the Banshee can buy up 2"). The Banshee (with a load of upgrades) can become a very good ship, quite maneuverable and good at its job. The Ret is one of those ships you can basically take for the base cost (maybe turn upgrade) and it will be just fine.

Next, we have the venerable Nausicaa versus the Spectre. The Spectre's early damage numbers are similar and once it can add in beams (starting at 20") it can put in a similar number of AD to the Nausicaa (but without the kinetics bonus and the Ret is doing it with better rangebands overall). It is also missing the Nausicaa's best trick, AD10 mines (+2MN bonus, Double Mines MAR). This is a trick that can gut even a cruiser squadron and makes things very uncomfortable for knife-fighter types. So they are both able long-ranged combatant, but the Nausicaa has a very unique trick up its sleeve that makes it a great pick in a Dindrenzi fleet.

RSN doesn't yet have something that really fills the slot the Gladius does. A Gladius Squadron (or Carrier with Gladius attachement) put on reserve will rip things apart in close. They are a real game-changer for the Dindrenzi.

The Spook and Secutor are basically different ships with different roles. One is meant to hide in the shadows, lobbing torps and trying not to get stuck in. The secutor is a ship of the line that can either be used as a great reserve hitter (a surprise of 16AD out to 24" plus the torps is a nice way to go). But coordinating fire from long range has them getting their 12AD torps plus a groovy 12/16/15/8 direct-fire attack in 12" intervals. And top it all off with an 8AD mine attack as a followup (usually enough to frighten cruisers quite easily). The Spook is all about delivering its one attack. The Secutor is kind of a swiss army knife with a great answer at every range.

Dindrenzi have definitely become a faction that takes more skill to play well (never thought I'd be able to say that). You have to be patient, you have to track range and control it carefully (usually crawling forward early game until you can hit initiative off and leap to 24" and deliver the pain). It also takes forward planning to properly seed your rear with mines, making it hard for the enemy to dance around you without setting off a series of attacks that will cripple them in short order. It also takes a really keen eye to deployment and use of reserves in order to control the deployment phase itself.

They aren't a faction you can just swing away with (that'd be Terrans and Aquans :p ). They take a very measured approach and they punish mistakes pretty heavily now. In most cases the RSN are trading off focused firepower for greater flexibility. If your playstyle is more overtly aggressive and all about getting mixed up, then they will look like a good deal (even in the places where they are more expensive). But with Dindrenzi a level head and patience pay off in spades.

A few things to look in to for help with Dindrenzi tactics are to take a look at the deployment rules and how you can use reserves to take up activations and force your enemy to put down key units before you commit anything important (and the Dindrenzi have a lot of ships that excel from reserve). Next is to look at doing a split deployment rather than a single clump. Deploying two groups in opposite corners puts the enemy in a tough place. Go for the easy group and present easy targets to the rest or split up and present targets to both. They can try to bank on killing one group quickly, but if you don't get ahead of yourself and use reserves wisely, you can usually put them on the defensive before they can even get to their optimal range. Finally, for close in work, there are several WWII era dog-fighting tactics that map surprisingly well to Dindrenzi (Thach Weave if you're interested). Very handy in a split deployment if they manage to finally get under your guns. It usually allows you to coordinate things so that each squadron is firing at a target that is currently chasing another squadron). Once you start to jive with their unique style of play, you will come to treasure the extra AD you can wring out of a well-played Dindrenzi fleet.

The RSN do their own thing which is some kind of hybrid sniper/brawler role where they are fairly nice at both, but don't truly excel at either. They play best when you are willing to quickly shift gear so that you are fighting your enemy's weakness instead of trying to match strength to strength. If they play brawler against a dedicated Aquan fleet, they will be hurting. If they try to play sniper against a Dindrenzi fleet, then they will find themselves picked apart from extreme range. The play styles of each of the fleets are unique enough that it is really quite possible that you may pick something that doesn't work for you.

Dindrenzi line up well with some of my favourite play-style choices and give me the tools I need to do the job in a fashion I like. Extra AD, better range bands, more focused firepower (the Ret and Cataphract being the only ones that really buck the trend here) and just enough things propping them up in their blind spots to keep them from folding when folks get in close. Their brawler ships are actually great brawlers (Sgian, Gladius, Cataphract, Claymore, and Praetorian) and can do some interesting things to the playstyle of the faction. In the end, I don't think comparisons between them and the RSN are so cut and dry. They have their strengths, they have their weaknesses and if the two meet on the field, the getter admiral will decide it every time.

At least that's my take on it. I'd definitely hesitate to call Dindrenzi underpowered or the RSN overpowered in either case.

Well me and my friend bought the FSA starter box over the weekend and after getting it home, trimming some flash, slotting most of them together with little issue (A serious surprise as it was our first time working with resin, but I'm not touching that battle-station for a while) we played through the first two scenarios in the scenario book.

From the outset these scenarios looked kinda unbalanced often giving one side superior numbers, points or making one side get the initiative EVERY turn. However the results were not as we expected, what follows is I suppose a quick couple of mini-battle reports.

Scenario one: "Where I learned to die"
Terrain deployment: 2 Asteroid fields, one in front of his deployment zone on the left and one in front of mine on the right.
Terran Model Deployment: After skimming through the rulebook I confirmed that flying into asteroids did cause the possibility of collisions, this sounded bad and I should have read further so instead of risking collisions I deployed in the open with my 4 frigates line abreast.
Dindrezi Model Deployment: Mirroring my fleet deployment my opponent also deployed in a line in the open on the edge of his deployment zone.

Dindrezi get initiative due to scenario rules

Dindrezi Turn: My opponent moves his frigates forward and lines up shots on my frigate group, fires, eliminates 3 frigates through individual fire....

Back to the drawing board...

Scenario one: "Where I learned to hide"
Terrain deployment: Same as before
Terran Model Deployment: I knew I had more ships and better manoeuvring, I just needed to live through my opponents first turn to use it, so taking a risk I deployed behind my asteroid field.
Dindrezi Model deployment: Behind and to the left of his asteroid field, planing to come at me diagonally.

Dindrezi get initiative, again due to scenario rules

Dindrezi Turn: My opponent moves forward and turns to line up his frigates for a linked fire at one of my frigate group, unfortunately with no way of hitting me without clipping the asteroid field, none of his damage sticks and I actually get to activate my frigates.

Terran Turn: The Terran ships flew into the asteroid field as all ships have to move half distance straight forwards at the beginning of their movement, I take a manoeuvring check on my frigates and..... 3 of them pass, the 4th one takes 5 AD but luckily doesn't cause any damage. The frigates turn to angle them selves just to the side of the Dindrezi frigates and let loose with a linked broadside, evaporating a frigate so far so good.

Dindrezi Turn: being in so close and having a worse turning circle meant the Dindrezi ships passed parallel to my frigates but could only turn enough to get one frigate in arc which failed to inflict damage, a combination of poor turning circle and restrictive arcs making lining up shots somewhat difficult.

Terran Turn: MY frigate groups moves forward its mandatory then turns 90 degrees on the spot thanks to having no turn limit, putting the Dindrezi frigates in broadside arc again but this time at optimal range, my frigates fire individually with primaries and torpedoes, battering the Dindrezi frigates out of existence.

Now we did play the second scenario as well involving cruisers but I think I've said enough to get my point across. Firestorm Armada is a VERY tactical game, your fleet is entirely at the mercy of your movement phase, a single error in movement WILL leave you high and dry. In both attempts at scenario one each frigate group was capable of annihilating the other in short order, what separated the results was realising how important manoeuvring and terrain is to this game.

Now a number of you may point out that this might hold true only for frigates, it does not. during the second scenario on of my cruisers took a round of firing from the same 3 Dindrezi frigates used in scenario one it took 3 hull points of damage and lost its full speed/turning.

Part of the problem with this edition is the critical hit table. While it has removed the two instant-ship-kill rolls on the table, it has been re-arranged so that the harshest penalty inflicting rolls are now the most common/statistically-likely rolls.
Increased Crew Point damage in comparison to the previous editions combined with the fact that crew loss is no longer split evenly between Crew Points and Assault Points, means more penalties faster. Quickly taking ships to the point of zombie-ship status that can't hit or do much of anything due to accumulated penalties. Made worse by the harsher "disordered" status in comparison to previous editions. Worse is the crit table favors non-shield using races, it's out to screw Kurak Alliance players who have by far the most shield using races.

The zombie ship status was one of the reasons why I stopped playing Dystopian Wars.

Just played my first game of 2.0, and it seemed pretty good. The torps and fighter/bombers did ok (though I was against Ryushi with over 9000 PD dice, but his fighters did ok against me).

With the ease of access to crew restoring abilities and the way damage works the crit chart layout does nothing to hinder a ship over 1.x, its actually a lot better on reducing the number of ships with poor weapons since they swapped the crew loss and weapons offline results. Remember if you've taken a crit 9/10 times that one crew loss does jack to hinder your ship.

The disorder is new and it can be a pain, but its not something that happens easily and it is easy to get rid of.

Kurak has 6 ships more then the Zenian league that are affected by the shield crit, its a conspiracy alright .

What do you need to do to get to Zombie ship status?

I took a crew hit on the first crit on a cruiser, but it didn't affect it much as the second crit just killed it which would have otherwise likely killed off the rest of the crew with the same crit result.

When both sides have battleships and dreadnoughts which have taken damage causing their weapons effectiveness to drop to the point they cannot damage other larges they become "zombies" because they just wont die. Its usually a good idea to shunt out at that point.