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So, this subject came up a while back in the News & Rumors forum (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/344638.page#3009650), so I thought I would start a full thread to discuss it here since it appears to be a widespread issue.

Speaking from my personal experience, Uncharted Seas was pretty much already dead at my FLGS when I moved here last year (it is commonly referred to as "Unplayed Seas" ). I have been trying (pretty much single-handedly) to build a Firestorm Armada fan base at my local store since then. Although I have succeeded in getting others to buy fleets, the game seems to mostly get passed over in favor of the usual (40k, WHFB, and Warmahordes). Dystopian Wars has done a little better, though; I am able to get games of that going just about every Friday, albiet with the same small group of people. That sounds like it might be changing, though, as I know that several others have (again) bought fleets for the game.

So, from what I can gather, part of getting a successful group together is that you need to have people who will consistently play the game at the store; otherwise, there is little incentive for others to make the initial investment of about $80 to join in. This can easily be controlled by on guy, who can organize games and set up demo battles. However, the other part is that the game has to capture the imagination of the gamer community at the store, so that you can maintain interest over time. This is much harder to have any control over, and I think the best you can do is set up interesting scenarios and try to tailor the experience as much as possible to what you know your community likes.

What are all of your thoughts/experiences?

Well, the first problem is that many players are already committed to other game systems and so when faced with collecting a new set of rulebooks and miniatures, suddenly they feel it in their wallet. Youre best recruits will be those who haven't gotten to deep into one of the other systems yet or those looking to get out of them. Spartan Games is also relatively new on the gaming radar, and with the folding or wavering of so many other game companies lately it makes people even more hesitant about buying in.

2ndly, you need to attract people. You're basically working as the demo guy and to really sell the game to new players you need to pull out all the shock and awe. If you are playing games with unpainted miniatures on grass fields with paper planets, no one is going to look twice as they pass your table.

Put out 2 or 3 well painted starter fleets (If your own painting is not up to par, don't be afraid to hire someone to paint your demo fleets for you!), sitting on a star-field made out of a space themed battle mat or painted black cloth and lay a big sheet of plexiglass over it. That will look amazing. Then use some lava rocks on flight stands as asteroids and maybe pick up one of those solar system planet kits at the local craft store. You might even want to head over to the Litko sight and see about using some of their marker tokens or making your own. The point is, you are trying to lure people in, you gotta make it look awesome! Just sit around waiting, letting people see it, and if they slow by and look then it's time to start talking to them!

Further more, I understand the idea of trying to tailor it towards what your community likes but, think of it this way: If you make it too much like what they already have and know, then you are just offering them the same thing that they already have. So why should they buy a new game if they have already poured buckets of money into something else that is essentially the same?

I wonder if Spartan Games couldn't do more to promote their own game. I mean, it's great that the OP is making the effort.....but on the global gaming scene SG seems really quiet.

I bought into FA a year ago, even managed to get a few other guys interested enough to purchase rules and fleets....but then SG went quiet, and started really pumping their efforts into DW, which left FA feeling negelected....at least from our point of view.....so we ended up quitting and moving onto other things.

Yeah, the fact is that DW has seemed to have stolen a bit of FA's thunder, which I really hoped wouldn't be the case. That being said, new releases are finally starting to trickle out, and they are making a lot of the ships fom th first wave look primitive by comparison! One thing that I am holding out hope for is that Firestorm: Invasion will perk up interest in FA as well.

FA started strong in my old club, but the fact that Spartan seemed to neglect FA in favour of DW slowly turned us back to the other games we played. We had six FA fleets at our club, and the rules are alright, but I personally prefer other spaceship games. That and the fluff for FA is lacking, so I'm personally not drawn in.

If FA was supported a little more by Spartan, or a land based game system (Firestorm Invasion?) in 6mm was released, I'd be all over it.

I'm not that impressed by the FA miniatures, I think the ones that GZG makes for full thrust look better.

I think the fluff issues is really over-looked by some companies....ok, not everyon eis a fluff hound like me. However, I really feel that if a game lacks interesting fluf, there is nothing for me to engage with, and then it's just a case of moving pretty counters around a board.

A game needs a story, a reason....and with FA, Spartan has done a really crappy job of realising this point.

I agree how can you have a mini company and not have a youtube channel? That is crazy it's free and you can show millions of wargamers your products most of whom are net savy.

I would agree they have done a really bad job on marketing there game.

Delephont wrote:I think the fluff issues is really over-looked by some companies....ok, not everyon eis a fluff hound like me. However, I really feel that if a game lacks interesting fluf, there is nothing for me to engage with, and then it's just a case of moving pretty counters around a board.

A game needs a story, a reason....and with FA, Spartan has done a really crappy job of realising this point.

I definitely hear you; this is one of the biggest things I don't like about Firestorm as well. Although, with the recent re-design of the site and the release of the Alliance fleet pdf's, this situation is starting to turn around a bit. I am still hoping that they will release this content in an expanded and enhanced book format, but for now this new information does a lot for enhancing the setting for me.

Translating this back to the game store, I think the biggest impact a lack of background has had is that there are too few official scenarios out there. While it does foster some ingenuity among the players to create their own, not having a set of official ones makes the game seem "old" rapidly, especially if players are just playing games using the starter boxes over and over.

MDizzle wrote:I agree how can you have a mini company and not have a youtube channel? That is crazy it's free and you can show millions of wargamers your products most of whom are net savy.

I would agree they have done a really bad job on marketing there game.

A YouTube channel would be neat, I agree! Just out of curiosity, though, which other companies have them? I didn't think that Spartan was an oddity for not having one...

GW has one and Mantic has a partnership with BoW so by proxy they have one.

Cool, it sounds like it is a growing trend, but not universal yet. Who knows, maybe they have one in the works? I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

scarletsquig wrote:I'm not that impressed by the FA miniatures, I think the ones that GZG makes for full thrust look better.

I was thinking about this one...certainly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so there is no objective answer to this issue. I think it is objectively true the models in the first 4 starter boxes are simpler and less detailed than the last two fleets to come out (the Relthoza and Directorate), as well as the later expansion ships.

However, I think a good selling point for FA is that you can use any minis for the game (as long as they are on the right bases). I have seen Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek minis used to proxy FA fleets, for example, and that seems to be a good way to convince established space naval gamers to try the game.

I agree with you about the strengths of FSA being able to use minis from any range is cool I was thinking using these.

Hee hee, I have one of the models from this series sitting on my desk as we speak! The other option are the (relatively) inexpensive Bandai kits that they re-made a few years back. You can still find them around the internet. I think they are a bit larger than these, although this does bring them more in line with the larger FA models.

I am waiting to dive in on FSA until I can take a look at the Star Trek game that is coming out for Noble armada.

The really difficult part of keeping people into Spartan's games is that Spartan doesn't actually write, or even create, rules and systems all that well.

Let me clarify, they have a good core mechanic, but despite having used it across multiple system, the core rulebook for DW is marred with all sorts of problems.

Certain smaller rules are just as fiddly, such as tiny fliers.

Individual units aren't differentiated all that well, and there's serious balance issues overall.

Their army composition rules are uninteresting, being a flimsy percentage based system that allows for all sorts of broken army builds.

The cards they included with DW are a waste of paper, and opportunity. All those fiddly little tokens that clutter up the table could have been avoided if they had made the cards standard sized, and put damage and critical boxes on them like warmachine just to keep track of these.

They also don't provide any sort of clear victory conditions for pickup games, leading to basic battles that just drag out. Even worse is that for a game that seems perfect for scenarios, especially scenarios that call for asymmetrical armies, they failed to include scenarios in the core book. And even if there were scenarios, the non-existent army construction rules would make it pointless.

There's a reason why Spartan is a company with 3 different, but also similar systems, the earliest of which is going away. Spartan just can't refine its rules and gameplay, they handle things very amateurishly.

@Vertucio: I think you have a lot of good points, espeicailly when it comes to the tiny fliers. As I've said in the past, I like the idea in principle of integrating the need to track fuel and armament for tiny fliers, but the implementation in DW makes them very difficult to use.

Army composition/balance is an issue, I agree. Essentially, having a decent game of DW depends on both players reaching a "gentlemen's agreement" on what each player will and will not take, otherwise it degenerates into an exercise of seeing who can take the most airships and battleships/dreadnoughts in their list. While I don't mind the aspect of setting ground rules for force composition before a game, this system would be difficult to implement in a tournament setting, and is certainly not every gamer's cup of tea.

Interesting point about the tokens; although, if you find this to be an issue, a possible solution might be to place the tokens assocaited with a ship onto its FIG card instead of next to the model. In fact, I might have to try that during my next game!

As for victory conditions, I again agree that the scenarios included in the rule books are inadequate at best, and that just figting "Kill the Other Guy!" missions can get old fast. This definitlely makes it vital for someone who is trying to sustain a SG to make their own scenarios in my view. Fortunately, there are a number of these to use or draw inspiration for online.

Finally, I just wanted to point out that many of your commetns makes sense from where you are coming from as a gamer; don't take this the wrong way, but I note from your posting history that you are a Warmahordes player. The only reason I bring that up is that it seems some of the most consistent and outspoken critics of SG's rules I have met online and real-life are big fans of either Warmachine or Hordes, and I find that interesting. To me, this anectdotal evidence suggests that Spartan's approach to game design just isn't appealing to many of the players who are attracted to the Warmachine/Hordes system, which in turn means that getting a SG started and sustained in stores with a strong PP presence might be more of a challenge. I fear the only way to change this would be a major overhaul to the SG in question, either through an official update or numerous house rules.

I think any SG products will have trouble in any store with GW or PP products. Both companies support their products very well.

Although you could say that PP products tend to have very well packaged games in terms of the big overall package, and not the packaging material for their miniatures. By this I mean rules, miniatures, support materials like tokens and cards, all of which are all well made to good standards of quality and usefulness to the player.

It's not so much that players who play PP games aren't attracted to SG games. In fact, almost everyone at my store who played DW at some point also plays Warmachine. The real culprit is that Spartan Games' quality and professionalism is severely lacking when compared to PP's games, for all the reasons I already stated.

To be frank, SG's quality control and professionalism isn't just lacking, it's down right amateurish. This is especially damning when you consider this is the third game they've made with almost exactly the same core rules. One look at the rulebook and you see it makes use of almost none of modern graphic design and layout paradigms since the 90s. They don't make use of technical writing, their examples are atrocious and innaccurate. Even certain core rules were horribly confusing, and SG took months before they corrected it, and they didn't even do a good job of that.

I'm not going to put up with amateurish work, nor will I recommend it to friends. Spartan Games is a business, and if they want my money they'll have to at least match the quality and professionalism of their competitors that have already set standards.

Despite lambasting SG for their fowl ups, I see potential in DW, but I also see that SG still isn't owning up to their failures in this area. As such, I've already sold off my KoB and FSA starters, and my rulebook and game card deck. Most of the players are getting rid of their stuff as well. You can also see similar things happening with every other game SG has made.

My hobby is to play the game, not to have to work to overcome the failings of its designers.

Well, I definitely hear what you are saying, Vertrucio, and I'm sorry to hear that you are getting out of the game. I understand your frustrations with having to overcome the shortcomings of the game as-is, although to me the effort required to do so is more than rewarded by the fun I derive from playing it.

It is certainly possible that, as you say, the problems with DW/FA/US is that Spartan is amateurish and unprofessional. However, I would offer an alternative view; perhaps they have more or less made the games they intended too. I'm not sayiing they are perfect, but rather that they fulfill the vision of their creators. To use an imfamous car analogy, I think it is just possible Privateer Press has made a Ferrari, while Spartan has made a F-150; for someone who is used to driving Ferraris, an F-150 would seem like a poor quality sports car indeed!

To stretch this analogy to its breaking point, no amount of tweaking or polishing is going to turn that F-150 into a Ferrari, and I fear that this is true with SG as well. No matter how many house rules or other changes are implemented, I suspect that the DW ruleset can never be as tight as Warmachine/Hordes is reputed to be (I'm speaking from ignorance here, as I don't play WM/H). The question still remains, is there anything that can be done to keep PP fans interested in SG, even as a secondary game? I'd like to think there is, although I'm not sure what it would be. Again, I think not being a player of WM/H hurts me here, which is why I'm finding our dialogue so helpful.

Now that's just stockholm syndrome style rationalizing. I know you like the game, but you need to let that go and get on Spartan Games' case about these issues, or they will never be fixed.

The vision for any director shouldn't be to produce shoddy work, it should be to produce something to the best of their ability.

If you look at the mistakes they've made, anyone can tell that they weren't bothering to quality control these products. All they had to do was take one look at a competitor's product, and put in maybe 1-2 weeks worth of effort to fix a large chunk of the issues I brought up, before they released the game.

SG didn't produce an F-150. They sold you a pinto with a coat of red paint and set it was a Ferrari.

And you're both right and wrong about DW's rules. It actually wouldn't take much effort to tighten up DW's rules. The major work has already been done, which was designing the core system. Remember that SG has had 3 whole games (and multiple years if you think about it) to tighten up their rules, which they have failed to do.

You should stop thinking of keeping PP game players, and think about trying to keep gamers as a whole. I promise you that these problems will be noticed by all gamers once the initial "Wow!" factor has worn off.

Now, what you can do as a fan is to pressure Spartan to do things right. Don't let them slack on updating the FAQ or releasing a proper text document FAQ (instead of the crappy unorganized forum post they've had), make sure they know that you will leave them, and warn people away if they fail to live up to industry standards of quality and support.

It's not enough for SG to release new miniatures when the stuff they already have has problems. I know most of the people who have abandoned or are considering leaving DW are very interested in the new miniatures, but are holding back on sales because of all the reasons I've stated.

The player community can try to plug a few holes, and that might retain players for a little bit, such as developing scenarios, making their own community made downloads like their own FAQ, a scenario book, and more. However, nothing beats actual support from the company itself. Press them to release a revised edition of the rulebook, even though it hasn't been that long. Don't let them just reprint the same crap to sell to players.

http://www.spartangames.co.uk/uncharted-seas-relaunches

they are doing pretty much everything you have an issue with with their facelift of US. campaign/scenarios coming out in support, and its pretty well known the same thing will happen for F:A and DW eventually, there's a supplement book for DW already stated as in-progress from Spartan Neil himself which /should/ include scenarios, campaign rules, and the like, as well as ironing out other wrinkles that become apparent from months and months of player testing.

Uncharted Seas is fun, its a simple beer and pretzels game, and fills the void of a fantasy naval combat game pretty nicely (read: MOW).

Firestorm has amazingly nice minis, but its rules just don't do it for me. They took a beautifully simple game (Uncharted) and complicated it with a lot of new rules and details. On its own, its a decent game, but the added complexity turned me off because I expected a simple game like US.

Then along came Dystopian Wars, which has gakky models and even more complex rules. The original ruleset that US is based on wasn't meant for the level of complexity featured in DW, and the game would have been better served by completely new mechanics, etc.


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Uncharted Seas is fun, its a simple beer and pretzels game, and fills the void of a fantasy naval combat game pretty nicely (read: MOW).

Firestorm has amazingly nice minis, but its rules just don't do it for me. They took a beautifully simple game (Uncharted) and complicated it with a lot of new rules and details. On its own, its a decent game, but the added complexity turned me off because I expected a simple game like US.

Then along came Dystopian Wars, which has gakky models and even more complex rules. The original ruleset that US is based on wasn't meant for the level of complexity featured in DW, and the game would have been better served by completely new mechanics, etc.

Keep in mind, though, Uncharted Seas is how old now before it got a revision (that you'll have to pay for) that brings it up to industry standard?

You could say it's as much to try and help keep afloat the sinking ship that is US, as it is to support the player base.

Admittedly, Warmachine Mk2 was in a similar position, but that was after 5 years of bloat and plenty of support from the creators, and it was their first and only game.

Spartan Games has made 3 games with the same core rules, none of the later games improved on the original. Once again, these problems should not have carried over from US to FA, let alone to DW.

It's not enough, to me, to push out an update to a game when it's on its last legs. They needed to have done things right the first, second (FA), and now the third (DW) time around.

But, since things are already done, the only thing to do now to win people back is not to make players buy a new book, but rather to release all the revisions to the core game for free, and not rely on a supplement to try and fix core game issues.

Now, in all my posts I'm pretty hard on Spartan games, but this is because I kinda like what they make. But, they are also a business, and when I see their business practices right now amounts to releasing some flashy new thing to entice people to buy, and dropping support once people realize that the flash just hid turds underneath, I'm going to do the right thing; and that's to hold Spartan Games responsible.

I'm not object to getting back into the game, and I'd gladly buy back into Dystopian Wars. But will not do so until they not only fix all the problems I've mentioned, but also made the revisions free to all their early adopters (the real fans). And the only reason why I ask for it free, despite something like Warmachine Mk2 having a cost is that DW was somewhat broken right out of the gate, and I cannot let a company do that to fellow gamers and me.

http://www.spartangames.co.uk/resources/downloads

pdfs for clarification, errata, and anything that has changed in any of the games since the rulebooks were v1.0.

Now, we may just have different outlooks, since i don't see these problems with the basic system across the 3 games. I can pick up and play Uncharted Seas, with a person who has never played miniatures games before, in a couple of hours. I have done this several times with some of my non-gaming friends, we had a good time, i explained 5-10 minutes of how everything worked and then we fought and had a great time.

are the rules systems perfect? heck no, but US at least is incredibly simple with lots of depth for what it is. As to DW's rules(can't comment too much on F:A, don't play it) the major hiccups are from reactive fire that is allowed(AA/CC), which is great in theory but hard to iron out every inconsistency that will pop up, which is what they've been doing.

as far as list building goes, i've gone round and round on this subject on the forums. It's meant to be artificially constricted by players. if you don't artificially restrict the list building, then you and i agree on 1k points and i show up with a land force and you with a naval and then what do we do?

on the DW supplement: don't quote me, but it's not going to be just some scenarios, it should entail campaigns, new units, advancing the storyline, etc. which isn't bad at the price point that SG puts their books. I shudder when i think how much i've spent on books for each other game system i've played when i look at what i've spent on SG books.

they're not perfect but they are getting better with their stuff, and in my book started off pretty good, which is all i ask for in a game, since perfection in a game system is a pipe dream(i don't know, maybe i'm not picky enough). i'm not trying to start on argument, especially on Ruck's thread, just pointing out that some of the things you're hitting on have already been addressed, or that what's a problem for you isn't for me(or others necessarily).

To the OP: well, my LGS finally began a kick over into DW, there's pretty much only 40k/fantasy(nobody plays up at the store for a variety of reasons, mainly just tired of GW from what i gather, i got tired of them before i came back down from New York) WM/H still gets played and FOW. I've been going in wednesdays for 3 weeks now to demo and saw the first non-mine DW models go out the door today(they're only special order now, the LGS suffers from the 'i only carry what sells but won't sell what i don't already carry' mentality). Thoughts on keeping interest past the initial 'slug it out' naval battle stage will be several scenarios from the forums until 'official' ones come out, and organizing a tournament or running league if i can get at least 8 people interested/playing consistently(so far i have 4, with another ~8 possibles from what i gather from my last few weeks up there).

the easy thing is that while new releases are coming out every month or so for the next little bit, and the metered spending in my area(most of the gamers are younger guys/don't have money to drop enough to build their fleet up to full-squadron-or-two-of-everything right out the gate) coupled with a 'late' start means that, at least in my area, we'll probably have more official stuff by the time they get tired of pickup games. or at least give me time to sit down with a couple of the hardcores and hash out a really good campaign or league system. i know i'll probably adapt the US scenarios to work for DW until DW scenarios appear. i was always more of a slugfest player, but then again i always thought GW scens were boring(and they were the only games i played for some time). the prospect of US/DW scenario creation/adaptation excites me.

anyways, enough of my 4am ramblings, hopefully you continue to have luck with DW games and can expand the F:A group with the new releases/new support. *salutes*

Vertrucio wrote:Now that's just stockholm syndrome style rationalizing. I know you like the game, but you need to let that go and get on Spartan Games' case about these issues, or they will never be fixed.

Well, I guess we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this. To say I'm suffering from Stockholm syndrome isn't exactly fair; I in no way feel like I've been victimized by Spartan. To the contrary, I've had a lot of fun with both FA and DW, and in no way regret my purchases! As I said, it is a shame you are leaving the game, and I wish you well. I'm also always willing to listen if you have any other suggestions on how to keep players interested in these games.

CPTPromotable wrote:To the OP: well, my LGS finally began a kick over into DW, there's pretty much only 40k/fantasy(nobody plays up at the store for a variety of reasons, mainly just tired of GW from what i gather, i got tired of them before i came back down from New York) WM/H still gets played and FOW. I've been going in wednesdays for 3 weeks now to demo and saw the first non-mine DW models go out the door today(they're only special order now, the LGS suffers from the 'i only carry what sells but won't sell what i don't already carry' mentality). Thoughts on keeping interest past the initial 'slug it out' naval battle stage will be several scenarios from the forums until 'official' ones come out, and organizing a tournament or running league if i can get at least 8 people interested/playing consistently(so far i have 4, with another ~8 possibles from what i gather from my last few weeks up there).

the easy thing is that while new releases are coming out every month or so for the next little bit, and the metered spending in my area(most of the gamers are younger guys/don't have money to drop enough to build their fleet up to full-squadron-or-two-of-everything right out the gate) coupled with a 'late' start means that, at least in my area, we'll probably have more official stuff by the time they get tired of pickup games. or at least give me time to sit down with a couple of the hardcores and hash out a really good campaign or league system. i know i'll probably adapt the US scenarios to work for DW until DW scenarios appear. i was always more of a slugfest player, but then again i always thought GW scens were boring(and they were the only games i played for some time). the prospect of US/DW scenario creation/adaptation excites me.

anyways, enough of my 4am ramblings, hopefully you continue to have luck with DW games and can expand the F:A group with the new releases/new support. *salutes*

Why CPT, fancy meeting you here! Welcome to Dakka .

You might be on to something with the new releases; it seems like what little interest in FA I was able to get together last fall evaporated after DW was announced and there was a lull for new Firestorm models. Having something new to look forward to every month is always a powerful hook, and it also helps keep the game fresh by providing new tactical options. Unfortunately, there is little control you or I can have over this process, other than provide Spartan with feedback as Vertrucio pointed out. Fortunately, it looks like there will be some new stuff for the core Firestorm fleets in the form of Dreadnoughts coming down the pike, so that should help.

@Ruckdog what game has the best rules FSA or DW? Also I do see a lot of PP snobbery when it comes to rules that I think is a real turn off.

Secondly how often are you able to get games of DW or FSA?

Well, I think that overall, Dystopian Wars is a little better as a game becasue of its scope (land/sea/air all together, number of units, etc). That being said, I like the way Firestorm handles certain aspects, such as point defenses and tiny flyer/wing combat. Plus, it's INNNNNNNN SPAAAAAAAAAACE!, and space naval games are my first love . So, I guess you could say I like the setting and certain mechanics from FA better, but DW is a better overall game. Sorry, that probably doesn't answer your question very well, but to me there just isn't a clear-cut superiority between the two.

Oh! The DW rule book is overall nicer (better artwork, fluff, and an index), so there is that as a tie-breaker if you need it .

As for gaming, I have to admit I haven't played Firestorm for quite a while. Like I said above, the little bit of momentum I had managed to build up for the game was pretty much dissapated by the arrival of DW. However, I've been able to play a game of DW just about every week, so that is definitely going strong.

I'm new to Firestorm Armada. I personally love the miniatures, that's what sold me on the game.

My only concern with Spartan Games is that I feel they're stretching themselves too thin. FA was the biggest thing about a year and a half ago and then it was suddenly eclipsed by DW. I don't feel FA is getting the support it needs. I know they're releasing the alliance fleets, etc... but it feels like it's being done piecemeal.

FA fits very well with scenarios. I'd love for Spartan to release more supplemental/promotional material like scenarios or battle reports.

None of my local shops stock Spartan Games and I believe that's true for a lot of people. People are learning about and buying these games online. However, there doesn't seem to be a strong online community. Outside of Spartan's forum all I know of is Fathom's reach which has a few related modelling articles up and the Firebase Delta podcast that doesn't publish very often. I'd say if there's one thing that could be done to strengthen interest in Spartan Games it would be building up the online community.

I've litterally just bought the FA rules and a starter fleet. After GW's latest round of shafting its customer base i decided to play something completly different. Me and my gaming buddies have only ever played GW games, so this was a step into the unknown. I logged onto Maelstrom Games, and started looking for something else.

FA caught my attention becasue of the name, and nothing else. I then researched and noticed that the game has had periodic updates in terms of new models since its launch, and watched a demo game on Utube. I liked the simplisity of the game, the look of the models, and more importently compared to GW (which is what I'm used to) it cost a fraction of the price.

When I got the core rules and a few other bits, my first impressions were that it looked a slightly amaturist production, but then remembered the price I paid for it, and realised that this was very good value for money. Unfortunately, I've yet to play a game due to my location in the world at the moment (being 3500 miles from my home) and I've no doubt this and any role playing game would be ilegal here (seriously).

Since I've started with a Terran fleet, one gaming buddy has bought a Directorate fleet, another a Sorillian, and another is looking at a Dindrezi. So from a browse on Maelstrom, 4 fleets have been bought, 2 rule sets, and various other bits. Someone is working on a Starfield gaming mat. So at the moment its me and me alone promoting this game, and 3 others have bought into it.

Looking into SG, I think they are a very small run company. I had to wait 3 weeks for my models to arrive due to them being Out of Stock, which tells me they are struggling to keep up with demand. To me, this is a good sign, but equally it could mean they have a small production capacity. I get the feeling that they are only able to focus their resources on 1 games system at a time, due to their size as a company.

I think SG themselves could do a lot more, I'd never heard of SG until my browsing. Attendance at conventions, building some stunning games tables and fleets to show off at these conventions. Its about PR and this is an area SG are sadly lacking in. Maybe 2 years on making sure they attend all the major conventions to promote their games would help them imensly.

Great discussion everyone!

Full disclosure: I'm someone who has played Uncharted Seas from day 1, (own two fleets), has Firestorm Armada (own two fleets), and I have a Blazing Sun's Dystopian Wars fleet all painted and I just got the land units. I've been playing Spartan games for the past 3 years fairly regularly.

I'm also a HUGE Warmachine/Hordes fan (see my avatar pic), own armies in both, and have my Cygnar Storm Strider on pre-order.

I LOVE BOTH COMPANIES!! But for different reasons.

Spartan has definitely made some mistakes in the past, and they will make some more in the future. They are small, and they are learning. And the owner, Neil, is so passionate about the sculpts he is cranking out new ships and ideas almost faster than he can support them.

That said, they are doing something quite amazing. They're pushing the envelope with what can be done with resin at this scale. Those ships are second-to-none in all three ranges. And their ship combat games that can actually be played in a reasonable amount of time.

Now as someone who has also been spoiled by Warmachine I do notice the fiddly rule bits now and again, but they really aren't that glaring and can easily be cleared up. Much less of an issue than, say, a GW game.

I don't expect any other company will do ships at this scale as well, and that's fine, because the world has Spartan, and it is good.

PP I love because they do indeed have the best, cleanest rule set on the planet. And that's great because that was their goal from day one. I don't expect any other game company to make a rule set as tight and well playing as Warmachine/Hordes. And that's fine, because I have them.

But that was never Spartan's goal. Their goal, as someone else said, was to produce fantastic models that push the envelope of what can be done. And they do it at very reasonable prices. And as Neil himself said on our show, "Uncharted Seas is a beer and pretzel game." It's not meant to be a tourney level experience.

Back to OP: I do agree with others that the weak link in ALL three Spartan game systems is background material and good scenarios/campaigns. DW probably has the best fluff so far, and I do know that Spartan is working hard to re-write and strengthen all their background material for all three games.

But scenarios are what keep gamers playing a game, IMHO. We've made up a bunch of our own here for our local group. In fact Craig wrapped the whole thing up within our X-cam system. If you'd like to see all the wacky scenarios:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zLlGTa8KQgMcz7HQbwYVazO65XeUtr_GKU23ljRcM7A/edit?hl=en&authkey=CPjesLcK


Whew.. I guess I rambled. My take is, if you only have time for one miniature game in your life, play your favorite. But if you have time for two, check out something that's very different from what you play now. Fleets of small ships supported by sky fortresses are very different from stompy steam powered war machines. Why not play both?

I don't play any Spartan Games, but I visit my FLGS every Friday Night, and generally, there's one or two games of Firestorm Armada going on. This is the biggest wargaming scene in Sacramento, too.