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Taken from the Spartan Games Blog, the next class of ship is close to realease for the 6 main factions. These are the biggest ships available for the Firestorm Armada Game.

Shown here are 3D CAD drawings of:

Sorylian Dreadnought (Unnammed) - Main Armement a Spinal Mounted Accelerator Weapon
Directorate Dreadnought (Persecution Class) - Main Armement a HLC Accelerator
Terran Dreadnought (Titan Class) - Main Weapon unknown currently under construction at Mars Delphi Space Dock
Dindrezi Dreadnought (Retribution Class) - Main Weapon unknown

Any comparision shots are pictures of the new Dreadnoughts alonside the main battleships which are currently the biggest ships in the game. No details of dates or prices yet. On a side note, Spartan Games are expanding their operations and are currently in the process of moving to larger buildings. They seem to be gaining more and more popularity, I've only recently started playing their games due to the fallout of GW. For a third of what I would have spent on a new GW Dark Eldar Army, I've bought an entire new Games System, rulebooks, x2 Fleets, Scenary and a Space Mat to play on. I wonder if any of the other smaller games manufacturers are experiencing an increase in sales since more people are moving away from GW?

On the Spartan Games Blog is details of new factions and ship classes to be released, their problem seems to be that they cannot design the ships quick enough!

I've seen the rulebook and the ships. each of the "Blisters" is like a bag thing full of ship. It's awsome in scope, the way in which the resin ships look.

Going to check it out a bit more this weekend.

Good looking ships here, either way

Shiny indeed, might be useful for future RT purposes.

TheSecretSquig wrote:I wonder if any of the other smaller games manufacturers are experiencing an increase in sales since more people are moving away from GW?

Really? I thought their sales were increasing?

I've played the game about 4 times now over the last couple of days and I'm very impressed. The games itself is easy to learn but the strategy and tactics you can employ are endless and really make you think. A bit like how I'd describe Space Hulk, easy to learn, difficult to master.

Its such a refreshing change from GW games. From the Spartan Games Website I've downloaded cut out paper fleets, templates, tokens, counters, movement cards, and the rules for all the available ships. Even the rulebook tells you to do this and 'try out' the different fleets before you committ to buying the actual models.

Reading through the stuff you can see how well supported this game is and all the new stuff they have in the pipeline to keep the game fresh and challenging.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ekwatts wrote:

TheSecretSquig wrote:I wonder if any of the other smaller games manufacturers are experiencing an increase in sales since more people are moving away from GW?

Really? I thought their sales were increasing?

I may be wrong, but I think according to their annual report they've just released, GW sales are declining 'significantly' in Australia and falling off slightly everywhere else. Their cost cutting initiatives they implemented this year have kept their profits and cash up, but in terms of actual sales I think GW are loosing.

The Directorate dreadnought is kickass and the Terran one is cool. The Sorylian one is boring and the Dindrenzi... urgh.

II prefer Uncharted Seas to Firestorm and Dystopian Wars, but the Sorylian and Dindrezi Dreads have me rethinking that position! Not a fan of the Directorate or Terran designs, but I've never really like their aesthetic anyway.

Came on here for any intresting 40k news and I see this. The Terran alliance looks pretty good, and that dread class ship looks awesome. If the model is anywhere near as good as that pic then I forsee a new game/collection starting. The Alliance of Kurak looks fairly sweet as well.

Have seen the game before but never really read into it, just did a little reading and looks good.

Thanks for shareing.

It's a long shot but anyone in the south wales(UK) swansea/cardiff area who plays this?

the terran dreadnought is really nice. the rest are a bit uninspired but follow the race designs to a t. mabye some controversial designs would be a good thing at this point?

Those are some mean looking ships.

I love the look of these... may seriously consider getting involved if any local players pick it up.

For Bob's sake, these smaller companies need to stop releasing cool stuff. I don't want to start another game...

I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on the Sorylian dread, I've only played one game so far but judging by the damage the battleship can do (23 hits on a cloaked Relthoza battleship! - I love the exploding dice mechanic) I'm betting the dread will be terrifying.

These look fantastic, may have to get involved. Space "flight" cambat has always been something of a favorite of mine.

Cool, yes, but I want to see the Rense fleet in resin! I'll buy the game once the Rense fleet comes out!

They look cool, but it would be nice if once in a while they would show us some actual miniatures. Spartan Games's shop is full of pictures of CGI models of ships and the actual photographs of real-life miniatures seem to be the exception. Makes it hard to trust that the quality you think you're seeing will actually be in the miniature. Especially when they pass off a skinned CGI model as a painted miniature.

I just had a good look at the models for the first time at my FLGS and was surprised how big they were, for some reason I was expecting all the ships to be small more like BFG. Models looked really cool.. what's the game like? Lots of crazy rules or is it easy to pick up and get into? Is it more of a "skirmish" game or do you need tons of models?

Ship outlines/silhouettes look great, although parts of them are too noisy.

Nice use of mirror modeling.

Necros wrote:I just had a good look at the models for the first time at my FLGS and was surprised how big they were, for some reason I was expecting all the ships to be small more like BFG. Models looked really cool.. what's the game like? Lots of crazy rules or is it easy to pick up and get into? Is it more of a "skirmish" game or do you need tons of models?

I'd love to hear about this, too! And don't you need a mat with hexes?

Definitely not.

Firestorm Armada ships are already huge... how big are these models going to be?

If previous display models at my FLGS are anything to go by, these might be "overcompensating for something" huge.

I never seen a Firestorm Armada ship and also imagined they were tiny, but what do you guys mean by Big ships...2 inches, 4?

RiTides wrote:

Necros wrote:I just had a good look at the models for the first time at my FLGS and was surprised how big they were, for some reason I was expecting all the ships to be small more like BFG. Models looked really cool.. what's the game like? Lots of crazy rules or is it easy to pick up and get into? Is it more of a "skirmish" game or do you need tons of models?

I'd love to hear about this, too! And don't you need a mat with hexes?

Having just started playing this game myself, its really easy to play and pick up. Really easy. But you can also see how there are endless tactics you can employ, which keeps the game fresh. Basically..............

Pick a Squadron and move it.
Fire all weapons of that squadron at all targets in range (you can target multiple targets). D6 roll of 4,5,6 causes 1 hit (6 causes 2 hits plus a reroll)
Target ship rolls for sheilds and Point Defence (if it has any)
Your No. of hits then causes nothing, a hit, or critical hit. 1 hit causes loss of Hull point (wounds), crital 2 hull points plus something else (you roll for this)

And that's basically it. Differing ships have different weapons that just effect how many dice you roll and what side you can target on. There are 4 different range bands to fire from, differing ships are better at differing range bands. You can board and assault ships, take them over, and use fighters, interceptors and bombers represented by tokens.

On my 3rd game we never needed to pick up the rulebook, just the card with the ship stat's on it. If you want a good non GW skirmish game to play, I cannot recommend this enought. A starter fleet is roughly 500pts and will give you about 1.5 hour game.

For scale, here's a WIP shot of my Terran Fleet:

Thank you for the pics, they are considerably bigger than I expected them to be, about the double size of what I imagined. I guess they will paint well with so many little details.
The flying stands are quite ugly but that can be changed for some Ground Zero Games ones.

NAVARRO wrote:
The flying stands are quite ugly but that can be changed for some Ground Zero Games ones.

The flight stands are completly see through, the white bit is stick on to protect whilst I'm painting. They are 1" square which helps LOS in the game and have fire arc's etched onto them.

Um what game is this? Am i missing out the next big thing/

TheSecretSquig wrote:

NAVARRO wrote:
The flying stands are quite ugly but that can be changed for some Ground Zero Games ones.

The flight stands are completly see through, the white bit is stick on to protect whilst I'm painting. They are 1" square which helps LOS in the game and have fire arc's etched onto them.

Yeah the white part was turning me off those bases but if they are acrylic clear then its all good, thank you for the tip.
I'm going to buy one just for the painting and check out the casting quality and how good the things are, hard part is to choose just one.

Btw when will these be released? anytime son?

In all honesty, the models are too big for comfortable gaming. They're twice as large as BFG ships and even there overlapping ships were a major pain.

I believe that can be solved by having a small cube slightly bigger than the footprint of the base, to raise one or the other.