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... I haven't been able to find out as much about this game as I was hoping for. My newly found interest stems from a LFGS which has started to carry FS:A to a insanely low price range. But as ironic as it seems, none at the store or in my local gaming club knows anything about it. What I gathered from their website, it's a pretty cool setting. But how do the rules compare to say, BFG, and what tactical outputs does the different factions have? I am asking here first, since I have no chance of securing a rulebook for it for a while. Any input is welcome!

Its funny you would think it would be popular but for some reason nobody plays this game. I think Spartan games are there own worst enemy looks like there fans have shifted to dystoipian wars.

Check You Tube. There are more than enough vids there to give you a feel for how the game plays as well as the factions used. A few guys put together a dedicated forum called, The Black Ocean (Theblackocean.com), but it's still new and not lots of activity yet. Sadly input from most of the Dakka community is going to be to what you see in this forum given their bent for mostly GW products. Markets like these, you must remember, have to be cultivated. Even Warhammer and 40k did not grow to where it is at overnight. FA still peaks my interest and as soon as I can unload this useless GW gak I'll be getting into the system myself. And yes, I said useless GW gak...No Warhammer or 40k community here whatsoever and I'm done w/ GW as a source of miniature wargamming.

I like Firestorm Armada. Cool ships, quick play and a low price tag for a minis game make it a good choice.

Game play is an alternating system. You activate a ship/squadron and complete all their actions (move/fire) and then your opponent does the same until all ships have gone. Each weapon system gives you a number of attack dice at each range band (medium range actually being the best range in the game for delivering max firepower). On a 4+ you hit and on a 6+ you score two hits and roll again (and again, and again as long as you keep rolling 6s.) Each ship has a damage rating and a critical rating. Meet the damage rating and you score a point of damage. Reach the critical rating and you score a point of damage and a roll on the critical table. Crits can be anything from fire/weapons damaged/shields down to total destruction of the ship in a mass explosion (sometimes damaging nearby ships, sometimes leaving behind a wormhole/black hole/dangerous terrain.)

The game includes rules for boarding actions, point defense vs fighters/bombers/boarding ships/torpedoes, dog fights and bomber actions, carrier actions, linking fire, ship squadrons, all sorts of astral phenomenon AND includes a set of rules to create your own ships. Our group had plenty of BFG ships around and converting them to the Armada universe was not difficult (although there's no mechanic to reflect the way lances/pulse lasers work.)

There's not a huge difference in fleet stats but there's still a nice difference in game play for each fleet. Terrans love their torpedoes and shields; so much in fact that they have a dedicated shield generator ship in their fleets (it is my favorite sculpt for the Terrans btw.) Aquans are easier to cause crits on but their large ships are faster than other races, they have the ability to throw torpedoes into any arc and can place minefields down as they move. Sorylians can deliver big broadside attacks and have more marines than other races so boarding can play a big part in their strategy. Dindrenzi have large front arc boresight weapons that make them a beast to approach head on and they have an a weird way of resolving their broadsides. To offset their odd weapon arrays they are the hardest ships in the game to get crits on. Directorate is a middle of the road fleet. They don't excel at anything but they aren't terrible in any area either. I do think they have some of the coolest looking ships around though so that counts for something. Finally we have the Relthoza. Their fleet uses cloaking devices in place of shields and the larger ships carry mines as well.

Background is nothing ground breaking but still interesting. You have human factions in the Terrans, Dindrenzi and Directorate; lizards/reptiles in the Sorylians, fishmen in the Aquans and bugs in the Relthoza. Terrans, Sorylians and Aquans make up the "good guys" while Relthoza and Dindrenzi are the "bad guys". Directorate is also lumped in with the bad guys but their background suggests they'd swap sides if the price/profit was right. There is also a pirate fleet and there are three (maybe four, I forget) new fleets on the way to act as allies or be their own fleet Spartan is also working on releasing some HUGE dreadnaught models for each fleet as well; all of which seem really nice.

Spend the money on the rulebook and proxy the ships (the rulebook actually has several cardboard fleets to cut out and use if you don't have any other models to use.) Get a few games in and see if you want to dive into this system. As others have said, you could also check out Youtube for battle reports.

Thanks, Rymafyr and sarcastro01, that really helped me with this. Picked up the book today and printed out som ships, going to try it out tomorrow at the game club. Thanks again!

I don't know if you intend to keep checking this thread but since this is the main game me and my friend have been playing recently I figured I should say something.

Firestorm Armada is a great game in my opinion, but as one of the previous posters has stated Spartan Games seems to be its own worst enemy in this, currently they are producing three seperate ranges that are similar. However I'm a sucker for sci-fi this game drew me in over the overpriced BFG. My terran fleet models were beautiful and they were fun to paint. My friend bought into Dindrenzi and had some small assembly issues and miscasts but nothing too detrimental. The game gets much better when you spring for the card deck. Personally I find that the deck of cards adds a meassure of randomness to the game which makes it more entertaining as opposed to just rolling statlines and it really brings the atmosphere to the game.

Currently were considering upping our fleets from starters to 1000pts with the money we saved from dropping 40K. If you can get a group to play with I'd say your set.