Spartan Games encore: Studiosparta & Firestorm Invasion

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**Zweischneid**

Studio Sparta (www.studiosparta.co.uk)

Studio Sparta comes from Spartan Games where we create, manufacture and distribute exciting and fast-paced games including Uncharted Seas, Firestorm Armada and Dystopian Wars.

Spartan Games has a very creative and imaginative team of designers and manufacturers who produce award-winning products for various game systems. However, the creativity of our designers does not stop with our core game systems. Indeed, they often go places we have never even dreamt of going and we end up with models and figures that, until now, had no place in the Spartan Games product portfolio.

We can’t suppress this creativity and we think you will agree that the models are just too good to be locked away in the designers' imaginations.

That’s why Studio Sparta is here.

Firestorm Invastion (Firestorm Invastion)

FIRESTORM INVASION is our view of ground-based warfare in the FIRESTORM ARMADA galaxy, but the way we have approached the concept of enacting brutal ground-based combat is, we think, somewhat different to what you are normally offered. If you think about it, the act of invading a planet is not a simple one!

To fully subdue your enemy during a military campaign we think you'll need to embrace three key Phases of game play:

PHASE 1) This is the brutal ground-pounding side of combat using massive forces of tanks, ground attack craft, mechanical walkers and heavily armoured infantry. This is the part of the invasion when you use your major assets to smash your enemy, this isn't about pretending you are taking a planet with 10 tanks - this is the part when you tactically deploy waves of armour to clear the way before you, pulverising any fool who stands in your way. We call this PLANETFALL and it will be presented using 10mm scale miniatures.

PHASE 2) Once you've smashed your enemy with a lightning strike, it's time to take, and then hold, those vital enemy hotspots. This could be fighting over a military base, entering the ruins of a devastated city, or some other strategic objective. This is where your highly trained infantry, with armoured support, come into their own. We call this CONQUEST and it will be presented using 15mm scale miniatures.

PHASE 3) Lastly, but by no means least, comes the gritty art of daring special operations. Small teams of highly trained troops going man-to-man against the best your enemy can throw at you. Capture a bunker, rescue hostages, eliminate a target or destroy a shield generator - this is what your elite troops trained for. We call this SPECIAL OPS and it will be presented using 28mm scale miniatures.

What this means is that the miniatures of FIRESTORM INVASION will grow to include a range of scales, 10mm, 15mm and 28m being the most common, with rules sets designed to match the level of game play. This way you can pick which element of the sprawling conflict you want to play out, or enact the entire campaign from the first landing of massed armour from space, to the final clean up and suppression of resistance with your elite troopers.

So, a game across three scales... 10mm, 15mm & 28mm!

Good stuff there...!

**Hulksmash**

Those 10mm models look very nice. Could be cool!

**kenshin620**

Hmm I'm not sure if this needs its own topic...

Still I heard of a lot of players looking forwards to invasion so it sounds like fun.

I wonder what 28mm Firestorm stuff looks like

**Zweischneid**

kenshin620 wrote:Hmm I'm not sure if this needs its own topic...

/shrug

Hard to tell what deserves a topic and what not.

Down a bit below is a whole topic about a single green for a croc-mini and three shoulderpads from Chapterhouse.

Hell.. thinking about it, they want to put out a game in three scales 10mm, 15mm and (!) 28 mm.

If they don't deserve their own topic, than you should most definitly ban all news about stingy companies that produce only in one of those scale.. say something like Games Workshop

**kenshin620**

What I meant was there is already a Spartan Games topic on the front page

Granted I suppose those who are FA fans and not DW fans might enjoy not having to go through several posts just about DW

**Piston Honda**

Good lord.

Spartan is rolling out the games.

Uncharted Seas (relaunched)
Firestorm Armada
Dystopian Wars
Dystopian Legions
Firestorm Invasion (in 3 different scales!)
And Uncharted Isles

Basically 8 different games.

**kenshin620**

Piston Honda wrote:Good lord.

Spartan is rolling out the games.

Uncharted Seas (relaunched)
Firestorm Armada
Dystopian Wars
Dystopian Legions
Firestorm Invasion (in 3 different scales!)
And Uncharted Isles

Basically 8 different games.

Hopefully each one gets equal(ish) love!

**Nick Ellingworth**

Hmm interesting a 10mm game (or atleast part of a game

) released shortly after Dropzone Commander. Now as a Firestorm Armada player I've been waiting for this for some time but I do have to say the timing is a little bit suspect.

The idea of playing, each part of a conflict in different scales is however a very interesting one and the prices of the 10mm stuff is pretty good but having recently invested in Dropzone Commander I'm not all the interested just yet. Although if the 28mm game turns out to be an Infinity style skirmish game then I will be very interested indeed.

**fidel**

Nick Ellingworth wrote:Hmm interesting a 10mm game (or atleast part of a game ) released shortly after Dropzone Commander. Now as a Firestorm Armada player I've been waiting for this for some time but I do have to say the timing is a little bit suspect.

The idea of playing, each part of a conflict in different scales is however a very interesting one and the prices of the 10mm stuff is pretty good but having recently invested in Dropzone Commander I'm not all the interested just yet. Although if the 28mm game turns out to be an Infinity style skirmish game then I will be very interested indeed.

I have to agree. And after playing both Dropzone Commander and Firestorm Armada - if the company continues its "trend" of whoever rolls the most 6's wins, then I will definitely stick with the much more tactical dropzone.

**Nick Ellingworth**

Indeed, the rules I think will be the key thing. Whilst I love the simplicity and brutality (making stuff explode is fun

) of Firestorm Armada the exploding dice system really won't suit a non fleet wargame at least in my opinion.

**Piston Honda**

kenshin620 wrote:
Piston Honda wrote:Good lord.

Spartan is rolling out the games.

Uncharted Seas (relaunched)
Firestorm Armada
Dystopian Wars
Dystopian Legions
Firestorm Invasion (in 3 different scales!)
And Uncharted Isles

Basically 8 different games.

Hopefully each one gets equal(ish) love!

Uncharted Seas Players say don't hold your breath.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nick Ellingworth wrote:Hmm interesting a 10mm game (or atleast part of a game ) released shortly after Dropzone Commander. Now as a Firestorm Armada player I've been waiting for this for some time but I do have to say the timing is a little bit suspect.

The idea of playing, each part of a conflict in different scales is however a very interesting one and the prices of the 10mm stuff is pretty good but having recently invested in Dropzone Commander I'm not all the interested just yet. Although if the 28mm game turns out to be an Infinity style skirmish game then I will be very interested indeed.

Spartan Games had developed 10mm SciFi Firestorm Invasion long before Dropzone Commander. They had a demo of it back at GenCon 2010.

But Dystopian Wars happened and everything was put on the back burner.

**Zweischneid**

Piston Honda wrote:Good lord.

Spartan is rolling out the games.

Uncharted Seas (relaunched)
Firestorm Armada
Dystopian Wars
Dystopian Legions
Firestorm Invasion (in 3 different scales!)
And Uncharted Isles

Basically 8 different games.

Well, there is also their "workbench" projects of Death or Glory and some 28mm Uncharted Seas "Shore Parties" too, even if that is more future-musings (http://www.studiosparta.co.uk/Articles.asp?ID=266)

**warboss**

Is anyone else getting some good natured ribbing on GW from the part about pretending to take a planet with 10 tanks? (i.e. roughly what a space marine company might have access to)

**infinite_array**

I'm a little sad that this isn't getting more attention, so here's a photo dump of the Firestorm Invasion stuff:

Dindrenzi GS-1 Harpoon Defence Platform

Terran Hellstream Support Platform

Terran L-7 Shikra Assault Gunship

Dindrenzi GA-4 Longbow Tank Destroyer

Dindrenzi H-4 Night Gaunt Hover Tank

Terran Valenfyre Main Battle Tank

Dindrenzi Starter set

Terran Starter Set

**Charax**

good source of alternate Dropzone Commander minis/40K/Inquisitor minis, not even remotely interested in the game itself

**yakface**

So I'm confused...how exactly is studio sparta related to Spartan Games?

Is it basically their miniatures company, like Citadel is/was to Games Workshop?

**Piston Honda**

yakface wrote:
So I'm confused...how exactly is studio sparta related to Spartan Games?

Is it basically their miniatures company, like Citadel is/was to Games Workshop?

Seems like a "think tank" branch for spartan games

http://www.studiosparta.co.uk/aboutus.asp

Perhaps it is not a main focus of the company as of now, but if they hit another home run with one of these new games, could take center stage.

Spartan Games is a very young, very small company, and not sure if they are willing to admit it, but feel they are on the verge of just cutting Uncharted Seas to focus money and energy on the more profitable and popular lines.

Interested to see how they do in the 28mm market. It's getting bigger and bigger, some thanks to indiegogo and Kickstarter.

It's a meat grinder.

**Nick Ellingworth**

Piston Honda wrote:Spartan Games had developed 10mm SciFi Firestorm Invasion long before Dropzone Commander. They had a demo of it back at GenCon 2010.

But Dystopian Wars happened and everything was put on the back burner.

Ah right I wasn't aware they'd gone as far as actually producing a demo game, all I knew about was that they planned a game called Firestorm Invasion but hadn't done anything with it.

**Zweischneid**

yakface wrote:
So I'm confused...how exactly is studio sparta related to Spartan Games?

Is it basically their miniatures company, like Citadel is/was to Games Workshop?

More like (early days) Forgeworld to Games Workshop from the sound of it (though no comparison is perfect)

Studio Sparta wrote:
Studio Sparta will offer a diverse range of figures, vehicles and scenery that do not have any of the constraints of being locked to our core games, and are not limited to models that can be mass-produced for stores to stock. This allows us to make more complex models, to dabble in areas that we find exciting, and we think you will also find exciting.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nick Ellingworth wrote:
Piston Honda wrote:Spartan Games had developed 10mm SciFi Firestorm Invasion long before Dropzone Commander. They had a demo of it back at GenCon 2010.

But Dystopian Wars happened and everything was put on the back burner.

Ah right I wasn't aware they'd gone as far as actually producing a demo game, all I knew about was that they planned a game called Firestorm Invasion but hadn't done anything with it.

Also Dave J. Lewis, founder of Hawk Wargames, was an employee of Spartan until he went of to do his Hawk Wargames thing.

He may have left for all the right reasons and perhaps made something better than Spartan Games did or could have done, but it is quite likely he was always aware of the Firestorm Invasion project.

**bbb**

So it's basically the Specialist Games arm of Spartan Games?

**Scott**

Interesting.

I like the look of the sets, and the idea seems like the logical answer to other companies mis-steps and half-measures in regards to covering all aspects of interplanetary warfare.

**Zweischneid**

bbb wrote:So it's basically the Specialist Games arm of Spartan Games?

Yup. Specialist Games. Small runs of experimental miniatures, etc.. . All the stuff they want to "play" and experiment with without either burdening their retailers or being themselves confined to the demands and standards of their "main games"

Automatically Appended Next Post:
via Twitter

**kenshin620**

More pics

**Hulksmash**

Depending on how they come out they look pretty cool.