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Hi. I am a GW player who after years of playing GW, mostly 40K but began with and still loves WHFB. I am expanding out and looking for something different. I was looking for something that wasn't the typical tabletop war strategy game and I came across Spartan Games more by accident and when I saw the Firestorm Armada models I was instantly hooked on wanting them if for nothing more than just to paint them. I am a huge Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Firefly junkie and that was what I immediately was drawn to. I had looked at GW's BFG but just really didn't want to do anything more in the Warhammer universe. I am a huge RP guy and love to build my armies based on or around a character or a story idea of my own, giving my character a back story and my army a theme to support my character. After reading the Rulebook and looking at all the different game builds, how hard would it be to do this with Firestorm? Please help I'm looking for something new and exciting to maybe bring to my FLGS, or possibly play casually with my daughter who has recently shown an interest in my hobby. I really like the models but would really like to know how flexible this game is to modifying for my play style.

Thanks

 SGrimhart wrote:
Hi. I am a GW player who after years of playing GW, mostly 40K but began with and still loves WHFB. I am expanding out and looking for something different. I was looking for something that wasn't the typical tabletop war strategy game and I came across Spartan Games more by accident and when I saw the Firestorm Armada models I was instantly hooked on wanting them if for nothing more than just to paint them. I am a huge Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Firefly junkie and that was what I immediately was drawn to. I had looked at GW's BFG but just really didn't want to do anything more in the Warhammer universe. I am a huge RP guy and love to build my armies based on or around a character or a story idea of my own, giving my character a back story and my army a theme to support my character. After reading the Rulebook and looking at all the different game builds, how hard would it be to do this with Firestorm? Please help I'm looking for something new and exciting to maybe bring to my FLGS, or possibly play casually with my daughter who has recently shown an interest in my hobby. I really like the models but would really like to know how flexible this game is to modifying for my play style.

Thanks

The fleet lists are somewhat restricted for balance purposes, they're certainly not mono-builds but don't have the customization of a 40k army or anything like that. Generally each fleet will have a certain % it can spend on Battleships, a certain % on Medium ships, etc. with some others having additional restrictions (e.g. no more than half your medium ships can be Heavy Cruisers for example).

How does play compare to BFG, Man o' War, Aeronautica, etc?

Haven't played Manowar or Aeronautica, but relative to BFG it's a bit simpler but I feel deeper as well. You don't need to worry about the direction the target is moving (closing/opening/tangent) but rather just weapon arcs and distance. In many ways the mechanics are similar and you'll notice it right away, but it's still a very different take. The biggest thing is exploding 6's, 6's count as 2 hits and you roll again ad infinitum, so even relatively weeny shots have a possibility of inflicting harm, but at the same time there's a minimum number of hits needed to inflict any harm on a vessel (unlike BFG where the dice needs to meet the armor value).

Overall it's a smoother experience than BFG I feel, though lacking the weight of the 40k universe behind it does leave something to be desired, despite that the FSA universe is actually pretty cool.

But ultimately, both FSA and BFG are variations on napoleonic wind-and-sail battles in space.