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Is anyone else looking forward to firestorm armada's second edition and the new starter set? I'm just getting into the game myself and bought a pair of the old dindrenzi cruisers and a conqueror class BB because I liked how they looked. I plan on getting the 2 player starter set when it comes out next month as well. I'm going to use my old-style ships as veterans who have been out on campaign for an extended period and haven't been back home for refits and replacements yet.

Just looking to get some discussion going since FSA doesn't seem to get a lot of loving. I am going to try bringing it into my community as well, maybe joining Spartan's Vanguard program.

Is the new starter set plastic?

Or will I have to kitbash some ships out of the DZC starter set's plastic minis?

I don't know why people keep buying the same crappy rules every year with a new cover.

@lord_blackfang: Oh so the changes that they have said are happening aren't? The beta testers aren't allowed to say anything but they mention lots of good changes as well...

@BobtheInquisitor: As far as plastic, I don't know, its not mentioned in the descriptions. I'm guessing its resin still as they seem fond of that medium.

I'm interested. I like starter sets, and I like collecting rules.

I don't have 1st edition either.

They just released the fleet lists as downloadable pdfs for free. I hope the ruleset will be free too after a little bit (I understand they need to make their money as well). It's so much easier to tell people, hey look the rules and lists are free, when trying to get people to buy in. That's how I got into BFG and played some warpath and I may even try some kings of war. Free rules aren't necessary but it helps. Try getting people to get into 40k nowadays after telling them they have to spend 100$ before buying their first model...

Interesting news. Our club just went in on a buy of a massive collection of unused Firestorm Armada miniatures. Almost every member of the club ended up with at least a starter fleet for half price. We were looking at using them for Full Thrust, but a new version of FSA is intriguing. Looks like I better get painting on my Sorylians.

Are the old ships going to be compatible with the new game?

@Eilif More than likely, the only thing to be careful of is they seem to be changing the cruiser sculpts a bit to fit a drop on to turn it into a heavy cruiser, rather than separate models.

@lord_blackfang And it's probably the same reason people keep playing 40k

 Eilif wrote:
Interesting news. Our club just went in on a buy of a massive collection of unused Firestorm Armada miniatures. Almost every member of the club ended up with at least a starter fleet for half price. We were looking at using them for Full Thrust, but a new version of FSA is intriguing. Looks like I better get painting on my Sorylians.

Are the old ships going to be compatible with the new game?

I looked at the fleet lists and basically the old models are the same as the new versions rules wise just a different class. Example, the new Dindrenzi cruiser is the Secutor class and the old was the Fury class. Both are under the same profile in the new fleet docs. So no old model is invalidated. Always a plus since I know that some games will abandon old units in the rules. I do like the drop-in bits for the new cruiser-to-heavy-cruiser conversion though, glad I'm getting some new ships to mingle with the old.

Mildly interested in this. I got the Soryllian fleet when FA first hit shelves and while the models were fantastic (and fun to paint) the rules were far too basic for my tastes. Hopefully the 2.0 rules add some more depth to the game, although I getting people back into it might be a tough sell.

Also, new aquans look fantastic. Been out of the game long enough that I don't know if they are new for 2.0 or were redone a while ago, but they look good.

The more I've read and seen, the better I've felt. Spartan of the last year or two has actually taken real strides in design and testing and I think it is finally starting to show.

For once, one of their games has core fleets which don't feel like simplistic tweaks on the base design. Each of the six major fleets do actually appear to function almost completely differently. And what's more, the balance doesn't seem to be off either. The Terrans and Directorate look to be just as viable as the Dindrenzi or Sorylians. They all have their own way of going about it of course, but no one seems to be too weak or too strong (at least from a first look at the fleets). This is a pretty good sign. Normally Spartan imbalance was easy to spot in every previous rulebook. So at the very least, if there are balance issues, they are buried deep. A definite improvment over being able to find glaring issues on a mere flip through as you could with Dystopian Wars.

The awesome work they've been doing with the Dystopian Wars upgrade boxes and fleet reworkings is definitely paying dividends in FSA's new rules. This actually feels like they went the extra mile and released a set of rules that wasn't just going to get replaced in a couple of years (for once).

So far, though, what impresses me the most is twofold. First, they fixed mediums. We were starting to see inklings of this in Dystopian Wars (the newest stuff and non-core factions). But they really hit it out of the park here. Almost every cruiser has seen some kind of boost in firepower, survivability or some other facet. They now offer a similar amount of firepower to a battleship, but often for a lower price. And this is because large vessels saw a price increase across the board (as well as some stat tweaks to make them less all-round perfect). Dreads especially have seen a nerf in terms of pricing.

The feared Dindrenzi Retribution had a few stats dumped, a downside added (Ablative Plating, once you're at 50% HP you get a -2 to your CR; this is the new Dindrenzi factional MAR) and some neat improvments (massive range boost and some firepower improvement) but costs 20 more points and handles like a drunk bear (though you can pay a further 35 points to get rid of some downsides; but now it costs 325 points instead of its old 270).

So now mediums actually are the workhorses of the fleet. Larges still pack good firepower in a durable package. But mediums are more mobile and able to bring battleship-level firepower in to range faster. If nothing else, balancing mediums and larges is a huge (HUGE) leap in the right direction. It solves tons of endemic internal balance issues that have plagued Spartan-system games since Uncharted Seas.

But beyond that info is still a little scarce on the more core system changes. Boarding sounds like it has changed completely (which is cool, boarding has never really felt right in any of the Spartan-system games). Small craft have also changed and now have a more limited range mixed with no longer being a way to spam activations. Both of those should be nice general system tweaks.

As for the new starters, they are basically an excuse to re-sculpt the old ships without writing the hulls out of canon. With the new way you buy ships (pick a basic hull class and put add-ons on it to create a variant) this makes a lot of sense. From the sounds of it, they will still be in resin but will come with bits to convert a heavy cruiser in to the mix (making them a nice buy for even established players). And apparently the game will be going to an upgrade box model like Dystopian Wars which should be fun if they can keep a bit of variation and extra bits in there.

All in all, this new version of Firestorm finally feels like Spartan aren't just phoning in a minor reprint with some half-arsed tweaks. They didn't have a lot of good will banked with me for the last little while, but things are actually looking up for the second edition of FSA. I hope Spartan can keep this up. The last major hurdle will be whether or not they have finally managed to pick a layout for the rules that doesn't require the reading of goat entrails to properly divine meaning from (though, again, we've seen snippets from the book and it seems fairly solid so far).

I think I remeber someone confirming the ablative armor was -1 to both dr and cr, so both making it easier to damage and crit. A good balance for heavy dindrenzi ships if you don't pay to remove it. I like that rule though. Can't wait for the new book though, the depth they appear to be adding with multiple weapon types and having upgradable ships is really going to help bring fsa out a bit more.

I agree Ronin_eX I really hope they laid the rulebook better. I don't mind reading a rulebook cover to cover but not when I'm looking for one rule for reference...

Totally looking forward to this.

I ordered the new rulebook and it's coming with a free battle station miniature.

Cool! Which station did you get?

I got the Directorate station.

It looks really cool.

Definitely cool. I like how stations are in the fleet lists as part of your list building. I'll be waiting til they offer the stations separately though since I am going to buy the starter set and it comes with the hardback rulebook.

@Ronin_eX

Thanks for the overview! I was excited reading the comments of the horde of beta testers on Spartan's forums, all of them agreeing that the game is far more balanced.

I have a Sorylian starter fleet plus a carrier and an extra cruiser or two, but I went ahead and bought some of the new Ryushi models with my new rulebook. The redone Sorylians are just amazing though, gets me excited to get back in to the game. I've always loved cruisers, as the old Skyhammers were pretty awesome.

All in all, I'm looking forward to the rule book, and the new fleet lists offer that cool amount of extra options to fill in a random bit of points here and there.

Very excited!

Do you have any pics of your Sorylians? Post em up! I'll post pics of my Conqueror and a 2 Furies when they're done.

 Boblogik wrote:
Do you have any pics of your Sorylians? Post em up! I'll post pics of my Conqueror and a 2 Furies when they're done.

My gallery has some pics of them. Not the best painter ever, but they'll do. I also had a post in the old Spaceship board of my old clubs fleets all laid out.

I'll see what I can dig up.


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Alrighty...



There's a shot of my Sorylians.

Here's a thread with a gratuitous amount of spaceships of all the fleets from my old club.

They look good. Nice and crisp. Also your some of your BFG ships follow the same ideas as mine, crazy close but different thankfully lol. I uploaded an old pic of one of my ships and stuck it in my gallery if you want to see (Oddly I don't have any recent pics. Gonna have to change that when I take pics of my FSA Dindrenzi Fleet).

Awesome! I went with white accented by blue, you went the opposite route! Oh, and swapping silver for a bronze/copper. Very cool looking ships!

I'll be getting the new Sorylian start fleet as the models are sooooo much nicer now. Knowing me, I'll probably buy two of the patrol fleets, plus a carrier or two and a dreadnought. Then I'll also have a sizeable Ryushi fleet to ally with as needed. Now all I have to do is find a group to play with!

That's kinda the same problem I'm having... But really it seems to be that way for most fleet games in most areas. X-wing kinda helped popularize space combat thoough, hopefully people will take a second look at the fleet level games. Once I get a good solid grasp of the rules and have 2 fleets painted up, I plan on applying to be a Vanguard and run demos and such in my area to drum up support and a player-base in my gaming community.

If you're picking up the two player starter its got a great intro mini campaign for getting people up to speed on the rules. It actually plays out kind of like a video game with the first mission just a hand full of smalls and then progressing on up till you have the full box in play. Its nice too because some of the missions affect the outcome for later ones, some good stuff there although nothing to difficult so experienced players will find the first few missions below their skill level.

AndrewChristlieb wrote:
If you're picking up the two player starter its got a great intro mini campaign for getting people up to speed on the rules. It actually plays out kind of like a video game with the first mission just a hand full of smalls and then progressing on up till you have the full box in play. Its nice too because some of the missions affect the outcome for later ones, some good stuff there although nothing to difficult so experienced players will find the first few missions below their skill level.

The starter set also has two unique models you can only get from the box (so far anyways), being the two battleships. Oh, and the space station thing.

Pretty cool set overall. I'd get it myself, but I'm not a Terran fan. Hopefully they'll do a two player starter set for each of the six core factions facing eachother; Terran v Dindrezi, Sorylian v Relthoza, Aquan v Directorate. I would snatch up the Sorylian one in a heartbeat.

I have a buddy who may buy the terrans off me and if he doesn't well it saves me the time of procuring a second fleet to face my dindrenzi

 Boblogik wrote:
I have a buddy who may buy the terrans off me and if he doesn't well it saves me the time of procuring a second fleet to face my dindrenzi

I thought of doing that, as I need a second fleet, one on the Zenian side. I'm thinking of doing a Dindrezi one, but I'm also contemplating building up one of the minor factions like Rense or Works Raptor.

The Rense are my favorites of the subfactions. They have an awesome look, I want their BB just to have and paint and look at lol. Once I finally get my hands on the new rulebook and starter fleets and learned more maybe I'll expand my Dindrenzi to include them (especially since they're "natual Allies" now which means I can take more with no penalty I think)

Actually, I just had a look through their fleet book. Too much Fore (Fixed) for my taste, way too much. I've never much liked the whole idea of Fore (Fixed) in the game as it just feels finicky watching your opponent line up his models just so to draw that line he needs. Its also frustrating for squadrons trying to line up shots at a shot close to them as they have to angle a lot more.

Meh, I'll wait for the Zenian Fleet book and probably go woth Works Raptor or Rense. Both have great models, I just hope the rules fit my style and taste a little more.

Yeah, your sorylians don't suffer from that fore foxed issue as much, you have nice broadsides compared to the dindrenzi gunracks. I dunno though, I like the fluff and imagery of the dindrenzi lining up their railguns and unleashing all that firepower on their targets while smaller escorts and gunships protect their flanks. We'll see how I actually like it in-game come next month but right now I'm happy.

The concept is cool, I just find its a little finicky on the table. Meh, I'll see it in person before I judge too harshly.