"Firestorm Armada...why no love?" Topic

Hi all.
I picked this baby up at Miniature Market for the ridiculously low price of 80 bucks about a month back. In addition to all the ships you see here, you get a hardcover second edition rulebook and all the tokens you could possibly need. I only played a quick skirmish of FA at GenCon a few years back…it seemed like fun. The ships are clearly awesome, so why no love for this game?

At first glance, it looks like you roll a bucket of dice every time you do anything, which is somewhat off-putting…but other than that, I'm just wondering why it seems no one plays it.

Am I wrong?

Our group stopped playing for a couple reasons. First the ships were too big to make it look right for space combat on the table top . They ended up just looking too tightly packed into a small space for the size of the ships represented. Secondly, and probably the main reason, was that the rules were too similar to Uncharted Seas, without being (in our opinion) an improvement on them. So, it came down to a factor of when we had time to play a fleet based game US always won out over FA.

Full Thrust appeals to people wanting a quick & easy game [and I have no idea why, frankly] and BFG reamins popular despite the ships going for silly money on ebay. BFG is also a better game – I'm only basing that on comparisons with Dystopian Wars which I'm told has very similar mechanics mind you.

But the ships are very nice, and they keep releasing new ones, so someone must play it.

Biggest put off is the ships are too large for my gaming table. I do buy a few of the smaller ones to mix into other fleets.

I have always fancied this because of the larger model size. However…the rules are effectively the same as Uncharted Seas and our group also plays other spaceship games so it remains untried.

There are lots of people loving it over on Spartan's forums. TMP forums are really frequented more by people playing older or indy games.

I have FA2 and like it. Its a big improvement over FA1. However my gaming group is having difficulties getting together and so haven't played it much lately.

@streetline – BFG was a decent game in its day, but the whole IGYG mechanic is very tired, especially in space games. FA has evolved a lot, and while it shares mechanics with DW (roll a bucket of dice) this version is IMHO better than BFG.

But I do think the reason people here don't jump on FA is because of the scale of the minis. They are nice, but out of proportion for most of the other games we play. Despite the amount of $$$ I played for my directorate, my NSL are my favourite fleet ;-) And since I can't stat them out and use them in FA2 – I'm always looking to the plethora of design-it-yourself game systems out there.

The one big thing that bugs me about FA is that your smaller ships (i.e. anything smaller than a battleship) must band together in squadrons to be effective. Once the squadron size gets too small – they have trouble hurting anything of significance. Because of this reliance on banding together, there are very strict limits on the maximum size of squadrons. I much prefer a game where you can take any number of ships of different sizes and still be effective. Very true for a whole bunch of other games.

I don't play the rules. Use my own. But I love the ships. They are great.

Ships were nice …the rules were blah . When a ship's move is less than its own length the model is too big . Full thrust is a better game and flows much better

I rather like the models.

Our group has hi-jacked some of the larger ships to use as transports/shuttles/gunboats in X-Wing. I wish they had been around in the days we played Silent Death.

I was turned off by the minis scale, as already covered, and the fact that the 1e DW rules (with all three systems much alike, so I hear) did nothing for me.

I thought it was cool when it came out but I still have a huge collection of Battlefleet Gothic that we pull out in our gaming group once or twice a year. It's still a great game and it's all painted so why try and reinvent the wheel for something I play so rarely?

Personally I prefer Firestorm Armada over Full Thrust by an order of magnitude. But I hate paper record keeping and you don't have that in Firestorm. And my table is 10 x 5 so the bigger the ships the better.

Having felt burnt by FA I, didn't care to try FA II, in spite of intellects I admire speaking of a great difference. I suppose, part of 'what's better' doesn't cover parts I didn't care for.

For the ships, I can stand big ships now and then, but the range by mid-range is big for my tastes.

I hate SFB-level of record keeping in power allocation, damage and pre-plotting moves I like. But, in FT, I tend to not to get fiddly with damage control.

Doug

When I started looking at getting back into gaming and teaching my kids, I looked at FA. From what I could tell, there was not a lot of difference between races. FT and Quad-S on the other hand were already in my library and differed enough between races to make it more interesting.

Bought some clearence models and was so impressed with them that I went looking for more info. Tried the pdf rules and was hooked. I liked BFG ok when it came out despite balance issues, guess range weapons, and gun battery charts. FA feels similar, but without those issues. New rules are an improvement over the last ed. Played a game last Tue and hope to play again soon.

I haven't played FA2. Our group didn't like FA1, primarily because of the card-draw mechanics. We also had some trouble with the models. While the designs are great, the actual casting was hit-or-miss.

The Directorate still gets play, though. Those were/are very nice ships, even if they're a little big.

Seems Spartan burned out a lot of people with FA1. Too bad, because FA2 is a much better game. BTW, there are no card draws in FA2 – there is a new set of tactical cards – you can include a few of them with your fleet to give you some additional features – but they are not random and usually you have to spend the equivalent of victory points to use the more than once (and you can only use one per turn).

They probably aren't helping themselves any by not advertising on TMP. No news story here for this lot:

link

This may not be the center of the gaming universe, but to not even take the effort to post a "look what we have coming" thread on the forums is just plain leaving money on the table.

Didn't like the rules, and the models were too big – though I have a couple of space stations in the collection. Of course, I find a hex mat for space battles speeds up game play considerably.

Al | SUNDER THE STARS

I just picked up some Dindrenzi to play against a friend who bought Terran. I would have gone the Battlefleet Gothic Route, but GW decided to kill that one off. The models are unbelievably easy to put together. I can't think of another system that would be as quick to assemble and paint as this system is. – it literally took me an afternoon! I also think that it will be pretty accessible to younger players also – a combination of the sci-fi, pre-configured off the shelf formations, ease of assembly and simplicity in painting.

Never done any fleet action games before.

If you don't like the size of the ships, just do what I've always done with spaceship minis that are not based on 'established' SF (such as Trek) –

Ignore the big capital class models – the dreadnoughts, battleships and fleet carriers – and re-task the cruisers as battlewagons, destroyers as cruisers, and frigates as destroyers.

Now, your models look less out of scale (they're all monstrously out of scale anyway, unless they're the size of grains of rice,) plus, when you buy a pack of 3 cruisers, you're actually getting 3 battleships! :D

Problem that arises there is a lack of smaller ships. Even the tiniest Spartan models are heavy destroyer/light cruiser sized compared to GZG's Full Thrust ranges, and they're capital ship sized for use alongside Fleet Action scaled stuff. You have to go outside the range for the little ships in a fleet, and that makes it look less cohesive because the sculpting styles don't match well between manufacturers. That's a turnoff for many people, at least around here. A shame, since they do make some very nice models.

GZG ships just win on so many levels. Price, number of factions, number of classes within a faction – and really the size of the models just feels right. They go from "so tiny you can't believe you managed to mount that on a stand" right up to "so big I can't believe I've got this much metal balanced on a stand".

The fact that the larger Spartan stuff needs 2-3 pegs to support it is kind of a hint that they went a little too big.

Now, if you have a big table (6'x8') then hell ya, go for it.

One thing I noticed when playing FA2 is that when we were proxying with GZG ships we ended up way too close most of the time. Once we started to play with the larger spartan models we had a better sense of scale and didn't end up and point blank range quite so often.

ANGRY PIPER,

Thanks for posting the pic of the Valhalla box set--used my Amazon.com balance to pick up one for a little more than what you paid! Did not know about this boxed set so appreciate you making me aware of it.
That research station is gonna look awesome on my game table for Full Thrust.

Thx,
Mark

Drake, if you poke around Youtube there are a lot of unboxing/review videos for Firestorm. That's where I saw the Valhalla box first myself, and it's good way to get a better look at the actual models of newer ships than the renders on the Spartan site.

I loved BFG, I was never a fan of Full Thrust.

I really like the models in FA, especially because of their larger sizes and greater detail compared to a lot of other space models I've seen.

In my local play group, most o fus got introduced to Spartan Game's standard "exploding 6s" rule set in Uncharted Seas and Dystopian Wars, but we didn't like the card aspect of the game and it fell out of favor.

Another thing that I was very vocal about, other players less but I could tell they felt similarly, was suddenly Spartan Games had a sculptor change or something. That affected models across nearly all their game ranges. Suddenly the new ships coming out didn't have the same look or feel as the rest of the fleets. In addition they came out with new units that were similar too: they sort of went against what was the theme of the fleets were and it felt like everyone was getting the same new unit.

Overall it left everyone feeling a bit lackluster and with many other competing game systems out there, Spartan Games stayed on the shelves and not the gaming table.

Spartan Game's standard "exploding 6s" rule set

You mean the dice mechanic that Full Thrust popularized, that is. Ironic. :)

Nice models, I just am not a fan of the rules.

I find the rules to be pretty blah, and the range is hit or miss for me: LOVE some of the models, don't care for others.

-Will

That's usually the case for me for most games though, Will – love some of the models, don't like others. I still play the games though :)

What I mean is that there isn't one faction that I like in total; makes it had to raise a fleet when you don't like half of the ships.

-Will

Love this game, it's a spiritual successor to BFG with its large ships and pretty simple rules.

I've covered a lot of Firestorm Armada on my blog in the past but haven't done much coverage of Version 2 yet.

However so far, with the limited number of games I've played, version 2 seems a winner. It removed a lot of my complaints of the original.

Interesting set of posts. Played the FASA Start Trek Game years ago and recently ran a Full Thrust game at Historicon. I bought some Full thrust minis To go with my Ravenstar Studios BSG fleets. The FA corvettes and Frgates scale and mix well as escorts for both sides. I'll post som pics on this and another thread. Oops just noticed the date on the last post.

To answer the opening question, I suspect a lot of folks are tired of paying for Spartan's ongoing education in game design.

I will play FA2 again, but I'm on a bit of a hiatius from it. We can never manage to just have a quick game of FA2. I guess given the number of actual ships you have on the table, one can't complain – but there are a number of things that could have been done differently that really slow the game down:

1) Exploding dice mechanic – instead of just rolling the bucket of dice once, you often have to make a series of successive rolls. Fun but not quick.

2) Opposed rolls. There are so many attacks that are just in vain in FA2. You calculate your torp dice and fire, and then your opponent rolls his PD dice and gets some awesome exploding dice action going on and after I minute you realize it was all just a waste of time.

3) The turn template is not fast. I'd have preferred if they just let you rotate about your peg. Easy enough to eyeball 45 degrees on a square base.

4) Every little bit of damage to your ship makes you have to recalculate the number of dice you get to attack with direct fire weapons.

None of them by themselves is that bad, but add it all up with a fleet of a dozen or more ships and it takes a long time to play a game.

I tried the V2 rules this past winter and I really liked the improvements that were made. They addressed successfully most of the concerns I had with the original version. It is not a perfect game (there is no such thing anyway) but it is still fun.

However I do agree with Tim White's assessment that you still feel like you're rolling a lot of dice to accomplish nothing in the end. That is the big problem with 'all or nothing' damage mechanics. On the other hand it allows for no record-keeping. I prefer sometimes something like Full Thrust or ACTA where there is record-keeping but chances are you will score a few points of damage even with a very bad set of rolls.

When I played FA 2.0 my opponent was adamant that we not use the exploding dice mechanics (no re-rolls on a '6') because according to him bigger ships went bust too easily. Then of course as soon as the smaller units were dispatched the capital ships kept firing at each other for what seems like forever with little accomplished. Sometimes that extra point you get from a re-roll is enough to cause damage, whereas ignoring it would cause none.

On a few occasions I did get a kick out of having to explain that the exploding dice mechanics were, huh-hum, 'borrowed' from Full Thrust, and then invariably getting asked "what's Full Thrust??" )

That's sort of my problem the game; when I tried (version 1, I admit), it felt very much like a warmed-over Full Thrust with some elements of BSG thrown in, and why play that when I can play Full Thrust?

-Will

@wminsing

On thing FA2 does that I wish FT had was variation in a ship's defense based on the direction it is being attacked from. Not all ships have it, but some do and its a nice touch. For example some terran ships can have "sector shielding" where they can juice up their shields in one 90 degree arc by reducing the others. Most directorate ships are harder to critical from the front (and for a battleship in FA2 that's a big deal).

But yes in general I agree with you. Plus FT has full design rules!

-Tim

Anyone come up with FA2 Stats for Battlestar Galactica? I have some FA models that also mix well with my Ravenstar colonials and Cylons. I need to give the rules a try with so much positive feedback.

I've played some with the 'supership' idea of divided hull boxes for directional damage. Even 'armor' dispersed the same way.

However, if I have to start budgeting energy for 'shield reinforcement…' *seeth*

Doug

I've noticed not alot of people talk about Firestorm Armada, and was wondering why? I'm a veteran of Battlefleet Gothic, and i think version 2.0 of FA is basically its spiritual successor.

I feel like if you have played and liked BFG, you should try firestorm. Ships are fantastic, its cheap to get gaming quickly, and all the factions play differently.

~J

I have been curious about this game, although I haven't been able to come across any of the miniatures. The miniatures are a bit large, although I may find a use for large miniatures like that. They do look good.

The miniatures are very nice… but then again so are GZG minis, which are more manageable in size and even cheaper…

I am playing my third game tomorrow, generally when I want to discuss or get information about the game I go to Spartan's forum so perhaps that is why you don't see much chatter here. The crowd on TMP skews towards indie/old school games, many of the popular forums that focus on sci-fi/fantasy games have a section for Spartan's games.

Played FT yawwwwwn!…. Had BFG hated the rules, really hate all GW rules!…. Picked up FA2 and it looks great, as far as the size of the ship, Some BFG ships I had where as big as some of these. Heck my Directorate Battleship is the same size as my SW Armada Victory class Star Destroyer, so I don't understand this too big complaint, just doesn't hold water.

Play the game some more and you'll see the issues. At close range the models bump into each other and get in each others way. Setting the models on their stands at differnt hights will aleviate this somewhat however.

I stand by my 4 points above… I'll add a 5th in that I am not a fan of HAVING to bring ships in squadrons. After having played the other Armada (Star Wars) I can't see going back to FA2.

When I want to field my FA2 ships on the table again, will be cracking out FT.

-Tim

I agree with you on the whole squadron thing. Its too restrictive.

Our group is just now getting into spaceship gaming. We had a BFG box sitting on a shelf for the last 10 years or so and finally opened it and gave it a go. It's gone over well with some of the members and yes, we are paying relatively high prices for ships or scratchbuilding but we keep our eyes out for bargains and snipe on ebay so we pay $5 USD to $15 USD for most ships if we manage a quatity buy. And of course we stumble upon stuff at flea markets.

Full thrust is also to our liking for Battlestar Galactica fleets and the Lite rules for quick games is very handy.

I've looked through the rules for FA and they seem put together well and I really like the ships. We Have some of the escorts crossed over as Colonial or Cylon frigates.

You had a 10 year old BFG box??? Collectors gold! Worth a small fortune u opened