Product Review: Spartan Games “Battle for Valhalla” Set – Firestorm Armada – Part 1

My Wife Loves Me!  She Really Does!!!  She was really nice to me and I got a really nice Christmas Gift!  It’s nice to have a wife that supports my habits!  ;)

So, what’s in the box?  LOTS!!!

• Hard Cover Copy of the Firestorm Armada Rules – Version 2
• Soft Cover Scenario Book with escalating (training) missions using the models of the set
• 6 full colour cardstock pages with counters, asteroids, turn templates and the new “Battle Logs”
• 2 sets of dice – 1 normal, 1 smaller to fit into the new Short Range Spaceship (SRS) tokens
• 2 Sets of Tactical Ability Cards (TAC) – 1 generic, 1 of race-specific cards

Opening the Box!

Lotsa Bubble Pack!

And 2 fleets:

Terran Alliance:

 1 Tyrant Battleship

·         3 Teuton Cruisers

·         4 Armsmen Frigates

·         4 Large SRS Tokens

·         4 Small SRS Tokens

·         The Valhalla Research Station

The Terran Fleet

Two-Piece Cruisers

Single-Piece Frigates

The Tyrant Battleship (with Frigates)

The Valhalla Station

Dindrenzi Federation:

·         1 Praetorian Battleship

·         3 Secutor Cruisers

·         3 Thaex Frigates

·         2 Large SRS Tokens

·         2 Small SRS Tokens

One-Piece Frigates

Three (Four?) Piece Cruisers

The Praetorian Battleship

Various SRS Tokens

And, of course, a ton of flight stands for everything (except the station – which is free-standing)

All the resin parts were nicely wrapped in bubble pack and the over-all impression I had when I first opened the box was “WOW!  Nicely packed and FULL!!!”

Something of special note: All the colour cardstock was die-cut!  I just had to punch out the various bits!  No cutting with scissors!  Bravo!  I hope Spartan continues to do this with all the box sets!

Impression of the Models:

As you can see in the photos, I haven’t yet started assembling anything (YET!).  Overall, the detail is excellent for all the ships.  Very little flash, though there will be some clean-up required to add the engines to the larger Battleships.  The worst of the flash seems to be on the SRS tokens, on the bottom edge, so I’m quite happy with the quality. 

If I do have a complaint, it’s that there are no instruction diagrams.  This is a common problem with several manufactures.  I suspect the issue here is that when the product is packaged as individual blisters or as the new Patrol Boxes that Spartan is pushing now, it’s obvious what goes where.  Unfortunately, here you have 2 different fleets and a lot of bits for both are jammed in with the SRS tokens in a single Ziploc bag, so you have to sort through the parts and guess where each bit goes.  In honesty, I’ve already figured out where most of the bits go, just by comparing photos on the box cover.  There is one small bit I haven’t figured out yet, but that’s not too bad…

I’ll try to let you know what I think as I assemble and paint the fleets.

Firestorm Armada V2 Book: First Impressions

First, a confession: I’ve never played a Firestorm Armada game before.  Like many people, I’ve downloaded the PDF file of Ver 1.1 directly from the Spartan Game’s site, so what you’ll see here is my first impression of the book and rules.

The quality of the book is excellent.  While only 120+ pages, the hard cover is excellent quality and the pages are all full colour and the text is easy to read.  Some gorgeous photos and some good example diagrams dot the test as you progress through the rules, though sometimes they don’t always seem to be where you’d thing find them.  The book does have an index (though I’m not sure how good it is; after playing a few games and having to reference things, I’m sure I’ll find out).

The sequencing of the book is very “British” in style.  The rules are not laid out in a point system for reference like some “American” games (such as the notorious Star Fleet Battles).  The sections of the book are laid out in a fairly logical, sequential order:

• ·         The story behind the game (“Fluff”)
• ·         Basic Game Concepts (where to measure from, dice rolling and modifiers, model stats and definitions, etc.)
• ·         The Turn Sequence and brief explanations
• ·         The Movement Phase
• ·         Combat
• ·         Weapons
• ·         Firing Options
• ·         Boarding
• ·         End Phase
• ·         Rules for Short Ranged Spacecraft (SRS)
• ·         Model Assigned Rules (MAR)  (All the Special Rules that give the different fleets their flavor).
• ·         Scenarios
• ·         Generic Fleet Lists (Basic Battleship, Cruiser and Frigate for each race/fleet)

If you’ve experienced a Spartan Games rule set before, then you’ll be familiar with the layout of the rule set.  One of the things that has improved is that Spartan has added page references any time they reference a subject that’s covered in more detail elsewhere.  This makes cross referencing much faster as you don’t have to jump back to the index or the table of contents for everything.

The Rules:

Well, Firestorm Armada uses most of the same basic rule concepts as Dystopian Wars:

• ·         Alternating activations between players
• ·         Exploding 6’s: a natural 6 counts as 2 hits and gains another dice roll
• ·         Roll to see how many hits and if you exceed the Damage Rating (DR) or Critical Rating (CR) you cause damage
• ·         Weapons have Range Bands to determine how many dice you roll, depending on distance

So, what has changed between V1 and V2 of Firestorm and Dystopian Wars?

First, the fleet organization and “Battle Size” definitions have changed.  Instead of basing your fleet organization on the percentages of a battle size, now you “pick a Fleet type”: Patrol Fleets (800 pts. or less), Battle Fleets (801 – 1200 pts.) or Grand Fleets (1201 – 2000 pts.).  The various fleet lists (downloadable from the Spartan Website Download section) then define what you’re allowed to take in each of the 3 “Tier”.  Each Tier is approximately the same as the Large / Mediums / Smalls of the previous version (though some Tier 1 choices are composed of Medium ships)  For example, the Terran’s fleet list limits the player from taking more than 2 Tier 1 (Heavy) choices in a “Patrol Fleet”, and a further limitation says only 1 of those could be a Battleship.

A new feature is that most Medium and Large Vessels now have “Hardpoints” and “Upgrades” introduced in the fleet lists.  A Hardpoint allows the player to add capabilities to their ships, creating some (limited) customizations whereas Upgrades tend to be MAR changes to the ship.  Both features add cost to your basic ship.

The STAR cards are gone; replaced by the TAC cards.  And they aren’t random, they’re chosen in advance (though you are limited on how many cards and which cards you chose as some are race-specific).

There are two different “Weapon System” Fire Phases, one for Direct Fire and one for Indirect Fire.  Direct Fire weapons must all be fired and resolved before you can shoot the Indirect Weapons.  Both types of weapons are fairly well defined so there should be no confusion there.  Also, you still must declare ALL attacks before you fire your first weapons.

Another change is that there are different weapon “types” defined.  The significance of this is that different types have different Range Bands.  Instead of all Range Bands being multiples of 8, they are multiples of 8”, 10” or 12”!  As an extra; many weapon types have a bonus rule that grants an advantage for using that type of weapon by itself under certain conditions.

While Linked Fire and Combined Fire are still firing options, Split Fire was removed and instead given as a Model Assigned Rule: not everyone can split their weapons fire from a single mount anymore!

Another huge change is the handling of Short Range Spacecraft (SRS: fighters, bombers, etc.).  Besides the new tokens, SRS must stay within Command Range of their Carrier UNLESS they are making an attack run.  That attack run is limited to the distance that the SRS wing can go in a single movement phase!  No more launching bombers and sending them around the moon to ambush from the other side in 2-3 turns!

The final change I’ll talk about is the new preferred Victory System using the Battle Log.  The Battle Log is used to track each fleet’s progress as they destroy enemy vessels and squadrons, complete objectives or lose their own fleet’s vessels.  The first player to reach the designated winning point value wins the game.  Patrol Battles go until 10 pts., Battle Fleet Battles go until 15 pts. and Grand Fleet Battles go until 20 pts.  What is unique is you can “give up” points to gain advantages or re-gain the use of TAC cards, though you still need to re-gain those points to earn a Victory later.  The old “Victory Points” system based on vessel point costs is also shown in the book, but the new scenarios are based on the use of the Battle Log to determine Victory or level of victory.

Overall, I found the rules fairly straight forward to follow and understand, though there are a few points I needed to re-read and I’m looking forward to an FAQ for couple of issues.  The organization of the rules is sort of sequentially-based so there were a few places you need to jump to a different section to work out how things would work in a true battle situation.  The Quick Reference pages in the back of the book has all the tables listed in the book, but I’d like to see a quick weapons table listing the range band and “Coherence Effect” as some Upgrades will change the weapon types and a list of SRS capabilities included.  Someone will make up another reference chart, I’m sure!

Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting things assembled and testing out the new rule set soon.  I hope you’ve enjoyed this review and got something from it!

Good Luck with your dice!