System Wars Review Part 1 - Terran Ships

Last in this first look at the System Wars ships are the Terrans - those whiny, nuke-toting imperialists who always complain about their stuff. Well, here are a few things they can't moan about.

First of all, the Solar Carrier. To start with, it's straight-up tougher than the Ares, with a 5/9 compared to the normal 5/8 and the same HP and greater PD (6 vs 5). It's faster, but has less crew and AP, and also no mines (though these are hardly a great Terran staple anyway).She only has 5 WC compared the the Ares stock 9, but she has an extra shield, making her equal to the Tyrant or Titan, and of course she gets the usual Terran trick of Sector Shielding.

Her weapons are turrets rather than the for fixed and broadsides of the Ares, but they are pretty substantial - in fact they're battleship level, and with the exact same profile as the Apollo, with the strongest RB close in at <8". So at first glance the Solar is a tough pocket battlecarrier.

Into Hardpoints, and you can give the Solar another hull point or another shield - yes these cost the Durable MAR and 1" of movement, but this makes the Solar a real tank - that's 5 sectored shields on the favoured side and still 3 in other arcs! Alternatively, you can add 1" of movements and increase the Planetfall MAR if you feel like a quick dash to the objective. For non-planetfall builds, you can upgrade her Turrets it Nuclear weapons, and even if she's caught in the blast from her own guns, she's got the shields to deflect it!

Upgrades are typically Terran, with Weapon Shielding and upgrade to Beam weapons as standard, but she also has the option for Decimator Warheads, which could be nice on those close-approach ships that are looking to board.

It's in the accompaniments though, that things really start to look interesting for the Solar. She can take the same Aegis accompaniments as the Ares, but with the option to upgrade her turrets to beams, they synergise with her much better - giving a fore weapon profile of 17/15/7/- for a full squadron. The Aegis will also synergise well with her layered shields, making it even more difficult to punch through them to the tough ship below.

She can also take a Hauberk, giving her a 14/12/5/- nuclear fore as well as some additional arcs for a non-planetfall build, or a primary linked AD of 17/15/5/- max out of one of three arcs, backed up by Bomber or assault craft attack runs. As a shunt-bomb that sounds substantial. It's also very hard to deal with - the Hauberk may be fragile, but the Solar certainly is not and its throwing out a lot of short-ranged dice by itself, and so will demand attention.

Ah Terran mediums - the worst in Firestorm? Well, despite some people decrying the Hermes and Hauberk, the Horizon is a slightly different beast. It's tougher than other Terrans Tier 2 ships at 5/6, it's fast (by Terran standards), has great PD and good CP. AP is low, but the Planetfall version you can boost to 5. In addition, it has 2 shields base and can take a third, or a 5th hull point - again making it the tankiest Tier 2 ship the Terrans possess.

What really might interest Terran players, however, is the cost - it's CHEAP. 35 points - a base Hermes is 50. A non-planetfall version checks out at 40 points, so for the same price as a Frigate Squadron you have a 15AP assault bomb. 40 points is HALF the cost of a base Templar, and most other races heavy cruisers too. It's a steal.

You can upgrade the beam weapons and give it weapon shielding, but with turrets weaker than the Templar I'm guessing most will only do so if they've spare points left over to burn. You can also give the squadron an Aegis cruiser, which does make the shield-heavy version even harder to destroy. What I expect to see is plenty of these making appearances as non-Planetfall ships in Terran fleets.

Finally, the Nadir is another 4/5 SH1 Frigate at 15 points, designed to get troops on the ground quickly. You can even make it SH2, so they are going to be hard to nickel&dime to death, especially if you've Aegis in your fleet for them to hang around. You also get the option to boost their PD, or de-planetfall them and change them to escorts. This option gives you an incredibly hard and durable escort, potentially boosting the longevity of Terran Capital ships even further. Tehy're not going to be wholesale replacements for the the Guardian or Squire, but in selected cases I can see them taking preference.

A break from Invasion Ships...Hawker Carrier Group unboxing

OK, so I'll admit that I'm a little "invasion-shipped out" at the moment, so I thought it was time I went a bit backwards and look at some prior, but relatively recent, releases. The first of these is the Hawker Carrier group.

So after we get the nice glossy card cover off the box and unload the resin, we get to the ships...

You get the Regent, 3 Stalwart Escorts 2 large and 2 small SRS tokens. Of course the main attraction is the Regent.

This is typical carrier size really, obviously a Large capital ship but not coming up to the proportions of the Excelsior. It is an angular block, unmistakably of Hawker design but SG have taken away the solar panel type shield vanes and incorporated them into the main body, so the ship has the link not only with the old Hawker ships, but also the new Tyrant class battleship. This is a nice touch and hints at the evolving designs and technology going on at Hawker.

A side view shows the elevated bridge/viewing deck and prominent Hawker quad-turrets, as well as the side-mounted shield panels. It also highlights the sharp edges and angles on this ship.

Underneath you can see more of those quad Hawker turrets and the recess for the dual flight peg stand piece.

You can see the amount of detail SG have packed into this, which is very impressive on a single-piece ship of this size.

This front 3/4 view displays the ship in one of its best views I think.

Next are the Stalwarts - you get three, and they're pretty big for escorts, but then their stats also reflect that.

They're a lovely design, moulded with pour recesses at the rear which will need cleaning up, as shown here.

Lastly are the SRS tokens, which we've not seen before. These are lovely, and those of you that know the Planetfall Hawker ships will recognise the small tokens.

This is a really nice touch, and helps tie the games together in feel if nothing more.

System Wars Review Part 1 - Aquan Ships

So both preceding (in the form of the PDF) and accompanying (in the form of the printed booklet) the invasion ships is the System Wars Phase 1 Supplement.

So in the spirit of full disclosure, I am - together with the FFG - (and as you will see from the credits on the picture above) the primary writer for this booklet, so my views are bound to be biased. This also gives me the ability to talk about intent and design purpose, so there are advantages and disadvantages to me writing this!

So the first thing to talk about is the difference between the PDF and printed booklet. Essentially the PDF has all of the ship stats and rules on Commanders, plus any errata, whereas the booklet does not. Both have background, pictures and descriptions of commanders and the four additional scenarios. For me this is a good compromise where I have a physical book to flick through and read, but without pages that will rapidly become invalid with errata and FAQs.

So I think the first thing to talk about are the ship stats themselves, which I'll tackle in the order they come up in the PDF, so first we'll deal with the Aquans.

Stat-wise the Nectridea is very similar to the Charybdis, just being slightly faster, slightly better defensively. At first this looks like a short-changed ship, but if you look at MARs, the ship has Reinforced fore (again, boosting its defences) and Energy Transfer (1) included - which costs 5 points on the standard carrier. In addition it has the Planetfall MAR (more on that later) and the Durable MAR, which makes the ship more resistant to the attentions of SRS. Its hardpoints also change the picture somewhat - the extra shield or Difficult Target make it more durable by far...the +3 WC (for free) boosts it to Charybdis levels of carrier capacity, making it a very viable alternative to that ship - similar role, but different focus.

"So what?", I hear people saying, "I never take the Charybdis anyway!". Well, that's up to you, but the Nectridea gives you options you didn't have before. You can configure it as a cheap carrier with Quick Launch - that's not to be sniffed at, giving your bombers a 6" range boost - by itself that could sell the ship. Alternatively, a DT Large with 6 Bombers is likely to deliver that payload right down the enemies throat. I've found in games the Nectridea is great at sweeping smalls or mediums out of its path, either using separate attacks or linked depending on requirement.

In invasion missions, the ship draws a lot of fire, as it's supposed to. DT & Reinforced Fore make it difficult to destroy, and I've not yet faced one that also has a second shield! It also has the option to take the Sulis as an accompaniment. Now this makes it more expensive, but imagine this - two Nectridea with Sulis, travelling together and each using the others Energy Locus to boost their combined RB1 shots into a target 20" away....that's potentially a 16AD attack per activation, plus Port/Starboard shots and any Wing action. It's not a Maelstrom, but it is viable and unusual....you can also choose to use the Energy Locus with another squadron (say 3 Stingray destroyers), and give yourself a 1-2 punch from them followed by the Nectridea squadron - or multiple fore shots. It all depends on who you're up against. Go against Dindrenzi with hard to kill shielded DT ships with lots of approach angles and I'd often opt for multiple lower AD shots, since I'd be unlikely to get a crit anyway, I'd go for attritional kills.

The thing for me is this gives Aquans another way of fielding ships, it ADDS to their already extensive toolbox, without being an auto-take. I can see uses for a Nectridea in Aquan fleets, and it's a difficult ship to square up against, which alone makes it a viable option in my opinion.

"An Assault Cruiser? It only has 2AP!?!"

Yes, once again I'm always amused by people who take a completely monocular view on ships, especially ones supposedly designed by aliens! There are no formal definitions of what ship classes are in FA, so to trying to impose them, especially on a diverse group of races as in FA, is slightly narrow-minded.

The Limulus is designed to assault enemy planets and installations by delivering ground forces safely to the surface - it's not an FA space assault marine ship. It can't even be upgraded to fit that role - it's simply one Aquans don't do well - period.

So what does it bring? Well the Limulus is tough - DR6/CR7 make it almost as tough as the Nectridea - oh, and it can gain DT too...with a typical Aquan squadron size, you can have four of these 6/7 DT ships heading for your planet, netting their commander 8 Battle Log - that's not something you can ignore. They're going to take a lot to bring them down, and that's a lot of firepower that then is NOT targeting your enemies combat ships.

That is the essence of the invasion ships and the scenarios (which I'll talk about in another blog) - the tough choices you need to make as an opponent to these ships. They bring only frigate-level firepower to the table, but any targets of opportunity they can pick off are just gravy - they just need to deliver their contents to the planet.

Whilst we're on the subject of firepower on these ships, let's just step back a moment....if these had decent (ie equivalent firepower to their normal equivalents), putting them on the planet would degrade your ability to damage the other fleet, and thus be a negative to actually doing it. The Large ships which actually do bring some firepower are also relatively slow, so they're not reaching the planet until turn 4 at the earliest, by which stage in the battle the BL they represent is better on the planet than potentially destroyed....and they're going to have attracted a lot of firepower by that stage.

As far as non-Planetfall builds, you have the option to take Mn2....Wow. Escort-sized mines...yawn, right? Well, they do this for free, and that links to Mn5 for the Squadron. Again, underwhelming. They have the option to take Double Mines, however, which now gives them a lot more options - now the squadron can lay 8 Mn2, 4 Mn 3, 2 Mn5 or 1 Mn9 token. Clouds of Mn2 or Mn3 mines don't sound much, but now think about these guys flying ahead of your fleet, sowing these mines in abundance. When the enemy arrives, these are going to do nothing to his ships, but any SRS around are going to have a rough time, as a 6 kills one wing regardless of its source....so 3 Mn2 tokens are as deadly to Wings as a single Mn6.

So again, is this an auto-take? No - 200 points to achieve this is a lot, but against certain enemies (like Relthoza), this kind of active suppression could be very handy. Dealing with the Squadron is also a pain because they're a nuisance rather than a priority threat, they're tough and yet they can shape the way the game flows. So again, difficult choices.

Finally we have the Antiarchi, and one of my favourite models from the release. Planetfall wise, these are tough, cheap and net you a Battle Log each - plus get one down on the planet and you've denied your opponent destroying the squadron, so no negative to your BL and no positive to him, meaning the worst they can do with one ship down on the planet is parity (+1 BL for enemy by reducing Tier 3 to half, +1 to you for getting one down).

Non-planetfall build, they give you 4 x Mn2, 2 x Mn3 or 1 x Mn5 Drone mines. So once again, you've now an active threat to SRS, or even small ships from these little tadpoles. The most you're going to spend on them is 80 points, so that seems like a fair return to add this sort of flexible harassment factor.

Originally the Smalls were not going to have a non-planetfall option, but adding one into the ships was actually not difficult and gives people the tactical options once again. Will this appeal to everyone? No, but then no option (or ship design) ever does. The point if that they're there for that time you could need them - how about a couple of squadrons of these in Hold the Waypoints, pumping out Drone mines around your (or your opponents) objective?

SUMMARY

The invasion ships are designed exactly for that, but also have builds to slot into existing fleets to bring a slightly different angle. They're probably non-optimal in several regards for standard fleets, but then that's to be expected - these are ships designed (both in a background and gaming sense) to fulfil a specific purpose. They tend to be tougher, down-gunned version of their respective classes, but are often designed with some little tricks to add something flavourful for the race in question. The Aquans demonstrate some aspects of this, and we'll pick up this thread in the other races ships as well.

Ryushi Support Fleet Unboxing

Following hot on the heels of the unboxing of the Ryushi Battlecarrier, here is the Alliance Fleet. Once more the Carrier and other ships are contained within the sturdy cardboard box wrapped in a glossy card sleeve, showing Spartan's studio fleet painted up very nicely. They look great.

On the back is a plan view of the three ship types, and a bit of fluff/spiel about the Ryushi.

Inside you might think you've been short-changed, as the contents don't seem all that much in the bags;

Get into the bags, however, and this impression quickly disappears as you realise one of the bag contains four cruisers alone! The initial thoughts of "is something missing?" go away when you realise that it's because the Ryushi ships are so elegant (and in the case of the frigate, small!), they pack very well....in stark contrast to the Kedorians.

The Onnisha is much simpler than the Battle Carrier, consisting of just two resin pieces - a hull and an engine block. Nevertheless, she's still a fair size, about as long as a Manta (the engine block being identical to that on the Shautrai).

Unlike the BattleCarrier, the Onnisha hull is a solid affair, with some great detail. As I mentioned in the other Ryushi unboxing, the cruisers are single-piece resin castings, and are elegant looking ships. Here they are - the same shot I showed previously;

The Akkarai corvettes are single-piece metal castings, and are diddy! 

Taking a closer look at the Carrier, the ship has some lovely detail, and marries with the large engine block in the same way as the Shautrai, covering both pouring vents.

I won't go over the cruisers again (have a look at the blog before last if you missed them), but move straight on to the corvettes;

Nice little ships, trailing long streamers...none of these presents a particular problem, and are easily snipped off and tidied up. They're an interesting design and carry through the theme of the fleet very well.

The Alliance box set is a set of really lovely ships, and although I was initially slightly worried about having 6 cruisers in total with this and the Shautrai box, having them as accompaniments to the carriers allieviates any fears I migh have had of potentially not fielding them. All I can say is, good job Spartan!

The Return of the Directorate...Part 2

So I had a chance to go to Spartan Games for a second bout of v2 FSA, and was invited to bring Directorate along...so I thought I'd better finish some ships! As the match was around 700 points (I took 750 in the end), I was concentrating on the carrier, Tormentor cruisers, battleship and drones. I worked on the other ships as well, but didn't finish a lot of them - especially the frigates and cruisers. So, let's start with the mostly finished vessels;

Firstly, the backbone of the fleet, which was the Judgement battleship, which additional shields to keep it alive for longer.

 

Next up is the carrier, which has always been one of my favourites

 

 

A pair of Nemesis destroyers;

 

And the pair of Tormentors - one finished (foreground, right) and one 90% of the way....

Next up are a squadron of Hostility drones, also almost complete - (rim "waterline" black stripes and engine glow to add). I still think they look like shrimps!

That's it for the force I took to battle, but I also finished up the Persecution;

Also in the pipeline I'm almost done with are the cruisers;

Mk II Cruisers and Heavy Cruiser;

Frigates;

And last (and least!) the Punisher escorts.

So almost there in getting my Directorate fleet fully painted and up to corporate devilment...bring it on!!!