New Firestorm Backgrounds

Warcradle is pushing out a fair amount of content on FSA of late (hey, it's what has got me to post again!), and a fair bit of it has been mixed concept art/background pieces. I'll cover the concept art on another post (I think it deserves it) but I'll go through the background pieces that have been put out so far as they foreshadow more than pretty pictures.

Terran Directorate

Yep, Warcradle led with this one out of the dock on their new Black Ocean Facebook page, and here's the first of the bigger departures from pre-existing fluff (let's call it "Spartan Lore"). The new Terran faction are a melding of the old Terran Alliance, Directorate, Works Raptor and Hawker. I kinda get why Warcradle did this, but as a former Directorate player, I can't say this fills me with joy. Now, without a Spartan Lore historical perspective, this is fine - it makes the Terrans a much wider faction with a LOT more ship options (as a core faction), and the Directorate were, at one time, part of the Alliance anyway, so you could almost view it as an "alternate timeline" evolution of the game. Again, as a former Directorate/Zenian player as my first choice, I'm unsure about how this will play out in terms of the game, so I will have to wait until we see some beta rules until I make further judgements.

Dindrenzi Federation

The Dindrenzi still mourn Dramos, they still use big electromagnetic rail guns and they still have big armour plates. There is some detail in here about their society and so on, but overall the flavour has not changed much as far as I can see.

Sorylian Congress

The Sorylians were always clever military tacticians, and this wasn't terribly well reflected in their gameplay on the board. Their ships were fast, in order to bring their scatter cannon into range as soon as possible, and their squadron sizes were larger due to their superior tactics. Sorylian small and medium ships were their strength, with their battleship seen as a bit of a lumberer. They weren't good at the more personal three-dimensional experience, so didn't use SRS as much as other races (consider they were waging war against the Aquans and Relthoza, who both were good at that - why confront an enemy on their strong fronts?). They were also the race that first set up a wormhole network (or at least, utilised an existing one and expanded on it), with this tech being integral to their society.

The recent fluff has them controlling drone fighters which are able to pivot about their axis and launching salvos of kinetic weapons, both as they drop from lightspeed. Their three subspecies are engineered, as they are now master geneticists (a slot previously held by the Aquans - but more on them later). They are still measured, superb scientists, and they still hail from Kerendar. Overall, I don't think the fluff changes so far for the Sorylians are much beyond trivial. Sorylians have always had long-range kinetics, though they were really something designed to harass the enemy either into closing or to strike whilst the fast frigates and cruisers closed with the enemy fleet.

Veydreth Authority

The Veydreth are now one of the eight factions of the new Warcradle FSA, and they now hail from Oroshan (which I guess means that particular faction are no more in their own right). Their ship aesthetic is VERY different from before, incorporation elements of the original Oroshan designs but they are really 100% Warcradle otherwise. Veydreth used to be fearsome centauroid creatures - now they are gangly bipedals, and the Terran moniker of "Star Dragons" comes from the look of their ships, not the creatures themselves. I think this is the only piece I am a bit disappointed with here, centauroid star dragons were interesting...gangly bipedals just seem a bit "meh" by comparison. The Veydreth fluff in Spartan Lore was "spartan", which is I suppose why Warcradle used them as the basis of creating another faction where they could run amok without annoying too many people! Much of the background is a fusion of SL Veydreth and SL Oroshan with Warcradle overlay and reimagining. Overall, I can't say that this version is particularly disruptive or upsetting to too many people.

Ryushi (part of the Storm Zone Coalition)

The Ryushi were always wanderers, and they remain so in Warcradle's iteration of FSA. Warcradle have built up the narrative in a bit more of a joined-up way (never a strong point of Spartan), and expanded it with some nice detail. The Ryushi are one of the races in the Storm Zone Coalition, which also includes the Xelocians, Sauran Guild, Rangers of Terquai, Jowrion Disciples, Illosi, Shevaka and Kedorians. I wonder if all these races will be represented by Warcradle, or we'll just get those races which already have ships....I personally would love to see the Illosians finally - the one last project at SG which was never realised before I ceased association with them.

A'quan Sebrutan

So you'll notice that the Aquans are now the A'quan, a change which I'm not really understanding - it almost seems like the GW penchant for making names they can trademark (like Orruks instead of Orks), and that may well be the case here - I don't know. Anyway, the fishy dudes are a BIG departure from prior fluff - essentially you can scrap all the fish jokes guys, because THEY'RE NO LONGER FISH. No, instead of hailing from a water world, A'quan are now sentient bi-mechanical space-dwellers, each one being located within - and one with - the ship around it.

A'quans have a very different "feel" in this new iteration - before they were somewhat benign, expert geneticists and a little "Tau" in their kind of philosophy. Now they are disruptive star-eating individuals that are kind of a galactic pain in the ass and pretty aggressive. They're space-hornets.

I'm a bit on the fence on this one. It's kind of cool, but I can imagine it's not going to sit well with a lot of existing Aquan (no " ' " intended) players. There are some other interesting snippets in the fluff here too which indicate departures in their gameplay too - gravity shears are mentioned, along with their "unique" ability to manipulate gravity...not sure what that means for you, Tarakian players... and you thought Aquans were too powerful before.... lol. another interesting thing is the mention of the "Vo'nar Holotype" - the Vo'nar being a long-mentioned but never realised Spartan race that was around Relthozan space....seems Warcradle have dusted that one off and incorporated it into A'quans now -which does make sense given their new directions.

Relthoza Unity

OK, my favourite faction, what I started Firestorm Armada out with, the spiders. Again, another BIG departure from SL here, and I must say, one I'm not really feeling. Essentially you can bin all of the Dindrenzi first contact, misunderstood cultural concepts and uneasy alliance of SL, the Relthoza never met another species before becoming the Unity. This AI cloud consciousness was once a way for the Relthoza to prevent internal wars, but became out of control, and subsumed the Relthoza into itself, becoming the Unity. It learned exponentially, and developed space travel fast etc etc - now it must bring peace to all life.

In effect, the Relthoza are now a kind of "Pathogen with a Purpose", and in fact it seems Pathogen are now merely unity ships seeking independence. Hmmm.

Now I know Stuart from Warcradle is a Rick & Morty fan, and Unity is exactly this in that series....does this make a good direction for the Relthoza? Well, for me, no. If I'd wanted to play that kind of consuming plague, I'd play Pathogen (and I have). The Relthoza, however, appealed to me both for the look of their ships, and their arachnid klingon-esque militarism. Whilst the new Warcradle concept art for the Relthoza looks fantastic, I'm just not excited by their fluff. The "Hive Mind" thing is a common, and a little tired, trope in Sci-Fi, and I think it makes the Relthoza much more bland than they were before.

Overall Takeaways

So I said before, Stuart has stated and the fluff released thus far emphasises it, Warcradle's FSA is a new game. It's NOT the SL FSA we knew, and it's probably best to come at it from that PoV. At the moment I will hold judgement until I see beta rules before I decide if it's a game that I want to learn...if it is then the fluff is not necessary, I can have whatever fluff I want for my universe, ignoring anything I don't like. Otherwise I will just use the new models to refresh and fill in gaps in my existing fleets, and play the game I already know - not the end of the world.

Firestorm Armada Core Race Expansion Sets

So now we have the blog Spartan should have put up before they started their Kickstarter, we can see some details of the planned Core Race Expansions, and it doesn't make for pretty reading for me. Why? Read on (Spoiler - contains jaded opinions about Spartan Games' current behaviour - do not ingest if sensitive to honest but scathing opinion).

Core Race Expansions - A Good Thing, right?

Well, possibly....

Expansions should be added for a reason, other than "the company needs to sell more models". Ultimately, this goes down to why a company exists, it's heart and soul. For me, a gaming company needs to be about gaming - it needs to have that at its core...if it doesn't, it comes through in everything they do, and what they do doesn't ring true. Of course companies exist to make money to continue doing what they do, but that shouldn't be an end point - it should be a means to it's end (which is growing its games). 

Take GW as a case in point. They used to be a games company - founded by gamers who didn't want to grow up. It was successful- enormously so, and grew to behemoth proportions. Still, in the late 90's-early noughties, it was still a games company - lots of hobby tips (for free) on its website, GW stores were places people went to congregate, paint and play. People inside and out were passionate about games.

Then it started being run by executives.

Sometimes, this can be a good thing - execs bring focus and timelines, spreadsheets and analysis that can really help companies improve, cut out waste, do more god stuff. Sometimes they end up controlling things and the bottom line becomes the important thing, and the rest is a mantle upon which it rests. Prices go up, free stuff starts being removed and replaced with chargeable extras, things are pushed out because they're low volume sellers, and the execs start directing company direction. People leave because "it just isn't the company it used to be". These things are picked up by the community, because things start to feel different in the game.

This behaviour really hurt GW for the past decade. Now they've a new CEO who seems to understand that the "Games" in GW means something to its customers, and is getting back towards the company it used to be. Hell, they even released a pack of skulls, which if isn't taking the piss out of themselves (in a profitable way" then I don't know what is. Not to say they still aren't having some crazy pricing decisions (that Primaris Captain and Librarian, for example), but it's early days.

So I'll come back to this point at the end of the blog when I've run through the Tiers and factions;

Tier 3 - Destroyers

"Wait a minute Alex, you said Tier 3, but you're talking about Destroyers..."

Yes, I know. Most factions get "Light Destroyers" (I'll come back to naming conventions later too), a couple get Torpedo Destroyers. So this is one of those "Oh god I hate them" general faction-wide releases that makes no background sense whatsoever. That's the first thing. The main issue I have with this release, however, is that where do these fit in the design space of Firestorm?

What do I mean by this?

Well, as a designer (and I did this for Firestorm for a long time, so I do know what I'm talking about here) there should be a reason for the ship you're designing. That's number one. So you have a role the ship should fit, and then you look at what already exists, and stat the ship according to its role and what has gone before. In general, it should fit with the existing theme of the fleet, with maybe a few differences based on its new role (otherwise why would the race design it?). Stats should be in-line with existing ships and the role, unless it's some ground-breaking new technology. So, in the FSA world, a Destroyer is generally a hard-hitting, but often difficult to spot/hit type of ship (more like a wet-navy submarine). Firepower wise they hit above their weight, especially at longer engagement ranges (with exceptions for those "Ambush" type iterations like the Venom).

Now the Firestorm design space is fairly "tight". DR ranges from 3 to 7, CR from 4 to 13. The lower end of the spectrum is more crowded, because the difference between 3/4 in game is not much and you can't really go above that for a small (as Cruisers start at DR4). So that means a "Light" Tier 3 Destroyer could be "Light" just by the virtue of having a Small hull, rather than difference in weapons, so you have a (for example) 3/5 hull with standard Destroyer weapons.

The problem then is why would you not take these awesome new Smalls over standard Frigates? That kind of Firepower is pretty good on a small ship. Well, you could price them higher, but now you're encroaching into standard destroyer territory - it's only 150 points for a pair of Venoms, whilst its usually around 100 points for a bunch of Frigates. Do you see what I mean by a crowded design space now?

This is why the FFG worked so well at designing ships, because we had twenty-odd players of the game each with a different meta putting in their opinion in the design stage, so we didn't end up with glaring oddities that ended up massively OP or vastly useless. What you really want is a ship design that half of the players think is OK, one-quarter think are OP and one-quarter think is useless. You've usually got it right then.

What should NOT happen is someone decides "you know what, all races need a new small, what should it be - I know, destroyers!" and then this is implemented. That fundamentally breaches Rule Number One - the ship should be derived from a need (perceived or real), not an arbitrary assignment. It's a bit like some god-like entity suddenly saying to all the nations of the world "and you must have Battleships in your navies". We don't need them - they're obsolete, and obsolete for a reason. Shoe-horning them in would be moronic.

Tier 2 - Medical & Repair Ships

Hmmmm. My gut feeling on this is....why? From a fluff point of view, this is madness - you don't repair ships or send in ambulances in the midst of a pitched battle. We already have SRS to cover these functions in v2, what do these add except for sucking out more points and making you buy more resin? If the repair function effectively acts as an add-on Self Repair MAR, then I foresee a lot of issues - it will tend to drag the game out, rather than make it smoother and faster.

This goes back to rationale as I mentioned above for the Tier 3s - what is the reason for introducing a ship type? Did anyone call for any of these ships in their games before (and by that I mean the function rather  than the name)? In other words, is there a gap to be filled? For me, the answer is no.

Tier 2 - The Terran Heavy Gunship

Wait, the Terrans - one of the CP-heaviest factions and one of the fleets most likely to see use of Medical Shuttles - does NOT get Medical ships? Nope, they get a Heavy Gunship. Not a gunship, which of course they don't have, but a Heavy Gunship.

Now a gunship for the Terrans is not a terrible idea, but its also not a great one. Sorting out the role of the Heavy Cruiser (which is essentially a gunship in all but name) would have achieved the same thing, but of course wouldn't have required you to buy more models.

Tier 1

Now here we start to see some apparent variety, so I'll go through them individually:

The Aquan Repair Battleship

Now there's an oxymoron for you - repair battleship. It's like a War Domain cleric....does it fire sticky glue that covers impact blasts? Does it have multiple cranes that attach to other ships and fix them? What? You think I'm being silly? Well it's because it's a fucking STUPID idea, thats why.

The associated fluff basically says its a Battleship which carries Repair Shuttles - or in other words, an Aquan Battleship. All this really indicates is that the normal battleship is restricted in the SRS it can carry (if any) and that this is a Battleship with limited usage. I'll come back to my stock question here - Why? If you're having to create new ship types because of changes you're making to the mechanics, then please, stop.

The Dindrenzi Battle Carrier

So here's a ship type that you can actually see the race developing. The Dindrenzi actually have a decent carrier option, but you can definitely imagine them creating a Battle Carrier, so this is actually one that seems quite rational.

The Sorylian Fleet Carrier

OK, so the fluff makes no sense whatsoever here - "The Sorylians do not make much use of SRS, but when they do it is normally ‘heavy’ in nature." - in fact I'm not sure that's even a proper sentence. Still, the idea of a Fleet carrier for the Sorylians is...meh. They already have a fleet carrier in the Morning Star/Xiphos - again a decent carrier. Surely the Sorylians would be best supported (both in game and in fluff) with an Assault Carrier? Or how about another Battleship to use, since their existing Battleship and Dreadnought are much maligned? No, we get another carrier. :-(

The Terran Battle Carrier

Well I suppose this one was inevitable, despite never being intended as a production model, when you show a render/artwork people are inevitably going to say "Ooh, shiny, when can I buy it?". That's not necessarily a good rationale to base a ship class on, and so we have the Terran battle Carrier, despite the Terrans having one of the two best Fleet Carriers in the game (the other going to the RSN Argus), and good battleships.

So why is a Battle Carrier a bad idea for Terrans? Well, it's either going to have sub-par weapons, in which case if you want SRS the carrier is probably a better idea, or it's going to compete with the battleships (why have a plain battleship when you can have a battleship+?). It also adds a third ship to the Battleship space for the Terrans, when they could really do with choices elsewhere. So whilst not a terrible decision, it is a ship in a crowded spot in a tight design space for the Terrans. It's not very interesting, and it's not very Terran.

The Relthoza Heavy Battleship

So a ship between the Brood and the Apex? Hmmm...I mean, it's possible, but as for the Sorylians, why not an Assault Carrier or Battle Carrier for the Relthoza? Ships that fit with their background and fluff? Why call it a Heavy Battleship? Is the Terran Tyrant a Heavy battleship? Did people have issues distinguishing the Apollo and the Tyrant? No, so what's the point? It's the Why? question again.

The Directorate Fleet Carrier

Oh dear. Not only do the Directorate nor care about their vat-buddies that they're prepared to spend vast amounts of capital to make specific ships that will help them out in the midst of battle, but they're so intent on SRS operations all of a sudden that they make a Fleet carrier, which sounds like a Battle Carrier if you believe the short fluff. It's quoted to be as tough as a Dreadnought, armed to the teeth with beams and cyberweapons (which are due to be bland AOE weapons in v3), and carry loads of bombers and stuff. 

The problem is once again that the Directorate already have a pretty bitching Battleship that does a lot of this in the Anarchist, and they also have the Overseer - a carrier that never needs to decloak. I've seen double-Overseer lists run by Directorate players, and they can be pretty savage. So this ship promises to do all of the Anarchist and Overseer jobs in one, which makes it either too powerful, overcosted or one of the two sides at least partially redundant.

The main issue I have with it though, is it just seems unimaginative. Maybe it'll be ok, but I already have big issues with how the Directorate flavour is being massively diluted with v3 rules. Why would I add another shade of grey to those already available?

Naming Conventions

OK, so this is a personal bugbear. and I know it doesn't bother some people at all, but I hate these arbitrary namings of "Heavy" and "Light". It smacks of a small child trying to win a war of words;

"I've got a gunship"

"Yeah? well I've got a HEAVY gunship"

"That's nothing, I got a Battleship"

"So? I got a HEAVY battleship"

And so on. It smacks of Trump's lack of vocabulary ("It's gonna be really, really great - really"), a lack (once again) of IMAGINATION. Why does that matter? Well, this is meant to be an immersive universe. Why would all factions suddenly create "Light Destroyers"? What's the rationale behind calling a Battleship "Heavy"? The answer to this is - there is no reason - and that (for me) makes the whole announcement sound hollow, a clanging tin bell. I don't think "Cool, a Heavy Battleship", because I'm not 6. I want some meat to my sci-fi, even in a game with plastic spaceships. I may behave like a 12 year old when I'm playing games, but I don't expect to be treated as one mentally.

Verdict - Hit or Miss?

Once again, I don't need to tell you my verdict on this. It only adds to the Kickstarter cash grab feel that SG is developing lately. These announcements in the right environment with the right thought process and rationale behind them would be exciting, and investment and expansion to the universe. What they do instead is highlight the poor planning and lack of creativity that seems to be beleaguering the FA universe (and maybe the whole of SGs portfolio) at the moment.

If I were a potential Kickstarter backer reading this blog, it would not sway me to part with money. Most Kickstarters offering this as part of the campaign or as stretch goals will actually show you what they're doing or planning - here you just have to hope. Even if you think all of these are fantastic ideas, you have no idea what the stats are or what the ships look like - you have to take it on faith. Unfortunately (or rather, Fortunately, for me), I'm an evidence-based guy, and without a shred of it ,being asked to rely on Spartan's word (which is increasingly worth nothing, if it ever were) is purely ludicrous.

I mentioned earlier I'd come back to the point of a company's heart and soul. It seems Spartan is increasingly a model company, rather than a games company. The other pieces - it's rules, it's fluff, it's community support (such as it is) - seem to be "stuck on", after-thoughts  to sell more models, rather than being part of it's DNA. They laughably tout the Kickstarter as being "what you told us you wanted" but they should KNOW what people want, they should be able to sense it intuitively. If they were really customer-focussed gamers at heart, they would (or should, at least). That's a change no-one can force on SG, and it's the reason I've not bought into their products for some time now - why I have a Halo Ground Command box which is still unopened in my gaming room. It's the same reason I got out of 40k and decried GW for what they did to themselves, because no-one wants to feel like a bred-for-its-milk cash cow.

The Firestorm Galaxy Expansion Kickstarter

Well I guess it was inevitable, SG release a KS for FA and I'm going to blog about it. Before you read on, this will contain various complaints about SGs current behaviour, so if you're still shackled to Spartan like a ball and chain, then this is probably not the post for you. I will, however, attempt to be as fair as I can regarding this, so people who don't know SG can make up their own minds without just the "Oooh, shiney" aspect, but also the "Oh, I wasn't aware of that" side. So, disclaimer over, let's begin.

Kickstarter Provenance

Firstly, let's talk about Spartan's Kickstarter history. This is the third KS they've launched - the first was for modular terrain, was horrible and absolutely bombed - they pulled it before it closed woefully short of its target. Their second was for Dystopian Wars, which I've talked about before at the start of the year (Here) which funded £136k of a £50k target, but only 858 backers - not a large number, well below comparable niche games. Is this important? Well, I'd argue yes, it is, because that directly affects the active player-base and how likely you are to be able to get a game - this is a miniature wargame, not a board game.

Compare this number of backers to a game like Maelstrom's Edge, a brand new niche wargame released in 2015, and it's about the same - they got 813 backers for a completely unheard of skirmish game from a new developer, rather than for an established game from an established company. Now there are obvious differences in the two, but it starts to give you a feeling of how the KS was primarily backed by a hard core of existing players, rather than attractive a much wider audience.

Again, I'm going to compare this with Hawk's Drop Fleet Commander. Here we have a similar game from a similar sized manufacturer, with an existing install base (albeit in a different game). Their KS bagged just over 4.5 times as many backers as Spartans DW Kickstarter, and should be directly comparable to the FA expansion just launched. Numbers of backers is always a better indicator of Kickstarter success than just money, because there are so many variables in the latter.

As I type, there are 217 backers for the FAv3 Kickstarter, about half of what it needs to fund. I'm pretty sure it will fund, but I'm doubtful they'll get as many backers as their DW project. Why? Well, firstly some DW players are also FA players, and not all DW Kickstarter backers have their pledges yet.

This is probably the Number 1 No-No of ANY Kickstarter - don't release another Kickstarter when the first one hasn't fulfilled yet. It just isn't on - it leaves a bad taste and the feeling that the company is struggling with cash flow. It doesn't build confidence, and it just isn't cricket.

The v3 Ruleset

So followers of my blog and podcast will probably be aware what I think here. Spartan Neil specifically promised the community that v3 would really be v2.5 - the existing solid ruleset with tweaks to address a couple of pretty minor flow issues and make games easier to play, the intent being that you could play existing games in a shorter time or larger games in existing timeframes. Here is the actual quote from his own forums that proves I'm not just making this up:

So to quote "This isn't about rebooting v2.0". This year, he's rebooting v2 because he didn't like how certain bits played - again, his words - and so essentially he's rebooting the universe on a whim. Players did NOT ask for this (or those that did were definitely in the minority). This grates with the continuous references to "This is what you wanted" messages throughout the Kickstarter, which sounds like they're trying to convince themselves rather than the players.

So, SG (or Neil) has decided to produce v3, and have released various "sneak peeks" of these on their community, which have had a VERY mixed set of reactions. They are still talking about re-statting everything (in future tense, which is worrying given the timescale), which means testing must be difficult and it sounds like the rules are all over the place. They are also reacting to announcements - there is a Command Order that gives Terrans +2 Shields (which is plain dumb), which on reaction of "jeez that's stupid" they're saying "oh, yeah, we'll address that". Now I know some of you will be like "c'mon Alex, that means they're listening to their customers". Yes, you could say that, but to me it highlights fundamental issues with the developers understanding of the core game mechanics when they're missing such obvious faux-pas at such a later stage.

So how does this affect the KS? Well, I sure as hell wouldn't want to back a miniatures game KS that has rules so far from being finished. Just what am I buying into? The rules COULD be excellent, or they could be pure BS. We just don't know (though I'd say there's pretty compelling evidence at this stage which way it's heading, and the whiff of excellence is decidedly missing...). So Spartan are asking you to back this project regardless of what it's rules are...that's...well...bold would be one word for it.

The Background

One thing I constantly went on at Neil about during my tenure as Spartan Alex was filling out the background - people want a consistent, deep and detailed universe. I fleshed out a huge amount of this, and no interest was shown. Now it's great that SG are addressing this (at last), BUT....wait, what's this? "a revamped and improved narrative"...uh-oh, that sounds suspiciously like ret-con...and here's the killer line:

"...our major rewrite of past and present events truly sets the scene for the continued evolution of the Firestorm Galaxy."

Ugh - this is one of my personal hates of ANY games company...and the major question it raises in my mind is...why? Was there a fundamental flaw in the prior law (such as it was?). No. So why do it? Just to shoehorn in some more races for people ti buy? Firestorm already has one of the most diverse sets of races for ANY wargame, with over 20 individual races you can buy fleets for. Do we NEED any more? So why do it? Well, one thing is models - more races = more models, and Spartan are banking on people buying new shiny. We'll some to that in a minute.

First, back to fluff. Pathogen are being re-invented (unnecessary), Saurians are being introduced (also unnecessary, but I'll put this one as a "fair enough, some people want that" item), but worst of all, they're being introduced in a 2-player boxed set TOGETHER. Why is that a problem? Look at the Firestorm map - the Saurians are in the galactic Northwest, the Pathogen are across the other side, between the Sorylians and the Relthoza in the Rift. So somehow the Pathogen have travelled across the entire width of the Sorylian Collective, through a massive piece of Terran space and attacked the Saurians? How does that make any sense at all?

"But no, Alex, you've got it wrong - there are new galactic maps"....Oh god, so now they're literally changing the shape of their 8-year old universe to fit with a new retconned fluff? This just burns any background credibility of the universe for me. The problem is that Neil has layered his new narrative on top of a prior background which is wholly incompatible with it - like trying to paint watercolour on acrylic, it just doesn't stick - it feels flaky.

I've always maintained you need to build a universe from the ground up - what are the limitations of the drives used, how does communication work, what do people use for power etc - all of this gives a universe a centralised feel and theme, and frames future story writing. Without that, there are no bounds and it becomes an amorphous entity which feels completely ad-hoc. That doesn't mean you don't have flexibility or have to nail down every plank of wood, but you build the boxes that people can play within.

I'll reserve judgement until I see a copy (which I won't buy, obviously). but this part really turns me off as an existing player of the game.

Models

Let's talk about models. There are two factions touted in this expansion, the Saurians and Pathogen. Looking at the Saurians, Spartan have managed to create an aesthetic that is different to most of their existing fleets, which is a good thing.

The centrepiece of this is the Heavy Battleship, which is the main image shown on the Kickstarter page. There are no additional images of this on the page, though there is one of the BattleCarrier which is available as an add-on in the force pack for an extra £75 (which seems on the high side).

Whilst the aesthetic is not one I particularly like, it is distinctive and I'm sure there will be those out there that love them and we know the models will be nice, that's one thing Spartan are still able to do well. They're also introducing something that I (and many other players) introduced to their games years ago - dice trackers for HP & CP:

Not exactly innovation, but at least they've done this now - will be interesting to see if they have double ones for Large ships with >6 Hull Points and Crew Points. So far not, if their KS page is accurate.

They also show renders for the other side of the Saurians:

These are a more Battlefleet Gothic version of the fleet, and do nothing for me at all, though this is something Neil and I discussed a couple of years back - it would have been funny if they'd have done this before the BFG video game was released - and they may have gotten some uptake from BFG fans, but the timing for this just makes this an in-joke which goes nowhere.

We also see a border station for the Saurians:

Whilst this looks initially OK, I know that all those grey pieces are going to be acrylic, which Spartan does not do well and is pretty horrible for these sorts of models, Its got a bit of a Star Trek Deep Space vibe, but overall it's just going to be a big white elephant of a piece IMO - the thing is huge and I'm 99% sure there will be no decent rules for it on release - we've seen this a lot from SG.

OK, so moving onto Pathogen, let's see if Spartan have been listening since those uninspiring models they previewed at Adepticon:

Ugh! Yes, they listened...and produced Tyranid Turds. Oh dear. These have gone too far in the organic direction for me - first they were just Relthoza ships with some droopy bits, now they're pure organic chompy, which is a shame since Pathogen had such potential. Again, there will be players who like these models, and if I were a BFG player they would probably serve as better Tyranid ships than what I had, but these are once again quite disappointing. I'm not sure whether the tentacled turd Large or the Sperm Smalls are my least favourite, but I'm definitely not a fan of these. I think Spartan could have made some really unique models here - techno-hexagon surfaces with tentacles and angles - a fusion of organic and machine, more Geiger-esque than Mr Crapper.

We get a Battleship in the add-on expansion pack here too, which is less turd-like than the Assault Carrier but still too organic sea-life for me.

We also have some other models:

Hang on -these are the same transport ships that SG have been giving away for free with orders in their regular weekend fire-sales over the past few months! They're ok, nothing revolutionary or innovative here, they look like decent transport models which you can use in any game, but their inclusion in their KS is a bit odd, especially when the tagline is; "Often overlooked by gamers, scenery can be used to enhance not only the aesthetic of gameplay but can also vastly improve the overall gameplay."

Excuse me but "Often overlooked by Gamers..."? Do we, as gamers, overlook terrain? I don't think so, especially in Firestorm where terrain is a vital piece of the game - what are SG trying to tell us? "Hey, you idiots that forget scenery, we're making some so you don't in future". The dialogue is just baffling.

Also, the models are going to be delivered pre-coloured for those of us who don't what to paint. Eh? Tournaments in almost any game usually REQUIRE painting beofre play, and though most of us will admit to not painting enough, I don't know many mini wargamers that don't think this is part of the hobby. This isn't a board game. This isn't X-Wing. If I'm not painitng something, I want it pre-painted so it still looks good on the board, not just a purple-brown of baby-poo khaki lump of plastic. I kinda get the sentiment, but does SG really think its appeal is that broad? If they do, they're kidding themselves - do they really understand what their players want?

It's all what we asked for...

Well, apparently they do. Based on their Survey (that extensive one that lasted for slightly more than a single weekend), this is all what we wanted. Hmm, I'm calling BS on that one. Their survey was (as surveys go) massively flawed and very blinkered. They released a survey that would essentially tick one or more boxes on a couple of pathways they had pre-ordained, it wasn't a properly open survey asking for what players wanted in a way that was ever going to change their direction. 

What do I mean?

Well, I design a survey for a specific purpose - if I ask a question like "Would you like more models?" to an audience of gamers, I know the answer will be "Yes", because we all like models. That doesn't mean that Firestorm players wanted new factions. "Players want more background material" does NOT mean re-write the history of the universe. This underlies my big problem with SG at the moment, because they're STILL NOT LISTENING. Yes, they say they are, yes, people on the forums might be trying to engage people (like Spartan FA Mike), but at the end of the day these people are fans, not Spartan Games, and the core of SG have already made their decision, and then they bend the facts and survey results to support their pre-ordained decisions.

Spartan Neil has told us this already, if you read his blogs. Essentially there he said that he changed elements of the game because he didn't like them. Now that's fine - it's his company, his game, he can do what he likes - but that is NOT doing something "because players wanted it". We didn't. We wanted kins ironing out of what was one of the best minis games on the market, not it porting into a Halo/Planetfall/Firestorm/Dystopian Wars hybrid.

Kickstarter Campaign

The final issue I have here is that even as the most ardent Spartan Fanboy, this KS campaign is a bit of a fuck-up. I mean, they're only releasing the Illosians if they hit a KS goal. You only get a Pathogen Dreadnought as a KS exclusive. The add-ons for the Core races are renders of blank boxes, with a message telling you to go to the blog to find out more, when the blog is empty. That money still burning a hole in your pocket for this project?

For me, this feels like a money-grab, It feels like SG are trying to fund bad business decisions by using Kickstarter to shore up their day-to-day business. It feels like we're being lied to.

Now maybe that is the case, and all is shiny in Spartan's future, but I'm not seeing it. If I were an investor and looking for good growth shares, I'd be looking to GW and not SG right now. I mean, I know if I buy some GW stuff I can find a game nearby, and if I get bored I can shelve my stuff and bring it out in a couple of years and not much will have changed. Not sure I feel that way about my Spartan stuff.

So should I back the Kickstarter?

You're asking me? You know the answer. I'm going to wait a year or so and pick up the models I want in a show bargain bin. But hey, if you're that much of a fanboy and you believe SGs hype, sure, go ahead. While you're there, I've got a great time-share property proposal for you - you can't lose....

Overview of changes from v2 in Fanstorm

After the last post there were a certain portion of the Facebook fraternity (yes, they're all guys) who started trolling me and my post/blog. Now I don't mind healthy discussion, but when things start to get nasty, personal or just dull with people asking the same thing that you really don't have to justify, it's trolling. These ranged from people arguing that v1.5 was the best version ever and saying v2 was awful (yeah, really!), to unrelenting demands for evidence to be shown on my claims.

I guess this is inevitable, and I've set myself up for it by putting supposedly "controversial" statements into the public domain, but it still feels unpleasant. It made me think whether I should continue, or whether just to leave FA to v3 and walk away.

But guess what? This is a personal blog, it's my opinions, thoughts and feelings, and I don't HAVE to substantiate my claims beyond getting people to look at things themselves. Do I have evidence to support my claims? Yes. Is all of it in a format I could share? No - because some of it is in personal emails from Neil, some of it is from my former privileged access within Spartan which is not publicly available, and despite my lack of faith in Neil and his company's direction - and my vocal opposition to the things he's doing - I'm not Julian Assange!

So if my writings make you angry, if you don't believe my claims - that's fine. Don't read my blog, don't read my Facebook posts, just carry on - if all is good and I'm an annoying fly buzzing around, you have nothing to worry about, do you? If you think I've got "sour grapes" or am just grinding a personal grudge, then leave me to it - how can it affect you? When TheoryMachine release Fanstorm, don't even look at it - how can it be of interest? Here's a thought - you're probably not the demographic I want to support anyway.

In any case, I am going to continue, so like it or lump it!

The people I DO want to support are those I've always wanted to support, those invested in the Firestorm universe as it developed from v2 release. Those who have bought into that (sometimes in a large way) and have felt let down and disappointed by unfulfilled promises. Those who crave more depth and background in their FA universe that works with the prior background and timelines (such as they are) and flesh out the technologies and structures therein. People who like the structure and playstyle of FA in v2, but want those tweaks made to make the game flow better than it did before, without losing the complexity of the game.

FA is a relatively "chunky" wargame - it's got lots of stuff in it. It's like 40k in that regard, rather than X-Wing. It SHOULD be a 90-120 (maybe 180) minute game, not a 30-60 minute game. That's what Fanstorm is aiming to do - preserve (or actually increase) the tactical depth of the game, whilst making elements identified by the bulk of the community and metas faster or flowing more easily.

So what does this mean? What changes were the FFG looking at and how does that affect Fanstorm - in short, what is due to change in Fanstorm, what will it give you? 

1. Making movement faster/easier. I've already described this in prior blogs.Someone has commented that "Firestorm doesn't need templates" - well, true, it doesn't NEED them. So why did we look at this as a solution? Well, they have been playtested worldwide with a number of groups, and most like them....there's a couple of reasons for that I believe. 
1. It makes predicting movement easier, because a template shows where you'll end up (roughly) before you move the model, and "rewinding" ship movement is a time-killer. This means you can see where movement will leave you touching other stuff before starting - this is really important in the later stages of the game (or "the knife fight"). 
2. It makes movement easier whilst preserving the "feel" of existing FA movement (since you're still describing a polygon of the same radius. In fact, I'd argue that the movement feels more like space combat movement than v2.0, because it's more fluid on the tabletop.
2. Adjusting SRS. This is a hugely controversial topic, and one solution is unlikely to satisfy everyone's personal likes in this regard. The route we talked about most was to remove PD from bombers entirely, keeping their potency but making them very vulnerable to Interceptor cover. Interceptors are "attached" to squadrons for PD support, preventing wholesale PD wall spamming. They can also be "attached" to large tokens to provide protection on attack runs. Fighters now become more useful because they do a little of both roles, a bit less well. So you can run in two squadrons of Bombers on a target, but if the opposing player can get Fighters or Interceptors there, they're going to get mauled. This makes SRS collaborative, and not just a plain binary choice between Bombers or Interceptors. There are reasons for taking the other SRS types too (more below)
3. Firing Options. Linking is a bugbear of some (not all) players of FA. It can get a bit complex at times with squadrons of partly damaged ships with multiple linking weapons...what dice do you roll? We tossed this around a lot, and the best way seemed to be to have a second stat for every weapon showing their linking values, and then just subtract all damage from the linked pool before rolling. This makes calculation faster, and also opens up some design space where some weapons are better than others at linking. We also looked at other options, like Targeted Strikes, which are hardly used in FA v2.0. Moving to a Heavy Dice mechanic for them, together with a redesign of the TS table increases their potency without making them indispensable. Overwatch was also introduced to add another tactical option without any real increase in complexity - we determined it would probably be little used, but situationally it would be important to have, so why not?
4. Fleet Building. This was one of the highlight innovation successes of v2, but it was restrictive in some ways - releasing new ship types for a race caused issues if it didn't already have it in there, and it was possible to build some effective spam lists. Fanstorm approaches this by using a more fluid definition of Tier level based on a ships value. This provides much more design flexibility and actually allows much more balanced but creative list building, with no extensive calculations.
5. The Aquans. This is really about points balancing and adjustment. Because SRS can be spammed easily by the Aquans (and the Relthoza), and the Aquans have lots of arcs of fire, and are quite forgiving to play they're often seen as "easy mode", especially by new players. This is an issue because perception is reality, but actually is addressed a lot by a variable threshold fleet building tool and some overall recosting. The Aquans should be a highly efficient, highly technological race but without the reserves to field masses of top-tier stuff, which the current rules allow. What they have is very points-efficient, but they have to grow their ship hulls, meaning they should be (from a fluff perspective), a bottom-heavy race. What plays at the moment is the exact opposite. These unintended effects occur in a few races, but its actually very simple to rebalance that without nerfing the hell out of anyone.
6. Command & Control. We saw an opportunity to have a more structured C&C function than the FTB/TAC card/Admiral interaction in existing FA, to add some tactical depth to this and other elements. As such, we introduced Command Allocation Dice - a pool generated at the start of a turn and used for various effects - re-rolls of disorder and repair checks, overwatch fire, TAC cards, Admiral special abilities and Cyberdefence. As they're dice it's easy to track, since when you roll it it's gone - and everyone has lots of dice in FA to use in this regard. It also adds flavour to races such as the Directorate, who wear down the CAD pool, but also allows the opposing player to be more tactical with their cyberdefence, rather than the "Dindrenzi are immune, Sorylians are very vulnerable" result that using FTB had in v2
7. Terrain. Some Terrain needed tweaks, and interactions with terrain clarified in some areas (e.g. the ghost ship/station). The main issue with terrain was how much to put down and how - a more structured way to build your gaming tables is presented.
8. Cyberwarfare. You either love it or hate it, and it feels either OP or worthless - in effect down to a table where 33% of the time you generated a Hazard marker. These are now tweaked to make them more appealing and consistent, without making them direct weapons
9. Mines. Although I never really had an issue with v2 mines, some people did - especially in where they come in the order of play, specifically making "drive by" minings that are indefensible a thing. Making Mines regular indirect weapons solves this to a large extent...drive by minings put the mining ship equally at risk....
10. Damage, Degradation & Repair. The double degradation method with HP and CP affecting AD was complex for new players, and didn't add much to the game. We got rid of CP affecting AD, and instead had it affect repair instead, which seems much more logical and interesting.
11. Streamlining MARs. There are a lot of MARs in FA, and not all of them are extensively used or particularly useful, so an examination or those and making them either more useful or getting rid of them entirely seemed like a good idea. Also, MARs that required iterative dice rolls (like Torpedo Spook - which force re-rolls) were looked at to see if the feel/effect of the MAR could be preserved whilst reducing the time to resolve it. So in the case of Torpedo Spook, halving the defensive PD successes of a target is a faster (and more consistent) way of reducing the effectiveness of PD than re-rolling those same dice. Additional dice-rolling steps where they don't add much to the overall experience is always a preferable route.

Now is this going to be universally loved? Probably not - but the beauty of Fanstorm is that if people adopt it and think things should be changed, we can look at them and do what the community wants - or provide solid reasons why we think that would alter other aspects of the game.

Anyway, let me know if you think this sounds interesting, and it's worth TheoryMachine finishing the ruleset - we don't want to just waste our time on something no one wants, after all.

What the Firestorm....??

We're starting to get rules snippets from SG now about v3 of Firestorm Armada....and for me, this does not bode well. Let's have a look at a few of these;

1. Cloaks

Cloaks have been significantly reduced in value - models shooting at a cloaked model now use HEavy (blue) dice rather than Exploding (red) dice. Now I'm certainly not against introduction of the Red-Blue-Black dice mechanics in FA - they would fit well in certain areas, and it's a change myself and the FFG suggested, so it's nice to see some things come through.

Cloaks, however, are not one area that I believe this is a good thing. This essentially nerfs cloaks to the same as in PF, and it makes them sh*t. I always advocated that PF and FA stats should align as far as possible (something that did not happen), and that FA lore should over-rule PF lore, as it came first and was established. This also did not happen - and we have giant space dino-eldars kitted out with nose-rings and howdahs...just stooopid.

The Relthoza being masters of nano-tech and stealth doesn't come through when you're reducing the effectiveness of a cloak by a massive amount - Exploding dice normally have a hit probability overall of 0.8 per die, whereas on a cloaked model in FA v2 you halve your AD, making the probability approximately 0.4 (it's actually slightly lower on a macro level since you round down in FA) - so your attacks are half as effective, i.e. 50%.

Non-exploding "heavy" die have a hit probability of 0.67%, which means they're 83.75% as effective as exploding dice - or a 16.67% reduction in effectiveness. So Cloaks went from being 50% effective at reducing incoming fire to 16.67% effective. Wow - that seems utter garbage.

2. Movement

So it seems we're going down the Halo route of pivots for FA. This is personally something I don't like, but of course it remains to be seen how it pans out. I'm not against pivots as a mechanic, I just think it alters the "feel" of Firestorm, so I think it shouldn't be there. It's a rather imprecise tool too, since you're using the model's own base, you move it without putting a marker for where the edge was and you could open up the possibility for arguments....not something I've ever relished. With the "drift" mechanic (which sounds just like an unnecessarily rebranded minimum move/turn limit), you're also going to encounter the same issues with movement that FA v2 has when it comes to the knife fight - which was one area the FFG looked specifically at resolving.

3. Fleet Building

OMG - going back to %age MFV values? Are you F*cking kidding me? The %age system is easy to say, but a b*stard to use daya to day, and VERY open to abuse. It's also difficult to introduce new ships because if you get the points wrong, it can be impossible to field them in some games. In short, there are more min-max options that are difficult to spot if they are legal or not, and test - since balance is all about testing, this isn't going to allow much time for that, so I don't expect v3 to be balanced in any sensible sense of the word.

4. Weapons

So there are some good things here - one is that they're using a suggestion by the FFG (even if they don't admit it or credit us) about how to deal with linking easily, and that is to have 2 values for weapons - one to use for being the focus fire (or lead) ship, and one for if you're joining in...makes on the fly maths easier.

They've renamed the range bands, which is just stupid and unnecessary. Point Blank? In a starship combat game? Come on! <sigh> Also, the "WARs" (Weapon Assigned Rules) now replace coherence effects (which again seems unnecessary), and some are direct ports from those that already don't really work in Planetfall, so I'm not a fan. Kinetic Weapons are going to be hellish in this edition, now the Dindrenzi don't have to worry about fixed arcs and their weapons f*ck shields. Sorylians get a kick in the teeth since it seems scatter weapons now only work in RB1 (not going to use the stupid name for that!).

Overall

In short, what we seem to be seeing is a wholesale copy/paste from Planetfall with some small concessions to prior FA....but not many. Thsi si feeling a lot like the clusterfuck that v1.5 was, but in a much, much larger way at a time when FA and Spartan can't afford to do this. I don't see this winning over existing players who want a bit of a fatser game or attracting people from other wargames. All it seems to be doing is aligning PF & FA closer together in ways that don't make any sense, and actually detract from former strengths of the game.

Let's face it, if you like FA now, this is unlikely to float your boat, because too many things have been messed with, seemingly arbitrarily. I swear to god if the next change is that Fleet Guides are announced as ORBATS I'm going to have to physically hurt someone!

The big question to me, however, is how on earth are they going to balance all these changes before release? The answer? I don't think they're going to even really try. I think they're going to do a Planetfall v1 and release and change on the fly until it seems to be ok-ish. The problem there being that took over a year for PF v1, and by the time they'd done it they'd lost interest in the game ad abandoned it for...well, until now, actually. The issue with FA at this point is that PF was a new, exciting game with lots of models and it was ground combat and...ohh, new shiney! etc. FA is not that, and it's lost a huge amount of its playerbase. Where are they going to get balancing feedback from? The existing beta-group plus a few more people? How well is that going to work?

Now there is a good outcome here - it's strengthened my resolve to finish Fanstorm! 

The Hub Systems Episode 15 - Firestorm Armada v3.0?

So after a sneak preview into the future, Spartan Neil mentioned the working of v3 of our beloved space combat game, Firestorm Armada. Here we speculate about what we'd want to change and preserve....