Phoenix Rising - Mines

Mines in FSA never really felt like area (volume?) denial weapons, their main use was typically as drive-by bombs. Mines also tended to be dangerous to smalls and mediums rather than large ships (though not exclusively and we all had the odd success more generally). Still, they were relatively easy to deal with - fly something relatively sturdy or disposable into the area, clear the mine and move on. The blast radius was big (4") and persisted in theory, but as that was too big to really drop a template, plus move models etc, it was generally "ruler around the marker" measuring, which could then get forgotten if the mine was removed after detonating. it was just a little clunky, though not necessarily urgently broken, it felt unsatisfying in many cases. Of course there was the whole issue of the "drive by" as well, and this does fix that, but actually my aim wasn't to address this specifically, but more how mines worked at a grass-roots level.

I wanted to go back to basics with mines, and think about their use as volume-denial weapons. They should be dangerous but not insanely so, forcing difficult choices on players. I've opted for the following solution;

1. Mines are persistent. They stay on the board during the game unless removed by a specific mechanic, so the "kamikaze minesweeper" is gone.
2. Mines have a smaller area of 2" radius, and as they're persistent, they can be indicated on the board by terrain (card circles)
3. Ships only have enough mines for seeding a single area, unless a MAR gives them more (preventing the board becoming one huge minefield!) (edited)

This (hopefully) has several effects;

• Mines are now true area denial weapons - or at least, they deter enemies from certain routes, allowing ambush techniques etc
• Mines become something you need to time appropriately, rather than just fart out whenever in the hopes of catching something at some point
• Measuring and effect determination becomes simpler, without cluttering the battlefield with things ships can't be placed on.
• Although more dangerous to small ships, they also have the speed and manoeuvring power to avoid them most easily, smoothing out their effects across ship types
• Facilitates minesweeper ship types to remove them

So how does this work? Well mines are laid after movement, placing a Mine Marker (a 2" radius circle with the mine value on) half way under the rear of the models' base. These mines remain inactive until the end of the parent models next activation. This prevents the unavoidable "drive by", as ships in the wake have a chance to manoeuvre away before these go live. I say a chance, because if the player can lay the mines late in the turn and activate before those in its wake, it could get a successful drive-by. Of course your opponent knows this and is going to try to activate before that happens, but then it's a matter of priorities - is that more important than activating your battleship and getting that killer shot?

I went for this as it provides more "meaningful choices" in a game, which good games are all about. It's no doubt that no-one wants to fly into an active minefield, but if those two frigates chasing down that carrier happen to do that because you have higher priorities, that's just bad luck for them, right? On the other hand, maybe those two frigates can take that wounded behemoth down, and they absolutely need to survive. You can imagine situations where a cruiser group could get an optimum RB2 shot if it went through the minefield, or attempt an unlikely RB3 shot by going around it...which is best? Only you as the player can ultimately make that choice, and given 100 people asked exactly that, each will have their own decision and rationale for it - it's not a given either way. I think this also allows some nice scenario possibilities, and adds some real value to the Minefield MAR. Aquan Drone mines become terrifying (though I've an idea for balancing that), but very thematic.

So what does everyone think? Feel free to comment below!

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! 

Fanstorm Armada - the Autonomous Miyveen Protectorates

So something positive about Firestorm Fanstorm Armada....

The Illosians have always been one of my favourite factions in Firestorm that have never had any attention from Spartan save for some stats in v1. They had a back-story (such as they are in Firestorm), and that was about it. They are the rebellious children of the Aquan Sebrutan, and supporters of the Zenian League. I really wanted SG to release them, because they sounded cool and they were crab-men...what's not to like?!

The Fallout Mirelurk nails what I imagine the Miyveen to look like....

As Firestorm had an aneurism sometime in late 2015/early 2016, the chances of me ever seeing decent Illosians on the table from SG are vanishingly small - snowball in nuclear blast level of probability I think. Since Hawk released Dropfleet Commander, however, this is no longer a problem, since the Shaltari fit the alien derivative of Aquan sleek aesthetic rather well. What's needed then is the narrative and a working set of stats for v2.0. 

Well look no further, here I present to you "The Autonomous Miyveen Protectorates" for you to use in your games, using whatever proxies you fancy. 

The Autonomous Miyveen Protectrates

The TheoryMachine group worked on these stats, and they have been playtested worldwide, but I'm interested in feedback as always, and hope you have fun with them - they're another faction for the Zenian League (which needs them compared to the Alliance of Kurak), but not one that's suddenly been shoe-horned into the galaxy like the upcoming Saurians, which have never had stats or background before. 

The Illosians have always been around (though that name is what the Aquans call them due to their origins on Illosi) - the name change is to make them mine (rather than SGs) and to make them easy to differentiate from the Xelocians - the names for these two races were always too close for my liking. 

What I'm hearing about v3 has encouraged me to continue with v2.5, because I think v3 is not a game I would like to play - too many fundamental changes to the core game mechanics for my liking. Most players agree that v3.0 should be v2.5, that v2.0 did not need completely revising - so that's what myself and TheoryMachine are going to give you - the game Spartan should have worked on. Until then, enjoy the Miyveen!

Fanstorm Armada - Developing the Game

Spartan are working on FA v3.0 right now, and I could be wrong, but I'm not liking the sound of what I'm hearing in terms of rumours and rumblings. Derek Sinclair, the rules designer who's primarily worked on DW, Planetfall and latterly Halo, is getting in on FA. I can't say this gives me a rosy feel inside. Derek was not involved in the development of the v1 FA, nor v2.0. I don't know about v1.5, but that was a clusterf*ck of copy/paste errors from DW v2 which was written at the same time.

Planetfall for me was a catalogue of how NOT to develop a game, with it evolving faster than The Thing on steroids in front of your eyes. I believe in a living rulebook, but not one where what I buy is invalid by the time it hits the shelves, or by the time the ink has finished drying on the 48 pages of PDF downloads that came out with alarming regularity - to say nothing of the shocking lack of proof reading, leading to more errors and re-writes than most Hollywood C-list films. Halo was much better produced, but I subscribe that this is down to 343s involvement, and not so much Spartan's change of spots. I find HFB a bit bland and far too dominated by boarding and Spartans, but that's understandable because of the Halo franchise - it's still not what I want to see come into FA.

"OK Alex" I hear you say "So you don't like what's happening at SG. So what? Are you just going to sit on your behind and moan about it? You're so negative....blah de blah de blah..." (ok, maybe not that last bit, but I wanted to cover myself!)

Well, I haven't been idle in this regard. Myself and a set of designers from across the world (now named "TheoryMachine") have embarked upon the project of Fanstorm Armada, to continue where the FFG left off, and continue the development of FA in a direction that preserves what we love about the game, strengthens those elements and tones down the ones we don't. As we're not a company and aren't in this to make money, suggestions and alterations from the community are more than welcome, and everything we suggest will be published for free distribution. We don't want to infringe upon what SG is doing, and we're not going after any IP, we're just fans of the game making suggestions about how to make FA a better game.

In a prior post, I mentioned movement. This is one of the largest chunks of time in FA - understanding that FA is a game of strategic and tactical manoeuvring is one of the greatest understandings that any player can discover about the game, and as such it should be preserved in the greater part, but speeded up. I discussed how to do this before, and mentioned some templates. Here is a PDF of those that forum member Ryjak made;

FA Movement Templates PDF

That's great, but we all want better gaming aids, right? As I have a 3D printer, this was something I figured I could cook up, so 15 minutes on Tinkercad and I produced the STL file. Printed at 0.2mm with 15% infill took just under an hour, and here are the finished articles;

They could do with a bit of tweaking on the print settings, and I might cut the longer ones down to 3" as well, to make them easier to get into tight spots (which is one of the issues with the SG 45 degree template). Here they are in use - I've set up a common situation in FA - the knife fight. In this example, the Dindrenzi Dreadnought really doesn't want to be so close, but it's decided to go for it. 

It has a 2" Turn Limit, so we use the Turn Rate 3 template.

So you can see two advantages of this method here straight away - firstly, the template is narrow enough for you to get it into tight spaces - you'll see that in the other pictures too. Secondly, you get an immediate idea of what is possible - where the model is going to end up, which reduces moving and then "backing up", which is one of the big slow-downs in many games. This also has a secondary thought-process speed-up, since you're concentrating more on actions rather than logistics of movement.

So we've moved, and can nicely line up the two Ba'kash cruisers in our dual rail cannon sights. Now let's look at the Ba'kash move (assuming they survive!)

Here the Ba'kash cruiser turn (using the Turn Rate 2 marker) would cause problems with model placement, and not be good for a port broadside shot, so instead the model moves 1" forewards...

and we can see now that a turn will clear the model nicely, and set us up for a nice broadside of drive-by boarding assault...

One more inch of turn...

...and we're aligned.

With 4" moved, there's plenty left to cruise alongside, probably setting the scene for a rear-arc shot next turn!

I hope you can see that this is pretty liberating for FA in a couple of ways, yet preserves a VERY important part of the game, since movement is a central and critical part of Firestorm's feel. Given that Spartan Derek isn't even considering movement mechanics yet, I'll be adopting this movement system and then moving onto other areas first - after all, you don't build a house and THEN work on the foundations, do you?