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.

The Demise of Spartan Games

Well, today is the day....I came back from the beach and opened my laptop to look at emails, to see a tide of messages and tags on Facebook. I read the news, and posted a couple of responses, replied to PMs and such, then went to cook dinner.

Why the nonchalance? No fan-fares? Well, of course not. The demise of a gaming company is never a happy event, even when it is so blatantly obvious in coming as this.

Who is to Blame??

Alex, the Spartan-Slayer?

No, of course not. I'm actually very sad that Spartan has come to this - especially when it was definitely avoidable. I could point the finger at individuals who were instrumental, but that would be as childish and stupid as those who have already gone onto social media and essentially said this was my fault (which I could potentially use as evidence of cyber-bullying, were I so inclined - I'm not, of course, I blocked their puerile blither long ago).

Of course blaming me is also ridiculous. One person (or even a group of determined people) writing a blog cannot bring down a company - even one as badly organised and run as Spartan. People would not read this blog (or at least not more than once) if there wasn't truth in what I said. All I do is hold a candle to what companies do - if they weren't doing stupid stuff (or people didn't agree that it was stupid), my writing would gain no traction.

It's easy to understand why people jump to these conclusions - a lack of facts and/or understanding is common, and I'm very vocal (deliberately so), so in the tin box of social media (which amplifies such wittering), it seems like I'm making the difference. I'll let you into a secret - I'm not. Retailers and distributors do not make their business decisions based on some random guys internet scribbling. If you really believe that this did not have more to do with Spartan's business model and approach to the market than any fan-based discussions (positive or negative), then you should never consider starting a business yourself - seriously.

I've used the analogy on Facebook, but I'll reiterate it here for the hard of understanding. The guy standing by the snake-oil salesman's pitch saying "that looks like snake oil" is NOT the bad guy, Spartan were selling The Emperor's New Clothes - here's a Wiki if you don't know the story...(what are you, kids?!?)

The Emperors New Clothes

Now, in case you still don't understand, the bad guy in this story is NOT the one who first says "but the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes". It's the one's trying to sell you something that doesn't exist - a false promise. There's another phrase that's appropriate here - "Don't shoot the messenger".

So What Happened?

Well, only Spartan know the exact reasons, but it's a pretty easy trail to follow if you want to. Essentially, Spartan tried to do too much too fast, started too many things without building up support for them before moving onto the next thing - that doesn't win permanent customers. In essence it's like doing the same with a tunnel - dig too far without adding supports and sooner or later the whole thing caves in. Burning their bridges with rules writers and contributors along the way also doesn't help your cause, nor does over-promising and under-delivering to your customers.

This makes the "personality" of your company seem a little unhinged, and less trustworthy, meaning people think more before parting with their cash. Take Prodos, for example - that name likely fills you with some unease, or "nice minis but I'd not buy from them" feeling, because they've developed a similar sort of reputation with their AVP game and other projects (like the White Dragon Kickstarter project Shattered Void, where Prodos were supposed to be making the master minis for them).

But aside from that, Spartan did not build an appealing global distribution model - it was often hard for customers to get product from anywhere but Spartan, and Spartan did a lot of "order from us" exclusives which sidelined distribution - this approach, together with its haphazard releases and ADHD personality made it a pretty unappealing partner. This effectively self-limited Spartan's reach to us customers. Whilst customer service when you were dealing with Spartan as an individual was often great (probably because you were dealing with one person, Lizzie, at the company), this wasn't the overall experience.

Customer experience is a HUGE thing in most big global companies - at my company it forms part of the metrics and KPIs of most leadership and a lot of the coal-face customer-facing people too. It's reviewed in leadership meetings, it's pored over and analysed, and action plans put in place to prevent decline, and to drive positives. This is because most companies understand that customer experience is a massive part of customer retention and it goes beyond just how customers find dealing with those at your company directly, but all the dealings with your company - whether that's delivery (which is most likely through a 3rd party you have little or no control over) or stocking (does my local store have your product?). If their delivery is late, or the shop doesn't have your stock, saying "it's not our fault" no longer cuts it in modern retail.

Fundamentally, Spartan failed to really grasp what a wargamer in 2017 wants to be happy. They had a window of opportunity back in 2010-2016 that they only partially exploited, and instead of shoring up and building on a few internal franchises, they kept creating new projects - splitting resources, baffling retailer and customer understanding / support, and ultimately killing their business. No one but Spartan's leadership is responsible for that.

So What Now?

Spartan is going - sad but maybe not without a silver lining. As you'll all undoubtedly know, I've been very critical of SGs (entirely unnecessary) "new direction" for Firestorm. I hope their v3 stuff does NOT make it out of Evercreech, and instead the franchise is picked up by someone who really understands wargames, miniatures, community support and business. I hope they re-engage the community and get Firestorm back to where it belongs - as a great and fun game up there with X-Wing, 40k and the like.

Of course, I'm still going ahead with Fanstorm, that hasn't changed. Whilst on holiday I've actually put a lot more work into my mammoth Firestorm valuation spreadsheet (which has been several years in the making). It's shaping up really nicely because I want to use it to re-cost the ships in the Firestorm universe to more accurately reflect their game value - which of course means you have to have a way of properly assessing their value in an unbiased and scientific way....turns out that's a LOT harder than you first imagine, especially with all the options in Firestorm v2.

As I think I've mentioned before, this Excel document assesses every ship and squadron's survivability against every other ships weaponry, and vice-versa, to give both offensive and defensive values based on statistical probabilities (at every range band, with every Hardpoint and Option, direct and indirect, accounting for MARs, damage etc). Funnily enough, the great majority of ships in FA are very closely pointed to their actual potential, with only a few types and individuals being obviously outside the norms and needing significant adjustment (battle stations - we're looking at you!).

Anyway, don't be glum about Spartan's demise - the people who used to work there are the ones who deserve more, as do all of you paying customers out there. At least they pulled the plug before the Kickstarter funded, as there would have been a lot of people losing money if that had been the case. Look at it this way - Spartan had produced very little for Firestorm over the past year, so what have you lost? OK, if you're a Halo GC player you've probably lost out more, or are a DW Kickstarter funder who still hasn't received their pledge, but if you're a Firestorm or Planetfall player, you're not in any real different position than you were yesterday, only the future is now a little clearer. I'll continue playing Firestorm and continue working with TheoryMachine to produce Fanstorm to keep all your models relevant and the game as vibrant as it ever was.

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!

2017 - What will it bring for us gamers? Part 1: Spartan Games

Whatever your opinion of 2016 in other ways, it was a pretty good year in gaming. The hobby as a whole is growing at around 30% where most industries can hope for about 10% of that. We saw the arrival of some major new franchises like Dropfleet Commander and GW seem to be organising themselves in a slightly better way in many areas, despite still carrying on with Age of Sigmar (!). The rise of the board game strengthened more than ever, and there were a lot of great Kickstarter projects that were announced/launched and sometimes fulfilled. Not a bad time at all to be a gamer.

After looking over the Man Battlestations Blog, I thought it might be fun to do a similar predictive series of posts here over the coming days. So, what do I think is on the horizon for 2017?

Spartan Games

Let's start off with my once favourite games company. Unfortunately, after seeing behind the curtain for several years, I don't see great things ahead for SG. Why? Well, let me give you something of a parallel story from history.

I'm old enough to have been a kid during the personal gaming computer invention and rise. Back when the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was created in the '80s, I was at school and rode that crest of early computing brought to the masses. The market exploded from nothing to millions almost overnight, as everyone wanted this new stuff. There were many possibilities for a kid to convince their parents to buy, but the old Spectrum was the market leader, instantly recognisable with its rubber keyboard and coloured flash. Following it were the Commodore 64 for those with a bit more cash, and the high-end BBC Model B, which you could even get a floppy drive for.

The good old "Speccy" with its weird rubber keys

My parents were not high earners - not in itself a bad thing - but when coupled with their shocking lack of knowledge and gullibility, they became prime targets for the high street salesguy in the electronics store wanting to shift non-moving stock. Enter the Oric-1. 

Despite having hard keys, it was still pretty horrible to type on

"WTF is an Oric-1?", I hear you say as you frantically google it in another tab....well, let me tell you, in principle it was a better machine that the Spectrum - it had a non-rubber keyboard, a better BASIC (Spectrum BASIC was non-standard), a great music chip and it was competitively priced. Unfortunately it had some QC issues, meaning the machine I got on Christmas day didn't work properly. It was returned and I got another, which also had issues. Eventually this all got resolved by me getting an Oric Atmos, an even better machine with a keyboard of actual proper keys.

Oooh - sexy...proper keys that were nice to type on!

Of course, the Oric's market lifespan was limited - the Oric-1's initial QC problems in a marketplace where Sinclair machines were churned out in their thousands and with increasing memory meant that developers largely left it alone, meaning the range of games you could get for the Oric machine was much smaller than the Spectrum, Commodore 64 or even the BBC. In short, it failed to keep up with market demands and expectations, and though it was a great machine, its users enthusiastic and passionate, it fell into the dustbin of history long before its rivals.

If that story felt familiar, then it should. I feel Spartan - once ahead of the curve in this space - have been equalled and now (arguably) overtaken by their competitors. I don't believe Kickstarter funded projects will save them. They will continue with a (slowly shrinking) core of supporters, until the point their various games go mail-order only and/or become unsupportable, and go the way of Uncharted Seas.

The reasons behind this are twofold - resource and leadership. Spartan are located in a beautiful, but relatively remote and rural part of the UK. This provides relatively cheap building rent costs, but restricts the appeal of the location for up-and-coming developers. As we've all seen, staffing at Spartan is limited, and restricts their ability to keep up with customer demands, both in terms of information and product. In terms of leadership, Spartan Neil has a distinctive dictatorial style which makes him difficult to work with, which enhances the resourcing issue further. It also leads to some bizarre decisions being made that are not good for his business, but as the owner, who would stand up to those decisions?

This is something I am very familiar with, and there is a concept known as "The Healthy Organisation" - the works of Patrick Lencioni are great in this regard. Basically it talks about not only making SMART-led, KPI-monitored decisions in an organisation, but also making sure you take care of people, have an environment where decisions can be challenged and communicated fully and transparently etc. Companies that do this tend to do very well, because people are engaged, driven to succeed and feel supported in their endeavours.  For me, SG doesn't look like a SMART nor a Healthy Organisation.

Now this is OK if you're not fighting against the tide or want only a small piece of the pie, but less so when your market is very competitive or is fast-moving. Ten years ago this was probably true, and as SG entered into a background of a GW-dominated industry as a disruptive influence, it did well and developed quickly as a minor league player. The problem is, other companies did too. Mantic, for instance, which led by an ex-GW director, was much more business minded than SG.

So, specific predictions? I guess SG will fail to hit their DW Kickstarter fulfilment dates - it finished at around 270% of their goal with 858 backers (around 30-40% of other roughly comparable niche KS projects in terms of backer numbers) - though interestingly they had just THREE retail backers, which shows that they've either used up the goodwill of retailers out there or that shops are just going to wait and see if this has an effect on demand before getting stock - I suspect a little of both. Out of the pledges, 20 of them were their highest level "design a model" pledge, providing almost 12% of the total funding....which is a lot of promised design time, given SG committed to a couple of days with the designer each - that's 40 days or 2 full work months. Either they were not 100% honest about this or that's a LOT of design time not being spent on FA, PF & Halo...or they will horribly over-run. Or both, possibly all three!

Will FA v2.5/v3 come out in 2017? That's a toughie....I know "Spartan Linde" is working on this (he was a member of the FFG), but given I know his input, style and local meta, plus the increased centralisation of design to SG, I kind of hope it doesn't, because either the changes will be minimal and somewhat arbitrarily pointless, or they're going to screw it up. It would be a dangerous time to screw up, because Hawk will have fulfilled all their KS pledges, smoothed over any burns and got other stuff out by then. Plus they'll have had 6-9 months of real world play and feedback to hone their game and grow their userbase. If you like FA more than DFC, but can only get a game of DFC, guess what's going to happen in time? So overall I'm going to say they will, and it will have little impact on saving the system, primarily because Neil fails to grasp what people really want/need from a games company beyond shiny resin models.

What I hope SG do is release PF v2, which is really needed, though once again I think they'll screw it up for exactly the same reasons as above. I really feel for dedicated Planetfall players because the models are great, just the rules and fluff don't do them or the universe justice, nor has Spartan shown players any respect with the shockingly poor lack of support they've had - essentially being abandoned for most of 2016, and "supported" in the most haphazard and poorly executed way I've ever seen from a supplier.

I also expect Dystopian Legions will go the way of Uncharted Seas, and disappear completely. I also expect they'll do some batshit-crazy stupid project like their 1/300th scale 1946 WWII game they showed at Salute 2016, though god only knows what shape that will actually take. After some small hiatus they'll then abandon it.

Halo is the other difficult one. HFB has been little supported of late, and though HGC had an introductory splash, I've been underwhelmed with their releases post launch and their fulfilment hasn't been great. I can't imagine 343 are wildly enthusiastic about revenue numbers, and I expect further pressure from them on SG, impacting other ranges releases, or that relationship to become rather soured. It could go wither way from where I'm sitting.

So what I expect from SG is a set of releases which are not wholly thought through nor tie in with prior canon or background, because they don't see that as especially important. I expect them to try to lean more heavily on non-compensated fan support and Kickstarters to sustain themselves, and the "fickle gamers" as some have called them (or those with common sense and self respect as I would refer to us) gradually adopt other things to do with our time. 

I don't expect SG to explode, implode or revive their business, but to gradually become less and less significant in the gaming world as other companies get it more consistently right, and have their fingers on the pulse of what gamers want. I'd love SG to prove me completely wrong, but they've never failed so far to fulfil my jaded expectations of them. As T.S.Elliot wrote;

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

Fanstorm Armada v1 - Military Organisations

Now if you have the Zenian and Kurak Alliance fleet books, these contain the most background on the individual Core races yet produced by Spartan. While solid, theres still a lot of gaps here. The book mentions some military structures and such, but although there are some good specifics, I felt this really needed fully fleshing out to create a coherent framework for further work. Here's what I did.

These are early drafts I completed of these structures - I am working on refining and updating these, especially the Directorate and Relthoza, In any case, I hope you enjoy them and they help you build the universe into your games and more for the future. Also, we're recording the next episode of The Hub Systems Podcast tonight, so expect Episode 28 before the weekend!

Military Organisations in Firestorm Armada

Fanstorm Armada v1 - Background

I've done a lot of work in Firestorm in the past, and that produced directly for SG was only a very small part of that. I'm also fortunate in having a network of people across the globe to critique my work and provide alternative ideas and suggestions to refine that work. Rather than let all of those hours go to waste, I'll be posting up my thoughts, background and developments here for the community to share.

Before I get to mechanics and rules, the big area I (and many of you out there) have felt is lacking in Firestorm Armada is background. Now approaching this requires more than just sending a whole bunch of freelance writers off to get some stories together, or even asking an active community for content. Why? Let's have a look...

Freelancers tend to do one of two things - they either write to a tight brief with good guidelines, or they're given freedom to write what they like with much looser reigns. One of the first things I started working on, therefore, was a set of writer guidelines to shape the universe. This is important because there are basics of technologies that will affect the whole shape of how the universe is written about. Let's use an example to illustrate this.

Have you ever watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It was a huge hit in the 90s and a lot of it still stands up as good, silly, fantasy fun. However, it was written at a time where mobile phones were not omnipresent, and many of the plot lines would simple be answered by having one. A modern equivalent would be written from a different perspective and would follow a different line just because of that one simple difference in communications technology.

It's the same with a game like FA and its background. SG have never been that interested in the technological background of their universe, which then makes it problematic to shape the universe coherently, which means any freelance or fan based content will vary on approach and not produce a cohesive, immersive universe. This doesn't matter for some, but it does matter for most gamers, who tend to be of a similar detail-oriented ilk within their hobby sphere.

Communications is one example - is it possible to contact a planet from another planet? Is it possible to contact a ship in FSD? Can a ship in fold-space be detected? What is fold-space? All of these basics affect any story written in or for the universe, so its important to nail this stuff down.

Another facet of this are the various races in FA - what is their background? Where did they evolve, and how? Evolution shapes the way creatures act hugely, and much more than we recognise. Our "fight or flight" mechanism comes from our evolution, the propensity for males to have better spatial awareness than females comes from the evolutionary branch of it being selected for as males went out to hunt...every aspect and nuance of our underlying behavioural mechanisms has come from our evolution from single-celled organisms, shaped by the changing environment and evolutionary pressures of millions of years.

Even where we have humans in the Firestorm universe, we have different interpretations of the seven or so human factions (Terran, Dindrenzi, Directorate, Hawker, Works Raptor, OSO and RSN). Are the Dindrenzi space nazis or not? Is that the role of the RSN? What is life like in the Directorate? The unanswered questions are almost infinite.

This is also highlighted in game instances, like the so called "Fleet Admiral". Now Admiral is a very high rank in a navy, and really this doesn't make much sense in a background and real-world sense, but this is just an in-game reference. Even so, when trying to put in the invasion "Commanders", it puts you as a designer in a corner, so one of the things I looked at before giving titles to these Commanders was to create a full military structure for all of the core six races, and place the Commanders logically within them. This provides consistency both now and in the future. Unfortunately the recent posts by SG have ignored this, introducing the rank of "Pioneer-Marshall" and "Monitor-Commander" - which sound cool but don't actually sit with any prior background.

As such I will be presenting the work I've done independently as a Fan-derived version of Spartan's universe, and nothing within it is meant to challenge any of SGs licences or IP, but merely to provide an alternate and fully fleshed-out background - let's call it an alternative interpretation - of their game. I hope you enjoy it, and I'm always open to feedback and discussion on any aspect. if people have better or cooler things to add, then I'll add them.

I am Spartan Alex...and so's my wife....

Well, I used to be, up until yesterday when I finally decided to hand in my spear, helmet and shield and part ways with the Firestorm steering role I've had for the past few years.

"What? Are you crazy? I'd give my <<insert appendage here>> to be a Spartan!"

Well, be careful what you wish for - working with a games company can be incredibly rewarding, but it can also be enormously frustrating, hard work and gruelling. Sometimes it sucks so much out of you in the game you love, that you don't want to play. Then you wonder why you're putting in the kind of hours you are without pay (yes, this was voluntary!) - this was supposed to be fun!

So why did I quit?

A game system is more than just pretty models and good rules - it's exactly that, a SYSTEM. The leader in the industry got to where they were (and still are in large part) because they had a great combination of models and narrative, backed by good store support and excellent player involvement, all in a very different world to the one we inhabit now. They created a monolithic monopoly which stood for around 30 years before they slipped into getting super-greedy whilst losing grip on rules and getting sloppy with background - just at a time when other companies like SG were springing up in an internet-enabled world. The past 10 years have seen the industry completely change, and they have taken a lot of damage over that time by being inflexible in an increasingly flexible marketplace. Nevertheless, even they are responding - and maybe it is too little too late, but they're also big enough for momentum to carry them a long way.

I tried to help SG in this environment by creating the sort of technological tie-ins, community noise and background pieces (the odd "teasers" I posted from time to time) that I believed were needed for FA - I felt there absence as a player of the game. About 0.1% of what I've written ever saw the light of day over the past 3 years. My motivation for the creating Hub Systems was to talk about Firestorm, as I couldn't represent the company officially elsewhere. I attended Reading Warfare as a demo game under my own steam (with Oscar's help) four years ago because I love Firestorm - this year we'll have the third annual FA tournament there.

So in short, I believe in the community, and the lack of support over the last 18 months or so for those fledgling communities is damaging - and I don't mean in terms of prizes (which SG are pretty generous about), I mean in terms of Spartan's show attendance, regular blog pieces , coherent and un-retconned background, consistent universe technologies and meaningfully planned releases. As the leadership of SG clearly became more detached from that vision of a coherent universe that I had, it was clear separation was in the offing - and best now and cleanly rather than protracted and messy.

Spartan have been getting better in some areas (like show attendance), and I really hope that the game survives long-term. People have expressed happiness about the Amber system, which I completely understand, because there's been nothing for so long. In one sense I'm glad that stuff I was talking about to Neil over a year ago is happening...but (there had to be one) - it's happening in something of a vacuum (knew I could get a space-related pun in there somewhere!). The FFG were not involved in the Amber system development, so as to balance and ongoing unity, where does it leave it? The fluff pieces are nice, but do they tie in with the rest of the universe? Will the next pieces tie in with this?

Now I am anal about this stuff, and pick up on inconsistencies in anything quickly - they jar my suspension of disbelief. The champagne glass in the Sopranos which is filled and half-emptied and then filled again between dialogue is something I noticed first time. Having Dindrenzi officers refer to each other as "Pioneer" as an honorific might be cool, but its never been mentioned in FA before. This either needs something to tie it in or be dropped. Stuff like this might not seem important, but it's indicative of a larger problem - the universe behind everything.

Let's take a brief sojourn - why are there a lot of very successful US TV series at the moment? When you get down to it, it's because of the way they're made. I had absolutely zero interest in a medieval fantasy setting series when my wife asked if we should watch Game of Thrones because "people said it was good". I started watching and was hooked - not because of the setting, but because of the quality of the show - at all levels. It has a compelling, intricate and well-woven plot which is delivered with excellent acting - the actors aren't just making up their lines when they get on set. This leads to amazing moments like the resolution of why Hodor can't say anything other than "Hodor" - and it blows your mind (I won't spoil it if you've not seen it, but OMG!).

This is really what I worry about with the current Amber setting in FA - has it been beautifully crafted behind the scenes as part of a larger tapestry, or has it just been made up on the spot? I have a sneaking feeling that it's the latter, which means that although it might be sweet and glossy, it might stick in the throat later when the wider picture doesn't quite add up. Which would be a shame. Honestly, if I'm wrong, nothing's lost, right?

The joy for me now, however, is that I am unchained to express myself in terms of fan-created background, technology, stats etc - though of course these will no longer carry the weight of being "official", I'll keep working with the members of the community I've grown to develop great respect for and whose input and viewpoints I value - even when they differ greatly from my own - because we have the same destination in sight, and because they improve anything I do! I created military structures for all the core races of the FA universe....I created star systems with planetary bodies for EVERY SINGLE SYSTEM on the FA map - this is how anal I am!

Whilst I'm on it, those individuals of the former Firestorm Focus Group really deserve a huge amount of the community's love, they've worked tirelessly behind the scenes with little in the way of thanks and often massive criticism and quite thoughtless abuse ("Did the FFG even test this, this is so OP" etc etc). It'll be my privilege to work with them again in the International independent Games Design Group, (not a very catchy moniker, I admit!) continuing to produce fan-made support for the game we all love. They're a talented group of guys, and I think we can put some great stuff out for the community.

As such, and as an enhancement to both my blog and The Hub Systems, I've introduced a forum element to this site, selectable on the top right-hand side under Pages. Feel free to go over there and leave a comment and get involved in the discussion - I'll add other sub-forums on there as needed.

Well, I'll save you all from the wall of text now, have fun until the next time - Episode 27 of The Hub Systems is coming soon!

The Hub Systems Podcast Episode 24 - Firestorm Armada Tactica: Sorylians

This time we invite Fred Graves of the FFG to bring us his Sorylian knowledge and expertise and educate us on the ways of the reptile....

We also look into GWs new 2-player set, Death Masque, plus some basing kits for Age of Sigmar. FFG brings us the wave 10 announcements for X-Wing, and we have a first peek at the Dark Souls Kickstarter too.

Listen & Enjoy!

Firestorm Armada Terquai unboxings

It was inevitable that those accursed traitors, the Terquai, would wash into Oscar's painting queue at some point, and that time has come. Actually, he's had the Dread for a while, and the Patrol Fleet and cruiser box have just joined that - time to look at the all together! Let's start with the Patrol Fleet and go from there....

As usual Spartan do a nice job of their boxes, with lovely full colour photography of the studio models on the front, and breakdowns of the box on the back as normal.

Inside you get the resin, bases, TACs and token sheets as you'd expect...of course we're primarily interested in the models.

These come in two bubble-wrap bags and one zip-lock bag...

...which open up to quite a lot of stuff! Starting from the small end this time, you get four frigates, which are chubby chunkers!

Comparing to a standard Aquan Chimaera, you can see its a little longer, but MUCH fatter...who ate all the pies??

Despite its weight issues (!), these one-piece models are really nicely done, and I just adore the Terquai propulsion golf balls - they remind me of the Liberator from Blakes 7 (if you don't know that ship, you're no sci-fi fan!!!)

Next up are the three cruisers, which can all be built as either assault or torpedo versions. This is neatly achieved by both top and side drop ons (plus a common underside drop-on). I like the addition of all parts so you have complete freedom here - it's a really nice touch from SG.

The cruiser obviously slims out if it grows up from a Frigate, being a little shorter than an Isonade, but lacking its needle-sharp anorexia. The drop-ons themselves are very clever;

 

These two top drop-ons give the ship a different profile and look.

As do the two side drop-ons. Combined they do produce two very different cruisers from the same hull, which can't be said for all the "modular" designs (yes, I'm looking at you, Huntsman!)

The underside piece and flight peg holder is common to both versions, but this doesn't detract from the designs at all

I won't cover the separate cruiser box, suffice to say you get an exact duplication of the Cruiser elements from the Patrol Fleet in a nice box;

Finally for the patrol fleet, you get the Alkonost. This is a three part model (four if you count the underside drop on, which is the same as the cruiser piece), which actually isn't really longer than the cruisers, but it is bulkier and has the two ski side-pods.

The hull has really nice flowing lines to it, and looks like a blend of human and Aquan tech

The side "ski" pods are handed (and have convenient L & R stamped into them).

But again, my favourite part of this models is its engines

Now the Alkonost is an Assault carrier, which means it has SRS tokens. The Terquai have some of the nicest yet;

So moving onto the dreadnought...

 Another gorgeous shot, and we're into the box contents...

This is a bit of a monster! It has a great aesthetic, which times in nicely with the other ships and the prior v1/1.5 Terquai cruisers too.

The hull has great detail and is not as elegant as the Alkonost, but does convey a sense of sturdiness.

The two side pods are the size of a ship each, and have phenomenal detail considering they're both single pieces.

here you can see detail of the surfaces , especially the various guns, and also see how little casting flash they have. One of my side pods has a small bubble in the front, but nothing that either a spot of Green Stuff or painting as light battle damage won't fix!

Both side pods and hull have the same golf-ball aesthetic drive systems, which gives the terquai a very distinct look.

Overall these Terquai releases continue the trend we've seen from SG in the Firestorm Releases - great designs, clever moulding, quality casting and good value. The only thing I don't like about them is that they're on the wrong side!

The Hub Systems Episode 13 - Maelstrom's Edge

This episode we have a look at the first game we've helped Kickstart - Maelstrom's Edge from Spiral Arm Studios. Enjoy!

The Hub Systems Episode 12 - The Firestorm Metagame North America

After a break for Christmas and the New Year, we bring you our pre-Christmas recording of the Hub Systems Podcast which deals with the FA Metagame. We invite Phil Johnson of Firebase Delta, Josh Linde of The Waygate and Nathan Pullan of Jaded Gamercast in to give us a perspective from over "The Pond" and contrast with the UK.

Enjoy!

Reading Warfare 2015

On Saturday morning Oscar and I got up early, packed the car with Firestorm ships and overnight bags, and made our way to the Rivermead Leisure Centre in Reading for this years Firestorm Armada tournament at the Warfare show. Oscar took his trusty Aquans, with a couple of modifications to his old list, adding in some Gunships and a Sulis Heavy cruiser.

It was a great weekend - good to see Firestorm players experienced and green, familiar and new. The whole thing was very well set up and run by Chris from the Wargames Association of Reading, it all going even smoother than last year. The competition was also held in the main hall, which meant great exposure for the game....there were certainly a lot of people stopping, looking and asking questions, which again is a good sign.

As always, there were some fantastic cinematic moments - Admiral's vessels foldspace drives rupturing to send them into a nearby planet, detonating mines that destroyed the ship which laid them and crippled its squad mates, pristine battleships prized in boarding actions and whisked away....

Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun, and once again, the Firestorm tables were the centre of much laughter, cries of rejoicing and despair...its one of the things I love about the game, it's such an inclusive and infectious experience - you want to tell the other players about the 9AD shot that landed 17 hits and double critted the Dindrenzi Heavy Cruiser (yes, this really happened....to me...by Oscar!).

Also enormously proud of my "boy" - he was one of the two tied for Most Sporting, and after a chat he was more than happy to take himself out of contention because of his placement...was great to hear such positive feedback from everyone. How cool is he?

Anyway, enough of my ravings, have a look at some of the action;

Here's what they were fighting for! In addition Spartan added prize support for 1st-3rd places (including a box of the new asteroids each), best painted and most sporting.

The tournament in mid-swing

Evidence of the cowardly Terrans hiding behind planets...surprisingly not commanded by Dan Bird this year!

Some rather nice RotO Directorate

But Chris Alton's Aquans won the painting competition, by some margin.

Ian Duff's Tarakians being nibbled to death by Aquans...

...who showed no remorse to anyone!

Works Raptor also tried this tactic...

...but it didn't go all their own way! The plucky Terran was destroyed eventually, but they sold their lives dearly

Oscar's Aquans mixing it up at short range with the Relthoza

Was nice to see some Ba'kash...even if they were playing "merry-go-round" with the Terrans around this planetoid!

The Veydreth proved brutal against the Sorylians...maybe that's why they're allies?

At the end of the tournament - well played to all!