The Hub Systems Podcast Episode 11 - Systems Wars Part 2

So after a week off due to illness, we return with the second and concluding part of our System Wars roundup, plus the second instalment of our new regular feature "Hit or Miss" - enjoy!

The Hub Systems Podcast Episode 10 - System Wars Part 1

We tackle the summer System Wars releases in two parts - firstly the MARs, ship models and stats...plus we introduce a new feature for Episode 10!

Quick update - painting recap...Halo, Firestorm Armada, Planetfall & Zombicide!

Well it's been a month since the last post, and although I intended it to be the final segment of the System Wars review with the Commanders, I've had a few developments since that time. Work has been pretty unpleasant and stressful too, so instead I've been investing what little free time I have into actually doing some painting. This is relaxing, especially whilst catching up with recent or historical podcasts, and exactly what I've needed.

Of course, this is a good thing on many fronts, as it also reduces the wall of unpainted resin and plastic, and enhances our gaming experiences, so it's all good...the true win-win!

First up in this review of what I've been doing are the Covenant ships for Halo Fleet Battles. These are truly lovely ships, and I've waited a little while before painting them as I wanted to think about the effect I wanted before committing. Anyway, I saw a painting Youtube on the SG Community, and decided to steal/adapt their technique. This essentially involves priming silver and then covering with transparent paint to achieve a metallic under-sheen that looks very Covenant-like. I used an auto-spray can for Alloy wheels, and then used Purple and Blue Shades from Army Painter to finish. I put in a fair amount of variation, which I find gives quite a pleasing effect on the tabletop.

Now this is only stage 1, of course, with detail and engine glows etc still to add, but I think I've achieved more-or-less the effect I wanted. Unfortunately half-way through this my faithful Badger 150 broke, the nozzle shearing off somehow, so I bought a complete Medium conversion kit for it (it's the most cost-effective way of repairing it), and as I was away on business it arrived before I could spray again anyway, giving the old faithful a new lease of life, plus my old needle and parts as spares.

Next up were the Works Raptor Destroyers and Battlecruisers. These I gently shaded from black to lighter grey on several surfaces to give some tonal variation, then added weapons and power core/engine glows to fit with my other WR ships.

Note I've left off the PITA metal shields, which I'll paint separately and attach after I'm done detailing the main battlecruiser hulls. This inspired me to press on with my Ba'kash as well, since I've only played with them once as primed models and they did well, so they deserve to have a proper finish. For this I've chosen a Bronze basecoat, again Army painter which I've sprayed over a matt grey primer. This produces a very shiny and slightly glittery effect overall.

Cruiser and Destroyer, which I've used as a heavy cruiser and standard cruiser respectively. This is mainly because I'm not a huge fan of the Heavy Cruiser parts for the model, and I much prefer the old destroyer models, which I have a pair of...

And here's one of them with a frigate. Now this glittery effect is not one I particularly want, but I wasn't too worried since this is just a basecoat, and after a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone...

 It looks much nicer. You can see the pipe areas where I haven't washed (as I'll be painting these a different colour) are much brighter - the washed areas look much more "lived in" and realistic.

Here's the Frigate similarly washed. A drybrush with the bronze and edge highlights in silver, with some oxidation wash here and then should look good before doing the engine glow on these.

Now actually it's been a fair while since I posted anything paintwise, so I've quite some catch-up to do as well on updating the blog. Before I had my airbrush failure, I'd sprayed my Directorate Invasion ships, and before that I'd sprayed the Dindrenzi landers took. As these are atmospheric entry craft, I painted the Dindrenzi in my planetfall colours, whilst I tried some of Anarchy Models' paint masks on my Directorate, carrying on with my new adapted paint scheme for them. Here they both are.

Here's my Directorate RotO ships sporting the newer camo. Although I liked the effect, the Anarchy Models masks are definitely better than the "kids fishing net" mask I used for the RotO ships.

Now it's not just spaceships that have been receiving the attention of the brush...I know I'm jumping the gun a little since I've not yet posted unboxing blogs of them yet, but here are a couple of the new aerial Helixes. The first, the Dindrenzi...

As I was an ardent modeller prior to entering the gaming arena proper, and the rest of my dindrenzi are in late WWII German camo colours, I thought aerial late WWII colours of RLM 81/82 over 76 was appropriate.

The sahrk-like heavy looks especially menacing with the dapple on the fuselage.

Next up are the Dindrenzi's sworn enemies, the Terrans. Their "just in the future" look means they benefit from a US-style modern two-tone aerial combat scheme, both on the interceptors and the heavy.

Finally, the last of the aerial Helixes I've photographed (though I have sprayed the Aquan and Sorylian) is the Directorate.

This was another use of the Anarchy models Hex camo masks, but with a reversed colour contrast.

The Drones I've just gone for a simple dark grey top with light grey undersides, similar to the plain grey of the ground forces.

Next up are some of the larger zombies from the very fun Zombicide - here we have the original season 1 Abomination with a Fatty...still need to finish the camera. but almost there...

And here are the Prison Outbreak and Angry Neighbours Abominations too.

These are great models to paint, a lot of fun and painting them really makes a difference...can't wait to play with them!

System Wars Part 4 - Commanders

In this final instalment of the System Wars review, I will cover the subject of the new Commanders for Firestorm Armada, both their rules, reasoning and the individuals themselves.

To start with, why have commanders in FA at all? Well, the FA universe has been developing in several ways over the past year or so, and with the development of Halo, Commanders became the subject of discussion for Firestorm too...Obviously they have a role to play in Halo, but that is a game designed with them in mind - could they be added to Firestorm in a way that was compatible with the existing mechanics of the game without feeling simply "bolted on" or unbalancing?

Well, the answers to these questions are of course, yes they can, and having them introduces another layer of tactical options for players, in a similar way to Hardpoints and Upgrades on ships. Now, Halo uses Command Dice in order to unlock special abilities, but an additional random element within the Firestorm universe was not viewed as either necessary nor desirable. Firestorm Commanders were thus developed completely separately from Halo commanders, as was the rest of the Halo ruleset, so whilst Halo was an initiator for the discussion, that's where the input ended.

One thing that was strongly desired was that these should be an optional add-on, and they should NOT be dominating in the game...I think everyone has seen the likes of Typhus or Marneus Calgar in 40k, strutting up and down almost every small skirmish force on both sides because they're so good (or at least they were when I played!). For me, special characters should bring something both positive and negative, so they remain a choice, rather than an auto-take. They should be interesting, rather than amazing!

So let's look at the mechanics of the Commanders and see how they work.

Firstly, there are some rules about adding a commander to your force - they take up a TAC slot, and can only be fielded for a force of the same race (no Sorylian commanders in Aquan forces, for example). As they represent your Fleet Admiral's commanding structure (i.e. their boss - they're not on the board), they grant effects usually without the Fleet Admiral being present (although that's not always the case). The effects they have are given in four broad areas - Expertise, Alliances, Fleet Build and Upgrades - these latter being optional (the first three are all compulsory changes). So right off the bat these guys are costing you something in terms of in-game flexibility.

Ok, given these generalities, let's look into individual commanders to see the implementation;

Guardian Shoal Assembler Ssirrin Tsalas

So Ssirrin sets the scene for us on the Commanders, with a nice piece of artwork of a new Aquan species (which I really like) and some accompanying background. After this are his (its?) adjustments to the standard rules.

Expertise: So this chap is a Planetfall specialist, so you get the option to add more Planetfall ships to your fleet using your existing fleet point allocation. This is pretty much self-balancing, since you're degrading your combat capability to potentially net battle log from Planetfall MAR ships landing on the objective, so it's potentially risky.

Alliances: This one is easy, since he has no special effects here

Fleet Build: Here you can exchange one frigate in a maxed out squadron with a standard cruiser. It has to take the Difficult Target MAR, which means its a more expensive squadron by some points, but adds quite a bit in terms of offensive power (plus some torpedoes and a few mines of course). It does yield an extra Battle Log when destroyed, however, so again you get extra utility at extra cost and risk - is it worth it? Well, every commander can choose if it is or not!

Upgrades: Here this card sets a trick that several of the commanders do, and that is to allow some utility at the cost of extra TAC slots. In this case you are able to reduce the retrieval cost of the +2 initiative TAC to 0...BUT that costs you 2 TAC slots....and given that the commander himself takes one it means you have to buy the Intel gathered card with battle log, and you are limited to only one other TAC (which you will also have to buy). Now, its a powerful ability, but thats a lot of tactical flexibility you're giving up for the chance to win initiative every turn...

So this is the general pattern of all the commanders - they can give you some powerful buffs in certain situations, but there is always a downside or a tactical impact to consider. Overall Ssirrin is a solid commander- he allows Aquand's to get the edge in activation dominance with his Upgrade, though that then restricts the fleets general TAC breadth pretty dramatically. Increasing the power of Tier 3 frigate squadrons is nice, but it makes fleets more expensive, and the Aquans have a lot of really solid choices already, so again this will be very dependent on individual player's styles - which is exactly as it should be, of course!

 Fleet Marshall, Gamma - Savar G. Bilitas

Expertise: This can add 2" to a ships move if they don't turn, which is useful for getting Planetfall ships down early or gaining some range from an enemy towards the end of the game. Not that useful in general for the Dindrenzi who typically want to maintain distance as long as possible, but it may have situational application

Alliances: Savar doesn't like the RSN (they are restricted and cost more in his fleet builds), which means his fleets get to take lots of other allies if they want, making him open up a host of fleet-building possibilities. The downside to this is that you lose access to the most powerful TAC available to the Dindrenzi, the Eye of Rense - not a problem anyway if you were going down the Alliance route, but it does hurt you in pure builds. Overall this means Alliances are the favoured choice here, meaning you can mitigate some of the Dindrenzis typical weak points with other races fleet ships, which is pretty nice - especially if you want a change from typical Dindrenzi/RSN builds

Fleet Build: Savar allows you to take the Legion at 800 points, and as we've already covered, the Legion is a brutal ship. You can also field multiple Assault Carriers at higher points, which with his Alliance abilities makes for some very interesting possibilities...Legion and Ootheca anyone? Unfortunately you get reduced access to Battleships, which are some of the Dindrenzi's strongest vessels, and this feels like a fair trade.

Upgrades: Savar's only upgrade is a pretty nice one - you get to use TACs when your Fleet Admiral is off the board. This has use both at lower point builds where you're putting your Admiral on a carrier or battlecruisers, for instance (useful as you can't take a Battleship) - meaning you can shunt them in and not worry about being able to play TACs when you need them. Another use is late game when your Admiral's ship has taken damage and you want to shunt them out - you still get access to your TACs afterwards. The Yang to this Ying is that you have to pay Battle Log points to play them when your admiral isn't on the board, and you don't get to retrieve them unless he's present - again, a pretty evenly balanced ability.

I really like "The Silent Savage", he looks like a thug but he's a quiet and clever tactician who plays it straight...very Dindrenzi! He's some nice tricks, which although apprently straightforward give him a great deal of flexibility...the devil, as they say, is in the detail.

Acquisition Director Olga Anasenko

With one of my favourite pieces of artwork for the commanders, next up is the cyber-granny from the Directorate!

Expertise: Directorate fleets already get a lot of tricks, and Olga's expertise is very situational, but basically makes it harder for Ambush fleets to surprise her fleets. Revealing Hidden set-up markers within 12"is a 50% boost to normal range, and means if a squadron is revealed involutarily, it is then going to get hammered by RB2 weapons - Directorate ships having turrets makes this almost certain. This means that players who know you are going to be using Olga are going to be more reluctant to use Ambush - meaning you're having an influence on fleet building even before the game starts, and making her very useful against Sorylian/Veydreth fleet builds.

Alliances: This is where I feel most people will see the utility in taking Olga for a spin - the ability to take the arch-rivals OSO & Works Raptor together in a fleet. They cost more if you want them to work together, but you can do it. Together these two have some really nasty combos.

Fleet Build: More Assault Cruisers! What's not to like? Well, loss of R&D ships, which some will not care about and others will hate. The Directorate is (as I mentioned before) a real "jack of all trades" fleet, with lots of tools available...restricting these will be unpopular with those who see utility in those tools. Facing Terrans, for instance, it's nice to have Turmoils which ignore their multiple layered shields...unfortunately Olga doesn't allow that option.

Upgrades: Here we have the first of the commanders with multiple Upgrades. First, she can reduce the effectiveness of deployed mines - useful against Aquan mine-heavy fleets and in Invasion mission 9 - Reinforcement. It costs Battle log to do this, but again its psychological effect on pre-game fleet building is valuable in itself. Secondly, Integration assault carriers can be configured as cyberwarfare vessels - giving you access to cyberware capacity that you no longer have in your R&D Cruisers. Not for everyone, but that's why it's an optional upgrade.

Amirah Vvivirrin Ith’ik’iss K’ssirr

The Relthoza are the next race to feature, with Vvivirrin K'ssirr.

Expertise: K'ssirr's expertise provides a cut-price corrosive element to Relthozan fleets, which will be welcomed by many...but of course this also limits choice, so it's something of a double edged sword.

Alliances: Like the Aquan commander, K'ssirr provides no special abilities here.

Fleet Build: Once more, as we see highlighted with several of the commanders, Planetfall ships are favoured in fleet building. Although the ability to field extra Planetfall ships might seem to make her an auto-take for invasion fleets, as these come at expense of your tier slots AND they lose Systems Network. So you might hesitate and have to think long and hard about exactly how you build your fleet before taking the plunge.

Upgrades: Once again we see two upgrades here - firstly Drone or Widow class frigates can choose Biohazard ammo, which most players will be very pleased with...even more so since as she forces Corrosive choices on other ships, they will be one of the main sources of getting Biohazard into your list.

Her second upgrade lowers the buyback cost of Repair Drones, which is very useful as the Relthoza have more wings available than any other fleet bar the Aquans, who they are on about equal footing on. This is tempered by both the reduction of available TACs, and also the fleet builds she favours, which tend to be lighter on wings than others.

Under-Tertiary Ganash Kragg

Ganash is probably my favourite piece of artwork from the commanders, just edging ahead of Olga.

Expertise: Ganash's attention to detail and planning make for a very interesting expertise, which shouldn't be underestimated - battles can swing on ships appearing exactly when you need them, and paying a single battlelog to ensure that squadron's arrival when you need it is pure gold.

Alliances: This is where Kragg shows some similarities to the Directorate....he doesn't like fish! Kragg is generally a friendly chap who can boost non-natural allies to 30% of your MFV, so long as they're not Aquan....he just doesn't DO Aquan (we hear you there, Kragg old buddy!)

Fleet Build: Now this is where things get really interesting - Kragg can enable you to take a full squadron of Battlecruisers at Patrol fleet level, or an extra squadron at other levels. Now, you lose a Battleship allocation, but as most Sorylian players consider the Falx a relatively weak battleship, that's not too much pain to bear. now, before you get too excited, at least one of those squadrons has to have had access to the Planetfall MAR - or in other words, currently they have to be Amentums. I don't think that's going to upset too many people, however, as that actually works in the Sorylians favour in invasion missions, and the Amentum is not at all a bad ship outside of them

Upgrades: The final cookie the Sorylians have in their already quite full basket is the ability to recycle the Thermal Controls TAC for free...it severely restricts other TAC access, but if your considering an assault build, this makes it better

Rear Admiral Tobias Armstrong

The Terrans round out the commanders in the System Wars supplement with Tobias Armstrong.

Expertise: This slot actually gives a big boost to Terran invasion fleets, since it allows them to fulfil a Tier slot requirement...something they can't normally do. That means in all probability that the Tier 2 requirement will have some assault cruisers in, allowing you to bulk up the Tier 1s and 3s....

Alliances: So Armstrong is a lizard lover - he allows his fleet commanders to field half of their MFV in Sorylian models, though they do lose access to the Terran TACs. You pay for this with access to Hawker, which is treated like any other ally with a 25% allocation, though you still get Terran TACs as normal.

Fleet Build: Did I mention you'd be taking Assault Cruisers? Why not Destroyers? Here's why...Tobias' fleets can take one less Destroyer squadron and one extra Assault cruiser squadron. As they're hard as nails, I don't think we'll hear too many complaints.

Upgrades: A slightly different TAC modification here, allowing you to extend the use of Cyclic Shielding to another squadron just like Drives to Maximum. It's slightly expensive in TAC restriction and its situational, but negating coherence effects can be crippling against some opponents.

For his second upgrade, did I talk about Assault Cruisers before? Well, now they can get Special Forces for an extra 15 points per squadron. Being an upgrade makes it optional if you don't have the points or want to spend them elsewhere, but it's a great option.

Altogether, you can build a fleet under Tobias which is very true to his fluff, aggressive and brutal, which I think is great.

Overall the Commanders open up another set of decisions to be made by the player, and a level of unpredictability in your opponent. They have simple mechanics and its great to see the background expanding with their introduction too.

System Wars Review Part 3 - Scenarios

The next part of the System Wars overview are the Scenarios - we get four, bringing the "official" set of scenarios for Firestorm Armada to 10. These are more prescriptive than the six core rulebook scenarios, essentially because they're both coming into a mature game with more options and more fleshed out than at release, and also because they're achieving very specific aims. The original development scenario for invasions was much more open, and it quickly became apparent that this was very open to abuse.

As a project, developing and introducing invasion fleets, model stats and scenarios all at once was the most challenging project I've worked on to date, primarily because there were no boundaries - where everything is fluid, it becomes very difficult to build on anything - how should the ships score? How can they work in the scenario? Should the scenario change because of the ships or vice-versa? How do the ships we haven't yet designed interact with existing ships in the scenario we also haven't designed using a scoring system that we also haven't defined? The simple problem is - too many variables!

Designing ships for Firestorm is actually relatively easy - you already have a lot of stakes in the ground for reference, it's just a matter of creating something appropriate and flavourful that doesn't invalidate existing designs...ok it's not THAT easy, but comparatively it's OK. What actually happened for System Wars was we started with ships, put together a basic scenario and then started shaping both together. The ships firmed up more quickly than the scenario, which evolved over the course of a year, changes then reflecting back on the ship designs.

Scenario 8

The initial Scenario designed was Scenario 8, Planetary Invasion, and I'll cover this one first since it is the original one and many of the design elements were forged here. now, as a scenario it had to fulfil various requirements;

1) Be fun to play

2) Give the "feel" of an invasion, so the roles of a Defender and an Attacker

3) Be balanced and scaleable

4) Fit into existing canon and work with all existing models

Now this is actually an SOB to achieve!

During development, it quickly became apparent that Terrain was very important, and actually needed controlling much more precisely than laid out in the Core rules - this was also partially because the original Terrain rules were never designed to handle tournament play, and Firestorms massive increase in popularity have made it much more of a tournament game now - so it's not really a System Wars phenomena, more of a state of the game one. 

Secondly, there were lots of ways to "game" an invasion scenario - shunt deployment and gravity weapons being two obvious ones, Battle Shunts, the Ambush MAR and the "FSD Calculators Networked" TAC being less obvious ones that cropped up. This is why it's very important to work with a group of playtesters who can try to break things as much as possible.

Third, there were creative design elements that needed to be included - like the ability for normal ships to assault the planet. This is a tough one, and we started with the planet having a large PD & AP value to represent its defences, with the margin of success affecting the Battle Log, but that made things VERY swingy, and favoured assault-heavy fleets (sorry Aquans!). Having the defence scaled (but capped) to the attack means assault is viable for any squadron, and represents smalls mounting stealthy entries that attract smaller defences, whereas dedicated assault squadrons have a greater chance of success. The +1 BL for a successful assault makes it a small reward, but these are boarding troops, not dedicated ground troops, so their value in the overall offensive is not high....still, success from a large number of squadrons can give you a few valuable BL which might just swing things your way...you pay's your money....

This is actually very indicative of the entire way the invasion scenarios work - they are balanced on tough choices - do you try to clear paths for invasion ships or just go for it and then take on the defending fleet while they draw fire? Do you assault the planet or try to take enemy ships? As the Defender do you focus on combat ships or invasion ships that can net Planetfall points? 

Ok, so back to the scenario - you have a very well defined description of terrain, and also how ships are deployed, all to catch the loopholes discovered in playtesting. You've also some special rules around Battle Stations and Defence Platforms - if you're defending a planet, there should be some reason and advantage to having these squadrons (because without the Orbit MAR, gravity weapons could just push them back into the planet). 

Next you have Scenario rules, which define what you can use to build your fleets, and what extras you get - this is scaled so Attackers get 100 points of Planetfall ships per 400 MFV, but can't take Defence Platforms or Battle Stations, whereas the Defender gets less extra points but has more freedom - with the exception that you MUST take as many Squadrons of defence platforms as possible.

Now I know stipulating what people can/can't take is somewhat controversial, but in this case I feel it's entirely justified, has little effect on the freedom of fleet building and is very thematic - if you're the defender of aggression, you seldom get to pick where to fight! One thing I am not keen on doing is dictating what models people HAVE to buy, so all Invasion ship boxes carry kiss-cut scenario terrain of a couple of planets and four generic Defence Platforms, so if you don't want to buy them, you don't have to - I don't think Spartan can be much fairer than that!

So, the scenario has a lot more rules and stipulations than the 6 in the core rulebook, and that is intentional - both to prevent ambiguity (several of the core rulebook scenarios have lengthy discussion threads on the community and probably need a bit of FAQ around them) and also to set tone and balance. Once you get into the actual gameplay, this all goes away, and you become very focussed on the game and your objective - I've personally found invading or defending a planet some of the best games I've had in Firestorm.

Scenario 7

So now let's go back to Scenario 7: Interception - which takes us to a pre-emptive strike by the planetary defenders to destroy the invading fleet in space shortly after fold-space arrival, before they reach the planet. This is a slightly less prescriptive scenario than Planetary invasion, and it seems deceptively simple - all the invading force have to do is get to the table edge...through the opposing force sent to attack them.

Now, 24-48" doesn't seem much on paper to get ships home and dry, but believe me when I say its far from as easy as that. I presided over a relatively large (1500 point) game using this scenario, and the invading ships were actually sent packing by a narrow margin in that instance.

Scenario 9

This is a very similar setup to Scenario 8, but without the Defence Platform requirements, so if you really hate them or refuse to play them, this is a good alternative that plays out very similarly, so I won't go through this in great detail. Instead, I'll talk a small amount about the links between the scenarios.

So each scenario is designed so you can play a game of Firestorm, then a game of Planetfall (with the exception of Scenario 10, which is the other way around). However, one consideration with this release was "What if someone doesn't want to play Planetfall?". Maybe they're a space-nit, don't like ground games, haven't got into Planetfall etc - whatever the reason, we wanted the scenarios to have a small cookie to them if played in series - much like the Battle for Valhalla or Return of the Overseers books.

So, the "Optional rules" on each of the three last scenarios allows you to link in with your last Firestorm game, in a similar way to the Planetfall rewards - providing small boosts that are nice, but by no means auto-win; for example you MUST place an additional squadron in reserve as the Defender in Scenario 8 if the Defender won Scenario 7 (the booklet actually has these reversed - always check the PDF for any updates or errata!).

Scenario 10

The final scenario in the System Wars supplement is Withdrawal, and it covers either the expulsion of defending forces from a planet or the repulsion of an attacking force, and it is a little like planetary invasion in reverse. There are some different rules which govern how ships are deployed and leave the planet, and targeting them whilst they are doing so. Ships this time have to reach a long table edge or perform a shunt escape after getting 18" away from the planet.

This is the only scenario where a prior Planetfall game has an effect on the Firestorm game - in this case, the percentage difference in the Zero hour trackers is taken into account, and an example of how this is worked out is given if you're unsure. It is not (as some assumed) the actual difference in Zero Hour tracker, as this would assume huge games! These are also cumulative, so if you won big in Planetfall you get several effects in the Firestorm game.

Conclusion

So overall the Invasion scenarios are very specific - they are designed for a certain purpose, and I believe they do that pretty well. Having had an extended play-test period on them, they have been probed for weaknesses and "gaming", and been adjusted accordingly. Personally I think they work very well, and I've enjoyed all the games I've played of both Firestorm using these scenarios, and the Subsequent Planetfall games we played leading from them. I've won Planetfall games after having my ass handed to me in the Invasion scenarios too, so winning one does not make for an auto-win in the other.

Will the scenarios be to everyone's taste? Possibly not, but I'd encourage people to try them, they are a lot of fun, and I feel they bring a very cinematic experience to the game - you really get the feel of urgency on both sides as you strive to land your ground forces, and the defender pushes to prevent that. We've had some epic moments where the game has hinged on the failure or success of a single ship, and with swings positive and negative around the zero point of the Battle Log - just as it should be! 

System Wars Review Part 2 - Planetfall Rewards Table

The second part of the review of the new System Wars Supplement for Firestorm Armada covers the Planetfall rewards table. This is split into three sections covering two pages of the booklet. The first page covers General and Scenario Rewards, the second page Factional Rewards.

The basic premise here is that whatever your Battle Log scores in Firestorm, you "spend" these BL points to gain additional effects (or penalties if you've a negative score) in the Planetfall game. Why your Battle Log?

Well, initially the thought was to use a separate tracker for Planetfall points, but two things came out of this - it was possible to get utterly trashed in Firestorm but still manage to put positive Planetfall points down, and it also was rather cumbersome tracking two separate numbers simultaneously. As we're already tracking BL during a game, it made sense to link into this since it also reflects how the wider game played out. 

From a background perspective, if you land a lot of stuff on a planet, but lose the space conflict, those forces are going to be isolated and vulnerable. On the flip side, if you tear up the enemy defences, your forces - even if small - are going to be easily reinforced, resupplied and supported from orbit. So using the Battle Log seemed an elegant and familiar tool to use here - the trick then was to get the balance of Planetfall MAR points right! The additional benefit to this method is that even if you don't care about invasion ships or missions, but want to link the games, you can. Play your favourite Firestorm Armada scenario, then link it to a Planetfall battle - no extra purchases, ships or investment needed - so it's a very inclusive mechanic.

So let's take a look at the first table;

So the format of the table has confused some, since it is consolidated and covered by the phrase "Where a negative score is shown in parenthesis, this is the cost to wither reverse the effect and grant the bonus to the opposing player, or apply a negative effect to the owner's forces". Of course, the lengthy way to write this table out would have been to list the negative modifiers separately from the positives, like so;

Disrupted Supply Lines:      Increase the cost of Logistics points by +10 Points:    -2

Secured Supply Lines:         Decrease the cost ofLogistics points by -10:               +2

Maybe that is for a future amendment/errata, but as it is when you understand the concept of the table (negative points do the negative things in brackets), it's not so hard. The intent here is to give small but manageable boosts or reductions to a force that reward or penalise a player for winning or losing a prior Firestorm Armada game, without making any of the effects auto-win/auto-lose. The effects have to be worthwhile, otherwise what's the point in playing the Firestorm game, and they have to be subdued, because otherwise why play the Planetfall game?

From my personal playtest experience of using these, I've found they have an effect on the game, without making the conclusion foregone, and winning a Planetfall game when you lost the Firestorm game is great kudos, and feels very thematic - yes the horrible aliens breached your defences, but they were fought back by the brave men and women of the 401st....

That segways nicely into the Scenario Rewards - at the moment there are no "official" scenarios for Planetfall (but watch this space!), but making this table have very generic "Attacker" and "Defender" slots means you can use it right off the bat - I attack an Aquan planet in Firestorm using my Pacification Fleet, get some troops down and then play a Planetfall game - I'm the attacker by default, simple.

Now, you do need to win big to make good use of this table, since the rewards start at +12 points, so you're not getting these if you're only playing Patrol Fleet games. Background wise, Patrol fleets aren't big enough nor attacking important enough targets to get to these.

Finally, we have the Factional Rewards. These are designed to give some racial flavour to the table, and make it less generic. Now there have been some mis-conclusions drawn from this table (for instance, you can't put Carbantium Plating on an Hyperion Leviathan - the effect specifically states an Armoured Squadron, and Leviathans are Elevated), and there are also some errors/omissions that need addressing (Perfect Cloak should also have this "A single Armoured squadron" wording), but overall the intent of the effects are as before - to add small but manageable buffs to existing gameplay.

Of course, the way this is handled makes it a very easy format to release campaign and even scenario specific modifiers or replacements for these tables in future - and as Planetfall is an evolving game that is exactly how it should be - there are no aerial helix bonuses, for instance, as there were no aerial helixes released at the time. So, just like Planetfall is a living ruleset, so the Planetfall rewards tables are meant to be a starting point, rather than a finished entity. They allow linking of ANY Firestorm game with ANY Planetfall game, and hopefully tie the two together in a loose and flexible way, rather than a restrictive manner - this is certainly what the design intent is.

System Wars Review Part 1 - Terran Ships

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

System Wars Review Part 1 - Sorylian Ships

Back to the Alliance of Kurak now, and the Sorylians. The lizards differ from the other fleets in using Battelcruisers as their primary invasion ships, which ties in with their expertise in making excellent cruiser-sized and down ships, but not being quite so hot on the Large side of things. Splitting their forces into fast Battlecruisers seems like a logical and pragmatic step for them, so they lead their assaults with the Amentum.

The Amentum is very comparable to the Hasta, it has one less HP, an extra AP and PD, but otherwise it's the same. In second-line stats it has no WC like the Hasta does, but it packs an extra Shield - the highest baseline shield stat of ANY Sorylian ship - they're serious about protection on the Amentum! It's weapon is a standard Sorylian Fore-fixed scatter gun similar to the power of a heavy cruiser, but more of a gunship type profile. It also has the Reinforced (Port/Starboard) MAR, which is very Sorylian and helps longevity.

So far, the Amentum is looking OK, but then you see the big sell of this unit - the price. The Amentum starts at 85 points. Then you look at the Hardpoints and Upgrades, and things get nice very quickly! First, it gets to choose up to TWO Hardpoints, and it has a lot of options - it can get faster, turn better, get that 6th HP, more Planetfall or more AP - that's a lot of variation, making it a very flexible ship. The non-Planetfall version exchanges the MAR for a decent set of Fore Torpedoes.

As for Upgrades, this again makes the ship builds even more interesting - you can change those scatter weapons for Kinetics, which changes their threat profile a lot. You can also buy them Weapon Shielding, and add Bigger Batteries - a nice thing when they start with a base 6PD.

You also get accompaniment options for both Planetfall and non-Planetfall builds at lower points. Firstly, you can take a Katar, which both boosts the potential planetfall value, increases the offensive and defensive power of the squadron and thus makes it harder for the enemy to kill the squadron and swing Battlelog. The Falcata does a similar thing for a non-Planetfall build, especially with some weaving to join its broadsides and torpedoes with the Amentum. A non-Planetfall Katar also makes quite a boarding threat for either form too (remember non-Planetfall accompaniments don't come out of your extra Planetfall ship points...).

Anyway, I don't see Sorylian players complaining about the Amentum, it's a solid ship in many ways and for Heavy-Cruiser cost, it feels like a bargain. For a non-Planetfall force you could even take a base Amentum and reserve it for Shunt-deployment, and maximise your Tier2 and 3 build options. I get the feeling, however, that we'll be seeing quite a lot of the Amentum in fleets going forward!

The Katar is a pretty straightforward vessel - it's a Heavy Cruiser without the HP, CP and weapons. It has the same fixed fore as a Falcata, giving a squadron decent RB2 AD. Hardpoints are simple - make it a bit tougher, a bit faster, or a dedicated assault ship for non-Planetfall. With 5AP stock, it can provide an impressive 15AP assault, which with Thermal controls will hurt a lot - It feels very Sorylian!

The Corvus is another incredibly tough small, with cruiser-like stats and a shield. As it's Sorylian, it has a high movement and large squadron size, which makes it good for a swarm approach to invasion missions. As a non-Planetfall build it gains PD Barrage. Not particularly useful by itself, but with an extra PD, it becomes both an excellent SRS sweeper (something the Sorylians don't really have), but also an additional anti-small potential