Firestorm Armada - from a Newbie's POV

Hi everyone, first proper post in a bit, not counting the fluff as that's been written in advance, except
that last one which was written off the back of last night's game, Just want to delve into the system itself and explain a little bit about it for all those who don't know what it is.

Firestorm Armada is a space naval combat game, essentially you fly ships around space and try to blow each other up in that arena. Getting a little deeper it's developed by a British company called Spartan games, who also came up with Dystopian wars (same basic premise but replace space with oceans and space ships with Victorian Steampunk ships with weapons ranging from normal guns to Tesla coils (someone ought to mention water and electricity don't mix)) and Uncharted seas (same as DW but in a fantasy setting, think the old GW system Man O War and you're there more or less). The system has been around now for 8 years and is entering it's 3rd edition in August this year. It's a relatively cheap system to buy into as a patrol fleet is normally in the £40 - £50 range, little more in other countries, but it's still relatively cheap as an entry point as you have all you need for a basic fleet in the box. Most games are played at around 1000 points which doesn't seem a lot, but consider the smallest ship you can buy is 15 points and the biggest is somewhere in the 300 range you can build a relatively large fleet quite easily and one of the best things is that the rules for the core races and the rulebook itself are free to download from Spartan's website, nice touch if I'm honest and makes it easier to decide if you want to dive in and who with.

Terran Alliance Battle log III

Katyana shielded her eyes as the impact of ordnance impacting into the planetoid with unfettered fury
"Damage report!! She hollered in an attempt to make herself heard over the klaxons and various warning alarms blaring at full pitch around the bridge.
"We've got shields back on line, but multiple decks are reporting atmo venting."
"Tell engineering to get those decks sealed best as they can, we can't afford another..." She was cut short as an explosion rocked the ship, flinging her in to a nearby console.

The world slowed to a crawl for a few seconds, deck hands running to put electrical fires out, officers at their stations furiously punching commands and calling various commands through their headsets or relaying information to other officers. Katyana felt a warm, slick sensation running down her forehead, reaching for it with her right hand she pulled it into her field of view to see it covered in deep red blood. She wavered, suddenly feeling a sharp pull to her left, groggily she tried to fight it until she recognised the grey and blue of the crew mans uniform. She stood aided by the crewman in time to see the front view port fill with the sight of the remaining Terran cruiser zipping towards them, unleashing several salvos as it did.

Terran Battle Log II

Stardate 23796.19.259

Location: Last known location of Terran Cuiser TN Intrepid within the Kee’vack system

2^nd Hunter Killer Unit of the 39^th Battle Fleet

Bridge of TN Vigilant

The streaking lines of stars solidified once more into solid dots amongst the sky as the ship emerged from the folds of space as experienced in faster than light travel. Commander Katyana Petrovich glanced at her tactical display lighting up a large screen in front of her, watching as several green signatures blinked into existence. A gentle sigh of relief slipped from her lips, all ships were accounted for, this was confirmed by several lights blinking as each ship in the unit sent a short range hail to her ship. All were green, a good start to an what should be an easy operation. Rising from her seat she walked to the screen and paused studying it. A strobing red light appeared ahead of them roughly at the edge of their range of fire, it pulsed quite weakly now, odd as ordinarily proximity would strengthen such a signal. The commander looked to her fore observation screen, searching for any sign of debris, of anything remotely ship like or what could’ve been a ship in the area.

“I want a full scan of the area, give me IR, Rads, I’d like to see what is out there before we stick our hand into a gaping mouth.” A sharp affirmative response came from the scanner station to her left.

“Shields charging Captain, weapons are warmed up and cycling also.” Her weapons officer chimed up. She nodded. “Send out the message for the other ships to follow suit, but hold fire until we can confirm who we are dealing with.” 

Firestorm Armada Battle log I

As promised previously here are my first few fluff entries for the Firestorm Armada campaign, hope you enjoy them :)

Terran 39th Battle fleet log 1
Stardate 479.379
Location Undisclosed Star system
39th Battle Fleet of the Terran Alliance
Bridge of the Battleship Terra’s Pride

The dark expanse spread out before him, like an endless road he had yet to traverse. He could see many stars, many systems, yet uncharted, waiting for a brave soul to reach out and claim them as their own. Each bright spark blinking whistfully in the black, holding unknown potential, in resources at the least and in the wildest of his imaginings; new colonisable worlds. Yes, this is it the destiny of our once great empire to flourish a new. The man raised his hand to reach out to one of the specks twinkling before him, slowly closing it around it blocking it’s light so easily and inspected it as if he’d plucked it from the very sea of stars himself. If only it were so easy. Around him the bridge bustled with activity, the many deck officer’s sat at their stations making their regular checks on the ship’s systems, making tiny alterations in course as they cut a way through the bleak darkness guided by the machine powered sensor arrays. He savoured the relative peace that hung in the air, though an itch lay dormant, as an Admiral of a Battle Fleet of the Terran Alliance he was a man used to action, crashing into enemy fleet formations, laying down the almighty batteries his fleet possessed and jumping to the next engagement. Pondering and meandering through the star fields waiting on something to happen did not sit well with him in any way whatsoever.

Return and revamp

Hello one and all. It's been a loooonnngggg time since I was last on here, life got in the way and I lost the details to get on here, but now I'm back and have a few new things to throw up.

First the new GW system Age of Sigmar has taken over from Warhammer Fantasy Battles as it's new fantasy game set. I've dipped my toe into it and have mixed feelings as I like it, but it feels like things are missing from it namely a slightly tighter rule set, but that's just my opinion having gone from the likes of 40k and Warmahordes to a 4 page rule set, so great for anyone starting out, or those migrating over just expect a little bump when you find you can do a lot of things you couldn't do before. With the switch I've gone from running my Middenheim Empire force to a Slaves to Darkness/Khorne Bloodbound list, the models GW are bringing out look amazing and are really nice to work with and I shall post up pictures of the army in progress below. But I want to know, what've your experiences of the system been so far? Do you love it, or have you gone back to 8th WHFB or Mantic's King of War system?