Man Battlestations Forum
Warcradle Naval Games => Firestorm Armada => Topic started by: RuleBritannia on February 28, 2020, 04:56:23 pm
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https://blog.warcradle.com/blog/2020/warcradle-studios-diary-25
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We will be using these beta rules at our annual GenCon event this year. Hopefully it will be received better than the previous Spartan beta rules. If you're going to Indy this year, come join us at the game table!
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https://blog.warcradle.com/blog/2020/warcradle-studios-diary-25
the drawings look good!
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I like the vertical orientation of the Veydreth ships. Interested to see where they go with this.
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stylistically wayland products appear more art nouveau than cubist of spartan
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That's a really good point. I think Deco tends to look more warlike but looks less detailed so I can see why the change, even if its one I don't personally like. Thank you for finding such an apposite way to describe the difference.
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I am cautiously optimistic
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The German fleet set has three cruisers of the hipper class: each model is individually named.
Also this scouting rule is interesting: https://www.warlordgames.com/victory-at-sea-scouting-intelligence/
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That is an interesting technique...think you meant to post this in the Victory at Sea thread though... :D
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Yes I did
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Just seen this one - https://blog.warcradle.com/blog/2020/warcradle-studios-diary-28
Now, I'm very much in agreement with the sentimnest about the Covid19 thing and cannot fault them for that.
I have nothing bd to say about the ships; They look a lot like the Spartan versions of this faction and are just nice-looking and wel-designed vessels in their own rights. Well done whoever is working on these, and let's hope they see production in something very like this form..
However, and you can stop reading now if vicious negativity engendered by mental health issues aren't your thing . . . . I am angered and frustrated as to why the Warcradle designers can get this aesthetic to line up with the previosu one, whne the DW ones are at such odds with their illustrious ancestral types.
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Pity about the beta, even if we didn't have the guiding hand of Warcradle to guide us through, the Dystopian wars Beta lasted for about a year with some minimal updates so exploring how space will be played with and getting a chance to poke about under the hood would be fun.
The random fluff changes so that Warcradle can 'make things their own' continues. I really dislike their approach of its about people's inherent character rather than government and structures, and their choice of new character for the Terran Federation is depressingly generic evil company which never strikes me as particularly sustainable for an empire over hundreds of years.
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Oh, found this summary of the new look FSA beta rules - https://www.reddit.com/r/firestormarmada/comments/gitxr6/new_update_from_the_forum_space_whales_and/
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Space Whales I was really digging.
I was totally geeking out over the Relthoza design pics too... until I read this:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/firestormarmada/permalink/3282796558398202/
So the Relthoza faction as I knew it is essentially gone, assimilated by the Unity Pathogen (and not even the fun Unity like on Rick and Morty).
I wanted to play hyper-intelligent singing space spiders ... not YAB (Yet Another Borg).
Anyone want an old fleet cheap? :-(
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Seeing the new concept art and reading the few fluff snippets makes me cautiously optimistic. Some of the changes will need to getting used to (like the Aquan fluff, or that the Veydreth and Bakash are now major factions), but given that they jumped the timeline quite a bit into the future most of these changes can be explained nicely.
And I really like the look of the new designs. The Sorylian battleship looks sweet and I am looking forward to seeing more for "my" fleet ;). I also like how the new Terran models use some of the Directorate design inspirations to indicate their merging.
Maybe Warcradle can bring FSA back in a nice way, and if not, at least we might get some cool looking models that will fit into the old line of ships pretty well.
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Dakkar, you are so right. I read the first little bit about the Retholza and I was pleasantly surprised. I am very much down on Warcradle's fluff, in my opinion it tends towards the generic and grimdark given half a chance when I am really more a shades of grey and preferably lighter ones kind of guy. Artistic, singing, but still warlike expansionist spiders is just so cool. Reminds me of Thrawn, a commander who can use art to understand his enemies. The bump to earth with the bog standard then the AI took over and so they lost all art and culture was depressing. I wouldn't mind a Killik style artistic hivemind.
The ships are mixed. I do like that there are touches of the current designs and an actual attempt to make models that are more obvious evolutionary developments of current ships compared to the monstrous things that happened to a lot of the factions for Dystopian Wars that make me less than keen to pick up those ships, but Firestorm was less consistent and I was less invested in that game.
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They're dangling weird hope now in that some fleets furthest from the Unity (and with older ships) start developing independence. We'll see ...
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It was very interesting to me that the process of the development of the Retholza's hive mind is a very blatant homage to the development of machine control in Dune.
The Rense ship looks nice, a decent adaptation of Spartan's models. As always I never get when they can do that, they don't do it more. The discontinuity is the biggest problem by creating divides between the editions.
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Also waiting to see, quite like Terran Directorate, its funny as i used to play my Directorate fleet as brawlers like Terrans. Ryushi also ones was quite close to and Terquai. Hope Firestorm does well, yes.
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Must say, apart from the changes in the background fluff ( Human forces all becoming one, and under a very unsettling governance; The Relthoza and Aquan racial changes etc.) and from what we hear the rules changes in game play ( Hex-based fire arcs, for instance ), the FSA reboot seems to more resemble what Spartan coudl have done themselves to streamline the game and make it more interesting. Even the design style of most of the ships seems to maintain the original style of Spartan, with a couple of notable exceptions.
And I will therefore ask; Why was that not done with Dystopian Wars? Well, I know why and I can say it in three letters - W, W, and X.
But, personal obsessions aside, this does look promising for the re-release of FSA; For most spaceship gamers the fluff has always been optional, it's always about the ships and the gameplay foremost, so it's not going to be much of a concern about how the background works TBH.
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I'll add to my last missive the following -
The Damage rules using Systems rather than armor tracks or hull points is an interesting idea, not sure it's ever been used before.
Small craft ( Fighters, bombers, etc ) are a lot simpler here than in any other game, and it seems some Spartan influence from the fast play versions of FSA and DW Fleet Action might have crept in.
The glass-topped carrier for a fcation I can't recall but love the looks of is back! Again, why didn't DW get more style following updates, huh? The Warcradle artists are clearly capable, so what's up with that?
And even assuming a level of sick puppetry, most people seem very pleased with the Beta rules. And the feedback seems to be real here too.
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Definitely agree on the small craft rules and the damage system. I think the idea of using system damages is indeed an interesting one. It's not 100% original, but I too have never seen the way it is being used here. The carrier rules definitely trace their lineage back to the TF and FA rules; it seems that WC's design team has really latched on to the concepts behind them. And honestly, I think that is a good thing. They were easily one of the best aspects of those fast-play rules, and they sort of level out the carrier rules with the rest of the system as far as complexity goes.
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There's been a lot of quiet on the Firestorm front, probably due to the actual roll-out of DW 3.0 finally.
But has anyone actually been gaming with the Beta rules? And have they been good?
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I tried them out early on. The rules are...okay...but they didn't catch on. Using dice for system damage is interesting, but it felt a bit too fiddly. And too many exceptions where X weapon ignores Y defense statistic. I suppose that remembering the exceptions would come naturally over time, but I've found it difficult to want to invest the time in the system. I have better alternatives for tabletop miniatures, I'm afraid.
I agree that the release of DW-3 has contributed to the silence in the Firestorm arena. Not a word from WC, as far as I can see. It'll pick up again once they get around to it, but as for people playing the beta rules, I have a feeling that very few, if any, are still testing them out. (Note, I have no knowledge of it, one way or another. But the FB group has been pretty silent on the topic.)
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Things have been incredibly quiet lately for FSA.
I can't believe that DW 3.0 s taking up everyone's time there. Maybe the roaring success of "Bill and Ted's Riff in Time" has delayed things?