Aquan Prime, I choose you!

For the last week or so, I've been doing some crazy research into Firestorm Armada.  I really enjoyed my first game with the starter sets and I can't wait to play more!  The most exciting thing about this fleet-based game is that it's different.  By different, I mean a different game system and balance design philosophy than GW.  Spartan Games actually shows off its timeline of what's to come and lets the community playtest their rules before finalizing them.  Even then the rules can change should the model become too imba because all the unit stats are online in .pdf files.  I have never played any fleet games before and this looks like the best game system I can get into right now.  Time, money and support is what I care about these days.

So what army did I eventually decide on?  I chose Aquan Prime out of the 6 factions currently available.  They have some of the fastest ships in the game (fastest Battleship), good defensive measures (high PD and DR) and they're one of the hardest factions to play.  Now maybe it's the elitist side in me thinking that I can handle the most tactically challenging factions, but I absolutely love a good challenge.  What makes Aquan Prime hard to play is their subpar ship damage.  Their main batteries are weak across the board except for the BB.  With 8" speed and 11/14 broadside lasers at RB1/2, the BB can put out a respectable amount of damage.  To nullify the weakness of the onboard weapons, the Aquans have retro-fitted all their ships with guns that can shoot in all directions.  Unlike the ships from other factions where they have torpedoes or guns on a fixed or specific arc, Aquan ships can deliver their payload (including torps) from all directions.  This, in combination with their ability to drop mines on the enemy, opens up another layer of stratagems.

In terms of tactics, the Aquan Fleet likes to engage fast and and deliver simultaneous damage from all directions. They do best when they stay together and fly straight up the middle of the enemy fleet.  If you have a BB and Cruisers swimming together into an enemy fleet, they can deliver powerful broadside and fore damage from all angles.  With torpedoes coming out of every direction as well, Aquan ships do the most damage up close and surrounded.  That's when they acquire the most targets to shoot at.  I think in terms of 40K, their playstyle is closest to Seer Council Eldar.  They like to get up close and personal with their opponents, but they have to use their tricks and maneuverability to survive prolonged engagement.

Addition to weapons on all arcs, most of the heavier Aquan ships come equipped with mines.  These are normally MN4 or 5 rating with the heavy cruisers and the battleships having MN5.  This means that when I fly over a batch of enemy Frigates or even Cruisers, each ship that flies over can drop a mine from their aft port up to 4" away.  If any enemy is within 4" of that mine on their next activation, they're taking 5 dice worth of damage.  Imagine the possibilities when 3 MN5 ships fly over and drop mines.  Awesome.

Finally, the last reason I went with Aquan Prime is because of their models.  I'm not a Star Trek fan, but I really like the look of the Enterprise and the AP BB reminds me a lot like it.  My friend tells me it looks more like the Mon Calamari cruisers from Star Wars, but who cares.. it's all good!  The rest of the ships are decent looking, but the capital ships (the BB, Manta and Triton) look fantastic.

The "I hate Apoc" rant

Every time I've played Apoc, I've hated it.  There's nothing more mindless and chaotic than putting every single model you own on the table with a bunch of other guys.

To spare you guys of a full-on nerd rage, let me sum it up with bullet points:

• I don't have unlimited resources aka money to buy a billion tanks.
• The same can apply to time and energy to assemble a billion tanks.
• Both of these applies to buying, building, painting and putting a Titan on the field.
• There's nothing I hate more than moving a billion models.  That's why I have things in transports and use a good amount of tanks.  Now I don't know about you guys, but I don't have a tank for every 10-Marines I own.  I would need something like 50 tanks.
• There's nothing more depressing than watching a 10-year old kid paint up his minis, put them on the table, and telling him to take them off because some a-hole on your team dropped a apoc-barrage on his mans.
• I hate those strategems that they use.  What did it for me is the lack of actual control you have over the game when entire armies start outflanking from your side of the table.
• Speaking of structure, there's no such thing.  I've seen 6 Grand Masters walk through 6 Hierodules because that's how we roll.
• Did I mention Apoc barrage and explosions?  I was walking along side a friendly Baneblade before with my Marines and I went to the bathroom because the turn was taking forever.  I came back to a giant ass crater and all my models relocated to the empty table next to me.  Apparently, the Baneblade went critical and bad things happened.
• The time it takes to play a TURN.  You might make it to 3 turns after a whole day.

What about you guys?  The biggest apoc game in history is coming up and that should be a lolstorm to hear about.

BR: 500pt Terrans vs. Sorylians

I played a test game of Firestorm Armada today and I'm very satisfied with the game.  I'm going to keep this in note format so people can follow along a lot easier.  I played Sorylians and Dimitri played the Terrans.  We played with no wings and no game cards since this is our first learning game.

First, the army lists.  The starter boxes can produce the following lists:

Terran
"Razorthorn" Battleship
3x "Sentinel" Cruisers
3x "Pilgrim" Frigates
3x "Pilgrim" Frigates

Sorylian
"Swordbreaker" Battleship
3x "Skyhammer" Cruisers
3x "Scythe" Frigates
3x "Scythe" Frigates

As you can see, the two armies are very similar to eachother with 1 mainstay ship, 2 squads of smaller ships and 1 squad of medium ships.  Here comes the quick BR:

• The Terrans go first and push their stuff up.  Nothing really happens the first turn.  I keep the Sorylian Battlegroup relatively close so their PD can fend off enemy torpedo fire.
• His second turn sees some torpedoes being shot my way but my PD fend them off easily.  He moved a group of Frigates a little close to me and my Cruisers punished them hard with their broadsides firing.  My leftover Frigates finished the last Frigate in his squad.
• His Cruisers opened fire on my Cruisers but he was at RB3 and didn't manage to do anything.  He moves his BB closer to my forces and my BB does the same.  BB stands for Battleship btw.
• Now this turn gets really interesting.  I open fire on his Cruisers with my Cruisers and with linked fire, I score a critical and damage the movement on one of his Cruisers.  His return fire doesn't do as much as he'd like and I take 2 hull point damage on my first Cruiser.  I move my BB up to RB2 Broadsides and I beat on another Cruiser hard enough to disable his starport Broadsides.
• His BB moves up and his Frigates shoots a bunch of stuff at my Cruisers but nothing really happens.  I feel confident that I was in the lead so far.
• He takes the initiative next turn (and for the rest of the game) and his Cruisers open fire on mine.  The first one takes a heavy beating and is knocked out completely.  My return fire on the undamaged Cruiser sees 3 6s being rolled and 2 hits, along with 6 more consecutive 6s.  We couldn't believe our eyes.. but after 20 or some hits from the exploding dice, the unharmed Sentinel explodes in spectacular fashion.  He fails to repair anything on the other 2 Cruisers.
• After that, his BB came up and came within exactly 16" of my BB and unloaded a devastating Broadside.  He scores a massive amount of hits and scores a critical.  I don't really save anything with my shields and now my  BB loses 2 hull points and 1 of each crew and AD.
• The Frigates on both sides move around and fails to harm anything because of overlapping fields of PD.
• On my turn, my BB returns fire of his BB and does no damage at all to it.  Not good.. even with 12 dice thrown from my broadside, I fail to breach his hull.
• Here's where things go downhill for me.  He takes the initiative again and his BB pounds mine again for another 2 hull points after a crit.  My bays are jammed but without wings or whatever, I don't really care.  His torpedoes are also shot and catches some of my frigates.  My return fire from my BB again does nothing.  I am really sad.
• His Cruisers go and crits one of my Cruisers and a raging fire breaks out on board.  My return fire puts down another Cruiser and that's it for that.
• Our remaining Frigates dance around a bit and a few losses happen here and there.
• On his next turn, his BB rips my BB a new one.  He rolls something like 6 6s and a bunch of hits and then rolls a double 1 on the table for Reactor Overload (see screenshot).  My BB disappears in a vortex of swirling energy and I do 16 dice worth of damage on his BB.  Too bad he rolls his shields like a madman and after a 4 and 2 6s, followed by another 6, I only manage to do a hull points worth of damage.
• I finish his Cruiser sometime here and my Frigates fail to board his BB because of they all got shot down by AD7.  We call it after another turn of his BB raping more of my army.

So here's what I noticed:

• The PD thing might seem complicated at first, but it went by really quick once we played 2-3 turns worth.
• Getting the first jump with a good roll on someone's BB seems game changing; especially if I can't return fire correctly (cause of shields and rolling).  Given there was some amazing rolls from Dimitri, his BB completely decimated mine.
• This gives me another idea:  Maybe my Cruisers should of focused on his BB and ignored his Cruisers?  If I linked all my fire into his BB, I might have caused enough damage for some criticals or something.
• The Terran turret is strength 12 at RB2, has 360 degree coverage and can be linked into any of his guns.  This gives him a ton of flexibility to where he wants to shoot.  I thought closing in to his BB will save my BB some damage.. yeah right.  His turrets just turned around and shot the living crap out of me for Reactor Overload.
• My Cruisers are amazing.  They move 10", has strength 8 broadsides at RB2 and has 4 CP and 4 AP.  They're considered the best Cruisers in the game and I agree.
• Terran shields are amazing.  Saving any type of hit on a 4+ and can save 2 with 6s and has a exploding dice mechanic seems very.. erm, good.  I think this makes Terrans a very forgiving race to play since enough SH saves can nerf a ton of damage (turning Criticals into a mere hull point damage).  The most disgusting thing about this is that shields can never be degraded and works on 4+.  That might be a little too good.
• After my BB fell, I knew I had no chance to kill his battleship.  I concentrated on focus firing his smaller units and getting "victory points", but after the game went 8 turns, I was told there's no limit to how long the game goes.  This means that after 10 turns or whatever, his BB would have killed everything I have.  What's the point of VPs then?  The turn a game ends is actually "optional".  I wish I knew that before.
• I enjoyed the game a lot, but next time, I think game cards and fighter wings will be encouraged.  The cards adds a whole 'nother dimension to how the game is played and fighter wings can make up for a lot of a fleet's weaknesses.
• Good game, had a blast - literally.

Grey Knights by Robin Cruddace?

Well, the cat's out of the bag guys.  Grey Knights is definitely coming in April but we have no idea who the author of the book is.  Now.. let's look at a very narrow timeline of who wrote what recently for GW:

5th Ed. books:
Space Marines - Mat Ward
IG - Robin Cruddace
Space Wolves - Phil Kelly
Tyranids - Robin Cruddace
Blood Angels - Mat Ward
Dark Eldar - Phil Kelly

Somewhere in there, Jervis Johnson wrote Battle Missions.  I think that was between IG and Space Wolves, but honestly I can't remember.

Anyways, let's look at these authors' track records.  Let's start with Phil Kelly.  This guy is amazing and has written some of the best books ever produced in terms of fluff, design, cost effectiveness and overall power.  Mat Ward, on the other hand, has forever tainted himself with 7th Ed. Chaos Daemons.. which is the book that broke 7th Ed. Fantasy all together. On the other hand, aside from butchering fluff left and right, he also wrote some of the most balanced books for 40K.  Both Space Marines and Blood Angels are balanced books.. despite some minor oddities.  This leaves us with Robin Cruddace.  He wrote the best book in 5th Ed. 40K right now, his personal and favorite army, the Imperial Guard.  He also wrote arguably the worst book to hit the shelves since Chaos Space Marines by Gav Thorpe:  Codex Tyranids.  Needless to say, he can either go hardcore powerful favoritism or rush-job terrible spider monkeys.

Going by the trend of books above, let's make some educated guesses to who is writing the Grey Knights codex.  Ward looks like he's got a thing for Space Marines so let's not count him out just yet.  One could say that writing a book so soon will produce something of a rush job.. but if you look at Cruddace's Tyranids that came right after Kelly's Space Wolves then you won't argue.  The most likely candidate looks to be Cruddace.  He hasn't done anything since Tyranids and this might be his chance to redeem himself.  God knows that book was a major disappointment to the Tyranids community and GW would have to be blind to not see that.  On the other hand, we might just see a rush job by Mat Ward.. but that's unlikely because Daemonhunters needed a rewrite for a long time, and with an entire line of minis coming out to go with the book, I doubt GW would make it a rush job.

So what do you guys think?  Are we going to see the high-low bi-polar writing style by Cruddace or are we going to see something from Ward?  I'm still pretty bitter about 7th Ed. Daemons, but I do enjoy Ward's balanced work in 5th Ed. 40K.  I can't say I like how he butchers fluff, but game balance is more important to me because I'm a gamer first.  If anything, I just hope I don't get something overpowered like IG or god-awful like the Nids.

Firestorm Armada

I'm really thinking about getting the game.  First of all, it reminds me of Battlestar Galactica.  Second, it's about epic-scale space battles where ships blow apart other ships.  Third, a starter set that plays at 500 pts is 50 bucks.  That's pretty freaking awesome.

For those that want to check out what the factions of the game are like, check out this short pdf file here.  It's a link to Spartan Games' website where they have a bunch of files up for the game.  The game itself is relatively new since it came out in November '09 and there seems to be a good amount of support for it.  I never played BFG before, but from what I hear: the game is massively imbalanced.  I'm going to be honest here:  I absolutely hate game imbalance.  Aside from terrible game design, nothing puts me off faster than a imbalanced game.  I don't care if your game is beautifully designed, if it's imbalanced to a point where I can't field a army because it face rapes everything it touches, there's no point playing it.  My friends tell me that Necrons in BFG is laughably overpowered.

Let's talk about Firestorm Armada really quick.  The game has 6 factions and each faction has like 6-7 ships.  Each ship does something different with the big Battleships being the mainstay of each force.  There's also Cruisers, Heavy Cruisers, Frigates and Escort ships for each faction.  What makes each faction different is that their ships are designed differently; from the looks to the stats of the ship themselves.  There's nothing crazy like in BFG with Holofields or Lance-type weaponry.  Instead, there's more subtle changes to the ships stats like their armor, weapon systems, crew rating or defense stats.


A quick look at the Aquan Prime Poseidon Battleship and the Dindrenzi Conqueror Battleship:

• The Aquan Prime Poseidon takes less damage from weaker attacks but has a smaller threshold for bigger attacks.  The Dindrenzi takes more damage from weaker attacks but has a larger threshold for bigger attacks.  What this threshold represents is how vulnerable a ship is to critical damage.
• The Poseidon moves faster than the Conqueror, but has less Hull Points (basically health).
• The Poseidon has more Point Defense (think AA guns) than the Conqueror but the Conqueror has more crew and offensive boarding power.  Yes, you can board other ships!
• The Poseidon has shields whereas the Conqueror does not and both ships are equipped with mines.

Now let's look at weapons really quick:

• The Conqueror uses huge railguns in its fore; which generates 16 dice worth of damage at the 8-16" mark (or RB2).  It has virtually no guns at its rear (aft).
• It also shoots 7 damage Torpedoes but only at the front and its broadside guns are at 6/9/4 at RB1/2/3.
• The Poseidon, on the other hand, has pitiful fore guns; doing a non-impressive 5/7/3 at RB1/2/3, but it's broadside guns do an impressive 11/14/7.
• Another thing to note is that the Poseidon's guns are capable of firing at all sides and its torpedoes can be launched at any arc, not just the front.

When comparing the two flagships, one can clearly see that they're designed radically different and thus, will play out differently in terms of strategy, tactics and player gameplan.  Even though there's only like 7 ships out for each faction, there's 6 factions and Spartan Games is going to put out 40 new ships for 2011.  That type of support is always good news.

As if this wasn't cool enough, you can play special cards during your game turns to do some crazy stuff.  There's a 52-card game deck that you draw cards from depending on how many squadrons you have (I think) and each card has special abilities that can be activated.  These cards can do things like make your ship's fire more accurate, do more damage, move faster and repair.  There's more exotic options out there as well such as summoning special operatives that can assist in your ability to board a enemy ship.  Sure, the cards are drawn randomly (or you and your friends can pick), but they add a layer of strategy that's often found in board games but in a table-top miniatures game.  That in itself is very cool.

There's some other stuff out there such as interceptors that comes from your Carriers, mines and rolls on the catastrophic explosion chart, but I'm going to hold off on that.  I'm still doing my research and so far, I'm liking what I see.  The game rules sound pretty sophisticated when you want to do combined shooting and linked shots, but all this is part of more advanced tactics.  Such things are hard to find in miniatures games these days since everyone's shooting for the easy-to-learn approach.  I like it when a game has a noticeable learning curve and a high ceiling to improve.

If you guys have any experience, feedback or comments about this game, let me know!

WM: Retribution Tricks

Rahn
Playstyle: Movement manipulation via magic spells.
Feat: Magic spells gain +2 RNG and boosted attack and damage rolls.
Gimmick: Move your opponent's army around into favorable positions for you.
Units: Phoenix, Discordia, Battle Mages, Magisters

Rahn is all about the Feat turn.  When he pops Arcane Alignment, every magic user in his army gets +2 RNG to their attacks and they're automatically boosted.  That means more accuracy, more damage and a lot of rearrangement and death for the enemy army.  This is why most of Rahn's lists are based off of arc nodes, tons of Battle Mages and Magisters.  Obviously, the Phoenix offers the heaviest arc platform at a fairly affordable price and is Rahn's best friend.  The newer Discordia works very well with Houseguard Halberdiers because a reforming Shield Wall under Discordia's Imprint is just insane.  On feat turn, the Battle Mages spring into action to open up charge lanes and other opportunities via push and pull.  The army is very capable of pulling an enemy caster out into the open and to his death.  Rahn's spellpool is also fantastic:  Telekensis moves things around and turns targets around for backswings, Polarity Shield keeps your Halberds safe from charges and Force Hammer is a POW12 slam that can knock things down.  If any of your arc nodes get in trouble, Force Blast pushes enemy models back and the rest of your army can charge them afterwards for a quick kill.

Kaelyssa

Playstyle:  A very solid, balanced warcaster that has plenty of tricks to throw around.
Feat:  Everything in her control range gains stealth and cannot be charged.

Gimmick:  Allowing units to shoot through walls or killing the warcaster with Backlash.

Units:  Hydra, Mage Hunter Strike Force, Sentinels, anything really

Since Kaelyssa is one of the most balanced casters for Retribution, she can run with pretty much anything.  I've seen her do well with Dawnguard units, Houseguard units or Mage Hunter units.  Kaelyssa likes running with two full units of MHSF w/ Commanders just because she can.  The best thing about her  is her ability to give Phantom Hunter to one of her models.  The Hydra is a fantastic choice to give this to because he can shoot a POW15 shot from 15" through a wall and into your warcaster's face.  Her feat denies many opponents from getting the first charge and stealth keeps the army safe from shooting.  To sum it up, her feat is mainly a defensive one but can also be used to get your units into position.  Safety from both melee and ranged threat allows units like Sentinels to move into charge range next turn and force the opposing army into retreat.  Mage Hunter Strike Force(s) also add a great deal of threat not because of their stealth, pathfinder, AD, Phantom Seeker and 'Jack Hunter abilities (lol), but because any jacks with low DEF also fear Kaelyssa's Backlash.  If you think your warcaster is safe from damage because of their obscenely high DEF and ARM, Kaelyssa will just backlash a low DEF jack and go to town with her ranged units.  There's really nothing that Kaelyssa can't do and that's what makes her awesome.

Ravyn

Playstyle: Gunfighter, Virtuoso, Swift Hunter and Quick Work.  Oh, and her Feat.
Feat: Boosted ranged attack rolls for anything in her control range.

Gimmick: Aside from plowing through enemy shield walls, she can also feat for her army.

Units: Discordia, Invictors, MHSF, Stormfall Archers

Ravyn can tear through entire shield walls by herself.  Once she casts Vortex of Destruction and charges into the fray, she can absolutely wreck havoc on tightly packed infantry.  Gunfighter allows her to shoot into combat and Virtuoso allows her to also use her melee attacks.  On top of this, she has Reach and Thresher.  Quick Work gives her a free shot after she kills a model and Swift Hunter brings her 2" into melee range of another target.  With the free boosted damage rolls from Vortex and her excellent stats, not many infantry formations can hold against her.  When she pops feat, Invictors, Stormfall Archers and Houseguard Riflemen gets scary ridiculous.  The same applies to the 10" POW14 spray from Discordia.  Free boosted ranged attack rolls scares the crap out of most high DEF, low ARM warcasters and even Caine with Blur in cover has to worry about a CRA from a full batch of Invictors with mini-feat up.  Speaking of which, Ravyn also has access to Snipe which can give Invictors (stacks with their +4 RNG mini-feat) and MHSF outrageous range.  For Stormfall Archers, you can throw out Brutal Shots from "snipe" ranges.  Veil of Mists can give your units protection as well as allowing them to charge through friendly models.  For that reason, Sentinels also make notable additions to her army as well as Fane Knight Issyen.

Garryth

Playstyle: Melee assassination using a fragile warcaster.

Feat: Everything in his control area can't cast spells, use place effects or spend focus.

Gimmick: Get in and murder the enemy warcaster.

Units: Chimera, Phoenix, MHSF, MHA.

Garryth is a really hard warcaster to use.  He's fragile, precise and needs to execute correctly and perfectly to win battles.  I would say he's probably the most difficult warcaster I've used so far (in 4 armies).  For that reason, I don't have enough feedback for him yet.  I've been experimenting with his T4 list and so far I've been pretty successful.  The entire army save for the Chimera is stealthed and AD.  With +1 to the roll to go first, I basically run everything into position to do as much damage as possible.  Here's the list:

Points: 35
Garryth, Blade of Retribution (*5pts)
* Chimera (6pts)
Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Mage Hunter Commander (2pts)
* Soulless Escort (1pts)
Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Soulless Escort (1pts)
Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Soulless Escort (1pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)
Nayl (0pts)

Alright, I'm back

Prepare for some article spam coming up.  Here's a highlight to what's to expect:
- Next Tuesday I'm playing a 2k game DE vs. BA, so expect a BR.
- I might also play some Warmachine games with Khador by that time.
- I'm putting out the Retribution and Khador faction tricks articles, in that order.

Sorry for the lack of updates.. but Australia and New Zealand was awesome!