A Lesson in Soildering

I recently played a game of Planetfall during one of the local clubs wargaming nights, Planetfall is ground based wargame of Firestorm Armada (and it looks like Spartan Games will be making a rules system to link the two games together). I wanted to do a write up of this battle but this issue is that i don't fully grasp the ruleset yet to be able to do a standard issue battle report on the game, however i do know enough about the lore of the Firestorm universe to do a narrative report on the battle, so thats what i have chosen to do. In addition this post will be the first in series aimed at explaining the basics of the Firestorm universe, whose lore is well written and interesting, much more so than 40k's lore in my view. So sit back and enjoy.

Colonel Valentin Zeigler sat back in seat and focused on the tactical readout displayed before him as the Works Raptor LR-6 Recon tank he was riding in moved into position. The readout displayed the real time locations of the units in the Directorate Armoured Recon force he was attached to, all the better for him to learn the tactics of Directorate. As the final units moved into position Zeigler, himself a Colonel in the Dindrenzi Federation and the freshly promoted CO of a Dindrenzi ground regiment, watched intently taking in as much of the Directorate's tactics as he could, after all he was here to learn from people that were considered to be well versed in ground warfare.

The contested military complex

Mordheim City of the Dammed Early Access: First Look

This morning i purchased the early access version of Mordheim City of the Dammed from Steam, this is a game i have been looking forward too for some time. Since a lot of the readers of this blog will have both played the GW version of Mordheim (and most likely have loved it) and play video games i decided to write up a "First Impressions" post of the game. Note that this isn't a review as the game is only in early access but from what i have seen so fare this game has a good chance at being a worthy computer adaption of the game. I will look at 3 aspects of the game for his post, the Mechanics, the Graphics and Performance and the Lore.

The Current Loading Screen

Mechanics

Starting with the basic turn order all members of both Warbands are assigned an initiative value that determines in which order they can act. When a member can act you move them with the WASD keys in third person camera view, on a side note i enjoy being able to control my Warband in 3rd person, it brings out the detail of the character models and helps with Immersion, you feel more like a Warband Leader than a all seeing god with a birds eye view of the battle. 

Change on The Wind

There have been some interesting developments of late regarding GW and how they release models. These past few weeks have seen a Tyranid model release separate from a codex release with the rules for the models being made available in Whiter Dwarf and for FREE!!!!!!on the Black Library site.  On top this there is the side note that last week GW released a App called Warhammer the App for Iphone, basically a GW/Black Library news app.

All the proof you need

For The Federation: Firestorm Armada Battle Report

Last evening's gaming club session heralded my third ever game of Firestorm Armada and to celebrate this i have decided to do a battle report on the game. The real reason behind doing this report is that it helps to promote the game (which i believe deserves promotion) and i know the rules well enough to be able to write a battle report for a Firestorm game.

For this battle i was playing the Dindrenzi Federation (whose ships are slow, heavily armoured and have powerful rail guns that only have a very limited arc of fire) and my opponents were playing the Directorate (similar to the Dindrenzi but with less powerful guns with better arcs of fire) and the Relthoza ( a stealth and ambush orientated faction). We decided to plan a basic Battleline type mission where the only goal would be to wipeout more enemy squadrons than the other side. The Deployment zone was 12 inches in from the board edge and while i did win the roll off for deploying first i let my opponent place the first squadron. They deployed a Battleship and a squadron of Cruisers behind a debris field on the right side of the board and deployed a Battleship and a second Cruiser Squadron as well as a Corvette Squadron on the right hand side of the board.

My Opponents right side Deployment

Lets Talk About Firestorm

By now I have played 2.5 games of Firestorm Armada, and I think I know enough about the game, its rules and the company who makes/maintains it to write a decent post about the game and various side issues surrounding it, and this is that post. Let’s start with the rules

The Rules

The rules for Firestorm are fairly simple and easy to learn. For instance generally speaking every shot fired by a model in the game will hit on a 4,5 or 6 with a roll of 6 counting as 2 hits and allowing you to roll another dice, if a 6 is rolled off that dice then it also counts as 2 hits and gives you another roll. This mechanic is referred to as the “Exploding Dice Mechanic” and means that even the smallest ship has a chance to inflict severe damage if the dice give the right results. Shield mechanic work in a very similar way to the shooting mechanics, for every point you have in a ships shield stat you can roll that many dice when being shot at, for every 4,5 or 6 rolled you can discount a successful shot from the enemy, this mechanic also uses the Exploding dice rule so a lucky player may be able to completely nullify a round of shooting from the enemy if he rolls right.

Slow Progress: Skitterleap Day 2

Its now been a whole week since day 2 of Skitterleap so i felt that it was about time i did the day two tournament report, so here it is.

Game 4: Battle for the Pass

Game 4 was against Robert Higgins and his pirate themed Ogres. His list had some issues for me, mainly the two Ironblasters but also the fact that the majority of his troops were toughness 4 multi wounds killing machines. Thankfully said killing machines had little to no armour so that was something to go on.

He got the first turn and began by trying to kill the Glade Lord and his Eagle with the Ironblasters, thankfully they only did a total of one wound to the Glade Lord throughout the entire game. Otherwise he generally advanced towards my own lines with a few bouts of combat between Dryads and ogres. Those combats were all my doing as i tried to halt the ogre advance for as long as i could to get as much ranged damage as i could in,  Pit of Shades came in handy here as it one shot quite a few ogres from the Leadbelcher and Bull units. Finally i cleaned up the Gnoblars in Roberts Deployment zone with a unit of Scouts and Waywatchers.