First Firestorm
I had my first game of Firestorm Armada at the Bunker on Wednesday, using my starter Aquan Prime fleet against a Relthoza force commanded by Chris who's new to the club. He's been a Warhammer / 40K player for years but wanted to find a place where he can try non-GW games - and the Bunker is perfect for that as there's always someone who's willing to try a new game system. Chris already has three starter fleets and, like me, wants to own the all at some point so it seemed fitting that the first game of Firestorm at the Bunker would be between the two most addicted nutters...
We decided to just concentrate on getting the game mechanics right - so we opted to ignore things like mines, boarding actions, etc and just focus on shooting things up to see how it all works. We quickly discovered that you can't just charge in on the enemy; you need to plan your ships movement so you get a chance to present the best option for a broadside at the optimal range. We soon got into it though - and found it's not a game where you can just sit on either side of a table and roll dice as you need to be on your feet moving ships round each other to get the best firing solution. We had great fun despite making a couple of mistakes - the most obvious to us was that we had been using the Point Defence against broadsides as well as torpedoes instead of Shields. No wonder it took so long to damage anything! Still, even despite our noobish fumblings, lots of people at the club saw us playing the game and wanted to see how it worked. Just with Chris and I chatting about it on the club forum has meant that a bunch of the members have bought starter fleets so they can join in. Hopefully we'll see Firestorm become a core game at the club and we'll get lots more space battles taking place over the next few months. I certainly hope so as I've already received my additional models for my Aquan and Dindrenzi fleets and I'm halfway through painting my Dindrenzi starter fleet. After those are done I'll get to work on the extra Aquans which I can't wait to start on as the Aquan Battle Carrier is a real beast of a ship and I want to use it in some games!
Although I didn't get it in time for Wednesday's battle, I have received my order from Hydra Miniatures which had my War Rocket rulebook, Galacteer and Imperial starter fleets and my Hotz Mat. I've wanted a Hotz mat for a long time but the sale at Hydra gave me the cheapest way of getting one - and it's seriously cool. I must admit, I would have preferred to have one with 2in hexes as that would have made it adaptable - but the no hex version I got can be used for both War Rocket and Firestorm Armada and it looks great. Next thing I want to do is get some planets and asteroids made so expect to see that hobby project on here at some point. Until then, I'll leave you with some pictures of my Aquan fleet on my new space mat...
We decided to just concentrate on getting the game mechanics right - so we opted to ignore things like mines, boarding actions, etc and just focus on shooting things up to see how it all works. We quickly discovered that you can't just charge in on the enemy; you need to plan your ships movement so you get a chance to present the best option for a broadside at the optimal range. We soon got into it though - and found it's not a game where you can just sit on either side of a table and roll dice as you need to be on your feet moving ships round each other to get the best firing solution. We had great fun despite making a couple of mistakes - the most obvious to us was that we had been using the Point Defence against broadsides as well as torpedoes instead of Shields. No wonder it took so long to damage anything! Still, even despite our noobish fumblings, lots of people at the club saw us playing the game and wanted to see how it worked. Just with Chris and I chatting about it on the club forum has meant that a bunch of the members have bought starter fleets so they can join in. Hopefully we'll see Firestorm become a core game at the club and we'll get lots more space battles taking place over the next few months. I certainly hope so as I've already received my additional models for my Aquan and Dindrenzi fleets and I'm halfway through painting my Dindrenzi starter fleet. After those are done I'll get to work on the extra Aquans which I can't wait to start on as the Aquan Battle Carrier is a real beast of a ship and I want to use it in some games!
Although I didn't get it in time for Wednesday's battle, I have received my order from Hydra Miniatures which had my War Rocket rulebook, Galacteer and Imperial starter fleets and my Hotz Mat. I've wanted a Hotz mat for a long time but the sale at Hydra gave me the cheapest way of getting one - and it's seriously cool. I must admit, I would have preferred to have one with 2in hexes as that would have made it adaptable - but the no hex version I got can be used for both War Rocket and Firestorm Armada and it looks great. Next thing I want to do is get some planets and asteroids made so expect to see that hobby project on here at some point. Until then, I'll leave you with some pictures of my Aquan fleet on my new space mat...
