Spartan Games announce a new race for Firestorm Armada

 
 

A shiny new Battleship render for a shiny new race.

It's always an exciting time when a game system announces a new race or faction to play with. That's exactly what Spartan Games have done recently with the announcement of a new race the Oroshan. I haven't really played any of the spartan Games systems recently, but a few friends of mine are still deeply involved with Firestorm Armada in particular. I personally want to start getting more games of Dystopian Wars in because I've enjoyed the game I have played of that. I have to be truthful and say that Firestorm Armada had slipped totally off of my gaming radar, so it's perhaps timely for me that Spartan have reminded me that I actually own a lot of stuff for this game already, and perhaps I should dig it all out again.

Any way, as for the new race the Oroshan they're apparently a deadly alien race... a quick question, why are they never ineffectual and lame these alien races? Any way I digress. According to the blurb this race are a bunch of nomadic wandering ass hats. Going around strip mining planets of their resources as they go because their own corner of the galaxy was destroyed by a supernova. While that is indeed a major bummer it doesn't really give them the right does it to act like intergalactic locust? But hey I guess if they've got the ships and guns to back up their aggressive intent then might is right. Right? I'm probably babbling now, so here have a look at the pretty looking renders:

Painting Guide: Sorylian Fleet

This article first appeared as part of the HoP Idol Contest but I've since had a few people send me emails and ask me to put it up on my blog, with bigger picture files so they can take a closer look... so I hope this works or its pointless!!! By the way voting is now live in the contest and you can vote for me here. Thanks

Right I need to get this out of the way fairly rapidly before anyone gets a snide dig in and says I'm shit at painting and shouldn't be doing any painting guides... I know I'm no where near as good as many of the painting bloggers out there. I never will be so I'm not going to pretend I am. However I do have a few tricks up my sleeves and various people have asked if I'd consider doing some painting guides, but I'm doing this one for the HoP Idol contest. So against my better judgement here's my first full on painting guide, and to ease myself into this its an easy one, I'm just painting my Sorylians from Firestorm Armada. Given though that people have asked me to be specific about what I do to the mini's I'm putting a lot of detail into this painting guide and as such it's a damn hefty beast.

Get the painting area right

I think its fair to say the first thing most people get wrong from the get go is their panting area. There are a few essential items I think you must have:

• Comfy chair
• Dedicated painting table / desk
• A place to store you paints within easy reach
• Ceramic tile / mixing palette (also, or instead a wet palette)
• A pot for cleaning your brushes of paint as you go (dirty water)
• A pot for watering down and mixing your paints (clean water)
• A roll of kitchen towel
• A good lamp with a daylight bulb, or if you can afford it two.
• Two jugs, one empty to pour dirty water into and one full of clean (preferably filtered) water.

I might return to a few of my tips or things I have / do when painting like airbrush and paintbrush care etc. at a later date, but for now I'll leave it at that.

The concept

Right, you have to start somewhere and my rough concept for these guys was to simply paint them predominantly red hulls with white accents. The guns engines etc were to be painted in metallic colours, but at this early stage I wasn't sure what sort of metallics, gold, brassy or a gunmetal type colours or indeed if I would use metallic paints or try None Metallic Metal (NMM) technique. However I did not want my ships to look like they were newly out of the space ship yard... no I wanted them to have a 'lived in' look so I was going to attempting a few weathering techniques, but more on those later.

Review: Dystopian Wars Covenant of Antarctica Fleet

Right this is the fifth bloody Dystopian Wars fleet that I now own and I swear to God almighty it'll be the last one... until the next one. Thing is when I read the background to Dystopian Wars I just knew I was going to end up buying the CoA because of the fluff. I mean what's not to like? I nation of rational scientists with kick ass weaponry and an elite military force, so many boxes and so much ticking. I was sold before I'd even seen the concept art, so luckily for me the ships don't look half bad!!! I won't be discussing effectiveness in the game during this review because I feel that's best left to people on internet message boards who can decide if they're overpowered or not.

Product description

Like all the previous Dystopian Wars fleet boxes I have purchased this box came with all the counters and cards you need to get the fleet out on the Battlefield or should that be the battlesea? Oh hell who knows, as always they require a steady hand and a pair of scissors to cut out. Unlike the other box sets though this one came with a little rules booklet for the Covenant forces as they aren't in the main rulebook, there is some nice background fluff in it as well. Like the other boxes the components are mainly resin with a few metal pieces namely the two flyers and unlike the other boxed sets most all of the turrets etc are in resin rather than metal. The box contains 1 Battleship, 3 Cruisers, 9 Frigates, 10 Tiny Flyer tokens and two metal flyers plus their acrylic stands, there is also an acrylic hull outline for the battleship when its submerged.

EotBS Work in Progress shots

Right one of the reasons I started blogging was to force myself to bloody paint some miniatures. However the fates conspired against me and I've been thrust me onto the scrap heap of society as one of the great unwashed and unemployed. Now this might seem like a good thing hobby wise, insofar that I would have more time to get some painting done wouldn't it? Ironically not! No I've spent the last two months sorting various crap things out and quite frankly my search for gainful employment has kinda become a 24/7 task... its grim out there if you're looking for a job. Seriously I've suffered more rejection than a ginger Jahovah's Witnesses going door to door trying to spread the word.

However recently I have been able to slosh a bit of paint on some miniatures with my airbrushes, I've started my Sorylian Fleet for Firestorm Armada and I'm writing up a detailed painting guide for them as I go along and I'll probably do something similar for what I'm about to show you, which is my Empire of the Blazing Sun Dystopian Wars fleet. I was in two minds as to whether I should paint my Kingdom of Britannia ships first or these Japs. I went for the Japs in the end as I just love the steam train vibe of them. Rather than going for the usual green theme many EotBS fleets seem to have I decided to go for a more traditional naval grey but with white dazzle for Arctic operations.

Here are some of my frigates, I'm quite pleased with them

Review: Dystopian Wars Federated States of America fleet

 
Look away! Look away! Look away Dixie land. Yep its the Federated States of America not United States history fans, because that's where the history line in Dystopian Wars breaks with our actual history line for our transatlantic American friends. So you can indeed whistle Dixie if you chose to and it wouldn't just be a sentimental token!!!

Product Description

Well there is again a nice unique element to the aesthetics of this fleet. Its clear to anyone with eyes that they take their queues in many respects from the Mississippi paddle boats and the ironclads of the American Civil war. That's not a bad thing because again like the Empire of the Blazing Sun, this decision to go with a strong and distinct design aesthetic by and large pays off. As before you get a boat load (haha boat load, yeah OK I'll get my coat) of bits and pieces in the box. There are the obligatory 3 Cruisers, 9 Frigates and 1 Battleship all in resin along with the 2 metal bombers, 2 acrylic stands and of course those card sheets containing stat cards for the boats, tokens, counters and templates, resplendent with the Dystopian Wars artwork. Its all lovely stuff really

Review: Dystopian Wars Prussian Empire

 
Or as everyone I know calls them... the blimp faction!!! Lets get this out of the way first, those blimps are undeniably cool. Yeah sure the Yankee faction has their own sausage blimps but the Prussians fat blimps are pure design gold. They are awesome, and for me the real reason to own the Prussian fleet, that and the iron cross motif looks cool!

Product description

Now for the downside, of all the fleets I think the Prussians are the most boring looking. They look the most like modern navel battleships and because of that I find them a little uninspired. That's my personal opinion and I know there are others who really like the militaristic look of the Prussians, and I know Spartan have to cater for all tastes... but I prefer my steam punk stuff well more punky and steamy... erm... not in a saucy way you understand!!! Still there are a few nods to steam punk I suppose with the smoke stacks, although I feel they're more reminiscent of the golden age of ocean liners. As with all the starter fleets we have 1 Battleship, 3 cruisers and 9 frigates all in resin and then the two bombers in metal. You also have the same stat cards and templates etc. again its all good and you'll be good to go with everything right out the box.

Review: Dystopian Wars Empire of the Blazing Sun fleet

 
I have to say that if my funds at the time of purchasing the mega bundle had been strictly limited I'd have really struggled to have picked between the Kingdom of Britannia fleet and these guys. Lets face it these ships look really cool.

Product Description

The Empire of the Blazing Sun fleet does have a very distinctive look to it, with its sharp, sleek looking bows and the cylindrical structures on top of the hull. They look like steam engines in a way and although they do look boat like they don't look like boats shapes we'd be used to and this unique aesthetic does strangely look eastern and oriental. Like the Kingdom of Britannia fleet before it, this boxed set contains a hell of a lot of bang for your buck!!! 1 Battleship, 3 Cruisers, 9 Frigates all in that same nice resin. There are also the two metal bombers acrylic flight stands and 10 resin flight tokens and all the card tokens, counters, stat cards and templates etc. In short its a great little starter set for your floating ninjas and samurai.

Review: Dystopian Wars Kingdom of Britannia fleet

Those of you who know me well, will know that although I'm fiercely patriotic I am in no way jingoistic!!! I love my country for the great things we've done and yet despise ever so slightly the country we're becoming; but hey, we have great little companies still like Spartan Games who can still churn out great little game systems and great little miniatures to go with it... rule Britannia indeed!!! So where better to start my reviews of the Dystopian Wars fleets than the Kingdom of Britannia?

Product Description

Some people have said to me that the Britannia fleet lacks say the character of the Federated States of America or Empire of the Blazing Sun fleets, or that it doesn't have the great individual pieces of say the Prussians... I say poppycock Sir!!! I love them, you see I think the Britannia fleet actually evokes the mental images I conjured up when listening to Jules Verne stories being read to me or indeed later when I read them to myself. The Britannia fleet does this much better than the other fleets. There's also something very quintessentially British and Victorian about them, the big smoke stacks and bulky, brash and clunky design with iron girders that says made in Britain. I think they have bags of character and they don't have to rely on one individual design element to look British, unique and cohesive, they borrow heavily from the architecture of the time and that adds to their allure and familiarity. Out of the box you get 1 Battleship, 3 Cruisers, 9 Frigates, 10 flight tokens all in resin and 2 bombers in metal and a few turrets and nick knacks to go onto the ships also in metal. There are also the usual high quality card components you've come to expect off of Spartan Games, including ship profile / rules cards, counters, tokens and templates. That's right everything you need in one box to get you started. I love that about Spartan Products.

Review: Firestorm Armada Aquan Fleet

Fishmen!!! Nope that's not the start to some weird joke or an insult, it's what, unsurprisingly, the Aquans are. Although I prefer to think of them as more squid men, primarily because I quite like the idea of killing them and turning them into deep fried calamari rings... om nom nom. Again though we're in starter box territory and if you've been reading the other reviews of Firestorm Armad stuff I'm not too sure this will throw up any surprises at all.

Product description

As with the others we have 1 Battleship (looks like a vertically squished USS Enterprise with added alien bits) 3 Cruisers that kinda look like backwards Vorlon ships (Babylon 5 for those with less geek factor than me) and the frigates look like teeny tiny versions of the cruisers. These guys are, I'm afraid the stereotypical flowing sleek looking aliens TM. That's not to say their ships don't look cool, because they do. However the best bit is still to come... they require no assembly whatsoever... well apart  from those acrylic bases!!! Again there are cards with stuff on them and counters for playing the game, they even have tongue firmly in cheek assembly guidelines complete with wry humour, nice touch.

Review: Firestorm Armada Dindrenzi Fleet

Well this is the first of the two fleets that my mate got (the cursed one) and to be honest when I saw the pictures of the Dindrenzi they hardly grabbed me in terms of a design aesthetic... but in the flesh they're actually really quite cool. The Battleship in particular is a damn fine piece, its HUGE... yes I might just have ship envy! Have to say that they do look nicer in the flesh than they do in pictures. These guys are also one of the human factions, not too sure if they're the good guys or the bad guys though... I kinda like that about this game, there might be a tinge of the fascist about them but you're never quite sure.

Product description

As before there are ships, resin / metal, acrylic stands blah, blah, blah nice looking card bits... you still want more? Oh come on!!! You're all too demanding. OK these ship are predominately resin but the frigates (small ships) main bodies are metal with resin side pods. As before there are construction guides and profile cards along with those tokens. Once more we have ten acrylic stands. I will say that I personally think the Dindrenzi ships require more assembly than either the Relthoza or Sorylians, but are hardly complex pieces, although its fair to say my mate had a spot of bother fitting some of them together, but I put this down mainly to a few slight issues you sometimes get with resin and our own haste to get them done so we could start playing the game.

Review: Firestorm Armada Relthoza Fleet

 
The second of the four Firestorm Armada Fleets I'm reviewing the Relthoza are one of the 'second wave' releases for the game, the other being the Directorate I believe. Although if I have that wrong I'm pretty sure fans of the game will point that blunder out!!! Like the other boxed sets, this fleet box set is aimed at the consumer as a starter set. While the Sorylians were the fleet that got me first interested in Firestorm its undoubtedly the Relthoza who tipped me over the edge and made me decide to get started. While the the Sorylians might be all be phallic shaped the Relthoza ships are weirdly angled sleek looking things, that do look totally alien as well as tall, and flat... I like them a lot.

Product Description

Just like the Sorylian set this box contains a profile and rules sheet so you'll be able to get playing with your fleet ASAP and also how to build them although its hardly rocket science I hope I'm not repeating myself, its all good. Unlike the Sorylians however the main 3 cruisers and the big huge battleship are all in resin with no metal bits, however the weight quota of this boxed set is upped by the fact that the Relthozan (is that the right word) frigates are all in metal and come in two parts. The most assembly is the battle ship with four side fins, two on each side and a 'bridge' or command deck thingy on the top, its all pretty straight forward and no dramas.The box also contains some card counter sheets like before for representing various aspects of the game. There are also 10 acrylic flying bases to mount the miniatures on as before.

Review: Firestorm Armada Sorylian Fleet

The first of the four Firestorm Armada fleets that I'll be reviewing today are the very 'phalic' looking Sorylians, 'the cursed' thinks I chose them because I'm over compensating for something. However I'd like to point out that his Dindrenzi Battleship is actually longer than mine and shoots its load forward... I rest my case. The Sorylian boxed set was the fleet I first liked the look of when I first started looking into Firestorm Armada around the time it was first released so I was glad to pick them up.

Product Description

The box contains a profile and rules sheet so you'll be able to get playing with your fleet ASAP and on the flip side of that is and instruction guide for putting your miniatures together, although quite frankly its not needed because I think its pretty fair to say that the Sorylian miniatures are quite a simple design and are not really going to task anyone in terms of construction. The most any ship comes in is 3 parts and its very obvious which way round things go. The box also contains some card counter sheets for various things like showing damage and crew levels of ships. There are also 10 acrylic flying bases to mount the miniatures on...  more on those later.

w00t I have new toys

Just a really, really super quick message to say my Firestorm Armada stuff just turned up so I squealed like a little girl! Hey I'm man enough to admit it. I think the cats are almost as excited about the whole experience as I am:

That ginger beast by the way doesn't come with the Firestorm Armada stuff, that is my furry sidekick Macavity the cat!!! He likes to think he helps when I put my stuff together, all he ever does is get his fur into super glue, and then I only notice after priming them... what are those bald cats called again? Not really ginge. Peace out!

EDIT - My geek friend, the one known as the cursed (check his dice rolls), has turned up to see his fleets his response was also to make a girly squeal... and then space ship noises with the odd 'pew, pew' noise for imaginary shooting... although I'm not really sure that's the sound a Dindrenzi railgun would make. I think it'd make an electronic crackling noise followed by a really big whoosh noise and a low thud as the shot leaves the chamber. Do you think I've been thinking about this too much?

Starting Firestorm Armada

 
I've written about the games that I'm currently doing or perhaps pursuing as a hobby, in short things I've already started and am either well into (Infinity, HoMachine) or have at the very least played, enjoyed and have a modicum of knowledge about (Malifaux, Anima Tactics). What I haven't done is talked through the process of picking a game up and how I go about deciding my factions or even what games to do. Not content with getting confused and muddled with the rules of the current crop of games I'm playing I have decided to screw things up even more by playing Firestorm Armada!!! I'm hoping against hope that I can shoe horn another set of rules into my befuddled brain.

So why did I choose to start Firestorm Armada... well apart from my general level of insanity that is. Its got a little something to do with me loving space sci-fi programs and space combat games. Quite frankly I never, ever got over the sad demise of Battlefleet Gothic, desite its flaws. Brings a tear to my eye!!! It also has to do with the fact that Spartan Games products are quite widely supported in my local gaming community and having plumped for the loveliness of Dystopian Wars steam-punk-victoriana-Jules Verne inspired miniatures and game, I trusted Spartan. In this hobby trust is a big thing, especially outside the big two, Games Workshop and Privateer Press, because they're so big you know the games will be supported at least. You see other space combat games haven't exactly fared all that well in the marketplace in the recent past for a number of reasons, and I won't bother expanding on them here.

Firestorm Armada seems like a safe bet to pump more of my money into, because Spartan are now 'established' or so it seems to me. There's also the friend factor, you see I think its fair to say that with Infinity and other games (not so much Warmachine) I have been the dynamic, thrusting and forceful power behind the take up of these products in my little gaming group, I'm the pioneer!!! Sorry I'm trying to act like I'm living in the 80's now we have a Tory Government in power and they've taken public policy back 30 years or more... ahem... but with Firestorm Armada things are slightly different. I wanted to start Firestorm Armada a while ago but my close gaming buddies weren't interested, so although I kept a watching brief on things I didn't force the issue with them as I'd already got them spending more money than they wanted to on new games (sorry guys). However people have taken to Infinity in a really big way round here now, and there are people who want to do some form of Infinity campaign, like we used to do 40k or Warhammer Fantasy campaigns... but we're missing a Space Combat element.

Things that I (will be) play(ing very soon): Dystopian Wars

Website ( Spartan Games )

I was a huge fan of two Games Workshop specialist games Man-O-War and Battlefleet Gothic, before they kicked them repeatedly in the head. I suppose having one blue sea board and one black space board didn't fit too well with Games Workshop stores Feng Shui!!! So eventually they were ditched faster than your annoying work colleague on a night out with your mates!!! So I've always kept an eye out for any decent naval or space combat games. Then along comes Spartan Games with Dystopian Wars which combines a solid Naval combat game with a victoriana-steam-punk universe, whats not to love? The miniatures are very reasonably priced highly detailed resin pieces (which I'll review)... and the game? Well I haven't actually yet managed to play any games because all my fleets are sitting in their boxes unpainted, and I've not been able to find time yet to create a lovely blue seas board, plus I'm not too sure it'd fit with the Feng Shui of my gaming room... but from reading the rulebook it looks a pretty comprehensive little game system.

Spartan Games, small but perfectly formed!

Right I'm going to be positive about something again now, because the negativity is getting me down a bit... Spartan Games are a relatively new games company that has been around for roughly 3 years now, based in the southwest of England near Glastobury in the lovely county of Somerset (and no I didn't just attempt to say that in the accent... honest). However in those 3 glorious years this little UK company has done a hell of a lot, including releasing three fantastic little game systems, two of which I've brought into and one I know I'll buy into eventually... I just can't help myself. The success of these 3 game systems can almost certainly be seen at gaming clubs the world over with people playing games and with that success comes growth and I hear that Spartan are having to expand and move into new premises!!! This as I know from talking to many gamers is a big thing, you all want to know that the companies behind the games you're buying into aren't going to disappear over night, I think its safe to say after chatting with Neil Fawcett that's not bloody likely for Spartan Games... and that makes me happy.

So why are Spartan being included in Finecast (resin) month? Well you see the primary substance they produce their lovely little miniatures out of is a really high quality resin, some small parts are made with pewter, like turrets and things, but in the main they work with resin. Hopefully though this week I'll have some pictures up at some point to try and show you just how insanely 'fine' and high quality the resin they use truly is. Because the detail it picks up on the Dystopian Wars miniatures blew my fragile little mind, just a tiny little bit. I'll also be hoping my order of Firestorm Armada stuff turns up, mainly because I like the warm fuzzy feeling I get when new toys arrive!!! If it does I'll get the pictures up as soon as I can.