I was so busy spreading the word and running a tournament, that I never made an announcement in my own Firestorm Armada blog! Bill and I will be bringing Firestorm Armada to the 2016 NOVA Open in a big way! We have five events we'll be running, in an effort to induce as much participation as possible, from as many player types as possible. Spartan Games is sending Dan Bird, one of the lead Vanguards and a big part of Halo Fleet Battles and Firestorm Taskforce design and development. All of the Event Packets are available for download from the NOVA 2016 section of this site. You can listen to our first Podcast Interview on Episode 6 of Man Battlestations, and we should be recording an interview with Firebase Delta soon. Hopefully one of the other podcasts covering Firestorm Armada will want to interview us as well.
In case you didn't know, the NOVA Open started as a small Warhammer 40,000 charity tournament, and has grown since then to become the largest tabletop wargaming convention on the US east coast. I don't know the numbers, but its almost as big, if not as big, as Adepticon, and has everything you would expect to find: a vendor/demo hall, hobby workshops, and of course, tons of wargaming! Because of its roots, and the lead event organizer Mike Brant, NOVA has maintained its non-profit for charity status, and overall the convention is a lot more personal than business-focused. One aspect of this is the Lemonade Raffle, where every loss counts as a raffle ticket during the charity raffle, so we're doing our part and creating many opportunities for you to earn a ticket. Event Registration here! Thursday: This is really one event, split up into two NOVA Events. First we have the NOVA tradition of a Build and Play, where we will essentially give you the Patrol Box of your choice at a discount, help you clean and assemble the Models and Flight Stands, and then walk you and another participant through a quick demo game using the models you just built. We hope to have beginners and veterans participate, so the veterans can help the beginners learn how to play Firestorm Armada, as well as some tactics for their chosen fleet. We're then running a 500 point Beginner's Tournament, which is intended for everyone who participated in the Build and Play, but with everything going on at NOVA, I expect some participant transition. Friday Team Tournament: Friday is our Team Tournament, Rebel Wars. You and a buddy will each build a 500 point Patrol Fleet (which means Friday's participants from the Build and Play can join!) and fight the other teams for dominance. We fully expect teams to consist of opposed factions (Kurak and Zenian) if not mortal enemies (Aquans and Directorate), and thus expect some interesting and fun synergies you wouldn't normally expect in Firestorm Armada. Saturday Grand Tournament: Saturday is our 800 point Grand Tournament, the big event! We're pulling out all the stops, with several hundred pieces of 3D space terrain, fantastic space gaming mats from Deep Cut Studios, and I'll be producing entirely new 2D terrain templates to visually match the realistic mats and terrain models. We anticipate most of our prize support will be here, and most of this will go to the overall Grand Champion. More importantly, Josh Linde, the lead Tournament Organizer for Adepticon, will be helping us out, as the top players will also win a free entry to the 2017 Firestorm Armada North America Championship at Adepticon. We expect everyone to bring their A-game. Sunday Narrative Event: To wrap everything up, we're running a 1200 point Kurak Alliance vs Zenian League Narrative Event. This will be a two-round Event using Rulebook Scenarios 5 & 6, with team captains making assignments and issuing mid-game orders as the participants duke it out for dominance of the Alexandria Sector. We're trying to make this event as fun as possible; we've already obtained Admiral Hats for the team captains, and are getting some other narrative paraphernalia to emphasize the story. I'm hoping Dan Bird will take lots of notes, and make this part of the official Firestorm Armada story. There's a lot to do between now and Labor Day weekend (September 1-4): paint two fleets, design new templates, build terrain, build cardboard templates for our standardized GT Table designs, and hopefully write some basic tactic articles on the GT Scenarios. If I get really ambitious, I'll find a way to make some videos too. If any of this sounds exciting, please register for the Firestorm Armada Events and the NOVA Open. -Ryjak
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After much anticipation, here are the results from the Tournament. First and foremost, the final standings: Tournament Champion: Ben (Terquai) - far right 2nd Place: Evan (Dindrenzi) – 2nd from left 3rd Place: Adam (Sorylians) – far left Best Sports: Evan (Veydreth) & Mike (Relthoza) – center The full article is can be accessed by clicking here; I also have about 30 photos I need to resize before I post them in the Gallery.
In addition, I started a Fleet Guide project. I wrote about the Tarakians (Ben's primary Alliance Fleet) after someone contacted me and requested it. This guide will probably be a lot more in-depth than other guides, depending on the feedback I receive on it. Next, I'll probably tackle the Xelocians, then the upcoming releases from Spartan Games: Syndicate and Omnidyne. I’ve wanted to run a competitive Firestorm Armada (FSA) Tournament for some time now. I have attended a few events in the past year, which is shaping my Event. Right now, the plan is to host a 600 point Tournament at Games ‘n Stuff on May 15th. 600 points seems like an odd point-level, so I wanted to explain why I chose this MFV, as well as some problems I’m struggling with so far. Why 600 Points? If you look at the popular gaming Tournaments, you will see some commonalities. Weather its X-Wing, Guildball, or Magic: The Gathering, Rounds against one opponent tend to take about an hour. This Round length seems to be ideal for gaming Tournaments; otherwise, it wouldn’t be so popular. I think the reason why is this: it allows for more games against more opponents. The more games you have, the more data there is to determine who the best player is on a given day, and more variety in opponents. Unfortunately, FSA is NOT a fast game to play. Due to several factors, a given Activation can be slow and tedious to work out, even for experienced players. I assume at least half of any Event’s participants will not be experienced players, which slows the gameplay down. The easiest way to speed up the game is to reduce the number of Activations available to each player. One option would be to tell players they can only bring X number of Activations; another is to limit the MFV for the event. Of the two, I feel limiting the MFV is the best way to go, as it works within the normal playing rules. After a lot of playing and discussion, I have concluded 600 points is the smallest viable MFV, as it allows enough points for variety in fleet building. All factions can fill their minimum Fleet Requirements for about 450-500 points, and without taking any ‘minimum’ squadron sizes, so players have the option to add a bit more to their minimum. Generally, players will bring 4-5 Activations, and can potentially field two Tier 1 or two Tier 2 choices, or three Tier 3 choices. This facilitates the Objectives to allow enough time to finish each Round AND have many games during the Event. Battleships600 points creates a big problem, though. At this point value, Battleships completely dominate the game. I’m sure anyone who has ever player a Patrol Fleet Box vs. a Patrol Fleet Box can agree that most games end up with two Battleships on the table, and everything else destroyed. The reason for this is simple; each player simply lacks enough Activations with high AD pools to destroy a Battleship. And since I already identified I want the Tournament to have as few activations as possible, there is an inherent conflict here between Competition and Fun. So, I’ve decided to do something any Tournament Organizer should be extremely hesitant to do, and that is to add additional restrictions to the gameplay. If you look across the Tournament scene, you will see all sorts of added restrictions. Some ban certain units, or combos, or certain moves… whatever the TOs have decided needs to be implemented. Sometimes, the purpose behind these is to create “balance” where it doesn’t exist in the normal game, sometimes it’s to maintain the “spirit” of the game. In my case, it’s not so much “balance”, as creating that “fun” playing environment, which is half of my Goal. I don’t think it is fun when Battleships dominate the game, but if everyone brings one, it is balanced. It’s also balanced if no one brings Battleships, and can still be fun. So, here are the Fleet Building Restrictions as of right now:
Assault CarriersI’m debating restricting Assault Carriers as well, because frankly, they’re often just as tough as Battleships. Here are all the factions with Assault Carriers in the game:
Mitigating Limited Choice I have many test games with these restrictions, and I know it accomplishes the main Objective (make the game fast and fun). Everyone I have convinced to give this 600-point restricted format a shot has said they had fun afterwards. But there are two problems it creates:
1) Not all factions have a viable Tier 1 choice with these restrictions 2) Starter Boxes don’t include viable Tier 1 choices with these restrictions Specifically, here are all the factions without a viable Tier 1:
Frankly, this sucks, and I’m not sure how to address it. So far, the best option we have is to allow these specific factions to ally in an acceptable Tier 1 choice, and to allow these factions to proxy it with their regular Tier 1 Model. For example, the Oroshan could use their Battlecarrier as a Syndicate Battlecruiser; Tarakians could field their Battleship as a Ryuishi Carrier. I don’t particularly like this solution, but it’s better than excluding players because their fleet doesn’t have many Tier 1 options.It’s also unfortunate that brand new players with only a starter box can’t play in this modified 600 point format either. Of course, the best solution would be if Spartan Games quit putting such beefy Tier 1s in their starter boxes, but I can’t control that. I’d like to know what you think about this 600 point format; particularly these restrictions, why I created them, and how I’m trying to accommodate all players. And if you play any 600 point games, I’d love to receive your feedback -Ryjak Starter Boxes don’t include viable Tier 1 choices with these restrictions I figured I would post photos of all the fleets from Adepticon, from when they were put out for paint judging. I'll start with the Painting winner. Ruckdog's Terrans Here are the rest of the photos; enjoy!
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AuthorStarted playing Firestorm Armada December 2014 Archives
December 2016
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