Firestorm Planetfall
Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 11:57 am
So, a few weeks ago I received the starter set for Firestorm Planetfall, a 10mm SF wargame published by Spartan Games. The game is based largely on Firestorm Invasion, which was demo'd at a convention way back in 2010, but due to other commitments at the time was put on the back burner by Spartan. Players take on the roll of commanders of a planetary assault force as they launch the initial invasion of a world. The game uses an alternating sequence of play with players activating units, dropping in new assets and using action cards to support their attacks.
Wait.... this all seems somewhat familiar.
Yes, for those of you familiar with Drop Zone Commander, it probably will. Interestingly enough, the owner and creator of Hawk Wargames/DZC worked for Spartan games around 2008/2009. Any similarity between the two games must be pure coincidence and neither company has said anything publicly on the matter so....
Models, armies and what have you.
Planetfall is a 10mm scale game, but some of the models are actually pretty big. The infantry stand about 12mm high to the top of the head and some are bigger still. All vehicles come with integrated bases to aid things like working out ranges and LoS. The majority of the models are resin, but there are a few metal pieces to, mainly infantry so far. The infantry come with a couple of models already attached to the bases and some metal minis that drop into slots on the base. The idea is that later releases will include specialist infantry minis with cannons, missile launchers etc.
For example:
There are six core armies in the game, split into two loosely allied factions. In addition, each core army has a supporting force made from a subject race/smaller neighbour that provides alternative units. The core forces available are:
Terrans - Humans in slow, durable tanks.
Aquans - Fish-folk in fast moving skimmers with lots of shooting-round-corners style shenanigans.
Sorylians - Lizardmen who specialise in long range shooting and artillery.
And on the opposing team:
Dindrenzi - Fanatical humans out for revenge against the Terran empire with high strength, direct fire weapons.
The Directorate - Cyborg troops owned by interstellar corporations with cyber warfare attacks and corrosive ordnance.
Relthoza - Spider-like aliens who swarm the enemy and tear them apart.
Armies are chosen based on a set pattern called the Helix system.
Each player must bring along a Core Helix, essentially the bread and butter units of the force. This can be quite minimal or you can expand it to quite a large force if you want. Then, players can select additional helices specialising in one type of warfare or another. Each helix has a minimum unit size but can be expanded if you want.
If you want to specialise further, you can double up on one type of helix, but you lose the helix on the opposite side of the matrix. For example, you can take two Assault helices, but you lose access to the Strike Helix. When building your army, you can also take allied troops from either the minor races OR the major races in your faction. So you could take a Terran Core helix and an Aquan Support helix if you wanted. However, taking an ally stops you from doubling up on that helix choice AND locks out the opposing helix in the matrix. (So a Terran Core with an Aquan Support wouldn't be able to take a second Support helix, nor could it take a Heavy helix). Some of the races ignore this rule when taking their favoured minor race ally.
As well as buying your army through the helix system in the game, it's also how you buy the minis from the company. All six races currently have their Core Helix available. This covers the minimum you need for your army plus a couple of extra units. To max out all the choices for your Core Helix, you can buy a second Core Helix pack. Basically each one contains half of the maximum for your army. All of the additional helices contain the full range of choices for that particular type of unit, the minimum for the helix and all the optional extras. Some of the helix packs also contain terrain, so as you build your army you can build your terrain collection.
Game Play
As I said above, the game is played by activating units in an alternating sequence of play. However, once you start activating a helix, you must finish off that helix before starting on a second, so you have to plan ahead and can't just activate in any order you like.
The game uses Spartan's staple of exploding d6. To attack simply roll the number of dice indicated in the units entry. Usually a 4+ is a hit and a 6 is two hits and an additional roll. In this way, smaller units can damage bigger models with a lucky shot. Some vehicles have shields or cloaking devices to help them survive. Shooting units in the flank or the rear makes them easier to damage, and units taking multiple hits need to take a leadership style test or become suppressed. At the end of the turn, units take damage based on the number of suppression markers they have (representing soldiers fleeing the battlefield, crews abandoning vehicles etc).
The game has a unique method of winning. Each player has a Zero Hour Tracker. This is used to determine when you have done enough damage to the enemy force and gained control of all your objectives. Each player has 3 objectives to capture, each being worth a set number of points. Holding an objective for a turn decreases the count on your Zero Hour Tracker. Similarly, each unit is worth a number of points. Destroying a unit will reduce your tracker as well. So you can win by wiping out the enemy, capturing objectives or both. Once you reach zero points, you win. There is no turn limit, only the tracker.
Spartan have very kindly made all of their army lists AND the rules for the game available for free over on their website, so if you want to take a look, you can do so at no cost to yourself.
http://www.spartangames.co.uk/resources/downloads
So why should you play this game over, say DZC?
No particular reason. I tried DZC (Thanks to ToD) and wanted to try this to compare the games, so I bought the starter set and a couple of allied helices. If anyone fancies giving it a try, let me know. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the upcoming Leviathans. To give you an idea of scale, those bases are about 8cm square.
Madness? This is Spartan!
Spartan have something of a reputation for not supporting all of their game systems and it is, in part deserved. When they started up, they released a lot of stuff and then struggled to keep up with their promises as to what they would do next. When Dystopian Wars was released, Uncharted Seas was mothballed. Their initial rule sets were shoddy as well. However, in recent years they have updated the rules for all the games and are getting positive responses from their players. They have continued to release new minis for all of their systems (except Uncharted Seas
) and continue to do so. All of the 6 main races for Planetfall already have their Core boxes and 1 extra helix available. There are 4 minor race helices available as well and the first wave of Leviathans are due in March. So even if they don't release anything for the next 6 months, there are still a load of minis available. The games designer has been pretty active on the Spartan Forums and has already made a couple of minor changes based on community feedback.
...But.... Spartan have just announced a game based on the Halo video game as well as tried to launch a kickstarter. The KS has not done so well as it doesn't really go with their other products, but Halo looks to be attracting some attention. I hope that they have learned their lessons from the past, but only time will tell I guess.
Wait.... this all seems somewhat familiar.
Yes, for those of you familiar with Drop Zone Commander, it probably will. Interestingly enough, the owner and creator of Hawk Wargames/DZC worked for Spartan games around 2008/2009. Any similarity between the two games must be pure coincidence and neither company has said anything publicly on the matter so....
Models, armies and what have you.
Planetfall is a 10mm scale game, but some of the models are actually pretty big. The infantry stand about 12mm high to the top of the head and some are bigger still. All vehicles come with integrated bases to aid things like working out ranges and LoS. The majority of the models are resin, but there are a few metal pieces to, mainly infantry so far. The infantry come with a couple of models already attached to the bases and some metal minis that drop into slots on the base. The idea is that later releases will include specialist infantry minis with cannons, missile launchers etc.
For example:
There are six core armies in the game, split into two loosely allied factions. In addition, each core army has a supporting force made from a subject race/smaller neighbour that provides alternative units. The core forces available are:
Terrans - Humans in slow, durable tanks.
Aquans - Fish-folk in fast moving skimmers with lots of shooting-round-corners style shenanigans.
Sorylians - Lizardmen who specialise in long range shooting and artillery.
And on the opposing team:
Dindrenzi - Fanatical humans out for revenge against the Terran empire with high strength, direct fire weapons.
The Directorate - Cyborg troops owned by interstellar corporations with cyber warfare attacks and corrosive ordnance.
Relthoza - Spider-like aliens who swarm the enemy and tear them apart.
Armies are chosen based on a set pattern called the Helix system.
Each player must bring along a Core Helix, essentially the bread and butter units of the force. This can be quite minimal or you can expand it to quite a large force if you want. Then, players can select additional helices specialising in one type of warfare or another. Each helix has a minimum unit size but can be expanded if you want.
If you want to specialise further, you can double up on one type of helix, but you lose the helix on the opposite side of the matrix. For example, you can take two Assault helices, but you lose access to the Strike Helix. When building your army, you can also take allied troops from either the minor races OR the major races in your faction. So you could take a Terran Core helix and an Aquan Support helix if you wanted. However, taking an ally stops you from doubling up on that helix choice AND locks out the opposing helix in the matrix. (So a Terran Core with an Aquan Support wouldn't be able to take a second Support helix, nor could it take a Heavy helix). Some of the races ignore this rule when taking their favoured minor race ally.
As well as buying your army through the helix system in the game, it's also how you buy the minis from the company. All six races currently have their Core Helix available. This covers the minimum you need for your army plus a couple of extra units. To max out all the choices for your Core Helix, you can buy a second Core Helix pack. Basically each one contains half of the maximum for your army. All of the additional helices contain the full range of choices for that particular type of unit, the minimum for the helix and all the optional extras. Some of the helix packs also contain terrain, so as you build your army you can build your terrain collection.
Game Play
As I said above, the game is played by activating units in an alternating sequence of play. However, once you start activating a helix, you must finish off that helix before starting on a second, so you have to plan ahead and can't just activate in any order you like.
The game uses Spartan's staple of exploding d6. To attack simply roll the number of dice indicated in the units entry. Usually a 4+ is a hit and a 6 is two hits and an additional roll. In this way, smaller units can damage bigger models with a lucky shot. Some vehicles have shields or cloaking devices to help them survive. Shooting units in the flank or the rear makes them easier to damage, and units taking multiple hits need to take a leadership style test or become suppressed. At the end of the turn, units take damage based on the number of suppression markers they have (representing soldiers fleeing the battlefield, crews abandoning vehicles etc).
The game has a unique method of winning. Each player has a Zero Hour Tracker. This is used to determine when you have done enough damage to the enemy force and gained control of all your objectives. Each player has 3 objectives to capture, each being worth a set number of points. Holding an objective for a turn decreases the count on your Zero Hour Tracker. Similarly, each unit is worth a number of points. Destroying a unit will reduce your tracker as well. So you can win by wiping out the enemy, capturing objectives or both. Once you reach zero points, you win. There is no turn limit, only the tracker.
Spartan have very kindly made all of their army lists AND the rules for the game available for free over on their website, so if you want to take a look, you can do so at no cost to yourself.
http://www.spartangames.co.uk/resources/downloads
So why should you play this game over, say DZC?
No particular reason. I tried DZC (Thanks to ToD) and wanted to try this to compare the games, so I bought the starter set and a couple of allied helices. If anyone fancies giving it a try, let me know. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the upcoming Leviathans. To give you an idea of scale, those bases are about 8cm square.
Madness? This is Spartan!
Spartan have something of a reputation for not supporting all of their game systems and it is, in part deserved. When they started up, they released a lot of stuff and then struggled to keep up with their promises as to what they would do next. When Dystopian Wars was released, Uncharted Seas was mothballed. Their initial rule sets were shoddy as well. However, in recent years they have updated the rules for all the games and are getting positive responses from their players. They have continued to release new minis for all of their systems (except Uncharted Seas
) and continue to do so. All of the 6 main races for Planetfall already have their Core boxes and 1 extra helix available. There are 4 minor race helices available as well and the first wave of Leviathans are due in March. So even if they don't release anything for the next 6 months, there are still a load of minis available. The games designer has been pretty active on the Spartan Forums and has already made a couple of minor changes based on community feedback....But.... Spartan have just announced a game based on the Halo video game as well as tried to launch a kickstarter. The KS has not done so well as it doesn't really go with their other products, but Halo looks to be attracting some attention. I hope that they have learned their lessons from the past, but only time will tell I guess.
) and what I've skimmed of the rules... I do like how they're selling it too - buy a set and slot it right in to your army, basically.
