Spartan Games: New Firestorm Armada Fleet Reinforcements Previewed

Spartan Games has previewed these new spaceship miniatures for their Firestorm Armada game!

FADF22 Dindrenzi Federation Planetfall Naval Division Fleet

Dindrenzi planetary assaults are all about the alpha-strike: delivering shock and awe. Their invasion ships are designed for outer atmospheric operation, despatching their deadly payloads via drop-pods and skeleton transports. Their troop ships are studded with PD turrets over thick layered armour, and hold hundreds of drop pods. Their larger assault cruisers are little more than giant armoured hold bays of simple skeleton drop skiffs – atmospheric transports with grav-resist vehicles lining their outer hulls. These skiffs are tasked with reaching low altitude, when the vehicles on the outside simply drop off, using their grav-resist to crash-brake their fall onto the battlefield.

The Legion and Castra are the spearhead of any Dindrenzi Planetfall assault, and are capable combat vessels in many ways outside of their primary role of forcing their way into a hostile planetary atmosphere. Acting as high altitude command, control and long-range artillery centres, their tell-tale cruciform shadows sow terror into all who have the misfortune to witness them.

The Scuta also lives up to its name, being the single most durable and rugged vessel in its class. With armour thick even by Dindrenzi standards, it is renowned for being one of the most survivable, but extremely uncomfortable ships in the Navy. Massive engines, drop pods and thick internal bracing mean that there is very little in the way of internal space for creature comforts.

This boxed set ships with a booklet containing information on six fleet commanders. Included in the booklet is rules for invading planets and linking forces to the Firestorm Planetfall ground game, along with sample scenarios to get players started.

Contains: 1 Legion Class Assault Carrier, 3 Castra Class Assault Cruisers, 3 x Scuta Class Frigates, 2 Large SRS Tokens, 2 Small SRS Tokens, 1 A5 scenery sheet and 1 A5 booklet. Models supplied unpainted and unassembled.

FATA22 Terran Alliance Charter Enforcement Fleet

The Charter Enforcement Brigades (CEBs) of the NTSC do not have a particularly long or active heritage, since most minor mutinies and rebellions of planetary outposts or settlements could be easily quelled by the threat of orbital bombardment by Navy Battleships. The Secession wars, however, changed much of that, and Terran ground forces have seen a lot of action in recent decades – much of that in offensive reclamation of former Alliance-held positions. Due to this, many of the CEBs have very modern equipment, developed closely with Hawker Industries, and adapting existing Terran design philosophies to the demands of modern orbital-drop combat.

The three most common ships used by the NTSCs CEBs are the Solar Carrier – a project very much led by Hawker Industries to Terran specifications, the Horizon Assault Cruiser (a traditional Terran design) and the Nadir Frigate – a vessel much adapted from its sister ship, the Armsman. Terran planetfall strategy typically relies on clearing drop sites with heavy capital bombardment prior to planetary offensives, but these three ships are all designed to operate in hostile theatres – dropping substantial forces close to the front lines and providing a base of operational and long-range fire support at the same time.

This boxed set ships with a booklet containing information on six fleet commanders. Included in the booklet is rules for invading planets and linking forces to the Firestorm Planetfall ground game, along with sample scenarios to get players started.

Contains: 1 Solar Class Carrier, 3 Horizon Class Assault Cruisers, 4 Nadir Class Frigates, 1 Large SRS Token, 1 Small SRS Token, 1 A5 scenery sheet and 1 A5 booklet. Models supplied unpainted and unassembled.

FAAP22 Aquan Prime Guardian Shoal

Aquan strategies for waging planetary warfare have been adapted both from their peacetime colonisation methods and necessity – with no need to find a clear landing site, Aquan ships typically head directly for a deep body of water close to their intended area of operation. Diving into the oceans of a planet from space makes the initial phase of an Aquan assault extremely difficult to resist. Once deep in water, troops and equipment may be gathered and deployed to objectives in a more leisurely manner protected from much enemy attention by a watery cloak.

To survive this shock, Aquan invasion ships are extremely tough – even for their renowned cybernetic hulls – and further protected with shielding to prevent atmospheric burnup. Being built to withstand these extreme forces and temperatures stands them in good stead to weather enemy attentions prior to achieving planetfall as well as afterwards. Aside from this their planetary assault ships are characteristically Aquan, with excellent speed, manoeuvrability and signature laser weapons.

Although the Antiarchi is a dedicated troop Frigate, the Limulus and Nectridea are frequently seen in other Aquan fleets – the Limulus as a minelayer, the Nectridea serving on front lines where conventional carriers might otherwise be too exposed to enemy capital ship fire. Their unparalleled toughness and flexibility serves their reputation well, and many Aquan Admirals and Planetfall Generals will testify to that.

This boxed set ships with a booklet containing information on six fleet commanders. Included in the booklet is rules for invading planets and linking forces to the Firestorm Planetfall ground game, along with sample scenarios to get players started.

Contains: 1 Nectridea Class Carrier, 4 Limulus Class Assault Cruisers, 4 Antiarchi Class Frigates, 2 Large SRS Tokens, 2 Small SRS Tokens, 1 A5 scenery sheet and 1 A5 booklet. Models supplied unpainted and unassembled.

FASC22 Sorylian Collective Bastion Fleet

Sorylians have some natural advantages when it comes to ground assaults, their tiered caste system providing them with natural heavy troops even before the addition of their substantial, and extremely rugged, technology. Surprisingly to some, Sorylian assault forces are delivered with blistering speed, punching through defensive lines before they can sustain heavy damage, and delivering waves of Kon Avarr heavy infantry and fearsome armoured walkers to precise drop points.

The Sorylians, unlike most other races, eschew the employment of very large ships for transporting their forces – the risk of losing such a large contingent of troops seems unnecessary and illogical to them. Their natural predisposition to a more reasoned approach means that they prefer to employ larger numbers of smaller craft, assuring their ground commanders that at least some of their forces will reach their destination, rather than risking all their assets in a single large ship.

Thus it is that the Amentum Battlecruiser, Katar Assault Cruiser and Corvus Class Frigate are used to transport the Sphere’s offensive troops into ground combat. Fast, rugged and reliable, these ships are often found in the regular fleet formations of the pragmatic Sorylians, and prove an unwelcome sight to any opposition that face them.

This boxed set ships with a booklet containing information on six fleet commanders. Included in the booklet is rules for invading planets and linking forces to the Firestorm Planetfall ground game, along with sample scenarios to get players started.

Contains: 2 Amentum Class Battlecruisers, 3 Katar Class Assault Cruisers, 5 Corvus Class Frigates, 1 A5 scenery sheet and 1 A5 booklet. Models supplied unpainted and unassembled.

FATD22 The Directorate Pacification Fleet

For the Directorate, planetary asset acquisition is the zenith of capitalist opportunities. They remain, however, the most risky of ventures, and smaller companies are often made or broken on the battlefields of alien worlds. As such, Directorate invasion ships will usually allow their support ships to do the bulk of enemy clearance operations before proceeding to their insertion sites. Although their planetfall capable ships are well built, the cloned, cybernetic or robotic troops they contain are seen less as life to be protected, and more as assets to be properly utilised. 

This is aptly demonstrated in the simple Induction class Frigate, a ship closely related to the Enforcer, and owing much to its Sabulon heritage. With no offensive weapons (and thus a smaller power core), the ship has more internal strengthening, a larger point defence grid, and yet retains the same speed performance at a lower price point than the Enforcer. Against sustained or heavy fire, however, it has little protection – a shielding system on such a ship is considered too much of an investment when the bulk of its cargo are little more than murderous cloned automata.

The Appropriation and Integration are somewhat different from this model, being designed to carry both command staff and more expensive ground equipment – they are thus more heavily protected and also bear reasonable weapons arrays, making them much more multi-purpose vessels than the fairly niche Induction Class.

This boxed set ships with a booklet containing information on six fleet commanders. Included in the booklet is rules for invading planets and linking forces to the Firestorm Planetfall ground game, along with sample scenarios to get players started.

Contains: 1 Integration Class Assault Carrier, 3 Appropriation Class Assault Cruisers, 4 Integration Class Frigates, 1 Large SRS Token, 1 Small SRS Token, 1 A5 scenery sheet and 1 A5 booklet. Models supplied unpainted and unassembled.

FATR22 The Relthoza Reformer Fleet

The Relthoza have, in marked difference to almost every other race, had planetary assault ships from extremely early on in their stellar expansion. To start with this was to protect their warriors and workers from hostile fauna and planetary conditions (and occasionally rival Hive members), but they have gradually evolved and been refined into the deadly engines of expansion they field today.

The Relthoza’s nanotechnology, particularly their cloaking systems, give them a natural advantage in successfully approaching and assaulting any fixed defensive position. Almost impossible to detect and damage until they are upon the enemy, defenders will often find the full force of a Relthozan advance is already on the ground before they have a chance to respond. 

All Relthoza ships built for planetary assimilation are explicit about their primary function, with hundreds of silos packed with Warriors, Drones and equipment arrayed along their hulls. No ships embody this more than the Assault Carriers and Cruisers – the Ootheca and Cotesia Classes – although they can both be found elsewhere in Relthoza Incursion streams. Even the small Ichneumon class is instantly distinguishable from regular combat ships – though few would wish to be given the chance to see it first-hand. 

This boxed set ships with a booklet containing information on six fleet commanders. Included in the booklet is rules for invading planets and linking forces to the Firestorm Planetfall ground game, along with sample scenarios to get players started.

Contains: 1 Ootheca Class Assault Carrier, 2 Cotesia Class Assault Cruisers, 4 Ichneumon Class Frigates, 2 Large SRS Tokens, 1 Small SRS Token, 1 A5 scenery sheet and 1 A5 booklet. Models supplied unpainted and unassembled.