A friend of mine ribs me every chance he can get lately—it goes something like this:
“Firestorm Armada at Adepticon eh? That’s a long way to
drive to play in a tournament. Shame they won’t be around next year after Star
Wars Armada is released.”
This guy (let’s call him “Derp”) can’t help it. He thinks
Star Wars Armada is the best thing since sliced bantha. His divinatory skills
have bestowed upon him a vision of Fantasy Flight’s latest product and how it
will cut a swath of destruction across our rather niche but beloved genre of
miniature space games.
Like a snake in the grass, Derp works it into every
hobby-focused conversation. I told him he was beating a dead horse, and that I
was likely to steal his words and explain just why he’s wrong. Derp even went
so far as to say:
“It might get more than 5 views - I'd be sunk!” and “I'd
never be able to get an internet cred again . . .”
So why I am not worried about Firestorm Armada at the hands
of a behemoth like Fantasy Flight Games?
Well, we’re comparing apples to oranges.
Quite a few people
have compared the two games, maybe because the capital ship space combat genre is so limited. Anything with the
Star Wars IP is going to draw the larger crowds, though I don’t think you could
begin to spell the doom for Firestorm Armada because a similar game is being released in the Star Wars Universe.
We know how Star Wars: Armada plays, and what Wave 1 and
Wave 2 will look like. We know it plays similar to X-Wing but with a different
movement and dice mechanic. Special characters and abilities still play a large
part and we can deduce that “competitive” play will likely follow suite of
X-Wing and be meta-heavy and relatively cutthroat.
So why has Star Trek: Attack Wing taken off with such
relative success when it was up against X-Wing? Shouldn’t Star Wars: Armada
spell the doom for it as well?
Nah.
Again, we’re talking about different gaming systems. If you
want Star Wars you’ll throw money at Fantasy Flight Games. Firestorm plays nothing like Armada. Exploding 6’s
anyone? What about movement? Factions? Different types of weapon systems? The
list goes on and on.
Suffice to say Star Trek: Attack Wing plays surprisingly like X-Wing and this hasn’t
hurt either IP from making plenty of money.
Firestorm has enjoyed popularity these last few years
because it’s different. It doesn’t inherently lend itself to competitive play
and that’s not a bad thing. Its mechanics allow for large fleets to play out relatively quickly. It lets you simulate
the heroics of a space battle without the gimmicks of special abilities and
characters taking all the credit. Okay, yeah, the movement mechanic leaves
something to be desired, but it’s a fun
game that isn’t limited by the expectations and machinations of a
well-established universe behind it.
There is no mega-corporation dictating the future of what is
in store for Firestorm Armada. Players won’t be forced to buy entirely new
ships and fleets to obtain updated cards that will allow them to competitively field units they already
purchased and owned years ago.
Firestorm is good folks, and it’s only going to get better
if Spartan invests the time and resources in keeping it fresh.
Authors note: I should go out of the way to say I love X-Wing. I own an embarrassingly large
amount of it. I also think Armada will be fun too. I haven’t put my wallet
where Armada is because I simply don’t need
it. I have a newborn and a very finite amount of time. I’m already invested
(and actively investing) in X-Wing
and I have Firestorm to keep the painting queue full. I look at the relatively
high costs of Armada (and even X-Wing fans have to admit it’s high), my limited
amount of time, and I have to say: nah. I’ve no doubt it will be a great game, but
it’s not where I want to be. I’ll keep X-Wing for the unique take it brings to
special characters and dog-fighting combat, but I don’t want that in my capital ship combat. I want my tactics and my cunning (or the lack thereof—heyoooo) to be the special
character at play at these larger scales, not a gimmick on a character card.
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