Firefight: Initial Game

For our first play through of the Firefight rules by Mantic Games Stu popped over from Cirencester and took control of the Forge Fathers against my Veer-myn. The Dwarfs specialise in ranged combat whilst the Rats like to mix it up in melee combat.

For this first game we kept it very simple with no tanks or buildings and 1000 points per side. The Forge Father units are pretty expensive compared to the Veer-myn so they tend to have smaller units armed with a special weapon or two.

2 * Steel Warrior Huscarls

2 * Steel Warriors- 4 * Rifle, 2 * Missile Launcher

1 * Steel Warrior - 4 * Rifle, 2 * Autocannon

1 * Thorgarim - 8 * Hammer & Pistol

1 * Brokkr Valkyr - 3 * bikes

1 * Jotunn Weapons Platform with Hailstorm Cannon

The Veer-myn tend to have larger units with their main Troop options locked to 10 rat units rather than having the flexibility in unit size many other factions have.

2 * Master Creeper

3 * Stalkers - 1 * Chem Thrower, 9 * Ray Pistol & Dagger

1 * Crawlers - 1 * Heavy Ray Gun, 9 * Ray Gun

1 * Nightmares - 2 * Heavy Drill, 4 * Twin Drills

1 * Clawshots - 5 Long Rifles

1 * Tunnel Runner - 2 * Tunnel Runners

1 * Rumbler - Super Heavy Ray Gun

Both sides had two commanders of the same type who generate command dice and offer re-rolls on nerve checks. Command dice are rolled at the start of each turn and give you Command Points to spend as the turn plays out. Each faction has it's own special command abilities that tie into it's play style. So the Forge Fathers have abilities that generally help with shooting by way of re-rolls. The Veer-myn have abilities that help with melee again via re-rolls or helping them get into combat in the first place.

Games are limited to 5 turns with players taking turns to activate a unit each. This trading of activations can be interrupted, at the price of 1 command point, to allow you to immediately activate a second unit before your opponent gets an activation. This allows you to land a quick one-two on an opponent before they can react.

We managed to play out 3 turns in the morning with plenty of flicking through the rule book to check rules which I think we got mostly right. The rules benefit by being written by someone (Andy Sharp) who has played all the other Mantic systems so they have a consistency of rules naming and conventions from their other games. For instance, Weight of Fire (re-rolls for missed ranged shots) works exactly as it does in Deadzone and Vicious (re-rolls to wound) works the same as Kings of War. For people who have played the other Mantic systems this makes it very easy to pick up what a rule should be doing and get into the game.

I'd read on the Firefight Facebook Group that the game was very bloody and units tended to be removed very quickly, and this proved to be the case in our game. I won't go through a blow-by-blow but in general the Forge Fathers managed to shoot off the rats if they put more than one unit into the shooting and the Veer-myn managed to take off the Dwarfs if they could get a decent number of bodies into contact. 

One area the Forge Father had a definite advantage was in nerve rolls. If at the end of a turn a unit is at less than 1/2 of it's models remaining it rolls 1 dice (the game uses D8 for everything) needing to equal or pass it's nerve roll or be removed from the table. The Forge Fathers tend to have a 4+ nerve and the Veer-myn a 6+. If you have a leader or other Inspiring source nearby you get a re-roll (just like in Kings of War).

The game was fun over-all and as I've said the fact that many of the concepts are familiar I think it won't take many games to be able to dispense with the rule book for 99% of play. Hopefully Mr T will be over on Monday for his initial game so we will be using the same forces and table for that as I've just left them all out.

Once that game is played we can then start to play around with the force composition. I think I will certainly be looking to maximise the use of tunnelling vehicles to deliver my key melee units into combat. The fierce beating my rats took trying to cross open ground has convinced me of the need to avoid that if at all possible. We did play with the beta list adjustments which almost entirely removed the Veer-myn's access to smoke which would have meant they could more easily traverse the open ground. In the absence of that smoke then heavier use will I think need to be made of Tunnellers with transport sections.