Why YOU should be excited about Firefight: Second Edition

After yesterday’s blog giving you a quick introduction to Firefight: Second Edition, today we’re exploring what makes Firefight so damn great! Of course, we’ll be talking about these points in more detail in other blogs but, for now, we wanted to give you the highlights for why you should be more excited than a Marauder Ripper Warlord with a new, extra sharp, extra killy buzzsaw. Let’s rev that buzzsaw up!

FAST-PACED GAMEPLAY

Time is precious, we get that, so we wanted to make sure that Firefight: Second Edition plays as fast as an Enforcer Interceptor speeding through the lower atmosphere. This is achieved through some intuitive movement and measuring mechanics. You see, in Firefight each squad has a nominated leader (you can paint or model the leader differently to signify how important they are, e.g. give them a top hat) and the leader is used for determining movement and measurements for shooting.

When moving a squad, you simply measure and move the leader, then grab the rest of the minis and place them within 3” of the leader… rather than measuring movement for every single model. The same is true for shooting. You measure the distance from the leader and then all minis in that squad with weapons that have sufficient range can blast away to their heart’s content. All this means that Firefight is fast-paced and furious, with very little downtime between players.

TWO BOOKS TO RULE THEM ALL

Do you really want to be turning up to your local club or a gaming event with your arms full of different books for each faction, or supplements with additional rules? Probably not, unless you happen to be a wargaming octopus – and we haven’t seen many of those around. Thankfully Firefight solves that by having just two books: core rulebook and force lists book. The core rulebook contains, as you might imagine, all the rules, while the force lists book contains lists for the following factions:

• Asterians – moody space elves with robots
• Enforcers – ruthless super humans
• Forge Fathers – grumpy space dwarfs
• GCPS – human cannon fodder owned by corporations
• Marauders – cunning space greenskins, sometimes hired by corporations
• Plague – blood-thirsty, mutated monsters
• Veer-myn – space rats with experimental chemical weapons

The great thing is that as we potentially introduce new factions in the future, we can just replace the force list book, so you’ve still only got a couple of books to carry around. We absolutely do not want Firefight to have book bloat, or force you to buy additional books to get key rules.

COMMAND THE TABLETOP

Firefight has a very cool Command Points system, which represents the commanders on the battlefield leading their troops into battle. A little like Vanguard – which used Power Dice – Firefight sees you rolling different coloured Command Dice, which generates Command Points. Each turn these points can be used to trigger Faction Orders or Command Orders.

Faction Orders  – these are unique to the faction as a whole and can be used by any unit in an army, as long as they’re within 12” of a Command Unit

Command Orders – these are unique to the individual Command Units. Some will trigger special auras that boost other units around the Command Unit, while others will have instants effects

The Command Orders are a great way to keep your opponent on their toes… but you can’t rely on them all the time, as your Command Dice roll may come up blank. It also makes gameplay extremely dynamic because you can react on the fly to your opponent by using different orders.

GREAT VALUE

We absolutely want Firefight to offer great value and also be super easy for new players to pick up, or for existing players to expand their armies. With that in mind, we’ve got an absolutely insane Starter Set with 71 minis, books and tokens for just £90 RRP (€110/$130), which means some third party sites are already offering it for £72! Bargain.

But that’s not all, we’ve also created brand-new starter forces for each of the available factions. We’ve made sure these contain a great selection of infantry, support and, perhaps mostly importantly, an awesome hard plastic vehicle. Take a look at the sweet Veer-myn starter below. All of these new sets have an RRP of £75 (€90/$100).

So, what are you most excited about in Firefight: Second Edition?

FIREFIGHT: SECOND EDITION IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW FROM THE MANTIC WEBSITE, OR ORDER DIRECT FROM YOUR LOCAL GAMING STORE.