We played our first game of FSD on Friday. The Tech vs the Enlisted, using the 0.13 rules, but have subsequently read the 0.14 rule.
We played the ‘Until the Last Bit’ scenario, where there are three comms towers across the middle of the table, that need capturing and controlling - the middle one can be destroyed to end the game early. There are also 4 other one-time objectives.
For the Tech we used Epic Tau models, and for the Enlisted, the Imperial Guard. Using typical 60pt forces. First impression is that you don’t get many models on the table! As a first game we focused on units and only went with 2 or 3 characters or support options each. We used 1DU = 10cm, which is slightly longer than the recommended 1DU = 3” for 6mm models on 1” bases - but makes the maths much easier!
The activation mechanic is key to the game - you get 8d6 which you use to both activate units, and to operate their special abilities (mostly more powerful shooting). This activation mechanism is similar to Saga - but without the need for special dice!
Some units have a Command ability which lets them activate other units that are close by. The Enlisted have a special army rule that lets them do this in a cascading format - which we missed, as well as thinking the command range was shorter - so we definitely short-changed the Enlisted here.
The three buildings with the blue domed roofs are the main objectives, the blue beads are the secondary ones. This is around the end of turn 1, both sides have deployed their unit and moved them up into cover - neither side trying to get an objective yet.
Troops deploy in Waves - in this scenario it is 30 pts (50%) on turn 1, then a further 10pts each turn. So you can see that half a force isn’t that many troops - certainly not compared with Epic. Unit cards can be seen at the back, where they have dice these are marked against a special ability.
In turn 2 I managed to control the right hand tower, which gain me 1 victory card, and then as I held the most objectives s (1-0) I got a second victory card. Victory cards are interesting (in a good way) in FSD most have two options, a hold the card and get 3-5 VPs, and a second option that lets you do something rule-breaking in the game, but then you only get 0-2 VPs. This is a good mechanism.
I also lost one of my stronger Mechs in this turn when it advanced to the middle objective and took out a tank with its Power Fist - but then was counter charged by infantry who through some lucky dice rolls killed it. On further reading of the rules the infantry should have had a better chance as they were effectively in Close Combat range, so this was probably a much more likely result than we first thought.
Turn 3 so a lot of shooting from both sides - we found that infantry in hard cover at long range, are well protected from other infantry fire. But the high powered shooting of major units can blast them out pretty effectively. A Soft Target special rule has been introduced to counter this - but I’ve not seen which units get this. I managed to grab the right hand tower - which gave me a victory card for claiming it, and another for having the most objectives. At this point I was up 4-0 on victory cards.
This is around turn 4 - in the foreground is my Gun Platform - this was a very tough unit, with strong shooting too (this unit has been seriously nerfed in the next version of the rules) Just on the left hand edge of the photo is my Thales Fighter which was very strong offensively - as it can roll 6d8 for its rocket attacks or 4d8 for shooting with ignore cover.
In the centre the main objective tower was contested - and even though my infantry were in the open the Enlisted couldn’t bring enough firepower to bear on them to kill them (they also had very good armour as droids - a d10 IIRC).
At this point I used one of my Victory cards to cancel the activation of the Enlisted’s general - this character can activate a lot of units, and gets to roll 4 activation dice - so this really brought the enlisted’s turn to a bit of a grinding halt. Given where I was with victory cards it seemed worth the 2 VPs.
The Enlisted managed to capture the left hand tower after bringing a tank round and killing off my droids on that flank and capturing a secondary objective. But on the left the Tech were dominant, capturing the town (getting a secondary objective as part of this), and killing a couple of tanks - this let them put lots of pressure on the central objective that remained contested.
At this point the unit count was very much in the Tech’s favour, so we called the game at the end of turn 5, as it was getting late.
Overall FSD is a very interesting game - as a player you certainly need to think and plan - the start of each turn tended to take a while as we looked at our activation dice and worked out where they would be useful, and which we might want to re-roll. There is an AD pool of 12, but you only get 8 new each turn - trying to save a few on cards over turns is important, but limits what you can do in that turn - an interesting decision point.
The Enlisted felt a lot weaker than the Tech - the Tech seemed to roll a lot of d10s, the Tech lots of d6s and d8s. We did make a mess of the Enlisted’s special rule around command - which would have freed up AD for them.
We weren’t sure about the way the scenario awarded VPs - as it seemed that getting extra cards for controlling the most objectives each turn, quickly snowballed - but perhaps there is a need to contest objectives to prevent the opponent from doing this - we did get the objective control rules wrong to start with - as we thought infantry need an action to control an objective, but that is only the case for vehicles and mechs.
The core shooting and save mechanic is straight forward and makes sense straight away.
Certainly interested in playing again - gives a much more thinky and tactical game than Epic - but on the flip side you get far fewer models on the table - this was probably 10% (at most) of each of the armies we have.
A unit builder would be good to be able to build forces for the existing Epic armies we have (Marines, Squats and Tyranids) Tau, IG and Orks probably map to the 3 factions that already exist.