Planetfall Picking your Force - Allies

So when building your battlegroup, last time we discussed how to build it using just your own faction.

Now its time to look at how (and a little bit of the why) you can include factions that are not your own.

More after the Jump....




The Firestorm Universe is currently focussed on the War happening in the Stormzone. There are two major factions involves, the Zenian League & the Kurak Alliance.

The Zenian League consists of the following major races:

Directorate
Dindrenzi
Relthozans

These three races are fighting an offensive against the Kurak Alliance, the battle lines were drawn when the Dindrenzi, still unhappy at how brutally the Terrans crushed them in the last conflict launched an offensive against them.

Calling on their allies to assist them, each does so for their own reasons, from the Directorate being a Corporation that's aim is its own Profits, to the Relthozans, a Warrior race eager to prove themselves in battle.



The Kurak Alliance consists of:

Terrans
Aquans
Sorylians

These three have united to end the war against the Zenian League. The Terrans are the innovative Humans, the Aquans a race that lives only in Water, and the Sorylians a technologically advanced race, that doesn't make fast changes, but is trying to keep up as the war progresses.

While the League & Alliance do not prevent the occasional Diplomatic incident, or border Skirmish (basically you can fight anyone with anyone), they do allow you to look at brining allies to the battlefield with you.

Natural Allies

Most of the Major six races have a Natural ally, someone they work alongside all the time, and can call upon at a moments notice.

These smaller factions generally consist of only one or two Helix's to allow you to add something different to your battlegroup.

Someone's Natural Ally, still counts as an Ally for anyone else, its just that a Natural ally provides benefits to the race they are associated with.

If one of the Major races includes a Helix from a Natural ally, then nothing changes, they can take one or two of said Helix when building their force with no penalties beyond the standard restrictions.

This means their Battlegroup will look like:

Allies

If however you decide to include something that is not from your own faction, or its natural allies, there is a cost to pay.

If I decided to take a Dindrenzi Assault Helix I would then not be able to take a Strike Helix at all, nor would I be able to take a second Assault Helix.

In addition to losing access to the opposite Helix's you need to consider the following rules when building your Battlegroup with Allies.

The image below should say Directorate Ariel Helix... I will correct this as soon as I can! Apologies for any confusion!

• The total points for your Allied Helix cannot Exceed the points cost of your Core Helix
• If you take an Allied Helix you cannot take any other Allies, including Natural Allies. 

Single Battlegroup games.

When combining all of this together, doubling up on Helix's, taking Allies etc you can end up with a Battlegroup that looks like:

This gives you a total of less Helix's than you might normally get, but does allow you to bring in another race to the mix, this provides some interesting tactical flexibility. 

The image below should say Directorate Ariel Helix... I will correct this as soon as I can! Apologies for any confusion!

Allied Battlegroup

The final way to play with Allies is to take an Allied battlgroup. Given the points total for a Core Helix and how low you can make this it is very possible to play the smallest game type (less than 3,000 points) with two different Battlegroups.

I suspect with a little bit of tweaking its also how a multi-player game could work out quite nicely.

The only rule you need to remember, beyond the others is that when allying Battlegroups, the secondary battle group may not cost more points than the total of the Primary Battlegroup.

But this could lead to some very whacky Battle group combinations like:

 So what are your thoughts?

For me this game offers plenty of tactical options and choices when building a force, and for the moment I am sticking to a Directorate Battlegroup with some works Raptor allies (their Natural Ally).