Firestorm Armada, after playing a few actual games

I got to play this game a couple of times last night. While we're still not up to pulling out all the stops, I got a few turns in of an 850 point game that included terrain,wings / SRS, and the battle log. TAC cards and actually having time to finish the game are next!

Things I learned:

Massed Corrosive is effective, although it's still possible for an enemy cruiser to make all three 4+ repair rolls when it by all rights should have died!

Stealth fields and cloaks make parking at the board edge an effective way of staying alive, if a rather boring one. Also, there's no point in hiding behind Impeding terrain while you do this.

Don't spread out the cruisers so much that the two on the edges can't link PD with each other.

I found a rules ambiguity that the forums were unable to answer definitively. A squadron in reserve can enter via "Flanking Maneouvre" (blasted British spelling!), but it's not clear whether it gets to activate the turn it arrives, or whether it can be shot at during that turn. Strict Rules As Written means that it has to sit there for an entire turn before it gets to activate, which would make Flanking almost useless. There is no consensus yet on whether this is intentional, but I expect Spartan will respond soon, as they're pretty awesome that way.

I spent some quality time with the rulebook after the games and assembled an outline of what happens in what order. I won't bet anything I can't afford to lose that I got everything, but I think I did. Here is what I came up with.

Turn Order

1. TAC Phase
2. Initiative Phase
3. Reserve Phase
4. Squadron Activation Phase
   1. Command Segment (Cloaks, Retractable Plating)
   2. Movement Segment
      1. Primary Movement (including battle shunt and mines)
      2. Secondary Movement (Full Stop, Belly Up, Fold Space Drives)
   3. Combat Segment
      1. Declare Attacks
      2. Direct Weapon Systems
         1. Pick Attack to resolve
         2. Check LOS and arc of fire
         3. Measure range
         4. Calculate attack dice
         5. Roll attack dice
         6. Roll shield dice
         7. Apply damage and critical effects, remove destroyed models
         8. Choose next attack
      3. Indirect Weapon Systems
         1. Declare category (torpedoes, gravitic, cyberwarfare, etc)
         2. Defensive fire (if appropriate)
         3. Pick attack to resolve
         4. Check arc and range
         5. Calculate dice
         6. Roll dice
         7. Point defense (if appropriate)
         8. Shield defense (if appropriate)
         9. Next attack in that category
         10. Apply damage and critical effects
         11. Next category
   4. Boarding Assault Segment
      1. Calculate Boarding Assault Dice pool
      2. Calculate Anti-Boarding Dice pool
      3. Roll boarding dice
      4. Roll anti-boarding dice
      5. Resolve results
   5. Consolidation Segment (remove markers)
5. End Phase
   1. Check for end of game
   2. Shunt out
   3. Command check to remove Disorder Markers
   4. Damage Repair Tests
   5. Terrain Effects
   6. Retrieve TACs