Beyond The Gates of Antares

Bumping for interest.

From what I hear, it plays the same or very close, to Bolt Action. Which is super fun. I want to try 40k with the same playstyle.

It's a really good game, more variety and options than 'just scfi bolt action'. It's got that early Rogue Trader feel and look to it.

I like that it has an appeal that isn't just another 40k clone, Rick the father of 40k has made it it's own game. Interesting fluff and what's not to like about a race of darlek crossed tripod warmongers, that's the Ghar for you.

Just wish I had some spare cash for the PDF/eBook version so I could carry it around as the rulebook is a lovely large hardback, but my monies all used on models

>>47709327
The guy at my shop who got everyone into Bolt Action also had an army of BtGA. Never had anyone to play it with though.

Jeff Lawrence ran a demo at Texas Toy Soldier a few months back, and I totally missed it. I was really interested in going and learning about the game (and Jeff's a good teacher), but I just couldn't get away from real life.

>>47709327
We have a few guys painting armies up right now. gonna add it to our rotation of games.

>>47709740
>Rick the father of 40k has made it it's own game. Interesting fluff and what's not to like about a race of darlek crossed tripod warmongers, that's the Ghar for you.
When he started working on it he said he was aiming for 'hard sci-fi'.
What he delivered is is a spin on 50s pulp fiction.
Some of the models are nice, other are terrible, but the writing over all feels kind of uninspired.
And the whole deal with the Gates of Antares kind of feels suspiciously similar to the webway gate in 40k...

I don't know.
I was pretty hyped when he announced it, but he really went in a direction that seems pretty boring to me.
I never understood the appeal of Dr Who either though.

This game has a really bad marketing team behind it.

>>47715710
How so? Im new in the thread but friends with a couple higher ups at warlord so this might be useful for them

>>47715896
>taking marketing advice from random anons on 4chan

>>47716021
Im a big believer of no smoke without fire, even if anon is batshit insane and speaks gibberish- there will exist the fragmented reflection of a truth in the gibberish

>>47716053
Not the same anon but I'll tell you one reason the KS failed: it was impossible to grasp the setting. It was as though it was telling a story halfway through and expecting us to know what it meant. Instead of saying "In the far future, Mankind has split into different transhuman factions separated by FTL Gates" it was "The Fucktard Collective emerged from the Badwrong after eons, and fought Lolwats across the Tardfaces until the 2Spooky destroyed them, beginning the 11th Age of the Lol-Tards vs the 2spooky".

The original KS had good ideas hidden behind shit writing and no substance. I haven't been following development but I'm glad to see overpriced metals phased out for plastics. The game still (to a disinterested eye) lacks any 'iconic' forces or characters. When I started 40k I knew everything about marines orks and chaos just by looking at them. Antares don't stick in the mind at all.

Prove me wrong though. I'd love to see a game do early 40k better than early 40k.

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>>47716279
I agree completely- and i don't envy them, people love tropes, and kickass ideas modelled around tropes. Warhammer 40k has been around so long that they have built on established tropes- read Dune, Forever War, Starship troopers and the book of the New Sun, and you realise warhammer 40k rips so much of it off- but does something magnificent with the rip off and makes orkz, or space marines. Antares feels like it lacks the immediate rehashed tropes we know and love, but still fails to make itself recognisable to the tabletop gamer- it's a catch 22 really

I applaud the effort... but man, the name of the game is really awkward. Sounds like a really rough pulp scifi novel.

BEYOND THE GATES OF ANTARES is less easy to process than say 'Dropzone Commander' (a noun and representation for you, the leader), 'Infinity' (single word, expresses vastness), 'Warmachine' (multiple interpretations, noun), 'Dystopian Wars' (setting descriptor, noun). 'Dark Age' (descriptive, settings descriptor, noun), 'Battletech' (noun, compound word to describe main property of the game).

Meanwhile, BTGOA is a... descriptor for something farther than a place in it's own universe, using a very common scifi/space name.

Names matter!

>>47716279
That's part of the problem, we just have lore tidbits without context.

Another part is lack of knowledge. You look at their promotional site, and there's nothing that clearly tells you how to play the game. No quickstart rules, no battle reports, nothing. Considering most competition on their level is moving towards giving away the rules for free, this hurts bad. If they posted something like Youtube How to Play videos or something, it'd greatly help.

This game fascinates me with how much apathy there is around it for something pushed by one of the big companies of wargaming. Does anyone even care that Priestley's name is attached/behind the project? Isn't that it is being pushed by Warlord more important these days? For that whole one-stop-shop experience thing.

As for the game itself, I have really come across no hook for it than Bolt Action in Space. I don't even know how accurate that is because every time the game comes up those that have played it have never been able to give a good review of the mechanics. I put this down to Bolt Action being the plain white walls tier of generic game systems, just that it's got WW2 as super easy access imagery and theme. Sure that's great for many people but it's also backed up by Bolt Action being popular because it got popular, came at the right time to grab a ton of disaffected old 40k players with familiar rules, no historical knowledge required rules/army construction and cheap 28mm hard plastic miniatures. That last point is a really big point in BA's favour because a lot of people are really fucking weirdly prejudiced against playing with anything that isn't 28mm hard plastic models.

BYTGOA has less instantly identifiable style than even GZG's pretty generic 15mm sci-fi models. It's got no widely known, easily explainable hook to the setting or system that I have come across; if there were a wargames version of the Plinkett Test I'm fairly sure it'd fail.

In fact, if anyone here who has played it, please fill in the following blank on this statement:
Beyond the Gates of Antares is [BLANK]

Example of other games for reference:
Bolt Action is WW2 40k minus the bullshit of 40k