Cover art:
I haven't played these rules so this is an overview rather than a review. I have played a fair amount of Bolt Action, which is my favorite miniatures game and upon which Beyond the Gates of Antares is built. At the heart of Antares are variations on Bolt Action's signature mechanics: order dice activation and the pin marker economy. But Antares adds quite a few wrinkles. For example, units in Antares have six stats whereas units in Bolt Action have ... well, none -- or rather, what would be unit stats are the same across the board in Bolt Action (because most combatants in WW2 were adult human males) and can therefore be built into the basic structure of the game. Antares, with is diverse post-human and alien factions, is more granular.
This leads us to what is the sharpest break between Bolt Action and Antares: in the latter, most everything is resolved with
D10s rather than
D6s. Also, you always want to roll low in Antares. When it comes to shooting, for instance, you need to roll the unit's Accuracy stat or lower to hit and the stat rather than the roll takes penalties for range, pinning, etc. While 10s always miss, a 1 is not always a hit. Sometimes a unit will test Accuracy of less than 1, in which case rolling a 1 followed by rolling another 1 is a hit (like rolling "7s" in Bolt Action). As in Bolt Action, hitting and killing
are separate rolls; but in Antares, the target unit rolls to save against hits by testing the units Resist stat. The target's Resist stat is modified by armor and cover bonuses as well as negatively modified by the "strike value" of the attackers' weapons. This level of detail allows Antares to capture the nitty gritty of sci fi tech.
Hand-to-hand fighting in Antares is pretty similar to shooting: the assaulting unit tests its Strength stat to determine hits and the defenders test Resist to save. In Bolt Action, close combat is usually pretty decisive -- whoever takes more casualties is destroyed. In Antares, by contrast, both sides take a pin marker per casualty and the side that took less casualties can decide whether, if the losing unit did not break, to go for another round. Units that survive close combat get to take a free consolidating move which is a normal move that does not require an order.
So that's the major break from Bolt Action covered. How about the similarities? As mentioned above, Antares adopts its activation mechanic from Bolt Action. For those unfamiliar with Bolt Action:
One major difference when it comes to Antares is, units are not penalized for moving when making Accuracy tests. Instead, units that take the Fire order get a +1 bonus to Accuracy. That little tweak honestly makes the game feel very sci fi to me, relative to Bolt Action.
Pinning also works similarly to Bolt Action, in that being pinned might prevent a unit from carrying out its assigned orders. In Antares, however, a unit takes pin markers for taking casualties in melee, failing to react to enemy fire, or becoming exhausted
in addition to when it is hit by enemy fire. In order to act, a pinned unit must take an Order Test by rolling its Command stat (minus 1 for each pin marker) or less on a
D10. If the unit succeeds, it can carry out its orders and it loses one pin marker. If it fails, it must change its order to Down. If a unit has pin markers equal to its Command stat, it automatically takes the Down order or, in some cases (failed break tests), is simply destroyed. Additionally, a unit takes -1 penalties to its Accuracy and Initiative stats for each pin marker.
Hold up, an Iniative stat? No, it's not a whiff of
40k. This attribute has to do with the reaction mechanic, which is a bit more complex than Bolt Action's ambush order but still draws on Bolt Action's reaction fire step of close combat. A unit that has not already been activated (aside from taking an Ambush order) may react when enemy units take certain actions on their activations. The simplest example is basically reaction fire from Bolt Action: the target of an assault may fire at the attacking unit before melee. There are more possibilities, such as eluding hand to hand combat or returning fire at long range, etc. In order to perform any reaction, however, the unit must roll its Initiative stat or lower on a
D10 and keep in mind (a) that every pin marker is -1 to Initiative and (b) failing a Reaction test means the unit will take an additional pin marker. This aspect of Antares, the additional level of risk-reward complexity added to Bolt Action's pin marker economy, is what intrigues me the most about Antares as a rule set.
Where does that leave the Ambush order? Interestingly, units with the Ambush order must still pass a Reaction test to interrupt an enemy unit's activation. If the ambushing unit is pinned that means it will need to take two tests -- and they are separately penalized by any pin markers on the unit -- before it can even start to fire! The good news is, it can still fire even if it fails the Reaction test (although it will still take a pin marker for failing). In that case, its order is simply changed to Fire from Ambush after it does so. The even better news is that if the unit passes its Reaction test, it can not only fire but it keeps its Ambush order and can continue interrupting enemy units until it fails its Reaction test. The exception is for heavy weapons and drones, which can only take an Ambush reaction once per turn. That makes for an interesting tactical decision, considering that those types of units will still risk taking pin markers on failed Reaction tests even considering that don't keep their Ambush order on passed Reaction tests.
Unfortunately, the Beta rules do not cover vehicles. I am excited to see what Antares does differently there. Although I have not played Antares yet, all of the modifications to Bolt Action strike me as pretty exciting. One of the reasons I like Bolt Action so much is its conceptual simplicity. There just isn't much to ever look up, which slows down the game play and takes me out of the moment. Although Antares adds some complexity, I am not sure -- in theory at least -- that any of it will really slow the game down, at least after I get used to all the new possibilities with Reaction tests. And maybe some changes, such as transforming to wound rolls into to save rolls, will result in even deeper immersion? I can't wait to find out!
