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Since the rules are available separately for 25 Euros I am tempted.

How tied are they to the stats and models Rackham provide?

I am not very tempted by the Rackham models and would prefer to use Pig Iron, Copplestone and similar alternatives.

I like them. Its a unit activation system, not UGO-IGO. Overwatch. Squad Heavy weapons can target different squads.

You can download the starter set rules PDF from the at-43.com website. Pretty much the all of the rules except none of the fluff or the faction specific rules.

40K doesnt hold a candle to AT-43 for rules.

In fact, try before you buy!

AT-43 has a nearly full advanced rules set for from from their website. www.at-43.com/pdf_EN/AT43/AT-43_rules.pdf

The data cards for the units are also free on the website, so really, if you own decent proxy models, you dont have to pay anything really. www.rackham.fr/index.php

The one thing you will miss out on is special faction specific rules which the army books provide. But that isnt a huge deal, because if you dont like the mechanics after playing a couple times with the free rules, then its no loss.

The game makes so much more sense than does 40K, plus it has a great simplicity that doesnt detract from the game at all.

Stecal: where do you play? I'm curious about getting into the game (the Red Blok and Karmens are just pushing me over), but want to try the game out 'live' before I dive in.

We have played this a number of times and I can't stop wondering just why anyone would use Squads.

I've been playing White Star Fire Toads from the mIND. 3 Standard Toads, 3 with Grenade Launchers, 1 Squad of Power Armored troopers and a Defender Snake if I feel like it. For the most part I outrange my opponents, only their heavy weapon troops and "tanks" are any real threat to me. My Grenade Toads can take out troop squads without being in line of sight. (Sighting from the Power armor guys)

It's just not too challenging unless everyone is playing tanks and then you are fighting from across the board.

It also seems to be a "Bucket -O- Dice" game where you are throwing a lot of dice around.

HorrorFan wrote:I've been playing White Star Fire Toads from the mIND. 3 Standard Toads, 3 with Grenade Launchers, 1 Squad of Power Armored troopers and a Defender Snake if I feel like it.

How do you manage to win games though? Only infantry can control objectives so that means only your TacArms can claim any victory points beyond the points awarded for kills (and points for kills are only in some missions). Standard Mission 2 and 3 would be nearly impossible against an infantry army who can rack up VP very very fast in the Defender zone as well as RP from containers to bring in their reinforcements.

Caern wrote:

HorrorFan wrote:I've been playing White Star Fire Toads from the mIND. 3 Standard Toads, 3 with Grenade Launchers, 1 Squad of Power Armored troopers and a Defender Snake if I feel like it.

How do you manage to win games though? Only infantry can control objectives so that means only your TacArms can claim any victory points beyond the points awarded for kills (and points for kills are only in some missions). Standard Mission 2 and 3 would be nearly impossible against an infantry army who can rack up VP very very fast in the Defender zone as well as RP from containers to bring in their reinforcements.

If you are playing those few scenarios you can have trouble, but we view your opponent not having an army left as auto lose no matter what the scenario. Your opponents just wont rush a squad of Tac Arms when they are targeting you for a Grenade Toad from behind.

It didn't take long for locals to see the benefit of tanks.

color me skeptical there horror. striders are great but they are not everything, and that list you gave is not legal. m.ind has two tank slots, one battlesuit slot, and two infantry slots. your regular toads take up 1 slot, your grenade toads take up the last one. you can't take that defender snake unless you start a new platoon, and you can't start a new platoon list without filling out the old one.

i think a newbie would be intimidated by all that grounding, but once the tacarms are fried then it's game over and it's not hard to just walk over with a pair of hekats and eat them alive thanks to the rush (50cm) therian routine. they hit hard but not hard enough to kill two hekats moving that fast. not without toad help, and even then the therian player can burn lp to repair them and finish the job. either that or use a poltergeist and just blow them to smithereens. i have never seen tacarms manage to eliminate a poltergeist before the geist burned them to the ground, and i have played a lot of games.

they're super fragile with just 9 armor and you don't have any meatshields to walk in front of them after their activation and get in the zone of fire to protect them. your laser targetting is gone, and you can't get vp or rp. since you have to split your forces in almost all missions that means you will be left with between 1/4 and 1/2 of your force never showing up while your opponent is reinforcing themself ever single turn.

I don't intend to play AT-43 anytime soon, but I do like the armies and many of the models. How are the faction books, as far as art, fluff, coolness? I like owning interesting army books - have them all for VOR, a game I never have and never will play! - and the AT-43 ones seem reasonably priced. Thinking about picking up the Therion one at the War Store sale this weekend.

- Salvage

The artwork in the books is primarily functional. There's plenty of it, to illustrate what the various unit types and weapons look like, but there's not much in the way of artwork just for artwork' sake. The fluff on the other hand is top notch and there's a lot of it. I'd definitely start with Therians as far as fluff goes because it's the biggest 'reveal' about the universe of AT-43.

The system is much more active, the activation system, combined with the ability to modify what units can be activated in the middle of a game using the leadership points and abilities gives the game a very tactical feel.

The units tend to be fairly well balanced,but if you break the legal army structure you can quickly end up with some one sided games but then thats the case with any system. ( take 9 falcons and 3 prisms against footslogging orks for instance )

The fluff and art are good but not great, same with the figs and the pre paints are IMHO of a better quality than 90% of what you would see on a typical table at your average FLGs. And there is nothing stopping you from proxying simillar figs from other ranges since three of the 4 factions are fairly generic.

Overall I would highly recomend the game if you can find opponents and have the spare cash. It is a much better rules set than 40k, but as we have seen in the past that has very little to do with the ability of a game to find popularity.

Don't make me buy things.

On second (first) glance their minis don't really do it for me, especially the Warjack things. But I'm definately interested in checking out the rules.

And boo pre-paints.

I just played a demo (whitestars vs. therians). I really like the mechanics; it seems designed for fairly streamlined play. As far as skirmish sci-fi goes, that seems to be pretty great, with lots of tactical options, plenty of risk-taking and initiative, alternating activation (vs. IGOUGO), and fun upgrades. I picked up the rulebook (even though it's not necessary to play, as Hellfury pointed out). I'll probably go Red Blok and/or Karmen, and maybe pick up some Tac Arms to escort my Copplestone Castings Assault Marines. That is, as soon as I can find some people to play with.

HorrorFan wrote:
It didn't take long for locals to see the benefit of tanks.

Going against an illegal list like yours is, I dont doubt it. In the M.IND platoon pattern, the list you made is one too many armoured fighting vehicle squads.

I am up to my 20th game of at-43 and I find I am liking it more and more as I play as long as the opponent understands the rules as well as you do (for instance, using legal platoon patterns, etc).

I'm really considering picking this game up. It has really caught my attention. And the prepaints aren't really that huge of an issue to me. If i REALLY want to paint up a themed army myself, I'll go snag some count as stuff and go to work. Plus, you can at least guarantee the table won't be filled with primer, metals and plastics. Never been a huge fan of playing against unpainted armies.

So I just used Neal's sale as my excuse to pick up a bunch of Red Blok stuff, and I'll probably pick up the UNA book and use a bunch of unpainted lead I've got around the house as proxies ('cause already bought is cheaper than prepainted).

Since I didn't want my UNA army to look like every other UNA army on the table, I re-painted my prepaints. I primered one figure and started from scratch; then I just painted over one, using the factory coat as the primer. You know what? The factory coat works just fine as primer. Now my White Stars are primarily brown, and my Steel troopers are primarily green. My Fire Toads have become two-tone green and black, vs. the two-tone grey and black you get in the box. A little bit of detailing on the bases, and they look very nice indeed.

Duncan_Idaho was saying that eventually there should be about 12 factions.

I really like the look of the rules but I have never actually played the game as I've only found one place near me where I can actually play it but its still several bus rides away. I just never find the time.

When I do have a game eventually though it'll be using Therians, gotta love that HR Giger-esque biomechanical look.

Does anyone have a quick and dirty breakdown of the army play styles? Compared to 40k armies if you like. I'm just wondering which would suit me best. Or which would most interest me for a challenge ^_-.

Hellfury could do a better job, but here goes:

Therians: Fast, close-combat oriented, fragile.
UNA: Fast, super shooty, accurate, expensive toys
Red Blok: Shooty. Quantity is a quality all it's own
Karmen: ?

I wouldn't exactly call Therians fragile. Their base defense is better than 'most everybody else's. They are good in close combat, and a couple of units have a stealth ability that allows them to close the range without taking damage. But their shooting is rather better than the Red Block.

UNA are definitely a shooty army. Close combat specialists have not yet been released.

Red Bloc: thought it was going to be a horde army, lots of cheap troops. Don't know about that, but the buzz in my gaming group is that the RB combat striders are so heavily armored, not much can hurt them.

Karmans, I agree: ?

Hellfury wrote:

HorrorFan wrote:
It didn't take long for locals to see the benefit of tanks.

Going against an illegal list like yours is, I dont doubt it. In the M.IND platoon pattern, the list you made is one too many armoured fighting vehicle squads.

I am up to my 20th game of at-43 and I find I am liking it more and more as I play as long as the opponent understands the rules as well as you do (for instance, using legal platoon patterns, etc).

Before you go jumping my case too bad for having an opinion that doesn't agree with yours, the Defender Snake is an option. After re-reading it does sound like it's all the same army. Thats my bad. The Defender snake switches out a grenade Strider squad if my opponent brings a troop lite list. I also have jump troops that I find get shot up a little too easy.

I still stand by my inital point, that tanks are far, far better than troops in the game. Especially if you play a regular old "kill the other guy" game for fun. My friends and I sometimes just want to throw down and not get all deep into scenarios.

The prepaint on the tanks is so much better than whats on the figures and I honestly find many of the figures uninspiring (many armies have troops that all look the same) and the packaging of the troops to be a cash trap. This is another solid reason to play Strider heavy, you'll save some money!

grey_death wrote:Does anyone have a quick and dirty breakdown of the army play styles? Compared to 40k armies if you like. I'm just wondering which would suit me best. Or which would most interest me for a challenge ^_-.

Take medics for instance. Redblock and UNA can get medics (as well as karmans) but therians cannot. Therians do, however, get access to routines that their overseers can use to get the same effect for a cost in LP. So basically, all the factions have strong similarities, but very subtle and distinct differences.

Its hard to compare, but here is my opinion atleast. Most of which I agree with Syr8766 regarding similarities with the following exceptions

Red Block. Short range (kossack is terrifying at short range, but long range makes it a non combatant), bad ballistic skill (when compared to UNA). Loves flamers. Very similar to orks in that vein. Not really a horde army unless you consider out numbering your opponent by less than 5 models to be a horde army. My therian army outnumbers my red block army though.

Therians: Perhaps the most close combat oriented faction. (omega tiamat is pure hell to an opponent who isnt actively seeking to destroy her, or instantly teleporting a unit of grim golems led by atis into contact with the enemy for a nasty hurting) but also has very dependable shooting at mid-long range. A very very fast list if routines are used right. Routines are singular to Therians as this is just more stuff to use as orders. From healing to creating an entirely new unit on the board for basically free. Not sure what to compare these to in 40K. The wide variety that therians enjoy may well be equated to 3rd ed chaos, though not even remotely as cheesy.

UNA: I completely agree with Syr on this. Space marines are a very rough comparison, or rather, imperial guard who think they are space marines.

Karmans: Not sure on point costs for these things, but judging by the stat cards on Rackhams site, I think this will be very similar to a termie army. Tough, high tech armaments, highly mobile, low model count, and most of all very expensive. Brutal in HTH and range. I am actually quite terrified of how my first game against them will turn out.

I think Rackham has done a very good job with the balancing act that has gone into not only writing the rules, but into the army lists themselves. Yes, vehicles can and are nasty, but the way that platoon company rules work, you pay a hefty fee for tweaking the platoon pattern a specific way. For instance, I too see the inherent value in vehicles, and just like vehicles more. So, I chose Cyphers for my platoon pattern. It gives me access to 2 vehicle slots as well as elite status infantry. The price I pay is that I cannot participate in the bidding for leadership at the beginning of the round. It can be a nasty handicap until you learn to use it to your advantage.

Thanks a lot for the help guys ^_^. This helps to get me even more psyched up about a game I still don't have...Soon though...soon....

To Horronfan,

Just like in 40k, I assume in AT-43 the game is alot different and more favorable to a single style of play if you ignore all the missions. Seriously, how much fun is it to just play kill each other all the time? Playing for objectives makes the game alot more interesting up until the last turn, as even a full squad of grots or a fully mobile tank can sweep up and grab an objective for the final turn.

EDIT:

And while I think the rules look decent for AT-43, none of the models really jump out and grab me as must haves. Maybe as the range expands there will be something to excite me. It's really the same with all the smaller games, except Urban War, which has all AWESOME mini's! I want to have all of them and play them all at the same time!!!

My gaming group is thinking of picking it up as we have grown a little bored with WM/hordes and 40K. I personally think the prepaints are sharper than most armies you see on gaming tables nowadays. My own excluded of course. Seems more and more players just don't bother taking the time to paint up a sharp army.

How the AT43 armies play.

Therians: Marines/necrons (tough, nasty low model count army)
UNA: IG Stormtrooper/tau (poor Close combat, but good ranged fire power, ok maneuverability)
Red Blok: Orks (lots of Close range but devastating weapons and cheaper infantry then other armies)
Karmen: Eldar (Low model count, but very powerful specialist weapons, fast movement and skimmers)