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AT-43 Starter Lists from At43 addict web site
So you’re thinking of getting into at-43 but don’t want to shell out for a full 2000+-point army? Here are some good places to start if you’re looking at getting into the game. Each of these armies will give you an AFV, a type 1 unit and a battle suit to give you a flavor of each of the unit types. Best of all none of the units will go un-used as they are all staples of each army.
UNA
· 1 Fire toad
· 1 steel trooper unit box
· 1 steel trooper attachment
· 1 unit of Steel TacArms
Karmans
· 1 Kaptar unit box
· 1 Wendigo unit box / or K-shooter unit box
· 1 easy Trike
Red Blok
· Krasnye unit box + attachment Box / or RPG Soldaty unit box + attachment box
· Dragomirov Kolossus box
· Sierp
Therians
· Storm Golem unit box
· Bane Goliath unit box
· Hekat
Each of these lists will come out to around 825 points give or take. You will get a feel for how the army will play and will find that all these units will be useful. Each of these armies is from their basic troop pattern so there are no extra rules to complicate matters. From here it is easy to branch out after you get a feel for how the army will play.

Might want to amend this, Saint. You can't purchase Steel Trooper Attachment boxes for months, now.

However, you can paint up Medics, the only models you really need from said boxes, really easily, and for $10 a box of Steel Troopers right now you can get enough Medics to paint up for three whole platoons of Steel Troopers.

May be worth showing the non-painters how easy it is to quick make up some Medics if they want to run competitive Steel Trooper units...

Yes I kept being told the Steel troopers from ther Initiation set were incomplete, and got confused.

The actual initiation game encourages you to arbitrarily create officers out of ther units in the boxset, so painting sgt stripes on a steel trooper and painting the helmet of another white is hardly going to be a big change.

So you are essentially agreeing that each Initiation boxset bought includes a complete Steel Trooper unit?

Orlanth wrote:Yes I kept being told the Steel troopers from their Initiation set were incomplete, and got confused.

The actual initiation game encourages you to arbitrarily create officers out of their units in the boxset, so painting Sgt stripes on a steel trooper and painting the helmet of another white is hardly going to be a big change.

So you are essentially agreeing that each Initiation boxset bought includes a complete Steel Trooper unit?

Sure! the figures allow head swaps usually the officer is represented by the guy with a hat and all other troops having steel helmet's.

Each Initiation Set comes with 9 Steel Troopers, which is Max size per the rulebook.

They each come with 2 Missile Launchers, which is the configuration players have talked about using most often.

So, if you just paint up two Medics for each squad then yes, you've got one competitive-viable Steel Trooper unit per Op Damocles set.

Per the heads, the Op Damocles Steel Trooper heads are stuck in much more securely than on the unit box figs. That doesn't mean they don't come out, it will just take more effort to get them out.

If you want to be WYSIWYG with your units, what you wind up being able to build from a pair of Op Damocles sets is one max unit of Steel Troopers without Triple Lens helmets and one max unit without, I believe. I bought three Op Damocles sets plus one $10.00 unit box of Steel Troopers for Medic conversions, and wound up with three full units of Steel Troopers, two with Triple Lens, one without, all with two Medics and two Missile Launchers, and a few Steel Troopers left over, mostly Sergeants and two regular 'Troopers sans lenses, I believe.

Just thought I give a update;

Ive been trying these lists out with our group of players so far, they been very useful to teach the game easy to play are fairly balanced and have resulted in a new UNA player and a Karmen player .

Their fun, fast and remind me of those fun lunch-hammer games...

Is this a straight up cut and paste from that site? A link would be nice to follow.

If you wrote it, it would be a good intro article.

malfred wrote:Is this a straight up cut and paste from that site? A link would be nice to follow.

If you wrote it, it would be a good intro article.

http://www.at-43addict.com/getting-started/

Tips and suggestions for a good AT-43 game!

1) Play on a small board. We recently experimented with a 3′x3′ and 3’x 6’ board and it really seemed to improve the game. The combat was fast, immediate and deadly. It quickened the pace of the game and made it a lot more fun to play.

2) The rule books need work do to translations. There are a lot of rules questions in any game, but the AT-43 books could be organized better. We spend a lot of time flipping through pages figuring things out, looking up threads on message boards and, at times, deciding rules quesitons with a roll of the dice. It’s not bad enough to ruin the game, but hopefully in the future the editing of the books will be better.

3) Battlesuits need to be used carefully. Whether its UNA Steel Arms or Red Blok Kolossus units, low speed and not-so-heavy armor means these guys can get lit up if left out in the open. They pack serious firepower but are pretty fragile when it comes down to it. My suggestion is to leave your suits in reserve and deploy them as reinforcements. If you can drop them in halfway up the board, you can wreck some serious havoc.

4) Spend that LP. Leadership points are the currency of the game and unless you have some uber-secret plan, go ahead and spend those points. Most players have more than they need to pull off whatever tricks they have in their bag.

5) Going second is not a bad idea. In the words of one of our local players “you go first, I go second and shoot you. You go again, I go again and shoot you.” As with 40k, going second also allows you to take the last move and secure objectives, critical for winning a game.


I Thought this might go well in this thread too (I posted this in my other thread as well) wondering if it miht serve better in a thread by its self??? thoughts?

Thanks for the lists and tips

Just wondering if this post has helped anyone jump into the game? and if so. did you purchase a faction based on these recommendations?

Thanks

Saint Anuman wrote:Just wondering if this post has helped anyone jump into the game? and if so. did you purchase a faction based on these recommendations?

Thanks

Well I dont know if anyone was helped, but if anyone took these recommendations they might ask angry questions why there was no mention of the new army boxes or tailoring to availablility, let alone units that you can get on discount.

There lists are promoted as 'no waste', and really any value for them has long expired under the current model. Some items you cannot get, others you should replicate with a no brainer purchase that is a fraction of the price.

You would have been better just linking to tghe At43 Addict site, so people can see the old thread and follow it or not. If i was new (and really at this time I was) and if I bought all that you recommended, 8k total, it would have cost me about as much, possibly more than the two currently 7k armies I have plus my 4k Red Blok continfgent (still awaiting the Red Blok army list). Had I then learned I would have been angry, not with you, but with me for being folish enough to listen to you.

Sorry this post is a quadruple helping of bad advice.

An at the top of my head fix would be.

If you want to get into At-43 remember that most armies are played at 2000-3000pts. You can make the following armies that will really help you get started.

UNA.
There is no better start than the Damocles boxset. Buy at least two for the core of your army. Buy one set each and swap with the freind for Therians, if you dont also want to start a Therian army.
To add to this I recommend the Copperhead and Col Stark boxset, this will give you a useful multirole vehicle and a hero to lead your army.
Also in the same purchase buy one boxset of Steel TacArms and a box of other TacArms, any ttype will do, including a second boxset of Steel TacArms. This is enough to start you by. The Sgt Borz hero boxset is a good early expansion as it adds a lot of flexibility to your force for little extra effort. This hero can be added to either your infantry or one of your Fire Toads. If you can stretch to sharting a third damocles boxset so much the better, all the Fire Toads can be squadroned and you will have enough infantry for the core of a decent army.

THERIANS
Ideally you want to be partnering with a UNA collector or buying UNA at the same time. Two or three Daomcles boxsets are a must. Add a single storm Golem attachment boxset to this. Now you will have enough bits to give one unit an overseer and to give one or two units three sonic guns each and a extra unit with three flamers. This is a good core of infantry with a bit of variety. Two or three wraith Golgoths are all you really need for your veghicles as they are very versatile. I would add Tiamat to this and a boxset of Bane Goliaths, choose Bane rather than asault Goliaths as they carry weaponry that is not covered by the golems in your early collection. Though assault Goliaths are a good choice for the next boxset.

RED BLOK
Look no further than the new Red Blok army box which contains a 2000pt army in it. Back this up with one or two boxsets of Kolossi, i recommend a boxset of RPG Kolossus and a boxset of Steiolitz Kolossus. Those and light vehicles are all this army actually lacks. With this start up you wont need much more for a while.

KARMANS
These are hard to use properly and you need to get it right first time as Karman units are not forgiving.
Kaptars are the unit of choice, one or two boxsets and two attachment boxsets is a good core. Choose either attachment type both are useful, and when not in squads you can add them on thier own and get good mileage from them.
Boost this with a unit of K Shooters, a King Buggy and the Jindo Un boxset.


For all of these items shop around extensively, some titems can be bought FAR cheaper at some places than at others. Also do buy the AT-43 rulebook as it is needed to play the full game. a little bit of foresight can save you a pile of cash.

Interesting points I wasnt aware it came of as a sales pitch you seem to be talking alot about things to buy my intention was that these armys are good ways to try out the game

Each of these armies will give you an AFV, a type 1 unit and a battle suit to give you a flavor of each of the unit types.

I was under the impression that most folks are pretty smart and that with the number of folks playing now that these armys maybe available to borrow and get that feel for the game and the armies I guess being a retailer makes my posts seem like a sales pitch sorry thats was not my intention....I have each one of these armys on hand in a small card box new players and vet players looking to try out another force love these and often help them decide if they like a force or not. Again my intention was not a sales pitch but as a way for anyone to try the game out with a small force that works well and get that flaver of the unit types as mentioned. your points on what to buy are good but thats was not was I was aiming for.
Respectfully S.A.

I think that there still aren't that many people playing AT-43, Saint, such that it isn't a given that in any random geographical area in the U.S. or elsewhere that people have AT-43 armies lying around to lend out. Therefore, I think it's reasonable that someone would read threads like this as a "to buy" list, but I don't think there was any foul here, Orlanth.

I would say, however, that the economic reality of the game has changed as much of the firesale stuff is gone and I think that people would need up-to-date starter lists. I posted this elsewhere for starter UNA and Therian armies built around Operation Damocles sets if one had to go that way:

3 Operation Damocles Sets
Colonel Stark/Cobra Hero box
Steel TacArms Unit Box
Sigma Urash
Bane Goliaths Unit Box

This will give you enough miniatures for a 2000 AP Cent Com UNA army, and a 2000 AP Cypher Therian army, along with a bunch of terrain that you otherwise cannot get as the Terrain Accessory kits are sold out. Total cost shipped from The War Store: $141.95.

UNA and Therian Army Books and the main Rulebook which you can get over at Miniatures Market...total cost shipped: $25.95.

Then you need to track down a Template Accessory Set, which probably means going to eBay, just call it $15.

Total cost: $182.90, with some minis to proxy units with before you actually purchase new stuff.



The much better way to go is wait until August and get 1 Red Blok Army Box and 1 COGS Army Box. You get two 2000 AP armies without needing Army Books, you get enough rules you need to play the game without purchasing the main Rulebook, you get two templates, two shipping containers, three High Walls, six Low Walls, 12 dice, 2 measuring tapes, and two gaming posters. I think that's it, check the product pages online to verify precisely what you get.

Rackham has also published some missions specifically for us with these two starer kits. One of them needs 4 starter kits, but the rest are playable with just two.

Why go this way instead of the Operation Damocles way?


1) UNA is a problematic army to build if you choose to go with them long term due to shortages of units you need.


2) If you go the Operation Damocles route, you need a template for Indirect Fire weapons, and don't get one. The Army Boxes come with the template.


3) Two Army Boxes, ordered from The War Store, is only $110.95 shipped. You're short on terrain compared to the Operation Damocles-based route, but the Army Boxes come with gaming posters. 2000 AP games are usually played on small board sizes, and so 3 High Walls, 6 Low Walls, and 2 Containers will probably be enough for small games.


IMHO, better to spend as little as possible when you are trying a new game, especially one as unique as AT-43. Get your hands on the minis, try out the basic vibe of the game, and then if you do decide to go forward with it you're building one of two armies that are either relatively new or very new such that getting your hands on the units you need should be easy.

I am not claiming foul. just that far better advice could be offered.

Either way we would be negligent not to include the economic factor, buying smart for At-43 is the difference of paying 60-75%, people talk about where to get discounted 40K at 10-25% so ignoring this is not viable.

even so I didnt want myself to turn this into an advert, and so did not mention sources. Smart buyers will heed the warning and search until they see the different prices.

Orlanth wrote:I am not claiming foul. just that far better advice could be offered.

Either way we would be negligent not to include the economic factor, buying smart for At-43 is the difference of paying 60-75%, people talk about where to get discounted 40K at 10-25% so ignoring this is not viable.

even so I didnt want myself to turn this into an advert, and so did not mention sources. Smart buyers will heed the warning and search until they see the different prices.

Okay, just making sure about the foul thing. No worries.

In his defense, S.A. was just posting something already out there...he didn't really write it...but hopefully the new stuff I wrote will be seen by people in the thread and that takes care of that.

I think it's okay to tell people where to get the stuff in the interests of saving money...if you find somewhere better, post it up. One thing about AT-43 is that now it IS officially cheaper just to start it up than other games...once you start building armies it gets about as expensive as anything else but with the Army Boxes you can get enough for TWO people to start playing the game and it's still cheaper than my 1,500 point FoW or 40K armies by 50% or 80% respectively

I haven't found any Steel Trooper attachment boxes since I started playing several months back. I think that without the attachment boxes one is rather limited by rocket launcher from the Damocles set.

Other than that, I think the info is pretty good for the beginner.

The Steel Trooper Attachment Boxes is a long-standing problem...it's completely ridiculous. However, for $9.00 a box of Steel Troopers just paint up your own medics. Make the tops of the shoulders and the helmets white, paint red crosses on the shoulders, done. Paint grey for Mechanics.

Star Trooper MG gunners are the same as Steel Trooper MG gunners, so you can swap in. The only real problem is the laser gun bearers. The easiest thing to do is to buy Wing Troopers and remove the backpack from their laser gun bearer and glue down to a new base (or just remove the smoke piece from the base of the guy you just removed from the backpack like I did). Alternately, you can make conversions...some guy took the missile launcher Steel Trooper, clipped off the missile, and put a Laser Gun there instead...get some Steel TacArms, also cheap, and you can clip off their laser guns and use those.

I could never mutiliate Steel TacArms, myself. Some of my favorite minis.

But for UNA take those missle launchers and throw them away and use Laser guns instead on of the most underrated weapons in the game.

It depends...you can't beat Locked Shot weapons to take down vehicles and armor, and if you can use Laser Designators right you can have missile launcher teams hiding out of LOS and still taking down enemy vehicles and armor. They then function as excellent "effective reserve" units who only need to come out when all the armor is gone, and they're at full strength.

IvanTT:

Dal'yth Dude wrote:I haven't found any Steel Trooper attachment boxes since I started playing several months back. I think that without the attachment boxes one is rather limited by rocket launcher from the Damocles set.

You know, I actually stumbled upon a way for anyone to try AT-43 for very cheap if they want to see if they like the game mechanics.

You could actually play AT-43, in its entirety, without any miniatures. If you have the main rulebook and the army books, and you know the sizes of the mini bases, you could use felt for terrain, cut out and label your own base pieces out of cereal boxes, and then print out your own unit cards from Universalhead's website and then play AT-43 in its entirety.

Because AT-43 has mechanics for 2D terrain play, in the end Line of Sight issues can ALWAYS be resolved by drawing the Zone of Fire and taking Size characteristics into account. TLOS is the main rule, but if and when you get into trouble you refer to ZoF and terrain Sizes.

So you could, effectively, just play without TLOS at all and gameplay wouldn't suffer one whit. If you say you can see more than half of my unit of Steel Troopers such that they don't get cover and I say you can see less than half, draw the ZoF and see...if more than half of the unit is in the dead zone, then you can see less than half and I get cover. End of debate. One of the best rules in AT-43, actually...

ANYONE could just print out the unit cards, look up the meaning of the various unit abilities online, cut out some felt, make up some counters, and try AT-43 for free and see if they like it.

If you want to experiment with lists to see what units you want to buy, this is the way to go about it. Better to spend a little kindergarten-level cutting and pasting and markering with felt and pens and cardboard, and going to Universalhead's website for the cards and other rules support which a lot of AT-43 players do anyway, and figure out which units you want for free than spend $22.50 a unit box for a unit you decide later that you don't like.

I wish I had thought of this before. When we first started playing Flames of War we used felt terrain as that's all we had, and it worked to learn the rules...in AT-43 it's even easier!

Cairnius wrote:
You could actually play AT-43, in its entirety, without any miniatures. If you have the main rulebook and the army books, and you know the sizes of the mini bases, you could use felt for terrain, cut out and label your own base pieces out of cereal boxes, and then print out your own unit cards from Universalhead's website and then play AT-43 in its entirety.

Yeah I guess you could but there are tons of better chit games that I'd rather play than an AT-43 one. I think you'd have to be a special kinda cheapo to want to play with no figures.

IvanTT wrote:But for UNA take those missle launchers and throw them away and use Laser guns instead on of the most underrated weapons in the game.

Cairnius wrote:It depends...you can't beat Locked Shot weapons to take down vehicles and armor, and if you can use Laser Designators right you can have missile launcher teams hiding out of LOS and still taking down enemy vehicles and armor. They then function as excellent "effective reserve" units who only need to come out when all the armor is gone, and they're at full strength.

Ideally you need both weapons. Missiles do not help against *** infantry and basic guns are not good enough, lasers are also more reliable being all but guaranteed to hit and with higher strength. What really makes missiles are ther laser designators. They mean that even if you play terrain heavy if you get to paint the tartet at all, everyone can have a piece of the target. This wrecks any hope of survivability for enemy vehicles. Against anyone else you can li9mit exposure to only a section of the army with careful use of terrain.
When playing against UNA kill the TacArms first. Its a pity that laser designators have unlimited range and do not respect cover, so yiou can have Tac Arms at the back in cover and taking cover doing the spotting, which in general is very bad news, especuially for short ranged Red Blok armies.

OTOH my Red Blok opponents load up on infantry and avoid the vehicles negating most of the missiles I have. I really struggle against Kollossus suits since I have no attachment boxes. My strategy now is just keep knocking them down with the mortars.

Looking forward to getting some Cogs and a well rounded army.

Dal'yth Dude wrote:OTOH my Red Blok opponents load up on infantry and avoid the vehicles negating most of the missiles I have. I really struggle against Kollossus suits since I have no attachment boxes. My strategy now is just keep knocking them down with the mortars.

Looking forward to getting some Cogs and a well rounded army.

Kollosi are a pain, but mortars a a good way to deal with them i am a RB player so I know... Ialso agree with mix of Lasergun and Missiles to be able tocope with everything incoming... what do you need the attachements for? the laser guns?

a Supra army IS difficult for anyone with a nice round of AT-Gauss and Snipers plues medics/EWS and 1 or two AFV to have serious anti AFV or Sierps is deadly....

IvanTT wrote:

Cairnius wrote:
You could actually play AT-43, in its entirety, without any miniatures. If you have the main rulebook and the army books, and you know the sizes of the mini bases, you could use felt for terrain, cut out and label your own base pieces out of cereal boxes, and then print out your own unit cards from Universalhead's website and then play AT-43 in its entirety.

Yeah I guess you could but there are tons of better chit games that I'd rather play than an AT-43 one. I think you'd have to be a special kinda cheapo to want to play with no figures.

For just testing the game? I don't think its cheapo to not want to invest a couple hundred dollars in a game just to try it...I think it's pretty smart. These hobbies ain't cheap, especially if you want to diversify and branch out into a bunch of them.

But for most people, this would probably be more useful for testing lists and units before investing in them.

I've always kind of chosen to dive in to things . Paintball is a good example. You can spend $70 getting a really, Really cheap gun with a mask, tank, etc to try it out. OR you can save up, and get a $200 gun (say $250 for a package) that will serve you well for years

I did this in something like '99 with the F4 Illustrator (the Spyder and Tippman 98 were similar, more popular choices) and used it through the rest of high school and college, without having to invest in anything else but the paintballs

Wolfen: I have 4 steel trooper squads and the only non laser rifle I have is the missile launcher. I don't have any las guns (what I'd like to run) or machine guns (which aren't that great IMO).

I have 3 main RB opponents. One runs super heavy infantry with few vehicles, another tends to run the Kollossus with the character option to run 4 or 5 suits, the vehicle with the anti-tank gun and 3-4 very large infantry squads. The third runs vehicle heavy lists and I tend to have no issues with taking down vehicles.

It must be my group because I can run Epstone with a death dealer squad, get 14 hits and only see 1 dead guy thanks to the medics and cover saves. It really is frustrating. My main strategy seems to be tagging units with the steel tacs then using the Cobra's mortar to actually kill stuff. There's just too much cover saves in our games to kill a squad of 10-15 guys, especially with medics. :(

Hmm, if you are up against 10-15 man squads that are using lots of cover, then you need to build up your Cobras with medium mortars, and Lancelots with light mortars. Shock TacArms with flamers actually work pretty well in that environment too. The nice thing about the UNA is that it is VERY versatile and can come up with an answer for any type of army.