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That seems unusually large..

I looked at the price on the starter and laughed for a few minutes..

I think that shot clearly shows why the are more expensive than warlord's general stuff

now why they chose to go so big is another question (although I guess other races may end up being smaller?)

I love BA, I want to love this -- but the miniatures don't excite me at all.

I'm game to try the rules with 40k factions. Really not getting inspired by the universe/races.

There is already a BA conversion for 40k out there, Bolter Action or something. I want to try it with HH models one day, probably after winning the lotto.

The miniatures are really, really big. It explains the price, but I'm not really interested in such large miniatures for sci-fi.

I know restic is the mother of suffering, but if you need to sell a small, niche range of wacky monopose models, it sure does keep the price down. Boardgame plastic is also acceptable.

Maybe they should have started with the price point that wouldn't scare people out front of the Gates of Antares and worked their way backwards to how big the models should be.

 Pacific wrote:

While I often appreciate your acerbic wit in other posts, think this is being a bit unfair. Warlord under Rick Priestly has pretty much ushered in a new era of plastics in the historicals scene, I think they were narrowly beaten by some of the Perry miniatures box sets, but their plastic Romans and Celts were at the fore-front of a mass of new plastic releases and now barely a month goes by without the release of a new plastic kit.

They're also doing the same with their vehicle range, releasing a bunch of very reasonably priced plastic vehicles with Italieri.

The GoA miniatures are expensive because they are a new range, and they are obviously being produced in very limited numbers. The game has to find its feet, and its obviously going to take a year or two to do this. Right now, I'm sure most Warlord fans would prefer that the company keep their resources directed towards Bolt Action and their other historical ranges. Eventually perhaps the number of players of GoA will grow to the point where Warlord can afford to sink tens of thousands of pounds into some plastic moulds, but for now I think this is the right way to go about it. For now, for the 'early adopters' £70 to play the game isn't too bad, especially as you can download the beta rules for free.

While I agree that Alex was being unfair, Priestly is a freelance rules writer, he doesn't appear to be "on staff" at Warlord (though that may possibly have changed with GoA, or they might just be a linked association), but Warlord is run by Stallard and Sawyer, so "under Priestly" should really be "with Priestly' input" perhaps, though again, he's writing rules as a freelancer, not designing or organising plastic kits. The credit for those is elsewhere in the WLG organisation.

I also don't buy them being a new range as a valid reason for their (over) pricing of them. We're also not talking about a new piece of technology where the early adopters need to pay a premium because of higher component and manufacturing costs - it's actually moving volume that will bring these to profit faster, and as we know, the better the price, the more that people on the fence will give it a try, and then they'll play, and others will see the models and game in action, and so on and on.

 mitch_rifle wrote:
some of the dreamforge stuff could probably work if the rules are good

And there's the rub. Everyone in sci-fi and fantasy wants to be a special unique snowflake and have the GW/Warhammer model of their own. At least many historical manufacturers don't go down that road to the same extent. (Seeing the very same Warlord stocking Victrix, Perry, Gripping Beast, while Battlefront is the other way.)

I think the notion that a company making sci-fi minis is automatically trying to make their own 40k is laughable.

These are a totally different from 40k if that was what you're implying. Are there factions? Are they sci-fi? Are some of them in armor? Yeah.. but other than the pricing, what do these guys have in common with the old Geedub?

Has anyone on here actually tried out the rules? I'd be curious to know if they're easy to pick up.

If you have played Bolt Action, you have played Gates of Antares.

Except you're rolling D10s and rolling low for most things.

They also removed quality ratings, and added more to assaults.

 MLaw wrote:
I think the notion that a company making sci-fi minis is automatically trying to make their own 40k is laughable.

These are a totally different from 40k if that was what you're implying. Are there factions? Are they sci-fi? Are some of them in armor? Yeah.. but other than the pricing, what do these guys have in common with the old Geedub?

I think he is talking about how they want to make models for their rules and rules for their models.

 MLaw wrote:
I think the notion that a company making sci-fi minis is automatically trying to make their own 40k is laughable.
These are a totally different from 40k if that was what you're implying. Are there factions? Are they sci-fi? Are some of them in armor? Yeah.. but other than the pricing, what do these guys have in common with the old Geedub?

I'll be polite and explain rather than my first instinct. I'm talking about the 40k model. Which is why I said that. This means "our game plus our models" with little to no cooperation or acknowledgement of others' products. With the result that there are a million little lines all with their own backstories, models and so forth. While I like Tre Manor a lot, he wants to make two games to go with his slightly-different fantasy model lines, and is obviously hoping for them to be successful and popular. I don't like his chances. Dreamforge and whatever his game is called. GoA. And so on and on it goes when some form of co-production between good rules writers and good model manufacturers could do so much better than putting so much work into a dozen more completely discrete game lines destined to be forgotten in 5 years. Imagine GoA or Mantic's Warpath with Dramforge's Space-Not-Nazis-No-Really as an official faction. I don't see a loser there - and huge benefits for both companies.

 Azazelx wrote:

 Pacific wrote:

While I often appreciate your acerbic wit in other posts, think this is being a bit unfair. Warlord under Rick Priestly has pretty much ushered in a new era of plastics in the historicals scene, I think they were narrowly beaten by some of the Perry miniatures box sets, but their plastic Romans and Celts were at the fore-front of a mass of new plastic releases and now barely a month goes by without the release of a new plastic kit.

They're also doing the same with their vehicle range, releasing a bunch of very reasonably priced plastic vehicles with Italieri.

The GoA miniatures are expensive because they are a new range, and they are obviously being produced in very limited numbers. The game has to find its feet, and its obviously going to take a year or two to do this. Right now, I'm sure most Warlord fans would prefer that the company keep their resources directed towards Bolt Action and their other historical ranges. Eventually perhaps the number of players of GoA will grow to the point where Warlord can afford to sink tens of thousands of pounds into some plastic moulds, but for now I think this is the right way to go about it. For now, for the 'early adopters' £70 to play the game isn't too bad, especially as you can download the beta rules for free.

While I agree that Alex was being unfair, Priestly is a freelance rules writer, he doesn't appear to be "on staff" at Warlord (though that may possibly have changed with GoA, or they might just be a linked association), but Warlord is run by Stallard and Sawyer, so "under Priestly" should really be "with Priestly' input" perhaps, though again, he's writing rules as a freelancer, not designing or organising plastic kits. The credit for those is elsewhere in the WLG organisation.

Yes, perhaps 'with Priestly's input' is probably a better way of putting it, although he did mention in an article recently in a wargaming mag how proud he was of their plastics ranges and the company breaking new ground with them, so you have to think he leans in that direction, rather than wanting to produce metal as AlexHolker was implying.

I probably still give much too credit in any case as I still imagine the guy levitating 6 inches above the ground and with a halo of light hovering above his head unfortunately, thanks to him being the architect of 40k

 Barzam wrote:
Has anyone on here actually tried out the rules? I'd be curious to know if they're easy to pick up.

Tis neither Bolt Action nor Infinity but a mixture of the two. Activations etc are pretty standard BA, reactions are more Infinity-esque. As a system, it works. However the current faction rules and stats lack a little character, which is understandable at the point they are at.

 judgedoug wrote:
Size comparison with GW LOTR Harad and Bolt Action German crewman

Is the size of the alien bigger than a human or are they all that size? If yes they made the same strange size decision as Dystopian legions, it is like they don't want the extra sales to the converting crowd.

Just killed all my interest in the game.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
Size comparison with GW LOTR Harad and Bolt Action German crewman

Is the size of the alien bigger than a human or are they all that size? If yes they made the same strange size decision as Dystopian legions, it is like they don't want the extra sales to the converting crowd.

Just killed all my interest in the game.

You must remember that the comparison pics were to LOTR and Bolt Action figures. so unless you want to give Hobbits laser guns, there may still be hope for conversions. It would be useful to see them next to a SM. I suspect that they are not much larger than one. All of this being said, I think that they are a bit big for space elves. Maybe I will pick some up.

Unless someone beats me too it I can post a picture comparison tonight of an Algoryn, Space Marine and Eldar.

The only factions available so far are "humans" just of different genetic types. I haven't compared because I don't have the others but the Bromites seem shorter than Algoryn but I don't know what the size of the Concorde are. The Gharn (sp?) are obviously smaller.

I have to admit while at first I thought the price was high playing the game and having them in metal* they seem worth it to me now.

*Yes, I know metal is cheaper but for me, right now this works. When the plastics are released I'll probably buy those too.

The sculpts and prices are horrible. :-(

 JohnnyHell wrote:
The sculpts and prices are horrible. :-(

I haven't bothered to look at the latter because of the former but admittedly there is a variety in the quality of the sculpts IMO. The rock people things were straight out of the early to mid 1990s in quality and style (which, given the lead designer, may be what they were going for) with none of the attached nostalgia that would get me to buy anything from that time. The algoryn were better digital sculpts but nothing about them stands out for me enough to want to buy them. Ironically, the best mini I've seen previewed in the line is the campy 70's porn star they debuted with. At best ho-hum minis combined with the hubris of the failed KS turned me off to the minis but I've heard good things about Bolt Action rules so a scifi version piques my interest a bit even if I won't use them with any minis from the same company so far.

Yeah, the initial chap was ace!

Problem with most of the minis is that they're awfully generic looking and they don't look that much apart from one another, it's like Mass Effect all over again.

I wish they emulated the style of mass effect more. It's one of the most creative scifi universes that have come out in the past decade in gaming.

It's an interesting and rich verse for sure, well fleshed out, the armour design of the game though is quite generic.

 BrookM wrote:
It's an interesting and rich verse for sure, well fleshed out, the armour design of the game though is quite generic.

My favorite armor from that universe definitely isn't generic.



Now if they had made that... I'd have been in.

That's what Gates of Ants needs, more alien species that don't look human.

Agreed... and I'm not including the surprising furry interest that it got under that umbrella.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
Size comparison with GW LOTR Harad and Bolt Action German crewman

Is the size of the alien bigger than a human or are they all that size? If yes they made the same strange size decision as Dystopian legions, it is like they don't want the extra sales to the converting crowd.

Just killed all my interest in the game.

Dunno, that's the only model I have. It's conceivable they are a "bigger race". I know the Hansa model that was a human was more in line with normal 28mm figures.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 spaceelf wrote:
You must remember that the comparison pics were to LOTR and Bolt Action figures. so unless you want to give Hobbits laser guns, there may still be hope for conversions. It would be useful to see them next to a SM. I suspect that they are not much larger than one. All of this being said, I think that they are a bit big for space elves. Maybe I will pick some up.

Unfortunately I do not have any more Space Marines in my life. Though I do have some Chaos Cultists and some Eldar guardians if that would help?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I know restic is the mother of suffering, but if you need to sell a small, niche range of wacky monopose models, it sure does keep the price down. Boardgame plastic is also acceptable.

Maybe they should have started with the price point that wouldn't scare people out front of the Gates of Antares and worked their way backwards to how big the models should be.

Again, I am pretty sure they're releasing the models because people have asked for them. In the time between the original GoA kickstarter and now, Warlord has heavily invested in a partnership with a plastics manufacturing company and have also partnered with Italeri. The GoA models have also been offered to the Warlord Sarge demo people to receive/paint/playtest in preparation for a launch later this year. It would not surprise me in the least if Warlord had a few plastic kits in the works to actually launch the game with, to replace the short-run metal sculpts.

 warboss wrote:
Agreed... and I'm not including the surprising furry interest that it got under that umbrella.

Fastest way to ruin a game IMHO.

 BrookM wrote:
That's what Gates of Ants needs, more alien species that don't look human.

For better or worse, the four factions explored so far are all humans (or post-/meta-/evolved-/sci-fi-catchphrase-of-the-moment-humans); but I agree with your point that some more unusual figures – alien in form, if not in background – might catch more people's interest (mine included).

Of course, that needs to be balanced against the people that like the more hard sci-fi feel of everything being human-descended, in which case keeping everything human-based is a selling point.

A difficult balance!