Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I love skirmish games and this one popped onto my radar. But I have a few questions. So if anyone can offer up any advice and/insight into this game it would be much appreciated.
First off I downloaded the rules that are on the main site, are these the full rules or just a quick start set?
After that I really like the looks of the miniatures but I have no clue how to plan out my purchases and where to start. I will want to do two lists so that both my wife and I can play and learn the game. So any suggestions, advice, hints, help would be much appreciated. After that if anyone has anything else helpful to share with me that would be great.

There an old old version of the rules, but serve very well as a quick start set. The full rulebook include a LOT of expanded rules. A lot of the extras are covered in the FAQ updates I believe though if you can find them, I think they were officially taken down once the rulebook was released.

As for lists, a faction starter is usually a good bet. NOT the "light and dark" starter sets, these are badly unbalanced against each other. Beyond that you can really add in anything you want depending on how you find you prefer the game.

The wiki for it contains all the stats for different models so that can help you figure out what you want next.

http://atoracle.wikidot.com/

I love the models, the game has very cool rules, but be warned their balance isn't the greatest in the world. One thing that costs 25lvls may be crap compared to something else that is 25lvls. Models story are their main focus, balance seems to come in a distance 3rd.

^^^ pretty much this. Unless you want to min-max dont expect balanced line ups all the time.

Of course from what you said shouldnt be a bad deal, with you and your wife playing just going for units you like the look of helps a good deal. Also think about going for scenario based games too. The rulebook has a LOT of fluff for each character, and by a lot i mean "likes and dislikes" style too. Can help think up interesting little scenarios too i guess

haha funny enough, my favorite thing about the whole game, is the book. The artwork by Wen is jaw dropping and the background to each character is fantastic.

The biggest letdown for me was the agents. There is 1-2 minmax builds for each agents, and the rest are downright worthless. Even the minmax builds are commonly subpar to the character of an equivalent role. So much opportunity with that system wasted.

Thats the thing, the agents fill in a very weird unneeded roll to me. Its like they try to take the place of things like "death marshells" or other mooks from malifaux, but A:T doesnt need them. Its literally a game like how anime has entire battles fought between JUST unique characters. That is A:T, and the draw of it. Every character is a unique little snowflake and it works because of this. It really doesnt need mooks at all except maybe if you could fill the table with them.

I liked the aspect not so much of making grunts but creating you own character. Tons of conversion potential is say making a samael flying CC character. However while you have the options to do ao, for the points other stuff is waaaay better.

Ya the character models are what caught my attention. I'm hoping the game it self is worthwhile picking up for us.

It's a very fun game, don't get us wrong. All the gameplay is straight out of a anime. Just don't dig too deep into min/max and you should have a blast.

Naw I never get into min/max. For the most part this will probably be just me and the wife playing together. From what I read of the quick start rules I'm very intrigued and we will probably be trying out some proxy games over the weekend before grabbing some models on monday.