Beyond The Gates of Antares - Official Kickstarter Thread

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**Melcavuk**

For those after a little more background and some concept art here is the latest update:

**PhantomViper**

Now THAT is what I'm talking about!

**Dez**

Yup! Now to speak with my banker...

**Melcavuk**

Its been a long time coming but as the first real concept art from this kickstarter (in my opinion anyway), I'm hoping this sets the tone of things to come. Models made in that style would make a fantastic looking army on the field and I'm sure people would also look to using them as proxys in other systems too.

**kenshin620**

Finally! That didnt hurt too much now did it

**Tethyr13**

Yep new images - Great!

I think Rik or Rick did mention that they had acquired the financing through a deal - and they were proceeding. At one point it was implied that JS and Warlord would not fully fund this as they are in the midst of expanding and LOTS of new stuff of their own. But they will produce and distribute this for DSC. Main thing is Rick will still own the IP (to him it is his last chance to OWN his creation). Maybe after seeing x amount of backers Warlord fronted him the cash in return for a payback scheme on the distribution - without ownership changing hands or a bank owed any money.

I know nothing, just guessing really, but something along those lines would make sense.

**pancakeonions**

I hope this can save the KS project, but I'm not optimistic for this time 'round. But if this doesn't pan out this time, save all this great work, and try again in a few months. I think this game and the minis have great potential, I'm just not sure they were quite ready at launch time for a KS with such a high goal.

Best of luck B'GoA! You still got my pledge!

**Pacific**

Now THAT is what I am talking about.

Ace looking art and really interesting sounding background - one more of these, each day of the week for the next week please

**Dentry**

Pacific wrote:
Now THAT is what I am talking about.

Ace looking art and really interesting sounding background - one more of these, each day of the week for the next week please

I'll second that.

**The CF**

Yes yes yes! Glorious concept art and fluff!
A few more of these and I'm pretty sure things will swing for the better. Oh, and a god-like wardrone, since these will make the bulk of your army.

What I'm waiting for now is a general idea of how forces are made. I'm pretty sure I want to do a NuHuman-centric force, but Nuhumans appear in a few different factions and are most likely able to be played by themselves... but I hope.

**Fiore**

Excellent. I love the art and background.

I am also quite fond of the palpable upswing in the mood of this thread

**Tibbsy**

Fiore wrote:

I am also quite fond of the palpable upswing in the mood of this thread

I agree with this

Far too much negativity here it's almost depressing

One hell of an update though, I'm really looking forward to the next!

**Azazelx**

Pacific wrote:
Looks really, really impressive, possibly Infinity or McVey level of detail. Now needs a pro-level paintjob, and details of the next minis and concept art to be shown!
Certainly I think if they had another 2 or 3 characters of that quality it would help the KS massively.

Well, at this point Kev has sculpted a number of the McVey figues, so it's not really surprising that he's put out a detailed quality figure.

**chris_valera**

Duncan_Idaho wrote:
@Chris Well, showing up on the forum and showing your willie to everyone is not exactly what I would call good manners and so I am not surprised they did not love you that much.

Can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

Buzzsaw wrote:
To be honest, if this campaign fails, the obvious move is to do another campaign with a slightly less lofty goal and a correspondingly lower funding level. Say, 2 factions at 100k GBP?

Starship Troopers had basically 2 factions (skinnies were a non-starter) and it played beautifully.

cincydooley wrote:
Here's a small comparison I just drummed up:

They're actually pretty good comparative deals, but it's obvious the difference: with rivet wars you have some semblance of an idea what you were getting. Here...nada.

I'm sure I'll get called a CMoN-fellator for this, but I think the Relic Knights campaign is a pretty good example of what BtG should be doing. Lots of the RK models didn't exist prior to the kickstarter, but they at least had concept art of what they would/should look like. The fact that BtG has plain silhouttes is a problem....

This. And it's the core problem; why should we care enough to pony up $100 for this kickstarter, if the game's designer's couldn't pony up $100 for some sketches.

Pacific wrote:
Anyone who has spent any time on the development forums will be aware of this, but sadly this hasn't been conveyed (perhaps that is impossible?) onto the KS page.

I will delicately point out that you shouldn't need to spend any time of the development forums, everything should be available on the kickstarter page. It's Dark Space Corp that needs to work on their elevator pitch, not us for not being willing to read through endless forum pages filled with super-nerds typing endless screeds discussing the difference between hard sci-fi and space opera sci-fi, and so on...

Rolt wrote:
From the kickstarter:

Hi everyone

We're moving into the crucial second half of our Kickstarter and as you'd expect we've been busy trying to make sure that we can hit our target buy focusing on the big items you've all said you wanted. Well, I think we've got that sorted and the our remaining days should be full to the brim with great content updates. A number of people in the forums wanted to know more about what we're working on, so here's a handy list:

Developing a WarDrone(or two) in front of your very eyes
Golem's painting process whilst they use their awesome skills on our Hansa miniature (and others!)
Boromites Green(s)
CoCom Green
Freebooters (soon to be renamed Freeborn) Concept Art
Algoryn Concept Art
Isorian Concept Art
NuHu Concept Art
CoCom Concept Art
Example armies for each faction
Faction Icons
Real-time Dynamic Gaming Universe - graphical representation of how this will work, with a video explaining it to boot!
Club real-time incentive program - oooh you'll like this we think!
Outline Rulebook - this has taken a little longer than we wanted as Rick has been pulled around doing all kinds of PR activities. We're still on track for our original target of the early Feb - Some backers are playing GoA games using the information we've already released!
Stores - we're rolling out a couple of new store reward tiers and will be reaching out to stores directly. If you want to support your local stores by buying your Kickstarter rewards through them, you can! If you are a store and are not on Warlords list, get in touch (Details on our website).
We even have a collaboration miniature to announce in the near future! (fingers crossed!)
More greens!

What I can't tell you right now is exactly when these things will come through. Like with any creative endeavour things change all the time, sometimes you need a little extra time to tweak and sometimes you even have to go back to the drawing board - we've had a couple of them already! - but come through they will, and more besides.

Thanks for sticking with us so far, the next part should be fun

Rik

Now we have something new to discuss at last.

I have zero faith they'll make any real progress on this before the kickstarter ends.

Like Rolt said, the Wardrone had truly better be the best thing ever for this kickstarter to stand a chance.

kenshin620 wrote:
On the topic of wardrones, any idea what they are finally gonna look like?

I havent hit their forums in forever but last I remember people wanted the bots to look more like this

than this

Both are equally terrible, but I see why the nerds on DSC wanted "real" sci-fi robots. But the robots from Infinity are a nice compromise:

Melcavuk wrote:
For those after a little more background and some concept art here is the latest update:

This looks good, but not great. I've seen similar in the Star Wars RPG, but it's not enough to get me to open my wallet, since they're not unique enough to be a good-looking army. Show me something like Tyranids, Alien xenomorphs, Hudson's bugs, or the smaller Aberrants from Trinity Battleground. Or some big robots or something, something that makes the background unque.

A good effort though, after all this time

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

**Rolt**

Not too bad, a pretty solid looking concept, not really my taste personally speaking, looks a little to post-apocalypse for me, a genre I've never been able to get along with. Now hopefully if the Wardrones look as good as these this project will finally turn around for the better.

And yes it's nice to see this thread change for the positive (like I should speak, ha ha), lets hope DSC continue to impress.

**AlexHolker**

Oh look, space hobos. Male space hobos.

If DSC were making a Fallout game these would fit in, but how are these guys from the same Rever Freebooter-now-Freeborn sub-faction as Hansa? They can't even find a matching pair of pants!

**warboss**

Anyone else getting a dune vibe from that backstory?

**NoseGoblin**

AlexHolker wrote:
Oh look, space hobos. Male space hobos.

If DSC were making a Fallout game these would fit in, but how are these guys from the same Rever Freebooter-now-Freeborn sub-faction as Hansa? They can't even find a matching pair of pants!

I get a Landskecht vibe from the mismatched uniform.

**Compel**

There is something almost Human Revolution-ish about the bottom sketch.

While the designs have, in truth, put me off a bit of the Freeborn faction - a bit too rustic for me, it has made me even more excited for the game.

And they've got the Freeborn right at the top of the kickstarter now.

**Dentry**

Is anyone participating in the development forums at Dark Space Corp's site? I perused some of the threads and most of what I saw were (sometimes) veiled arguments of my tastes are better than yours. There does appear to be constructive discussion but it gets a bit muddled.

**Azazelx**

Breotan wrote:
I can't believe you guys are getting all butthurt over the ass plates.

Badoom-tish!
I don't mind the buttplates.

Is he supposed to be a "Reaver" or a "Rever"? It looks like a typo to me, though it could well be my misremembering how they're choosing to spell the name of that faction.

I'd probably pledge the 27 quid for the rulebook + Hansa, but I don't believe it will be funded, and I do not want to give out my CC details unnecessarily. If it went through Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk I'd have gone in already to support them.

I don't mind the freeborn, but they're also quite generic space adventuere/space pirate-ish, as I could make up with any combination of figures from GW/Necromunda/Copplestone/Hasslefree/etc. They really need a Space Marine/Halo Spartan/Imperial Stormtrooper/Guy in chunky power armour analogue if they want to get money. Even Sedition Wars' guys have something going on.

**Duncan_Idaho**

Rever it is.

**Dentry**

Rever because they "reverted to a primitive condition."

**Azazelx**

Ah, k. I was reading it as "reaver" until I saw it in giant letters above Hansa's head.

**Fiore**

AlexHolker wrote:
Oh look, space hobos. Male space hobos.

If DSC were making a Fallout game these would fit in, but how are these guys from the same Rever Freebooter-now-Freeborn sub-faction as Hansa? They can't even find a matching pair of pants!

This is just one variety of Freeborn, from a particularly primative planet. I'm sure there will be others that look more like Hansa. This is not what the whole Freeborn faction looks like.

These guys do use technology given to them by their employers (I assume those metal plates help generate their shields) but choose to maintain the dress of their planet through pride in their culture and to unnerve the enemy.

**Pacific**

warboss wrote:Anyone else getting a dune vibe from that backstory?

Me too! But then perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise if you have read Rogue Trader (1st edition), as that had a lot of elements from Dune as well - also written by Rick. A lot of those still exist in the current 40k universe in fact!

scipio.au wrote:Ah, k. I was reading it as "reaver" until I saw it in giant letters above Hansa's head.

Me too.. how are you actually meant to pronounce it? Like 'revver' (as in 'revving an engine'?)

**Melcavuk**

Dentry wrote:
Is anyone participating in the development forums at Dark Space Corp's site? I perused some of the threads and most of what I saw were (sometimes) veiled arguments of my tastes are better than yours. There does appear to be constructive discussion but it gets a bit muddled.

I'm participating on the development site and haven't found people to be overly argumentative, there have been a couple of users who felt the need to be overly critical and insulting however that is something that is the exception rather than the rule. On the whole I think there are some great ideas coming out over there and its a great chance to get involved.

And on the topic of names I think its Rev-ers (so a shorter rev-ert).

As I understand it this is one of the lowest tech types of Freeborn that would be fielded in the universe, relying on their faction to provide them with weaponry and transport they represent the most base of troops lifted from an almost feral world. We can expect a large variety of tech levels within the Freeborn ranks depending on homeworld, wealth and how successful they are.

However as a starting point I find these to be visually distinctive and having a "rough" appearance will help to provide visual variety compared to more sleek high-tech factions (Isorian and Concord)

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Faction Icons are now available:

and

The community influence on the Isorian one comes by way of the Egyptian stylised eye that was recommended by many of the posters, there was some discussion on other ideas but the eye was one of the most common themes arising.

**krazynadechukr**

Love the halo master chief assault rifle! I will pledge if i see decent pansimian stuff....

**krazynadechukr**

Jedi Rahm Kota? Is that you?

**kenshin620**

Dentry wrote:
Is anyone participating in the development forums at Dark Space Corp's site? I perused some of the threads and most of what I saw were (sometimes) veiled arguments of my tastes are better than yours. There does appear to be constructive discussion but it gets a bit muddled.

As I said before, some people fall into the trap that they think this is an opportunity for a minis company to pander to them only

But sadly we live in a democracy which means people want different things (unless you donated $10,000 or something and then they'll listen to you

)