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.

 judgedoug wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:
This doesn't really seem like hard sci-fi to me - there are rock-men and little goblins, and do they really have plausible scientific explanations for all aspects of the universe? Hard Sci-fi to me is stuff like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy; based on extrapolation of existing technology and with meticulous research creating a believable, science-based world.

Yeah, it's pretty hard sci-fi. There's no FTL travel, these panhumans are all modified genetically from nowadays human stock, nanotechnology is where it's at. Actually, it's pretty much the hardest sci-fi miniatures game ever made afaik.

I'd agree with this. The rock people and 'goblins' are evolved from humans. There is no magic, there are no jedi or space wizards etc. As far as I know, everything in the game is somehow related to a human.

edit: and then there are more hard sci-fi tropes with future socialist society, technology taking over, etc etc.

Like the new army deals. I was going to order the starter and some of the old metal army deals but unfortunately they have been removed from the store so I guess my plans are on hold until plastic releases appear.

The old metal deals only saved £6 per army, the likes of Element and Dark Sphere will beat that. That said with the prices on these deals waiting for plastic seems sensible. The old deals were also for beta testing and were largely no longer legal armies.

Have got my first Concord squad painted up:

 judgedoug wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:
This doesn't really seem like hard sci-fi to me - there are rock-men and little goblins, and do they really have plausible scientific explanations for all aspects of the universe? Hard Sci-fi to me is stuff like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy; based on extrapolation of existing technology and with meticulous research creating a believable, science-based world.

Yeah, it's pretty hard sci-fi. There's no FTL travel, these panhumans are all modified genetically from nowadays human stock, nanotechnology is where it's at. Actually, it's pretty much the hardest sci-fi miniatures game ever made afaik.

It's essentially 40k Rogue Trader if that game were made in 2015 (which kind of makes sense if you consider the brain behind it!) If you remember that game didn't even have genetic engineering as a concept as the science wasn't generally in the public perception at that time. The equivalents this time around are worm-holes, nano tech and drones.

Remember also that the miniatures for the first few editions of 40k were similarly minimalistic/understated, it's very easy to see the creative control of the 40k forefathers over a lot of this.

Yeah, whereas Rogue Trader (and to some extent Laserburn and Combat 3000/3001) were The Far Future According To 1985 Technology, GoA is more like The Far Future According To 2015 Technology


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Upcoming Gates of Antares releases...

Concord Combined Command Starter Army
Ghar Empire Starter Army

Ghar Battle Squad - plastic
Ghar Assault Squad - plastic
Ghar Bomber Squad - plastic
Ghar Outcast Squad - metal blister pack
Ghar Outcast command squad - metal blister pack
Ghar Flitters - metal blister pack

plus a Gates of Antares terrain line by Sarissa

Transmat Pads
Kinectic Barriers
Kinectic Barricades
Orbital Transmat Station
Large Stanchion Building
Medium Stanchion Building
Small Stanchion Building

I have to disagree about the hardness of the sci fi. FTL wormholes, the eponymous Gates themselves, are not hard. Nanotechnology clouds are not hard. The very concept that somehow Isorians and Concord cannot reconcile their technology because of organic space magic technology is not hard. You guys are incorrectly overusing that word more than a senator texting his intern. It's fine just to call it modern sci fi, or more grounded (compared to 40k), but using the term hard sci fi is one of the errors that plagued MEdge early on, and it is an error that harms GoA's credibility as well. Iain Banks did not write hard sci fi, and the comparisons to his work flatter GoA much more than mislabeling it to appeal to the small niche of sci fi fans who crave it hard.


On another note, the scale and general aesthetic of the setting meshes well with Sedition Wars. Would the Sedition Wars terrain fulfil the needs for this game? Does the rule book have anything resembling a counts-as Strain? Or would the Strain terrain do well with Isorian designs?

I like those 2 boxes a lot!

Thanks, Judgedoug, that is quite a long release list.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
<snip Bob's love of hardness>

shrug, reads as hard to me. I know a lot of hard sci fi enthusiasts are all about hard sci fi from the perspective of what was capable in the mid 1970's, but nanomachines are pretty hard sci fi to me, and on down, to nanospores, because I enjoy hard sci fi from today's scientific theory, not from what hard sci fi was according to scientific theory from forty years ago.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
On another note, the scale and general aesthetic of the setting meshes well with Sedition Wars. Would the Sedition Wars terrain fulfil the needs for this game? Does the rule book have anything resembling a counts-as Strain? Or would the Strain terrain do well with Isorian designs?

Not particularly. Isorians are just panhumans on the edge of transhumanism (like the PHC) that use more biotech versus nanotech. Now that I've digested all of the background and side fluff, there's really no analogs to space zombies or junk like that. There's no space wizards or space plagues or space orks or space squats or space demons.

On nanotechnology, I've read a lot of convincing criticism of the concept of grey goo nanotech, certain sci fi computing speeds/sizes, and so on. Stuff usually championed by Charles Stross and his type, tends to overlook hard limits on just how small something can be built out of matter and so on. As I am not at all an enthusiast for hard sci fi, I'm not up to date with all of it, but I'm pretty sure FTL, even with wormholes that connect different reference frames, still break causality, and might as well be a time machine. So, even by today's standards, GoA is not very hard, which is a good thing. Books like Dread Empire's Fall are about as hard as a setting with wormholes can get and still be enjoyable, for me. The harder the setting, typically the more boring or depressing it is.

And I was asking more for the look of the Strain sentry guns, which look like Gigerized Venus Firetraps, not the zombies. Basically, how is their organic technology portrayed? Gigerish? Vorlonesque? Kerriganesque?

I think the Strain sentry guns would fit in with the Isorians who do seem to have a kind of bio tech theme going on. For example their drones seem to have teeth/chitinous growths so the Strain seem a fair call.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The very concept that somehow Isorians and Concord cannot reconcile their technology because of organic space magic technology is not hard.

I'm Corcord.... and I'm Isorian.



Damn hippie hackey sackin' organic tech isorians!

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
On nanotechnology, I've read a lot of convincing criticism of the concept of grey goo nanotech, certain sci fi computing speeds/sizes, and so on. Stuff usually championed by Charles Stross and his type, tends to overlook hard limits on just how small something can be built out of matter and so on. As I am not at all an enthusiast for hard sci fi, I'm not up to date with all of it, but I'm pretty sure FTL, even with wormholes that connect different reference frames, still break causality, and might as well be a time machine.

Gotcha. Well, quantum computing is right around the corner, which breaks through the physical limitations of microprocessors. The nanotech written in the GoA fiction seems pretty reasonable, however. And GoA does not have FTL drive - the highest tech ships are near light speed, which the Isorians et al have used to colonize worlds that are not near Gates. As it stands, the settings does use the "hand-wavium" of a previous, much more advanced civilization (the Builders) from x^y years ago that built Antares and the Gates. All space travel is done between the Gates within the Antares superstructure, and the Gates are wormholes that pop out at different places and times in the universe. Hence the first campaign setting and starter box, for Xilos, as it was discovered that the Xilos system has a second Gate that does not go to Antares, but to destination unknown, and it's habitable planet has a complete ancient abandoned Builders city. So everybody wants it!

 judgedoug wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
<snip Bob's love of hardness>

shrug, reads as hard to me. I know a lot of hard sci fi enthusiasts are all about hard sci fi from the perspective of what was capable in the mid 1970's, but nanomachines are pretty hard sci fi to me, and on down, to nanospores, because I enjoy hard sci fi from today's scientific theory, not from what hard sci fi was according to scientific theory from forty years ago.

Nanotechnology in the form of advanced materials or "pre-programmed" single purpose molecular devices akin to artificial bacteria is hard sci-fi. The nanomachine cloud that was described by the pre-release lore for GoA is pretty much nonsense. Saturating the environment with nanomachines is more likely to give everyone asbestosis than anything worthwhile.

Well, again the only person claiming "hard sci fi" is me, which is my impression after having read and digested the fluff (which is pretty great)

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
The old metal deals only saved £6 per army, the likes of Element and Dark Sphere will beat that. That said with the prices on these deals waiting for plastic seems sensible. The old deals were also for beta testing and were largely no longer legal armies.

Have got my first Concord squad painted up:

Looks great. I look forward to seeing what you do with the Ghar battle machines.

Yeah, Thraxis, I love the color scheme, too. The visors look really good, too. Aren't they tiny?

Those do look really good Thraxas!

Actually think that's a better scheme than the official ones.

Looks like the metal starter armies are no longer available on the Warlord website store, just the Ghar and Concorde starter armies now.

Thanks gents.

I think the issue with the starter armies was twofold. With them being metal there was a fair amount of "sticker shock" with the prices, especially as a gateway to the game and as a result they have removed them. The new starter armies go a long way to rectify this, to compare the starter armies to GW for the same $80 you can get a 10 man Space marine assault squad . Aesthetics aside, you have a full army vs a tiny portion of a Marine one for the same (well the assault squad are $2 more actually) price.

Secondly a lot of them were not legal armies in the new game as they were from the beta lists. So it kind of makes sense to remove them and they only offered a less than 10% saving anyway.

I missed the pre-order window on this one, so picked it up on eBay from someone in the UK. It came in today and happened to have the Sarissa terrain in it, so about as pleased as can be. Impressive amount of stuff Warlord jammed into the little box.

Quick question for those with the book. I assume the Algoryn list is included? Are the units fixed, say at 5 models, or can you add more models to the squad size? Also, is there a way to add a mag repeater to the regular AI squad? I only ask because I was lucky enough to get a couple squads during playtesting and they have since replaced that model. Thanks in advance!

The book does contain the Algoryn army list, also the following lists:

Concord
Ghar
Freeborn
Boromite
Isorian.

AI squads are a base size of 5 models, and a further 3 troopers can be added to the squad. And yes you can add a mag repeater to the squad as well (exchange any on troopers weapon for a mag gun, mag repeater or micro x-launcher for free RAW ).

Hope that helps.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
The book does contain the Algoryn army list, also the following lists:

Concord
Ghar
Freeborn
Boromite
Isorian.

AI squads are a base size of 5 models, and a further 3 troopers can be added to the squad. And yes you can add a mag repeater to the squad as well (exchange any on troopers weapon for a mag gun, mag repeater or micro x-launcher for free RAW ).

Hope that helps.

Thanks so much for the quick response! Much appreciated.

 judgedoug wrote:

[...]
Upcoming Gates of Antares releases...

Concord Combined Command Starter Army
Ghar Empire Starter Army

Ghar Battle Squad - plastic
Ghar Assault Squad - plastic
Ghar Bomber Squad - plastic
Ghar Outcast Squad - metal blister pack
Ghar Outcast command squad - metal blister pack
Ghar Flitters - metal blister pack

plus a Gates of Antares terrain line by Sarissa

Transmat Pads
Kinectic Barriers
Kinectic Barricades
Orbital Transmat Station
Large Stanchion Building
Medium Stanchion Building
Small Stanchion Building

Awesome!

I'll be ordering:

2x Ghar Bomber Squad - plastic
2x Ghar Outcast Squad - metal blister pack
1x Ghar Outcast command squad - metal blister pack
1x Ghar Flitters - metal blister pack

(Bolstering my Ghar from the 2x Xilos Horizon Starters I preordered to around 1000-1250 points! )

I really like the Ghar, have built mine from the starter set. Would like to see some metal heads and alternate arms in the future.

I don't know how reliable the information is but this is interesting

Gordonc - User on the Warlord Games forum

I suggest definitely building a Ghar and/or Concord force first to take advantage of the first campaign book (Jan-Feb) which will mainly focus on Concord vs Ghar. I am starting with Freeborn and Ghar and then moving to Boromite and Algoryn.
- Several vehicles due out in Dec.
- Isorians releasing in March.

http://www.warlordgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=235184#p235184



A lot of painted Concord miniatures were shown in today's GoA blog post:

http://www.warlordgames.com/community-concord-colour-schemes/




Painted by Quindia Studios - a nice Ghar paint job

Updated with USD$ MSRP

NOVEMBER

Concord Combined Command Starter Army Box - mixed $80.00
Ghar Empire Starter Army Box - mixed $80.00

Transmat Pads $8.00
Kinectic Barriers $11.25
Kinectic Barricades $12.75
Orbital Transmat Station $20.00
Large Stanchion Building $24.00
Medium Stanchion Building $20.75
Small Stanchion Building $19.25


DECEMBER

Ghar Battle Squad Box - Plastic $32.00
Ghar Assault Squad Box - Plastic $32.00
Ghar Bomber Squad Box - Plastic $32.00
Ghar Outcast Squad Blister $32.00
Ghar Outcast command squad Blister $12.75
Ghar Flitters Blister $10.00

JANUARY

Concord C3 Drop Command Squad blister
Concord C3 Interceptor Squad Box
...more to be confirmed

MARCH

Isorians

APRIL

Algoryn

Judgedoug, would you mind doing another scale shot? If you can, please show the Ghar and Concord plastics next to UAMC plastics and Terminator Genysis Resistance plastics. I especially want to see if heads or arms are swappable across the humans, and how the Ghar would look as Skynet and/or Matrix style sentinels.

Jetbikes in January

Warhams-77 wrote:
Jetbikes in January

Plastic?

Please tell me they're plastic.