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Warlord started by purchasing other smaller companies, so a lot of the original resin vehicles for Bolt Action are more like garage kits. However, the last couple years of resin kits have been pretty phenomenal, such as the Hellcat.

I have no doubt the new Antares vehicles will be as crisply cast as the Antares metals (which is to say, perfectly, and with little to no flash)

I've always thought the Bolt Action vehicle kits look pretty darn silly. - They look massively undersized compared to the models.

 Compel wrote:
I've always thought the Bolt Action vehicle kits look pretty darn silly. - They look massively undersized compared to the models.

Ah, the old heroic 28mm is 1/48 and Warlord Vehicles are 1/56 thing. Yeah... always a raging topic. I find as long as all the vehicles match each other it's not noticable. It does become so when you mix vehicle scales together though.

As for the question on Warlord Resin... all the vehicles I have had in resin from Bolt Action have been spot on - although some of the smaller metal parts have had rather a lot of flash - annoying on the very small parts.

I bought the BtGoA rulebook today. Skimming it, it's feeling similar to Bolt Action but with stat lines like 40k. Looks brill. Now if only I didn't play KoW, Deadzone, Frostgrave and Bolt Action - all with multiple factions (and have 8 cases of unused 40k figures in a wardrobe)...
My missus will go mental if I come home with more models from a new game. Gonna have to play Antares with proxies for a while I think. :-(

 Compel wrote:
I've always thought the Bolt Action vehicle kits look pretty darn silly. - They look massively undersized compared to the models.

They are the correct height (one of the common misconceptions is that most people have no idea how tiny WW2 tanks really are), but, of course, due to "heroic" scales, models are way wider than anyone in real life. Thankfully if you use, say, Perry miniatures, which are true scale 28mm, they look absolutely correct.


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 Gimgamgoo wrote:
I bought the BtGoA rulebook today. Skimming it, it's feeling similar to Bolt Action but with stat lines like 40k. Looks brill. Now if only I didn't play KoW, Deadzone, Frostgrave and Bolt Action - all with multiple factions (and have 8 cases of unused 40k figures in a wardrobe)...
My missus will go mental if I come home with more models from a new game. Gonna have to play Antares with proxies for a while I think. :-(

The easiest thing to do is offload a case worth of unused 40k figures and replace them with GoA figures - net zero gain in figure density!

Or just play with the 40k figures. Requires no wheeling or dealing and might just gain points with the missus for your sensibly using what you already own.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
A preview is up on the Concord C3 Drop Command Squad:

OK, those I like.

When you enslave lots of civilisations you need some proper tools to impose your authority I guess. When I saw the Maglash artwork in the rulebook I just had to replace some of the walkers close combat gloves with these magnetic whips.

I also replaced the Gouger missiles (only the front part of the weapon actually) as I wasn't really happy with their look. These Nec ones aren't much different, but have a smaller, sleaker design.

Thinking a while about what plans I have with the Ghar walkers I decided to build a mercenary army. Hired by the Ghar Empire, veterans of several campaigns, weapon aficionados, different personalities in a team with a unified look (black colour scheme), fielding some dedicated equipment like stealth suits, and a Cry, Havoc-mentality. They are deployed to break the enemy.

I use the style of buildings for my bases and maybe later even some terrain/scenery in the same style (Concord?) as seen on the Xilos campaign cover artwork. I really like these white buildings in the background - contrasting well in the blueish lighting against the dark Ghar battle suits.

Unpainted and early w.i.p. pics of the Battle and the Assault Squad

 Vermonter wrote:
[...] I have nothing interesting to say about the Ghar battlesuits yet, as they're all still on sprue, and they are hands-down my favorite sculpts from the entire GoA line so far. Models I really like are a little boring, as I tend to build them exactly as intended. Models I don't like or like but find flawed are the ones that get my creative juices flowing. It becomes a personal challenge to see if I can make a silk purse from a sow's ear by monkeying around with said ugly model. The Ghar battlesuits are probably too good as-is to force me to do anything particularly interesting with them. (But once I do get some clipped out, I will be interested in seeing what can be done for alternate arm weapons, at least.)

I like the Ghar walker's shells and legs, but some of the weapons aren't doing it for me. So I used Necron Wraith whips/flails after cutting off the power/plasma gloves. These are early w.i.p. after about an hour or two of converting. I already have the upper parts for the whip 'hands' but I need a new bottle of superglue before putting them on.

I hope these give some ideas for conversions. The Ghar models can turn into really interesting projects. The plastic is excellent material. The buggers really grow on me. I will continue with the slavery theme. Maybe I will convert a large cage on mechanical legs loaded with slaves and some hunter drones.

Did you have to do any cutting on the legs to repose them?

For the basic poses no, in the knees are joints that already allow for easy vertical angle changes. The hip joints have no limitation until a leg hits the torso.

If you want to turn the knee joint horizontally as well, there is about 10-20 degree without cutting, then like I did on a few suits you could cut out ~1mm each side inside the knee (you dont see it after glueing, the glue melts it) for some of the extremer poses. There is space for deeper cuts, at least twice as much.

I did a Ghost in the Shell-like conversion with a Suit stuck with extreme wide legs (basically 70 degree to each side - straight knees) on top and even between three walls, ready to drop down, it worked but did not fit properly onto a 40mm base obviously.

The Ghar kits are unlike the kind of monopose Wraithknight or Imperial Knight models, they have flexible joints.

Got my Algoryn special order! Assembled my force!

I can do 1000 now with my Antenociti's Workshop grav tank. Thinking of grabbing a third AI squad to buff it to a 1250 point force.

Models are great! The Algoryn models are probably the nicest, sharpest, cleanest cast metal figures I've ever had. Almost resin quality, but, obvioiusly, slightly more annoying to assemble than resin. Definitely worth the cost especially since Warlord added +40% more models to the boxes for free.

Oh, and no pics, because, forgot to take some. haha

Rick Priestly on Antares:

http://freshcoastgaming.blogspot.com/2015/12/fresh-coast-gaming-interview-with-rick.html

http://freshcoastgaming.blogspot.com/2015/12/fresh-coast-gaming-interview-with-rick_1.html

Warhams-77 wrote:
I like the Ghar walker's shells and legs, but some of the weapons aren't doing it for me. So I used Necron Wraith whips/flails after cutting off the power/plasma gloves. These are early w.i.p. after about an hour or two of converting. I already have the upper parts for the whip 'hands' but I need a new bottle of superglue before putting them on.

Sounds wonderful - There's a lot of potential for creepy Necron / Ghar hybridization; I'm sure the ever-popular, ever-fruitful DE Talos / Cronos bits will fuel a lot of interesting battlesuit conversions going forward too. (When I'm perusing conversions, that Talos kit is like my Dog's fur; I find bits of it everywhere.) I'm curious to see what you're doing with your Wraith / Ghar conversions, so I hope you'll let us know here if you ever post pictures of your work. That goes for anyone else tinkering with their Ghar as well.

Incidentally, is there any place one can post thoughts on Gates of Antares miniature designs where the makers are likely to see them? I may just be full of myself, but I really think units like the Algoryn just need a little push to be great, and that push would be taking their excellent design and posing it better. There's a stilted quality to the Algoryn metal miniature poses that holds them back a bit for me, and that I would hate to see transferred into their hard plastic sprues, which would be the logical place to improve them.

Ok, Judge Doug, time to respond and tell me that that's just my opinion, and you see nothing wrong with the Algoryn metal poses in the first place. (In all fairness, if you did, I can't imagine that you would have bought so many of them. So I hope my assumption of a difference of opinion here is a fair one.) Just please keep in mind that I actually mean well, though my opinion may be "wrong" or unique to myself - I agree with you that the Algoryn are great designs, I'm just offering these comments because I think those designs aren't being used to their fullest potential, not to gleefully tear them down and dance on their graves. When trooper models are computer sculpted, what I see of the process online makes it look like their are roughly two parts to the process. First, the model and all its details are rendered in a manikin-like, neutral pose, then the sculptor takes that finished computer model and pushes it around onscreen to generate different poses for different figures. (Computer sculptors, feel free to educate me if I'm way off-base here.) Not infrequently, across company lines, I see digital sculptors who are really good at one aspect come up short on the other one. I basically feel like the GoA digital sculptors are doing #1 very well, but that they could brush up on getting the most out of #2. Compare GW's standing Skitarrii legs to GoA's Algoryn ones. (Leave aside the Algoryn running legs for the moment.) Both standing poses are basically static, but there's a sense of natural balance, weight-bearing tension, and latent potential for action in the Skitarrii leg positions that just isn't there enough in the Algoryn metal figures. (That's easier to see, though, when you look at the Skitarrii leg bits in isolation, without the figure's robes partially obscuring them.)

On the positive side, I also love the new Concord drop troopers Thraxas posted. In part that's down to great armor design. But to me, those new renders are also generally better posed than the Concord figures that preceded them are. So if I'm not entirely delusional about GoA posing being an issue in the first place, this may be evidence that Warlord's computer sculptors are indeed getting better at it.

 Manchu wrote:
Rick Priestly on Antares:

http://freshcoastgaming.blogspot.com/2015/12/fresh-coast-gaming-interview-with-rick.html

http://freshcoastgaming.blogspot.com/2015/12/fresh-coast-gaming-interview-with-rick_1.html

Great quote

Q. This game, as one created by Rick Priestley, will inevitably draw gamer comparisons to Warhammer 40,000, a game create by Rick Priestley. Are there any legitimate comparisons between the two?

A. I guess so – although 40K evolved over a long time and many others contributed too – the feel of Antares is quite different to the modern 40K though. In many respects Antares does come from the same place as the original Rogue Trader edition of Warhammer 40,000 – it’s a similar scale of game and it has the same ‘open ended’ approach. Both were created as games to be played by myself with like-minded comrades – they are both either skirmish or semi-role-playing wargames first and foremost. The current 40K is very different and its development has been driven by wholly commercial concerns for a long time – so I wouldn’t say there’s much to compare. I always say – if you really enjoy playing 40K – play 40K! I’ve built a new game and I hope it’ll find its own audience – one more in keeping with the kinds of games I also happen to enjoy.



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 Vermonter wrote:
Incidentally, is there any place one can post thoughts on Gates of Antares miniature designs where the makers are likely to see them? I may just be full of myself, but I really think units like the Algoryn just need a little push to be great, and that push would be taking their excellent design and posing it better. There's a stilted quality to the Algoryn metal miniature poses that holds them back a bit for me, and that I would hate to see transferred into their hard plastic sprues, which would be the logical place to improve them.

Rick Priestley is all over the Beyond the Gates of Antares (IMTel) facebook group, answering questions and joking with everyone and generally being the coolest dude in the gaming industry. https://www.facebook.com/groups/gatesofantares/

 Vermonter wrote:
Ok, Judge Doug, time to respond and tell me that that's just my opinion, and you see nothing wrong with the Algoryn metal poses in the first place.

NOPE YOU'RE WRONG
actually i do agree a little bit of some stiffness of poses - but then some poses are ridiculously cool. I love the entire AI Assault squad box set, for example, and the AI Infiltrators. Therefore it's probably a good thing that the first set, the normal AI Squad guys, which are mostly stiff, are getting replaced early next year w/ plastics.

 Vermonter wrote:
(When I'm perusing conversions, that Talos kit is like my Dog's fur; I find bits of it everywhere.)

I'm curious to see what you're doing with your Wraith / Ghar conversions, so I hope you'll let us know here if you ever post pictures of your work. That goes for anyone else tinkering with their Ghar as well.

Will post a few pics occasionally. You saw those under the spoiler? I should use the Dakka gallery to upload pics instead of imgur I will fix it asap

 judgedoug wrote:

Considering it's like grey-goo nanotech and machines do not have any moving parts anymore, there's zero reason for giant motorcycle helmets crammed with junk.
Definitely a fan of the Iron Man style thin helmet that the Concord dudes already have versus slapping on a motorcycle helmet.

Padding. Keeps your brain from becoming jellified. (Like in a Motorcycle helmet!) Assuming that physics is still a thing in the "more realistic" sci-fi of GoA? Should be room for both assuming divergent technology and differing tech levels?

 Azazelx wrote:
Assuming that physics is still a thing in the "more realistic" sci-fi of GoA?

I really don't know how people got the impression that this game is any kind of hard sci-fi, honestly. It is really, really, really not.

Unless someone thinks that Star Wars or Star Trek are hard sci-fi, of course.

For example, the "armor" in the game: for infantry, apparently they might as well go naked while carrying a backpack generator, as all infantry armor in the game except the ghar battlesuits are different kinds of energy shields.

In other news, I finally finished assembling and sanding the starter. There's a lot of value in this game, coming from a comparatively small box:





I also managed to assemble the drop troopers (which I like a lot) and to prime the ghar in gunmetal before running out of time today:

 Albertorius wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Assuming that physics is still a thing in the "more realistic" sci-fi of GoA?

I really don't know how people got the impression that this game is any kind of hard sci-fi, honestly. It is really, really, really not.
.

Sometimes terms get thrown around. I don't want to point fingers here, but it was that guy.

I think it's a phrase that has hung round the game since the kickstarter days.

 Albertorius wrote:


I also managed to assemble the drop troopers (which I like a lot) and to prime the ghar in gunmetal before running out of time today:

Spoiler:

Looking good. I really like the armor they have (especially with the helmets) but am a bit lukewarm on the guns and definitely don't like Mr. Traffic Cop's pointing arm. Could you take a pic with one of them next to the usual scifi suspects (space marine, infinity something, etc)?

 Compel wrote:
I think it's a phrase that has hung round the game since the kickstarter days.

Yeah. Pretty sure it's something that Priestly/Dark Space Corp said first.

Shrug, it's hard sci fi to me. Not retro hard sci fi from the 70's/80's, but hard from the near future.

Definitely the hardest sci fi minis wargame, uh, ever.

And it helps the fiction is fething fantastic.

It's straight-up sci-fi and seems hard against the sci-fantasy we're used to.

warboss wrote:Looking good. I really like the armor they have (especially with the helmets) but am a bit lukewarm on the guns and definitely don't like Mr. Traffic Cop's pointing arm. Could you take a pic with one of them next to the usual scifi suspects (space marine, infinity something, etc)?

Yeah, no problem, but not until the weekend, as I won't go where I have them until then.

judgedoug wrote:Shrug, it's hard sci fi to me. Not retro hard sci fi from the 70's/80's, but hard from the near future.

Definitely the hardest sci fi minis wargame, uh, ever.

Yeah, because stuff like Heavy Gear, for example, doesn't exist. Or the Babylon 5 games. Or Attack Vector: Tactical. Or Dirtside. Or Infinity, FFS.

Manchu wrote:It's straight-up sci-fi and seems hard against the sci-fantasy we're used to.

It's straight up space magic, with magic stardust (nanites, they might as well have called them applied phlebotinum) that can do everything, magic implicationless teleporters, a magic star that is everywhere, breaks space-time and is effectively a time and dimension machine... seriously, it's up there with 40k, Star Wars or Star Trek. Just with different trappings.

It has very interesting stuff in it, but don't make it what it isn't.

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 Azazelx wrote:

 Compel wrote:
I think it's a phrase that has hung round the game since the kickstarter days.

Yeah. Pretty sure it's something that Priestly/Dark Space Corp said first.

Pretty sure in the interviews I've seen from Priestly he says "no, it's not hard sci-fi. I would say it's Space Opera".

No, it's not space magic. In stories, what makes something magic is the lack, ultimately, of hard rules. Fictional technology has technological verisimilitude, however fantastical the result, because it functions according to rules as a matter of narrative. In this sense, the Antares setting appeals to technology rather than magic. I don't see anything wrong with calling Antares a space opera (although I don't recall Rick Priestly saying it) except for their being no romance element (and I mean romance in the literary sense, not as in a love story particularly). That and it might give folks the impression that Antares is anything like Star Wars, which it isn't at all.

 Manchu wrote:
No, it's not space magic. In stories, what makes something magic is the lack, ultimately, of hard rules. Fictional technology has technological verisimilitude, however fantastical the result, because it functions according to rules as a matter of narrative. In this sense, the Antares setting appeals to technology rather than magic.

Magic, in most settings, have hard rules. Would you say, for example, that Iron Kingdoms lack magic? What about Mistborn? Your definition puts most settings with magic (at the very least the ones with coherent magic) firmly into the "science fiction" label.

The actual definition of hard science fiction would be more along this lines: Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific accuracy or technical detail or both.

http://www.kheper.net/topics/scifi/grading.html

That would put Antares clearly in the "Medium" grade of the scale, but no higher.

I don't see anything wrong with calling Antares a space opera (although I don't recall Rick Priestly saying it) except for their being no romance element (and I mean romance in the literary sense, not as in a love story particularly). That and it might give folks the impression that Antares is anything like Star Wars, which it isn't at all.

http://freshcoastgaming.blogspot.com.es/2015/12/fresh-coast-gaming-interview-with-rick.html

Q. How would you describe the type of ‘sci-fi’ that Beyond the Gates of Antares is?

A. I’m not sure – it has an internal logic and scientific elements that are a bit like ‘hard SF’ but really it’s probably closer to what you might call space opera – i.e. it’s a big setting with whole races waging wars on a vast scale. In many ways that’s like Star Wars isn’t it – I don’t know, what kind of sci-fi is Star Wars J

I thought this was clear enough, because I made it explicit, but I am talking about magic as a matter of narrative not what a writer calls magic in a particular setting (call magic in this particular sense Magic to differentiate them). In many settings, Magic obeys physical laws and is reliably harnessed by characters. It is therefore a kind of technology. Magic that is actually magical, however, cannot be harnessed in the end because even if it usually works a certain way it's basic premise, for the purpose of the story, is to break the ordinary physical laws of nature rather than being just another natural, predictable set of phenomena.

Also, I never once argued Antares is hard science fiction. I actually responded to Doug's claim that it is by arguing that it is only sci fi rather than hard sci fi. You seem to be barking up the wrong tree.

I thought it was clear enough, because I made it explicit, that I used "space magic" as a shorthand for "implausible stuff in the setting that is taken for granted", like a red star that is in the vicinity of millions of star systems, to name one. Even by your own definition the Antares star would be what you call "magic".

I think you're applying your definition of magic there (which seems to be "impossible things, impossible to define") instead of the generally accepted ones (The art or practice of using charms, spells, or rituals to attempt to produce supernatural effects or control events in nature; Of, relating to, or invoking the supernatural; The art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature), which generally don't preclude them from being quantifiable, measureable or repeatable.

But that's beside the point. I used the term "space magic" just as shorthand to try to make it clear that it is not hard sci fi and because it is usually used to define Star Trek and the like. Even the author says that in many ways it is like Star Wars, FFS.

Yes FFS he even says exactly what he means by that, a big setting with whole races waging vast wars. He didn't say anything about space magic and lo and behold there is no space magic in Antares, so far at least.

 Manchu wrote:
Yes FFS he even says exactly what he means by that, a big setting with whole races waging vast wars. He didn't say anything about space magic and lo and behold there is no space magic in Antares, so far at least.

The whole concept of the Antares star IS space magic, you know.

But ok, whatever, you win.

So, if we're talking about tabletop games in general for a moment.

That sounds like something like Dropzone Commander is a lot closer to the general definition of hard science fiction. In that every vehicle, every weapon has a technical breakdown with a "here is how things work in this setting and these are the exact rules it goes by."

As for GoA, I don't know what to pidgeon hole it in to (yeah, pidgeon holing is basically what we're doing). Space Opera doesn't seem right either, from what little I've read of the setting, the universe seems a little more sterile than that?