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.

Never really saw it played locally. After Legion's launch it started dominating sci-fi tables.

 infinite_array wrote:
I still think it'd do well if 2nd Edition was just a sci-fi version of Warlords of Erehwon: d10 based, order die activation, and open points architecture so players can design their own units. That gives you an avenue into 40k and Legion players (maybe even Warmachine/Hordes) who've maybe heard good things about Bolt Action but don't want to play WW2.

Funny, a friend and I had a discussion just last week that resulted in the same conclusion, pretty close to verbatim. I have GofA and some Isorian boxes, but the pre-packaged setting and factions never excited me like Erehwon's design-your-own world and armies setup has.

 Psychopomp wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:
I still think it'd do well if 2nd Edition was just a sci-fi version of Warlords of Erehwon: d10 based, order die activation, and open points architecture so players can design their own units. That gives you an avenue into 40k and Legion players (maybe even Warmachine/Hordes) who've maybe heard good things about Bolt Action but don't want to play WW2.

Funny, a friend and I had a discussion just last week that resulted in the same conclusion, pretty close to verbatim. I have GofA and some Isorian boxes, but the pre-packaged setting and factions never excited me like Erehwon's design-your-own world and armies setup has.

Right? For all the people who are disillusioned with the way 40k is right now (stratagems, still using d6s, IGOUGO), a cleaned up, better focused version of Antares with the same kind of "Here's how you build a unit" that Rick released for Erehwon would be the perfect solution. And then they could release official Antares supplements as PDFs or softcover books for those who are still invested for the original setting.

"For all the people who are disillusioned with the way 40k is right now (stratagems, still using d6s, IGOUGO), a cleaned up, better focused version of Antares with the same kind of "Here's how you build a unit" that Rick released for Erehwon would be the perfect solution. And then they could release official Antares supplements as PDFs or softcover books for those who are still invested for the original setting."

Yes PLEASE!
Maybe "someone (cough... Rick) could have a blog with 40k to GofA conversions...?... ?

Any game where I get to design my own units has my immediate attention. I'm sorry to see Antares in trouble - the miniatures looked cool. I still might score some - Boromites, some of the Ghar, Freeborn all looked neat.

 warboss wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Antares might have caught on better if they'd done a small number of factions in all-plastic instead of doing a large number of factions with one plastic kit each and loads of metal.

That one's trickier due to the huge upfront cost that they apparently didn't have and/or want to spend. In the decade since with the advent of affordable 3d printing and now semi-automated resin printing like Siocast, I think they'd have benefited from both. I agree that it would have been better in plastic though for a mass battle game.

One of the things they did super well with Bolt Action was to make sure that they could put out one set of plastic sprues that you could build a lot of different units out of (rifle squads, veteran squads, officers, snipers, mortars, anti-tank teams...), so one plastic kit, some licensed Revell or Italieri tanks, and a few extra metal artillery pieces made you a whole faction. The Revell or Italieri tanks aren't an option for a sci-fi game, granted, but if you want I will do you up rough kit plans for how they should have designed Antares (disclaimer: I'm not an engineer, so you probably wouldn't be able to take my plans and actually put them into production, but I bet you I could get pretty close).

 infinite_array wrote:

 Psychopomp wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:
I still think it'd do well if 2nd Edition was just a sci-fi version of Warlords of Erehwon: d10 based, order die activation, and open points architecture so players can design their own units. That gives you an avenue into 40k and Legion players (maybe even Warmachine/Hordes) who've maybe heard good things about Bolt Action but don't want to play WW2.

Funny, a friend and I had a discussion just last week that resulted in the same conclusion, pretty close to verbatim. I have GofA and some Isorian boxes, but the pre-packaged setting and factions never excited me like Erehwon's design-your-own world and armies setup has.

Right? For all the people who are disillusioned with the way 40k is right now (stratagems, still using d6s, IGOUGO), a cleaned up, better focused version of Antares with the same kind of "Here's how you build a unit" that Rick released for Erehwon would be the perfect solution. And then they could release official Antares supplements as PDFs or softcover books for those who are still invested for the original setting.

Hell, I'd buy it! I have the BGoA rulebook, played a few games. Liked the rules, never really got interested enough in any of the factions to start collecting. Now I'm really hoping for a sci-fi Lords of Erehwon.

My pals and I have been testing out a Woehammer 40k game based on Erehwon for a few games now, it’s been awesome. I’m just working on the last few lists as we play with the points calculator, some changes had to be made to reflect the shooty focus. And vehicles have taken a lot of tinkering to make work how we like, based on WoE monstrosities with a dash of 2nd edition hilarity in the way the damage works. Once it’s done I’ll stick it on the Erehwon Facebook page so people can dive in and test it out.

We got deep into WoE and made loads of WHFB lists, expanded the magic system, added scenarios and customs rules etc, google drive link for the Woehammer compendium if anyone was interested;

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nOt64rjoRAm0Fg36rj4m2bf02BgNA4q1/view?usp=drivesdk

And spell cards too;

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MTk-DigfDxjtysNfhXRCQop8Ln2EbleA/view?usp=drivesdk

It's a shame the system is being shuffled off to gaming graveyard, but the universe they created for it was boring, the factions were largely uninteresting, and the rulebook boiled down any conflict into "Our computer systems don't like eachother so they make us fight in meatspace". It would be an interesting idea for a short story, but as the basis for a wargame it's pretty bland.

What it really lacks is any sense of motivation behind the factions, even the Ghar, who are the most actively belligerent, seem to be belligerent merely for the sake of it. The only ones who are slightly interesting are the Algoryn, who are literally fighting to preserve their culture against being accidentally absorbed and erased by poorly programed nanites. They at leas have an actual reason to be fighting with the other factions, not that the rest of their lore really does much to elevate them above the other factions.

That said I really liked the rules and collected enough minis to play a couple of small battles, but really always hoped they'd release an army builder like with WoE so I could use miniatures and factions that actually interested me.

Regarding this, the Antares team has already announced the release date for the new edition:



Also, they were asked about the possibility of agnostic setting rules:

"Hi there, I hope my question isn't too silly.
Will the new version offer an Agnostic approach to different factions similar to Warlords of Erehwon or will it be locked in to pre made/existing models?"

"Both - the core rules are written as a generic system to be used with whatever models you have. The Antares specific rules and lore are in a separate "Universe" document."

Never saw it played. I might be the only person in the country with some models, which I got in the £1 per sprue sale some years back, and I might use someday for asome indy skirmish game.

 Albertorius wrote:


Also, they were asked about the possibility of agnostic setting rules:

"Hi there, I hope my question isn't too silly.
Will the new version offer an Agnostic approach to different factions similar to Warlords of Erehwon or will it be locked in to pre made/existing models?"

"Both - the core rules are written as a generic system to be used with whatever models you have. The Antares specific rules and lore are in a separate "Universe" document."

That's a positive development. Was the original released that way as well?

 warboss wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:


Also, they were asked about the possibility of agnostic setting rules:

"Hi there, I hope my question isn't too silly.
Will the new version offer an Agnostic approach to different factions similar to Warlords of Erehwon or will it be locked in to pre made/existing models?"

"Both - the core rules are written as a generic system to be used with whatever models you have. The Antares specific rules and lore are in a separate "Universe" document."

That's a positive development. Was the original released that way as well?

No, the original has the Antares setting completely baked in.

Yaaaaaay! They did the thing!

I asked if a points document would be released, like Rick did with Erewhon. No guarantee, but " something like that is possible given enough time" and "it wouldn't be too hard to backwards engineer the points based on the Antares army lists."

That's awesome, and would make a project with 15mm Khurasan minis very enticing. Or playing with the upcoming Horus Heresy minis.

 Albertorius wrote:

 warboss wrote:

That's a positive development. Was the original released that way as well?

No, the original has the Antares setting completely baked in.

Excellent! Have they revealed a price yet? I wonder if they'll have ground up unit/army construction rules too or just a universal generic game ruleset. I've got a boatload of 15mm halo 3d models among others that need guidance and might be interesting adversaries to upscaled epic 40k figs.

I believe it's going to be free PDFs.

infinite_array wrote:Yaaaaaay! They did the thing!

I asked if a points document would be released, like Rick did with Erewhon. No guarantee, but " something like that is possible given enough time" and "it wouldn't be too hard to backwards engineer the points based on the Antares army lists."

That's awesome, and would make a project with 15mm Khurasan minis very enticing. Or playing with the upcoming Horus Heresy minis.

Actually there's already these:

https://warlord-community.warlordgames.com/the-fifth-age-of-antares-part-eight/

warboss wrote:Excellent! Have they revealed a price yet? I wonder if they'll have ground up unit/army construction rules too or just a universal generic game ruleset. I've got a boatload of 15mm halo 3d models among others that need guidance and might be interesting adversaries to upscaled epic 40k figs.

infinite_array wrote:I believe it's going to be free PDFs.

Yep, it's a free pdf.

All excellent news.

Indeed. I'll definitely check it out for the price of free.. something that I didn't do with Gates previously beyond looking at some boxes in the FLGS repeatedly.

Good stuff!

So, the new edition's webpage is up, with the rules and the army lists:

https://antaresnexus.com/2022/04/30/quick-guide-to-the-nexus/

Thanks for the weekend read! It looks like they've converted over their existing forces which should obviously be the priority. No news (from a quick glance) about a universal force builder though. Admittedly, that was a pipe dream on my part that they never, to my knowledge, actually mentioned.

 warboss wrote:
Thanks for the weekend read! It looks like they've converted over their existing forces which should obviously be the priority. No news (from a quick glance) about a universal force builder though. Admittedly, that was a pipe dream on my part that they never, to my knowledge, actually mentioned.

No, so far the only thing they have in that regard is the article on 5th Age armies.

 warboss wrote:
Thanks for the weekend read! It looks like they've converted over their existing forces which should obviously be the priority. No news (from a quick glance) about a universal force builder though. Admittedly, that was a pipe dream on my part that they never, to my knowledge, actually mentioned.

There was an interview with the creators where they touched on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qZgfSJ1Vc4

It's a bit long - roughly the first half seems to be about background.

Important context:
1.) Tim and Rick aren't getting paid for this - after Warlord decided not to move forward, they got permission from Warlord to release their own version (Antares 2 has apparently been effectively done for two years).
2.) They have some plans moving forward, but this is essentially just a passion project at this point.
3.) There may be a formula made at some point, concern with the formula is abuse.
4.) New content will likely rely on community engagement - they gave the example of a campaign supplement that was originally conceived by a player, which was further developed and released as a campaign supplement during Antares 1.

Their biggest issue is tying the game to the Antares world. It seems a shame to go to all the effort of divorcing the core rules from the background in the latest iteration but not give us a way to make use of those core rules. With all the talk of community engagement and fan made content on their website you would think it would be the next logical step. Concerns about powergaming seem a little misplaced, especially since they tout their game as a narrative experience, not a competitive one. Dealing with that kind of thing is probably better done in a social context rather than a rules one anyway.

That said, the more games I've played the more obvious it is that "points" and "balance" are largely illusory anyway. Perhaps letting go of the crutch of needing a formula and just messing about until you find what feels right is a better way to go (plus there are some good basic guidelines in that 5th age article anyway).

I finally got a chance to take a look at the new rules, and I'm disappointed. Like Zethnar said, they're still way too tied in to the Antares setting. So why go through the additional work to separate out only some of the Antares setting? You're still going to need multiple documents to play the game.

It's a shame.

Well, I will take a look. There is something about the way Rick writes a rulebook that I can't look away from!

That said, when a game is dead and open to unofficial content is when it gets really interesting to me!

Honestly, I'll probably make a port of Exoshift to these rules for larger scale play.

Not is this is the right place to put it, but Vorl army released on Antares Website.
Includes some free stl's for the Vorl Infantry.

https://antaresnexus.com/2022/08/27/vorl-added/

I like the vorl design. Nice little alien centipede thing.