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I got my copy of ‘AT-43 Operation Damocles Initiation Set’ today. Gotta love The Warstore. I won’t rehash what has been posted a hundred times already but will try and cover things I didn’t already know about AT-43.
 

The Box: The box itself is impressive; we’ve all seen the photos. The top cover lifts open so you can see everything in the box while it’s on the shelf. Nice touch. It could easily double as a storage container for the game but it is slightly space inefficient, but one could use that space to hold other items.
 

The Rules/Cards: The rules are similar to what you can download. But they are 24 pages not 12 and include six missions that each introduce new rules in a programmed instruction format. The rulebook is in full color and the printing and paper quality are nice. The rulebook does include the rules in five languages so there are a lot of unusable pages. The cards are nicely done and the card quality ok but nothing special.
 

Terrain/extras: The terrain is impressive. The concrete blocks actually have a texture to them and also holes through the middle that gives them a more impressive look than they have in photos. The container is also quite nice for such a simple thing. It is actually a very well done little model with crisp molding, UNA logo on both sides, and the doors on it even open. All it’s missing is some weathering. The Therian Generator tops elevate through 180 degrees and the lens is made of colored acetate that gives a nice look to them. The tape measure is probably the worst component. It has a plastic body and the tape itself is vinyl. The problem is it doesn’t pull out very smoothly and the retract mechanism sticks. I’d rather just use a ruler or even a regular small tape measure. The dice are a tad small but usable.
 

The Minis: All the White Star Minis and Golgoth are made of a hard plastic similar in feel to styrene. They are NOT made of that rubbery stuff. This means they really could be repainted or touched up easily. The Therians are slighly rubbery but because of their delicate design this will make them more durable. The detail on them is crisp and I didn't think they were rubbery until I actually poked at them. All the minis are painted with various base colors and then have a wash for highlighting/detail. All the figure bases are black with the tops having a texture picked out with a gray drybrush.
 

The Therians are the most impressive. The Therians look very good with the pre-painted method used. I may give them a drybrush at some point but I am happy with them as they are. Even the ‘faces’ look good as is.

 
The big Wraith Golgoth is an impressive model. It is bigger than a SM Dreadnaught. The only movable part on it is the left-side weapon; although one could probably make other parts move or reposition them with a little cutting. The paint job also works well on the Golgoth but there is plenty of detail to pick out if one wanted.

 
The White Stars were slightly disappointing, but I agree their paint jobs look better than a lot of stuff I’ve seen folks using. They basically have a gray basecoat with brown and black items.  The lower part of the coat does have a darker gray camo pattern. The faces are a single, poorly applied, flesh color and the weapons black with no highlighting. Overall they are serviceable and I suspect a lot of folks will use them as is. But I can see a lot of folks taking some time with them. I suspect I will at least highlight the uniform a bit, repaint the face, and detail the weapon. The White Star figures also rotate at the waist. This is good for variety of poses but the gap thus created is somewhat unsightly on a few of the figures.

 
The large White Star Fire Toad is another impressive model. It is very detailed with a nice urban camo pattern and plenty of decals. It also sports a number of color highlighted bits. The nose mounted weapons elevate and depress. I was more impressed with it than I thought I would be. I think most folks will use it as is but a few simple touch-ups will really make it nice.

 
Overall I am very pleased with the set. I’ll be able to play over the next week and improve the paint jobs when I have a chance. This pre-painted trend is the way to go for miniature games if you ask me. Recommended.

I must admit I must post a contrary review.

I walked into my local Travelling Man store last week with £50 in my grubby mit, all set to buy OD as my Christmas Present to myself.

I am sad to say that half an hour later I walked back out of the store with nothing.

For me the price/value equation just didn't stack. The main factor in that was that the painting quality absolutely sucked! Really!

As you say tanker, it appears to be base colours with an appropriate wash overlaid. So far so good, but what got me was the inaccuracy of the process: flesh tones from the faces were splashed onto hats. The Therians were the worst offenders with very little attention being apparantly paid to neatness around the "red" tones of their weapons. I was prepared for the painting wuality being worse than the photos, but this was just ameteurish.

Now I wasn't prejudiced against pre-painted. Although I enjoy painting I was quite prepared to dump £50 on a new game for the fun of it. But this just felt like a rip-off. I was paying a premium of (say) £20 for the privelege of a paint job that would have taken me no more than a couple of evenings to replicate and even improve on (Seriously - how long does it take to apply base colours and apply a wash over the top? Maybe add a little drybrushing? Not long at all!)

Nope. That ain't going to attract me at all.

And what was the final nail in the coffin was the Golgoth model. The model itself is OK,(although suffering from the same inaccuracy of painting as the rest of the models) but there is a whacking great stem fixing the thing to the base!! Its about 5mm across and totally ruins the look of the model for me.

So. My froth subsided. I decided I'd rather take the £50 and spend it on more models for some of the existing games that I play - such as 5150! I'm not paying a premium for a very shoddy paint job like that. I could cope with it not being "Golden Daemon" standard, but I want it to at least look better than the stuff my 11 year-old nephew can produce, if they aren't giving us the option of buying unpainted stuff. I sure as heck ain't gonna pay premium prices for a paintjob I am going to have to completely redo!

@Osbad
A little bit less ranting would have provided a better con to the OD-box

First, the "stem" is a securing peice for transport, it can easily removed with a screwdriver.
Second, I have by now seen over 20 boxes opened and on none was the mentioned sloppiness visible, sure it was basic, but better than what other companies offered until now.... and the january releases really are impressive.

For a machine-pp the job is really good.

Actually I was at a meeting of the local gamers club and mor than half of the minis there ( at this day there must have been close to 1500 minis arround) where on this level or below. So maybe for your standard (and for mine,too) it is below, but for many it is better.

BTW, have you ever PLAYED the game? or just watched through the front of the box?

No I've never played the game. Although having downloaded the introductory rules I may give it a go re proxies at some point if some of my club friends fancy giving it a whirl sometime. Although to be frank there are more interesting calls on my time. The appeal of the game for me comes purely from the ability to play with WYSIWYG minis straight from the box. Remove that ability and it fights alongside more developed sets of rules which I want to try out - such as 5150 and others.

If the "Golgoth stem" is only a packaging artefact then I retract my comment. As I said, it wasn't the decider as I would have removed it with a jewellers saw if it had been fixed.

As for whether the standard is good or bad, that is purely subjective, I agree. I'm no Golden Daemon winner, but I like things neat and tidy. Maybe the lot that my store had were poor examples and others are better. I did look in around 4 or 5 boxes though and they were all as sloppily done. I must admit to not having paid prepainted much attention before, and if they are generally worse than this then the industry standard is truly pathetic.

Seriously, if someone can't be bothered to paint models better than to this standard they must have major physical problems! The standard could be achieved and easily surpassed by a rudimentary attention to detail. As I say, my nephew does better, and he really isn't a good painter. I have seen worse painted models on tables though, so there probably is a market out there for the game amongst those who's alternative is a grey horde. Just not amongst anyone who resents paying for a poor paintjob! I know they can be repainted easily, and I was prepared for some adding of detail - such as camo patterns, eyes etc. I wasn't prepared for fiddly mathcing of uniform colours to cover colour-splashes and the like.

If future models are of a better standard then great. As yet I haven't seen any in the flesh and will reserve judgement until I do. This is a review of the OD set, the only AT-43 miniatures I have seen "in the flesh", not of hypothetical future releases I have only seen images of.

Sorry if I came over a bit ranty (although I fail to see how just because I exhibited a negative opinion it should be classified as a rant - I gave sound reasoned arguments for my opinions. By similar dint, any favourable opinion should be dismissed as "fanboy froth" or some other derogatory categorisation...), but I *was* very disappointed. I was a potential buyer with £50 in my pocket earmarked for the game, and had been looking forward to the purchase for some time, and I got let down by the quality of the product not being as advertised. The standard on display was nowhere near as good as I have seen in any publicity material.

I'm just glad I took the time to wait to see the goods in the flesh, rather than taking a chance on mail order! If you say that you have examined 20 boxes and colour splashes and messiness are non-existent then I believe you. My experience of 4 or 5 boxes differs though.

My FLGS got two boxes in yesterday, and I was one of the first to peek. The box is huge- really a sad waste of resources- a dreadful example of overpackaging.

I agree totally with Osbad on the painting quality. What we have been promised (nice, neat detail- heck you can find posted pics on this very site that claim to be 'production quality paintjobs') is nothing like what we get. Face color splashed on helmets, helmet color splashed on faces, a wash that makes everything dingy, no highlighting at all... Dreamblade has much better paintjobs. The Therians are not black, with red outlining, as shown in the pictures; they are a sort of orange color sloppily washed over black plastic, resulting in a muddy, rusty color overall. I checked both boxes, and both were equally messy. High expectations = greater disappointment.

I did like the Firetoad and the Golgoth very much.

No, I haven't played the game.  No, I don't expect I am going to.  I bought the Hybrid boxed set, and painted up the beautiful miniatures that came with it.  Then I spent about three weeks with a couple of friends figuring out the rules.  In the end, we put it away.  Rackham does great miniatures (the AT-43 figures are wonderful sculpts) but their rules leave me cold, and the AT-43 rules I have seen so far don't convince me.  If the store runs some introductory games, I'll play, and maybe I'll change my mind; but I'm not going to drop $80 of my own money on this... this giant abortion of a box without a compelling reason.

Tanker, if you are able, would you post pictures of  the miniatures from your set?

 

@Osbad:
anytime you use the words "absolutely sucked!" in a review, people might think it's a rant. i personally don't think it was and agree with your points but i could also see why someone might think that.

@duncan
did they improve the english grammar/idioms used in the downloadable rules? i checked those out a few months back because i was impressed by the game previews and noticed a few unintentionally humorous mistakes. is it just the english rules that sound like they were babelfished or is that true of the other translations out of the native french?

The paint quality is most certainly subjective. Some will like it and some certainly will not. For me the Therians are good enough with maybe some easily and quickly made minor tweaks. As for 'sloppy' paint yes there are instances of that but they are all easily fixed. If you consider yourself a good painter the quality of the paint jobs on the AT-43 stuff is going to be sub-standard no question about that. If you are not such a good painter or are more concerned with playing I'd say they hit the mark. I think it is unfair to compare the pre-paint paint jobs to what a reasonably good painter could do; of course they will not be as good but they only need to be good enough for most folks and they can be repainted by those who wish. Moreover, from playing distances of a few feet the figures look just fine. I'll be able to touch-up my White Star figures in a fraction of the time it would take me to get an IG squad built, prep'd, and painted.

Bottom-line: If you are proud of your paint jobs then think of the AT-43 stuff as pre-PRIMED figs. If you do not like painting, struggle with painting, or are more concerned with  playing the game I think you will generally find the AT-43 stuff good enough or easily  tweaked.

Personally I think my own painting is far superior to the AT-43 stuff but considering the time it takes me to finish a squad of figs I look forward to more pre-painted minis.

I can try and get some pics up but they won't be anything you haven't seen yet. Although you'll realize most the of AT-43 pics out there are studio paint jobs. If I can get some shots I'll put some GW figs alongside.

do you guys now if the power armored tacarms will come painted? as per their website:

UNTA01 Unit Box : Steel TacArm
Box of 3 miniatures
? 3 Steel TacArm + 1 Torso / kit leader, with laser gun x 2


does this mean there are 3 regular tacarms and then:
1) the torso for a conversion of one of the models to a leader or
2) another additional complete leader model bringing the total to 4


sorry about the SAT nature of the question but the runon sentance version was too hard to read!

My understanding is that all the AT-43 stuff will be pre-painted but what do I know. I hadn't seen that unit description before. Having seen the rotating torsos now I'd say option 1 sounds likely but again I am guessing.

Yeah it is all going to be prepainted, cept maybe some limited edition stuff for events or whatever.

I got my OD set a couple of days ago and was actually pretty impressed. The paint jobs are basic, but still pretty good. I did not see any of the sloppyness the guys above were complaining about.

The stuff looked excellent on the table! I don't see how someone could not repaint them if they did not like them. I am probably going to do something to differentiate them from by buddies stuff.

I am pretty excited about this game, the sculpts are top notch, the tacarms may be my favorite model yet.

Ok, well I took some pics. As I feared my camera just can't take macro shots so most of them are blurry. But at least it gives you an idea of the size of the things.

http://s145.photobucket.com/albums/r239/mbtanker/

Here are two of the more useful shots.

Here is the million dollar question for me: Has all of the flash been removed from the figures? For that price, pre-assembled and base coated figs are just about worth it.

{{{Has all of the flash been removed from the figures?}}}

Yes, they are very clean. There are a few small mold lines on a few of the figs but very minor and trivial to remove.

Sweet, thanks for the info.

Empire Games got it in stock Tuesday and I played the first four scenarios.

In terms of the set and the figs I agree more with tanker than with Osbad. One nice feature of the box no one mentioned is that the display lid which flips open has little magnets in the corners which hold it closed and keep it from flopping open while being moved or transported. Nice touch.

As far as paint goes I agree that the faces of the White Stars could use a repaint, but everything else is quite nice for prepainted; certainly leaps and bounds more attactive than Dreamblade or D&D minis stuff. I would probably not even bother touching up the figs, as the game is not going to replace WH, 40k, and Warmachine for me, and thus my painting time is better spent on those games.

The rules are not completely intuitive, but are pretty quick to learn. You definitely want to play the scenarios in order; the earlier ones skip over some of the rules (like cover and alternating unit activation) to bring you into it step by step. I agree that the flexible tape measure which comes in the box stinks, but that's just because I find flexible tape measures annoying to use for anything but measuring girls. Just use your regular metal tape measure; it's marked in centimeters. The range bands on the back of the tape measure are all 10cm long anyway, so range band 0 is from 0 to 10cm, range 1 is 10.1cm to 20cm, etc. Easy.

I particularly like the rules for fire corridors, and how they make it trickier to shoot at units near friendlies. You can shoot into HtH freely, but beware, because you measure a corridor between the outside edges of the firing unit and the outside edges of the target unit- any hits are first allocated on the closest models in this corridor, so they had better not be your own guys!

I also like the rules for shooting and assaulting. Any unit can shoot before or after moving (or both if it has multiple guns), and can shoot, move, and then fight in HtH if his move takes him within 2.5cm (almost exactly 1 inch) of an enemy model. A model can disengage from HtH, but if you start your move within 2.5cm of an enemy, your movement is halved. Also, making a HtH attack prevents you from moving or shooting afterwards. So assault units can, in one activation, shoot their target, move in, and get a round of HtH attacks. The defenders can then either move around a bit and hit back, or move backwards and shoot, but will only get one or the other. And if they back up, the attackers will be able to follow up by shooting and assaulting again. The defenders have the ability to back out and shoot, but the attackers get more attacks. Nice mechanism to balance it.

My LGS got in 6 boxes and sold 5 of them in the first three hours, with the last one being sold the next day.  There is a large outcry for more.

I did not see this in the previous posts, so I will mention it here.  Today I got to lay my hands on the models and the owner pointed something out to me.  On the Firetoad and the Wraith (I think that is the name), the weapons do not need to be cut off.  They are removable.  They are stiff to start with, but they do come off.  The owner said that he heard that the "official releases" will have other weapons that can be put on and taken off.  From the way the models looked, that only makes since.  If not, the that was a waste.

Anywho...  I'm waiting for the release of the full rulebook.  Not the "get you by" rules.

But, that is just me. 

Ignoring the whole like or dislike issue of pre-painted model and their quality, I think that this release compares well with the Battle for Macragge boxset.

For the £50 you get all your stuff painted, which is a better standard then the age range that GW are aiming for. So this means it's out of the box on Xmas day, with no assembly or mess.

You combine this with the whole range that they've got coming out, plus the Metroplis update to Urban War and I think the new year will see some major pressure on GW.

On the plus side the pre-painted models can be redone at your own pace if you want to.

Last night one of the store owners bought the last box for himself and opened it. I looked at the figures in this box, and the paint quality was better. There was none of the facial splashing sloppiness that I saw in the other boxes. The Therians still looked mostly rusty instead of mostly black, but the White Stars were a lot closer to what I was expecting. I guess some of their painters are better than others... or we just got a couple of boxes from the beginning of the shift, before they hit their groove.

They are all machine painted though...



(at least, that's what I've heard)

Personally, my free time is much more valuable to me than anything else. The time I saved for not painting with AT-43 worth much more than the money spent on Operation Demacole. I enjoy painting as well. However, after 40K, Warlord, BFG, Flames of War, Warmachine, Battletech, Warmaster and others I forgot, that is enough for me. For those who dislike the painting quality of AT-43, look at it this way. You can continue to paint your models, whether it is WH40k, Infinity, Confrontation, Warlord or whatsoever, and still be able to take a break to play AT-43. To me, it is a win-win situation. AT-43 is not going to prevent you from painting your favorite model or playing your favorite game. I think that people grunt because of an ego problem or the money issue. Regarding the painting quality of AT-43, it is not bad at all. Please remind yourself that they are used for day-to-day gaming, not for display. Especially for the walkers, some can paint them better but most can't. Besides, once the dice start to roll, no one is going to admire how much details you put on your models. If you are a serious painter, I doubt very much that you don't have anything else lining up for you to work on. So, try out this game for fun to take a break from your labored intense painting and stop complaining.

wildger I think you nailed it. I'm on vacation and am hoping to get a lot of miniature work done. So far I've spent about five hours assembling a couple dozen Flames of War tanks. No painting yet. My brother-in-law and I have already managed to play the first two missions of AT-43. He'd never played a mini game before but he got a kick out of the set when he saw it. If that had been any other mini game I just bought we wouldn't have been able to play and he probably wouldn't have cared about it. He has zero interest in modeling but likes gaming. At-43 will certainly appeal to a different crowd and will pull in some of the regular mini gamers as well. I think that's all good.

For those who care the AT-43 minis all fit in the GW figure/tank cases just fine.

Tortoise and I got a copy just prior to Christmas and went through the six missions over the last two days.

The rules are basic, but this is the introductory version, and what is present is enough to show potential. I like the way shooting depends on both ability as well as range, and in the right kind of terrain this could be a very effective short-range firefight game. Vehicles are perhaps too effective at killing infantry in this regard though.

The games we played were very quick and dice rolling was the priority over tactics. With the Damocles set, however, I don't see this necessarily as a drawback as so many rules are still to be added (snapfire / overwatch for example). The speed of the games indicates good scaling up potential at least, so long as the rules-set is robust enough to support it. I don't generally want to spend more than 2 hours on a game.

Activation is by cards a la confrontation and players alternate between activating units. With only 2-3 units on a table it tends to be obvious who is the priority in activation, and we skipped that part. From my experiences with Confronation, once the game scales up this system should become more interesting.

If anything, I was surprised by how simplistic and quick-running the rules are, given this is the company responsible for Confrontation. I like Confrontation, but it is a rules quagmire in places and unncessarily over-complicated by detail. That's probably a good thing, however, as one thing AT-43 doesn't want is the advanced rules to be too simple, and from the rumblings coming out of Rackham HQ, they won't.


I think the quality of the figures is simply excellent. Both Golems and UNA look better in the flesh than in the photos. As a comparison, the Golem prepaints look stronger than pretty much every Necron army I've seen and the UNA prepaints certainly beat out those Imperial Guard where care hasn't been taken on most of the figures. I'd possibly touch up the eyes on the UNA, but that would be it. The only exception is the Wraith Golgoth, a highly impressive figure, but which is a bit flat in colour. Otherwise, I think anyone criticising the prepaints really has to make evident what their benchmark for painting is, because these figures look much better than most of the figures I find down my local club.

Overall, I think Rackham have a credible alternative to 40K, although a lot does depend on what the advanced rules look like, and whether they still read like 'All your Factory Planet are belong to us'.

Posted By torgoch on 12/26/2006 6:19 AM

Overall, I think Rackham have a credible alternative to 40K, although a lot does depend on what the advanced rules look like, and whether they still read like 'All your Factory Planet are belong to us'.

 

So, we're expected to pay what, $60-80 for a set of prepainted minis, with no real rules (a couple of babel-fished pages to 'get you by'), and we all of a sudden have a 'credible alternative to GW'?

Wow, how far the bar has fallen.  We expect GW to have airtight rules worthy of tournaments, but we'll let others off with no rules/babel-fish, until the 'advanced' rules come out.  How about saying "until the rules come out." 

Good luck with that.

Posted By Cruentus on 12/26/2006 8:22 AM

Posted By torgoch on 12/26/2006 6:19 AM

Overall, I think Rackham have a credible alternative to 40K, although a lot does depend on what the advanced rules look like, and whether they still read like 'All your Factory Planet are belong to us'.

 

So, we're expected to pay what, $60-80 for a set of prepainted minis, with no real rules (a couple of babel-fished pages to 'get you by'), and we all of a sudden have a 'credible alternative to GW'?

Wow, how far the bar has fallen.  We expect GW to have airtight rules worthy of tournaments, but we'll let others off with no rules/babel-fish, until the 'advanced' rules come out.  How about saying "until the rules come out." 

Good luck with that.

Until you actually know what you are talking about don't [post. It is $60-80, but comes with two dreadnought sized models with terrain - better value than BfM IMHO. Seems a better price to me - saves me having to build anything let alone paint it. The rules for this so far are no worse than the quagmire GW rules debates end up being. I have had no real issue with the Confrontation rule book - seems clear to me, but maybe that is because I am not looking for a game winning loop hole like most of the 40k players I used to play against and watch debate in the rules section on this forum.

1. How does this game play?

2. What are the plans for additional troops and units?

3. When you say that the game has another book coming out, does that mean that the game is incomplete? Will the rulebook be something compareable to a codex, or a hard basic rulebook, or is it something more of the lines of where all I'm paying for is a hard covered book?

I've seen alot of pro and con, even though Im still on the fence on this one, I would consider buying a unit or two of the figs.

My only issue with prepainted miniatures is "easy-in, easy-out" (turn
off that imagination, OTers! I'll deal with you later).

If a game is easy to get into, then it is easy to get out of as well. One
reason people don't like to try new miniatures games is the time-cost
investment. AT-43 takes that part away.

But one reason you have a player base at all is that the initial investment
makes you try plugging away at it just a few more times.

So for AT-43 to work out, the gameplay has to be compelling, because
for me the miniatures aren't (at least not yet). And the thought of using
the figs as 40k alternatives isn't really that appealing either.

I guess I'm firmly in the "wait and see" camp. Thanks for all the reviews, though.

I suspect in March, when the Advanced rules come out, it will be much easer for folks to make an educated decision as to jump in or not. I imagine the rules book will have much more fluff, art, and info on the other races/ factions which are planed, and folks can get a much better sense of game play. Back when Rackham had said they were releasing the "advanced" rules in January, I thought that made much more sense. Give folks a taste for a month, then really drive it home. As it is, waiting until March to actually get some depth and flavor is a bit of a drag. Oh well, plenty to keep me busy until then...

Posted By fullheadofhair on 12/26/2006 8:52 AM

Until you actually know what you are talking about don't [post. It is $60-80, but comes with two dreadnought sized models with terrain - better value than BfM IMHO. Seems a better price to me - saves me having to build anything let alone paint it. The rules for this so far are no worse than the quagmire GW rules debates end up being. I have had no real issue with the Confrontation rule book - seems clear to me, but maybe that is because I am not looking for a game winning loop hole like most of the 40k players I used to play against and watch debate in the rules section on this forum.

Or, to use babel-fish on this one "don't post if you don't agree with me and any of the other GW bashers that this is the next great game that will topple GW's stranglehold on the hobby."  Please.  I'm entitled to my OPINION, same as your entitled to your OPINION...

Interesting, that this comment:
"If anything, I was surprised by how simplistic and quick-running the rules are, given this is the company responsible for Confrontation. I like Confrontation, but it is a rules quagmire in places and unncessarily over-complicated by detail. That's probably a good thing, however, as one thing AT-43 doesn't want is the advanced rules to be too simple, and from the rumblings coming out of Rackham HQ, they won't."

gets nary a whisper about the "rules quagmire" that is Confrontation, and without a 'full product', not 5 pages of translation, there is nothing to get my interest up, nor to decide if the rules are actually any good.  Which is,IMHO, why its not the best thing since sliced bread.  But, whatever floats your boat.

Oh, and will the new rule book be free?  Or will I have to spend another $30-50US for an actual rulebook.?  And since you haven't seen an actual rulebook for this game, what is the basis for your assumption that its actually good? 

Seems like I know 'what I'm talking about' just as much as you do - which is not much.

Posted By Cruentus on 12/26/2006 11:58 AM

I'm entitled to my OPINION, same as your entitled to your OPINION...

Absolutely.  My opinion is that anyone who decides to post a review of a product without actually having looked at it or played it is an moron.

As I have actually purchased it and played it, I can say that the rulesbook is quite nice; vivid full-color (better quality than the mini-BGB book in BfM actually with much higher quality paper and printing).  The english rules are the first 24 pages and presented in the same manner as BfM did, starting you slow with just a few rules and adding rules as you progress from mission to mission.  By the 6th and final mission you had been presented with all of the basic rules of the game; you certainly could play many games using just those rules.  The Advanced Ruleset that should come out in a few months should add complexity to the game, bringing strategy and tactics more in to the fore, but I don't feel they will be necessary for everyone; you could keep this as a beer-and-pretzels game with just the ruleset you get in the box.

The editing errors in the rulesbook were very minor and easily overlooked, and had none of the "all your base are belong to us" translations that were rumoured or feared.  I had read through the free rules offered online but the rulesbook in the box did a much better job of presenting the game and made it quite easy to learn (I used them to teach a couple of non-gamers without any issues.)

By comparison, Hybrid seem like it was made by a different company; the rulesbook for Hybrid was awful and I found the game almost unplayable.

Concerning the paint job: If I were to see the minis from my AT-3 set on CMON I would rate them a 6.0; above table-top standard, but not breathtaking.  The value you get for your money ($60 when I got it from the Warstore as a pre-order, $70 now) is fantastic however.  Were I to only play a game or 2 a year, I'd still feel I'd gotten my money's worth.

 

Frederich