My First Game of Beyond the Gates of Anatres - Concord vs Algoryn

[adamish]

Hi there, just sharing a AAR from my first game of the Beyond the Gates of Antares Beta. Report can be found here:
http://adamishs.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/iron-forest-club-day-080315-damn-their.html

[Dentatus]

Nice Report. Thanks.
Have to say I really want to like the models, but remain underwhelmed.

[adamish]

Cheers, I know what you mean - for me its got this nostalgic vibe to it, reminds me of the good old days of 40k or when the 30k movement had just begun. To have an army meant something, like a owner of a classic car, made you part of something. I think by the end of the year when warlord say the big movement for this will begin, we will see some good things with this game.

[Dentatus]

When I say 'underwhelmed',  that wasn't a slag on your pjs, by the way. Excellent work on those.

I think 'nostalgia' is a good word. The sculpts are solid, competent, sure. And I love the drones. Perhaps I'm just spoiled by Hasslefree and Infinity.   

[adamish]

Oh sorry if I sounded defensive, really wasnt meaning to be - I appreciate and totally agree with the better quality with infinity and hasslefree, And me and the guy I game against are talking about a platoon mod of this for Infinity due to our large collections.

Thanks for the complement on the minis - am not totally happy with them, am wavering on doing the unthinkable and stripping them and starting again

[mcfonz]

I don't mind some of the sculpts for this. The range is a little hit and miss to my tastes - beauty in the eye of the beholder and al that.

I might give this a go at some point, after all I have downloaded the rules, somewhere . . . . .

Slightly off topic, but getting my head around "nostalgia" and "30k movement first started" - most likely down to my age (all of 32). Nostalgia and GW for me, combine at the time of the "fat dwarf", so very late 2nd ed 40k - early 3rd. Primarily because you bought the white dwarf for the articles, for the support of what became known as the 'specialist' games and for the diversity. It's a funny thing because nostalgia and GW tends to be different periods for different people depending upon when they bought into the franchise.

Back on topic though, some of the miniatures remind me more of Void than 40k, and I will praise them for trying to do convincing alien races - there are not that many decent ones to pick from out there really.

[adamish]

@mcfonz - when I type it tends to be a bombardment of ramblings - apologies if it seems incoherent for me there are two nostalgic moments in my "40k lifetime". First being 2nd Edition which kick-started my love for wargaming, I miss the narrative gameplay, the mad scenarios every thursday night at my local GW (Back then when you could practically live, use there paints - a real life saver when your a kid!) there and the ensemble nature of peoples armies - some of the conversions back then was ridiculous and I miss how units felt unique to each other.

My 2nd foray into all things grim dark was when Sabretooth started to produce all the amazing artowrk for the horus heresy cardgame, this gave a few of us some mad reference material to wargame this period. Again I liked this as there was a real sense of art when making your force, no off the shelf figs, everything had to be converted or at least source some proper old rogue trader minis. While I enjoy what forge world are doing, for me, some of the spark of wargaming 30k has been lost.

When it comes to this game, its the community (their facebook group) that supports it (And that Algoryns look like Mass Effect Turians) that really sold it to me - feels like something in between the early 30k movement and the VBCW - there is a real sense of communication with Rick and he is really up for the customer/ community to have a say how the setting/ game pans out.

Dont get me wrong though, I am not saying this is the best sci-fi game ever, but it has something that reminds me of the good old days.