Why Antares? For players of 40k
So I've been having a bit of a think about the two systems, given I play both (I'm a veteran of 5th and 6th edition and played 2nd/3rd as a kid) now I've got a harlequin force. I was having a chat with a few guys and girls down at my local gaming store and most of the people they knew that played 40k have never played any other squad based sci-fi game, though plenty had dabbled with steampunk/fantasy/sports related genres or very small scale scifi games like necromunda or infinity.
On a Monday two weeks back I was in store, playing my harlequins vs a krieg + dark angels defensive list and on the Tuesday I was hosting a game of concord vs concord at my house and I couldn't square how much more I enjoyed playing Antares than I did playing 8th edition 40k (and it was a fun game played against a gent and neither of us took "broken" lists btw).
For anyone who's never played a squad based sci-fi game other than 40k, these are the pro's and con's of what I see one game has vs the other and should be taken only as that, my personal opinion.
Sci-fi Feel
For me, the biggest thing that draws me to Antares is the classic "proper" sci-fi.
The technology is advanced, Humanity is believably fractured and has evolved into something new which represents the sizeable time jump ahead of where we're at now.
Drones can carry many combat and leadership roles to spare trooper's lives but troopers still exist for the tactical flexibility they represent in gaining and holding ground. Weapons for the most part are advanced across all factions and most forces are at a tech level where armour projects a force field which intercepts incoming fire and disperses its energy. It just feels right to me as a scifi game.
Whilst high-technology is certainly present in 40k, the aesthetic for the most prevalent factions (all things imperial at the moment) tends to be gothic + WW1/WW2. "High tech" weapons often misfire and kill their users and everything is covered in macabre skulls (with the exception of T'au, Aeldari and others of course). Laser guns are the shittest guns in the game and projectile weapons are still the dominant weapon used 38,000 years into the future! To me, 40k doesn't feel like a scifi game whereas the clean lines and advanced weaponry in Antares hits the spot much better.
List building
Antares has got the free pdfs now covering all the army options in one place, with clear upgrade costs and gear listings. Simple and elegant, something which GW have lagged behind whilst every other manufacturer has made great strides. Yeah, I know, its GW's business model blah blah, but times change, everyone else has moved on. The benefit of not having to pay to have codex + index +chapter approved just to make a list for a pickup game is huge on your wallet too!
The other thing that makes this game a cinch is that the army lists are simple. Every faction has multiple ways of making up the points but each unit has a limited amount of customisation which reduces pen and paper time and given that everything is in one place, saves a ball ache of time spent flicking from points, to list, to points, to list to, wait, etc..
It feels right as well having a more slimmed down and more homogenous bunch of units with specialist roles, it is appropriate to the forces the lists represented and several forces include units that are way off the standard "high-tech military" if you're after that kind of feel (skarks, rock riders etc), so there's plenty of scope in the game to be outlandish too. A good spread of special characters brings in situational character that doesn't break the game like in other systems too, so if you're fed up of "generic commander A" leading your forces, there's solutions for that :-)
Game mechanics
This is the biggy; IGOUGO just feels tedious for me now, a bit of a relic of a bygone age. I know people love it, it is the comfy old slippers of the wargaming world and I get it to a certain degree; but seriously, play something different and you'll see how much more engaging a game can be.
I could have effectively put the kettle on and had a biscuit and a chin-wag whilst my opponent was taking his turn in my last game of 40k, my only input for nearly 50% of the entire game is rolling armour saves as and when my opponent dictates I need to (combats were usually over before he swang and he didn't charge me).
In the game of Antares the next day, I was engaged 100% throughout, planning on what I needed to do depending on who drew the next dice and what my strategic priorities where as they dynamically changed throughout the turn as the dice were rolled and the table-state evolved.
The other thing I love about Antares is that it isn't D6. This is a huge part of my problem with what 40k is bogged down in; there are just not enough results on a D6 to differentiate forces or skill levels once you factor in that 6's always succeed and 1's always fail. That's a measly 4 results available to differentiate everything from a Grot through to the Avatar of Khaine, the god of war!
The crit success/crit fail mechanic also adds some interesting extras in, being potentially able to snipe out buddy drones/leaders/special weapons or gain situational benefits like extra sprint distances as well as harsh penalties on critical failures (usually "down" +/- extra pins depending on test reason)
D10 clearly gives a broader scope to differentiate forces and units whilst also giving flexibility to allow for modifiers (cover/armour etc) that feed into game choices ie; do I run to negate cover next turn for better shooting, do I declare a risky assault to negate the fact the unit is dug in or do I declare a fire order to gain a bonus to offset the negatives at the cost of movement.
Add on top of that the reaction mechanic where you can (again, at a potential cost) take out-of-initiative actions to defend or harrass your foe in his desired action, there's just more to the game (I know 40k now has some limited out-of-initiative actions you can do, but they're a long, long way off what Antares can offer). If you're after a deep system with lots of tactical choice, the mechanics are definitely deeper and the tactical acumen you can use in Antares far outstrips other systems.
Leadership
This is one of the best things in antares for me, Leadership actually matters and it has a mechanic that is thought through and well implemented. Officers and heroic characters have a buff radius and offer a bonus to leadership tests (Co tests) as well as being able to issue a "Follow" command, which allows the activation of multiple units in range at the same time, allowing for co-ordination of units to shoot/charge/run/ambush etc all at the same time, perfect for delivering a decisive strike or stoic defense. This comes with a cost however, pulling multiple dice out of the bag early leaves your opponent on for a bigger unopposed run of dice draws later in the turn, able to rack up pins and maneuver without response, you have to decide on your priorities and make that decision. "Is it worth it?" Again, more layers of strategy with a risk/reward = better + deeper game.
Each unit racks up "pins" when an attack lands, regardless of whether the attack does damage. Large volumes of incoming fire rack up pins which serve as a -ve modifier to actions and a pinned unit must pass a Co test to act under fire. (much harder to aim properly when being strafed/blown up and laced with suppressive fire!). Officers can help units pass these tests and can help rally their troops to clear off pins and get them back into the fight. Failed leadership tests often force units "down", so suppression and co-ordination of fire into key targets can neutralise them temporarily, much more elegant and reliable a strategy than 40k has ever been able to implement in any edition I've played.
Terrain
40k 's most recent iteration appears to have made terrain largely redundant, it has little effect on the game in terms of movement anymore and only has a minor impact on durability compared to previous editions. In Antares, its an integral feature. How you utilise available cover and negate the enemy's cover is key to success and taking/holding objectives like buildings involves combined arms (artillery to soften up, shooting to rack up pins to allow assault troops to more safely engage etc)
Given that cover infers -ve modifiers to shoot through/into and move through/into and often gives modifiers to durability, it is huge and necessitates maneuver and tactics to master.
The campaigns also introduce optional weather rules which can have a big impact on the game and simulate some pretty inhospitable planets, necessitating some pre-planning (like a real commander would in that circumstance).
Game balance
Another huge one for me. Game balance is, fair to say, not GW's greatest talent. Though they've made some strides with the latest edition, it seems like cracks are beginning to show with more recent releases where some codexes are "better" than others. That said, Warlord have been plenty guilty with game balance in 1st ed Bolt action as well, some units clearly being vastly undercosted or overcosted for their on-table power.
As yet, I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised at the balance in Antares. Nothing leaps out of any of the lists I've read as badly-costed and in need of redressal now and the lists are regularly addressed at the same time as each other and in-line with one-another, so any changes are happening across the board for universal balance rather than odds-and-sods.
I know 40k has chapter-approved, but that isn't free, isn't that regular and (so far) appears to break as much as it fixes. Because Antares supports a more granular system with D10's, the point system can be tailored much more finely to a unit's ability (ie a point of BS or Armour in 40k makes a HUGE difference which is difficult to cost without being OP/UP whereas values in Antares are of lesser game-impact and therefore are more granular to "cost")
The only problematic thing I've come across so far is that the Ghar battlesuit forces can be difficult to play against with the "core" starter boxes, but for those players with experience or more balanced army lists, a couple of big guns can soon punch through the tougher vehicles and suits and turn the tide. For all-comers play, you'd want those big guns anyway to deal with tanks/drones/artillery, so you're not having to go out of your way to counter them specifically.
Whilst concerns exist over the MOD3 heavy tanks and their potential damage/pin output, at around 1/3rd of your points after upgrades in a 1500pt game, the fact they can be one-shotted by an AT gun means they definitely have a big risk-reward mechanic. The "pin" mechanic also allows for the stacking of -ve modifiers onto "big nasties" to lower their damage output and smart use of terrain and "down" orders can also mitigate them as well as just outclassing their smaller infantry force and playing the objective.
1st turn alpha strike
Due to the dice drawing mechanic (each unit puts an order dice into the bag and activates once a dice is drawn and allocated to it) there really isn't much of an opportunity to 1st turn alpha strike unless you get mega lucky with draw order and dice in combat actions like shooting with artillery. It would be extremely rare (incredibly so) to be able to table an opponent in turn 1-2, and would require an extremely skew list and far more luck than you're ever going to get. In fact, many scenarios have a chunk of your forces arrive from reserves in later turns, thus preventing that from occurring right from the off.
On the whole, units are too durable to die in one round and weapon ranges are short enough that you can't put down enough accurate firepower on turn one, ensuring you get a good lengthy game out of it that flows nicely and evolves from draw-to-draw.
Psykers + Smite spam
There are no pskyers in Antares. Aside from a small number of minor aura buffs from officers and drones, there aren't really any comparative mechanics. The game doesn't really need anything of this ilk though, as a player of both Antares and 40k, Psyker equivalents would feel very out of place here.
Competitive play
40k has a much bigger scene given it has a 28 year headstart and far bigger playerbase. There is a growing event scene for Antares however and this is set to continue to grow in line with the game's growth. The 40k tournament scene has long had its detractors however, as well as being plagued with various fractured comp packs/rulesets and scoring systems and a long history of awful balance. If competitive play is important to you in your hobby time, it would be worth attending some Antares events and helping develop the competitive scene in your ilk.
On a Monday two weeks back I was in store, playing my harlequins vs a krieg + dark angels defensive list and on the Tuesday I was hosting a game of concord vs concord at my house and I couldn't square how much more I enjoyed playing Antares than I did playing 8th edition 40k (and it was a fun game played against a gent and neither of us took "broken" lists btw).
For anyone who's never played a squad based sci-fi game other than 40k, these are the pro's and con's of what I see one game has vs the other and should be taken only as that, my personal opinion.
Sci-fi Feel
For me, the biggest thing that draws me to Antares is the classic "proper" sci-fi.
The technology is advanced, Humanity is believably fractured and has evolved into something new which represents the sizeable time jump ahead of where we're at now.
Drones can carry many combat and leadership roles to spare trooper's lives but troopers still exist for the tactical flexibility they represent in gaining and holding ground. Weapons for the most part are advanced across all factions and most forces are at a tech level where armour projects a force field which intercepts incoming fire and disperses its energy. It just feels right to me as a scifi game.
Whilst high-technology is certainly present in 40k, the aesthetic for the most prevalent factions (all things imperial at the moment) tends to be gothic + WW1/WW2. "High tech" weapons often misfire and kill their users and everything is covered in macabre skulls (with the exception of T'au, Aeldari and others of course). Laser guns are the shittest guns in the game and projectile weapons are still the dominant weapon used 38,000 years into the future! To me, 40k doesn't feel like a scifi game whereas the clean lines and advanced weaponry in Antares hits the spot much better.
List building
Antares has got the free pdfs now covering all the army options in one place, with clear upgrade costs and gear listings. Simple and elegant, something which GW have lagged behind whilst every other manufacturer has made great strides. Yeah, I know, its GW's business model blah blah, but times change, everyone else has moved on. The benefit of not having to pay to have codex + index +chapter approved just to make a list for a pickup game is huge on your wallet too!
The other thing that makes this game a cinch is that the army lists are simple. Every faction has multiple ways of making up the points but each unit has a limited amount of customisation which reduces pen and paper time and given that everything is in one place, saves a ball ache of time spent flicking from points, to list, to points, to list to, wait, etc..
It feels right as well having a more slimmed down and more homogenous bunch of units with specialist roles, it is appropriate to the forces the lists represented and several forces include units that are way off the standard "high-tech military" if you're after that kind of feel (skarks, rock riders etc), so there's plenty of scope in the game to be outlandish too. A good spread of special characters brings in situational character that doesn't break the game like in other systems too, so if you're fed up of "generic commander A" leading your forces, there's solutions for that :-)
Game mechanics
This is the biggy; IGOUGO just feels tedious for me now, a bit of a relic of a bygone age. I know people love it, it is the comfy old slippers of the wargaming world and I get it to a certain degree; but seriously, play something different and you'll see how much more engaging a game can be.
I could have effectively put the kettle on and had a biscuit and a chin-wag whilst my opponent was taking his turn in my last game of 40k, my only input for nearly 50% of the entire game is rolling armour saves as and when my opponent dictates I need to (combats were usually over before he swang and he didn't charge me).
In the game of Antares the next day, I was engaged 100% throughout, planning on what I needed to do depending on who drew the next dice and what my strategic priorities where as they dynamically changed throughout the turn as the dice were rolled and the table-state evolved.
The other thing I love about Antares is that it isn't D6. This is a huge part of my problem with what 40k is bogged down in; there are just not enough results on a D6 to differentiate forces or skill levels once you factor in that 6's always succeed and 1's always fail. That's a measly 4 results available to differentiate everything from a Grot through to the Avatar of Khaine, the god of war!
The crit success/crit fail mechanic also adds some interesting extras in, being potentially able to snipe out buddy drones/leaders/special weapons or gain situational benefits like extra sprint distances as well as harsh penalties on critical failures (usually "down" +/- extra pins depending on test reason)
D10 clearly gives a broader scope to differentiate forces and units whilst also giving flexibility to allow for modifiers (cover/armour etc) that feed into game choices ie; do I run to negate cover next turn for better shooting, do I declare a risky assault to negate the fact the unit is dug in or do I declare a fire order to gain a bonus to offset the negatives at the cost of movement.
Add on top of that the reaction mechanic where you can (again, at a potential cost) take out-of-initiative actions to defend or harrass your foe in his desired action, there's just more to the game (I know 40k now has some limited out-of-initiative actions you can do, but they're a long, long way off what Antares can offer). If you're after a deep system with lots of tactical choice, the mechanics are definitely deeper and the tactical acumen you can use in Antares far outstrips other systems.
Leadership
This is one of the best things in antares for me, Leadership actually matters and it has a mechanic that is thought through and well implemented. Officers and heroic characters have a buff radius and offer a bonus to leadership tests (Co tests) as well as being able to issue a "Follow" command, which allows the activation of multiple units in range at the same time, allowing for co-ordination of units to shoot/charge/run/ambush etc all at the same time, perfect for delivering a decisive strike or stoic defense. This comes with a cost however, pulling multiple dice out of the bag early leaves your opponent on for a bigger unopposed run of dice draws later in the turn, able to rack up pins and maneuver without response, you have to decide on your priorities and make that decision. "Is it worth it?" Again, more layers of strategy with a risk/reward = better + deeper game.
Each unit racks up "pins" when an attack lands, regardless of whether the attack does damage. Large volumes of incoming fire rack up pins which serve as a -ve modifier to actions and a pinned unit must pass a Co test to act under fire. (much harder to aim properly when being strafed/blown up and laced with suppressive fire!). Officers can help units pass these tests and can help rally their troops to clear off pins and get them back into the fight. Failed leadership tests often force units "down", so suppression and co-ordination of fire into key targets can neutralise them temporarily, much more elegant and reliable a strategy than 40k has ever been able to implement in any edition I've played.
Terrain
40k 's most recent iteration appears to have made terrain largely redundant, it has little effect on the game in terms of movement anymore and only has a minor impact on durability compared to previous editions. In Antares, its an integral feature. How you utilise available cover and negate the enemy's cover is key to success and taking/holding objectives like buildings involves combined arms (artillery to soften up, shooting to rack up pins to allow assault troops to more safely engage etc)
Given that cover infers -ve modifiers to shoot through/into and move through/into and often gives modifiers to durability, it is huge and necessitates maneuver and tactics to master.
The campaigns also introduce optional weather rules which can have a big impact on the game and simulate some pretty inhospitable planets, necessitating some pre-planning (like a real commander would in that circumstance).
Game balance
Another huge one for me. Game balance is, fair to say, not GW's greatest talent. Though they've made some strides with the latest edition, it seems like cracks are beginning to show with more recent releases where some codexes are "better" than others. That said, Warlord have been plenty guilty with game balance in 1st ed Bolt action as well, some units clearly being vastly undercosted or overcosted for their on-table power.
As yet, I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised at the balance in Antares. Nothing leaps out of any of the lists I've read as badly-costed and in need of redressal now and the lists are regularly addressed at the same time as each other and in-line with one-another, so any changes are happening across the board for universal balance rather than odds-and-sods.
I know 40k has chapter-approved, but that isn't free, isn't that regular and (so far) appears to break as much as it fixes. Because Antares supports a more granular system with D10's, the point system can be tailored much more finely to a unit's ability (ie a point of BS or Armour in 40k makes a HUGE difference which is difficult to cost without being OP/UP whereas values in Antares are of lesser game-impact and therefore are more granular to "cost")
The only problematic thing I've come across so far is that the Ghar battlesuit forces can be difficult to play against with the "core" starter boxes, but for those players with experience or more balanced army lists, a couple of big guns can soon punch through the tougher vehicles and suits and turn the tide. For all-comers play, you'd want those big guns anyway to deal with tanks/drones/artillery, so you're not having to go out of your way to counter them specifically.
Whilst concerns exist over the MOD3 heavy tanks and their potential damage/pin output, at around 1/3rd of your points after upgrades in a 1500pt game, the fact they can be one-shotted by an AT gun means they definitely have a big risk-reward mechanic. The "pin" mechanic also allows for the stacking of -ve modifiers onto "big nasties" to lower their damage output and smart use of terrain and "down" orders can also mitigate them as well as just outclassing their smaller infantry force and playing the objective.
1st turn alpha strike
Due to the dice drawing mechanic (each unit puts an order dice into the bag and activates once a dice is drawn and allocated to it) there really isn't much of an opportunity to 1st turn alpha strike unless you get mega lucky with draw order and dice in combat actions like shooting with artillery. It would be extremely rare (incredibly so) to be able to table an opponent in turn 1-2, and would require an extremely skew list and far more luck than you're ever going to get. In fact, many scenarios have a chunk of your forces arrive from reserves in later turns, thus preventing that from occurring right from the off.
On the whole, units are too durable to die in one round and weapon ranges are short enough that you can't put down enough accurate firepower on turn one, ensuring you get a good lengthy game out of it that flows nicely and evolves from draw-to-draw.
Psykers + Smite spam
There are no pskyers in Antares. Aside from a small number of minor aura buffs from officers and drones, there aren't really any comparative mechanics. The game doesn't really need anything of this ilk though, as a player of both Antares and 40k, Psyker equivalents would feel very out of place here.
Competitive play
40k has a much bigger scene given it has a 28 year headstart and far bigger playerbase. There is a growing event scene for Antares however and this is set to continue to grow in line with the game's growth. The 40k tournament scene has long had its detractors however, as well as being plagued with various fractured comp packs/rulesets and scoring systems and a long history of awful balance. If competitive play is important to you in your hobby time, it would be worth attending some Antares events and helping develop the competitive scene in your ilk.
If you don't want to play 40K play what you want. For me, I'll stick to 40K for two main reasons.
ReplyDelete1. The flavor: The warriors of a huge empire under siege (like the late roman empire) draw my interest. All the races battling in 40K do have their own personalities and motivations. Having read the GoA faction "fluff" my take on it was Mehhh! But that's just my personal opinion.
2. I've already got several 40K armies including 5 different marine chapters. Why would I want to invest in another rules set whose figures are not the equal of GW's.