Beyond the Gates of Antares; Rules We Get Wrong

Following on from my previous blog, I figured I would go through some of the rules I have been forgetting, getting wrong and didn't know about at all.

Light Support Weapons (p.75)

First of all is Light Support Weapons. Go to page 75 in the rulebook and you'll find mention of these failing a res test on a roll of 10. Incredibly handy given that Ghar Outcasts with a Disruptor Cannon would otherwise fail on a roll of 5 to 10. All weapons mentioned in this section are covered by this rule.

Break Tests (p45)

If your unit rolls a 10 on a break test it is destroyed, very brutal.

If your unit fails whilst down, it suffers an additional pin as penalty.

A pass on a roll of 1 removes a pin, nice compensation given the above results.

Blast Hits (p.35)

If your unit is down and is hit by a blast weapon, things are worked out differently to other ranged weapons. Instead of re-rolling to hit, you suffer half the normal number of hits (rounded down). For example, if I inflict D5 hits on your unit thats down, and my result is 5, halved and rounded down I only scored 2 hits. The same applies to pins from Net Ammo.

Line of Sight (p.25-26)

Until recently I was somewhat baffled by the whole terrain/obstacles and line of sight part of the rules until I sat down and re-read the whole section and thought it through.

There are 2 types of terrain which can each be treated in 2 separate ways.

- Intervening Terrain/Occupied Terrain

- Obstacles/Defensive Positions

You cannot draw line of sight through more than one obstacle and/or intervening terrain. However this does not include defensive positions and occupied terrain, otherwise neither side would ever be able to shoot. A defensive position if an obstacle you are in base contact with and shooting over, and occupied terrain is a piece of terrain your unit has moved into.

Recovery Test (p.16)

These must be took if your unit is down at the end of the turn and you wish to return the order dice to the bag. This is a normal command test with penalties for the number of pins the unit has.

Pass on a roll of 1 = -2 Pins and Order Dice returned to the Bag

Pass = -1 Pin and Order Dice returned to the Bag

Fail = -1 Pin, unit remains down

Fail on a roll of 10 = unit remains down

The important thing to note here is that unless you roll a 10, you will always be able to shrug off a pin when performing a recovery test.

Rally (p.16)

The order test for this ignores pins suffered, unlike in Bolt Action. Get these games mixed up at your peril.

Assault Results (p.43)

When failing a break test following an assault, the unit is automatically destroyed, very brutal, so be careful when committing to assault.

That's all for now, don't forget to take part in the Antares 6 week campaign!

Peakwargamer Aaron

Beyond the Gates of Antares; Xilos Campaign

Hey all,

Following the posting of a few battle reports in the Antares campaign I figured i'd give this a shout out. The campaign is 6 weeks long and every week a new mission is introduced, based on those in the current supplement "The Battle for Xilos" and the results of the campaign will be used by Rick Priestley as the basis for the next supplement.

  

On the campaign website, you can sign up and immediately start posting your battle reports. To encourage quality, you are encouraged to write up your battle report, upload photos, army lists, link videos and link up your report with your opponents version. Further to this people can rank your reports and comment on them, giving you vital feedback where you need it.

Now stay with me here, you might be thinking, that sounds very boring, writing up a turn by turn analysis of every game for people for criticise? Well have a look this segment from my 2nd battle report;

"Of the remaining squads, one was constantly on its knees struggling to comprehend that Grog himself was still alive. The Imtel had clearly not anticipated that Grogs own battlesuit would still be intact. Further still Grog had passed every resistance test, break test and command test the remaining C3 squads could put on him, how was this even possible? Well Grog didn’t care." (http://battleforxilos.warconsole.com/battles/vs-s-kerman-1466539721)

My writing skills are not amazing, but you get the idea. I took an amazing event on the tabletop of a model not giving into its fate and worked it into a story, a story I intend to continue with future battle reports, where every game I will nominate a model to be Grog, and the report will be written from his perspective.

So, the reports themselves can be great fun.

Campaign Site: http://battleforxilos.warconsole.com/

My latest battle report: http://battleforxilos.warconsole.com/battles/vs-malach-bur-1467138128

If your already building an army for Antares and are searching for a player, here's a player finder recently made available in its Beta stage; https://antares.wannarumbl.com/#/login

Alternatively, if your new to the game, head over to the Warlord Games website or their youtube channel and start looking over the Antares range and choose an army suited to you!

Best Regards,

Peakwargammer Aaron!

Open Combat: A Game for Any Collector

A few weeks ago I was introduced to a game called Open Combat at my local club, and it caught me by surprise. The developer of the game Carl Brown was running demos, of which I decided to take part in. Below is something of an introduction to the game incase you have not tried it yet, obviously I cannot give you a demo in the blog, but I can show you the main appeals about the game and what I love most about it.

The main appeal with Open Combat is that you can use ANY of your miniatures, as long as you keep to a certain theme so it’s not a ragtag band of Skeletons, Eldar, Vikings and Giants. You select some of your favourite miniatures, lets say between 4 and 8 that are somewhat underused or are your best painted models that you really want to show off, and then you build a profile for those models. That’s right, you get given a blank profile for each model, and every stat, special rule and piece of wargear you give a model costs 1 point (known as renown in the rulebook).

The Nervous Archers warband I choose from the sample at the demo

Below is an example for my Welsh models that I have been using for SAGA, this is a 100 point list that took a mere 5 minutes to throw together without having to consult army lists and such;

Welsh Warband	SPD	ATK	DEF	FOR		MND		WEAPONS/SKILLS/ABILITIES/INJURIES/NOTES
Warlord	4	5	4	4		2		Sword, Shield, Javelin
Hearthguard	4	4	2	4		1		Sword, Shield, Javelin
Hearthguard	4	4	2	4		1		Sword, Shield, Javelin
Levy	5	3	1	2		1		Sword, Javelin
Levy	5	3	1	2		1		Sword, Javelin
Levy	5	3	1	2		1		Sword, Javelin

The process of army building is simple, grab a handful of models and give them the stats based on whats on the model. What weapon does your model carry? Does it have a shield? How heavy do you reckon its gear is? Above my Warlord and Hearthguard carry heavy armour, so I gave them slower movement speeds (SPD) than the levies and more health (FOR) and defence (DEF). If you have someone carrying a legendary weapon, say Excalibur, you might choose to have an insane attack (ATK) such as 15, and throw some special rules in there such as double handed to give it some special effects.

Now the rules are written based on the theme of Medieval combat, so everything is based on swords, spears, bows, shields etc. However, the rules can be used for any other period using a ‘counts as’ approach. For example, I recently used these rules to play a World War 2 game, whereby close combat weapons were uncommon and the game was played using Bows, Crossbows, Slings and Javelins to provide the variety in shooting options. Literally anything can be represented, if you have cavalry you may to up your speed (SPD) to 12, for monstrous creatures you may have 15 health (FOR) and so on.

Lets say I wanted to use my Bloodthirster who largely sits on the shelf doing nothing, here’s the first idea that comes into my head;

	SPD	ATK	DEF	FOR		MND		WEAPONS/SKILLS/ABILITIES/INJURIES/NOTES
Bloodthirster	16	16	16	24		12		Double Handed Weapon, Sling, Resolute, Intimidate

See what I did there, quick moving due to the wings, a few special rules that fits the model and it totals 88 points quite appropriately. Looking back in a week or so I will probably make some changes to better field the bloodthirster, but if your opponent asked “Can I fight a Bloodthirster?”, you only have to ask yourself “Do I have one?”.

The gameplay is very simple, the rules are written from a common sense point of view with regards to mechanics like stabbing enemy models in the back or pushing them over into a thorn bush. Using up to a dozen models per side you won’t have to remember a great many things, which helps the game really fun, you spend so little time thinking about rules and much more thinking, how would this little guy fight?

Most of what you need to play the game is found on the quick reference sheet, so you won’t find yourself looking up many rules in the book. And most importantly, a 100 point game can have so much go on in it, and yet only last for between 30 and 60 minutes, excellent for an evening game when you don’t have 2+ hours to spare for larger games. Each side requires a mere 3 dice (D6), 3 tokens which can be anything, tape measure, pen & paper to write your armies stats on and record your losses. Did I mention that the table size is typically 24”x24”? So you can fit this game onto any kitchen table.

If you wish to look any further into the game, please see the links below;

Store and Forums: www.secondthunder.com/

Second Thunder Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCiYQd5PurA7IwC6Q1P6nk4Q

If there's anything more you wish to know about this game visit the forums via the second thunder website, and if you feel I missed something feel free to comment below.

Happy Wargaming,

PeakWargamer Aaron signing off