A Primer To The World Of Beyond The Gates Of Antares
July 15, 2015 by crew
“In the Seventh Age of humankind, with the ancient Gates of Antares linking our isolate worlds across countless galaxies. The evolved panhuman races wage unending war to control the technology of the Gates and the undiscovered systems beyond.”
The World
Humanity has colonised the stars, new civilizations begin and others die. For countless centuries this continued, with humanities first home, Earth, being completely destroyed in long forgotten wars. Each human colony has, over time evolved into new forms, panhuman empires stretching across Antarean space. These scattered races are connected by a vast system of networked special wormholes, making space travel practical.
All these wormholes are connected by a gargantuan inter-dimensional machine, the star of Antares. This massive construct was built by a long dead race, the Builders. We join these galactic races in a fight to control this archaic technology and control the undiscovered systems beyond.
The Rules
Beyond The Gates Of Antares is the invention of Rick Priestly and is Warlord Games' first science fiction wargame. The games core rules are based on the popular Bolt Action ruleset, making the transition between the two relatively easy. The game uses D10s and the occasional D8 and features around five or six units a side. As in Bolt Action, each unit or squad has an order dice, some of which come in the squad boxed sets.
These dice are used to issue orders to your units, which will act upon them, depending on certain modifiers within the game. The game uses the pinning mechanic from Bolt Action, with certain differences, such as possibly gaining a pin marker for Sprinting (moving up to three times your standard movement), this represents the squad becoming exhausted.
The aforementioned Order dice is placed in a bag and one is drawn from random to see who gets to go first. Once all the dice have been used they go back into the bag to start a new round.
The Factions
Currently in its Beta phase, the game is easy to pick up and play, with numerous starter armies available (which at the moment also includes a free paperback copy of the rules). Within the book you get a good amount of background on the forces and worlds they fight over as well as learning more about the Gates of Antares themselves.
Free Rules Download
Currently there are four main factions, all of which are descended from colonising humans, with each race evolving to accommodate where they settled
Boromoite Labour Guilds, thick skinned brutes who regard the other races as nothing more than squishy pests. They are miners and their weapons and technology show this. They also have access to beasts, such as the fearsome Lava Mites that tunnel their way through solid rock by spitting lava at it!
The Algoryn Armoured Infantry Company are a tall heavily armoured warrior race, with a society where everyone is expected to fight and indeed grow up learning the art of warfare. The Algoryns are in a constant state of war with the Ghar, who are evolved from genetically engineered slave soldiers. Their armies are some of the best in Antarean space.
The NuHu are the leaders of the Concord, and have evolved with the sentient integrated machine intelligence, or IMTel.The C3 strike troopers field the best armour and weapons and are protected by hyper light shielding armed with the most advanced weaponry in Antarean space.
There are suggested army lists provided within the book to start with, making for a decent game. Recently a larger game of Antares was shown on the Warlord website giving you an idea of how large and adaptable the skirmish game is.
Would You Like To Know More?
This great venture for Warlord is swiftly gaining more and more support, with a dedicated Facebook page, featuring sneak peeks, articles and battle reports, this game is easy to get into, is constantly supported and featured some fantastic miniatures and game play by some of the industry’s leading figures.
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"Within the book you get a good amount of background on the forces and worlds they fight over as well as learning more about the Gates of Antares themselves..."
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"This great venture for Warlord is swiftly gaining more and more support, with a dedicated Facebook page, featuring sneak peeks, articles and battle reports..."
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The rules look sleek and neat, I like those alot.
Sadly that is as far as the positive go.
I find the background and universe has nothing that grabs me or looks even remotely cool or interesting.
The miniatures all look really primitive and poorly sculpted. They look like all the advanced in sculpting and casting that has been made these past 20 years have been forgotten.
Come along to the games day at Warlord, see what you think up close.
I have to say I have been playing for a while now, it is easily one of my favourite games. The miniatures are actually well detailed, much better on closeer inspection, and the fluff is being updated all the time. Its still in its beta stages bear in mind, and whats coming up is awesome!
I have seen, held and painted some of the minis. Hence me not liking them.
And the fluff may become better in the future, but as it is now, is boring imho.
I’m not that keen on the background either but I plan on using the rules for several other settings. I have not been thrilled with the minis based on the official pics but having some of the characters and a couple squads of Algoryn changed my mind.
Maybe it’s just me, but that drawing reminds me of the classic Rogue Trader cover.
Nope, I was thinking the same thing!
I started looking at this game a feww weeks back after watching one of the designers studio vids. Read through the rules too. Looks interesting, will be keeping watch.
Love the Algoryn. Our club has been Bolt Action mad for the past couple of years but trying to get interest in people trying a game of Antares has been quite difficult. Most common complaint is that they don’t like the armies/fluff, although the releases have been building up and there is quite a lot more stuff out now (got a very positive reaction to the Freeborn other day). Minis do seem bit expensive, probably because they are all metal but I assume plastics are coming at some point. The mechanics of Bolt Action with a lovely Scifi polish must… Read more »
In theory D10 are great, you have kind of better options for modifiers, it goes smoother to “%” the odds and give you better flexibility for you charateristics. But thats what I love with D6 games, the d6 is an elegant dice, six levels easly used with a 1-5 skill level system. The ods skift a 17% giving a +1/-1 good weight. Damn, look at Dust making fantastic use of D3. Before I played a Few games of Dust Battlefield, no way any one would made me belive D3-games would work as good. But I see what Priestly has in… Read more »
I like it, rules are great, some nice minis not all to my taste, background is interesting much more classic sci-fi that grim dark a bit of a throw back. Definately on my watch list seeing what interest there is in my group.
Mind you I backed on KS, just on the basis Rick never fails to deliver a good set of rules, particularly if allowed to design on his own.
Some ideas I have kicking around for this rule set: Dropzone Commander. Make up a board as the inside of a building or bunker complex and each side goes in with a unit of infantry to find and retrieve objectives. IG troopers as UCM, WGF Stormtroopers as Scourge (they come with alt head options), Dreamforge Eisenkern as PHR. Not sure about Shaltari. Maybe something Eldar? C&C Tiberium Wars. I’ve even started converting IG and SM vehicles into Tick Tanks and other Nod vehicles. Got some old school cylon raider models for the Banshee too! World War Mars. A narrative campaign… Read more »
I agree. You can definitely feel the influence of Dune in the DNA of Antares, and that influence is especially evident in the design of the Freeborn.
I like very much the rules and fluff is interesting for the moment, I need more to decide but the direction is good in my opinion, i was afraid of another gotich setting but this is more classic sci-fi with some interesting ideas. The miniatures …. Very hard to judge, initially i wasn’t excited, then i bought some boromites and algoryn, and i like them, much better than in pictures somehow. However concords i really don’t like and i had much hope for a piratesque freeborn but then they come out with these….no bad but not in line with my… Read more »
There are so many good miniatures out there now that if a game can’t come out swinging in the miniature department, then I’m not sure there is a place for the game amongst the competition.
To be brutally honest, the miniature quality appears to be simply not be up to a 2015 standard.
Honestly I’m not sure there are so many if we restrict to 28mm classic sci-fi, maybe infinity even if very much manga-style but the rules do not appeal to me at all….
It is good to see more exposure for Antares on Beast of War. Personally, I like the models for the game, the setting is distinct with a classical, hard-ish SF vibe that set it apart from the dominant aesthetic within the industry, and the rules set is an excellent adaptation of the justly highly regarded Bolt Action rules which adds a few new elements all its own. The rules work very elegantly to convey the kind of sophisticated squad level combat Rick Priestly and Co. are aiming for, and it probably is the best sci fi war gaming rule set… Read more »
I don’t think Warlord have been pushing this enough. They need to be giving it more exposure and more press. I don’t know if they’re relying on the fact Rick Priestley worked on the rules (in itself a great selling point) but if I didn’t see this on BoW then I wouldn’t even know it existed. I’ve skimmed the rules but not in detail, but from what I saw it was impressive. The minis on Warlords Web site are a mixed bag – some are really nice and some aren’t particularly over-inspiring. And maybe its just my tight-fistedness here, but… Read more »
Agreed, Iv written a few battle reports on the subject, its a great game and does need more publicity, I have a series of articles coming up…so watch this space!
I agree that Warlord haven’t given Beyond the gates of Antares much exposure…yet. The boxed game is not released until the beginning of November which is why we have held off until now, with the artwork being the first really big thing we have released. We have videos (with Rick Priestley), articles, loads more miniatures and an intro website to walk you through the game in the wings, which will be released over the coming months along with press releases so there will be a lot more exposure. We are also currently planning a Gates of Antares day at Warlord… Read more »
http://www.warlordgames.com/beyond-the-gates-of-antares-first-game/
http://www.warlordgames.com/beyond-the-gates-of-antares-3-way-battle-report-part-one/
http://www.warlordgames.com/beyond-the-gates-of-antares-3-way-battle-report-part-two/
The mini’s just don’t do it for me. Loving the artwork but I just cant help but think that if this IP was managed by Prodos or Corvus Belli that it would certainly grab my attention. Not saying Warlord are bad in any way, there is a place in the market for all kinds of sculpts, but for me they aren’t up there with the best on the market so why would I spend my cash on them? Just a matter of personal taste I guess and for me this isn’t it. Wish them all the luck though. The art… Read more »
Guys the game is not out yet, rules are in beta, there will be plastic models, probably a starter set etc…. Probably after summer, I sincerely hope when the game is officially out BoW will do and Antares week, unboxing and so on.
Its 90s retro Sci Fi, thats the reason why it looks like it looks.
But it just does not do it for me.
Downloaded rules to have a gander
i’m interested in the algoryn as a base for some asari or turian miniatures for my fate mass effect campaign
I rather like the miniatures. quite a cool look, they should do well.