Reply To: Gates of Antares beginner

[phaidknott 7023xp 1]

The rules for Amano Harran are in the first campaign book “The Battle for Xilos”, but as ever they are also available online at the Nexus (just remember to hit the “Tags” side menu to navigate, I keep forgetting to do that (use the Tag “Character” in this case).

Hmmmm

Fighting Ghar, you’ll have a problem without an X Launcher or two. The normal tactic is to pin/suppress the battlesuits until they no longer pass order die or even if they do, shoot very well. Absolutely no point taking along any drones/buddy drones as the Ghar’s Disruptor weapons rules will just strip away any that you take (although sometimes they make a useful hit sink, just be aware of the points you are spending on your buddy drone vs the cost of an individual model in the unit).

Concord are very “shooty” and the HL armour means that explosive/blast type weapons aren’t as effective (ie X launcher/howitzer “normal” rounds, BUT more importantly Micro X Launchers (which are your squad support weapons)). So you might want to forgo using them vs Concord and use mag weapons instead. You’ll want to try and get into melee if you can, but those dastardly Plasma Carbines get to shoot twice (basically you can’t engage in a standup firefight with them).

With Freeborn, your armies “thing” is usually you’ll outnumber your enemy. So the “Ferals” are always playing into that strength (plus if you use Suma Grafts and a Hound buddyprobe they become unbreakable and fight to the last man (most of the time)). Another “cannon fodder” unit are the “Misgenic Rejects” (Now I loath the official models for these and use the Mantic Scifi Zombie models instead), they do use up one of your all important “Auxiliary” army slots, but at 5 pts a model are the cheapest unit to buy (I made my unit over 10 models and tend to use it as a “use up the last points in your list” unit.

Freeborn are like the Merchant Princes of Venice in the fluff, they employ large amounts of Mercenaries and don’t really care if they live or die. Any problems they shrewdly throw money at (but the most successful Freeborn Houses only throw just enough money at the problem).

Domari and Vardanari are your “standard” troops and although a bit more expensive also can be useful (the Vardanari are not far off Concord Strike troopers in equipment).

But the “downside” to Freeborn is that they don’t have a reliable way of dealing with high armour units with their available options for squad support weapons (although they excel at taking out low armoured units). So you’ll need some of the Weapon Teams (they are on sale atm), Mag Light Support and Mag Cannons are always useful (pity the X Launchers aren’t on sale, but “if” I was going to restrict myself to only buying the Sale items I’d go for a couple of Mag Light Supports….which are pretty useful against Concord Strike Troopers HL Armour). It’s a pity your friend has picked the two most armoured armies in the game (but be thankful he didn’t pick Isorians), as this means your going to be a bit more restricted in your list and tactics.

But sounds like you’ll need to scrounge up some extra Frostgrave Plastic Barbarians for now, and dig through your “never ending mountain of unpainted stuff” to see if you have any Mantic Sci-fi Zomblies floating around. BUT also keep an eye out on these Warlord Sales (they tend to have 2 or 3 a year), nearly all my Antares stuff was bought on sale. As you picked out a Shieldmaiden as your Feral Squad leader, you might also want to look at the Soldiers 2 box from Frostgrave (although I’ve not seen anyone stick Mag guns on these minis, so not sure how hard it would work out to be…..the arms and arms span might prove to be tricky, and as there’s been no posts of someone trying this out I suspect this may indeed be the case).

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But for now I’d play games at about 600 pts (this was found to be the best points value at the open days at Warlord for a quick but still interesting game), and if you live near Nottingham they do have an Antares Day that is usually well attended (but nothing like a GW event). For these first games it’s always a good idea to reach a “mutual” agreement on the army lists if one side has only got a few unit (so no Concord Close Support drones with a 3X PLS loadout). Probably just use squads and a HQ unit or two for now.

But the all important bit is the table, if you find that the Concord are just dropping your units consistently if you dare to step into the open using multiple units (they are a very shooty army), then you haven’t got enough terrain on the table. Basically we follow an old WRG Ancients system where we take turns to put down terrain, but at the end we get to remove one piece of terrain each. Again can’t stress the importance of this in game of Antares (where a basic mag rifle has a range of 60 inches….much better then the myopic space marines and their 24 inch sight range 😀 ).