[Tabletop Wargaming/Minis] AT-43

[Hotfoot]

Well, I was wandering around my gaming store today, and I just happened to notice a rather interesting display of minis near the front of the store. Naturally, I was intrigued, since I always like looking at well-painted minis and dioramas, especially for the purposes of having models for RPG use. They looked well done, so I took a look at the boxes, interested in seeing what the price was and how much variety they had.

The boxes were packed with a sheet of clear plastic, letting you see the minis inside clearly, in full color. Yes, that's right, pre-painted. More than that, not RANDOM. Okay, there's got to be a downside, right? Well, there is. They're pretty expensive, running at $25-30 for a box of a squad of infantry (6-9), powered armor (3), or combat walker (1 + cargo crate). It's also pretty recent, so variety is pretty sparse. There were only two armies available, and unit selection was pretty much basic infantry, elite infantry, powered armors, and striders, though apparently there are more available from the company.

So I said to myself, hey, if the rules don't completely suck ass, I might pick me up the starter box and see if I can't get my buddies into it. One trip home and a google search later, I find the Official Website, complete with a free rulebook. After a brief readthrough, the rules seem to be pretty solid, very much similar to 40K in many respects, but more streamlined.

Anyone else even heard of this yet, or am I alone here? It looks a hell of a lot better than *Clix/WotC grab bag game #124/40K, especially for people who:

A. Don't have the time/patience/skill to build and paint an army, complete with customizations
B. Don't have the time/patience/huge amounts of disposable income to spend silly amounts of money on CCG-style minis and just want to buy what they fucking want to play with.

[The Dark]

I hadn't seen it yet, but that actually looks pretty darn cool.

[Vendetta]

AT-43 is Rackham's "version" (read "shameless ripoff") of 40k. For instance, unit cohesion is set arbitrarily at 2.5cm. Which would be sensible if you were playing in inches, but seems to have only been chosen because that's how 40k does it. (I personally haven't played it, but the games club I frequent has a starter box since we have lots of Confrontation players)

This is annoying, because their fantasy game, Confrontation, blows the nuts off of WHFB, and is one of the better fantasy tabletop games out there. (plus it has not one but two armies of giant wolfmen, also ninja goblins, how ace is that?).

If you want some nice sci-fi minis you might want to look at Infinity, though their design is very heavily anime inspired. The game itself is a bit sweet as well, great squad level combat, very very lethal ruleset, makes cover the best thing since ever.

If you want to look at the rest of Rackham's range, their main store is here

[Hotfoot]

The fact that it's a shameless 40K ripoff doesn't really bother me that much, since they don't have many of the same issues 40K does rules-wise (at least yet). I enjoyed playing 40K, just not the constant bullshit they do with rules.

Infinity looks interesting, but that website is not very helpful. Are the minis pre-painted?

[Vendetta]

No, Infinity minis come unpainted/unassembled. They're priced pretty reasonably though (importing them from Spain is cheaper than buying Workshop stuff from Warhammer World itself).

And whilst AT-43 is still only in it's first edition, and so hasn't had rule jiggery pokery yet, the rules just don't make for an interesting game (but then I think the same of 40k). Also their translation team is notoriously terrible, leaving some rules borderline unintelligible. I think this is to punish the world for not speaking French.

[Hotfoot]

Having read the rules, I'm not sure what you're talking about. They seemed pretty straightfoward and easy to understand to me, and in fact less open to personal interpretation than most of the 40K rules.

[Vendetta]

They must have surpassed themselves. Rackham rulebooks are noted for their translation problems. (like in Hybrid, where they translated all the abilities properly, but left them in alphabetical order based on their original French titles).

The gameplay problems are the same as 40k though (and this from a GW games designer, Jake Thornton), there's not a great deal of tactical flexibility, there's always an optimum use for each unit irrespective of what the enemy force composition is, and when it's the enemy's turn you are largely just sitting and watching (whereas Infinity essentially has you in overwatch at all times, so you're taking reaction shots to enemy actions, and Confrontation melee fights are all face to face rolling, and planning and using offensive and defensive abilities, so you're always doing something)

[Hotfoot]

Well, you know, you can read the rules for yourself instead of making assumptions about it.

Turns are done in a very different style from 40K, with units being activated in turn, meaning it's not the same "I do everything, then you do everything". There's also a Command Point system that allows you to give units battle drills, or activate them out of order, etc. Overwatch is there, so forth and so on.

[Mutant Headcrab]

The UNA minis for AT-43 look like they'd make good stand-ins for an Imperial Guard army. Wonder if they'll release anything that can be fudged as a Leman Russ

[The Dark]

Looking at it, it is somewhat similar to 40k, although (currently) a bit cleaner. The one thing I particularly like is the "Split Fire" command - your anti-tank gunner doesn't have to waste a shot on a grunt because all your riflemen are shotting them (which is one of my big complaints about 40k).

Visually, I'm not a big fan of the Therians, but I do like the U.M.A. sculpts, particularly the Fire Toads, and the Red Blok looks good as well (and might be better for Imperial Guard, Headcrab - they're slightly less high-tech in appearance).

[Tasoth]

They actually remind of units from Warzone. I have the Warzone rulebook, and it seemed like you could do some of the things I'm heat AT doing, like postponing actions, the 'I go, you go, I go' rule of moving units of infantry back and forth and what have you.

[The Dark]

I picked up the starter set today. Fairly good figures, painted better than my paintjobs at the moment . The combat striders even have rust marks.

I've only got one gripe so far - the book says that heavy weapons troopers can't fight in close combat, yet the figure has the combat knife strapped to its leg. Other than that, no complaints thus far.

[Vendetta]

They actually remind of units from Warzone. I have the Warzone rulebook, and it seemed like you could do some of the things I'm heat AT doing, like postponing actions, the 'I go, you go, I go' rule of moving units of infantry back and forth and what have you.

Much of the turn structure is similar to Confrontation, which had two delay mechanics, either a simple refusal, which you got for having less figures and cards than your opponent (everything in Confrontation has it's stats on a reference card, and you stack those to choose activation order, more than one model can be activated by a card), or a reserve, which you delay one card to activate either alone or alongside another later on. The player that won initiative that turn gets two reserves, the other player gets one.