Sir, I don’t understand. Who needs a knife in a nuke fight anyway?
The EOG is back! And so is a long-dead tabletop sci-fi miniatures wargame called AT-43 in this spectacular battle report!
Greetings fellow members of the Esoteric Order of Gamers! It’s been a little while since I gazed on your smiling upturned faces and it’s a pleasure to start supplying new battle report video goodness to you all. “Please sir, can I have some more?” you ask? Never fear, there’s much more to be ladled out in the coming weeks!
But in the meantime you can gorge yourselves on the first part of more than half an hour of video of Will and I throwing our armies at each other on a far distant battlefield in the depths of space (the armies that is – we’re not on a far distant battlefield in the depths of space, unless that’s how you think of New Zealand). It was a long time ago and far, far away when we last played a game of AT-43, but I’m happy to say it’s just as entertaining as ever. It’s a damn shame the chances of it being resurrected are virtually nil, but who can say for certain in the age of Kickstarter?
Righto then, strap on your light grim scythes and say your goodbyes to the motherland – it’s time for the Therians and the Red Blok to have at it!
Absolutely fantastic Battle Report….very much looking forward to Part 2!!
Thanks mate!
I managed to assemble a decent Therian/UNA/Karmans force and tried a couple of learning games.
What a great game system! Not without its flaws, but overall, fast and fun to play.
So sad Rackham went down and this pre-painted SF tabletop minis game went down with it. 🙁
PS. Great battle report! Looking forward to Pt. 2. Still can’t believe UH rolled all those saving rolls on a 6!!!
As you mentioned, related to Dust, but d6 instead of custom dice. What makes the game so special as it looks like so many skirmish games?
My fondness for Warmachine and Hordes is because of the setting and models, not rules.
Pros: easy rules, great pre-painted figures, a good solid sci-fi background (no gothic silliness, no anime). You can play from skirmishes to large armies. Cons: first edition rules (balance issues and some dodgy rules), unavailability.
Cigar-chomping monkeys in space suits!!! 😀
But seriously … always love the fluff and background (no grimdark). Models, too. Pre-painted is a bonus and the models shine when you put a bit more effort into painting them. Gameplay, too. Start off with a platoon (5 squads) and scales up to whatever you have time and money (to buy the models) for.
Great to see another report…love those. Special to be AT-43.This game was made for me back then – PREPAINTED!!! Loved it…played it a lot…and still got my Therians. Looks like both of you went for the expensive stuff and I have no idea how you had command points to wager for ini with all the nasty but points heavy stuff the therians can do 😉
I always find myself thinking the command point system is a bit dodgy and there seems to be plenty of points left over, but then we get a moment – as happened in this game – where not having 1 point made a crucial difference to a turn. Also, I think we often forget the activation cost and whether units have relays (so they don’t need to pay the cost) etc. We sometimes get caught up in the game and forget rules niceties!
Forgetting rules happens quite often when you have not played in a long time…at least to me..but having fun is always more importent!
I found the CP´s to be a good way to make the army´s feel quite different to play. Therians have no 2 damage weapons other then on the monstrous Golgoth. They lack indirect fire and are mostly outnumbered (bad for claiming objectives) But with a good use of the CP´s they can be a nasty opponent. And there are even more differences between the (base-)factions that made this game really interesting to play…and lots of fun to with scenarios/campaigns. Ahhh…the memories 🙂
The main issue I have are those routines that allow you to make an endless stream of hekat golgoths. I may have to nerf that ability somewhat.
No need to in my opinion. The above disadvantages plus the fact that you have to manage LP´s to do what medics/engineers do for free in the other armies….and the possibility to deny you LP´S through varius means…and the fact that you only can do this with Overseers of AFV´s has to have some advantage. Force construction, picking your Targets right and playing to your armies strengths knowing what your opponent can and can´t do is very importent in this game….thats what I like about it….besides beeing PREPAINTED!!! 😉
Fresh???!!! Who am I kidding? Eyes like p***holes in the snow.
Seriously though, AT-43 is a great game. If you have Dust you can easily substitute the figures and, despite the welter of numbers being thrown around in there, it’s quite a bit simpler as a system. The Universal Table of Resolution is brilliant: just add or subtract from 4 to get whatever number you need to roll.
We would have had a battle report up a lot sooner than this, but for an entire visit to the UniversalHead back in March that went un-videoed due to copyright reasons (okay, we just couldn’t be assed). On the upside, as a result you missed seeing Peter play an ingenious and highly unorthodox War of the Ring Sauron strategy, only to lose at the VERY LAST moment because he couldn’t roll a six on a siege to take the Grey Havens.
Aah, the frustration after all the meticulous planning truly was something to behold, I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
The bloody 6 siege roll in War of the Ring. It drives me bonkers.
Thanks for this. Reminds me of all the fun Sunday afternoon AT43 games I had at my flgs all those years ago including the yelling (medic!).
It was so weird when I played using twin clones Odin and Manon because if one one got injured you yelled the others name to save the wound! Everyone at the store wondered who the f..k they were and why I kept yelling their names.
I still have Oni, red block and karman figs and use them as proxies for other games. They’re great minis and I still get lots of questions about them from onlookers when playing.
Shame about the game and the system. It had loads of potential and allowed me to play mass battles 40k style without the hours of work of assembling, painting etc. All you did was crack open the box and you were good to go!
As usual, love your place and getting jealous as we head into winter and you guys head into summer.
UH – I love the idea of the colored bases for specialty-type figures (red for medics and blue for leaders and/or officers). Was there a reason why your Assault Golems squad did not have a blue-based leader…or did i just miss it? Also, I know certain mechs (like the Hurod) have cards with heroes “aboard” them. I see that in this game you do not place the separate heroes next to the mech – i guess it is just assumed that they are inside it. If that is the case, then why do the separate hero mini’s come with the mech?
Actually, it’s red for medics and blue for engineers. My leaders are designated by more ornately decorated bases, because it allows for more flexibility with unit building. But considering how much I actually get around to playing, and the number of figures I have, I think I will paint the base edges of the leaders too.
It’s the kind of thing I never would have done in the past, but it actually speeds up play and makes it a lot easier. One of the problems with AT-43 is that they didn’t produce leadeer figures that wre distinctive enough from normal squad figures. Sometimes it’s just some tiny difference like a symbol on a shoulder pad.
I think leaders can leave their mechs, but I must admit we forgot all about it. Actually I’m not sure how Odin and Manon work with their Urod mech. Must work that out …
I think when urod is piloted by Odin and Manon, both are on the table when urod gets destroyed. Then they become super vulnerable because they’re only armed with pistols and almost no armour…. Although it has been a while since I played and my red blok book is around here somewhere….
UH – I just watched this video again, and i noticed you wrote the type of figure on the bottom of the figures bases. (A Very good idea, especially for this game where alot of types of figures are pretty similar).
Did you use a thin silver “paint” marker? or something else?
Yeah, I do this for most of my games now. It’s just painted on with white paint and a small brush. I usually paint a bit of varnish over it as well, to seal it.
Anyone looking for some minis for the game can check sentrybox.com , they still have a bunch of stuff for AT:43 they ship worldwide from here in Calgary. Great report makes we want to play again soon, love the Karmans and Cogs myself
Great, great, great! I am a huuuuge AT-43-Fan and Colector. Thriled to see that this game is still played and even getting a battle report like this! Wow
We still love AT-43 here at the EOG!