It had been given a rating of 7.6 on BoardGameGeek from 50+ ratings.
Beyond the Gates of Antares invites us to a time when mankind has evolved into new and diverse species: the strangely powerful NuHumans, masters of the Panhuman Concord; the ape-like Pansimians, the greatest warriors in the whole Galactic Spill; and feral Revers primitive Humans driven by a irrepressible lust for adventure and danger. It is a universe where technology and humanity intermix indistinguishably, where human knowledge and endeavour has long since been supplanted by integrated machine intelligence IMTel. Where humans go their technology goes also, protectors, workers, and fighting machines in the form of WarDrones armed with deadly weapons and shielded by energy fields a thousand times more resilient than steel.
Warlord Games’ YouTube channel has produced a series of excellent videos explaining Gates of Antares.
1. Introduction
2. Order Dice
3. Shooting
4. Pinning
5. The Assault Phase
6. Leaders
7. Q&A
If you’re interested in getting into Beyond the Gates of Antares, I can’t suggest you start anywhere else but these excellent collection of videos.
It has been given a rating of 7.8 on BoardGameGeek from 550+ ratings.
Written by veteran game designers Alessio Cavatore and Rick Priestley, Bolt Action provides all the rules needed to bring the great battles of World War II to your tabletop. Using miniature soldiers, tanks and terrain, you can fight battles in the shattered towns of occupied France, the barren deserts of North Africa, and even the sweltering jungles of the Pacific.
Players get to decide which of the major or minor World War II powers they would like to represent, and then construct their armies from the lists provided. Army options are almost limitless, allowing you to build the kind of army that most appeals to your style of play. The choice is yours.
The original… now changed slightly in Warmaster Revolution
On Point HQ has produced a series of excellent videos explaining Bolt Action. I recommend checking our his other videos as well!
1. Building a Bolt Action Army
2. Unit Quality and Issuing Orders
3. Combat
4. Pinning and Morale Tests
5. HQ Units and Snap to Action
6. Transports and Tanks
7. Ambush
8. Troop and Vehicle Movement
9. Medics and Snipers
10. How HE Shots Work
11. Artillery Movement and Orders
12. The Turn Sequence
If you’re interested in getting into Bolt Action, I can’t suggest you start anywhere else but these excellent collection of videos.
It’s been a little while since I last posted to the A Life in Wargames series, for which I can only apologise. These articles take a lot more effort than the others I write and unfortunately I’ve simply not had the time for the research recently.
John Stallard, from the wonderful city of Cardiff in Wales is a Games Designer who for 27 years worked with Games Workshop. In 2007 her left and set up Warlord Games along with Paul Sawyer (who some of you may remember from White Dwarf).
John lived in Cardiff until he was four years old, at which point his family moved to Scotland where his father was working for BP, eventually at the age of ten John and his family moved to Worcester.
His cousin introduce him to military models and toy soldiers after his cousin thought he was much to grown up for such things handed John his collection. John set about expanding his collection by making weekly purchases of Airfix kits with his pocket money.
The first set of rules that John played was the Airfix Guide to Napoleonic Wargaming written by Bruce Quarrie (1974), which he then followed up with Skytrex’s Middle Earth Wargames Rules (1976).
Airfix Guide to Napoleonic Wargaming (1974)
After university John moved to Nottingham a move which was prompted by reading a job advert in White Dwarf. After a successful interview John joined Bryan Ansell‘s Citadel Miniatures team, initially working in the Mail Order team reporting to Rick Priestley.
John learnt about customer service from Bryan Ansell and his wife Diane. Games Workshop was very forward thinking at the time where orders would be sent as soon as an order form was received, meaning the customer often had their orders within the week rather than the 28 days advertised.
After a year John left the Mail Order team to retake his exams, which he failed. He put this failure down to playing Warhammer all the time. John then worked in a freezer warehouse during the summer where in a forklift truck accident he lost most of the toes on his left foot. He then attended the Wargames show in Manchester on crutches and saw Rick Priestley behind the Games Workshop Mail Order stand. Rick Priestley asked if he wanted his job back and he returned to Citadel Miniatures.
John progressed from Mail Order to Trade Sales, followed later by becoming Sales Manager and later became Head of Sales and then Sales Director. He stayed with Games Workshop until 2007 when he set Warlord Games.
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Warlord Games came into being because I had always wanted to do historical military models. I’ve been fascinated with them since I was six. I kept on saying to two consecutive bosses at Games Workshop that the company should start to do historical models. I remember Tom Kirby, a man I admire very much, saying to me, “John, I’ve done a study and if you add all the historical gaming companies together it comes to £2m, there’s just not enough money in it.” Being older and wiser than me, he’d actually done the research. I said, “But Tom, that’s because it hasn’t really been done before. What was the market for Goblins with spears fifteen years ago? Bugger all! Citadel and Games Workshop made the marketplace by making great models and banging the drum and producing wargames rules.”
– John Stallard
John teamed up with Paul Sawyer (White Dwarf Editor in yesteryear) who’d also been made redundant by Games Workshop, they contacted Renedra Ltd, the plastic manufacturing company who has previously been Games Workshop‘s plastic manufacturing arm. They also bought on board Bob Naismith to make their figures.
Warlord’s upcoming British Starter Set for Black Powder: Epic Battles
It takes around four months for the complete manufacture of a set of plastic models. During the period after the final designs were made for their Warlord Games plastic models (Romans), John found out that the Perry twins also had an upcoming plastic release. They were still working for Games Workshop at the time but they had set up Perry Miniatures in the background (which was allowed within their contract). They were going to release some plastic American Civil War figures which would be made as either Confederate or Union troops. There release would be the first ever 28mm plastic historical wargame figures, beating Warlord Games by only two or three weeks.
John Stallard’s work:
Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
So I’ve been looking at getting into Black Powder at the 6mm scale but have tried thinking about creating realistic base sizes (when compared to the other units of the period).
So my first point of reference is the number of men in each countries line infantry.
Infantry Battalion Strength
Based on this I can then calculate the bases I need. Bearing in mind that only the British formed on two ranks when in line as opposed to the other countries mostly forming in two ranks.
I therefore need to show this on the bases. So I decided to use a simple equation of a single Baccus figure representing 12 men. Therefore I could calculate how many models I would need per unit.
I’m very new to Napoleonic Wargaming (but have a fairly decent knowledge base of the history) and very new to Black Powderany
Bryan Ansell started with his life in wargames by founding and designing for his own miniatures company Asgard Miniatures. He also had his own fanzine named Trollcrusher.
In 1979 Games Workshop approached Ansell to found their own miniatures branch Citadel Miniatures. The company was set up to allow Games Workshop to be self reliant for its miniature purposes, allowing her to create the miniatures for all the games which Games Workshop had the license for at the time. This took their reliance on other miniatures companies such as Ral Partha away.
In 1980 Ansell wrote his first wargaming rules called Laserburn which he had published via Tabletop Games. Although only a foot note in gaming history, Laserburn contained many elements and wargear of the future Warhammer 40,000 game, such as Power Armour, Dreadnoughts, Jet Cycles and Bolt Guns.
By 1982 Games Workshop was depending on the sales of Citadel Miniatures and Bryan Ansell brought out all of Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson’s shared in Games Workshop and all the operations were eventually moved from London to Nottingham.
Laserburn which you can still find today as a PDF.
Ansell worked with Richard Halliwell and Rick Priestley on Games Workshops‘ Warhammer Fantasy Battles. This was originally designed to be given out for free to encourage customers to buy the new Citadel Miniatures range.
He later left Games Workshop to Tom Kirby in 1991 and instead focused on his own company Wargames Foundry, a company which sells historical miniatures. These miniatures were originally sculpted by the Perry Twins for Citadel Miniatures, but were no longer sold as part of the Games Workshop fantasy ranges. Ansell took a number of figure molds used for historical and fantasy figures under Citadel Miniatures and Games Workshop, and they have become part of the Wargames Foundry range. Wargames Foundry continues to sell a range of metal figures for historical, sci-fi and fantasy war gaming.
Although not as prolific a writer as some of the other people focused on in “A Life in Wargames” Ansell has been involved in the rules development of 15+ games.
Rick Priestley grew up in Lincoln and dtart d writing wargames as a teenager with his friend Richard Halliwell. In 1979 the pair wrote their first game Reaper while still in school. Tabletop Games (a small games publishing company with no sales output) printed their rules and they contacted Brian Ansell who worked for Asgard Miniatures at the time before his move to Citadel Miniatures. Brian Ansell put them in contact with Nottingham Toy Soldier Shop who agreed to sell the Reaper rules.
Halliwell & Preistley’s first game
With one rulebook for sale, Halliwell and Priestley collaborated on a second effort, a science fiction miniatures wargame titled Combat 3000, also published by Tabletop, that used 15mm/25mm “space marine” miniatures from Asgard. Around this time Brian Ansell left Asgard Miniatures, and with backing from Games Workshop set up Citadel Miniatures.
Priestley joined Games Workshop in 1982 as part of their subsidiary company Citadel Miniatures. At that time Citadel produced the miniatures for use in Dungeons and Dragons. Brian Ansell the manager of Citadel asked Richard Halliwell to develop Games Workshops’ first in-house game, Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Rick Priestley and Tony Ackland developed the product. Warhammer Fantasy contained many of the core mechanics or Priestley and Halliwell’s earlier game Reaper. Warhammer Fantasy was released in 1983 and was a huge success.
It allowed them a vehicle through which they could sell their own Citadel Miniatures. Earlier miniature wargames were designed to be played using generic models that could be bought from any manufacturer, but Warhammer Fantasy’s setting featured original characters with distinctive visual designs, and their models were produced exclusively by Games Workshop. This paved the way for Games Workshop to become the company it is today – all thanks to the three men who developed that first game.
Since before his time at Games Workshop Priestley had been working on a set of rules of Spaceship Combat called Rogue Trader which mixed Science fiction and fantasy elements. Priestley incorporated many aspects of this setting such as the lore and space travel into Warhammer 40,000 and dropped the ship combat element due to not having enough room in the book.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader
Games Workshop planned to sell conversion kits for their fantasy line to make them useable in Rogue Trader but eventually decided to instead dedicate an entire production line to the game and in 1987 Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader was born.
During his years with Games Workshop he was involved in the design of virtually all of their top games such as Necromunda, Mordheim, Warmaster, Lord of the Rings, Gorkamorka, Mighty Empires and Warhammer Ancient Battles (affectionately known as WAB by those in Historical gaming circles).
Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB)
Rick Priestley left Games Workshop in 2009 stating that the corporate culture had grown too focused on sales and no longer cared about innovation in Games Design. He expanded on his view of Games Workshop in an article with Bell of Lost Souls in March 2015. In that, his thoughts on where Games Workshop was heading, was as a manufacturer of collectible miniatures and not games design.
After Games Workshop, Priestley co-founded Warlord Games which after Games Workshop is arguably the next biggest games and miniature manufacturer in Europe.
With Warlord Games, Rick Priestley has continued to develop fantastic wargame rulesets and being no longer held back by Games Workshop, these have included historical as well as Fantasy and Sci-Fi. The biggest games at Warlord such as Bolt Action, Black Powder, Gates of Antares, Hail Caesar, Pike and Shotte and Warlords or Erehwon have all been designed with Priestley’s input.
Bolt Action
In 2011 Rick Priestley was elected to the committee of the Society of Ancients. The Society of Ancients is a non-profit organisation that intends to promote interest in Ancient and Medieval history and wargaming.
This man is a true legend of Wargaming, is the father of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 and has done a lot that Games Workshop fans and historical wargaming fans have to thank him for.
I have tried to give a flavour of the 115+ rules and add-on’s he’s developed below. But as with Jervis’ article, this really does not even scrape the surface as to the lore and depth of his many games. Rick, thank you! I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
