News: Beyond the Gates of Antares is Dead. Long live Beyond the Gates of Antares!

 

Most of you folks will know (if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time) that Beyond the Gates of Antares is one of my favourite games. I’ve been moaning about how Warlord Games has been keeping this game on life support for the past 3 years (yes, even before Covid hit with all the force of a meteor strike) as they focused on other, newer, sexier (?) games. (Cruel Seas, anyone?)


After life went more or less back to normal in post-Covid UK, there seemed to be some life. Some stirring. Version 2 of the rules was ready to go! New Isorian sculpts! New Mercenary factions!


Everyone got sooooo excited. 


Then on April 10 came…

Warlord Games was no longer going to carry the game. The minis would be moved to a sister company, Skytrex that mostly sells… toy railway stuff. (Not a small business by any stretch of the imagination, as there seems to be a huge fan base. But still…).


The rules would be released for FREE. Rick Priestly and Tim Bancroft would maintain the game and rules on a purely personal basis.


Was this the death knell for Antares?


Then… something happened. The fan base stepped up. We’d been pent up TOO long.


Suddenly, an online army builder was made available. (And very professional it is, too.)


Suddenly, digital STL files for the long-awaited Vorl faction made its appearance. The rules and factions stats are being finalised by the Gatekeepers (Priestly & Bancroft).

Suddenly a real to honest goodness Boot Camp Day (no online nonsense here) was held to get gamers up to speed on Antares 2.0.


I’d read the news on April 10 with a sense of impending doom. Having a game go dead by its publisher isn’t the end of things. The minis are still there. Ditto the rules. BUT… with no life, it’s hard to interest gamers to actually PLAY the game.


But now, nearly 2 months after the momentous April 10 announcement… I’m feeling hopeful again. The gamers in my group are suddenly aware that hey, Antares isn’t dead. Not by a long shot. Now that the game has been de-coupled from an "official" line of minis, the game has vastly opened up. No more being constrained by Warlord's manufacturing capacity or timetable schedules. All the myriad alien races in Antarean space are now available to play!


So here’s where harnessing/crowdsourcing the power of the fans is a GOOD thing. 


I’m hopeful again. And yes, I can get some players to play Antares now that they see it’s not dead. 


So as the title says: Beyond the Gates of Antares is dead. Long live Beyond the Gates of Antares!

Comments

  1. Thanks for this post. I was wondering what was going to happen with the mini line when Warlord stopped carrying it. I just got into the game by buying the Attack on Kara Nine starter set at a local games store about 2 months ago, so I'm glad the minis will still be around because I need more.

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    Replies
    1. Glad to hear that. If you do Facebook, you can join the Antares (IMTEL) group. That's where all the action is, and Tim Bancroft is active there as well.

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