I promised a number of reviews of the Strike on Kar’a Nine box set, and have yet to make good on those promises. 🙁 Most of my promises are out to seed, hopefully growing into full-bloom promises, but a bunch of them aren’t in my hands. 2-3 of them I still control.

• I wanted to review the demo scenarios, but each time I offer a demo game the other person declines. I don’t …think I’m scary. But Blood Bowl takes up so much of my clubs mind frame that it’s hard to unseat it sometimes.
• I wanted to paint and review the new Algoryn plastics. They’ve been primed on my desk for a while, but I keep buying new Concord models! We have a tournament in July and I’m trying to prep!
• This review.

This is not as positive a review as the last one. The K9 box is amazing, but the mini rulebook has some flaws. We’ll go into detail shortly, but the flaws can be overcome. Here’s some photos first.

Here it is, compared to the big hard cover rulebook. It is smaller, which is everything you want in a mini rulebook!

It also contains an index, which the big rulebook does not. There was a PDF published online of this index, so while you didn’t get the benefit of it directly in your book, you could always print it out and stick the paper in it somewhere.

This is the last numbered page. Page 63. The good news, is that the book contains every single page from the main rulebook up to page 63. Even better, the page numbers are identical! This is great, because unlike in Malifaux where you had to say “pg 12 mini, page 20 big”, with this book you can just refer to the page and not worry about it.

The last pages and back of the book are also a reference sheet for weapons and for various game charts, also very nice.

What Isn’t Good?

So here’s the thing. While this book is great for the price you paid for it (remember, I calculated the box at about a $112 discount!), it can’t replace the big rulebook. Which is what you want from a mini-book, you want to not have to carry the big-book. If you have the big-book handy, pick it up and flip to page 63. Now observe all of the things in that big rulebook that are after page 63. Here’s an itemized list:

• 73 pages of rules for ammo, equipment, vehicles, drones, weapons, armour. This is the really important one.
• 19 pages of scenarios. You can get by without these, but I would argue that you shouldn’t. The basic scenarios should be included, really.
• 38 pages of army lists. After the release of this book, Warlord put up the army lists as free PDFs online, which is amazing and means missing these 38 pages isn’t as important. Also, we always had ArmyBuilder and BattleScribe as options. Less important to lose.
• 55 pages of fluff. Missing the fluff isn’t great, since I think fluff helps draw people into the game. But to me, it’s less critical to have lost. If you want to read it, buy the big-book or buy the PDF for the big-book.

Those first 73 pages really hurt. I went to look up the rules for jump packs and couldn’t find them. I recently started a project to add some of these rules to the BattleScribe lists. Things like the rules for Scoot Ammo, and AG Chutes can be put onto printable army lists no problem. The special rules for every weapon, however, is going to be a real pain since there are a lot of them. By the time I’m done, Antares army lists will be 3-4 pages even when summarized.

This is a huge project, and I’m sure to miss things. My plan is to only add the things I notice are missing (ie, Concord), and the things people ask for. I can’t do a full pass, it’s to much.

What Else Isn’t Good?

There’s another big gap here that won’t be covered by army lists — the rules for things like Disruptors, Grenades, the basic rules for vehicles and the basic rules for probes are included in those 73 pages.

My club has said that the rules of this game are good, but that the rulebook is poorly laid out and this is a great example. Rules like the the basic rules for vehicles and probes should not be in with the detailed and specific rules for the individual tanks and probes. The first main section should contain every basic rule you need to play the game. If they’d done this, these rules would be in the mini rulebook! The second main section of the big rulebook should contain every special rule, and while I wouldn’t agree to leave them out of this book, at least the main rules would be complete.

There’s More?

There’s another small issue. I had heard this on Facebook, so it might not actually be a real problem — more like a theorycrafted problem than one that’s been witnessed. But someone buying this box could imagine they had a complete and useful rulebook, only to have the experience I had of building a list with X-Launchers in it, and finding they didn’t have the rules for any of the special ammo for it. I would imagine that would be frustrating.

I would point that person at the paragraph below this one, to try to make them feel better.

But There’s Some Good Right?

I have to end on a good note. Because despite my issues with this book, the box itself with all of the stuff that’s inside it is such a phenomenal deal that you can’t pass it up. However, I would re-calculate the discount I added up at the end of that last article, to remove the rulebook because this book is not a drop in replacement for it. Making the Kar’a Nine box a mere $63 off the total contents. Bonkers, because then you get most of a rulebook as a bonus.

I mentioned last time that I had a lot of projects suddenly, and this is one of them. I’m super excited to be able to review this box set for you, particularly since it’s the first time my blog has generated income. Yes, this time I get to add the caveat: this product was provided for free for review! 😀

This article will be very “quick and dirty”, since there’s a good bet that if you play Antares you’ve seen the entire contents of this box already. I have a series of follow-up articles planned that will require some time to get out. Here’s my plan

• Give the C3 sprues to a friend. He’s planning a Freeborn Command Squad conversion that I can’t wait to see. I’ll take photos, and get him to write something about what he did, or interview him and post it here.
• Split up the Algoryn sprues. I had planned on winning the scenario contest (takes a lot of hubris to “plan to win” a contest :D). I was going to give the sprues from that to Myles, since he was instrumental in playtesting my scenarios. Since I didn’t win that, I’m going to give him a sprue from here. I’ve got another friend who plays Algoryn who I’ll give a sprue to. Then I’ll assemble and paint a sprue of my own.
• This box contains a series of starter/demo game scenarios that I’m going to play and review.
• I also want to talk about the 2D terrain and fold-out board, as well as the rulebook and starter book.

Enough about the future, let’s get to this box!

Review

It’s awesome.

Starting out with the least important detail – it’s very well packaged. It’s a fairly small box that one might expect to only contain a single Space Marine Rhino, but instead contains an entire game in a box. You can’t buy many board games this big, let alone an entire miniatures game.

The top layer holds the mini rulebook, the starter book and a little Warlord advertising thing. Underneath those are a quick reference sheet, which also has two cut-out rules on the sides (not shown). This box has been designed for the beginner Antares player, and the reference sheet is well designed for that purpose. If you are an expert, I suggest using the one hosted at Vardos Delhren instead as it is more complete.

Dice! I think the D10s are the same as the Xilos starter box, as I don’t know if there’s a good reason to have the black dice in this bag! It was in Xilos for the Ghar Distort dice. At the same time, the C3 (and maybe Algoryn, I don’t know) often need different coloured dice in a single squad to differentiate between the Plasma Carbines and the Plasma Lance shots. The orders dice are the C3 colours and the Algoryn colours. The blue on red is exceedingly difficult to read, but since these are just markers for the most part it’s not a huge deal.

Sprues! We’ve seen the results of the C3 sprue countless times. It’s still a great sprue, containing 5 Strike Squad members and 1 C3D1 drone, which gives you a great combination of “what you need” and “what you want”. The Strike Squads are the C3s bread and butter, whereas once you get a few more units in your army the D1 drone is a nice optional choice to make among many other great units. 2 spotter drones round out this sprue, which is great since they are in every C3 squad I put together. (even still my bits box has ~10 spotter drones un-built). There are 2 of these sprues in the box, which is a great starter number. A C3 player will likely want 1 more before branching out, as I tend to have 3 Strike Squads as a basic component of any army I’ve made that didn’t contain Drop Squads (as they take up a lot of points and also fulfill your Tactical requirement).

The Algoryn sprue is a little more difficult for me to talk about confidently, since I don’t know what these weapons are. But here’s a few guesses about what’s on this sprue:

• Definitely there are 5 models. 🙂 5 legs of roughly 3 different poses – two “stepping” poses, two “bracing to shoot” poses and one “already stepped” pose. The torsos are all identical. There are 7 heads, 5 with full helmets, one half helmet and one open faced.
• The guns are where it gets complicated, but I’ll do my best:
  • 5 mag guns. I think the mag gun is the one that’s on the bottom left of the sprue in this photo.
  • 2 micro-x launchers. I think the micro-x launcher is on the bottom, the right-most gun, just before the torsos.
  • 2 mag repeaters. I think the mag repeater is on the bottom, just up from the bottom-left-most mag gun.
  • 1 mag pistol. This one is the obviously pistol-like one. 🙂
• 1 spotter drone. I’m super stoked that the Algoryn get a very different looking spotter drone! The C3 one is nice, but while the Freeborn sharing it makes sense fluff-wise, it bugs me as a miniature painter.

Other people have done a far more comprehensive job of outlining exactly what army options are on this sprue than this, so I suggest reading Listing to Ports write-up if you’re an Algoryn player and want real knowledge!

Going deeper into the box, there’s a sprue of templates and a sprue of blast markers which is really nice. Then we get down to the bottom. There’s a large fold-out piece of paper that has an awesome poster on one side which is a larger version of the Strike on Kar’a Nine box art, and on the other side is a fold-out table mat. Lastly, there is a single piece of 2D terrain.

I’m looking forward to trying these out. I love the fold-out mat, since it means you could set up anywhere immediately. I also wonder if I love 2D terrain. I’m consistently annoyed by needing to go to the back room to get 3D terrain, carry it out, gently unpack it trying not to break anything, and then reverse the process at the end of the game, all the while knowing that you can’t help but break and chip it by constantly moving it around. I’ve never seen a good terrain carrying solution, and so it ends up rubbing against itself constantly. 2D terrain, if I’m ok with the 2Dness of it, could mean never needing to worry about breaking it again. I’m going to play all of the starter scenarios with this terrain, and may Sharpie the edges of the terrain first as several others have done.

Lastly, here’s a photo of the entire contents of the box and my cup of tea. I’m not British, but I still can’t get through the day without a cup of tea.

Price

One last thing is a comparison of the cost of this box compared to the contents. This is in CAD, with costs generated by asking XE.com to convert from the UK store. In Vancouver, Canada this is how we tend to buy Antares because the US prices on the US store tend to cost us about 15% more.

• 2 C3 sprues $33CAD
• 3 AI sprues. The Warlord store sells them from $33CAD for 2, so 1.5 is $49.50CAD. Note that we’re only 2 line items into the breakdown, and we’re already well past what the Strike at Kar’a Nine box actually costs. >.>
• Templates $9.90CAD
• Blast Markers $9.90CAD
• D10s $9.90CAD (and you only get 1 colour, not 3)
• Order dice $16.50 for 10, and you get 5 in the box so $8.25CAD
• Rulebook $49.50CAD. This isn’t strictly a fair comparison, as it seems that the hard cover rulebook has rules in it that aren’t in the mini rulebook. This is a disappointment, but with the help of Battlescribe, likely not a big one. Also, personally, I own the PDF rules so I can always go there.

Which adds up to…$169.95CAD. Which is ridiculous since the box only costs $58CAD. $112 savings is unreal.

Summary

If you are looking to get into Gates of Antares, this box is still a good deal even if you don’t want to play the C3 or Algoryn as the other contents cost $87.50CAD for $58CAD and you could sell the sprues to friends.

The difficulty is that the rulebook isn’t complete, which I think we’ll get into later. The internet says it’s missing special ammo and special unit rules, which makes it less useful. I haven’t looked though, so do your own research on this if it’s important (or wait for when I get to review the paper contents in more detail :))

If you are planning to play C3 or Algoryn, this box is an insane deal. Buy it now!