Kickbashing: Beyond the Gates of Eisenkern

“People do what people do best and make money with it on Kickstarter. /…/ Some got kick-ass miniatures. Others have kick-ass rules, Yet another guy might have some kick-ass background, stories and fluff.”

And GoA will have to excel at all of those to get to the market, where it will, ultimately, have to fight 40k for a slice.

Their selling points seem to be (to me at least) a set of rules, written by mr. Priestley with fans’ input (though the separation between the two is less clear to me – perhaps there is more info on the forums) and the persistent, player-influenced background with an impact on gameplay.

The first is a simple matter – if a game is good people will want to play it. But the latter, I think, is a bit more complex. I think that people enjoy playing games like Mordheim, Necromunda, Bloodbowl, Empire of the Dead, etc. because it gives their miniatures a dimension of “life” – a purpose and a story. And for that, you need to care for your band of miniatures. Be it the time you’ve spent individualizing your Mordheim characters and giving them a background story, or just your BB team’s uniform color choice.

So what happens if you don’t immediately fall in love with the GoA figure range, feel “touched” by it and say “Yes! I want to take these dudes through a campaign, the struggles, get rewards, evolve and tell an epic story!” ? You’re left with the promise of a really good set of rules on one hand and established player bases of other systems on the other.

I imagine these disgruntled 40k players going “Yeah, the rules are said to be solid and the campaigning system … wish GW still did that … but I have thousands of points in my custom marine chapter and looking at those butt-plates …”

It is a strictly personal preference, but I’d be much more interested if the project said something like “We’ll be making an official line of figures for the involved sides (you know – the way we imagine them), but if you don’t like those or have invested elsewhere, you’re still welcome to join in and play! Just sign up your marines/prepainted AT 43 Red Blok as the human concord, we’ll still be happy to have you aboard. It might be that the games won by “Battle Brothers” list of human concord will have less of an impact on the persistent universe than those won with an “Official Army” line (have to reward the customer), or playing with anything other than the official line counts as being a mercenary for a chosen site. But maybe once a year there will be a “For the Emp … sorry, Pope-Tsar-Dude!” event, where the grumpy armour-clad brotherhood celebrates their half-dead boss and gets real fight-y and they get bonuses for shooting their bolt … er, … hand cannons and some new shoulder guards if they win. You know, just because we’re happy to have you. Sure, you might not have bought into the official line of figures, but the guy at the store who’s just beginning can, because he doesn’t have to convince two or three others to pick up a completely new game from the get-go. And because you find that idea (and saving cash) so cool, perhaps you’ll wish to add this drone model of ours to your Tau army for the next game of GoA (because our master sculptors did something way cooler than GW). Besides, we’re confident enough in our miniature line, that we feel it will be picked up next to the competing product because it’s cooler, not because you need it to play. Welcome through the Gates of Antares, it will be the space-opera/Sci-Fi gaming experience of your lifetime. Would you like this box of plastic drones?”

Interestingly enough I seem to recall mr. Priestly once talking about how 40k universe became stagnant and close-minded, how its biggest promise – of countless worlds laden with alien curiosities died in the attempts to make canon material more … clear/accessible/ streamlined but really just a slave to the chosen armies that have proven to be profitable (aka Marines).

I really think that the biggest potential challenge for GoA – to get out as a complete game and compete on the market – even at the stage of Kickstarter – could be it’s biggest opportunity to get people excited; “No, we don’t have much to show you in terms of miniature greens – we’ll have those done as the money comes in, but in the meantime, just imagine what you could do with your minis, our rules and the online campaign system. And as the greens get done, you’ll see you really want those.”