Review: Beyond the Gates of Antares- Strike Vector One: The Xilos Horizon

Yes I still have my Star Wars Comforter.

Minor Damage

November 7th marked the release of Warlord Games' newest game, "Beyond the Gates of Antares" from the mind of the amazing Rick Priestley (notice me senpai!). I had preordered the starter box "Strike Vector One: The Xilos Horizon", which arrived today!

The box arrived in good condition, though the book had some slight wear around the binding, but nothing major. Before I delved into the contents of the box I cracked open the book and was greeted by that wonderful new book smell. The artwork is absolutely fabulous, as one would expect from Warlord Games book. It's well put together and easy to read, but it doesn't include an index... Not sure why, I remember hearing once that British publishing companies don't include indexes. But from my quick flip through the book seems to be so well laid out that an index shouldn't be necessary.

Miniatures and Dice

Now to the contents. Since I preordered the box set I received a print of the cover artwork signed by Rick (which I plan to donate to the FLGS), and the Exclusive launch figure, "Fartok: Leader of Battlegroup Nine"; which is a nice model. I don't really want to go into a review of the sculpts of the figures, but I am always impressed by the Warlord sculpts. I also received the Transmat Station pre-order bonus. I honestly didn't think I would receive the Transmat station, due to it being a limited offer(?).

The box also came with a set of dice, and Order Dice in the colours of the Ghar and Concord (the two factions included). The black die is a "Distort Dice", whose mechanic's I'm not so sure about just yet. But I know that the Ghar have technology to mess with Space-Time. One of the most interesting things that were included were clear red plastic pin markers with a dial, that denotes how many pins a unit has on it. There is also a set of Template and Shot tokens in clear-blue plastic.

Pin Markers

Over all I am very impressed with the contents of the Starter Box and look forward to running demos at the FLGS! I'll post an article with my thoughts on the universe and mechanics when I get to have a closer look! But so far the thing's I've read are very exciting! This all coming from the person who when asked by Warlord if I wanted to demo the Beta Rules, I said no. At first glance it looked too much like Warhammer 40k, and I wasn't interested. But now that I've seen more and more of the universe I've fallen in love!

Template and Shot Tokens