AT-43: Not just “pre-painted 40K”

A lot has been written about AT-43 in the last year. It’s been a huge success for Rackham and Fantasy Flight, so I see no need to review the game here. Instead, I’ll go over a few things my group has discovered during our games which may help you.

1) Play on a small board. We recently experimented with a 3′x3′ board and it really seemed to improve the game. The combat was fast, immediate and deadly. It quickened the pace of the game and made it a lot more fun to play.

2) The rule books need work. There are a lot of rules questions in any game, but the AT-43 books could be organized better. We spend a lot of time flipping through pages figuring things out, looking up threads on message boards and, at times, deciding rules quesitons with a roll of the dice. It’s not bad enough to ruin the game, but hopefully in the future the editing of the books will be better.

3) Battlesuits need to be used carefully. Whether its UNA Steel Arms or Red Blok Kolossus units, low speed and not-so-heavy armor means these guys can get lit up if left out in the open. They pack serious firepower but are pretty fragile when it comes down to it. My suggestion is to leave your suits in reserve and deploy them as reinforcements.  If you can drop them in halfway up the board, you can wreck some serious havoc.

4) Spend that LP. Leadership points are the currency of the game and unless you have some uber-secret plan,  go ahead and spend those points. Most players have more than they need to pull off whatever tricks they have in their bag.

5) Going second is not a bad idea. In the words of one of our local players “you go first, I go second and shoot you. You go again, I go again and shoot you.” As with 40k, going second also allows you to take the last move and secure objectives, critical for winning a game.