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Alright, so. Heavy Gear kind of suffers from the same problem as Battletech - what playerbase it has has stabilized into a tight-knit, insular community, and the majority of rules and content is created for said community in mind. This unfortunately includes rulebooks that are mostly written for people who actually are already conversant with the rules and terminology - the current living rulebook, at least, is slightly awkwardly organized, chock-full of references to other sections of said rulebook and obscure acronyms and terminology. On the other hand, when you do know what you’re looking for, it has a LOT of useful information packed into relatively little space. Since I’m an enormous nerd and have too much free time (and I’ve been reading up on the rules in preparation for the new starter kit), I’ve decided to write down some basic getting-you-into-the-game things. This time, I’m delving into one of the most important things for a would-be Heavy Gear player - how to read the stat block of a Gear (or other unit of your choice). I’m also using this chance to compare and contrast the basic trooper units of the four factions in the plastic starter box as a little sort-of mechanical introduction to the four factions. Let’s start with taking a look at perhaps the most iconic Gear in the franchise.. Note: I’m using information from the currently-most-recent edition of the HG Blitz living rulebook - the systems and statistics involved may and likely will be slightly different for Arena and so on, and things may change between the current LRB Beta and the actual new edition release.  The Anatomy Of A Gear Heavy Gear Blitz! Living Rulebook posted:
Yeah. As you can see, Heavy gear statblocks are.. Dense. On one hand, this means the information for a given model can be condensed into a very tight space. On the other, decoding this thing when you’re not familiar with the game.. Yeah, ouch. Let’s start with the block itself. Most models in Heavy Gear come with a few different available variants, and the Hunter is an excellent example. The topmost row in the list is the bog-standard ‘stock’ Hunter. Besides this, you have four primary variants - the Gunner, the Multi-Purpose, the Assault and Destroyer Hunter variants. The last row, the Headhunter, is an upgrade kit for the chassis - any of the existing Hunter variants can further pick up the Headhunter upgrade for extra TV. Most of the time, the kit for the model - whether plastic or older resin/pewter - comes with all the parts necessary to make any variant you like. Looking at the Hunter’s statblock, the only real difference between each variant is what guns it carries, so a bit of creative magnetizing could give you a lot of flexibility here. The Threat Value (TV) entry is essentially the point cost for that particular variant. The stock Hunter starts from 6 points and is pretty much the ‘average’ cost for your basic line trooper model in Blitz. In your average game of 100 points, a four-model squad of Hunters is about a quarter of your points allotment, little more if you kit them out with special variants. Next up, the Unit Availability (UA) entry tells us what kind of a unit the model in question may be attached to. List building in Blitz is a little bit different from the traditional squad-based list construction (more on that later). Basically each two-letter acronym here corresponds to a given type of a unit, telling you how many models you can include in a unit of a given type. For example, the stock Hunter has availability codes of GP (0+), FS, ST and HT. This means that you may put any number of Hunters in a General Purpose unit and up to two (unless otherwise specified, each availability code defaults to 0-2 models per unit) in Fire Support, Strider and Heavy Tank units. (The Hunter, obviously, is neither a strider nor a heavy tank, but you may find it useful to slip in a cheap Hunter or two to escort one or round off a squad size). The Movement Rating (MR) entry for the model tells you the different movement types and speeds available to the model - the Hunter, in particular, has access to Walker movement of 5 inches and Ground movement of 6 inches. (Most Gears have ‘secondary movement systems’, SMS to friends, with treads or wheels built into their feet that let them skim or skate at high speed over suitable terrain). This is pretty much average for a humanoid Gear of this size. While faster than walking (and even faster on terrain like streets and roads), Ground movement is limited to a single 90 degree turn per move and can’t be used to cross obstacles like fences and other difficult terrain. The Armor (AR) value of a model is pretty self-explanatory - incoming damage to a model is reduced by its Armor rating. 6 points of armor is again pretty much average for a light trooper gear - enough to (usually) negate most damage from light anti-gear weapons but not really enough to stand up to sustained heavy fire. The Hull and Structure (H/S) ratings of the model are intertwined and together tell you how difficult the model is to destroy. Damage that gets through the model’s Armor is reduced from its Hull value - when the model runs out of Hull points, it becomes ‘crippled’ (suffering penalties to rolls) and starts taking Structure damage from further attacks. A model that runs out of Structure points is destroyed. The Hunter has 4 points of hull and 2 points of Structure, which means it can withstand a total of 6 points of damage (like all regular-sized Gears), and is crippled when it’s taken four or more damage. This is actually a little bit above average (average being 3/3), making the Hunter pretty rugged for its size and cost. The Actions (A) attribute tells you how many actions (like firing a weapon, using ECM, and the like) the model can perform when it activates. Basic Gears have one action each, but bigger models like tanks and striders can and often have two or rarely even three actions available to them. Note that movement is not an action. The next three attributes - Gunnery (GU), Piloting (PI) and Electronic Warfare (EW) are the model’s skill ratings. Dice rolling in HG is a whole another chapter of its own, but the gist of it is that every roll of 4+ gives the Hunter either a success or a bonus on rolls involving shooting at people (Gunnery) or avoiding fire and close combat (Piloting). Meanwhile it only has basic rudimentary communication/sensor modules so rolls for things like establishing long-range comms or sharing targeting data succeed/get bonuses on a 6+. Obviously the lower the rating the better, and once again the Hunter comes square down in the ‘average’ category for basic trooper Gears. Naturally the Weapons entry here is pretty self-explanatory, using acronyms to list each weapon available on the unit. If a weapon has any special characteristics outside the norm for its type (altered range, limited shots, whatever), they are also listed here after the weapon code entry; if not, the weapon is a bog-standard version as defined by the core rulebook. The stock Hunter here comes equipped with a Light Autocannon (LAC), a Light Anti-Vehicle Rocket Pod (LRP), an Anti-Personnel Grenade Launcher (APGL), a Light Panzerfaust (LPZ) and a Light Vibroblade (LVB), making it a pretty jack-of-all-trades design. Further, the autocannon and the vibroblade are carried in the gear’s hands, meaning the Hunter can use them to fire snap shots and shoot/strike back if attacked from its front firing arc. Note: Unlike in Battletech, a Gear can only fire a single weapon as a single Action. This means that you rarely, if ever, see models with multiples of the same weapon - generally, when you want a unit with ‘more rockets’ you simply use a larger rocket pod to do the trick, and so on. Nearing the end of the row, the Traits entry naturally lists any unusual traits the model has - things like jump jets, enhanced sensor packages or any other extra equipment that aren’t weapons are listed here. The Hunter, being a rather basic model, only comes with the Arms trait which pretty much means it’s a vaguely humanoid design that can use manipulator arms to carry extra equipment like grenades, use arm-mounted weapons to snap fire and climb up obstacles. Finally, the Type entry tells us that the Hunter is indeed a Gear-type unit, with all the special rules and abilities that come with the type - gears being the standard models in Blitz, that is effectively ‘none’ - and it’s 1,5 inches tall. This is relevant for things like the line-of-sight system, where the height of a model in relation to terrain determines what bonuses (if any) it gets out of trying to shelter behind Now, since Weapons came up, let’s take a look at one..  Heavy Gear Blitz! Living Rulebook posted:Ahem, right. This is the format you see Heavy Gear weapons introduced in. All the weapons in the game can actually be found in a single page-sized sheet - there aren’t any special snowflake faction-specific weapons to be found in separate codices, a Southern light rocket pack is identical to a Northern light rocket pack which is identical to the one found on a Caprican Acco, and so on. Some particular models may have ‘special variants’ of a given weapon - like altered ranges, limited ammo, and so on - and this is specifically mentioned in the model entry of the model in question. First off, the weapon’s Type is the weapon’s full name, and the Code is simply the acronym used for said weapon - it’s an anti-vehicle rocket pack, AKA a basic rocket pod, and its weapon code is XRP where X stands for the size of the weapon. Most weapons in Heavy Gear come in three varieties - Light, Medium and Heavy - where Light weapons are usually the ones you see on most gears, Mediums generally seen on the big stompy heavier Gears, and Heavy weapons tend to be only found on the giant fuckoff kind of units like Striders, tanks, and certain really drat heavy Gears. The first interesting bit we see is the ‘range’ reading. Weapons in Heavy Gear have two range bands - optimal range and maximum range. The weapon’s optimal range is denoted first in an x-y format, and the weapon’s maximum range is measured after the slash. In this case, the XRP’s optimal range is in the six to eighteen inches range - firing at targets inside this range band gets you certain benefits depending on your weapon category, generally making it more likely to hit your target and more likely to inflict heavier damage on a high roll - while it can shoot at targets all the way from point-blank to thirty-six inches. The rocket pod is actually a fairly long-ranged weapon - most weapons’ optimal range tends to top out at twelve to eighteen inches, so firefights in Heavy Gear can end up at fairly ‘knife fighting’ ranges compared to many other games out there. Also note: Different types of weapon behave slightly differently with their optimum/maximum range, but in most cases, due to how the rolling system in Heavy Gear works, that one die more or less generally translates to a swing of maybe one point into either direction. Yes, you’re slightly more likely to hit and/or deal more damage in your optimal range, but you shouldn’t feel afraid to fire outside that bracket either. The next three boxes are the three Penetration Ratings (PEN) for the three different sizes of the weapon. You take the Penetration rating of your weapon, add the margin with which you beat the target’s Defense roll with your Attack roll, deduct the target’s Armor, and that’s how much damage your target takes. Example: A Southern Jager takes a shot at a Northern Hunter with its Light Rocket Pod. The Jager rolls a 5 for its Attack roll, and the Hunter rolls a 3. The attack hits. The LRP’s PEN is 7, and the Jager beat the Hunter’s defense roll with a margin of 5-3=2. The attack deals 9 points of damage, reduced by the Hunter’s armor of 6. The Hunter takes 3 points of damage total - 1 shy of being Crippled, and another hit like that is going to take it out. The second-to-last section in the weapon’s info bar tells you if the weapon has any special Traits. In this case, the rocket pod has the AE:4 trait - AE stands for Area of Effect, and the rocket pod has an AoE of 4 inches. Basically when you hit a target with this thing, the weapon will also automatically make a secondary attack (which is essentially like a standard attack roll with 1 less die than usual) against anyone and anything standing within 4 inches of your original target. Note: Some weapons have traits that scale with the size of the weapon - in a fictitious example, a weapon with the AE:3/4/5 trait would give the Light variant an AE of 3 inches, the Medium 4 inches, and the Heavy 5 inches. Last, the Categories entry tells you which Weapon Categories the gun in question belongs to. Each weapon category has slightly different rules, and when you attack with a weapon, you can pick any one of its categories to use - in this case, the Rocket Pod can be fired either as a standard ballistic directfire weapon or an indirect artillery-type weapon.  All in all, Blitz stat blocks aren’t really very complicated - I’d say it’s roughly equivalent to a unit entry in Warhammer 40K or the like - it’s just presented in a slightly unintuitive form. Once you know the system, it’s a lot of useful information available to you in a nicely compact format - until then, you’re going to end up doing a lot of flipping between pages and wondering about acronyms. Okay. After we’ve had the time to digest that, let’s take a look at the different variants of the Hunter.. Drake_263 fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Jul 4, 2016 |
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Jun 20, 2016 21:21
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F&Fing, huh? Post about the dice. Silhouette used to be the streakiest fucker. It usually came down to boxcars vs snake eyes to actually do much more than paint damage, but simultaneously meant even the cheapest ferret could fell a tank with a lucky shot. It looks like you still have pools of 2-4 dice per action, but now only count the 4+'s? Makes the gears, especially heavier ones, a hell of a lot more durable than the first iteration of Blitz, where taking a bunch of light APCs with LAC-analogues was the best strategy, simply for the number of dice you could throw.
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Jun 20, 2016 21:43
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Kickstarter update! Here's some painted northern Gears..  Kickstarter update posted:Plastic Injection Molds Update: The molds arrive at our plastics manufacturer in the USA today (Monday, June 20th, 2016). They will be un-boxed and cleaned before going into production later this week. Nullkigan posted:F&Fing, huh? This is what happens when I have too much free time and get excited about something. However, I was thinking of doing just that at some point so gently caress yeah, let’s do this. Dice, how do they work?  So the dice rolling mechanic in Heavy Gear is kind of really loving weird. First off, sure, every game has its own internal logic about how you do things. Vampire rolls you a bunch of d-whatevers and counts successes. Warhammer uses a shitlot of D6es and tables where you compare attacker vs defender and see what happens. Dungeons and Dragons loves d20+modifiers against a target number, and Eclipse Phase and the various WH40K rpgs use a d100-roll-under-the-target mechanic. The last one is also really popular with all sorts of old 90s design games like Palladium, and that’s without going into the really odd ones. Heavy Gear meanwhile uses the Silhouette system, which is - actually pretty simple, just looks weird at first glance. Blitz in particular - in the newest living rulebook - has simplified and streamlined things so there’re a lot fewer tables and exceptions and modifiers to remember. The main issue really is that while Silhouette uses a handful of basic d6es, it doesn’t really use them the way you’d expect them to. A Blitz skill roll involves two things: Skill Value is the number of d6es you roll. Unless otherwise mentioned, all rolls use a base dice value of two dice. Most situational modifiers apply here; bonuses from cover or otherwise beneficial circumstances add dice. Crippled models roll one less die. Most of the time you’ll end up with two to four dice, depending on the specific circumstances. Skill Rating is the target number you need to actually hit in order to succeed on your skill roll. This is the X+ number noted on the model’s entry - for example, the Hunter light gear has Gunnery 4+, Piloting 4+ and Electronic Warfare 6+. The thing is, Blitz has two different resolution mechanics, because it would’ve been too simple otherwise. The first one is the more simple one for unopposed rolls. This is used for rolls involving only one model, like a Gear trying to use their long-range comms to relay targeting data or rolling to avoid damage from a fall. Unopposed rolls are simple; you just roll your skill value’s worth of d6es. Any dice that meet or exceed your skill rating count as successes - most of the time just one success is enough to succeed on a roll, but sometimes multiple successes give you better results. The second type of a roll you see are opposed rolls. This is the more complicated kind of a roll, and likely the most common one - seeing as ‘shooting at people’ is an opposed kind of a roll. To roll an opposed roll, both players roll their skill value’s worth of dice. The final result of the die roll is the highest die in the roll, plus one for every other die that met or exceeded the model’s skill rating. Compare the two results together; the highest result wins, with a margin of success (MoS, or just ‘margin’) equal to the difference between the two rolls. Example: a Southern Jager fires its Light Rocket Pack at a Northern Hunter. The Hunter is within the Rocket Pack’s optimal range, but is in cover. Both have Gunnery and Piloting ratings of 4+. The Jager has a base skill of two and gets no other modifiers. It rolls 2 dice and gets 4 and 5. The end result is 5 (highest roll) +1 (the one 4+) for a total of 6. The Hunter, meanwhile, has a base skill of two. Being in cover, it rolls three dice and gets a 3, 3 and 5. The end result is 5, the highest roll, a 3 being below its Piloting rating of 4+. The Jager beat the Hunter’s defense roll, and scores a hit with a margin of 6-5=1. The Hunter takes two damage (the LRP’s PEN 7+MoS 1 - the Hunter’s ARM 6 = 2) The thing is, I don’t think the basic dice mechanic has really changed (aside from modern Blitz going for model-based modifiers rather than things like fixed bonuses for range bands) - instead, the real culprit for the hugely swingy combat was the old damage mechanic paired with some (perhaps ill-advised) weapon rules. Let me explain: I just dug up the Gear Krieg ‘quick start’ booklet that appears to use the older Silhouette rules, the old swingy damage mechanic included. The major difference is that instead of a penetration rating, weapons have something called a ‘damage multiplier’. The basic tank light tank gun in Krieg, for example, had a DM of x5. You’d take the hit margin, multiply that with the damage multiplier, and compare that to a target’s armor. In Krieg, both the Allied and German basic gear-tank-whatever have armor ratings of 8/16/24 - any hit that deals 8 or more damage is light damage, 16+ heavy damage (a Crippled equivalent), and 24+ ‘overkills’ or just plain destroys the model. Two points of light damage upgrade to a single heavy damage, two points of heavy damage upgrade to a destroyed result. I think this is pretty much how it worked in the older Heavy Gear rules, too, specific numbers notwithstanding. So, uh, hang on. Multiplier-based damage versus largely linearly improving armor? Well there’s your problem. It gets better. Remember those conditional modifiers I mentioned earlier? +1 from point blank range. +1 from moving at less than half your speed. +2 from being stationary. With the defender taking increasing penalties to their defense roll if they failed to move enough during their turn - up to -3 for being stationary. One stationary model shooting at another is already at +5 to their attack roll, and that’s without figuring out penalties/bonuses for range, cover, existing damage etc etc. All of this directly contributes to the margin of success, which directly multiplies the resulting damage. (In modern Blitz, these have been streamlined and simplified into optimal ranges and a stance system of a sorts, usually totaling one or two dice more into one or both pools.) But wait, there’s more! Certain weapons with high rate of fire (like the dreaded Light Autocannon of Doom) had the ability to sacrifice extra ammo (because of course they tracked individual ammo) in order to affect extra targets.. Or increase your damage multiplier. Predictably the light autocannon was also a fairly ammo-efficient weapon, ie, most gears equipped with it had plenty of ammo for it, too. So, yeah. Multiplier-based damage in a system that let you stack bonuses to both variables? Right positioning, a well-timed high-ROF burst and an unlucky defense roll could indeed contribute to truly  amounts of damage - one of the main reasons, I believe, that the Silhouette system has such a deadly reputation, especially when it comes to lightly armored models/characters. The ‘light damage/heavy damage/overkill’ tresholds are all based on multipliers of the model’s armor, so models with low armor were exceedingly likely to just get flat-out  vaporized by something big looking their way. Meanwhile, even a relatively low-power weapon could be a huge threat to heavier models by just forcing enough dice rolls until the attacker rolled high and the defender low. (Modern Blitz also has a snap fire system where a model on ‘standby’ can actually shoot back at attackers, so that teenytiny scout car with the ridiculously outsized gun is slightly more likely to catch a shell in the engine block for its efforts)This, I think, is why modern Blitz did away with the whole multiplier aspect and changed conditional modifiers to ‘just roll more dice’ instead of varying bonuses - it’s easier to remember to just grab one more die, and the way the dice system works those extra dice are mostly making it less likely that you get an absolutely crap roll. This tends to lead more to a ‘death of a thousand cuts’ type of a fight where gears take 1-2 damage per hit, rather than the ‘hey so you miss eight times in a row and then roll 72 damage’ you can see in the older system. Oh, and autocannons? They can still split their fire among a couple of different targets or focus fire on a single target for more damage, but without the multiplier-based system they’re more of a flexible, reliable basic weapon they should be than the ohgodwhy  they used to be.Edit: Fixed an error with the example rolls Drake_263 fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Jul 4, 2016 |
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Jun 21, 2016 11:17
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Which version of the Living Rulebook do you have now? I'm looking at force models and your Hunter stat block post yesterday has MR listing both walking and ground SMS movement rates, whereas mine just has the text "SMS:G" under Traits instead. Do I just assume that most Gears add an inch to their movement in rollerblading mode? e: vvv Looks like I had an older DTRPG version, possibly from the Kickstarter link. Thanks! Sidesaddle Cavalry fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Jun 21, 2016 |
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Jun 21, 2016 15:31
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I'm using the September 30th 2015 version, which I think is the newest version - available here. As for the actual SMS speed, it really varies by the chassis. Most Gears do get only one inch more travel speed in SMS mode, but some get more - like the Cheetah goes from Walk 7" to Ground 9", and the Ferret goes from Walk 5" up to Ground 9". That's not counting in the actual speedster factions like NuCoal and the CEF.
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Jun 21, 2016 16:04
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Yeah, the damage multiplier vs linear thing went all the way back to 2e Heavy Gear, if not outright 1e. Tabletop rules, back before they really tried to make it a wargame. First edition Blitz, which I think was about ten years ago, was basically Nick Pilon(?) and a bunch of other fans trying to make something sensible out of the Cinematic Engagement rules that appeared in (and perhaps just before) the editorial abomination that was SilCore. Whilst DP9 themselves were acting as SWAT team extras in TV shows because it sounded more fun. The thing is, the rules weren't really that bad. For most of their games, most of the time the modifiers were actually slightly in the defender's favour (movement speed, cover, etc) so if you hit a target, you'd generally be only doing a bit of light damage. Gears (and exos from Jovian Chronicles) would take a bit of a hit, but mostly mark off electronics and other minor damage. Characters on the human scale could have it worse when hit, but usually had body armour and dexterity(?) was the god-stat so you were dumb if you didn't have at least two to three dice in that, making you hard to hit. The thing was, the law of averages would eventually work in the attacker's favour - boxcars vs snakeeyes (because trained soldiers got two dice, hence why players always tried to get at least three!) was a margin of success of 10, typically modified down to 7-9. With heavy armour being about 35 points, a common 10 damage multiplier weapon would be enough to take out a tank if you got lucky. So you doubled down on cheap units with minimally acceptable weapons and went critfishing, as if fielding a whole lance of AC2 Banes in Battletech was the only way to play. Houserules varied on whether rolling defences once was an adequate way to cut down on the dice, but the whole thing basically fell apart if you poked at it hard enough either way. The new system sounds much, much better, and actually gives some meaning to the granular damage tracks again. There's still the risk of 12s and 2s (well, 7s and 1s now I guess), but only really to roughly equivalent types of unit.
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Jun 21, 2016 20:33
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Yeah. The thing about the modern dice-based modifiers is that every die added makes snake-eyes exponentially less likely. Gear standing out in the open, 2 base dice, 1/36 chance of getting snake eyes. Gear in cover behind a handy cargo crate or whatever, 3 dice, 1/108 chance of snake eyes. Gear in cover while his buddy next to him spools up their ECM projector, 4 dice (more if it's a good ECM unit), 1/648 chance of snake eyes. A light scout Gear moving through cover at top speed while their ECM projector is blasting Can't Touch This over all the other dudes' channels, 5+ dice, 1/3888 chance of snake eyes. At that point Fate simply wanted that Gear dead. Sorry. Point being that with the modern rules, all you need is one good die in the batch and you're likely to end up with a fairly average roll - especially if you're using a Gear with good skill ratings. The more nimble light Gears typically have a Piloting rating of 3+, and some of the super-evasive ones like the Cheetah go all the way up to 2+. Of course, the sam applies in reverse for shooting - I see a lot of the high-end gameplay involving positioning, electronic warfare and such to try and stack the odds in your favor. Two gunlines sitting in cover and trying to plink at each other is likely going to just end up in this long stalemate of a slog where neither side really does anytihng to the other until one of them figures out a way to break the lock - I know I'm likely going to try and include at least on maneuverable strike-type unit in my lists to try to sneak in and disrupt the other dude's line. Speaking of the Cheetah, I did a little math on the Northern starter force: 4x Hunter Trooper Gear (TV 6-8 x4) 4x Jaguar Strike Gear (TV 10-12 x4) 2x Grizzly Fire Support Gear (TV 14-15 x2) Kodiak Heavy Assault Gear (TV 19-20) 2x Cheetah Recon Gear (TV 9-11 x2) Ferret Recon Gear (TV 5-7) Comes to a total TV of 134-159, and that's before counting in optional command upgrades, veterancies or extra kit like grenades. That's a pretty solid starting point for a force. Drake_263 fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Jun 22, 2016 |
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Jun 22, 2016 05:48
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I feel a little silly posting here all the time but hey, at least there's actual content - another Kickstarter update! This time, we've got painted Caprican example models:  I feel the Want overtaking me. It is a good pain. Seriously, I want those spiderbots on my table right now. Tallying these guys up for points, though, is a little more interesting since there's basically only three different kits; the Acco is its own kit, the Bashan, Aphek, Kadesh and Meggido are all built out of the same kit, and the Ammon is a kit of its own that comes with the BAKM leg sprue and its own sprue with the actual Ammon body. Technically I suppose you could use the legs from the Ammon kit to build a fifth BAKM but why would you do that? 5x Acco Trooper Mount (TV 6 x5) 4x Bashan/Aphek Recon / Kadesh/Meggido Support Mount (TV 10-20 x4) Ammon Heavy Mount (TV 26-30) Comes up to 96-140 points depending on which specific designs you go for, plus the usual veterancy and other misc upgrades. I've been trying to put together a sample list for these guys and it's surprisingly difficult to make an interesting 100-point list for them; put specifically, the 'cool' bigger Mounts are so expensive that at low points, you see a lot of 'one Meggido and his three Acco friends' type units. I added a pair of BAKM mounts and an extra Ammon to my order, but I may end up getting a couple of Acco packs more just to have more cheap models for smaller games.
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Jun 23, 2016 21:14
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Guys. Gaisgaisgaisgais. Guyyyyyyyys. Another Kickstarter update, this time with painted Southern minis:   I think South is the army that I' personally the least excited for but these guys look pretty swanky, too. 4x Jäger Trooper Gear (TV 6-8 x4) 4x Black Mamba Strike Gear (TV 11-12 x4) 2x Spitting Cobra Fire Support Gear (TV 13-15 x2) King Cobra Heavy Assault Gear (TV 18) 2x Iguana Recon Gear (TV 9-11 x2) Comes to a total of 130-150 TV before the usual command/veterancy upgrades, extra grenades and so on. Note that drones count as 'extra equipment' - anyone can pick up a couple of drones for extra support/utility. It's kind of weird that they'd include those in only the Southern sets but eh. Plastic injection Molds Update posted:The molds have finally arrived at our plastics manufacturer, Models LLC. in Lebanon, IN, USA just north of Indianapolis. They took a photo of the 5 crates and a photo of the mold cleaning process, where they remove all the grease that the molds were coated in to prevent damage during shipping. They will start popping the first plastics later this week and we should have photos for our first made in the USA plastics for next weeks update. Drake_263 fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 05:50
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So many of these are gorgeous, could I afford it I would get some of them just to sit on a shelf. Those missile Ammon  The Southern ones are a bit lacking to me too in that way, they're good and it's no fault of them, but yeah, less desirous of them.
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Jul 1, 2016 07:31
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I think the problem here is the boring gray-on-gray colorscheme - they would do well with a little bit more of a spot color - and the fact that the south are pretty much the generic generalist army of the bunch. I mean, the Capricans have the cool spider bots, the CEF tosses out primarily-gear builds in favor of bigass tanks and powered armor, and North have this brutally industrial thing going on, but the South.. just are. The fluff kind of makes the South a bunch of assholes, too, and I've never been much into that. For actual content, another Kickstarter update! Kickstarter Update posted:We just updated the Heavy Gear Blitz - Tabletop Wargaming - Living Rulebook ebook today (July 4th, 2016). Its available now on the DriveThruRPG website at the following link for free download. It would figure that I just got around to printing out and laminating a copy of the living rulebook last week. Oh well.
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Jul 5, 2016 14:07
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North armor is inspired by traditional mecha design based on the blocky shapes that NATO's Chobham armor necessitates. The South is appreciated by boring people who enjoy Armored Trooper Votoms and the Eastern Bloc style of curvy tank armor with cast steel turrets. Fun facts: I'm a boring person, and an rear end in a top hat, and gatling cannons are sexy edit: Ironically, South tracked tanks are just as blocky as their Northern counterparts. They're almost as awesome, too. Thing is, with the South you're not totally limited to puffy, rounded-shoulder Gears--stuff like the Black Adder and the Sidewinder (and its hot new Honor Guard cousin Fer de Lance) are great departures from the norm, and make a lot of sense in roleplay-themed armies too, given the MILICIA's lack of resources. Then there's the Hetairoi hovertank and other different-looking things stolen from the Humanist Alliance. MP Gears also help to break up the curve with police lights over shoulders and big rectangular shields. Also Stripped-down Jager maybe? 
Sidesaddle Cavalry fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jul 5, 2016 |
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Jul 5, 2016 17:30
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These are all true and fair points, but that doesn't change the fact that all the South models in the starting box are boring puffy rounded-shoulders Gears  Although the mental image of the Jager being the Terra Novan equivalent for the T-42 makes me giggle inside.
Drake_263 fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Jul 5, 2016 |
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Jul 5, 2016 17:57
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Drake_263 posted:The fluff kind of makes the South a bunch of assholes, too, and I've never been much into that. The Southern Republic was the main antagonist in the original HG video game for a reason. Though granted, every faction in Heavy Gear has its negative side. I still like the Humanists, though.
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Jul 20, 2016 19:54
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Pussy Cartel posted:The Southern Republic was the main antagonist in the original HG video game for a reason. Though granted, every faction in Heavy Gear has its negative side. At least it's not like in Warhammer 40K where the universe is in an accelerating spiral of various factions one-upping eachother in pure assholishness. And I'm saying this as a dude who loves 40K. So hey, I've been busy for the past few weeks, which means not poking around nerdy things as often as I'd like. Can't complain though, at least I have a paying job. There's been not one, but two kickstarter updates: Kickstarter Update 07/18/2016 posted:We finally sent out International Backer shipping payment requests on July 14th, 2016. We receive some messages and emails ask why the shipping costs are so high, we'll explain as follows. One Core Starter Set with the 4 plastic miniature armies, Kickstarter backer patch, and full color Quick Start Rulebook (106 pages, 8.5" x 11" format) fits into a shipping box that is 12"x9"x4" and weights 2.77 lbs, with a little space to spare for a few add-ons. Our Pledge Manager costs are in $CAD and the exchange rate is not good these days, $53 CAD is about $40 USD, which is the average cost to ship a single Core Starter Set internationally. Kickstarter Update 7/19/2016 posted:Fast update today to give all the Backers access to the free ebook version of our new Quick Start Rulebook (full color, softcover, 106 pages) that was set off to the printer last week. Browsing through the quickstart rulebook file myself, it does a nice job of teaching the basic rules for play in a slightly less dense format than the core living rulebook - the LRB can be a pretty intimidating chunk of information to browse through, and the quickstart book is a lot more 'user friendly' if you're not conversant with the system. I also like the cute/funny chibi Gear art they've got slipped into the rules - almost makes me wish GW rulebooks had a couple of cartoon MArines and Grots to help demonstrate some of the concepts - but unfortunately, there are a lot of typos and grammar errors, too - their versus they're is a common offender, for example. Up to and including one right in the first sentence of the intro blurb. It's a good book but do they not have anyone to proofread these? I've also been browsing through the changelog file for the living rulebook. Aside from several fixes to typos and grammar, what jumps out at me is: * Actual average game size upped to 150 points - 50 points is a skirmish, 100 points is a small game, 150 average and 200+ a large game. This kind of makes sense considering how expensive CEF and Caprican kit tends to be. * ECM defense was clarified to work on anything within range from the ECM unit, not just things in the ECM model's formation - this is how I think it worked earlier, too, but a case could be made for models not within the ECM model's unit not getting to benefit from it * Also clarified that command points can be used on units outside of formation, as long as the commander model can use Comms to reach them - again this was implied earlier, but the phrasing is more clear now * Snap Fire versus Active Sensors wording clarified. Declaring Active Sensors or performing an action while you have Active Sensors on can and likely will get you shot at. * ECM defense clarified to not work against melee attacks. * Flame weapons took a slight nerf - the Fire weapon tag now inflicts on a hit a number of marginal hits (roll a d6 per marginal hit, on a 4+ you take 1 damage) equal to its Fire rating, instead of Fire rating + attack margin. Most fire-based weapons had their Fire ratings increased to compensate. This makes weapons like flamers slightly less likely to inflict massive damage on heavily armored targets - marginal hit damage outright skips armor, so a couple of flamer-equipped models could just wreck targets they technically shouldn't be really able to damage by sheer weight of fire. Technically you can still do this but now you probably need a whole squad's worth of flame weapons and Satan's own dice-rolling arm. * Alpha VTOL flier rules rewritten. * VTOLs have two modes, standard low flight and Elevated - a flier may choose to become Elevated when it activates, and can use a Stand By token to drop back into low flight. * Elevated VTOLs gain a +2 MR bonus, an attack bonus to non-flier and non-elevated-VTOL models, ignore all terrain for movement purposes, ignore cover from terrain not adjacent to the target model, may not be attacked with melee weapons or weapons with a max range of 12" or less, and may not benefit from any cover bonuses from terrain. All fire against elevated VTOLS without the Anti-Air tag are resolved with -1 penalty to their Gunnery rating. * VTOLs that are not elevated are treated as hover vehicles that may cross terrain up to height of their MR without suffering any MR penalties. Any Dangerous Terrain tests are automatically passed unless the VTOL stops or starts from the dangerous terrain. Most VTOLs tend to be lightly armored and fragile, so this makes them more difficult to damage while not making them impossible to hit. *Force Construction Unit Availability Codes simplified. The previous rulebook had like forty UA codes, which while fluffy was honestly unnecessary, seeing as the various UA codes don't really do anything outside of squad construction - we now have fifteen. Instead, certain models now have the Limited:X trait - models with the Limited trait may only join units entirely consisting of models with the same Limited trait. *Clarified that a Support Unit does not have to have the same type of a UA code as its Primary Unit *Most units had their UAs changed to comply with the new rules. A few got new additional variants or had their TV values and/or armament rebalanced. The CEF got a whole new model, the Peregrine Gunship - a fast-moving, lightly armored hover gunship armed with a rotary laser and a light rocket pod or a light anti-tank missile launcher. This is by no means a complete list, but that's what I feel are the main points.
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Jul 25, 2016 16:05
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What faction can best use three robots and a truck cause I wanna use these guys:
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Jul 25, 2016 19:46
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Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:The South is appreciated by boring people who enjoy Armored Trooper Votoms and the Eastern Bloc style of curvy tank armor with cast steel turrets. Fun facts: I'm a boring person, and an rear end in a top hat, and gatling cannons are sexy
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Jul 25, 2016 20:39
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Heard, but I wasn't really asking for aesthetic reasons. I assume anyone can use the robots, but are there trucks anywhere?
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Jul 26, 2016 22:51
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Most Terra Novan factions have access to more conventional vehicles as well. I'm not quite sure of the actual scale on your truck and the vehicles involved but I'm pretty sure at least North and South had units that were basically cargo trucks with rocket or missile launchers bolted on. If you download the Living Rulebook, that has full unit listings for all factions. You might spot something suitable.
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Jul 26, 2016 22:58
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Kickstarter Update!Kickstarter Update posted:
I'm sort of disappointed about the delay but considering I've been waiting since November, a couple of weeks more won't really hurt. It's their first go for plastic models and minor fuckups are to be expected. In more positive (read, nerdy) news, I've been writing some more HG stuff and I have several things that probably need to be covered at some point. What would people be more interested in? TVs, UAs and Tears - Heavy Gear List Building Huntard Rising - The Northern Hunter EWF Platforms Are Basically Wizards - ECM 101 Drake_263 fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Aug 4, 2016 |
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Aug 3, 2016 07:25
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Drake_263 posted:Kickstarter Update! Let's go with the ECM guide, considering it's half the reason I picked the UMF.
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Aug 10, 2016 23:30
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I tried to keep it sweet and simple, but I can't do short for toffee, apparently. I should probably just start posting this stuff on the 1d4chan wiki while I'm at it... EWF Platforms Are Basically Wizards - ECM 101 Battles are won by rocket, autocannon and vibroblade, but many are decided by more subtle ways. When two forces of equal strength meet, the one with the better intel is the one with the upper hand. Heavy Gear is no exception, and Blitz, in my opinion, goes a step further in simulating the fields of electronic warfare alongside more conventional fights. Most, if not all, factions in the game have access to EWF units of varying power and dedication, from teenytiny cheap scout cars to enormous armored striders that happen to carry powerful EWF suites alongside their big guns. Used correctly, they’re a powerful force multiplier; used incorrectly, they tend to be lightly armed for their points and you’re really better off picking up something more conventional. So what can EWF units actually do for you? Well, let’s start off with looking at what your basic trooper Gear without dedicated EWF equipment can do for you, when it’s not shooting at the other dude.. quote:Standard Sensors and Sensor Lock Sensor lock with or without active sensors, forward observation and comms boosting. Even without any special equipment, your average Gear is capable of a handful of neat tricks that may give you the edge you need. Besides this, EWF units can be equipped with a fairly impressive amount of specialized equipment to make them more effective at their job.. quote:Sensors (Sensors: X”) quote:Advanced communications (Comms: X) quote:Target Designator (TD: X) quote:Electronic Countermeasures (ECM: X) quote:Electronic Counter-Counter-Measures (ECCM) quote:Satellite Communications Uplink (SatUp: X+) Drake_263 fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Aug 13, 2016 |
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Aug 13, 2016 15:24
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Kickstarter Update!Kickstarter Update posted:Over 2500 lbs of plastic miniature sprues all boxed up and on 7 skids were shipped out earlier this week by Models LLC via FedEx Freight. The latest updated tracking shows that we should receive them at our office here in Montreal this Friday.
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Aug 18, 2016 10:33
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I just got a box of mysterious little robots in the mail today. Pretty happy with how it looks so far, but I will definitely need to look at the assembly pdf they just put out to figure out what it all is. Excited about some far future war!
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Sep 9, 2016 03:55
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Lucky you! I'm in the EU so they're shipping my stuff out in Wave 4. Can't wait! What did you get?
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Sep 9, 2016 07:12
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I just got the basic starter and also the CEF Army box. I bought some Heavy Gear models years ago because who wouldn't want to play the game about mini Gundams? I think I ended up painting one CEF gear before I actually looked at the rules and immediately abandoned the game. The new edition doesn't require constant multiplication so it seems more likely I can find an opponent!
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Sep 9, 2016 12:10
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Is this the thread I post in if I want to avenge Peace River?
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Sep 9, 2016 12:13
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Lord_Hambrose posted:I just got the basic starter and also the CEF Army box. Yeah, the new ruleset is a lot easier to take in. I mean, sure, the living rulebook looks drat terrifying on first glance but actually playing the game isn't that hard. Lightning Lord posted:Is this the thread I post in if I want to avenge Peace River? It sure is! Vibro-axes for everyone 
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Sep 9, 2016 13:05
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Just got my Kickstarter order. That's a lotta plastic I'm gonna have to put together. And I didn't realize the quick-start rulebook was in colour.
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Sep 23, 2016 20:31
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Ooh, congrats! Yeah, it was originally intended to be a black-and-white booklet but a kickstarter goal upgraded it to color. I can't complain, though. I'm particularly amused by the (completely adorable) little chibi Gear illustrations they've got 'demonstrating' rules. What wave were you in? I've been waiting for mine to ship and I know I'm Wave 4. They were supposed to have this stuff shipped halfway through September but delays happened.
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Sep 26, 2016 22:52
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I was in wave 4 myself, but I'm in Canada so maybe shipping was faster for me.
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Sep 27, 2016 18:33
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I just got a notification this morning that they shipped mine. Estimating the week of October 10th for it to get over here - which suits me just fine! Turns out I already bought myself a birthday present a year back. Can't wait, eeee! 
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Sep 30, 2016 17:45
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For UK/Ireland backers, I got my parcel this morning. Going to spend this weekend building Robits!
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Oct 14, 2016 14:32
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 01:16 |
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SO it's been ages since I last posted - I got my package but haven't honestly had much tiem to mess around with robits, mostly thanks to a sudden increase in workload and other RL reasons. (Can't complain, at least I have a paying, honest, semisteady job). By now I've put together the whole order, painted the Northern force, and I'm slowly working on the South. Once I've painted the lot of them to a solid tabletop spec I'm going to harass some of my friends into actually playing the game with me. Anyhow, my impressions so far are a little mixed: +Every Gear type comes as its own neat little sprue. Every sprue has enough parts to make (almost) any variant in the rulebook of that particular unit - there're some exceptions, mostly regarding basic weapons, but for the most part the kits are pretty flexible. +Most weapons are also interchangeable, at least in the same faction (and to a degree between the various Terra Novan factions). For example, the Jaguar sprue doesn't actually come with the frag cannon you'd need for the Assault Jaguar, but you can just steal one from a Hunter sprue. +Putting the minis themselves is pretty straightforwards, even without instructions - for most 'regular-size' gears there's a torso piece, a head piece, three parts for the legs and the lower body, a pair of arms, a power pack, and a handful of weapons. For the bigger ones, the arms usually come in two parts for extra posability. +For the most part, there's a neat amount of detail - not as much as I'm used to from a Games Workshop kit, but enough for a mini of this size and scale. +For Caprice, I thought I'd be getting six Bashan/Aphek/Kadesh/Megiddo sprues and two Ammon sprues (I ordered some extras) - instead it turns out that those are the same kit, that is, every 'big mount' pack is actually three sprues - one that builds the legs and jump jets for the jet-equipped variants, one sprue that actually builds two Mount bodies (One Bashan or Kadesh and one Aphek or Megiddo) and a third sprue that builds an Ammon body. Factoring in three, four variants for all chassises that's a [lot of variety - and actually, if you can source yourself some legs, you can build three Mounts out of the one kit. I had some moldmaking silicone and two-part epoxy resin lying around and made a mold out of the leg bits - instead of eight Mounts, I now have twenty-four. I have eight Ammons. I am never going to need eight Ammons, but the option is now available to me. (Sidenote, they're now actually selling extra leg kits specifically for this and if you want to cheaply expand your Caprice force, I recommend you get the 'authentic' ones - I don't think I saved any money by casting the legs myself, and I also got to deal with all the fun issues of homemade molds like air bubbles and such.) Now, the bad things: -This is a very minor niggle I feel almost bad about, but the plastic mix they use is very dark, almost black - it kind of makes hard to see the detail on the mini when you're putting it together. -More importantly, the plastic mix they use doesn't actually respond to plastic glue/polycement. It takes ages for the glue to dry and even afterwards the bond is very fragile - you pretty much have to use superglue, which has its own downsides. -Some of the parts involved are also absolutely tiny, especially things like the heads of the smaller gears (Cheetah, Iguana, Ferret) and the Acco main guns. This makes supergluing them into place an exercise in frustration. -Some of the fitting tabs, lugs and sockets on the minis were mismatched in size - usually by the tab being just a little bit too big for its supposed socket, making it difficult to fit the parts where they were supposed to go. This was usually fixable by slightly shaving down the tab (if square)or using a 2mm drill to slightly widen the socket (if round), but still. Come on, guys. This is probably due to the issues they had when they were getting the plastic production up and running. -Speaking of said issues, some kits suffered from clear casting flaws - places where the plastic had shrunk upon itself and 'dimpled', forming visible divots in the model surface (the assplate on the Jaguar was one of the more notable culprits). Other parts suffered from lost surface detail - the 'X' patterns reinforcing certain armor parts like the nose of the Ammon, for example, had this issue. Some of the bigger smoother surfaces (like the Ammon) also had visible 'tidemark' swirly ridges in the plastic. I think this is due to the same issues I mentioned earlier - when they got the molds from the manufacturer, they'd reset the settings for shipping and left the HG guys to tweak them back up to spec. I don't think they quite managed to nail it yet. Hopefully this'll be fixed in future production runs by tweaking the plastic mix/temp/pressure while casting. - It's neat that every gear comes as its own little sprue, but this comes with a downside - most sprues come with exactly the parts you need to build your Gear and that's it. Some come with a third extra leg you can use to replace one of the standing legs to get a running pose, and some come with an extra arm or two that you can combine for a bit of variety. Even then you're going to pretty quickly run into the issue of having same-y models, unless you start customizing parts to get new poses and such. Blitz is really only designed to run around ten or so models per side so it's not as big an issue as it would be in WH40K, for example, but still. (They're now also selling resin 'cradling my gun' alternate arms for certain Gears, if you want some variety). -The hex bases most Gears come with have a bigass slot for a 'tab base', but the plastic models don't actually have that leg tab to fit them on the base like metal models would. Thankfully the rules are pretty lax about bases, and I just replaced my hex based with GW round bases. Anyhow. Even with all the complications and unforeseen setbacks, I'm pretty happy with my new little robbits. They're talking about having a second Kickstarter next year for the Peace RIver, NuCoal and Utopia factions, and I think I'll throw some money their way at that point, too. This -was- their first rodeo with plastic sprues and hopefully he next one will go even better! So how are you guys painting your nerd barbies?
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Nov 6, 2016 17:53
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