https://dp9forum.com/index.php?/topic/19666-temporary-rules-lock

Sooo... apparently I'm not the only one wondering what happened to the rules that were supposedly finished and just waiting for editing since iirc September according to a forum post at the time. Ok, just conjecture here but..



From the thread above, apparently some kickstarter rewards are waiting on the rulebook to be finished to send out. Anyone else a pessimist wondering if it might be possible that the large expense of both printing a rulebook and shipping out boxes with no direct immediate financial benefit since they were paid for a year ago pre-pandemic may be contributing to the delay? I just can't fathom how layout could be taking this long for such a relatively small product especially given the complexity of layouts in their recent products. Have the rules been changing significantly enough to justify the delay since September/October?

 warboss wrote:
Any news on the RPG? Or the nublitz rules that have been in layout supposedly since August or September? Ashley informed me of this (thanks again!) so I figured I'd post it here as well in case there are other luddites like me who don't visit those newfangled sites like reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HeavyGear/comments/kaauln/my_28mm_scale_gear_project/

Loving the chonk. The Iguana is the standout winner IMO.

 warboss wrote:
https://dp9forum.com/index.php?/topic/19666-temporary-rules-lock

Sooo... apparently I'm not the only one wondering what happened to the rules that were supposedly finished and just waiting for editing since iirc September according to a forum post at the time. Ok, just conjecture here but..



From the thread above, apparently some kickstarter rewards are waiting on the rulebook to be finished to send out. Anyone else a pessimist wondering if it might be possible that the large expense of both printing a rulebook and shipping out boxes with no direct immediate financial benefit since they were paid for a year ago pre-pandemic may be contributing to the delay? I just can't fathom how layout could be taking this long for such a relatively small product especially given the complexity of layouts in their recent products. Have the rules been changing significantly enough to justify the delay since September/October?

No idea. No one on the Pod forums knows either, just that things are 'in layout', and that's it.

Page 131 unlocked! How great is that?

I don't know, but it brings me joy to see it happen.

As for the rules, Covid 19 is a big confounding variable. It has impacted publishers printing schedules globally.

 Paint it Pink wrote:
Page 131 unlocked! How great is that?

I don't know, but it brings me joy to see it happen.

As for the rules, Covid 19 is a big confounding variable. It has impacted publishers printing schedules globally.

I've been secretly awaiting the 1,000th vote in the poll. Also, happy New Year!

The pandemic does throw a wrench in many things but I thought that Robert was the one that was doing the layout/editing in the initial announcement when the rules were deemed ready back in Aug/Sept. Most if not all of the art other than the cover is reused and photos of painted minis that they have in the office set up for dioramas can still be done in house as well. The pandemic wouldn't stop him from doing that and releasing the PDF version (which they typically release a few weeks to a month early for crowdsourced proofreading).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Update on the RPG from my first check of the dp9 forum in 2021!

https://dp9forum.com/index.php?/topic/19674-heavy-gear-rpg-new-year-update/

The relevant part for me fellow grognards but obviously more info in the link above.

Some of you will be very pleased to hear that the changes we’re making will allow existing older RPG material to still be useful. The existing material still has enormous role playing value both as source material and background for building characters and campaigns in TN 1951. We’re going to support the previous eras for those who wish to do so with the new edition. A character sheet from the 2E rulebook, while not 1:1 identical to the new system, will be easily playable. There will still be a new skill list, however the old ones will remain valid - more details to come on that front. The approach we're now taking will ensure that the problems presented by large numbers of (often very specific or disparate) skills won't present the same problems.

Well, I can't help but notice some familiar bits in this new post

 HudsonD wrote:
Well, I can't help but notice some familiar bits in this new post

Could you elaborate either here in the thread or via PMs? I'm not smelling what the Rock is cooking.

In theory, e-publishing shouldn't be impacted at all by things - it's just sitting down and writing.

Playtesting (in an in-person group) is the only thing that would be restricted.

Based on prior history of rules clarity, game balance, etc. does anyone realistically think that's what the holdup is here? That DP9 is somehow waiting for playtest groups to complete various rounds of in-person testing to ensure that the rules are of highest playability and balance?

Personally, I'm kinda skeptical that would be the holdup, but I could be convinced otherwise.
____

BTW, those 28mm Gears are pretty cool. I wonder how tall they are. I'd guess 2-3", like a SM dreadnought, no?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
In theory, e-publishing shouldn't be impacted at all by things - it's just sitting down and writing.

Playtesting (in an in-person group) is the only thing that would be restricted.

Based on prior history of rules clarity, game balance, etc. does anyone realistically think that's what the holdup is here? That DP9 is somehow waiting for playtest groups to complete various rounds of in-person testing to ensure that the rules are of highest playability and balance?

Personally, I'm kinda skeptical that would be the holdup, but I could be convinced otherwise.

They've been crowdsourcing playtesting for over a year now fwiw. The guy in charge of the rules said they were ready and sent for layout a while back and that any further changes would go into the "living" document that is free. Continuing to work on the rules despite the delays is just good sense and trying to make lemonade from lemons. I can't find the original post that I was referring to but this thread says even in June that he was waiting for layout.

https://dp9forum.com/index.php?/topic/19401-heavy-gear-blitz-30-rulebook-beta-6-sep-2020-update/#comments


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

BTW, those 28mm Gears are pretty cool. I wonder how tall they are. I'd guess 2-3", like a SM dreadnought, no?

Assuming 28mm = 6ft (1.83m) and a Hunter is 4.3m then yeah. 65.8mm or 2.6in. Obviously varies with the gear though.

Warboss has it right. Most of the tweaks being discussed were supposed to be for the future update.

No one has any idea what's holding things up on the layout though.

 warboss wrote:

 HudsonD wrote:
Well, I can't help but notice some familiar bits in this new post

Could you elaborate either here in the thread or via PMs? I'm not smelling what the Rock is cooking.

Surely the other parts of the announcement:

There were quite a few requests for more "narrative" mechanics that could reflect the details of the setting and character's personalities. We've got some great ideas on how to include that without getting in the way of the beloved crunchiness we expect from Heavy Gear. We’re aiming for a gameplay experience that feels like the Heavy Gear world presented by the existing material from 1st/2nd edition (especially the short stories). We want to focus on stressed allegiances and the consequences of their conflict, multilayered individuals who felt loyalty to comrades, causes, lovers, superiors, city states, customers, governments, or enterprises that could become mutually exclusive.

For example, if your character hails from Port Oasis, given the events of Forged In Fire (as the most recent major lore update), that should have a powerful effect on a character played in TN1951 given events, so things like the character's City State will be an important part of character creation. We've got a lot of cool stuff we're working on in this regard, and will have more to share a bit later.

Finally, people have asked what other RPG's we're looking at for inspiration and ideas. We've been looking at Lancer, Alien/YearZero, Robotech Macross Saga, Iron Kingdoms, Mouse Guard, Star Trek Adventures, D&D 5E, Twilight 2013, Mork Borg, L5R, Dark Heresy, and of course Heavy Gear 1st and 2nd Edition!

The first seems to tacitly answer some of the questions posed in this very thread (actually it seems like they'd want to go for a mechanic at least influenced by the ninjo/giri interactions on L5R), the last seems to imply that they're going forward actually paying attention to other games outside HG, and the ones selected seem to imply they have been listening.

Then again, even with all the acknowledges and with Vaktathi being a dakka mod... dakka seems to be completely absent from that, which is interesting.

But hey, they seem to be listening to feedback, which is very good, and seem to be educating themselves on modern mechanics, which is also very good... as long as they don't just copy them and instead actually understand them and use them to further their design goals, that is. It is a bit disappointing to notice that this is being done now instead of before starting the project, but well... all's well that ends well. Hopefully they've revised their project from the ground up and redone it with a strong core theme that they can build up from.

Personally, being a fan of lifepath character creation, I'm happy to see they're taking a look at STA and L5R for inspiration, and if they want more of that I'll be happy to obligue.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:
They've been crowdsourcing playtesting for over a year now fwiw. The guy in charge of the rules said they were ready and sent for layout a while back and that any further changes would go into the "living" document that is free. Continuing to work on the rules despite the delays is just good sense and trying to make lemonade from lemons. I can't find the original post that I was referring to but this thread says even in June that he was waiting for layout.

Well, they've been "crowdsourcing" playtesting for 10-15 years now, but these last... I wanna say five years or so, they've completely opened it with their open alphas. But that would speed up the testing, if anything, not slow it down.

And then there's the fact, as JHDD stated, that they are a very small group of people working on e-publishing and doing writing and layout from home, so... I can gauge the amount of work you can do in that regard, pretty much to the decimals, as I actually do that for a living. This year, by myself, I've done work on... let me see: 7 full RPG books, 7 web DLCs for those, 3 novellas and about 30 short stories. And that's with a full time job and only counting what I've done as paid work, not just for fun. I've translated and laid out two full RPGs for fun, one of which they're reading for inspiration for HG now.

So I would say writing a single book is pretty doable, all things considered.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mmmpi wrote:
Warboss has it right. Most of the tweaks being discussed were supposed to be for the future update.

No one has any idea what's holding things up on the layout though.

Maybe they don't see any profit on it, seeing as the current version seems to work for their needs. Pretty much an eternal "Open Beta" period.

If the current version works, then there's no need to change. That said, it's always nice to have printed hardcopy as physical reference.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If the current version works, then there's no need to change. That said, it's always nice to have printed hardcopy as physical reference.

It's also something some people already are owed, from the KS.

No body know the reason of the delay and there is no logical reason for it.

Not one anybody outside the Pod knows at least.

It is one of those things DP9 keep doing, they have made a lot of positive changes in the last few years but still we have this absurd delay.

the game needs the book, even if only in PDF

 Albertorius wrote:

And then there's the fact, as JHDD stated, that they are a very small group of people working on e-publishing and doing writing and layout from home, so... I can gauge the amount of work you can do in that regard, pretty much to the decimals, as I actually do that for a living. This year, by myself, I've done work on... let me see: 7 full RPG books, 7 web DLCs for those, 3 novellas and about 30 short stories. And that's with a full time job and only counting what I've done as paid work, not just for fun. I've translated and laid out two full RPGs for fun, one of which they're reading for inspiration for HG now.

So I would say writing a single book is pretty doable, all things considered.

It's too bad dakka doesn't have humblebrag tags for posts. Stop making me look bad with my half dozen gakky blog posts for 2020! It's bad enough that you're extra productive in 3d printing and painting those prints but now you add this!! And, even in my own personal hobby malaise, I obviously agree that it would have been doable.

Maybe they don't see any profit on it, seeing as the current version seems to work for their needs. Pretty much an eternal "Open Beta" period.

That's my guess as well at least in the pandemic era. I'm not ascribing malice to it though but rather a temporally sensible (for them albeit at the expense of the already paid customers) business decision frankly. I think most of us here either backed the Robotech kickstarter or at least heard of the debacle and how little teeth KS terms and conditions actually have.

 Albertorius wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If the current version works, then there's no need to change. That said, it's always nice to have printed hardcopy as physical reference.

It's also something some people already are owed, from the KS.

Plus a random word doc doesn't a rulebook make.

It needs a layout just to not look like jury rigged gak.

 Mmmpi wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If the current version works, then there's no need to change. That said, it's always nice to have printed hardcopy as physical reference.

It's also something some people already are owed, from the KS.

Plus a random word doc doesn't a rulebook make.

It needs a layout just to not look like jury rigged gak.

I have the old InDesign templates they had from back in L&L. They could very easily use that and have a workable, very decent looking book done in a week, tops.

If they wanted.

I do cut eveyone some slack nowadays, though. It's not exactly an easy time to be in this God's green Earth.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pointman wrote:
No body know the reason of the delay and there is no logical reason for it.

Not one anybody outside the Pod knows at least.

It is one of those things DP9 keep doing, they have made a lot of positive changes in the last few years but still we have this absurd delay.

the game needs the book, even if only in PDF

Plus, you already have it on DTRPG, so a PDF equates a physical book and a distribution chain. Do that, and do away with shipping annoyances.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:
It's too bad dakka doesn't have humblebrag tags for posts. Stop making me look bad with my half dozen gakky blog posts for 2020! It's bad enough that your extra productive in 3d printing and painting those prints but not you add this!! And, even in my own personal hobby malaise, I obviously agree that it would have been doable.

Hey, I'm pretty aware of my own limitations, but I also know you can do stuff

I mean, the books is already mostly done, right? Layout is the "easy" part, people!

That's my guess as well at least in the pandemic era. I'm not ascribing malice to it though but rather a temporally sensible (for them albeit at the expense of the already paid customers) business decision frankly. I think most of us here either backed the Robotech kickstarter or at least heard of the debacle and how little teeth KS terms and conditions actually have.

No, as I said, it's a... gakky time to live through, and I'm pretty sure it has wreaked havoc through their schedules in both evident and subtle ways, like eveyone else's, and I have to cut people slack for that.

But I think they had the book at this stage since before the pandemic, so who knows, really.

You're not wrong with the templates Albertorius.

And considering Rob was supposed to be working on it during his 'delivery quarantine downtime', I'm surprised it's taken this long.

That isn't to say layout isn't potentially time consuming though. I make a lot of slides (powerpoints) for my job, and deciding what goes where, and what to move, or cut due to space and time is more time consuming than the research to build them in the first place. But it's still a very long wait, even for that.

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that they were expecting new art, and that was late.

I have loved HG ever since I got the pc game way back when. When I finally got back into gaming and found out this setting had mini's I was all for it.

Then I looked at DP9, their rules, releases, and everything. It was a total train wreck. I honesty spent half an hour flipping through DTRPG and their site trying to find out what rulebooks were current. This is normally a simple task. Once I started looking through their forums and others it was like someone just set fire to the wreck.

This was around ten years ago. Then last year in March they happened to be at Cold Wars. Nice plastic models and a demo of the new ruleset coming out soon. I picked up a Northern starter and was hooked.


Nearly a year later that decade old flaming wreck seems to be rolling down the same track.

Veldrain wrote:
I have loved HG ever since I got the pc game way back when. When I finally got back into gaming and found out this setting had mini's I was all for it.

Then I looked at DP9, their rules, releases, and everything. It was a total train wreck. I honesty spent half an hour flipping through DTRPG and their site trying to find out what rulebooks were current. This is normally a simple task. Once I started looking through their forums and others it was like someone just set fire to the wreck.

This was around ten years ago. Then last year in March they happened to be at Cold Wars. Nice plastic models and a demo of the new ruleset coming out soon. I picked up a Northern starter and was hooked.


Nearly a year later that decade old flaming wreck seems to be rolling down the same track.

It's more an inability to just cancel or properly update new material and move ALL the old material into an "Obsolete" status. There is a ton of old source material that has never been updated or included in new product, and therefore, DP9 continues to sell it. The biggest problem is that its impossible to figure out what edition any of that source material is for. At one point the source books were meant to update each faction and bring the game forward into a cohesive format, but they gave up after what, three books? NUCOL, South, and PAX? Then the "new" edition of Blitz was announced, and how many beta rules books have they come out with? The game needs a hard reset, and all the old material needs to be moved into a clearly marked "obsolete" category, with the new edition given a different title or something. 'Heavy Gear Rebooted' or some such.

 Tamwulf wrote:

Veldrain wrote:
I have loved HG ever since I got the pc game way back when. When I finally got back into gaming and found out this setting had mini's I was all for it.

Then I looked at DP9, their rules, releases, and everything. It was a total train wreck. I honesty spent half an hour flipping through DTRPG and their site trying to find out what rulebooks were current. This is normally a simple task. Once I started looking through their forums and others it was like someone just set fire to the wreck.

This was around ten years ago. Then last year in March they happened to be at Cold Wars. Nice plastic models and a demo of the new ruleset coming out soon. I picked up a Northern starter and was hooked.


Nearly a year later that decade old flaming wreck seems to be rolling down the same track.

It's more an inability to just cancel or properly update new material and move ALL the old material into an "Obsolete" status. There is a ton of old source material that has never been updated or included in new product, and therefore, DP9 continues to sell it. The biggest problem is that its impossible to figure out what edition any of that source material is for. At one point the source books were meant to update each faction and bring the game forward into a cohesive format, but they gave up after what, three books? NUCOL, South, and PAX? Then the "new" edition of Blitz was announced, and how many beta rules books have they come out with? The game needs a hard reset, and all the old material needs to be moved into a clearly marked "obsolete" category, with the new edition given a different title or something. 'Heavy Gear Rebooted' or some such.

I haven't really been paying attention lately but isn't DP9 essentially a one man operation now?

A reboot would require serious project management and a willingness to let go of old ideas, neither of which is a strength for most small game companies.

 ScarletRose wrote:
I haven't really been paying attention lately but isn't DP9 essentially a one man operation now?

A reboot would require serious project management and a willingness to let go of old ideas, neither of which is a strength for most small game companies.

It's essentially been that since SilCORE. Meaning, for about the last 15 years.

The hard reset is the current rules.

The problem is that the latest rules are still in layout... according to a Discort member that is part of the RPG crew the book will be ready soon.

So, for those of you who don't follow the DP9 facebook page, apparently part of the rules delay was packing and shipping holiday orders.

 Pointman wrote:
The hard reset is the current rules.

The problem is that the latest rules are still in layout... according to a Discort member that is part of the RPG crew the book will be ready soon.

IIRC Robert once mentioned that they had used Quark Express in the past, and therefore was having to learn InDesign, which may be out of date news,

But, using design programmes is a learning curve, and if you don't keep practicing you have to relearn how to layout a page every single time.

Ask me how I know?*

*Please don't. I used to be a hotshot Quark DTP person back in the day, but my days of designing magazines etc is long over.

 Mmmpi wrote:
So, for those of you who don't follow the DP9 facebook page, apparently part of the rules delay was packing and shipping holiday orders.

I appreciate the update as I don't follow them.

 Paint it Pink wrote:
IIRC Robert once mentioned that they had used Quark Express in the past, and therefore was having to learn InDesign, which may be out of date news.

It is demonstrably untrue at least as far back as the edition before L&L, as I have the InDesign templates for those, provided by Robert.

 warboss wrote:

 Mmmpi wrote:
So, for those of you who don't follow the DP9 facebook page, apparently part of the rules delay was packing and shipping holiday orders.

I appreciate the update as I don't follow them.

NP

 Tamwulf wrote:

Veldrain wrote:
I have loved HG ever since I got the pc game way back when. When I finally got back into gaming and found out this setting had mini's I was all for it.

Then I looked at DP9, their rules, releases, and everything. It was a total train wreck. I honesty spent half an hour flipping through DTRPG and their site trying to find out what rulebooks were current. This is normally a simple task. Once I started looking through their forums and others it was like someone just set fire to the wreck.

This was around ten years ago. Then last year in March they happened to be at Cold Wars. Nice plastic models and a demo of the new ruleset coming out soon. I picked up a Northern starter and was hooked.


Nearly a year later that decade old flaming wreck seems to be rolling down the same track.

It's more an inability to just cancel or properly update new material and move ALL the old material into an "Obsolete" status. There is a ton of old source material that has never been updated or included in new product, and therefore, DP9 continues to sell it. The biggest problem is that its impossible to figure out what edition any of that source material is for. At one point the source books were meant to update each faction and bring the game forward into a cohesive format, but they gave up after what, three books? NUCOL, South, and PAX? Then the "new" edition of Blitz was announced, and how many beta rules books have they come out with? The game needs a hard reset, and all the old material needs to be moved into a clearly marked "obsolete" category, with the new edition given a different title or something. 'Heavy Gear Rebooted' or some such.

So, on this topic, because that frustration is totally real, I've actually built a list breaking down the product codes, titles, year of release, and editions for all Heavy Gear printed material based on what I could scrape up across the interwebs.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nvzrfCYIGCE_5hDSVo2e07IEfYkeoGR0cwvWGxdhJw4/edit?usp=sharing

My time has been pretty monopolized by life lately so I haven't been on Dakka as much as I normally am, and I'm not any more informed on the status of Blitz layout/progress than anyone else here is unfortunately, but figured the list would be handy for some. Trying to keep all the content straight is a nightmare, as much as I love the universe

Thanks for the update on both fronts.

 Albertorius wrote:

It is demonstrably untrue at least as far back as the edition before L&L, as I have the InDesign templates for those, provided by Robert.

I stand corrected. My bad.

Should've asked before now, but you know how it is... oh look shiny!

My question is this. Is there a reason why so much stuff is left handed, as in Gears holding weapons in the off hand?

 Paint it Pink wrote:
Should've asked before now, but you know how it is... oh look shiny!

My question is this. Is there a reason why so much stuff is left handed, as in Gears holding weapons in the off hand?

None stated, other than that way you have the right hand free to use for handling stuff, whereas the other is just locked as a gun (and you'll be using the HUD anyways so it doesn't really matter).

 Paint it Pink wrote:
Should've asked before now, but you know how it is... oh look shiny!

My question is this. Is there a reason why so much stuff is left handed, as in Gears holding weapons in the off hand?

I just took a quick look through my own gallery here and I don't see too many lefties in the blitz or rafm era minis. Are you referring to the new plastics maybe? I don't have any of those and am not familiar with their posing either.

The Tiger I know has left handed poses, theres a few others but i cant recall off the top of my head, and a fair number work left handed with weapons like bazookas pretty well.

The most common lefty weapons I saw at least in my own models were the obvious secondary weapons like DPGs and vibroknives.

Seeing as unless the pilot is using the manipulation gloves for something, and particularly if they have a weapon, the hands are more "turrets" than anything else and are handled as such by the pilot (and anything else is the NNet who's handling it). So it doesn't really matter much, other than for shooting angles.

That said, it can simply have been a preference of the illustrator, or maybe some pieces have been flipped over the years or to originally conform with the page layout or something.

I asked because several of the RAFM Gears are cast with the main weapon in the left hand, and in the DP9 infantry ranges I've bought I find left-handed figures.

Cool. I'm all for variety. Maybe the pilots are all gingers too!

 warboss wrote:
Cool. I'm all for variety. Maybe the pilots are all gingers too!

I could get behind 'gingers.'

After all, red heads are hot. Well Tachikoma who stars in my novels is hot, as in kick ass and chew gum kind of hot!

That works for me!

 Manchu wrote:
Maybe I’ll look in on this thread again in 2022.

Good news everyone! NK got some starter boxes in stock and I dutifully place an order. Looks like I get to join in the Heavy Gear fun after all!

 Manchu wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Maybe I’ll look in on this thread again in 2022.

Good news everyone! NK got some starter boxes in stock and I dutifully place an order. Looks like I get to join in the Heavy Gear fun after all!

Just an FYI in case you didn't catch up on the messages, your last post back in August regarding the kickstarter (maybe that was the source I was looking for instead of the forum?) was lamenting that the layout keeps getting delayed for the new rulebook. It's still not done and no word on when it will be.

I’m fine playing out of the quick start book for now and also have some ambition to try Tactical.

What factions did ya pick up? Anything in particular cool you're looking forward to playing around with?

I got a few copies of the starter, so North and South armies. I don’t know enough about the game yet to have anything in particular in mind about the forces.

 Manchu wrote:
I got a few copies of the starter, so North and South armies. I don’t know enough about the game yet to have anything in particular in mind about the forces.

The newer plastics or the older metal starters?

The plastics.

 Manchu wrote:
The plastics.

Do you have some of the mid 2000's metals from before? If so, I'm curious to hear what you think of the comparison. It's always good to get some fresh takes in the thread that is frequented largely by mostly veterans of earlier editions (and frequently the first!).

 Manchu wrote:
I got a few copies of the starter, so North and South armies. I don’t know enough about the game yet to have anything in particular in mind about the forces.

Cool, I haven't had a chance to get my hands on any of the new starters except Caprice, but that said, I think the current iteration of Blitz is probably the best Gear combat ruleset and system DP9's ever produced. I'd be really interested in hearing what you think of the game when you get a chance to play it.

This is the first time I have owned any HG product at all. I haven’t assembled anything yet but will report back once I do. Looking over the sprues, I feel pretty happy about the purchase and the world of HG.

The quality of the plastics is really good. Is there a link to the current Blitz rules?

The Living Rulebook is free on DrivThru.

I haven’t really started to delve into the box or quickstart rules yet but I see there are a few options for how one builds the mechs. Any advice on this? This kind of thing is really tough on beginners lol.

 Manchu wrote:
The Living Rulebook is free on DrivThru.

I haven’t really started to delve into the box or quickstart rules yet but I see there are a few options for how one builds the mechs. Any advice on this? This kind of thing is really tough on beginners lol.

I can't give much advice on that regard, unfortunately, about army construction in this new edition, but to be on the safe side you'll need at least some regular grunts, which for the North and Shouth would be regular Hunters/Jägers with LRPs and LACs, so you could start with that.

 Manchu wrote:
The Living Rulebook is free on DrivThru.

I haven’t really started to delve into the box or quickstart rules yet but I see there are a few options for how one builds the mechs. Any advice on this? This kind of thing is really tough on beginners lol.

When you get a chance, go through Gear Grinder. While it's not as comprehensive as something like Battlescribe, it will let you construct lists, and has all the current unit variants and weapons options, with some well developed informational features.



For most of the mech builds, the variants are going to be in either weapons or role. A southern Black Mamba for instance has many different variants, initially just having a medium autocannon and a light rocket pod. A Blazing Black Mamba variant upgrades the Autocannon to a Rotary Laser (a more powerful, but expensive, weapon), while a Brawler Mamba swaps the autocannon for a grenade launcher that's less effective in direct fire but is able to hit targets entrenched targets much harder, and a Razor Fang upgrade is a command variant with a unique head and an R2D2-ish looking bit representing a satellite uplink and additional electronics.

Naming conventions are going to vary, what a Southern force considers a Razor Fang would be a Thunder variant in the North, a Chieftan variant in Peace River, or just "CV" in a NuCoal force, but if you spend some time perusing Gear Grinder you'll get a good idea of what most of the variants are generally about.

 Manchu wrote:
The Living Rulebook is free on DrivThru.

I haven’t really started to delve into the box or quickstart rules yet but I see there are a few options for how one builds the mechs. Any advice on this? This kind of thing is really tough on beginners lol.

If you make a forum account for the DP9 forums you can get the pre-layout 3.0 rules which are a bit easier to wrap your head around.

I've been steadily decreasing the number of GW things on my shelf, which as left room for me to be able to expand into games I've been on the fence about for a while.

So of course I finally took the plunge into Heavy Gear!

I picked up a Northern starter army, Southern starter army, a Mammoth, and a Naga.

So far I've assembled my Northern GP squad with a Headhunter, Hunter gunner, and two Hunters.

I've also built a Grizzly and a Kodiak Destroyer, with the other Grizzly going to round out my first FS support squad.

I feel confident enough to start running small demos once I get my Southern GP squad assembled.

With all that being said, I've got some initial impressions for discussion

The Good:
-Plastics are easy to assemble and have lots of weapon options on the sprue. The fact that they are also all labeled on sprue is a big bonus for a new player!

-Free rules are always a HUGE plus, full stop.

-The price of entry was INCREDIBLY reasonable. I've got two full 150TV armies with spare units to choose from and I'm invested at about $150 since I bought in during their holiday sale.

The Bad:
-I have some of the metal models, and the lack of details in the plastics compared to the metals was surprising. I know that metal captures detail better in 'traditional' miniatures, but I was not expecting that much loss in appearance

-The posability of the plastic models is disappointing. It seems like I'm going to have to cut some models up to start making them a bit more unique. In my Northern GP squad, I've got 'Hunter running forward and shooting', 'Headhunter running forward (but with the other leg up!)', 'Hunter looking to the right' and 'hunter looking to the left'. Not exactly a mind-boggling amount of customization options for poses.

The Ugly:
-I think I've finally figured out what made me so hesitant to get into Heavy Gear and possibly the largest barrier to entry for a new player: ACRONYMS! Seriously, there are so...many...acryonyms. Reading through the rulebook its overwhelming how many acronyms you have to remember for the game, and I think that a lot of new players would take one look at that ruleset and turn tail. After reading through the rulebook several times and watching several youtube batreps, I finally feel confident in the basic rules, and I understand the rulebook, but I really, REALLY wanted to get into this game and I doubt that most new players would work that hard to learn the language that the game is using. IMO, I think the ruleset is solid, simple and complex where appropriate, and a lot of fun, but I think that the wording needs to be reworked so that we can ditch these acronyms or at least stop using as many of them as possible!

Lets discuss!

Thanks for the review! I don't have the new plastics so can't comment about them other than just superficial thoughts from looking at other gamers' pictures. As a veteran of HG since almost the beginning (I got into Blitz on day 1 at gencon but missed out on HG fighter), I agree about the acronyms. It wasn't an issue for me during the first half dozen editions from 1994 to 2014ish but I definitely feel lost in the current version looking at the newly renamed weapons and rules as well.

Great writeup godswildcard, I shared that feedback with the Blitz team. Sounds like you've got awesome starter forces going!

The acronyms issue is a fair one to point out, between the factions, subfactions, individual fighting forces, equipment, weapons, unit types, etc, there's a lot of them, and part of that comes from the real world military scifi aspect of the setting, but it can be daunting. I find myself having a similar problem with GW games these days, due to their naming conventions where everything has to be a copyrightable package, and I couldn't tell you the difference between Space Marines Incursors, Infiltrators, Impulsors, Invictors, Intercessors, Inceptors, etc and it often feels overwhelming

Also as Warboss noted, some things got changed/relabeled between editions (though I think some of that probably helped clarity a bit, particularly removing the numbers like "MRP/36 vs MRP/9" and the associated Rate of Fire (RoF) acronym/ratings of +1/2/3, down to just "MRP").

On the plastics note, I think the Polar plastics show the greatest deviation in detail from the metals, the newer NuCoal, Peace River, and Utopia plastics, while still generally stuck with stiffer poses, are far better detailed and proportioned.

With the Grizzlies, Mammoth, and Kodiak, you'll want something with a Target Designator (TD) like a Cheetah or White Cat (or Iguanas for a Southern force with that Naga) that can be used to Forward Observe (FO) so they can make use of weapons that have the Guided trait (MGM on the Grizzly, LATM/MATM on the Mammoth/Kodiak/Naga) and engage targets that are likely to be out of line of sight and at long ranges, particularly as such FO units are also the guys you'll usually use to jam an opponent's attempts at such.

A friend of mine is starting a Heavy Gear RPG campaign in 2nd Edition (the BEST edition), so I'm painting some Pit Bulls for Peace River SWOS.



Actually my first time trying contrast paints and drybrushing on gear minis, I usually overpaint the heck out of them. Also I tried putting them on GW 32mm bases, which they fit pretty well.

They look cool.

The Pitbulls look fantastic, glorious work there, the blue in particular looks great!

Indeed, they look very nice! One (photography) question I have is whether you took that with a traditional camera or a digital one. It seems to me like it has a zoomed in film grain instead of a more digital compressed pixelated look so figured I'd ask.

 warboss wrote:
Indeed, they look very nice! One (photography) question I have is whether you took that with a traditional camera or a digital one. It seems to me like it has a zoomed in film grain instead of a more digital compressed pixelated look so figured I'd ask.

It's a digital camera, but it's old so image stabilization isn't great and lack of tripod caused the grainyness.

Thanks. It kind of looks cool in a retro way for me... or maybe I'm just a weirdo, lol.

Gonna do some more, as the GM has outlined what gears are available.

Awesome, looking forward to seeing the new Warrior IV's painted

I need to get me some of those.

Those look great, John!

The Phil-era metal minis are simply the best, period.

 HudsonD wrote:
The Phil-era metal minis are simply the best, period.

I see your period and raise you an exclamation point Victor Borge style.

More gears painted.



Note that because they're Peace River SWOS, they're basically limited to the interior of the shield wall of Peace River itself, so I only gave them LACs at most. Anything more is asking for trouble (maybe a frag cannon would get authorized). Much grungier than I usually paint, but less than an hour per mini, so I'm happy.

That looks pretty good for less than one hour per mini. Do you do the contrast paint first or last in regards to the other detail colors?

 warboss wrote:
That looks pretty good for less than one hour per mini. Do you do the contrast paint first or last in regards to the other detail colors?

Right after the basecoat of grey. Then I drybrush it to pick out detail more and do some grey edge highlights.

Thanks and good luck with the RPG. I assume you're playing locally in person if you're painting up minis... or you're the most dedicated remote player ever!

 warboss wrote:
Thanks and good luck with the RPG. I assume you're playing locally in person if you're painting up minis... or you're the most dedicated remote player ever!

We're still on "Stay at Home" order but we're opening up within the next few weeks <knocks wood>.

That's a glorious looking squad there John!

On another note, I'm trying to catalog characters from the original RPG era, and something I noticed in the 1st ed Duelists Handbook (DP9-005), it appears for all the Duelist characters, their "Combat Reactions" and "Contacts" sections got bumped off the page to make room for their Dueling abilities, but the Index appears to still make reference to tons of characters that were supposed to be there but aren't anywhere in the text except the Index. For example, Chali Harixxon is noted in the Index as being on Page 80, under Solitaire's sheet, but absolutely does not exist on that page (or any other outside the Index that I can find). Anyone have any idea what happened there or if there was ever any sort of Errata for that? I can't seem to find anything anywhere.

Between Jungle Drums, DP9-001, 004, 021, 002, and now 005, I'm at almost 700 unique named & generic characters and roughly 1400 page references

I don't recall if I still have my duelist book from 1st but I can take a look it you're going through the pdfs. Maybe the print version is different? And, yeah, those early books were definitely not short on chracters. I've never gone through to see if they reused art for characters or if they were all unique Ghislain art. Have you noticed any repeats?

Found my hardcopy, looks like it went to print like that. Cornice, Jownz, Torvas, Mor, Royal, Polson, Bils, and Alani all have their "Contacts" sections just missing

The original DP9 team could pump out an amazing volume of art, and where repeats get used they're pretty good about mixing it with other stuff to make it had to notice. On the cover, the crowd in the stands is all the character portraits they'd done, but blended well enough to not notice without really looking for example. Haven't noticed any art for a specific character being reused for another yet however.

And my SWOS Units are done (for now)


Warrior IV, Pit Bull, Warrior

Warrior, Pit Bull, Warrior IV

Elans standing in for Bulldog police vehicles

Drones

Sniper Teams

SWOS Troopers (individually based for RPG purposes)

What does SWOS stand for? Looks great btw.

 warboss wrote:
What does SWOS stand for? Looks great btw.

Special Weapons Operations Squad

Sweet looking forces!

John, loving the look of your mechs.

Thread in general, are there any easily accessible totally noob friendly primers for this? My nephew is a total mech head but it it is not a genre that I am at all familiar with so any rules and lore resource that is easy to source and free to access would be greatly appreciated.

 ingtaer wrote:
John, loving the look of your mechs.

Thread in general, are there any easily accessible totally noob friendly primers for this? My nephew is a total mech head but it it is not a genre that I am at all familiar with so any rules and lore resource that is easy to source and free to access would be greatly appreciated.

The Living Rulebook for Heavy Gear Blitz is free in .pdf form of DriveThruRPG https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144759/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Tabletop-Wargaming--Living-Rulebook

Three different mods all posting on one page of this niche thread?!?... Alright, 'fess up... which one of you CEF fans keep reporting John's PRDF models?

LOL well Vaktathi is an old hand.

Out of curiosity...
Okay, because someone asked me on my blog...
Does anyone know what happened to the RAFM HG masters?

 Paint it Pink wrote:
Out of curiosity...
Okay, because someone asked me on my blog...
Does anyone know what happened to the RAFM HG masters?

If the same people in charge of them were the ones who assembled my blisters, they probably mispacked them into someone else's storage unit. Ba-dum dum TIS!

 warboss wrote:

 HudsonD wrote:
The Phil-era metal minis are simply the best, period.

I see your period and raise you an exclamation point Victor Borge style.

Victor Borge! That is an Old School reference!



Ummm, yes Heavy Gear..... ummmm........ I got nothing.....

Edit: It was great to see some painted Heavy Gears in this thread!

 John Prins wrote:

 ingtaer wrote:
John, loving the look of your mechs.

Thread in general, are there any easily accessible totally noob friendly primers for this? My nephew is a total mech head but it it is not a genre that I am at all familiar with so any rules and lore resource that is easy to source and free to access would be greatly appreciated.

The Living Rulebook for Heavy Gear Blitz is free in .pdf form of DriveThruRPG https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144759/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Tabletop-Wargaming--Living-Rulebook

Thanks for the link, have pretty much finished reading the rulebook. Loving the fluff so far but not sure on how well my nephew is going to take to the rules.

Ive been without power since Sunday (still no estimate on restoration) in the PNW here, but loving the attention this thread is getting.

John, your squad is amazing, I wish I could paint that well that fast.

While I dont know the intimate details, the layout is now coming along at a much faster pace for the rulebook now that some of the other RPG crew are on it!


Alas, I havent been able to get much more character cataloging done, made it through the Field and Air support books, and halfway though "Into the Badlands" when the ice storms smacked the power grid

So I printed me a Hunter:



This is wanted to give DP9 money for the longest time.. FFS, I would have even after being told they didn't want me as a customer!

And a scale shot with the official minis through the ages:

Already posted in your thread but love it! It looks like an old school 3 up test model! Are the arms separate shells so you can modify them to be more blitz and less tactical?

Not yet, unfortunately. From what I read, the designer plans to make the poseable and all, but so far there's only this.

Which is great, OTOH.

I agree! It's definitely got the classic asthetics. I was just looking at the arms/forearms/hands and thinking they look better a bit bigger. Is that the 3d model from reddit a month ago or has he tweaked it/reposted it since?

I don't think he's relased anything else, no. I just seprated the file with the head, arms and lrp so that I could support tem better and hollowed the torso.

I love it.

This file was on reddit?

Veldrain wrote:
I love it.

This file was on reddit?

It still is, as far as I know.

Also, I finished it:

It's only been since 1995 >_>

Nicely done! Did you mask off those areas for the camo or do you have an incredibly steady free hand?

...huh, it's all freehand ^^

Showoff...

So, now I seem to need ideas for decently looking north/south 28mm infantry troopers, in case you know of any suitable ones...

Anvil Industry, no question.

 Albertorius wrote:
So, now I seem to need ideas for decently looking north/south 28mm infantry troopers, in case you know of any suitable ones...

Can you post the examples of what they should ideally look like to illustrate the differences between them? I'm guessing the inspiration will be the classic Ghislain rpg art but I don't have access to my remaining books for a while.

 warboss wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
So, now I seem to need ideas for decently looking north/south 28mm infantry troopers, in case you know of any suitable ones...

Can you post the examples of what they should ideally look like to illustrate the differences between them? I'm guessing the inspiration will be the classic Ghislain rpg art but I don't have access to my remaining books for a while.

In setting, all factions used modular armor systems designed to be added onto the main one:

Northern:


Southern:


Now, that doesn't really look like all that unless you see it better:

Northern:






Southern:






Then of course you have officers and gear pilots...










I bought the "Art of Heavy Gear" books a long time ago and they're invaluable for this kind of stuff.

Thanks! I actually bought the first two art books on drivethrurpg many years ago but lost access to them for some reason (reupload by dp9?); they're in my purchase history but it doesn't let me download them. I've emailed drivethrurpg twice about it but they completely ignored both messages.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
At least for the northern troopers, not-cadians might be the closest match with lots options for poses/loadouts.

 warboss wrote:
Thanks! I actually bought the first two art books on drivethrurpg many years ago but lost access to them for some reason (reupload by dp9?); they're in my purchase history but it doesn't let me download them. I've emailed drivethrurpg twice about it but they completely ignored both messages.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
At least for the northern troopers, not-cadians might be the closest match with lots options for poses/loadouts.

The Cadians, particularly the Karskin, have the advantage of having a very similar gas mask design, yes:



That said, the rest of the helmet is quite a bit different, as the northern helmet has a long "front cap" that makes it very visually distinctive:

True... but it seems like an easy fix in 3d modelling (assuming that is the route you go instead of hunting down physical models). You just elongate an egg shape and bisect it twice (once on each plane) and add it to a cadian helmet. You could add the three holes in the front digitally or with a pin vice manually after printing. It might even do a good enough job of covering up the aquilla on the helmet in case its not a separate shell that can be easily removed. For northern light infantry, there are some 3d models of "winter" cadians from one of the old FW books that have the respirators as well.

As for southern troops, the closest thing that comes to mind readily are the various not-tallarns but you'd have to do a head swap obviously to get the distinctive helmet instead of a the turban and goggles they typically have.

edit: If you look up kasrkin on thingiverse and cults, the "hostile environment" guys show up as well.

Wow I would love to see those designs translated into up to date 32mm plastic.

Ghislain’s HG art is so awesome!

As for stand-ins, take a look at North Star’s upcoming plastic kits for Stargrave.

 Albertorius wrote:

Veldrain wrote:
I love it.

This file was on reddit?

It still is, as far as I know.

Also, I finished it:

It's only been since 1995

Oh man that is a gorgeous piece, consider me 200% jealous

Holy CRAP that's amazing, Albetorius!!! Covergirl Hunter, right there. Like...wow. Speechless.

Great thread keeps getting better.

I've probably mentioned this before, but the Pilum power armor that supposedly exists in universe, any artwork for it?

If anyone can find it, Albertorius can!

 Paint it Pink wrote:
Great thread keeps getting better.

I've probably mentioned this before, but the Pilum power armor that supposedly exists in universe, any artwork for it?

P.I.L.U.M. infantry appeared for the very first time on the Blood Debt pdf. There's never been any kind of artwork released for it, at least that I know about, but taking into account the fact that it is described as "the P.I.L.U.M. Turtleshell" and that it's a PA design, we can very much assume that it probably is a powered variant of Paxton's regular "bug eye" armor series:







(This one depicted is the lightest version).

I am unsure about whether they exist anymore or not, and their window of existence might have been very small.

Did they retcon in the bigger power armor size during the blitz era or was that always a thing? That doesn't look significantly larger than the previous armor and I think the blitz era minis were slightly larger than normal for infantry PILUM.

 warboss wrote:
Did they retcon in the bigger power armor size during the blitz era or was that always a thing? That doesn't look significantly larger than the previous armor and I think the blitz era minis were slightly larger than normal for infantry PILUM.

The latest PRDF infantry I'm aware of is this:




These guys are exactly as big as the rest of the terranovan infantry, but as far as I can tell it's regular infantry.

I've gone and downloaded the latest version of the beta book from DrivethruRPG and there's no mention of the pilum infantry for Paxton, just regular ones.

As to retconnig anything, well, I'm not really sure, and I don't think the Pod is either. Pilum turtleshell always felt very much like a last minute occurrence, and as far as I'm aware it only came to be and has been mentioned on a single supplement (Blood Debt). And the only thing there's on it is this:

P.I.L.U.M. INFANTRY
P.I.L.U.M. Turtleshell represents the latest advances made by Paxton Arms in infantry based combat systems. It is essentially an armored, exo-frame that allows infantry personnel benefit from unparalleled levels of survivability and mobility on the battle field.

So yeah, it's both called a turtleshell (and everyone has those) and an armored exoframe... which really, could mean anything.

For reference, this is the definition of "turtleshell armor" from HG:

TURTLESHELL ARMOR
The last type of personal armor is the "turtleshell". This is the hickname for full suits of antiballistic polymer or composite plates. Turtleshell armor often includes attachment points for respirator masks and radio equipment. Turtleshell plates are light but dame resistant. They are designed for optimum comfort and mobility without compromising too much protection. However, turtleshell still restricts the wearer's movement and is tiring to wear over extended periods of time.

So yeah, personally I'd make pilum (if it still exists) a powered turtleshell, maybe a bit bulkier but not enough to be really that noticeable at the N scale of the miniatures over the regular one. Rules wise they'd just be turtleshells, but the squads would either be more heavily armed (more heavy weapons per squad) or simply be able to shoot heavy weapons without the need of stabilizers (...well, I don't know if that's still a thing on the current rules).

Thanks Albertorius.

Was PILUM's acronym ever stated?

 Paint it Pink wrote:
Thanks Albertorius.

Was PILUM's acronym ever stated?

Not that I'm aware of, no.

 Albertorius wrote:

 Paint it Pink wrote:
Thanks Albertorius.

Was PILUM's acronym ever stated?

Not that I'm aware of, no.

Thank you.

It's a shame the Pod hasn't the drive to do them and expand the range of poses for their other infantry too. It's one of the main reasons I started converting the RAFM Gears to use with 15mm figures.

PILUM

Powered Infantry Light.... Ugmented... Mobility.

Everyone knows spelling is different in the future.

Powered Infantry Loading Utility Mainframe

Purely Improbable Light Undersized Mech

Probably Impossible to Look at Until Manufactured

Anyways... as I posted on my printing/painting thread, this is not a Gear, but it's totally a gear-adjacent design:



It's a model from the Anvil Digital Forge Patreon, and comes with multiple high tech/low tech parts, a gun designer that allows you to create dozens of variants, fully poseable arms and legs and a fully detailed/openable cockpit, with pilot options.

Looks great! It reminds me of those infantry mechs that I posted a few months back from the youtube anime.

Well, inspired by this thread reaching page 135, I went away and trolled a few acronym lists and military abbreviations and came up with a selection to choose from (bold are the ones I think work best):

Pace; Pathfinder; Patrol; Personnel; Physical; Platform; Powered; Prototype.

Increased; Individual; Integrated;Interoperable.

Land; Layer; Light; Load; Logical.

Ultimate; Unified; Unit; Unitized; Universal; Upgraded.

Maneuver; Military; Mission; Mobility; Mount; Movement.

PILUM suit: Prototype Individual Load Unitized Maneuver suit.

Please Immediately Loadup on Unbalanced Miniatures?

But that's just from my experiences playtesting the Paxton factor book with Salem (I think that was the lead playtester's and purely Paxton player's name).

 warboss wrote:
Please Immediately Loadup on Unbalanced Miniatures?

But that's just from my experiences playtesting the Paxton factor book with Salem (I think that was the lead playtester's and purely Paxton player's name).

Yep, Saleem was all that and a bag of chips ^^.

...but we didn't get to test the pilum infantry. That was added afterwards, or at least, after I got fed up and stopped playtesting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:
Looks great! It reminds me of those infantry mechs that I posted a few months back from the youtube anime.

Obsolete, right? Yeah, I agree, it's a similar vibe.

Ah I sense a tale of munchkin play testing mayhem; a story vast with min-maxing* favourite factions to beat all into submission.

*NB: not anti min-maxing, I'm just an equal opportunity min-maxer who thinks that all the toys should be the best toys.

 Paint it Pink wrote:
Ah I sense a tale of munchkin play testing mayhem; a story vast with min-maxing* favourite factions to beat all into submission.

*NB: not anti min-maxing, I'm just an equal opportunity min-maxer who thinks that all the toys should be the best toys.

More like a story of an extreme incompent in charge of things he doesn't understand or care about.

 Paint it Pink wrote:
Ah I sense a tale of munchkin play testing mayhem; a story vast with min-maxing* favourite factions to beat all into submission.

*NB: not anti min-maxing, I'm just an equal opportunity min-maxer who thinks that all the toys should be the best toys.

Nah, just some awkward nonsensical conversations satirized below.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Albertorius wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Looks great! It reminds me of those infantry mechs that I posted a few months back from the youtube anime.

Obsolete, right? Yeah, I agree, it's a similar vibe.

Yup, that's the one! I considered getting some of those model kits but they were mostly out of stock (or scalper priced on ebay) at the time. They were way out of scale with anything I had that wouldn't have stopped me, lol. Fortunately, no access to it did.

I certainly had to resist the temptation of picking up their VOTOMS crossover minis ^^.

 Albertorius wrote:
I certainly had to resist the temptation of picking up their VOTOMS crossover minis ^^.

Isn't it exciting though!?! I can't believe it took 25 years but we're finally getting the VOTOMS and Heavy Gear crossover that we've all been waiting for. I wonder if they'll adjust the scales to better match the Hunter/Jager chassis to the classic Scopedog on the tabletop.

 warboss wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
I certainly had to resist the temptation of picking up their VOTOMS crossover minis ^^.

Isn't it exciting though!?! I can't believe it took 25 years but we're finally getting the VOTOMS and Heavy Gear crossover that we've all been waiting for. I wonder if they'll adjust the scales to better match the Hunter/Jager chassis to the classic Scopedog on the tabletop.

What have I missed? I saw the models, and the series, and the VOTOMS homage, but are there rules, wargaming miniatures coming out too?

Well, we've only seen prototypes so far, but it looks like the work has been ongoing for some time, now.

I hope they can get the full poseability at 1/144 scale with pre-assembled and painted models. It's a tough job but if anyone can do it then Robert can!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In case anyone didn't look at the calendar today, it was April 1st and the above was a lighthearted joke.

I didn't respond because I couldn't cope with April Fools day this year.

No worries. Sometimes an April Fools joke is the only thing potentially newsworthy for Heavy Gear that week.

I'd just be happy with Peace River is they actually had some Target Designators. Seriously, here's the list:

Skirmisher TAG (CMD variant) TD1
Dragonfly (hopper) TD1 (available to N/S)
Elan (jeep) TD0 (available to S)
Spotter Infantry TD1 (available to everybody)

Have they taken them out of, like, all the recon Gears then?

 Albertorius wrote:
Have they taken them out of, like, all the recon Gears then?

Pretty much. The stock Skirmisher never had one. In Locked and Loaded if you had the option for Skirmishers in a squad you could usually add Target Designators to 2 of them. Now in the Living Rulebook it's just the Skirmisher TAG, gear-wise, and as a CMD model with ECCM and Satlink it probably has better things to do than TD stuff, and it can't even be added in a Support Unit.

Oh and I forgot to add the Recon Drone to the list of TD models for Peace River.

But how about all the Cheetahs, Iggies and the like? A whole lot of those had TD, pointly the main versions...

I mean, it was one of their main roles!

They still have them.

One important consideration, you may have a command model in a non commander job. So the TAG Skirmisher may be part of a support unit or simply another of the models in the combat group, the ECCM and SatUp makes it a solid forward observer as it is very hard to jam.

 Pointman wrote:


One important consideration, you may have a command model in a non commander job. So the TAG Skirmisher may be part of a support unit or simply another of the models in the combat group, the ECCM and SatUp makes it a solid forward observer as it is very hard to jam.

Sure, but commanders cost extra (aside from CGLs), on top of the TAG variant costing extra, and you CANNOT have a commander in a Support Unit. LRB pg58 A.2.0, 5G. SUs may not have commanders.

And if you want that TD in a FS unit, you have to take the Chieftain Variant (+1 point) on top of TAG (+1 point), and you might as well take 2 of these because one SatUp is less useful than 2 SatUps. And if you're using a SK or ST unit, forget about it. And the ST units are where most of the guided weapons live. Sure, there are non-gear options but they're usually pretty fragile (Drones/Elans), slow (Spotter Teams) or expensive (Dragonfly, which has its own Guided weapons to use). Of these choices, only Spotter Teams have the Comms:1 trait that removes the need for an EW roll, but I probably have to buy transports to get the Spotter Teams to where I would want them.

But if I want to field Anti-Tank Red Bulls or Cataphracts or Coyotes (and I do!), there's really no good options for TD unless I want to drop 36TV on a full RC unit with 2 Skirmisher TAGs (CGL and 2iC) and 2 vanilla Skirmishers. It's VERY GOOD, mind you, but most other armies can do the same in Support Units for 20TV, or get 4 TD carrying units for roughly that cost instead of 2.

I don't think I can add much to a discussion about current edition effectiveness, unfortunately ^^

@John Prins, you can't add commanders on SU, but the model is not a command model, it's just a model.

Commanders can use any model you want, some models are good for commanders because of the comms and stuff, but the TAG models are just models, not commanders.

So, you may add any model with a TAG (TD and extra sauce) to any unit.

They are a bit more expensive compared to other factions (specially the cheap ferret and anolis) but Peace river have that extra cost for extra abilities, and they are objectively better than the cheaper TD platforms, with the ECCM alone they are very solid and then add ECM+ for added staying power. they are comparable to other factions ECCM plus ECM+ platforms.

It's just the way Peace River roll now....unless you want allies or badlanders in your force for cheaper options of course.

 warboss wrote:
No worries. Sometimes an April Fools joke is the only thing potentially newsworthy for Heavy Gear that week.

That's okay. For your viewing pleasure a sneak peak at my latest conversion/rebuild next to the one I did before.

Nicely done! That looks very comprehensive.

Indeed, nicely done. I like the use of the pack gun as I think it's a cool looking design that is unfortunately underused in HG proper due to game mechanics.

 Pointman wrote:
@John Prins, you can't add commanders on SU, but the model is not a command model, it's just a model.

Commanders can use any model you want, some models are good for commanders because of the comms and stuff, but the TAG models are just models, not commanders.

So, you may add any model with a TAG (TD and extra sauce) to any unit.

My understanding is that this is true in the Beta Ruleset, but not the Living Rulebook. Looking at the preview PDF for the 3rd edition HGB on DP9's site, the TAG is just a normal upgrade but it's losing SatUp.

 Albertorius wrote:
Nicely done! That looks very comprehensive.

Thank you. I've been working on taking more pictures for a blog post that should go up this week.

 warboss wrote:
Indeed, nicely done. I like the use of the pack gun as I think it's a cool looking design that is unfortunately underused in HG proper due to game mechanics.

Again, thank you. I like the pack gun too.

Also, I have been working on my rules today, which will when finished, give people the option to use any models they like the look of. Of course, different setting, which may not float peoples boats as much as Terra Nova, which is pretty cool.

Sorry, not sorry, but I've got to share this review of my novel here. Stunned, and then left squealing with delight.

https://www.zeppjamiesonfiction.com/who-let-the-dawgs-out-a-review-of-bad-dog/#disqus_thread

Congrats on the positive review! Possibly stupid question just from skimming it... Is Tachikoma a Japanese name? I'm only familiar with it for GITS robot tanks with cute voices.

 warboss wrote:
Congrats on the positive review? Possibly stupid question just from skimming it... Is Tachikoma a Japanese name? I'm only familiar with it for GITS robot tanks with cute voices.

It's just from GitS: SAC, and they use katakana to spell it, so it's most likely a made up word. Koma can mean spinning top or horse, whereas tachi could mean either standing up or the old sword precursor of the katana, same way as the fuchi from the manga can mean edge, but there's no reason to think they are intentional.

Sort of, sort of not. It's Japanese, but the name comes from Ghost in the Shell. I just liked it, and stole it.

I've worked out a reason for the characters name that make sense in the setting of my books. I've not written said explanation within the story, because it would be too easy to find myself writing, " As you know Bob, Tachikoma is a made up name using the katakana for tachi meaning cutting, sharp or bright, and koma meaning horse, or spinning top."

And so on and so forth.

Perhaps I should've called her Tachikami, where kami means spirit as it would fit her character better.

But there is a very good reason, or at least a reason why she's called Tachikoma, and it is an allusion to GitS for reasons! No spoilers from me. All will be revealed if and when revealed.

Glad to hear about the positive review! I've still got it on my shelf in the "to read" section.

Speaking of GitS, I need to rewatch the series again soon, I've got the theme song stuck in my head

So 3rd edition of Blitz is up on DriveThruRPG. They're still working on the 'all forces' army lists.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/355141/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Tabletop-Wargaming--3rd-Edition-Rules

 John Prins wrote:
So 3rd edition of Blitz is up on DriveThruRPG. They're still working on the 'all forces' army lists.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/355141/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Tabletop-Wargaming--3rd-Edition-Rules

Can't help but notice that the layout is 95% the old layout but with new page borders ^^

Albertorius wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Congrats on the positive review? Possibly stupid question just from skimming it... Is Tachikoma a Japanese name? I'm only familiar with it for GITS robot tanks with cute voices.

It's just from GitS: SAC, and they use katakana to spell it, so it's most likely a made up word. Koma can mean spinning top or horse, whereas tachi could mean either standing up or the old sword precursor of the katana, same way as the fuchi from the manga can mean edge, but there's no reason to think they are intentional.

Thanks! I could see a spinning horse being a cool name given the mobility it has.

Paint it Pink wrote:Sort of, sort of not. It's Japanese, but the name comes from Ghost in the Shell. I just liked it, and stole it.

I've worked out a reason for the characters name that make sense in the setting of my books. I've not written said explanation within the story, because it would be too easy to find myself writing, " As you know Bob, Tachikoma is a made up name using the katakana for tachi meaning cutting, sharp or bright, and koma meaning horse, or spinning top."

And so on and so forth.

Perhaps I should've called her Tachikama, where kami means spirit as it would fit her character better.

But there is a very good reason, or at least a reason why she's called Tachikoma, and it is an allusion to GitS for reasons! No spoilers from me. All will be revealed if and when revealed.

In that case I won't question further! I was just curious if it was a common name in the culture of it the inspiration was what I was thinking.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 John Prins wrote:
So 3rd edition of Blitz is up on DriveThruRPG. They're still working on the 'all forces' army lists.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/355141/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Tabletop-Wargaming--3rd-Edition-Rules

Congrats to dp9 and the fans. I hope the added wait was put to good use. Did your TD concerns get addressed in the final (for now) version of the rules?

 Albertorius wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
So 3rd edition of Blitz is up on DriveThruRPG. They're still working on the 'all forces' army lists.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/355141/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Tabletop-Wargaming--3rd-Edition-Rules

Can't help but notice that the layout is 95% the old layout but with new page borders ^^

I wasn't expecting a massive visual upgrade.

 John Prins wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
So 3rd edition of Blitz is up on DriveThruRPG. They're still working on the 'all forces' army lists.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/355141/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Tabletop-Wargaming--3rd-Edition-Rules

Can't help but notice that the layout is 95% the old layout but with new page borders ^^

I wasn't expecting a massive visual upgrade.

No, no me neither... but I kinda was expecting something, given how long it has taken. This amount of recycling kinda tells me they didn't do much for a long period of time.

You got borders, mon ami! And, yes, I know that's apparently a movie french cliche.

So, I've had a bit of an inside view on the rulebook development, and while I can't comment on details, it's way later than intended, but I genuinely think it's a substantially superior product for the extra time. It's a lot cleaner read, a lot of effort went into the wording, and while it's not a radically different style, there's definitely some visual improvements over the 2.0 book (the Traits section for instance), though admittedly no new art (sadly). A lot of thought and effort went into it by some insanely dedicated people. I think anyone new getting into Heavy Gear for the first time is going to have a far easier time with this book than any other version of Blitz.

I'm just sad it didn't hazard stripe borders like I advocated for

 Vaktathi wrote:
So, I've had a bit of an inside view on the rulebook development, and while I can't comment on details, it's way later than intended, but I genuinely think it's a substantially superior product for the extra time. It's a lot cleaner read, a lot of effort went into the wording, and while it's not a radically different style, there's definitely some visual improvements over the 2.0 book (the Traits section for instance), though admittedly no new art (sadly). A lot of thought and effort went into it by some insanely dedicated people. I think anyone new getting into Heavy Gear for the first time is going to have a far easier time with this book than any other version of Blitz.

I'm just sad it didn't hazard stripe borders like I advocated for

Oh, just to be clear, I was not commenting on the actual contents or writing quality of the book, just on the presentation.

Then again, had they gone for the stripes, the book would have looked 100% like the old ones...

 Vaktathi wrote:
So, I've had a bit of an inside view on the rulebook development, and while I can't comment on details, it's way later than intended, but I genuinely think it's a substantially superior product for the extra time. It's a lot cleaner read, a lot of effort went into the wording(...)

Are you saying the FO rules might actually be playable now ?

Text aside, from the preview, the layout looks... Really rushed. Like somebody remembered they had to release a book after a couple years, and did it all over a week.

Yeah there's not much in the way of new visuals, particularly art, most of the effort has been in ensuring readability and moving the text away from reading like a technical manual. If there's anything that looks particularly rushed or haphazard, feel free to point it out and I'll bring it up for attention.

FO should be pretty simple. Make your EW test with the spotter, if successful, pick a Combat Group, any model in that CG can react with an indirect fire weapon. Indirect fire weapons suffer a -1D6 to hit penalty, FOing adds +1D6 (so cancels out the penalty), and if its Guided with a TD it adds a second dice to the attack (for a net +1D6). If there are any questions on that or stuff that needs to be cleared up, feel free to hit me up about it.

bobloblah wrote:
I've gone back to Tactical recently, and realised I'd forgotten how smooth it is in comparison, even on the tabletop (i.e. Skirmish scale). It's also remarkably easy to teach someone how to play, unlike Blitz! One of the only holes, I'm finding, is the lack of army lists in Tac for pick-up-and-play games. I started looking at the barebones stuff in SilCore Miniatures as a starting point, and tried to solicit feedback on the DP9 Forums, but the Older Miniatures Rules forum is pretty dead over there. I'd be interested in any house-ruled lists anyone has come up with for Tac or SilCore over the years, or any feedback anyone can give on the structure of the SilCore Miniatures' lists.

Recently, I have done the same (going back to Tactical) and I have no idea why I let it collect dust on my shelf for so long. It's become my main game right now and I'm having a ton of fun with it again—it's great to be back on Terra Nova! I think you may be going about it wrong though... Heavy Gear never had army composition rules and it is frankly better off for it. Treat it like an old school historical wargame and tailor the force composition to the scenario at hand and you'll have more fun. Come up with wacky situations, like a group of Stone Masons having to defend themselves against a lost platoon of GREL that stumble upon their logging site in the jungle. Come up with creative scenarios like a cadre of Swamp Jägers having to stealth there way across a river at night and evade patrols of ATV infantry supported by Klemm light tanks. That's the best way to play Tactical in my mind. It doesn't have to be "balanced"... asymmetrical games are much more fun in my experience. Set reasonable objectives given the relative force disparities and see how well each side does compared to what you would have expected. I honestly don't even look at TV when I build a scenario anymore: I just take a look at each side and adjust to taste. If I want to play a scenario with obviously unequal forces, then I might give the stronger side harder objectives or some other handicap. Likewise, I might give the smaller force multiple different routes to victory. If you make it an art and not a science, you'll have a lot more fun with it.

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWS!!!!

EldoniusRex, of Battletech fame, joins Heavy Gear!

Will that be for the minis game or the rpg? Is the rpg still an upcoming thing? I'm not familiar with his work but some news is better than no news I suppose.

So, someone forwarded me this:

https://store.dp9.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=140

It seems DP9 has started selling 3d files, which is a move I fully endorse. As soon as they sell Heavy Gear stuff, I will buy it.

That said, I think this would be the perfect opportunity for them to address their horrible non-USA distribution issues. Now they have decided to go this route, they should embrace it and sell files for private hobbyists like me, but also license the commercial use of the files so that printers can produce minis locally and sell them.

That could certainly help with that.

EDITED TO ADD: Well, I will buy them except if they are the 3d models from the KS, particularly the North/South ones, because those were 1) made for the limitations they had for plastic sprue production, and 2) utterly horrible.

 warboss wrote:
Will that be for the minis game or the rpg? Is the rpg still an upcoming thing? I'm not familiar with his work but some news is better than no news I suppose.

Don't know, and don't know. EldoniusRex is internet-famous from, at least in part, doing a lot of the art for TexTalksBattletech. I can definitely see some Battletech in that Golem, but the overall finish makes it look like it would not be out of place next to one of Barbe's, so I am definitely looking forward to more.

And wouldn't that make a GREAT Protomech??

 Firebreak wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Will that be for the minis game or the rpg? Is the rpg still an upcoming thing? I'm not familiar with his work but some news is better than no news I suppose.

Don't know, and don't know. EldoniusRex is internet-famous from, at least in part, doing a lot of the art for TexTalksBattletech. I can definitely see some Battletech in that Golem, but the overall finish makes it look like it would not be out of place next to one of Barbe's, so I am definitely looking forward to more.

And wouldn't that make a GREAT Protomech??

Thanks and agreed. I'm glad they have some fresh blood. I may love Ghislain's classic HG art but that appreciation (nostalgia?) doesn't seem to carry over to newer fans.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Albertorius wrote:
So, someone forwarded me this:

https://store.dp9.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=140

It seems DP9 has started selling 3d files, which is a move I fully endorse. As soon as they sell Heavy Gear stuff, I will buy it.

That said, I think this would be the perfect opportunity for them to address their horrible non-USA distribution issues. Now they have decided to go this route, they should embrace it and sell files for private hobbyists like me, but also license the commercial use of the files so that printers can produce minis locally and sell them.

That could certainly help with that.

EDITED TO ADD: Well, I will buy them except if they are the 3d models from the KS, particularly the North/South ones, because those were 1) made for the limitations they had for plastic sprue production, and 2) utterly horrible.

Also agree. I think testing it out on a dead franchise might be a good move. I doubt they're cannibalizing any sales as likely those with a Weird War II itch have been scratching it in 28mm with Dust (which I think just closed down again). I'd probably personally recommend doing Jovian Chronicles next instead of moving onto HG for the same reason. That's in addition to the fact you mentioned that the most popular Polar gear designs were very compromised to work within the strict technical and financial limitations they had.

Gear Krieg was already a great choice to start with, and Heavy Gear would certainly be the last. Jovian Chronicles sits right between them, so I agree that'd be the more likely choice vs cannibalizing active HG sales. Thing is, selling into a dead space seems like a bad idea.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Gear Krieg was already a great choice to start with, and Heavy Gear would certainly be the last. Jovian Chronicles sits right between them, so I agree that'd be the more likely choice vs cannibalizing active HG sales. Thing is, selling into a dead space seems like a bad idea.

Welcome back! I'm starting to wonder if you're a human-cicada hybrid though... Or a career criminal.

Thanks!

My absence is actually much, much simpler: I switched from wargaming to mostly PC gaming, so I didn't have much to say on Dakka.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Thanks!

My absence is actually much, much simpler: I switched from wargaming to mostly PC gaming, so I didn't have much to say on Dakka.

Bah! That's never stopped me. I just default to shouting at cloud sprues and telling those damn kids to get their figs off my flock!

Oh, I did plenty enough of that, too! Haha!

Oh, hey, nice to see you, JHDD, long time no see .

JC models would also be very welcome, actually, there's some cool stuff there, and being as they are gundam ripoffs for the most part, they are generally useable in multiple other settings, particularly if the models are well designed and modular enough to mix and match.

Gear Krieg is cool, yeah, but it's much less generally useable than JC or HG would be.

Thanks, Al hope you're doing well.

Yeah, JC never took off, but at least HG got a lot of stuff.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Thanks, Al hope you're doing well.

Yeah, JC never took off, but at least HG got a lot of stuff.

Well enough, thanks

So, FB just told me that DP9 has released an open beta for the new edition of the RPG. Just downloaded, and... hm.

Well.

The first impression is that a regular docx file without real formatting makes this much harder to read than it should. A basic layout with at least some section separation, titles of varying size to see where you are and the like would improve readability immensely. As it is, right now, it just feels like... well, like what it is, a massive wall of text. Doesn't really help retention.

Before anything else I would advice some slight format to be applied here, probably with some images to help the mind remember where stuff is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This is what I mean. The document, as presented, is literally a docx file, without formatting other than using the default titles:



This took me literally 5 minutes, and about 4 of those spent looking up and installing fonts. I do believe it improves readability quite a bit.

I agree on the increase in both legibility as well as professionalism in appearance even for a "beta" document. First impressions are important.

Also, it's this kind of toxic fan behavior/effort that got you banned on the official forums. Will you ever learn?!?!

Apparently not xD

I get that it's a beta, but your version is so much cleaner and easier to read.

You should send that sample to the Pod, and ask them to PAY YOU to format their stuff so it looks like a professional, commercial document. Seriously. It'd be a huge boon to the community.
____

Oh, you're banned by the Pod. Sorry, nevermind.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I get that it's a beta, but your version is so much cleaner and easier to read.

You should send that sample to the Pod, and ask them to PAY YOU to format their stuff so it looks like a professional, commercial document. Seriously. It'd be a huge boon to the community.
____

Oh, you're banned by the Pod. Sorry, nevermind.

It's funny because over at FB I got asked to do it for them. I did politely decline, as I'm busy with some other stuff, but I gave them some pointers.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Gear Krieg was already a great choice to start with, and Heavy Gear would certainly be the last. Jovian Chronicles sits right between them, so I agree that'd be the more likely choice vs cannibalizing active HG sales. Thing is, selling into a dead space seems like a bad idea.

3D-printed HG Fleet Scale! I know Dreadnaughts was DOA, but Fleet Scale is another little obscure Pod game that could be GREAT for printing. The setting doesn't really lend itself to 40k-style, Apocalypse-size matches, but... damn it'd look cool to have 300 teensy gears and a squadron of landships.

 Albertorius wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I get that it's a beta, but your version is so much cleaner and easier to read.

You should send that sample to the Pod, and ask them to PAY YOU to format their stuff so it looks like a professional, commercial document. Seriously. It'd be a huge boon to the community.
____

Oh, you're banned by the Pod. Sorry, nevermind.

It's funny because over at FB I got asked to do it for them. I did politely decline, as I'm busy with some other stuff, but I gave them some pointers.

 Albertorius wrote:

It's funny because over at FB I got asked to do it for them. I did politely decline, as I'm busy with some other stuff, but I gave them some pointers.

I imagine this is how it played out when someone unaware of Robert's history with constructive criticism asked you to do the work to be done for peanuts/exposure/whatever...



Regardless, I hope they take the pointers to heart and put in the effort to make it more presentable even as a beta document.

Fleet Scale: The badly-conceived effort to convert beloved mecha games into uninspired naval battles that nobody plays in an effort to ape the success of Warhammer 40,000 Epic without understanding that Epic is actually about the awesomeness of GIANT ROBOTS.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Fleet Scale: The badly-conceived effort to convert beloved mecha games into uninspired naval battles that nobody plays in an effort to ape the success of Warhammer 40,000 Epic without understanding that Epic is actually about the awesomeness of GIANT ROBOTS.

I mean, the giant robots of Epic are alright, but for me it's always been about the actual, for good, battles that you can depict, instead of the skirmishes of 40k of the time or the parking lots full of stuff of the current 40k.

Fleet scale was... well the minis were nice, but honestly? Rather than that I think something like an "Interpolar War" boardgame with landships as mobile bases and the like could have been more interesting.

And of course, the setting changes intended for the landships game were kind of naff.

Al, that's not quite right. Epic 40k's popularity should really be seen as an extension of Titan Legions, rather than as 'hex-and-chit strategy boardgaming with GW minis'. If you look at what survives today, it's Adeptus Titanicus via Forgeworld. GIANT ROBOTS!

Same reason why Heavy Gear & Jovian Chronicles are vastly more popular than Fleet Scale: GIANT ROBOTS.

The popularity of giant robots as a sales driver is really hard to understate. A SF / near-future game with giant robots will invariably outsell the version without giant robots, in the same way that a fantasy game with dragons will invariably outsell the version without dragons. Trying to sell battleships as a replacement for giant robots just doesn't work for the general public.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Al, that's not quite right. Epic 40k's popularity should really be seen as an extension of Titan Legions, rather than as 'hex-and-chit strategy boardgaming with GW minis'. If you look at what survives today, it's Adeptus Titanicus via Forgeworld. GIANT ROBOTS!

Same reason why Heavy Gear & Jovian Chronicles are vastly more popular than Fleet Scale: GIANT ROBOTS.

The popularity of giant robots as a sales driver is really hard to understate. A SF / near-future game with giant robots will invariably outsell the version without giant robots, in the same way that a fantasy game with dragons will invariably outsell the version without dragons. Trying to sell battleships as a replacement for giant robots just doesn't work for the general public.

Well, I mean for myself, of course ^^. I do like titans, but I'm into Epic for the bigass armies:



Then again, I usually get my giant robots fix with Battletech or Heavy Gear, or the Lancer RPG these days.

I have a fond, but very particular, memory of Epic that consists of a few stands of tactical marines, Rhinos and Land Raiders painted very badly in the thickest application of Blood Angels Red you have ever seen. Now that I have seen those sweet AF epic minis I wish I could get my hands on a copy and do it right this time!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Al, that's not quite right. Epic 40k's popularity should really be seen as an extension of Titan Legions, rather than as 'hex-and-chit strategy boardgaming with GW minis'. If you look at what survives today, it's Adeptus Titanicus via Forgeworld. GIANT ROBOTS!

Same reason why Heavy Gear & Jovian Chronicles are vastly more popular than Fleet Scale: GIANT ROBOTS.

The popularity of giant robots as a sales driver is really hard to understate. A SF / near-future game with giant robots will invariably outsell the version without giant robots, in the same way that a fantasy game with dragons will invariably outsell the version without dragons. Trying to sell battleships as a replacement for giant robots just doesn't work for the general public.

So we need a game with dragons FIGHTING giant robots?

 Firebreak wrote:

So we need a game with dragons FIGHTING giant robots?

Monsterpocalypse has that covered. No need to distract Robert; let him focus exclusively on HG and JC!

https://monsterpocalypse.com/

But seriously, DP9, I don't mind giving you money for stuff I want, if you make it and it's good.

Just... do it.

I have to admit that I kind of like the hover ball riding mech.

Heh, those look fun.

What size are they supposed to be?

No idea if it's changed in nublitz. Previously I think golems were typically under four meters (3-4) whereas most gears are over (4-5).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Firebreak wrote:
NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWS!!!!

EldoniusRex, of Battletech fame, joins Heavy Gear!

If the above hoverball golem is his work then I'd say he is making a positive contribution already.

Yeah that one looks nice. If I were to guess, those torsos look very much Gear sized (and Gear-like, which I'm less enthused about, as Golems were supposed to derive from other kinds of machines, but whatevs)

The other one with the wings, I'm not as sold about.

I don't really have any use for them as HG stuff, but it's always nice to see new mecha minis to salvage. Particularly if they do release 3d printable files, as buying physical from the Pod at this side of the pond is simply not happening.

The Centaur will be Gear sized, not sure exactly how big the Griffon will be. The original APES/Golem stuff is a bit wonky in a number of different ways, so they've been "promoted" in a sense with their Blitz rules (particularly because directly translating their original rules gets you something that makes an Asp look like a King Cobra). Their models are smaller than a Hunter or Jaeger, but not really like power-armored infantry sized as they're sort of originally presented 20 years ago.

If anyone's had a chance to peruse and fiddle with the beta RPG rules and has any thoughts, fire away. Formatting concerns (noted) aside, if anyone gets a chance to try building characters or playing, we'd really love to hear what worked well and liked, and what didn't work so well.

 warboss wrote:

 Firebreak wrote:
NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWS!!!!

EldoniusRex, of Battletech fame, joins Heavy Gear!

If the above hoverball golem is his work then I'd say he is making a positive contribution already.

It is indeed!

 Firebreak wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Al, that's not quite right. Epic 40k's popularity should really be seen as an extension of Titan Legions, rather than as 'hex-and-chit strategy boardgaming with GW minis'. If you look at what survives today, it's Adeptus Titanicus via Forgeworld. GIANT ROBOTS!

Same reason why Heavy Gear & Jovian Chronicles are vastly more popular than Fleet Scale: GIANT ROBOTS.

The popularity of giant robots as a sales driver is really hard to understate. A SF / near-future game with giant robots will invariably outsell the version without giant robots, in the same way that a fantasy game with dragons will invariably outsell the version without dragons. Trying to sell battleships as a replacement for giant robots just doesn't work for the general public.

So we need a game with dragons FIGHTING giant robots?

Yes, basically Evangelion / Pacific Rim / Ultraman... Also robot dragons fighting dragons, such as Mechagodzilla vs Godzilla.

And yes, while there are players who like the small scale small fry, that's not what sells Epic to the general pubic. If it were, GW would still sell Epic.
____

The Centaur semi-Gears are OK, but the sword is a little goofy - make it a lance, though...

 Vaktathi wrote:
The Centaur will be Gear sized, not sure exactly how big the Griffon will be. The original APES/Golem stuff is a bit wonky in a number of different ways, so they've been "promoted" in a sense with their Blitz rules (particularly because directly translating their original rules gets you something that makes an Asp look like a King Cobra). Their models are smaller than a Hunter or Jaeger, but not really like power-armored infantry sized as they're sort of originally presented 20 years ago.

If anyone's had a chance to peruse and fiddle with the beta RPG rules and has any thoughts, fire away. Formatting concerns (noted) aside, if anyone gets a chance to try building characters or playing, we'd really love to hear what worked well and liked, and what didn't work so well.

 warboss wrote:

 Firebreak wrote:
NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWS!!!!

EldoniusRex, of Battletech fame, joins Heavy Gear!

If the above hoverball golem is his work then I'd say he is making a positive contribution already.

It is indeed!

I have yet to have enough time to actually do a read over of the beta, unfortunately (I'm seriously pretty swamped... I have multiple projects going on, but mainly I have to translate a 425-pages book, like, now... and the day job), but I'm interested in seeing what your ideas are.

 Albertorius wrote:


I have yet to have enough time to actually do a read over of the beta, unfortunately (I'm seriously pretty swamped... I have multiple projects going on, but mainly I have to translate a 425-pages book, like, now... and the day job), but I'm interested in seeing what your ideas are.

Out of interest, what do you translate?

 Paint it Pink wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:


I have yet to have enough time to actually do a read over of the beta, unfortunately (I'm seriously pretty swamped... I have multiple projects going on, but mainly I have to translate a 425-pages book, like, now... and the day job), but I'm interested in seeing what your ideas are.

Out of interest, what do you translate?

Usually RPGs, which is a bit of everything, really xD. Mainly L5R (I've been the line translator for the last... about 16 years) but I've done WFRP, Warhammer 40k, Star Wars, Alien, Dust, Heavy Gear, Eclipse Phase, Tenra Basho Zero... you know, stuff ^^

I didn't know you worked on 40k too.

 warboss wrote:
I didn't know you worked on 40k too.

Yeah, I did text revisions for the Dark Heresy core rulebook and translated the Edge of Darkness free adventure, Purge the Unclean and The Inquisitor's Handbook, plus the Rogue Trader core rulebook (which unfortunately didn't actually get released due to some license kerfuffle).

 Albertorius wrote:


Yeah, I did text revisions for the Dark Heresy core rulebook and translated the Edge of Darkness free adventure, Purge the Unclean and The Inquisitor's Handbook, plus the Rogue Trader core rulebook (which unfortunately didn't actually get released due to some license kerfuffle).

Now I gotta ask what languages you translate to and from? Curiosity compels me.

 Paint it Pink wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:


Yeah, I did text revisions for the Dark Heresy core rulebook and translated the Edge of Darkness free adventure, Purge the Unclean and The Inquisitor's Handbook, plus the Rogue Trader core rulebook (which unfortunately didn't actually get released due to some license kerfuffle).

Now I gotta ask what languages you translate to and from? Curiosity compels me.

xD. As a general rule, just spanish and english. I can mostly read french but I'd really feel like faking it if someone asked me to, but I've done some japanese translations too. I don't read kanji, but I do read romaji.

Well, also catalonian and galician, but that's mostly due to spanish, and Italian. All being romance languages, it would be harder than spanish, of course, but thoroughly doable.

IIRC, Italian is much closer to Spanish than Catalan, no?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
IIRC, Italian is much closer to Spanish than Catalan, no?

Up to a point, but yes. Catalan draws equally from french, whereas italian and spanish got influenced by the other for a long time (about three centuries), so they drew nearer.

Thanks for clarifying. I remember my brother basically being semi-fluent in Italy leveraging his Spanish proficiency. OTOH, when I was in Barcelona, it definitely didn't sound Spanish. LOL

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Thanks for clarifying. I remember my brother basically being semi-fluent in Italy leveraging his Spanish proficiency. OTOH, when I was in Barcelona, it definitely didn't sound Spanish. LOL

Some of it sounds really close, some of it sounds gibberish ^^. I basically spent my childhood summers in Alicante watching Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump in catalan, so I guess I got it by ear, at least.

OTOH, an italian friend of mine always says that to speak italian you just need to speak spanish with gesturing with your hand (you know what gesture I mean ), so there's that xD.

EDIT: Oh, if you know people who reads spanish and is interested in giant robots, this is one of the things I'm working on:

https://mega.nz/file/Vd5m3ShY#5qDTqKA1zt6A2CGRBP3Fw4GHjXQIKztE6fq_uIjra_8

The free version of the Lancer RPG, which I'm translating and laying out in word when I have free time. Just two manufactures to go and it will be complete.

Ah, I remember that KS. Nice project.

 Albertorius wrote:

EDIT: Oh, if you know people who reads spanish and is interested in giant robots, this is one of the things I'm working on:

https://mega.nz/file/Vd5m3ShY#5qDTqKA1zt6A2CGRBP3Fw4GHjXQIKztE6fq_uIjra_8

The free version of the Lancer RPG, which I'm translating and laying out in word when I have free time. Just two manufactures to go and it will be complete.

Cool. Thanks for taking the time to reveal your super secret romance language skills. Colour me impressed. More impressed because language skills are frangible, so you must have the language down solid.

I use to be able to hold light conversational Japanese. Mostly platitudes, but it was enough, which I learnt as an Aikido senpai so that my Sensai wouldn't lose face with visiting Sensei from Tokyo who spoke Eastern Tokyo ben, whereas he spoke in Western Kyushu ben.

As a gaijin, even a batsugun gaijin desu, I have no face to lose.

Albertorius romance skills confirmed. Truly the renaissance gamer... Weeb, painter, printer, and now a romantic multilinguist!

 Paint it Pink wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

EDIT: Oh, if you know people who reads spanish and is interested in giant robots, this is one of the things I'm working on:

https://mega.nz/file/Vd5m3ShY#5qDTqKA1zt6A2CGRBP3Fw4GHjXQIKztE6fq_uIjra_8

The free version of the Lancer RPG, which I'm translating and laying out in word when I have free time. Just two manufactures to go and it will be complete.

Cool. Thanks for taking the time to reveal your super secret romance language skills. Colour me impressed. More impressed because language skills are frangible, so you must have the language down solid.

I use to be able to hold light conversational Japanese. Mostly platitudes, but it was enough, which I learnt as an Aikido senpai so that my Sensai wouldn't lose face with visiting Sensei from Tokyo who spoke Eastern Tokyo ben, whereas he spoke in Western Kyushu ben.

As a gaijin, even a batsugun gaijin desu, I have no face to lose.

That's mostly where I was at, honestly. I can say platitudes, talk about the weather and things like that and tourist stuff, plus a lor of weird obscure samurai stuff that makes japanese eye me askance ^^. I can't read it for gak, as I said, and I understand it for the most part when spoken, but above all I know when I know when the subs are wrong xD. I usually refer to it saing I know "donkey-cave japanese".

Likewise, I can only really speak spanish and english, but I usually understand well enough. In some places it's basically a survival skill, as there are parts of Valencia and Catalonia that won't speak to you in spanish to save their lives ^^

 Albertorius wrote:
there are parts of Valencia and Catalonia that won't speak to you in spanish to save their lives ^^

Well, given the history, nobody would blame them any more than anyone blames the Irish for not wanting to see an idiot in orange waving a Union Jack singing "God Save the Queen".

So regarding layout for the RPG, a couple chapters have been posted with a test scheme.

 Vaktathi wrote:
So regarding layout for the RPG, a couple chapters have been posted with a test scheme.

That certainly looks much easier to follow, so I'd call it a success . You might be losing a bit too much realstate with the borders, but being a digital file it doesn't really matter and it clearly spells out what's in the page.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
there are parts of Valencia and Catalonia that won't speak to you in spanish to save their lives ^^

Well, given the history, nobody would blame them any more than anyone blames the Irish for not wanting to see an idiot in orange waving a Union Jack singing "God Save the Queen".

Well, being an donkey-cave and an idiot is one thing, trying to buy bread is quite another. And using languages to obfuscate communication or to be another, different kind of donkey-cave, is a pet peeve of mine.

 Albertorius wrote:


That's mostly where I was at, honestly. I can say platitudes, talk about the weather and things like that and tourist stuff, plus a lor of weird obscure samurai stuff that makes japanese eye me askance ^^. I can't read it for gak, as I said, and I understand it for the most part when spoken, but above all I know when I know when the subs are wrong xD. I usually refer to it saing I know "donkey-cave japanese".

Likewise, I can only really speak spanish and english, but I usually understand well enough. In some places it's basically a survival skill, as there are parts of Valencia and Catalonia that won't speak to you in spanish to save their lives ^^

So stealing "donkey-cave Japanese," which it seems to be a replacement for 'arsehole' Japanese. Like you, I watch subbed anime and go, That's not what they said.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Seems I bypassed the word filter with a British English spelling of donkey-cave.

You have guessed correctly

More from EldoniusRex and Eden.

Those are even more clearly Gear-like, at least from the waist up. No SMS though, it seems, but jump jets? Skeet ^_^. Somebody should tell them about Terra Nova and how they deal with stuff that flies

The animus cockpit must be snug, what with that gun protruding from it.

Firebreak wrote:More from EldoniusRex and Eden.

I actually like the look but, in my own princess and the pea sort of way, it strays a bit too close to gears and would be better suited to an experimental NuCoal design or somesuch. I understand though that it can easily be reasoned in the fluff that the second invasion equipment across all the invading factions was influenced by the victorious gears encountered during the first. I was ok with the previous one being very gear like because of the hoverball sled replacing the legs. YMMV. I can't fault the art though so I'm glad he's coming through for HG's Eden faction.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Albertorius wrote:

The animus cockpit must be snug, what with that gun protruding from it.

The pilot either sits like a proper young lady from the 1950's



or the pilot has adapted the Riker Maneuver for a recumbent position to avoid the gun mount.

My own personal thought with the Animus, particularly in that red paintjob with those legs, was that it looked very Khador

I think regarding the pilot, the chest gun would be tucked under the pilots legs/feet, if the pilot is situated roughly similar to the Kodiak cockpit (best detailed example I can reference) with their feet against the center of the chest. Not sure if that's exactly how Eldon imagined that, but that's what I'd guess.

I suppose that would depend on the size of the golem. Traditionally they were smaller than gears (especially a relative behemoth like the Kodiak) but that size can easily change with a faction update with new equipment.

Stumbling back into this thread as I recently came across some metal HG minis in my lead pile. IIRC, I bought them around a decade ago because they were used/cheap and they looked cool. Got some infantry too.

Never did get around to assembling and painting them, but the original reasoning pretty much describes why I'm holding on to them now. Even though the gears don't fit a clear niche in my 1/144 Mech Attack forces (rebased MechWarrior clix) being too big for infantry and too small for battlemechs they really are cool figures with sort of a Votoms vibe about them. Maybe using one Gear as a squad of heavy infantry?

Quick question to the HG historians. I seem to recall about a decade or more ago seeing a nice lot of larger scale HG minis at a FLGS gaming auction. I don't remember the exact scale but I remember thinking they might be cool to field with my rebased 1/144 MechWarrior clix figures. I was quickly outbid, but the memory of the figs stuck around.

Can anyone let me know about how tall these early HG Gear figs would have been?

Always good to have a new or returning voice in the thread. The larger scale gears you're likely thinking of were the first couple years worth of (1/87?) RAFM releases that were replaced with the tactical scale 1/144 line in the late 90s around the release of the 2nd edition of the rpg. Around 2005ish, the tactical scale minis were replaced with the Blitz scale line that came out with the same named edition of the game. They were ostensibly the same scale but less exactly proportioned to the art (more exaggerated instead) with a wider variance in relative size difference between classes of gears (scout, trooper, elite, fire support) which made it noticeably smaller scale for scouts and larger for the big guys. Around 2016, they crowdfunded plastic gears with the release of a new edition (still called blitz but generally referred by me at least as nublitz) still in the same scale. There is significant overlap between the eras other than the initial RAFM which were incompatible due to their noticeably larger size.

Here's an old pic I took comparing similar gears in both with the blitz era metals in front and rafm in back like a grade school class photo.

Oh man, those RAFM figs are cool. Looks like they would be credible Light -maybe even medium- mechs along side MWDA figs.

I'm pretty sure the metal stuff I have is Blitz, but if I dig it out again, I'll post here and you all can let me know what I've got. I know the infantry is Blitz, but the Gears came in a multi-section recloseable blister pack with no other paper or markings.

Really got to get around to painting these and the handful of metal CAVs I've got in the pile...

 Eilif wrote:
Stumbling back into this thread as I recently came across some metal HG minis in my lead pile. IIRC, I bought them around a decade ago because they were used/cheap and they looked cool. Got some infantry too.

Never did get around to assembling and painting them, but the original reasoning pretty much describes why I'm holding on to them now. Even though the gears don't fit a clear niche in my 1/144 Mech Attack forces (rebased MechWarrior clix) being too big for infantry and too small for battlemechs they really are cool figures with sort of a Votoms vibe about them. Maybe using one Gear as a squad of heavy infantry?

Protomechs! In-universe, gears are even about the same size as a protomech.

 Firebreak wrote:
Protomechs! In-universe, gears are even about the same size as a protomech.

Funny you should mention Protomechs. That was my first thought, but looking at the relative unit options in Mech Attack ( my preferred ruleset for Lance vs Lance Battletech'ish combat) I'm not sure how I could shoehorn them in. Might be worth a try though as the unit building mechanics are pretty flexible even beyond their recommended limits.

 Firebreak wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Stumbling back into this thread as I recently came across some metal HG minis in my lead pile. IIRC, I bought them around a decade ago because they were used/cheap and they looked cool. Got some infantry too.

Never did get around to assembling and painting them, but the original reasoning pretty much describes why I'm holding on to them now. Even though the gears don't fit a clear niche in my 1/144 Mech Attack forces (rebased MechWarrior clix) being too big for infantry and too small for battlemechs they really are cool figures with sort of a Votoms vibe about them. Maybe using one Gear as a squad of heavy infantry?

Protomechs! In-universe, gears are even about the same size as a protomech.

Well, a bit bigger than that ^^. Protomechs were Battletech's response to the (at the time) popularity of Heavy Gear, though.

 Albertorius wrote:

 Firebreak wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Stumbling back into this thread as I recently came across some metal HG minis in my lead pile. IIRC, I bought them around a decade ago because they were used/cheap and they looked cool. Got some infantry too.

Never did get around to assembling and painting them, but the original reasoning pretty much describes why I'm holding on to them now. Even though the gears don't fit a clear niche in my 1/144 Mech Attack forces (rebased MechWarrior clix) being too big for infantry and too small for battlemechs they really are cool figures with sort of a Votoms vibe about them. Maybe using one Gear as a squad of heavy infantry?

Protomechs! In-universe, gears are even about the same size as a protomech.

Well, a bit bigger than that ^^. Protomechs were Battletech's response to the (at the time) popularity of Heavy Gear, though.

Actually, it varies from individual unit to individual unit. I don't think a Cheetah is going to be bigger than a Sprite or Hobgoblin, but a Black Mamba would probably be a bit bigger than a Cecerops or a Harpy.

Tech-wise, MUCH different, Protomechs requiring some significant surgery to pilot them, either for neural links or losing all four limbs to fit in to the cockpit (with cybernetics provided when not piloting the machine). Meanwhile Gear pilots are closer to how Tau Crisis Suits are, sitting in the chest area.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 Firebreak wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Stumbling back into this thread as I recently came across some metal HG minis in my lead pile. IIRC, I bought them around a decade ago because they were used/cheap and they looked cool. Got some infantry too.

Never did get around to assembling and painting them, but the original reasoning pretty much describes why I'm holding on to them now. Even though the gears don't fit a clear niche in my 1/144 Mech Attack forces (rebased MechWarrior clix) being too big for infantry and too small for battlemechs they really are cool figures with sort of a Votoms vibe about them. Maybe using one Gear as a squad of heavy infantry?

Protomechs! In-universe, gears are even about the same size as a protomech.

Well, a bit bigger than that ^^. Protomechs were Battletech's response to the (at the time) popularity of Heavy Gear, though.

Actually, it varies from individual unit to individual unit. I don't think a Cheetah is going to be bigger than a Sprite or Hobgoblin, but a Black Mamba would probably be a bit bigger than a Cecerops or a Harpy.

Tech-wise, MUCH different, Protomechs requiring some significant surgery to pilot them, either for neural links or losing all four limbs to fit in to the cockpit (with cybernetics provided when not piloting the machine). Meanwhile Gear pilots are closer to how Tau Crisis Suits are, sitting in the chest area.

Not really... Cheetahs are actually only slightly smaller than Hunters, it's just the current batch of minis had size differences exxagerated. A Cheetah is less than one head shorter than a Hunter (4.1 m vs. 4.3 m) and very slightly wider (3.3 m vs. 3 m), while being about a ton lighter. Jaguars and Mambas are again very slighttly bigger than troopers and about a ton heavier, and the biggest difference would be on the support gears, which are usually about half a meter taller than the elites and about three tons heavier, near the ten tons.

Protomechs are similar in size but with a wider range, from 2 tons to 15 (the two tonners would be smaller than many powered armors of the setting). So, the examples you gave. The Sprite (10 tons) is a bout the size of a Grizzly, whereas the Hobgoblin at 15 tons is bigger than any Gear. Then again, the Hobgoblin is as big as seven Harpy protomechs, so...

Piloting Gears is indeed much different from piloting protos, but also from piloting tau suits, which are handled more like suits of powered armor, while Gears are handled more like vehicles with the neural net handling all the "natural movement" parts.

That is different on the bigger tau suits, though, and the Ghostkeel is a dead ringer for a Heavy Gear, up to the "head-in-head" design, but the smaller suits are suits.

And still more from EldoniusRex! This time a technical and an EW.

Have golems officially been "gears" before or is that new? Or just loose use of nomenclature on his part as an artist?

These golems are the Druid, a technical gear, and the Warlock, an electronics warfare gear.

I wonder if that tank strider is one that the North was supposed to get but Saleem yoinked it for his PRDF last minute. It's been a few computers and at least one hard drive failure since then so I don't know if I have the files anymore. *casts Summon Smilodon Lv1 spell*

 warboss wrote:
Have golems officially been "gears" before or is that new? Or just loose use of nomenclature on his part as an artist?

These golems are the Druid, a technical gear, and the Warlock, an electronics warfare gear.

I wonder if that tank strider is one that the North was supposed to get but Saleem yoinked it for his PRDF last minute. It's been a few computers and at least one hard drive failure since then so I don't know if I have the files anymore. *casts Summon Smilodon Lv1 spell*

No, golems were not Gears. Similar, but not the same, and this is actually the third redesign.

As a general fact golems were smaller than gears, more landmates than small vehicles, more worn than piloted. Also, no ONNets, obviously.

 Albertorius wrote:

No, golems were not Gears. Similar, but not the same, and this is actually the third redesign.

As a general fact golems were smaller than gears, more landmates than small vehicles, more worn than piloted. Also, no ONNets, obviously.

Thanks. That's what I thought but frankly my biggest experience was in early 1st edition HG where they didn't exist. By the time other world books came out, I was out post minis/edition flip flop.

DP9 posted up more of their new Eden / Utopian force artwork and surprisingly the PRDF Hyena MK2 tank strider.

Really hyped for the tankstrider since I collect PRDF too

Is the Harrier gear new too? Hopefully that'll be metal.

 warboss wrote:
Is the Harrier gear new too? Hopefully that'll be metal.

The harrier is already out and in metal, though the poses are kinda meh

https://store.dp9.com/hgb/peace-river?product_id=1503

Duymon wrote:

The harrier is already out and in metal, though the poses are kinda meh

https://store.dp9.com/hgb/peace-river?product_id=1503

Thanks. It looks different from what I remember from the (admittedly single pic of) art from just prior to nublitz. I'll have to double check that though as I could be wrong.

 warboss wrote:

Duymon wrote:

The harrier is already out and in metal, though the poses are kinda meh

https://store.dp9.com/hgb/peace-river?product_id=1503

Thanks. It looks different from what I remember from the (admittedly single pic of) art from just prior to nublitz. I'll have to double check that though as I could be wrong.

The chest came out particularly wide relative to the artwork, the central torso plate (where the pilots feet would nominally rest against) is relatively small and square in the art, it's like double the width on the sculpt and more rectangular.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 warboss wrote:

Duymon wrote:

The harrier is already out and in metal, though the poses are kinda meh

https://store.dp9.com/hgb/peace-river?product_id=1503

Thanks. It looks different from what I remember from the (admittedly single pic of) art from just prior to nublitz. I'll have to double check that though as I could be wrong.

The chest came out particularly wide relative to the artwork, the central torso plate (where the pilots feet would nominally rest against) is relatively small and square in the art, it's like double the width on the sculpt and more rectangular.

Thanks and I agree after taking a second look. The chest is the biggest difference along with the raised exhaust/inlet behind the head. For some reason I imagined it having more rounded corners on occasion also in the art but that doesn't seem to be the case and it's more similar than I initially thought. Regardless, I really prefer the artwork in this case. :( Obviously I know HG models haven't matched the art since the blitz era started but in this case I'd have preferred it. YMMV.

 Albertorius wrote:
Not really... Cheetahs are actually only slightly smaller than Hunters, it's just the current batch of minis had size differences exxagerated. A Cheetah is less than one head shorter than a Hunter (4.1 m vs. 4.3 m) and very slightly wider (3.3 m vs. 3 m), while being about a ton lighter. Jaguars and Mambas are again very slighttly bigger than troopers and about a ton heavier, and the biggest difference would be on the support gears, which are usually about half a meter taller than the elites and about three tons heavier, near the ten tons.

Protomechs are similar in size but with a wider range, from 2 tons to 15 (the two tonners would be smaller than many powered armors of the setting). So, the examples you gave. The Sprite (10 tons) is a bout the size of a Grizzly, whereas the Hobgoblin at 15 tons is bigger than any Gear. Then again, the Hobgoblin is as big as seven Harpy protomechs, so...

Mass is one part of "big", but so is volume (and height associated with it). But even then, a Cheetah isn't going to be outsizing the upper end of the early Protomech generations or the latter ones, and I don't think the tiniest Protomechs will be outsizing even the trooper lines of the Heavy Gears. Nothing you state here really changes that. From there, with the varied sizes of Protomechs, both in mass and volume, it will depend from unit to unit as to which is bigger or not.

 Albertorius wrote:
Piloting Gears is indeed much different from piloting protos, but also from piloting tau suits, which are handled more like suits of powered armor, while Gears are handled more like vehicles with the neural net handling all the "natural movement" parts.

That is different on the bigger tau suits, though, and the Ghostkeel is a dead ringer for a Heavy Gear, up to the "head-in-head" design, but the smaller suits are suits.

I know that Crisis Suits are different from Gears. I just said that piloting a Gear is closer to piloting a Crisis Suit than it would be to a Protomech. Being closer doesn't mean equality, or even congruity, just that the approaches are more similar than the another. Kind of like Humans are closer to being dogs than they are to being fish.

And no, Crisis Suits are not handled like powered Armor, that's the Stealth Suits. There isn't enough room for the legs to go down in a Crisis Suit, and I remember some earlier fiction noted that the Crisis Suit pilots sat in their suits akin to Gears, though, it has been a long time since I read that, so it could just be a Mandella Effect.

More New Eden Concept art. I might just have to start collecting a new army (so far it's been North/South/PRDF/Black talon)

The designs are cool... problem I have with hover everything is that the CEF used them to be able to handle any possible terrain... but it was all built with zero-g alloys and incredibly expensive.

Everyone and their dogs having everything hover, feels like cheapening it.

But they look cool. The exhausts feel a bit too thin, though.

At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy duddy (to match my new avatar, lol!) opposed to any change, I think I preferred when various factions and subfactions had distinct asthetics/gear and didn't cross over so much. They're supposed to be a part of the massive CEF fleet, right? So wouldn't they use them for logistics and support instead? I realize that mechanically equates to fairly limited variety in a subfaction but I don't think HG is a game big enough to need more than a half dozen full factions' worth of models. I kind of liked it when things were more delineated and if you wanted something different then you used the ally rules; in this case, Eden was the golem faction and they used the CEF for larger bipedal mechs and hover vehicles. YMMV. That's

 Charistoph wrote:
Mass is one part of "big", but so is volume (and height associated with it). But even then, a Cheetah isn't going to be outsizing the upper end of the early Protomech generations or the latter ones, and I don't think the tiniest Protomechs will be outsizing even the trooper lines of the Heavy Gears. Nothing you state here really changes that. From there, with the varied sizes of Protomechs, both in mass and volume, it will depend from unit to unit as to which is bigger or not.

Yes. That is exactly what I said ("protomechs are similar in size but with a wider range"). Gears tend to be more similar in size among them than Protomechs are, which run a bigger, and much, much wider gamut. Also, volume, height, etc, are usually in direct relation to mass, unless something has big, hollow spaces, which heither Gears nor protos will have.

 Albertorius wrote:
Piloting Gears is indeed much different from piloting protos, but also from piloting tau suits, which are handled more like suits of powered armor, while Gears are handled more like vehicles with the neural net handling all the "natural movement" parts.

That is different on the bigger tau suits, though, and the Ghostkeel is a dead ringer for a Heavy Gear, up to the "head-in-head" design, but the smaller suits are suits.

I know that Crisis Suits are different from Gears. I just said that piloting a Gear is closer to piloting a Crisis Suit than it would be to a Protomech. Being closer doesn't mean equality, or even congruity, just that the approaches are more similar than the another. Kind of like Humans are closer to being dogs than they are to being fish.

And no, Crisis Suits are not handled like powered Armor, that's the Stealth Suits. There isn't enough room for the legs to go down in a Crisis Suit, and I remember some earlier fiction noted that the Crisis Suit pilots sat in their suits akin to Gears, though, it has been a long time since I read that, so it could just be a Mandella Effect.

"More like powered armor", not "like powered armor" . I don't remember the fiction you refer to, though, and I don't think GW has ever shown the actual insided of a crisis suit, but to be honest, thos torsos are... really small, for a pilot.


IF a pilot is supposed to fit inside that completely, he won't be having much fun at all. Seeing how wide the leg connections to the torso are, one would expect the pilot's legs to be meant to fit at least partially inside the upper legs, while I think the idea was that the arms were inside the torso. As for piloting protos, if I'm not mistaken they are piloted mostly through neural impulses, with the pilot curled up inside like a ball.

 Charistoph wrote:
Tech-wise, MUCH different, Protomechs requiring some significant surgery to pilot them, either for neural links or losing all four limbs to fit in to the cockpit (with cybernetics provided when not piloting the machine).

Alaya-Vijnana system as in Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans?

https://g-tekketsu.fandom.com/wiki/Alaya-Vijnana_System

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Tech-wise, MUCH different, Protomechs requiring some significant surgery to pilot them, either for neural links or losing all four limbs to fit in to the cockpit (with cybernetics provided when not piloting the machine).

Alaya-Vijnana system as in Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans?

https://g-tekketsu.fandom.com/wiki/Alaya-Vijnana_System

They don't build a secondary computer in the brain, as far as I know, but the Clans use the Enhanced Imaging akin to what you see in the Battletech cartoon (yes, there was one, it is on YouTube, and it is canonically considered a propaganda piece in universe) to make a direct neural-cybernetic interface, and the Word of Blake used a Direct Neural Interface for their connections.

The reason for this is Protomech cockpits are REALLY small. The pilot needs to be blow a certain mass and height to qualify, and they don't have enough room for classic control systems.

The Clanners used failed Pilots and have them just curl up in to a fetal ball while inside the cockpit. The Word of Blake took a different approach, by basically removing the limbs of the pilot ala the X-Com MEC pilots, and basically sticking them in a life support bath.

Edit: It was a cartoon, not the universe being referenced.

I see, thanks.

Socket Soldiers are a much better refinement of the concept:



They're just heads that literally screw into a combat body.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I see, thanks.

Socket Soldiers are a much better refinement of the concept:



They're just heads that literally screw into a combat body.

Interesting. I wasn't aware of them... cool idea though obviously I don't know if it originated there.

https://battleangel.fandom.com/wiki/Socket_soldier

Socket Soldiers go back to the 1990s. Not sure when the other limbless stuff came out, but it's the logical endpoint of direct neural -> limbless -> brain & spine (Gally / Alita herself in 1990).

I don't know when they introduced the limbless Protomech pilots, either, as it was a Jihad thing. It might have been done after Topps secured it from WizKids Clix format.

I'm not as familiar with all the Heavy Gear lore, but it sounds like such a measure isn't as needed for them to operate their Gears. They depend more on AIs to handle all the crap the BTU relies on pilots for.

Still, a method for severely injured pilots to be recycled back in might encourage such a venture. How is the cybernetics in the Heavy Gear universe?

Sorry, but the question of HG cybernetic lore is way out of my depth. Hopefully Warboss or Albertorius can answer.

I think the bit about recycling injured / half-dead pilots is basically the same as with 40k Space Marine Dreadnoughts.

 Charistoph wrote:
I don't know when they introduced the limbless Protomech pilots, either, as it was a Jihad thing. It might have been done after Topps secured it from WizKids Clix format.

I'm not as familiar with all the Heavy Gear lore, but it sounds like such a measure isn't as needed for them to operate their Gears. They depend more on AIs to handle all the crap the BTU relies on pilots for.

Still, a method for severely injured pilots to be recycled back in might encourage such a venture. How is the cybernetics in the Heavy Gear universe?

They don't need it at all, Heavy Gears have full cockpits and they are piloted with two special joysticks and feet levers. There is no AI either, what there is is a ONNet, an optical neural network, which would be sort of like an expert system more than anything else, trained to make the gear move more smoothly and to compensate the input of the pilot into more fluid movements.

Cybernetics are usually more on the realm of advanced prosthetics than full enhacements, but there's also "webbling", where you implant an animal with a neural net to domesticate it or to make it able to control specialized gear.


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 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but the question of HG cybernetic lore is way out of my depth. Hopefully Warboss or Albertorius can answer.

I think the bit about recycling injured / half-dead pilots is basically the same as with 40k Space Marine Dreadnoughts.

That's the CEF/Earth, which has been "recycling" their GREL troopers because they felt they were not reliable enough into FLAILs, which are mostly socket soldiers, really, but heavily webbled for total control. It's... kind of stupid, really, as the FLAILs are, while tougher than regular GREL infantry, even less imaginative and even more rigid, while at the same time more expensive in resources than just using comparable light vehicles.

So, it's less "40k SM dreadnought" and more "let's make ALL marines into tiny dreadnoughts". The old Caprice golems are a much better idea for basically the same.

 Albertorius wrote:
They don't need it at all, Heavy Gears have full cockpits and they are piloted with two special joysticks and feet levers. There is no AI either, what there is is a ONNet, an optical neural network, which would be sort of like an expert system more than anything else, trained to make the gear move more smoothly and to compensate the input of the pilot into more fluid movements.

Right, and while I said, "AI", I'm not talking a full SkyNet capacity, or even Star Trek:TNG's computer system, but something that is definitely more advanced than what we have now. Also, they do gain experience, from what I understand, such that older systems perform far more quickly and efficiently. So when a pilot CAN eject, they make sure they pull the core of it so they don't lose all that "experience".

 Albertorius wrote:
Cybernetics are usually more on the realm of advanced prosthetics than full enhacements, but there's also "webbling", where you implant an animal with a neural net to domesticate it or to make it able to control specialized gear.

How advanced a prosthetic is will make that determination, I think. If an arm replacement can be provided that can work like a full arm, it really isn't that much of a stretch to link a mecha in to that system. However, what trade-offs that come attendant to that are usually what makes that determination. Providing a healthy pilot and ONNet is probably more cost-effective than wiring a pilot to cybernetically control a Gear. Still, one advantage with that wiring would be that it would be harder to steal.

Terra Novan medical ethics pretty much prohibits socket soldiers for gears. The CEF keeps FLAILs so secret they've got self destruct systems because they realize what a P.R. disaster they would be, even if they're using GRELs as the guinea pigs. Even their own troops don't know, aside from some of the technicians that maintain them.

And the best cybernetics Terra Nova has available basically add some FIT (fitness) and body armor to the character, making them harder to hurt but no faster, no super jumps, nothing like that. More of a side effect of having replacement limbs rather than actual augmentations (aside from the duraskin implants, which is Shadowrun style dermal sheath).

 Charistoph wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
They don't need it at all, Heavy Gears have full cockpits and they are piloted with two special joysticks and feet levers. There is no AI either, what there is is a ONNet, an optical neural network, which would be sort of like an expert system more than anything else, trained to make the gear move more smoothly and to compensate the input of the pilot into more fluid movements.

Right, and while I said, "AI", I'm not talking a full SkyNet capacity, or even Star Trek:TNG's computer system, but something that is definitely more advanced than what we have now. Also, they do gain experience, from what I understand, such that older systems perform far more quickly and efficiently. So when a pilot CAN eject, they make sure they pull the core of it so they don't lose all that "experience".

They do get experience, yes, and they need to be trained, but they are in the same "AI" catergory as the current batch (well, actually a little bit less advanced than the current ones) and firmly in the realm of trainable expert systems.

 Albertorius wrote:
Cybernetics are usually more on the realm of advanced prosthetics than full enhacements, but there's also "webbling", where you implant an animal with a neural net to domesticate it or to make it able to control specialized gear.

How advanced a prosthetic is will make that determination, I think. If an arm replacement can be provided that can work like a full arm, it really isn't that much of a stretch to link a mecha in to that system. However, what trade-offs that come attendant to that are usually what makes that determination. Providing a healthy pilot and ONNet is probably more cost-effective than wiring a pilot to cybernetically control a Gear. Still, one advantage with that wiring would be that it would be harder to steal.

It's a cost and ethics dilemma. Webbling animals is usually as far as the public will go, and even then it's something that's not kindly looked upon. They also don't gel too well with terranovan ethos on technology, most of the time, as they usually prefer to go for sturdier and more reliable options, still with a frontier world mentality.

It's not technologically impossible in the setting (although I would posit that training limb nerve conections to link with a new limb is quite a bit easier than trying to pilot a full mecha just with the power of the mind), but it doesn't seem very cost effective (except apparently for the CEF... and well, I already commented on that) and there would be a big stigma associated.