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 warboss wrote:
I didn't play 2nd edition. Did they split off the tactical wargame from the RPG in the core book or was that later?

IIRC, the Tactical box came out after 2nd edition, and really it just stripped the RPG elements out and focused on vehicular combat scale. Eventually this would become Heavy Gear Blitz!

 John Prins wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:


And pretty out there prices for the physical copy, too (120$ CAD for a softcover, 140$ CAD for a hardcover, plus shipping, for a DrivethruRPG PoD book).

Finally got around to looking at this, and yeah, that's really rough. $30 CAD for the eBook alone doesn't seem too bad, but another +90 CAD for getting a softcover version (or +110 for hardcover). Going by the campaign, it's 480 pages full color, that's about twice as thick as 2nd edition, which was mostly black and white. With that size I think going hardcover for the extra $20 is probably the better idea, but $140 is pricey.

For reference, the Pathfinder 2e Core Rulebook hardcover is 640 pages full color and $105 CAD on Amazon, but they are getting some economies of scale given the popularity and traditional printing.

I do like that sample art though. Eldon Cowgur has done a decent job channeling Ghislain's original art.

Problem is... "bigger =/= better". Does it need 480 pages to create a game because it needs it, or because the writing is overly dense? What does doubling up in pagecount gives you in comparison with 2nd edition, taking into account that book gave you even tactical rules in a single package?

Furthermore, to give a better comparison, the Worlds Without Number DrivethruRPG hardcover color print is 400 pages and CAD$ 80.21. At regular prices, not at KS reduced ones. So I'm pretty confident saying that their pricing is a "tad" out there.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product_info.php?cPath=38601&products_id=348791¤cy=CAD&

EDIT: Actually, I've just checked and it seems it going to be DrivethruRPG's most expensive printed book, outside of bundles and "we had to put this on DTRPG to send it, but we'll put a pants on head crazy price so that nobody but people with our code will order it" books.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=0_0_0_44294_0&src=fid44294&sort=3a&page=258


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 warboss wrote:
I didn't play 2nd edition. Did they split off the tactical wargame from the RPG in the core book or was that later?

Nope, the tactical rules were on the book.


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And with that, I just cancelled my pledge. No quickstart during the KS and those prices makes me have to wait and see.

 Albertorius wrote:

EDIT: Actually, I've just checked and it seems it going to be DrivethruRPG's most expensive printed book, outside of bundles and "we had to put this on DTRPG to send it, but we'll put a pants on head crazi price so that nobody but people with out code will order it" books.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=0_0_0_44294_0&src=fid44294&sort=3a&page=258

That's probably not a list you want to be on top of as a niche game whose nostalgia for most is a hazy distant memory. Maybe DP9 is trying to recoup their initial costs immediately and pay the freelancers only with those funds like with the earlier rescans?

 John Prins wrote:

IIRC, the Tactical box came out after 2nd edition, and really it just stripped the RPG elements out and focused on vehicular combat scale. Eventually this would become Heavy Gear Blitz!

 Albertorius wrote:

Nope, the tactical rules were on the book.

Thanks for the confirmation on the tactical rules. I knew they split them off at some point after I quit but wasn't sure if it was with the subsequent 2e or later.


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For those that follow HG on other platforms (twitter, discord, facebook, the official forums, etc), how is the reception for the new RPG? I'm curious as to the excitement it's raising and if it feels more weighted to nostalgic classic fans or if it's enticing in new players too.

 Albertorius wrote:

Problem is... "bigger =/= better". Does it need 480 pages to create a game because it needs it, or because the writing is overly dense? What does doubling up in pagecount gives you in comparison with 2nd edition, taking into account that book gave you even tactical rules in a single package?

I definitely think we need more info on what the book contains. All we really know it it has integrated RPG/Blitz rules and vehicle customization. Hopefully it contains a lot of Life on Terra Nova material so that new people to the game don't have to buy older edition material to get enough info on the world. But I imagine a lot of that space could be vehicle stats.

Furthermore, to give a better comparison, the Worlds Without Number DrivethruRPG hardcover color print is 400 pages and CAD$ 80.21. At regular prices, not at KS reduced ones. So I'm pretty confident saying that their pricing is a "tad" out there.

Agreed, it's high. Based on that price a 480 page book (20% larger) would be 96CAD, and the hardcover is a 110CAD add on.

And with that, I just cancelled my pledge. No quickstart during the KS and those prices makes me have to wait and see.

Definitely pushing into 'artbook' prices rather than RPG book prices. I have to admit I'd buy this mainly for the new art, though at least 1 other person in my local gaming group is buying in already.

 John Prins wrote:
Agreed, it's high. Based on that price a 480 page book (20% larger) would be 96CAD, and the hardcover is a 110CAD add on.

I would not discount the pdf price from the price of the hardcover unless they are planning not to give it away with the physical version (which.... would not be a good look, IMHO, and also the WWN book also has a complimentary pdf, so it would be the same comparison either way). At this moment, the only price point we've seen of the books is CAD$120 for the softcover (with complimentary pdf) and CAD$140 for the hardcover (with complimentary pdf).

Or are you talking about something else? Because I haven't seen any add on on the campaign.

 Albertorius wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
Agreed, it's high. Based on that price a 480 page book (20% larger) would be 96CAD, and the hardcover is a 110CAD add on.

I would not discount the pdf price from the price of the hardcover unless they are planning not to give it away with the physical version (which.... would not be a good look, IMHO, and also the WWN book also has a complimentary pdf, so it would be the same comparison either way). At this moment, the only price point we've seen of the books is CAD$120 for the softcover (with complimentary pdf) and CAD$140 for the hardcover (with complimentary pdf).

Or are you talking about something else? Because I haven't seen any add on on the campaign.

There's an add-on for just the physical book in the pledge manager, I guess so people can get extra copies. I dunno if you can just straight pledge 110 and select a book, though.

 John Prins wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
Agreed, it's high. Based on that price a 480 page book (20% larger) would be 96CAD, and the hardcover is a 110CAD add on.

I would not discount the pdf price from the price of the hardcover unless they are planning not to give it away with the physical version (which.... would not be a good look, IMHO, and also the WWN book also has a complimentary pdf, so it would be the same comparison either way). At this moment, the only price point we've seen of the books is CAD$120 for the softcover (with complimentary pdf) and CAD$140 for the hardcover (with complimentary pdf).

Or are you talking about something else? Because I haven't seen any add on on the campaign.

There's an add-on for just the physical book in the pledge manager, I guess so people can get extra copies. I dunno if you can just straight pledge 110 and select a book, though.

Thank you for the clarification, I didn't notice the PM. So it seems they're pricing the pdf at $30 no matter what... I'd rather they didn't :( but it makes the price of the actual physical book less insane.


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 John Prins wrote:
I definitely think we need more info on what the book contains. All we really know it it has integrated RPG/Blitz rules and vehicle customization. Hopefully it contains a lot of Life on Terra Nova material so that new people to the game don't have to buy older edition material to get enough info on the world. But I imagine a lot of that space could be vehicle stats.

It DOES seem like it's going to have a fuckton of vehicle stats...

https://www.dp9community.com/gear-up-blog/heavy-gear-rpg-murdock-amp-seeker

Apparently everything in the companion but the Murdock and the Seeker.... so probably everything else is in too (because otherwise having utopian droids and paxtonian tiny-gears-they-tell-us-are-exosqueletons but not other stuff would seem weird xD)

Kinda begs the question of how needed were those when the regular Blitz stats are the same (AFAIK) and available for free in the Blitz books.

 Albertorius wrote:

Kinda begs the question of how needed were those when the regular Blitz stats are the same (AFAIK) and available for free in the Blitz books.

Apparently there are slight differences?

https://www.dp9community.com/gear-up-blog/the-nash-basilisk-stalks-its-prey

This blog entry has 2 different stat blocks for the Nash - one in HGB and one in the RPG, which seems to allow for customization. It's mostly the same but...

Hm, can't say I'm up to date enough with the new blitz rules to say much, but it feels like it would have been probably more efficient to just state what you needed to change to use the stats for the RPG, if any. Give a couple of core examples, refer people to the free wargame, maybe make some of the RPG players check that one out...

Adding all the vehicles from your wargame to the corebook of your rpg is certainly a choice, though. Or a mission statement, I guess.

Well I guess they would need to list every vehicle in the RPG for customization purposes in the first place, so putting in stats is just efficient. Nobody wants to be told "for most gears, cross reference this other book and do this conversion" even if that book is free.

The conversion does seem relatively minor. Armor/Hull seems to have been replaced with a single stat (HI which I assume is Hull Integrity) and the success thresholds have changed (in a way I don't understand, GU and PI are 4+ in Blitz but +0 in the RPG format), but otherwise everything seems to be just a reformatting aside from the customization slot table.

 John Prins wrote:
Well I guess they would need to list every vehicle in the RPG for customization purposes in the first place, so putting in stats is just efficient. Nobody wants to be told "for most gears, cross reference this other book and do this conversion" even if that book is free.

The conversion does seem relatively minor. Armor/Hull seems to have been replaced with a single stat (HI which I assume is Hull Integrity) and the success thresholds have changed (in a way I don't understand, GU and PI are 4+ in Blitz but +0 in the RPG format), but otherwise everything seems to be just a reformatting aside from the customization slot table.

Yeah, dunno. Maybe it kinda rubs me the wrong way because it's not what I want out of a HG RPG myself and that shadows my perception of it. For some reason, almost all of the HG campaigns I've played and/or GMed mostly had vehicles as window dressing (where you don't need stats for anything) or only appeared like in one out of ten sessions, if ever. The only exceptions were military campaigns (where customization was... well, not that much of a thing or very minor, as your vehicles were not yours, so just using the default tactical stats was much more than enough) or that underground gear racing one that we did after watching Rideback ^^ (where we mostly used the VCS to create butwheel prototypes).

But most HG campaigns I've played/GMed were apparently different to the default they want.

Noble Knight Games has a sale going on. Heavy Gear Blitz army sets are $55.

They must have sold out as I don't see any currently. This may sound strange but I only think of Noble Knight in terms of out of print used items moreso than new.

 warboss wrote:
They must have sold out as I don't see any currently. This may sound strange but I only think of Noble Knight in terms of out of print used items moreso than new.

They're the biggest distributor right now for Bushido, so I keep tabs on them. Their search/filter functions are...less than impressive though.

Northern Army Box--4 in stock
Caprice Army Box--4 in stock
Peace River Army Box--5 in stock
Utopia Army Box--4 in stock
NuCoal Army Box--1 in stock

Good for the US-located people ^^

I'd say not to bother with the northern/southern ones, as usual, but the rest seem like a pretty tight deal for that money.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 warboss wrote:
They must have sold out as I don't see any currently. This may sound strange but I only think of Noble Knight in terms of out of print used items moreso than new.

They're the biggest distributor right now for Bushido, so I keep tabs on them. Their search/filter functions are...less than impressive though.

Northern Army Box--4 in stock
Caprice Army Box--4 in stock
Peace River Army Box--5 in stock
Utopia Army Box--4 in stock
NuCoal Army Box--1 in stock

Thanks! Literally none of those popped up for me when I entered Heavy Gear into the search and filtered by price (high first).

https://www.nobleknight.com/Search?text=heavy+gear&PageSize=100&SortBy=pricehigh




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 Albertorius wrote:
Good for the US-located people ^^

I'd say not to bother with the northern/southern ones, as usual, but the rest seem like a pretty tight deal for that money.

I'd only consider Caprice personally but the discount is only 10% approximately.

Checking the KS I see, CA$ 100,848 pledged of CA$ 40,000 goal with 808 people.

It seems to me like a successful campaign, but what do I know? I have heard there's lots of new art, and given the last few years of global disruptions have caused price increases that are pretty drastic.

I know our food bill has gone up way out of proportion to the officially reported rate of inflation over here in Britain (probably due to Brexshit).

 Paint it Pink wrote:
Checking the KS I see, CA$ 100,848 pledged of CA$ 40,000 goal with 808 people.

It seems to me like a successful campaign, but what do I know? I have heard there's lots of new art, and given the last few years of global disruptions have caused price increases that are pretty drastic.

I know our food bill has gone up way out of proportion to the officially reported rate of inflation over here in Britain (probably due to Brexshit).

I'm glad it worked out and it definitely had a big bump since the last time I checked it. Hopefully being POD will avoid at least some of the disruptions for the customers who bought physical copies. If anything, the new art is what I'd be most excited about personally though I'm not a backer so will have to see it second hand.

Finally got me a RAFM King Cobra again for the first time in about 20 years. It was the my first tabletop model that I bought (not just for HG but miniatures gaming in general) and I finally got another one to go with my resurrected RAFM collection that I've still yet to paint even a single model of. I suppose now I have no excuse not to assemble a southern force to match my existing Northern one. That way I can sell off my extras as I'd have no excuse not to.

Nice to see you're still interested in the hobby part of the game at least ^^

 Albertorius wrote:
Nice to see you're still interested in the hobby part of the game at least ^^

Thanks. It is a bit odd that I'm coming full swing back to what started it with my most recent hobby efforts on my mostly defunct blog being the first two miniature games that I played (FASAtrek and HG). After some thought, I think I may have been wrong in that the King Cobra was my first ever model (though it was the "king" of the collection though!). I think the first one was actually the Support Cobra because I remember not having a clue how to assemble that weapons array on the back. #90sN00bProblems


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So did anyone here pledge for the RPG? If so, are you willing to post updates on the progress?

I eventually decided against it, mainly due to the lack of a quickstart during the campaign. The little they've shown on their web articles seem to point at a game I'm less interested in than I expected.

So I'm OK with waiting for the regular release.

 Albertorius wrote:
I eventually decided against it, mainly due to the lack of a quickstart during the campaign. The little they've shown on their web articles seem to point at a game I'm less interested in than I expected.

So I'm OK with waiting for the regular release.

I assume you'd be getting the PDF if anything then? Is there a preorder crowdfunding discount for the pdf?

 warboss wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
I eventually decided against it, mainly due to the lack of a quickstart during the campaign. The little they've shown on their web articles seem to point at a game I'm less interested in than I expected.

So I'm OK with waiting for the regular release.

I assume you'd be getting the PDF if anything then? Is there a preorder crowdfunding discount for the pdf?

Seeing as the pdf was $30, I think not (or the PDF will be very expensive indeed). You did get a couple of free adventures, though, but, again, the focus of those didn't really appeal to me.

 warboss wrote:
Finally got me a RAFM King Cobra again for the first time in about 20 years. It was the my first tabletop model that I bought (not just for HG but miniatures gaming in general) and I finally got another one to go with my resurrected RAFM collection that I've still yet to paint even a single model of. I suppose now I have no excuse not to assemble a southern force to match my existing Northern one. That way I can sell off my extras as I'd have no excuse not to.

Cool for cats, great score.

Looking forward to seeing it assembled.

I do not play very often, but i have had the force for years. did a quick 100 point game against South with my CEF. just a couple squads of light and medium tanks. the mediums got a bit to close early on. after they were destroyed the lights backed off an won the day, both had moderate damage but took the southern force down to a single light gear.

Arise, thread! For all the prolific 3d printers out there (so basically Albertorius!)... It looks like someone is (re)doing the HGA Hunter.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/heavy-gear-done-89540928

Oh boy. So much want

It was definitely the best design they had (and in my opinion the only truly good one). The Grizzly was ok too so maybe now that HG(A) is on his radar he'll do that one someday as well.

Looks like the guy added the HGA Jaeger as well for all the Southern players/modellers.

Did anything ever come of that larger scale HG RPG model that was mentioned and/or previewed? What is the status of the most recent iteration of the RPG?