Heavy Gear General

>Looks Cool
>Not a bad price
>no friends want to play
>picks shitty mechwarrior table top game.

Aside from Canada, it does not look like Heavy gear really survived in great numbers here state side. Due to that whole war gameing crash in the early 2000's.

It was always a third string game simply for the fact that up till the kickstarter they were all pewter and so most players were priced out.

Now that GW has their price jacked to the point you're paying 30 bucks for a plastic character; you might see this game come back strong.

I'm psyched cause my kickstarter arrives wednesday. Ordered a couple of extra ferrets so I can have my "gears of anarchy" arena team

The gun in OPs pick is the heavy autocannon. Far from a defensive weapon.

For actual model sizes the grizzly is about the size of a 40k terminator while the standard hunter/jager are the size of a spess marine

Huh I always thought back in the day it was fairly popular, especially seeing as it got a tv show made for it

>simply for the fact that up till the kickstarter they were all pewter and so most players were priced out.
Nah, its been 3rd string because it's died twice and has no distribution because of that.
Even recently the models are about terminator priced which isn't that crazy.

Well the new two player box is 90 bucks, a bit cheaper than the other war games out there so may be graceing my shelf shortly

Two successful videogames would get you a cartoon

Was was dead/died because the company is retarded and terrible.

They even biffed their KS and lost a bunch of money and stuff.

Terrible company.

How hard is this to get into? How expensive? I played Battletech in the day but I just don't have the time or patience for it anymore, but I want something with more substance than say, 40k. And I've always loved their designs (I played Heavy Gear 1 & 2 on PC a lot as a kid.)

Is this game the right one for me?

I've always found the game to be fun. I haven't played the new edition, but the previous could be awesome despite some very swing-y mechanics. That said, the customization of squads is pretty sweet, if a bit overwhelming, in the new edition. The game can be a bit pricey because gears come in squads and two packs, but if you plan purchases, it's not too bad. On par with warmachine, I'd say. That said, the game can be very crunchy. If warhammer 40k is a 1 and raw math is a 10, I'd put battletech at 8 and heavy gear at 5.

The electronics warfare aspect was always my favorite. Being able to block airstrikes and shit was cash.

Hmm,seems like a cleaner and smarter ruleset than BTech had going on. I'll give it a try with some proxies.

Worse comes to worse i'll buy a few of the models for hobby purposes.

Once the starter pack is out for retail it'll be much easier to get into. There'll also be individual army packs for all 4 factions at that point too.

Price wise you could probably have a standard 150 point list built for 100-150$ but the plastic army starter boxes when they come out will be 134 points without upgrades for 60$US.

As for ruleset substance. A little bit more so in my opinion. The new rules work of an alternating squad activation with opportunities to steal initiative each round. Mobility and maneuvering matters so much more as you can have multiple types of terrain that affects movement differently so while Tanks have much higher armor and better weapons they have a harder time getting around instead of a gear. Facing matters for movement and the faster a unit moves the harder it is to turn.

Army building is interesting. For each unit you build you pick a unit type (recon, dragoon, general purpose, etc) and you can essentially select any gear(or varient of a gear) and build a unit of them. You then also get to select a support attachement for that unit of a different unit type. So you could have a general purpose squad of 4 hunters and then attach a Grizzly as a support to that unit.

There's no location based damage like in battletech but gears do have hull/structure points that need to be damaged to remove them from play.

If you want something with a smaller model count and hence lower price tag Heavy Gear Arena is an option.

It's DP9's equivalent to Blood Bowl or Necromunda but with gladiatorial mech matches. So there's a couple of different types of pilots, managers, and a nearly complete selection of gears. The rules are a hybrid of Blitz and the old RPG. They introduce a combo system where you can link different types of attacks together ala the assassin from Diablo 2.

I find HGA alot of fun the but rulebook is poorly written and poorly organized. You really need to download the FAQ for it.

Is the RPG going to actually happen or what? Arkrite went completely silent again, and there's no reason to trust they're not going to drop the ball just like every other attempt at HG4e.

Can anybody here tell me which books are actually the core rulebooks for the wargame and the RPG? I have no idea and can't make heads or tails of DP9's website.

this is the current one: drivethrurpg.com/product/144759/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Tabletop-Wargaming--Living-Rulebook

It's not in print yet. It's shipping with the starter I believe or at least the quick start is

These are the rulebooks for Blitz(the previous edition):store.dp9.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=69_99

And these are the RPG books and there will be two different editions mixed in here: store.dp9.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=91_81

Got my Kickstarter stuff last week. Still haven't had a chance to build any of it, but it looks damn good. Details are fine, and they look like they'll go together nice and easy.

Pretty stoked, really. Might grab another South and Caprice starter to add to my forces.

Thanks.

heavy gear has a really cool setting and i've always felt that it was a decently realistic depiction of mechs and how they would function militarily. ie they're specialist units and outclassed by tanks.

its a shame that the two greatest mech games, heavy gear and battletech, suffer from such horrible art.

side note: I've been sitting on a pack of a southern support cadre that i have been putting off painting.

They both have rheir moments. I think every game has its good art and its bad art.

Thankfully, to me, the gameplay is far more important, and there the new Heavy Gear rules are great.

i definitely agree but i think its undeniable that heavy gear's main artist is pretty dated.

with that being said i think the designs of the gears are great.

Is HG assault a total bust or what?

i heard that they didn't pay their staff for months.

No idea. It's still going, I see stuff from them ln Facebook all the time.

Could be neat in the future, but no idea. I'm not a huge shooter fan, so I don't know if I'll ever play it. Maybe if they do a free demo on Steam I'll try it.

website isn't great, which army uses the unit in OP pic?

That is a Northern Grizzly fire support gear.

>rulebook is poorly written and poorly organized.
thats every dp9 book though to be fair.

It actually looks really fun and as a concept I could think of a few different tabletop rpg scenarios that could be great fun. I'd be really worried the en and paper rpg is terrible though. I don't really know any system that represents walkers well.

Id say DP9 does it the best of the bunch really as from the get go it was meant to have them,.

Why are gears still a thing if they were meant to be tank replacements and there are now hovertanks, eliminating any advantage the gears had?

It's a 40mm autocannon in most Grizzly loadouts. That's not for nothing, though in most cases the main event is a heavy guided mortar or ALL THE ROCKETS, though 2xMRM18 isn't exactly the world ender.

Yeah, that's smaller then most of the autocannons heavy gears use. The smaller gun is a 25mm compact defensive autocannon, while the bigger should be a 40mm heavy autocannon, but looks like some kind of whippit design.

He's just talking about the artistic choice/proportions in that picture. That HAC is smaller then most. I do like the vibroblade.

>Go home Earther, you are drunk

Hovertanks are extremely hard to keep operational in Teranovan environments with unperdictable updrafts and lots of fine sand. They also require 5 times or more the power-to-weight ratio of a walker.

Gears were never tank replacements, however. They are small infantry fighting vehicles, with the ability to carry anti-tank, anti-infantry and anti-Gear weapons. Gears co-exist with tanks that can carry considerably heavier and more powerful armor.

A Hunter isn't a future M1A1, it's a future Stryker.

The artwork is really cartoony, if they want to keep that cartoon feel while giving it a semi realistic look, probably going over to the infinity artstyle may be good.

hgwiki.net/Main_Page
Here is the wiki, but the main rulebook in army construction has which unit can join which army. As well as some brief fluff about them

Chris Perrins Mecha is pretty good about it as well as having a kick ass character sheet.

Also keep in mind most places do not have access to hover tanks due to being extremly advanced earth tech.

Gears still have lots of advantages over a hover tank as well in cases.

But a Heavy gear will never specifically replace a tank, cause tanks are tanks with more armor, heavier weapons, and in some cases better straight up land speed. But a Gear can get to places a tank cant.

For the RPG, you want Silhouette Core and the 3e Player's Handbook.

I am wondering about this as well, I almost want to cough up the 10 bucks for the test pilot program to see if they are just keeping the stuff with the test pilots and not letting any news out otherwise.

Anyone a test pilot that can confirm or not?

Gears aren't replacements for tanks, they're infantry support vehicles. Due to the rouvh terrain and Terra Novans use the mlre often, but tanks will fuck a Gear's shit up in a one on one fight.

The setting is and the backstory are awesome, the mecha have a niche that easily suspends disbelief, and the system is fast, simple, and very lethal.

I really like heavy gear, and here's to colossal land battleships

I am honestly hopeing with the new plastics out now, that the setting and game will become more popular.

I mean Im hoping it just means more support for other settings they have really.

Well we're getting a mew fleet scale HG game, new Jovian Chronicles and a new HG RPG. I'd say that, as long as they push it for publicity and advertise, we may have a bright future.

Also planning to paint my North stuff as UMF, but can't settle on a blue to use. Any suggestions(other than using 12 different blues when one can easily be bought)?

I think Artic Blue may be the best way to go, although a nice navy blue may look good.

Arctic blue? Vallejo, yeah?

>Vallejo
Not sure what that is but this color

Vallejo the paint company.

Oh well then, I have never used that company for paint before, will check them out

amazon.com/Arctic-Metallic-Enamel-Paint-Testors/dp/B00NQCJU7I

I am cheap with my paint

First off dont use enamel paint you monster. Secondly vallejo is maybe 2-3 bucks a pot

I mean...that's torture for such fine minis and also what do you mean a fleet scale HG game?

They announced a game called Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts. It'll be about landships on Terra Nova.

>new Jovian Chronicles and a new HG RPG
What was the last mention of these, anyway? HG RPG 4e was supposed to be out last year (20th Anniversary), wasn't it?

The only way I think to get any news on the HG rpg is to get in as a test pilot, but there is no news outside of that. I am wondering if they simply did not get enough people to make it

I hear news from DP9 on Facebook. They were talking about all the stuff they jave coming out at GenCon. Next year we'll get a kickstarter for plastic Peace River and NuCoal if things go according to schedule.

The last thing up on Arkrite's Facebook page is the release of HG4 0.2 on April 6th.

Yea only problem is that the RPG is not made by DP9 but another company, and I can not find jack about the rpg

If HG4 is popular, do you think they'll bring back JC, Gear Krieg, Tribe 8, or Core Command as SDX (Silhouette d10) RPGs?

So how bad ass is heavy gear arena?

I tried producing equal teams for demo games but it's really difficult without a core understanding of the real games mechanics and meta.

Also is a King Cobra comparible to a main battle tank? The book talks up the mech like it's made out of gundanium and plotarmorium.

Hmmmmm, I may go grab the test pilot then to get it, since it does seem while it is not rapid progress, it is at least getting done and if it is in the 2nd stage, they should only have the one stage left.

Test pilot is bought, so now I just got to wait to be given access to it, which may be a couple of days if it is anything like the infinity buy in.

True, but I would assume they wouldn't keep it up on the front page of the website if it was dead.

The King Cobra is pretty tough, but not equal to a MBT. King Cobra vs. Aller usually ends with one dead snake.

Once you got a good handle on how to do the combo system its really awesome.

I really want to see what is up with the planet New Jerusalem, it is supposed to be owned by the roman cathlic church, so I am kind of hopeing we got techno crusader knight gears or something like the paladin walking tank that is mentioned in some of the old fluff.

They were apparently strong enough to wipe out a CEF fleet that went there. Jotenheim is also going to be interesting, probably a bunch of viking cyber soldiers or something cool.

Arkrite needs to do one of two things,
1) Fire their community manager
Or 2) Actually get a community manager

In this day of rapidly available information and always-online customers used to quick and consistent communication their complete and utter lack of any kind of news at all about their progress is only fostering distrust in their ability to produce a finished product and a loss of potential customers. There's no reason they shouldn't have at least a once a month update that, at minimum, reassures their customers they're still working. For all we know the project is dead and no one is ready to admit it yet.

Yea it is honestly terrible on their community outreach, hell it appears that the only source of info is their facebook page. Although they probably think that is the best way to reach people. They really need to provide updates on their website however.

arkritepress.com/2016/03/10/state-of-the-game/

Found this, although it is about six months old at this point, it appears the game is still being worked on.

Here is the heavy gear fleet minis then for people to take a look. Not sure if they will use the same scale/minis for dreadnought though.

Apparently they moved the scale up a little bit

As far as internet time is concerned, six months might as well be six years, that news is so outdated as to be irrelevant. Again, as far as Internet time is concerned.

Well, we'll know what's going on when gets test pilot access and tells us what's happening on the forum.

Different models now, being produced in conjunction with some other company whose name escapes me at the moment.

Still; I'm more excited at the prospect of new Jovian and plastic PRDF.

Neat, how much bigger is the scale now? I would not mind a land ship at the scale of the HG main game as well for objectives and to fight upon for scenarios.

Here's a pic for reference

old south landship is the black one, new sexiness in Blue/Grey camo

...

...

And some concept art to go with

I still remember playing Heavy Gear one with that mission where your CO tries to get you killed by sending you right into the front of a Southern Tank battalion.

Fucking traumatizing, especially as i expected to just roll over those tanks due to watching too much Gundam at the time.

I'm curious where you got the idea Gears were a tank replacement.

/k/, in all likely hood. They have a hard time wrapping their heads around any ground-combat vehicle that isn't a tank.

>is (insert Gear here) comparable to an MBT?

The answer is no. The answer is always no.

Hey, I didn't think anyone else have a shit about Heavy Gear on here!

>They have a hard time wrapping their heads around any ground-combat vehicle that isn't a tank.

So does the US army, really.

How does this fucker even aim its autocannon?

Targeting computer thingamabobers.

oh man, a Heavy Gear thread?

What are the player bases like in people's areas? If any.

I play the RPG with my friends whom I introduced to it over a decade ago so....yeah.

I'm finding more and more people in my city got in on the kickstarter so I'm getting pretty optimistic.

Mostly imaginary

I'm in the same boat as you. I was just hoping to hear about other people getting communities going so I could pretend there was still hope for me.

I was going to try and learn the new tabletop rules and start giving demos at my local game shop, but my friend who I was learning the rules with up and quit and now I'm on my own to learn the new stuff.

Oh man, those minis are yours? Fucking beautiful. Fantastic paintjob, well done ^^ I hate seeing someone pour such effort into something and not even be sure when the fuck (if ever) he's going to use it.

I have pretty much the same problem as you; two guys said they were going to start collecting/playing Heavy Gear with me and bailed after two months of constant hype, saying something like "dude, this is cool and all, but why don't we just play Warmachine or WH40k like everybody else does?". And I'm like, what the fucking fuck guys?

And it's not just them. People in my gaming community, it's like they are afraid to try something new, not because the playerbase would be potentially small, more like they are genuinly scared of being ridiculed by other wargaming groups or simply too inert to move out of their routine game habits.

I just can't stomach that shit.

What edition?