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Based on my limited understanding, BattleTech and Heavy Gear are two of the fairly popular mech-based tactical tabletop wargames on the market. Are there other really great games in this arena? I am interested in picking up a rulebook for a "mech combat" game.

What are the distinctions between BattleTech and Heavy Gear? Mainly in terms of gameplay, scale, and overall balance and flavor? I still remember my old school "MechWarrior" games on my PC where I can customize, tailor the loadout of my mech. Does either of the rulesets give you the flexibility to "design your own mech", or is customization "too easily abused", so the games stay away from it?

More importantly, which game (BattleTech, Heavy Gear, or other mech combat game) would you recommend and why? Thank you for your input!

Well, they're different animals, really. I play both, and CAV (another stompy robot game). I like battletech due to the record keeping detail and the atmoshpere. I like Heavy Gear because it's more battle armor size, the play is more streamlined, it's more combined arms and the atmosphere. I like CAV because I live in Denton, Texas and Reaper comes to my house and makes me play. Teasing! The scale is in between Btech and HG, play is also streamlined and they also have a descent back story (although the least developed of the 3, but not a fair comparison).

What are you looking for in a game?

I prefer BattleTech myself... but then I have a lot of history with that game. Like all the way back to the original release titled BattleDroids.

I think it's fun, fairly streamlined, and quick and easy to play, at least in its basic form. Once you get into the optional rules it picks up complexity kinda quickly, but you can deal with those rules once you've mastered the basics.

I love Battletech played all the variants since Battledroids - the record keeping and rules are easy to do and follow once you learn them and the fluff is very good but with the constant changing of hand recently. I am going to go with Heavy Gear at this time. The fluff is good has a more anime feel to it and the rules are streamlined and the game is just more fun at the current time plus they really seem to be trying to expand their little universe.

I'm happy to answer any Heavy Gear questions, of course. And I know the main writer/line developer/rules guy is on Dakka occasionally as well.

It's a good time to get into Heavy Gear as the squad boxes are being 'refreshed' with updated molds to fix some issues with older molds and update contents to better reflect the current army lists.

I really try to stay out of Heavy Gear vs. Battletech mudslinging fights. It does neither game any good. Try them out, see what you like, and there may be room for both as they don't overlap much when you get down to details. The 'philosophy' behind the two games is different, and I don't think either philosophy fits everyone's tastes.

Thanks for letting me know your preferences. It sounds like a fairly even split between Btech and Heavy Gear. Unfortunately, my main question still stands...

Salisar wrote:What are the distinctions between BattleTech and Heavy Gear? Mainly in terms of gameplay, scale, and overall balance and flavor?

robertsjf wrote:What are you looking for in a game?

Boy, I can go on for pages... In short, I like games that are customizable, tactical, and balanced. Customizable in the sense that I can change tailor my army configuration with a variety of units, weapon configurations, etc. Ideally it would be great if I can design my own mech configurations, so I can have long/med/short range fighters. I prefer games to be more tactical and less dice/chance dependent. Dice is always fun, but I'd play craps if I want to have a full dice fest. I would like to stay away from games that encourages meta-gaming, where players will tailor specific lists against a specific factions, races, etc.

Balance wrote:I really try to stay out of Heavy Gear vs. Battletech mudslinging fights.

I'm not trying to start forum brawls, but just want to make an informed decision on which game system I want to check out first.

Battletech definitely allows you to design your own units. Some people don't like playing with custom units though *shrugs*, perferring the cannon variants.

It is definitely more balanced than 40k/WFB, but the writers actually write a game for a game not to sell minis.

Salisar wrote:What are the distinctions between BattleTech and Heavy Gear? Mainly in terms of gameplay, scale, and overall balance and flavor?

The overal 'philosophy' of BattleTech seems to be 'land battleships', while HG is more 'big infantrymen.' By this I mean that a Battlemech has individual damage counts for limbs, crit charts, and lots of individual guns. You generally need a sheet for each Mech, although there's some large scale rules to get around that. Heavy Gear is simpler, as each Gear (or other vehicle or squad of infantry) has 3 'wounds' (some have more, a rare few have less). Ammo tracking is only for scarcer weapons like missile launchers, and there's an ammo roll system kind of like Necromunda's, but with the advantage that pilot skill plays a part, so a good pilot is also going to be more ammo-conscious. Gears and other units in HG are generally tracked on a card with either tokens or a special die that go on the card or next to the unit. In BT's defense, the sheets are very well laid out, and I think regular player's can memorize the charts needed as they're not super-complex.

Heavy Gear is squad-based, with a normal list being 2-4 squads. A squad might be 3-5 Gears, a Tank or two, a platoon (12 bases) of Infantry, or similar. Some army lists can mix things up by allowing tank squads to take Gears. Attacks are resolved on a single-model basis, so you don't have the issues 40k has with mixed units, for example. Squads activate together (I.E. you move and attack with everything in squad A, then the opponent gets to move Squad B, then back to you for Squad C) but coherency is not required (however, there are a couple rules that make keeping a squad close valuable).

I prefer HG's flavor (again, see my stated bias. ) This is mainly because, to me, HG at least tries to make the big stompy robots kinda-sorta realistic. They're relatively tiny (less recoil issues, less ground pressure issues, less of a bullet-magnet), have a very down-to-earth design philosophy (multi-fuel engines, and most of the tech is supposed to be pretty common on the world they originate from), and they've got a bit more of a unified 'feel' in the army lists: the Northern designs are chunky and square, the Southern designs rounded, the CEF stuff is it's own design philosophy altogether, etc.

I've played BT in the past. It's not a bad game, just not my thing. I didn't like the 'feel' of it very much, as it seemed overly complex, but the rules definitely work.

robertsjf wrote:What are you looking for in a game?

Boy, I can go on for pages... In short, I like games that are customizable, tactical, and balanced. Customizable in the sense that I can change tailor my army configuration with a variety of units, weapon configurations, etc. Ideally it would be great if I can design my own mech configurations, so I can have long/med/short range fighters. I prefer games to be more tactical and less dice/chance dependent. Dice is always fun, but I'd play craps if I want to have a full dice fest. I would like to stay away from games that encourages meta-gaming, where players will tailor specific lists against a specific factions, races, etc.

Salisar wrote:

Salisar wrote:What are the distinctions between BattleTech and Heavy Gear? Mainly in terms of gameplay, scale, and overall balance and flavor?

robertsjf wrote:What are you looking for in a game?

Boy, I can go on for pages... In short, I like games that are customizable, tactical, and balanced. Customizable in the sense that I can change tailor my army configuration with a variety of units, weapon configurations, etc. Ideally it would be great if I can design my own mech configurations, so I can have long/med/short range fighters. I prefer games to be more tactical and less dice/chance dependent. Dice is always fun, but I'd play craps if I want to have a full dice fest. I would like to stay away from games that encourages meta-gaming, where players will tailor specific lists against a specific factions, races, etc.

OK, BT has 10m tall stompy robots, wereas HG is more traditional anime power armor size (think 40k dreadnought except with alive people). That's your vehicle scale. Actual modelling scale is Z gauge for BT and N gauge for HG.

As far as gameplay, do you like a little record keeping and table reference or no? EX: With HG I can resolve the effect of a shot in a single roll, with BT you need 2-3 rolls most of the time to resolve damage. BT has more recordkeeping than HG.

As far as being tactical, I personally don't feel that either game is more dependent on the dice than the other. You use the dice as a randomizer but in both you can manuever into a position that effectively dictates your success much more than dice. Now, there are certain situations in both games where an amazing roll will have a significant impact, but that's the whole point of having a randomizer: to simulate flukes of fate.

As far as flavor, BT is more lumbering, walking tank kinda feeling (Think At-Ats at Hoth) while HG is, as mentioned earlier, an anime power armor type feel (Youtube VOTOMS for a good idea). Both have alot of print background, BT winning out on amount because it's been around since '85.

So, balance (not the poster Balance but the idea of balance). I'm a little weak in this area because I'm not big into worrying about perfect balance. I'm perfectly fine with uneven forces and a suitable scenario, playing through twice on opposite sides of the table. That being said, HG IMHO is more combined arms than BT. That's because every vehicle in HG has the same general template, whereas BT has different template for different vehicle types. This is a non issue if you're playing same type on same type (mech on mech for example) but can be a little wonky across types (mech vs tank). BT tries and does a fairly good job of having battle values that take this into acct. HG also has a traditional point system along with an overiding army structure (take x number of this unit type, y number of this type, etc...). BT only has a point value system.

Customization: BT has a bit of a leg up in this arena with vehicle design rules that plug right into the game. Now, as mentioned some opponents aren't big into custom units, but it is there. HG does have quite a bit of customization, but more along the lines of a squad level basis with many variants of the same chasis used in different type of squads. There are Gear design rules for the roleplaying game that can generate a figure that can then in turn be divided by 10 to generate a point cost for a custom gear but I've been told that it can be fairly skewed.

Metagame: all of the factions in HG seem well balanced, and in BT depending on the timeframe you play all factions have access to the exact same equipment potentially, the ultimate in meta-negator! Other BT time frames do pitch technologically inferior equipment against more advanced but with the point system you get to take more inferior units to advanced ones.

Hope this helps answer more of your questions.


Edit: Balance published his novel while I was writing mine, sorry for any overlap...

robertsjf wrote:
Edit: Balance published his novel while I was writing mine, sorry for any overlap...

We did both get a bit wordy, didn't we?

My current personal stance on gaming is that every game is cool as long as the company that makes it is cool. Sure, I push for the ones that I do work for a bit more, but I'd rather not hard-sell someone on a game and have them come away angry.

The Quickstart rules for Heavy gear Blitz! are available as a free download, too. That document explains a lot of the basics and is absed around a demo game on a 4 x 4 table. The rules leave out a lot of the 'fun stuff' like Forward Observing/Target Designation (I.E. having some lucky guy get to race ahead and point out targets for the big guns), Comm Events (There's a set of rules to cover communication events, which are jammable), Support Points (You get a pool of points to spend on stuff like airstrikes, off-board artillery, and units being airdropped), and some other stuff.

http://www.classicbattletech.com/index.php?action=text&page=Information

This is the quickstart for BT.

Personally, any company that does a quickstart ruleset so that you can try out the system is doing something right.

Quickstarts are nice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And, thanks to posting it here, I cleaned up the quickstart download page.

Thanks for the input guys. I think I have a fairly clear picture about the distinctions between the two games, without starting a bar room brawl. I can see why both games are appealing, and why some people one preference on one over the other. I think I will see if I can find the rules for Heavy Gear and take a look at it. I'm happy to hear that it is a squad based game without the kindergarten fieldtrip coherency rules.

40,000 years into the future, and they still haven't figured out how to use radios...

Salisar wrote:Thanks for letting me know your preferences. It sounds like a fairly even split between Btech and Heavy Gear. Unfortunately, my main question still stands...

Salisar wrote:What are the distinctions between BattleTech and Heavy Gear? Mainly in terms of gameplay, scale, and overall balance and flavor?

robertsjf wrote:What are you looking for in a game?

Boy, I can go on for pages... In short, I like games that are customizable, tactical, and balanced. Customizable in the sense that I can change tailor my army configuration with a variety of units, weapon configurations, etc. Ideally it would be great if I can design my own mech configurations, so I can have long/med/short range fighters. I prefer games to be more tactical and less dice/chance dependent. Dice is always fun, but I'd play craps if I want to have a full dice fest. I would like to stay away from games that encourages meta-gaming, where players will tailor specific lists against a specific factions, races, etc.

Balance wrote:I really try to stay out of Heavy Gear vs. Battletech mudslinging fights.

I'm not trying to start forum brawls, but just want to make an informed decision on which game system I want to check out first.

I literally know nothing about Heavy Gear (or mudslinging fights between BT and HG, for that matter). I know that for Battletech, 'Mech contstruction and modification rules are part and parcel of the core rules, and unit composition is left completely in the player's hands.

I'll grant you that it is hard to beat assault 'mechs with lights, but it can be done if the light player makes smart choices about his 'mechs and plays as tactially as possible.

Battletech definitely has the more 'freeform' construction of both Mecha and units.

HG's old VCS had some faults as the canon designs were made for mixed RPG/Tac play and could be trashed by munchkins, which limited use. The system used positive and negative traits, and some traits only had effects in RPG usage, so munchkin mecha could load up on Annoyance: Stinky Cockpit and Low Towing Capacity to lower points. Back in 'the old days' a lot of the mailing list Great Old Ones would tear vehicle designs to shreds to prevent min-maxing...

On the plus side, the army construction system i n the current game is very wide open. It combines TV (Threat Value: think 'points') with a PL (Priority Level) setting that describes how favored the force is. PL1 is a patrol and will have low expectations. PL4 is an elite commando squad. Higher PLs use more generous 'force org chart' equivalents, but they have to achieve more goals to win against a lower PL force...

In Battletech the main balancing value is "Battle Value." Each unit is assigned it's value based on a variety of calculations to determine effectiveness. It isn't perfect, especially if one side seriously outnumbers the other, or has far better skills. But better skills also count more to your BV.

Most of the 'Mech creation programs such as Heavy Metal Pro and Solaris Skunk Works will calculate the Battle Value of a custom design.

Most custom designs aren't needed though because there are thousands of canon designs available.

Another point for Battletech: Buy the starter box, and you have everything to play. I don't know if that's true for Heavy Gear, or if you just get the rules and have to buy more stuff to play (a la Warhammer).

No HG Starter Set quite like that, sadly. There are some Army Deals and Starter Sets to get a couple of squad boxes at a time. One issue is that the miniature aren't easily used across factions, so there would need to be multiple starter sets and/or picking one faction as the 'Space Marines' and I get the idea the developers really don't want to show favoritism to one faction (which i'd say is a good thing).