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 Alpharius wrote:
Well, it will be Heavy Gear if that's what DP9 chooses to do with it!

Everything's still in beta though, right?

Not much cause for concern yet...maybe?

One of the fun things about HG is (or maybe was) that there's a proper tool for every job, which promoted the use of combined arms. If now FS Gears are for some reason going to be tougher that light tanks, and said light tanks mount a similar amount of weapons, cannot traverse as many terrain types, are less maneuverable, and are costlier (both in $ and in TV)... why the hell would you be using light tanks, again?

I submitted my observations to DP9Dave for his review. I agree with Albertorius that an FC Gear from ANY faction should not be able to take more damage than even a light hover tank.

 Alpharius wrote:
Well, it will be Heavy Gear if that's what DP9 chooses to do with it!

And if GW decides that imperial guard will now slaughter space marines in terminator armour in close combat, it will still be 40K.

Yes, a company can change the fundamental assumptions behind their settings and games. In which case, using the original name is borderline dishonest, and those who liked the original settings can complain and stop caring about the product.
Because it's no longer the setting they liked.
It's now a different setting. A new setting, that's using the name of the old. It is no longer the old setting.

Light tanks like Klemm and Hun get Armor of 10 and more hit points, while support Gear are at armour 8, so, no, Support Gear are not as tough as a light tank, however, yes, light tank are overpriced by around 4TV each. This I agree with.

Hover tanks are a complete other matter.

 frozenwastes wrote:
They have progressed the timeline quite a bit haven't they? Could these larger gears finally be getting developed to the point of being sufficiently resilient?

I will say though, that part of the appeal of the gears is that they are their own class of combat unit and not tank substitutes. It goes against quite a bit of established HG lore to redefine gears into possessing the characteristics of other combat units.

For a long time I've considered the idea of a "far future" Heavy Gear as something that might be worth it. The appeal, as I've always distilled it, about HG is that the mechs aren't magic teenager carriers. They're warmachines with a specific purpose. If a Gear has the same armour and weapons as a tank then.... why bother making tanks? Or if a tank is as maneuverable as a Gear, then why bother with Gears? But one of the hallmarks of the game has always been a (deliberately vague) sense of technological advancement. Older Gears feel older. Newer Gears are better. But at some point, if the story keeps going, to express that development on the tabletop, we're going to need every Gear acting like a hover-Gearstrider.

Which would be stupid.

But, mash down the fast-forward button a couple hundred years, dial up the anime, and make a full-on super-robo game to compliment the realistic combined arms approach of Heavy Gear. "Colony Wars" or anything more original. Perhaps some kind of Chronicle.

riker2800 wrote:
Light tanks like Klemm and Hun get Armor of 10 and more hit points, while support Gear are at armour 8, so, no, Support Gear are not as tough as a light tank, however, yes, light tank are overpriced by around 4TV each. This I agree with.

A Klemm has Armor 10, yes. It also has DC 5/3 and Pilot 6+, and the enemy gets additional rolled attack dice when flanking it. For 22 TV.
A Hun also has Armor 10, with DC 5/4 and Pilot, again, 6+ and additional attack dice for flanking. For 20 TV.

On the other hand, let's look at the Chevalier and other FS Gears:

A Chevalier has Armor 8. It also has DC 6/2 and Pilot 5+, which means that when damaged, it will keep at peak performance longer, and can use maneuver defenses and cover much, much more efficiently than light tanks, which make the armor difference very much moot (also, light tanks are much more vulnerable when flanked, which makes the armor even less of a point). It also sports as much weapons as those regular light tanks. All for 14 TV.
A Spitting Cobra has, again, 8 Armor, but gets even more DC at 6/3, with Pilot again 5+. Only this one costs 13 TV.
A Grizzly's core stats are pretty much the same as the Chevalier's, 8 Armor, DC 6/2 and Pilot 5+. This one costs 12 TV, though.

At least light tanks have 2 Actions when the other has only one, right? But then, when you look at the really "heavy" class Gears, the Kodiak and the King Cobra... well, you see this:
A Kodiak has 9 Armor, with DC 6/2, Pilot 5+, the enemy doesn't get additional attack dice for flanking it and has about twice as many weapons as the light tanks. And 2 Actions. For 18 TV.
And the King Cobra? Well, the King Cobra has 9 Armor, too, and +5 Pilot and reduced flank attack dice, and loads of weapons, and 2 actions... but DC 6/3 instead. Same 18 TV, though.

Hover tanks are a complete other matter.

No, they are not. They are tanks with Hover movement. By the same token, would Hover Gears be a complete other matter, when compared with regular Gears? Because I can assure you that's NOT the case.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Firebreak wrote:
For a long time I've considered the idea of a "far future" Heavy Gear as something that might be worth it. The appeal, as I've always distilled it, about HG is that the mechs aren't magic teenager carriers. They're warmachines with a specific purpose.

Pretty much this.

If a Gear has the same armour and weapons as a tank then.... why bother making tanks? Or if a tank is as maneuverable as a Gear, then why bother with Gears? But one of the hallmarks of the game has always been a (deliberately vague) sense of technological advancement. Older Gears feel older. Newer Gears are better.

Of course, but that's the thing... so is everything else. Any advancement you make to make Gears faster, lighter, tougher and better are advancements that you can apply to other, more conventional units. And it's something that the setting has done.

But at some point, if the story keeps going, to express that development on the tabletop, we're going to need every Gear acting like a hover-Gearstrider.

Which would be stupid.

When dealing with advanced/obsolete tech, I'd advice using this:

Hooks & Tips: Advanced Technology
The game system has been calibrated to handle the capabilities of most technological items within a few hundred years’ timespan. Extremely long-lived campagins, however, might find cost and size spiralling upward as Gamemasters try to adjust game stats to reflect a rapidly improving technology base.

The solution is to use Technical Levels. Each construct or piece of equipment can be assigned an abstract numerical value that represent how sophisticated the item is. Abstract, because none can predict the future’s capabilities. Items of the same technological level are built and used with the standard rules. If pitted against a lower or higher Tech Level, however, the difference between the two is applied to the dice roll. If using Threat Value and cost to choose units, each Tech Level multiply the cost by ten. Sensor and Comm Base Ranges are also multiplied by ten.

For example, a 2210-era campaign can be used as the Tech Level baseline. If one of the campaign’s mecha is pitted against a 1990 jet fighter (which would be, say, two TLs lower), it will gain an automatic bonus of +2 to all die rolls. If the very same mecha was found and used by rebels in the year 13,508 to be pitted against TL+5 grav-spheres, the latter would have a +5 modifier to all dice rolls.

I agree with Albertorius, though I didn't know it had gotten this bad. I played up until early Blitz where hordes of cheap gears (in other words MILITIA) was king. But that was then.

Tanks do have two actions so they can shoot that Spitting Cobra or Grizzly twice which can cause more damage then the one shot that they will suffer in return. So if King Cobras and Kodiaks did not have two actions I could almost see a point to tanks, though it does seem they are over priced.

With that said tanks have an issue in design that has bothered me as well from back when I played and that is by HG world definition tanks have multiple actions, good armor, bad maneuverability and flank weakness. Why would any government throw money at close support tanks? Why wouldn't they all mount long range weapons with one point defense weapon? It makes no sense if your vehicle is vulnerable to side attacks to then design some for urban warfare (unless the urban warfare is to level that city that is two clicks that way) when you have cheaper both in terms of cost to the military, in life, everything except maybe training in gears who are better suited for dealing with threats close in and from most angles.

I know design wise it gets boring having another tank with a light field gun or heavy mortar but that is what makes sense and instead building a small tank with lots of flamethrowers or large tank with a close in snub cannon, well if you wanted to do something like that use a Strider. Many of them can still turn around in your average sized street.

Its just a fluff issue but it has always bothered me. I could take this Hun with a bunch of flamethrowers for some good fluff reason and watch it get pasted because it has to get in so close or I could take these two Flamm Jagers.

When designing a combined arms game its important that all pieces have their place and use. You can't get perfect balance across all units, some of them will be not as effective point for point compared to another within their respective forces but you need to at least find a niche for every class of unit.

grujav wrote:
With that said tanks have an issue in design that has bothered me as well from back when I played and that is by HG world definition tanks have multiple actions, good armor, bad maneuverability and flank weakness.

Well, to be fair tanks didn't really had any real weakness to being flanked until now. They just had reinforced armor in the front xD.

Why would any government throw money at close support tanks?

A very fair question.

Why wouldn't they all mount long range weapons with one point defense weapon? It makes no sense if your vehicle is vulnerable to side attacks to then design some for urban warfare (unless the urban warfare is to level that city that is two clicks that way) when you have cheaper both in terms of cost to the military, in life, everything except maybe training in gears who are better suited for dealing with threats close in and from most angles.

Agreed. Southern tanks might get a (slight) pass in those terms because they tend to be cheap, cheap, cheap and only have 2 crewmembers. As to side attacks vulnerability, see above.

I know design wise it gets boring having another tank with a light field gun or heavy mortar but that is what makes sense and instead building a small tank with lots of flamethrowers or large tank with a close in snub cannon, well if you wanted to do something like that use a Strider. Many of them can still turn around in your average sized street.

The Visigoth with the double Snub cannon is... well, one of the most stupid payloads ever. At least it had a VHAC and AP charges, but... yeah.

As to the Hittite (the one with a flamer and 4 HMGs, not lots of flamers )... well, it's an anti infantry escort, really, ad a cheap one at that (like, Jäger cheap) so I think it makes some sense, at least in older editions where infantry packed a mean punch and GREL infantry was basically a terror in the field. As an escort for other tanks I think it had its place, even though it was very specialized. Then it got retconned to also be an infantry transport and, well, it made even more sense, I think.

Its just a fluff issue but it has always bothered me. I could take this Hun with a bunch of flamethrowers for some good fluff reason and watch it get pasted because it has to get in so close or I could take these two Flamm Jagers.

True, but as I said it was a really good AI plattform.

When designing a combined arms game its important that all pieces have their place and use. You can't get perfect balance across all units, some of them will be not as effective point for point compared to another within their respective forces but you need to at least find a niche for every class of unit.

Absolutely agreed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrandonKF wrote:
You know I never saw the jump jet infantry except in Gear Krieg. Probably for the best.

You probably didn't look very closely then, because there were some in both the MILICIA and the NorGuard army books from 2nd edition.

 Albertorius wrote:

Hooks & Tips: Advanced Technology
The game system has been calibrated to handle the capabilities of most technological items within a few hundred years’ timespan. Extremely long-lived campagins, however, might find cost and size spiralling upward as Gamemasters try to adjust game stats to reflect a rapidly improving technology base.

The solution is to use Technical Levels. Each construct or piece of equipment can be assigned an abstract numerical value that represent how sophisticated the item is. Abstract, because none can predict the future’s capabilities. Items of the same technological level are built and used with the standard rules. If pitted against a lower or higher Tech Level, however, the difference between the two is applied to the dice roll. If using Threat Value and cost to choose units, each Tech Level multiply the cost by ten. Sensor and Comm Base Ranges are also multiplied by ten.

For example, a 2210-era campaign can be used as the Tech Level baseline. If one of the campaign’s mecha is pitted against a 1990 jet fighter (which would be, say, two TLs lower), it will gain an automatic bonus of +2 to all die rolls. If the very same mecha was found and used by rebels in the year 13,508 to be pitted against TL+5 grav-spheres, the latter would have a +5 modifier to all dice rolls.

Hm. Simple, elegant, easy. I like it!

Currently the Kickstarter has been holding steady at over $85,000. We need $8,000 more to unlock the new Caprice Mounts in plastic.

Dream Pod 9 released a new 3D run-around of the MHT-95 here.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=893295520683329

And also updated with the following:

"We just added a graphic to the front page to let everyone know that the plastic miniatures for this Kickstarter will be made in the USA. And that the Kickstarter is United Kingdom and European Union Friendly.

Dream Pod 9 has arranged for Wayland Games in the UK to act as our forwarder for UK and EU Backer reward shipments. All UK and EU Backer rewards will be packed up at our office in Canada, with Backer address labels on the packages. They will all ship out in our 4th wave of shipping as a large consolidated air freight shipment to Wayland Games in the UK, who with then mail out all the packages to our Backers. By doing this our UK and EU Backers will not have to worry about any VAT costs. If a UK or EU Backer with an earlier shipping wave pledge or the Heavy Gear Universe pledge level does not wish to wait for the wave 4 shipping, they just need to inform us. We'll ship the rewards package to them directly in the selected wave and they will be responsible for the VAT costs when it arrives.

Our 3D Modeler is busy working on the Spitting Cobra, Cheetah and Iguana models now. As he gets them finished up over the next several week, we'll get you all updates to show how they are looking. After that he'll move on the CEF models that have been unlocked and then on to the other stretch goals that get unlocked. He took a bit of time the other day to make a MHT-95 Hovertank turn around video, which I have posted below for you to checkout.

Help us get the news out to friends in the UK and European Union.

Thank you all!"

Dream Pod 9, Inc. on November 2 at 4:11pm on FB wrote:We won't be giving out that information, as they are just an injection plastic company and have requested that we don't give out the info for now.

 warboss wrote:
If you watch enough KS, you end up seeing a general trend. I don't think there is anything to worry about at the moment but the next 48 hours will be key.

Whether they chose to back or not I think this is why such a number of people knowledgeable about KS campaigns were telling the Pod all Summer & Fall that a good deal of advertising needed to be done by the company before, during, and after the funding drive.
Every other business in the world finds it necessary to spend both time and money on advertising to try and get the exposure to generate sufficient profits, none are exempt from this process.

People in the KS comments have also repeatedly pointed out that not taking the time to proofread for grammar & spelling errors gives off an unprofessional vibe, but, well, enough said on that for the moment.

It also does no good at all in my opinion for the company to keep asking in their own venues for more people to pledge when TPTB are already speaking to their supporters.
Even in the KS comments people pointed out that asking for a pledge increase from the current backers does not equate to a needed increase in overall backer numbers.
And any appearance of begging for more support should probably be avoided at all cost by the company itself, because it could give off a negative impression that they might not want to be doing with (20) days yet to go in the drive.

Dream Pod 9 has admittedly managed to garner for the moment a far greater amount of promised pledges than most anyone thought they would, but it may just be that they have to accept the well of collective support has for the most part given what all it can for this campaign.
If planned or additional models have to be put on hold until another KS campaign can be run at a better time in the new year or down the road, maybe that is what has to happen for now once the final tally is reached on this one.

grujav wrote:
Why would any government throw money at close support tanks?

 Albertorius wrote:
A very fair question.

Even from a plausibility standpoint, and not necessarily from a hard sci-fi realism standpoint, a ground vehicle with a stressed metallic or bonded ceramic+metal skin is absolutely going to be easier (and for comparable overall mass likely cheaper) to design, manufacture, maintain, and repair than any legged combat vehicle at the cost of the easy versatility of swapping a hand-held delivery system.

But then again, how many weapons does one vehicle actually need to field.
Obviously one system can't do everything, but adding more systems instead of more versatile systems cuts into the volume available for ammunition/stores etc able to be carried so much that it would probably be detrimental rather than beneficial.

grujav wrote:
I know design wise it gets boring having another tank with a light field gun or heavy mortar but that is what makes sense and instead building a small tank with lots of flamethrowers or large tank with a close in snub cannon, well if you wanted to do something like that use a Strider. Many of them can still turn around in your average sized street.

 Albertorius wrote:
The Visigoth with the double Snub cannon is... well, one of the most stupid payloads ever. At least it had a VHAC and AP charges, but... yeah.

I honestly never understood the anemic ranges even in the RPG, nor the overabundance of delivery systems when it was the terminal effect of the munitions that were supposed to matter, whether cheap or high-end.

One thing that also always struck me as odd was in the 2e Technical Manual;
Rocket packs on a Gear are there for anti-structure and/or area effect purposes.
The Hunter/Jäger were supposed to have the protection of a modern day T-72 versus frontal attacks but carried a weapon that we know just from today, no matter how good the penetrator, is going to be lucky to damage that kind of armoring from the flank or rear.
Sure, explosive 20mm rounds are murder against unprotected infantry troops with even one capable of blowing quite a large hole in a soldier, but the whole point of the main delivery system on a vehicle is to be able to kill a comparable opposing vehicle.

On numerous occasions Bradleys in Desert Storm engaged Iraqi T-72s with APDS rounds from the 25mm chain-gun and were unable to effectively mission kill those kind of tanks.
Which is why current maneuver combat vehicles are future proofing with Supershot 25/30mm rounds or else being designed to carry 40mm cannons made compact through the use of electro-thermal propulsion or whatnot where overall vehicle size/mass can't be made greater.

_
_

This may interest any non-US backers:

We just added a graphic to the front page to let everyone know that the plastic miniatures for this Kickstarter will be made in the USA. And that the Kickstarter is United Kingdom and European Union Friendly.

Dream Pod 9 has arranged for Wayland Games in the UK to act as our forwarder for UK and EU Backer reward shipments. All UK and EU Backer rewards will be packed up at our office in Canada, with Backer address labels on the packages. They will all ship out in our 4th wave of shipping as a large consolidated air freight shipment to Wayland Games in the UK, who with then mail out all the packages to our Backers. By doing this our UK and EU Backers will not have to worry about any VAT costs. If a UK or EU Backer with an earlier shipping wave pledge or the Heavy Gear Universe pledge level does not wish to wait for the wave 4 shipping, they just need to inform us. We'll ship the rewards package to them directly in the selected wave and they will be responsible for the VAT costs when it arrives.

Thank you all!

Also OP updated, sorry for letting it languish for so long guys and gals, other things came up.

So, DP9 is making an appeal to patriotism... for a foreign country. How patriotic.

I really wish they plastics were going to be produced in Canada (alongside the metals and resins, as they pointed out on their FB page). I understand why they aren't, but it's still too bad that buying Canadian won't really mean Canadian, in this specific case.

mrondeau wrote:
So, DP9 is making an appeal to patriotism... for a foreign country. How patriotic.

"'Murica: Our patriotism is so strong, other countries do it for us!"

Has this one plateaued then?

Is it at that "too good to resist" level, or was that something that was more like around the $100K level?

 Alpharius wrote:
Has this one plateaued then?

Is it at that "too good to resist" level, or was that something that was more like around the $100K level?

A few hours on kicktraq doesn't make a defunding trend... yet. If it continues tonight and tomorrow then we've likely reached an inflection point in funding and not just the typical mid KS peaks and valleys plateau. My ballpark estimate was that the base pledge is "worth it" at 99k as you'll have four fully unlocked factions in the set that each give you a full average sized army in the OLD/CURRENT rules and four smaller ones/two allied average sized ones for the NEW/BETA rules.

Whoa!

No one mentioned 'defunding' here - just, perhaps, that this one's found it's level.

I don't actually think it has, and I think it will hit that magic $99K level which will make it a 'great deal' and that will also make this one late + extra late when it comes to delivery! Hopefully just not "Robotech Late"!

Sorry, I was just taking the thought to its next logical step (aka Thon). If you watch enough KS, you end up seeing a general trend. I don't think there is anything to worry about at the moment but the next 48 hours will be key.

Well, I finished my read through of the rules. The end result is that I was not sufficiently interested to want to play the game it described.

The rules were described in a clear, technical manner with diagrams that look like they are from a science textbook. They're clear and show what's what, but make me feel like HG is written for a small subset of the gamer market who enjoy reading support documents for software they use.



This is a great document for people who already play the game and want the rules in a very efficient manner, but it's the last thing I'd give someone to entice them to play the game.

As to the game described, it looks fine. I just can't think of a reason why I should play it compared to everything else that's vying for my attention these days. I've already got 2nd edition HG if I'm feeling nostalgic for 90s TerraNova. And to be honest, I'm currently not.

If the game takes off and people I know who used to play break out their collections and invite me to play, I will. I'm just not sufficiently enthused about it to be the one hosting games and driving things forward locally.

How do the models and game compare to the Paulson one? Which is better value for money?

One is a one man operation producing resin/metal models and the other is IP that's been around for a couple of decades that is trying to fund plastic minis right now.
Model for model you'll get more stuff with HG.

At 15mm Paulson mechs would kick HG mechs around like soccer balls, and I can certainly speak to the high quality of Paulson's resin casting.

Does Paulson have a game out yet?

Really hard to make a valid comparison between the two.

 frozenwastes wrote:
Well, I finished my read through of the rules. The end result is that I was not sufficiently interested to want to play the game it described.

The rules were described in a clear, technical manner with diagrams that look like they are from a science textbook. They're clear and show what's what, but make me feel like HG is written for a small subset of the gamer market who enjoy reading support documents for software they use.



This is a great document for people who already play the game and want the rules in a very efficient manner, but it's the last thing I'd give someone to entice them to play the game.

As to the game described, it looks fine. I just can't think of a reason why I should play it compared to everything else that's vying for my attention these days. I've already got 2nd edition HG if I'm feeling nostalgic for 90s TerraNova. And to be honest, I'm currently not.

If the game takes off and people I know who used to play break out their collections and invite me to play, I will. I'm just not sufficiently enthused about it to be the one hosting games and driving things forward locally.

The Beta will be updated in a few weeks, and many stuff like your Sat up example will be gone, a lot of stuff is being removed in the name of streamlining and faster game. EW is being completely rewritten as of now, all for the better.

Good to hear!

riker2800 wrote:
The Beta will be updated in a few weeks, and many stuff like your Sat up example will be gone, a lot of stuff is being removed in the name of streamlining and faster game. EW is being completely rewritten as of now, all for the better.

I'm currently more interested in games that are deep yet elegant rather than streamlined and fast. I agree it's a good thing to get rid of unnecessary rules, but I can't help thinking that these incremental changes from a more complex version from long ago over time is probably not as good as doing game design from the ground up. If the goal is a fast and streamlined game, then designing *that* game (rather then slowly tweaking towards it) might be a better way to go. I get though that there's this whole existing customer base who may not want more than tweaking over time.

I understand that it's basically a reference book for the rules. It's a good document for that purpose, but it doesn't capture the imagination like other game books I've read. If the goal is, at all, to get people excited for the kickstarter and for the idea of playing the game in the future so they will fund more, then some other document is needed. Or maybe a video series (record the audio in a silent place though so there's no hiss).

If the goal is an actual starter set for people who are new to get into the game, then I don't think the reference manual approach is really appropriate for first contact with the game either. I'd recommend a series of scenarios that teach you the rules as you play them, introducing more and more rules in each of them as you play.

I'm out on this Kickstarter, but hopefully it'll work out great for those interested. I'm just not interested in a fast and streamlined heavy gear. I know that miniatures need selling and a game that needs more miniatures can create an opportunity to sell them, but such an approach is not for me.

EDIT: I've enjoyed participating in this thread and being reminded of something I played regularly in the 90s. Gear Krieg was ahead of its time in terms of the popularity of weird WW2 and will always remain one of my favorite games. Keeping previous editions of heavy gear available in PDF and print on demand is great as well. Glad to see they are still available. I hope this funds and funds well and nice plastic gears will be available to me as a retail customer even if I don't want to sign up to get a ton of them at once.

---

Yeah, Gear Krieg was definitely ahead of its time. I remember when they tested out the rules at gen con pre release and used hunter and jaeger minis IIRC with scale soldier heads on top of the gear ones (so curvy russian gears were Jaegers with russian WW2 helmets and angular hunters with german helmets). Frozen, you could always pledge the princely sum of $1 and then increase it during the pledge manager phase if you change your mind or just prefer to procrastinate and delay the decision. I don't know how long they'll keep the pledge manager open but hopefully they'll take the mantic route and right up until they start production and/or ship.

It looks like yesterday was an anomaly most of the day and rallied late last night. I checked on kicktraq occasionally throughout the day and it was negative until the evening (I saw up to -3 backers but a little birdie told me it dipped to -6 at one point) but apparently the fanbase rallied with a net zero backer number by the end with a few folks already pledging increasing their individual pledges.

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/heavygearblitz/heavy-gear-blitz-war-for-terra-nova-starter-set/#chart-daily

Definitely in the KS Mid-Campaign Lull Period:




This one should still get up to ~$125K - $150K though!

Here is Update #35 for the Kickstarter, a preview of the Acco Mount from Caprice that will be unlocked at $99,000.

While working on the new edition of the Heavy Gear Blitz rules, we realized that Caprice needed a small low cost trooper mount to counter opposing factions. So the Acco was designed around the idea of having a Mount about the same size as a Gear with light weapons. The cockpit area in the front of the mount is just a bit smaller than a Hunters, with hatch for the pilot enter at the top. Behind the pilot is the iconic dome covering, on all Caprice Mount engines, and there are hard points on each side to attach the weapons systems. The standard Acco has a medium machine gun in the front, light rocket pack on the left, and light autocannon on the right. It will also have two variants; one with a light frag cannon and the other with a light flamer.

We hope you all like the preview image below with Acco at the top and then a smaller image of the Acco and a Hunter shown to scale, side by side. The Acco Mount will be unlocked when we reach stretch goal 12 at $99K in Pledges. At that point 4 of them will be added to the Core Starter Set, making it an even more amazing backer reward.






Currently the Kickstarter is at $86,000. With $7,000 more the plastic Caprice models will be unlocked.

Maybe others don't like the idea of a simplified ruleset, but the fact is that a simpler ruleset can make for a faster game once the rules are learned. This Kickstarter is not just for old existing players, it is meant for retailers and newcomers too. New players will be able to get 4 full forces with the Core Starter Set at a price that is arguably good. Retailers can also purchase these sets ahead of time with an eye on expanding their groups.

I hope to look forward to many more players. I created a Facebook Group a year back that recently received a new name, covering every update between Heavy Gear Assault, Heavy Gear Blitz, and the Heavy Gear Universe RPG.

The name of the group is Terra Nova DMZ: Heavy Gear Universe Fans.

If you are having trouble locating someone in your local area, feel free to come over and join. We also regularly post updates on the models we are currently painting. And we don't mind answering questions others may have for the universe.

I really like that new Acco design, quite respectful of the existing Caprician designs.

BrandonKF wrote:
Maybe others don't like the idea of a simplified ruleset, but the fact is that a simpler ruleset can make for a faster game once the rules are learned. This Kickstarter is not just for old existing players, it is meant for retailers and newcomers too. New players will be able to get 4 full forces with the Core Starter Set at a price that is arguably good. Retailers can also purchase these sets ahead of time with an eye on expanding their groups.

But simplified/faster doesn't necessarily mean better. While I don't want a game between two reasonable sized forces taking nine hours, having that same sized force take 30 minutes isn't my cup o' tea either. Nor do I want to need to triple my "reasonable" sized force just to get some longevity/tactical variety. I'm liking the base mechanics I've seen, but I'm more interested in the 10-15 models range, rather than the 40-50 range. I want the choices of individual figures to matter.

It's a balance, between being overly complicated, and reducing tactical options. Too many options and complexity taken to one extreme, is bad. Not enough, IMO, is worse. Because it leaves little room for growth, and lists/armies/the game itself, get boring fast. I don't play 40K, because there's few tactical choices on the tabletop, it's move/shoot, and the only variations are figure/weapon stats, and some positional/targetting options. But the decisions by players, while important, are limited. And frankly, the market for that kind of game is kinda full.

On the other side, I want to be clear, while Battletech was my first love, and I still love it, the (relatively) complicated combat system doesn't actually add tactical complexity. There are some definite decisions in there, but mostly those are on the positional/firing choice options. Both of which this version of Heavy Gear has. But I don't want it to be Battletech without the paperwork either (that's called Alpha Strike, apparently). I just want at least some models to have options beyond move/shoot. I think Malifaux 2E captures that well. And given the style of this genre, I'm really hoping we don't lose (and hopefully expand upon) the whole command/control/EW/battlefield intelligence element that is missing from nearly all of these games. While I'm not sure if the Sattelite Uplink thing mentioned earlier is necessarily mechanically right (having only just started), I think I'll be disappointed if the concept is flat out shelved, to make the game "simpler".