To start out this blog, I'll go through a bit of the somewhat love/hate history I've had with the game in the past. If you're not interesting in my not-so-short tale of gaming love found and lost, I'd suggest skipping ahead to the pic below and then the next post.

My interest in Heavy Gear started out back in the mid-90's when a friend and I saw an ad for the upcoming RPG Heavy Gear in the Gencon Program guide. We both were intrigued by the art and the idea of smaller mech combat and were fans of DP9's prior works (both of us owned copies of Protoculture Addict and the Macross II Robotech books). When we played a few games at Gencon, we both were hooked (and ironically earned playtesting credit for the second HG book published!). I started up a Northern force while my friend collected the South. Unfortunately, DP9 decided to switch editions around two years later as well as completely change the scale of the minis from then on and both of our collections were now not really compatible with future products. We both decided not to buy HG products anymore (and my friend got out of minis in general) and for the next almost 10 years my only involvement with the game was playing a convention game here and there (including playing penny-marker vectore based Jovian Chronicles and Gear Krieg back when it was just gears with little WWII plastic infantry bits glued onto the minis!). During that time, HG came out with new revisions of the core same books roughly every 3 years and eventually ended up with Blitz. After getting some assurances from the guys at DP9 at Gencon that Blitz (which came out a few months earlier) was here to stay, I got back into the game mainly because of the new minis, which reminded me in shape/style alot more of the old RAFM ones than the tactical ones did. Unfortunately, two years later Locked and Loaded was announced as replacing the four Blitz books that had been published to date and a promised free PDF update never materialized. With my book collection phased out yet again, I was back out of the HG hobby (and so was my FLGS which had their entire blitz collection made unsellable just like with their previous HG sets).

Recently, I stumbled onto an incredible deals on Southern minis for Heavy Gear. After a few years of not really paying attention to HG (other than the occasional nerdrage post in Balance's threads here), I found myself contemplating visiting Terra Nova again. Forewarned by my prior experiences, I started looking for news of another edition change as it had been a couple years since L&L came out and was due for an early DP9 edition swap; soon enough, i found some info on the upcoming Field Manual (including here on dakka). There was indeed a mini-edition change in the works mere weeks away but it looked like DP9 were finally changed somewhat and were at least giving the rules to their PDF customers as a free update. In the end, it was the minis that did me in yet again as they were now mostly updated from the tactical HG styles that I didn't particularly care for. I really did like the current minis and always liked their art... and the rumors of changes to L&L improved what I already thought was a solid ruleset back in the original blitz days... So I decided to jump back into the game. The Northern Army (my old stomping grounds) offered by the seller was already sold but there was still a Southern Force for sale so I decided to bite and picked it up (heck, the Support Cobra was my favorite mini and I didn't even play the south back in 1st edition!).

So, without further adieu/pontificating/whining, here's my new southern force in all of its blister/box glory!



So with that fell swoop, I found myself back on Terra Nova.

I'll continue now with a bit of first impressions after being away from the game for a while, starting with the Locked and Loaded book. The book contains the main rules for the game in the first section (soon to be replaced by the Field Manual) with the traditional four army lists coming right after. The original blitz books were never very heavy on fluff (I used to refer back to my 1st edition army guides for those) and L&L continues this. That said, this is a tabletop wargame and that fluff is easily available via the still in print (and downloadable) RPG-side books so no big loss there. While I've purposely been avoiding the rules section so as not to confuse myself with the upcoming Field Manual changes (I've got it on preorder at the FLGS), the army lists are presented in a clear and concise fashion that is relatively easy to understand. The only thing I found a bit confusing there was the use of army icons instead of army names next to the force-org equivalent slot the squad takes up in each faction. The size of the book is quite impressive at 200 or so pages as I was used to previous books coming in at around 120pgs and costing the same amount $35 USD. The art inside is largely unchanged with plenty of the Ghislain Barbe classics (always my favs) as well as some good ones from more recent artists. This value does appear to come at some cost as the paper feels a bit lighter and the text also seems lighter than even prior Blitz books (it's the equivalent of printing at home on draft vs normal in its look). In addition, I've found several mistakes mainly related to use of umlauts in the text that should have been caught prior to release. One thing I'm not sure of is whether I've got the 1.1 version of the book. If any readers here have an idea of how to check that, I'd appreciate the info.


L&L on top, original Blitz on the bottom

Now onto a quick look at some of the minis, starting with one of the typical four Southern gears, the Iguana scout. When I first got into the minis hobby in the mid 90's, metal (and indeed lead at the time) was king with plastic and resin relagated to specialty minis generally with lower levels of detail. Since my tabletop playing over the past 10 years has consisted of mainly prepainted plastics (DDM and some SWM) and 40k, I've gradually gotten used to plastics. Looking at the Iguana below, I am impressed in general with the level of detail and the forethought put into casting it. There is generally very little flash (a few strands sticking out here and there) compared to GW models and the parts that do need clipping generally have it done on a surface that isn't visible (like a joint or flat area that faces downward). The mini two pack comes with a stat card for each as well as a few weapon upgrade options which is a welcome change from previous Heavy Gear options. IIRC, even the initial Blitz releases didn't come with weapon extras. Another question for those more learned than me regarding the upcoming DP9 offerings... are the stat cards that come with minis going to be updated to the new movement defensive modifiers and weapon bands used in the upcoming Field Manual? Will those cards be offered up as a free downloadable PDF on the website?


Iguana Pack bits

Looking at a few more gears, the above was mainly the case although there were a few exceptions, mainly in my Naga strider. The Naga had a few defects including a large dent in the front of the main chassis where it joins the pilot's compartment that will have to filled down as the two don't line up any more. While the strider is not even close to the top of the list of things to assemble first, I will have to at some point decide whether to keep that as battle damage or to greenstuff it back into proper shape.


crappy pic of the Naga... I'll try and take a better one to replace it.

The other strider I looked at (the Dragon) didn't suffer from ANY problems that I could find. The resin model was refreshingly light and detailed with smooth pieces with none of the air bubbles or thin spots that you frequently find with Forgeworld products. The large areas that connect the pieces to the sprue were all very smartly placed and I don't expect any problems with this model. I'm not sure if the Naga problem above is just because of an old mold but I'd wholeheartedly support DP9's changing all the big guys to resin ASAP.


a few of the many part of the Dragon Strider


Well, that's it for now. My next post will probably consist of me going through a few ideas of how to structure the army as the South has several different leagues (similar to space marine chapters) that affect how your army is built.

Random comments:

* Downloadable datacards are coming. I'm waiting for them myself. I'm not sure what's going to happen with the packed cards in the future.

* Let the guys know if there's problems with the Naga! I'm waiting for parts for one myself, actually... I think mine might even has a similar issue. The guys will drop a new main hull in the mail for you.

* Also on the Naga, have you seen my Naga Assembly Article?

* I'm thinking you might have the pre-1.1 version, but I can't think of a firm identifier at the moment. Look at page 120: if there's a block about 'Infantry Backup' I think that's the 1.1 version.

* I know I'm biased, but I'm curious to hear more about your thoughts about quality of resin casts from FW and DP9. In FW's favor, they do some massive pieces so they're going to have to deal with more warping due to the stresses involved, but I'm amazed at the number of complaints I've heard about their stuff. I've only assembled a few DP9 resin kits, but they've been pretty easy to work with, better than the metals.

* The Field Manual has a few tiny tweaks to army lists... The kind of thing that might cause a 5-15 point shift in a 1000 point list. Nothing major, though.

Balance wrote:Random comments:

* Downloadable datacards are coming. I'm waiting for them myself. I'm not sure what's going to happen with the packed cards in the future.

* Let the guys know if there's problems with the Naga! I'm waiting for parts for one myself, actually... I think mine might even has a similar issue. The guys will drop a new main hull in the mail for you.

* Also on the Naga, have you seen my Naga Assembly Article?

* I'm thinking you might have the pre-1.1 version, but I can't think of a firm identifier at the moment. Look at page 120: if there's a block about 'Infantry Backup' I think that's the 1.1 version.

* I know I'm biased, but I'm curious to hear more about your thoughts about quality of resin casts from FW and DP9. In FW's favor, they do some massive pieces so they're going to have to deal with more warping due to the stresses involved, but I'm amazed at the number of complaints I've heard about their stuff. I've only assembled a few DP9 resin kits, but they've been pretty easy to work with, better than the metals.

* The Field Manual has a few tiny tweaks to army lists... The kind of thing that might cause a 5-15 point shift in a 1000 point list. Nothing major, though.

I didn't see the Naga guide but its definitely helpful. I took another pic of the Naga piece (see below) but I think I'll take your advice on contacting them after I've assembled a few more squads, in case there are any other problems (saves me trouble and DP9 shipping $$). Also, very nice and intuitive website and store btw. I do indeed have the 1.1 version of the book as I cross checked a few more things (like the revised point costs listed in the 1.1 errata) after posting last night in addition to checking the infantry backup blurb you mentioned. Good news about the datacards too. Does the field manual incoporate the Gear Up maneuver rating changes also?



As for the FW stuff, I'll start off by describing my favorite (and first) model from them, Inquisitor Rex. He's got an incredible amount of detail on his chest (with the various reliefs and scultpures decorating his armor) that amazes me every time I look at him. Unfortunately, my model came with a broken off psychic hood because the resin was thinned out as well as had several bubbles there, a shoulder armor trim that also was so progressively tapered off/thinned that i'm missing one half of it on a side, and a cloak where the resin thinned out in three spots so much that it has multiple moth eaten holes. This is in addition to the usual things you *should* expect with resin like some easily trimmed *thin* flash that leaks out from the model between the two haves of the mold (see the Naga pic above for the superthin resin between weapon barrels of the Visigoth) as well as some bent pieces if they're thin (like his sword) that need warm water correcting.



FW has an incredibly talented sculpting team whose work is regularly screwed up by casters who don't take the time and effort to do the job right and their bosses who lack any apparent QA if my experiences (and those invariably posted in any FW thread) are an indication. The flash in the Visigoth barrels above is what I expect and is easily fixable. The type of flash in the FW icon pic below (not mine but identical to the problem I had with my own set of Grey Knight icons) shouldn't have made it past anyone in the packing phase.



Products from smaller companies like DP9 and Scibor show that it is possible to catch these mistakes (or simply avoid them in the first place) in resin products if you care to do so. The only conclusion I can draw from FW is that they don't care to. The area on one piece with a casting problem on my Naga pales in comparison to the blunders on FW pieces I've personally witnessed.

Cool another Southern Player. Hope to see more soon.

warboss wrote:
I didn't see the Naga guide but its definitely helpful. I took another pic of the Naga piece (see below) but I think I'll take your advice on contacting them after I've assembled a few more squads, in case there are any other problems (saves me trouble and DP9 shipping $$). Also, very nice and intuitive website and store btw. I do indeed have the 1.1 version of the book as I cross checked a few more things (like the revised point costs listed in the 1.1 errata) after posting last night in addition to checking the infantry backup blurb you mentioned. Good news about the datacards too. Does the field manual incoporate the Gear Up maneuver rating changes also?

Thanks for the website comments (as that's my baby. ) I'm actually hoping to migrate to a different platform to give us some more flexibility... I'd like to do assembly articles (like I did for the Naga) for most of the more complex kits (Anything more complex than the basic Gear minis, really...) to help smooth the gap between normal kits and the HHT-90 which actually comes with instructions. Plus people like seeing photos of the minis, and modeling articles always draw me when I'm checking out FoW or GW's sites.

The Field Manual should have the Gear Up changes. It's pretty much everything from GU1-3, but 'patched' into the main rules to make things smoother, and with some elements revised based on player feedback.

warboss wrote:

That does look a lot like the issue I had. The guys should certainly replace that without a problem. I kind of wonder if the Naga is a design anyone knowledgeable with casting would evenw ant to do today, as it's a weird shape, a good number of parts, and kind of a strange shape. The current kit is pretty cool, and I like that the Blitz-era rules actually make the sensor arms have a game effect! (They had no tactical game effect in previous editions... Just an RPG element useful for looking around corners, etc.)

warboss wrote:

As for the FW stuff, I'll start off by describing my favorite (and first) model from them, Inquisitor Rex. He's got an incredible amount of detail on his chest (with the various reliefs and scultpures decorating his armor) that amazes me every time I look at him. Unfortunately, my model came with a broken off psychic hood because the resin was thinned out as well as had several bubbles there, a shoulder armor trim that also was so progressively tapered off/thinned that i'm missing one half of it on a side, and a cloak where the resin thinned out in three spots so much that it has multiple moth eaten holes. This is in addition to the usual things you *should* expect with resin like some easily trimmed *thin* flash that leaks out from the model between the two haves of the mold (see the Naga pic above for the superthin resin between weapon barrels of the Visigoth) as well as some bent pieces if they're thin (like his sword) that need warm water correcting.

Interesting read. I tend to think of the superheavies, titans, and flyers from FW more than the smaller-scale stuff. I've heard resin casting is a much tricker skill than metals, which is why it tends to be a 'small shop' thing. The caster needs to really get to know the molds and practice on how each mold takes resin.

Admittedly, the Heavy Gear minis are more about paneled surfaces with some details and crisp edges whereas 40k stuff tends to be more organic shapes with a lot of clutter. It's just the 'style' of the minis, nothing more. Still, while not as covered in detail I know I'd be annoyed if the surfaces needed a lot of reworking...

Hope you like the Visigoth... From experience, it's very cool having the big tanks in resin. I think I said this elsewhere but it's weird that my Aller is lighter than the Klemms.

warboss wrote:
FW has an incredibly talented sculpting team whose work is regularly screwed up by casters who don't take the time and effort to do the job right and their bosses who lack any apparent QA if my experiences (and those invariably posted in any FW thread) are an indication. The flash in the Visigoth barrels above is what I expect and is easily fixable. The type of flash in the FW icon pic below (not mine but identical to the problem I had with my own set of Grey Knight icons) shouldn't have made it past anyone in the packing phase.

Yikes! That is a bit much... Do you think the molds weren't quite tight enough together to cause that???

warboss wrote:
Products from smaller companies like DP9 and Scibor show that it is possible to catch these mistakes (or simply avoid them in the first place) in resin products if you care to do so. The only conclusion I can draw from FW is that they don't care to. The area on one piece with a casting problem on my Naga pales in comparison to the blunders on FW pieces I've personally witnessed.

They've been pretty good about replacing molds that need it, too. For example, a few Gears went from 1-piece to 2-piece legs a couple years back as the legs were ripping the molds , which made further casts even worse, etc...

Anyway, glad you're enjoying it. The Field Manual has been pretty well received and the crew that works on it deserves some compliments, I think... Now I jsut need tog et the datacards posted and hopefully get a more responsive and itneresting webs ite up.

So last week I put together a few gears and went to the FLGS to get in a game or two of Heavy Gear and maybe 40k depending on the time and numbers of takers. Two people I know said the week before that they'd be willing to try the game so we set up on some left over terrain from a 15mm game and played a quick demo with some basic gears (see pic below)



You don't get too much more basic than a Hunter/Jaeger chassis so I went with 3 of those per side for the demo game, inspired by the upcoming starter that comes with the same. Modelling-wise, I'm not too happy with how the arms across the chest poses came out but there wasn't too much of a choice there as the typical gear has a chest that sticks out like Santa's gut. The guns just dont seem to be held very naturally and it always looks to me like they're holding the gun in front of them for inspection. I went with the kneeling chassis for the light bazookas and will probably use the running pose for the second weapon upgrade in the eventual GP squads these guys will belong to (still deciding on which weapon to use for that..). Much to the chagrin of my players, I'm still not sure of what to do about the bases. I'm not really a fan of the look of hex bases in general but I do realize their functionality in a game where turns are measured in hex faces. I was eyeing some of the Warmachine lipped slotted circular bases as I've always liked their look. Do you guys think anyone would have a problem with using them as long as the proper angles were marked out on the bases? Some of the larger gears do come on circular bases so I don't see that as being too much of a stumble. In all fairness, I do have to mention that the Warmachine ones are a bit bigger being 30mm but I don't really see that helping the owning player in this game as it might in 40k. Ideas? I'd ideally prefer to have a circular base that incorporated hex face marking in the design but I couldn't find any myself and my thread asking out it in P&M here got no responses.

As for the actual game itself, the dice gods were unfortunately not with us for the first game as the chance cubes attempted to rob all involved of any dramatic resolution whatsoever. The only time a player rolled a fumble on defense the attacker rolled a fumble... the single instance of attacker double-sixes got the same on defense for a MoS of only 1 with modifiers! It also didn't help that they always kept 2 of their 3 gears stationary deep in their own deployment areas and were too afraid to move up. One player didn't really like the nitty-gritty of the rules and how so many different factors affect the shot (which is one of the things I actually like about the game); he prefers the straight up BS roll in 40k with a separate save. The other player in that game (despite not achieving much more than 1 box of damage per turn) did like the game and was willing to try again this week (and actually watched/helped out during the second game). At the end of the first game, a couple of other regulars walked up and were interested in trying a quick game as they both had heard of HG but never got into as there weren't any other local players. The second game went alot better as I was a bit more confident in the rules (still screwed up the cover/concealment determination a bit though) and the players were more aggressive in their tactics. One player basically flanked two of his gears at top speed into the opponent's deployment area while the third (the bazooka guy) covered them; the second player moved up steadily albeit somewhat cautiously. This time, the multiple instances of boxcars and fumbles actually weren't mirrored by the other player and several gears took enough damage to blow them up in one shot. The game actually was neck and neck each turn (with each player having almost the exact number of damage boxes) until the final duel between bazooka Jaegers at 14".

For the next game (hopefully this Friday), I decided to add a few more rules into the mix. I still won't be playing with the scenario rules (it'll just be a come out a fight engagement for simplicity) but I decided to add a few more specialized gears to the squads. Each squad will be styled as an underfunded Leagueless Standard group (basically a Jack of All Trades cadre) with a "leader" gear (Sidewinder), a scout gear (Silverscale), and a heavy gunner (Python).



I'll use the four normal Jaegers from the first game to round out the squads and have a buffet of the standard gear weapons in their usual configurations (autocannons and rockets in light/medium/heavy flavors). The Sidewinders came together without a hitch but I did have some issues of my own making with the Python and the Silverscales. With the Python, I wasn't exactly sure how the LGM (light guided mortar) and the HRP (heavy rocket pack) were supposed to connect on the back of the model and couldn't find any pictures on the internet showing the back of them after assembly. I ended up gluing them on but one of them (the one whose torso is turned to the side) has the LGM at a bit of a wierd angle. I was very close to assembling them as the Badlands version of the Python (the HRP and LGM are replaced with a single larger mortar) but the inability to take that configuration in a MILICIA force prevented me from choosing it. While I'm using these as a leagueless force now, I eventually plan on these models making up the core of my SRA MILICIA sub-contingent. Assembling the two priciest models in that sub-force in a completely useless configuration probably isn't the best idea.

The Silverscale, on the other hand, was purposely assembled incorrectly on my part. The sensor boom on the extending arm is actually supposed to attach exactly between the two cyclinders of the V-engine and extend straight forward over the head of the model.



The part is so tiny and delicate that I have *zero* confidence in my ability (despite using foam for storage and transport) to keep that part glued on with normal use. I decided to instead model it in a sort of lateral stowed configuration with multiple points of gluing/attachment for added stability. I'm happy with one of them but I wish I had slid the second over a bit so that the webcam tip of the boom was more visible from the front of the model instead of being hidded by the shoulder pad. There is also supposed to be a tiny protrusion in front of the head that wouldn't last connected for more than a month either so I skipped it (besides, I could use the two small prongs to convert a standard Iguana head to the bunny ears upgraded variety). I might end up drilling a small hole into the area and insert a small metal wire into the front of the head as an antenna instead. Ultimately, I think my decision will be based on whether or not these two models look sufficiently different from the Basilisk model with the boom assembled differently.

So that's it most likely for this progress report. Hopefully with the next post, I'll be able to comment on the Field Manual rulebook as it comes out this week and I've got it preordered a the FLGS (along with another set of markers/counters).

The Silverscale is a model I keep meaning to order... I think I'm going to end up focusing on my Capricians first, then maybe go South once I get to a 1000 of them.

Then again, I also keep wanting to work on Black Talons, and the Utopian drones...

Balance wrote:Thanks for the website comments (as that's my baby. ) I'm actually hoping to migrate to a different platform to give us some more flexibility... I'd like to do assembly articles (like I did for the Naga) for most of the more complex kits (Anything more complex than the basic Gear minis, really...) to help smooth the gap between normal kits and the HHT-90 which actually comes with instructions. Plus people like seeing photos of the minis, and modeling articles always draw me when I'm checking out FoW or GW's sites.

The Field Manual should have the Gear Up changes. It's pretty much everything from GU1-3, but 'patched' into the main rules to make things smoother, and with some elements revised based on player feedback.

Anyway, glad you're enjoying it. The Field Manual has been pretty well received and the crew that works on it deserves some compliments, I think... Now I jsut need tog et the datacards posted and hopefully get a more responsive and itneresting webs ite up.

I definitely think the assembly articles are a good idea for the larger models (especially ones with front and back shots to show how the bits are supposed to connect... see my python comments above). My next project will be my veteran Fire Support Cadre with Cobras a plenty and I luckily found a side shot of someone's unpainted support cobra to use as a guide (I'll be changing the position a bit but its good to know how its supposed to look though). One suggestion that I'd make about the shop is to make the bits image a bit more visible. Despite it being clearly written, I somehow missed it for the past two weeks and kept wondering why the drawings of the unit were on the shop entry but not a pic of the actual fig. I'm hopefully not the only person dense enough to have missed the sentance that says "click here", lol.

I've been peeking at the GU1-3 stuff and printed out the easy to use stuff like weapon ranges and new defense modifiers for the demo games. I'll hopefully have my copy tomorrow if it arrived at the store (unlikely but you never know).

Balance wrote:The Silverscale is a model I keep meaning to order... I think I'm going to end up focusing on my Capricians first, then maybe go South once I get to a 1000 of them.

Then again, I also keep wanting to work on Black Talons, and the Utopian drones...

Pfft... [in best Russian accent] You big money HG web guy like millionare chocolate rain boy. You need no to worry and can assemble many army same time! I'm a bit surprised that a downgraded model like the silverscale requires a veteran slot so keep that in mind.

warboss wrote:I definitely think the assembly articles are a good idea for the larger models (especially ones with front and back shots to show how the bits are supposed to connect... see my python comments above). My next project will be my veteran Fire Support Cadre with Cobras a plenty and I luckily found a side shot of someone's unpainted support cobra to use as a guide (I'll be changing the position a bit but its good to know how its supposed to look though). One suggestion that I'd make about the shop is to make the bits image a bit more visible. Despite it being clearly written, I somehow missed it for the past two weeks and kept wondering why the drawings of the unit were on the shop entry but not a pic of the actual fig. I'm hopefully not the only person dense enough to have missed the sentance that says "click here", lol.

I know the guys are really trying to move away from product art using drawings of designs and using photos instead (so it's a "Possible how to assemble" instead of an admittedly cool image) but it's not easy to change every old insert, so it's kind of a rolling change. Newer releases (like the Arena stuff or the new box sets) will all have photos, albeit photoshopped in some cases.

I'm working on a new version of the main web site to make adding content easier (Our CRM is... cranky. And not recommended) but it's a slow process as I've got a day job to cover the whole 'food' thing. I definitely want to do more assembly journals, though, as they've been well received. I like being able to write about the setting in an almost historical context, although I might try to slip some not-totally-canon fiction past the editorial review. Like I did here....

I'll have to do some quick articles. I've got pics of my Kodiak being assembled, but I wanted the painted images to go along with it.

warboss wrote:I've been peeking at the GU1-3 stuff and printed out the easy to use stuff like weapon ranges and new defense modifiers for the demo games. I'll hopefully have my copy tomorrow if it arrived at the store (unlikely but you never know).

I just got my copy yesterday... I almost have all the datacards uploaded, but that back-end CRM I mention above is evil so it's slow going. I'm also canceling plans to host content with Amazon's cloud service, if anyone's been following that story...

Balance wrote:The Silverscale is a model I keep meaning to order... I think I'm going to end up focusing on my Capricians first, then maybe go South once I get to a 1000 of them.

Then again, I also keep wanting to work on Black Talons, and the Utopian drones...

Pfft... [in best Russian accent] You big money HG web guy like millionare chocolate rain boy. You need no to worry and can assemble many army same time! I'm a bit surprised that a downgraded model like the silverscale requires a veteran slot so keep that in mind.

Balance wrote:I know the guys are really trying to move away from product art using drawings of designs and using photos instead (so it's a "Possible how to assemble" instead of an admittedly cool image) but it's not easy to change every old insert, so it's kind of a rolling change. Newer releases (like the Arena stuff or the new box sets) will all have photos, albeit photoshopped in some cases.

I'm a big fan of the old Ghislain art (it's what got me into HG in the first place back in the 90's) so I'd be sad to see it go completely. Maybe have the art as a non-expandable image on the entry with the painted minis and components clickable to enlarge? That said... I haven't coded a website since frames were all the rage and Netscape 3.0 was new so take my advice with a heaping dose of salt.

Balance wrote:
I'm working on a new version of the main web site to make adding content easier (Our CRM is... cranky. And not recommended) but it's a slow process as I've got a day job to cover the whole 'food' thing. I definitely want to do more assembly journals, though, as they've been well received. I like being able to write about the setting in an almost historical context, although I might try to slip some not-totally-canon fiction past the editorial review. Like I did here....

I'll have to do some quick articles. I've got pics of my Kodiak being assembled, but I wanted the painted images to go along with it.

I like the fiction. Its a quick read and makes the site a bit more interesting than a normal small company's storefront. Speaking of being employed by DP9, is Xactoboy still at DP9? When I got into the original blitz, one of the highlights of visiting the DP9 website was seeing his WIP minis. Since I've started haunting the site and forum again over the past few weeks, I haven't seen anything from him.

Balance wrote:
I think the Silverscale may have been a weird fit as it's described in the older books as a rare option, so it got the veteran requirement. My ESE force may be based around Basilisk squads led by Iguanas, although I admit the Army Commander Paratrooper Squad might not be a good idea.I just like the idea of an Emir who buys the best for his personal squad and outfits everyone else in much cheaper Gears...

I'm still having trouble figuring out how much EW is enough for an average game. Obviously this depends on your normal opponents and the armies they play but the mechanic seems interesting but a bit nebulous for me so far (zero games played with the rules for it). Hopefully, I'll get a few more people interested in playing HG and actually have to worry about it beyond the theoretical!

Last weeks demo game with the figs in the pic above didn't happen unfortunately so I didn't get any play time in (nor did I get my Field Manual). The demo was supposed to be before the RPG but the coGM of our Deathwatch game wanted to start early since we were all ranking up that night and we wanted to redo the character sheets. Since then, I've been working on the centerpiece of my planned Southern Army... a veteran Fire Support Squad. (see box pic below blatantly hotlinked from DP9's site!)



My favorite gear from back in first edition was the Support Cobra (second from the left) which is actually a *downgraded* version of the standard model but with IMO ridulously cool looking guns. I was very pleasantly surprised that the configuration is actually very inexpensive points-wise in a Southern Army and decided that I'd use two of them to accompany my Army Commander and his Political Officer. Besides, the discount in points would help me to pay for the upgrades on the models that mattered more!

Despite my love of the original design of the Support variant Cobra, I felt that it needed a bit more heft to the autocannon (VHAC) as well as a bit more aggressive and in your face (literally since it'll be pointed more toward the enemy!) field gun (the VLFG artillery piece on its back). Since I was going to be pinning the VLFG in a different position, I decided to convert the now unused support bracket for the field gun for the front handle of my autocannon so that the open palm arm (with a bit of cutting and repositioning) can help hold the weapon. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the aggressive posture and repositioning of the two support models. For the Political Officer, I modelled his gear as a striking cobra with a medium bazooka (with an IG bit as the panzerfaust-esque gunshield) and kept the heavy rocket pod on his back for when I need to hit a few models with a single weapon (it's an area effect barrage). Finally, I had only my Army Commander to figure out. As I said above, I'm still trying to work out the details of how much electronic warfare is enough for an army. From my reading, the one model who needs ECCM most is the army commander as alot of his effects are prime actions to block with enemy ECM. The only way to incorporate both defensive and offensive EW on the commander was via the Brahmin Cobra EW variant pictured below (thanks to Red Castle on the dp9 forums for filling me in on the fluff of the variant as well as providing a pic).



I decided to use a spare Tau Crisis Suit shield generator for the satellite dish on the back and later added the antenna from an IG vox unit when the comm nature of the model wasn't obvious enough from looking at the group. While not obvious, the head is a minor variance from the standard cobra head with slightly different vanes and bunny ears and the left shoulder rocket pod is replaced with a EW pod (the cone visible in the pic). The IG antenna are a bit retro-tech and out of place but I felt like I needed something more to make the model's upgrades stand out from arm's length as the head and EW pod changes are a bit subtle while the dish isn't really visible from the front. Any ideas? Finally, I decided to use the assault weapons upgrade on my command squad and outfitted them with the chainswords models for some extra OOMPF in close combat.





I'm pretty happy with the general results for my command squad. The squad will definitely be a space hog in the old foam tray with all the weapons sticking out at various angles but they should make a nice centerpiece unit for the army.

I'm still working on my ideas for a paint scheme for the force. Perhaps its the old Northern player in me but I'm leaning towards a WWII Soviet paint scheme including the decals as a bit of a dig on the Southern army I'm now playing. For those not familiar with the fluff, the South in HG may use french terminology and language but their government and society are modelled more on the old Eastern Bloc and Soviet Union than anything else. The Southern Republic keeps its alliance together mostly through force (like with the Warsaw Pact) and I'm strangely drawn to this non-canon paint scheme. The HG core book doesn't have too much guidance in regards to standard army schemes so I'm open to more conventional ideas if anyone has some. Well, that's it for now. For the next week or so, I think my goal for the blog and the army will be to fill out a few more Jaeger upgraded weapons for the general purpose squads that I used for the demos. Thanks!


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edit: One final thing... After assembling these models (the first without the stem that fits in the slot-base provided), I've decided to go with the Warmachine lipped circular bases for all the models. The stance on these cobras has the feet hanging half off the hex bases that come with them and that definitely detracts from the appearance. Since I don't plan on assembling a full squad over the next few days, I should be able to work on that this week also.

warboss wrote:I'm a big fan of the old Ghislain art (it's what got me into HG in the first place back in the 90's) so I'd be sad to see it go completely. Maybe have the art as a non-expandable image on the entry with the painted minis and components clickable to enlarge? That said... I haven't coded a website since frames were all the rage and Netscape 3.0 was new so take my advice with a heaping dose of salt.

I think the classic art will still be used when appropriate, but the guys recognize that people have grumbled about the amount of reused art, so there's an overall effort to freshen things up... But the old art will probably always be used when appropriate.

warboss wrote:
I like the fiction. Its a quick read and makes the site a bit more interesting than a normal small company's storefront. Speaking of being employed by DP9, is Xactoboy still at DP9? When I got into the original blitz, one of the highlights of visiting the DP9 website was seeing his WIP minis. Since I've started haunting the site and forum again over the past few weeks, I haven't seen anything from him.

Xactoboy is still doing some minis, but I think he's got some non-DP9 projects so there's a few sculptors working on various projects. I'm trying to move towards a setup where it's easier to share quick WIP stuff without going through me for dp9.com, though.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW, I just got some more Caprice Mounts in yesterday. I think I need one more squad and a couple Hamath APCs to have a 1000 point Caprician army... Just need to find time to paint them!

So I took a week off of modelling once I finally got my Field Manual to absorb the rules before cutting and gluing more models together. The Field Manual definitely seems like an improvement to me both as an old school player and a new one to the current Blitz rules. The switch from 5 to 3 range bands makes it easier to calculate the modifiers (which after playing 4 mini-games so far can take a while!) as well as teach them; also, the reduction of +1 maneuverability units due to speed brings it a bit closer to what I remember back in 1st edition. I'm also happy to report that the quality of the type in the Field Manual is quite good and doesn't have the draft-print quality that I complained about in the L&L book. Finally, the flow charts for some of the more intensive calculations like forward observing/indirect fire definitely help. Overall, a definite improvement from L&L.

Modelling wise, I've spent the last few weeks building up my proper SRA army instead of the mostly downgraded limited funding MILCIA models I first built. This was mainly because I wanted to show the variety in abilities that the current range of Gears have (i.e. going from -1 to +1 defense) compared to the old school mainly replaced in the fluff variants I was using. My GP squad got a bit more elite in that one Jaeger was upgraded to a command variant while another got a paratrooper rifle... bringing my two GP squads up to 5 models each (command, 2x light bazookas, 1x paratrooper gunner, and a Sidewinder) giving me both fully upgraded normal and veteran variants. I also added my previously shown Fire Support squad into the army with their two Support Cobras and two Strike Cobras. To join them on the front lines, I've got two Brawler Black Mambas (with their heavy grenade launchers) and two Blazing Black Mambas (with Gatling lasers). For the laser Mambas, I eventually plan on adding some kind of power cable from the weapon to the powerplant on back as they seem a bit bare without their rocket pods. Finally, to round out the army of demo models I've got a veteran recon squad with two regular Iguanas and two upgraded comm Iggies (with bunny ears!).

I finally decided on using the warmachine/malifaux lipped circular bases for the models after tried to balance my cobras on one of the provided hex bases and having almost all but the heels of the model hanging off the sides. Since some of the HG models actually come with circular bases, I don't see this as too much of a problem as long as I clearly mark some of the arcs on the base. I bought enough at my FLGS to outfit most of my proposed army and they've got more on the way to finish off the bunch. Also, I've decided paint scheme wise to go with a Legion Noire theme to the army (especially as it matches what I did with my previous Deathwing army!). Basically, the models will have a base coat of black with red and silver trim as well as some white decals to customize the army as my own personal force. Now to the bad part... I primed my models two nights ago with the same flat black base coat that I normally use (but outside since I didn't want the basement smelling like fumes as I was priming more than normal number of models). When I checked on them last night, I noticed that the primer went on grittier than normal and that parts were coming off like charcoal dust just with regular handling. I ended up taking a soft bristle toothbrush to the models to knock off the really caked/gritty parts but am still undecided about whether to strip them. I'm not sure how much is visible from the pic but I'll try taking a close up later this weekend. I'm still using them for a couple of demo games this weekend, though. I might try a black wash coat to even out the colors on a model also and will take a close up side by side of both to compare the difference.



More info later this weekend as I look back with hindsight on my first two somewhat real sized demo games including the Field Manual rules.

Nice blog, love the grey scheme on your models.
I'm poking around Heavy Gear Blitz myself, because I feel the urge for some sort of change in Sci Fi gaming.

Da Boss wrote:Nice blog, love the grey scheme on your models.
I'm poking around Heavy Gear Blitz myself, because I feel the urge for some sort of change in Sci Fi gaming.

While I'd love to take credit for the painted models, they're actually hotlinked pics from the DP9 website to show the minis I was planning on putting together. I'm priming my last 4 minis tomorrow for my initial army; currently none of them are actually past the flat black primer stage. I'll probably start next week on painting one of the General Purpose squads to test out my paint scheme beyond the theoretical.

I've never really seeing any HG games anywhere but, with the new FLGS just a short drive away, I may see if they have any players there. I've always thought of using HG units in a CSM army for proxies but that never really went anywhere.

LeBaron wrote:I've never really seeing any HG games anywhere but, with the new FLGS just a short drive away, I may see if they have any players there. I've always thought of using HG units in a CSM army for proxies but that never really went anywhere.

While I could see them as marine proxies due to their armor, I think they go a bit better rules wise as tau if you just count their jump pack movement as their secondary ground movement (almost all gears have rollerblade wheels on their feet for faster movement). The older and larger RAFM scale gear models were perfect in size for this with the bigger gun varients able to count as broadsides while the mediums could be crisis suits and the small ones as stealth suits. Unfortunately, those older scale gears are harder to get as they haven't been made for over 12 years. Not my pic below but just an example on from AAN iirc:



The current ones are definitely closer to marine sizes as you suggested. As for your FLGS, make sure to tell them that Alliance (the biggest game/hobby distributor in the business) now sells Heavy Gear stuff. Stores in the past were reluctant to order HG or DP9 stuff because they'd have to order direct from the company (more effort/shipping costs/etc) but that recently changed according to the HG forum announcement page. Also, they just came out with new starter armies for people that include the two rulebooks in pocket AOBR size that I mentioned in my previous posts (the Locked and Loaded book with the army lists and the Field Manual that replaced its game rules). I believe they also have starter rules for download from their website (DP9.com) if you wanted to check them out with some proxies. HG may not be as frequent as 40k ones but they're out there (usually looking for others). When I ran my two demo games a week ago, a guy was just walking by and started looking at the models and said he had a Northern army in his car that he'd never used! He couldn't play but my opponent ended up using his figs that he graciously lent instead of having a south vs south battle with mine.

Well, the CSM is a custom army that will have a lot of stuff from a lot of stuff tossed in so I'm not so much worried about using them for actual Marines (I was actually thinking some sort of Warp infested Oblit/Tau cross over) I may have to actually ask my FLGS about it and if there's any one there doing HG.

Even if there isn't, I doubt it'll cost as much to start an HG army as opposed to starting any sort of GW army.

So it's been a couple weeks worth of waiting and working on the figs. After playing a few demo games with my caked on gritty primered models because I didn't want to lose any momentum with generating interest in the game, I finally put the minis in their stripping bath last weekend. It took a few days and about a half dozen scrubs to get the paint off (the gritty parts came off in the first two 24 hour soaks but a few portions actually sprayed on correctly and took a while to scrub out). With the models now back to mostly bare metal (and having a strange patina to the metal after stripping!), I decided to change up my paint scheme to something that did NOT use the same color basecoat as I didn't want the same thing happening again. In addition, I've been negotiating a trade of my MILICIA subset army (including the first few figs I assembled for this blog... the silverscales and pythons!) for a small Black Talon Force which will now inherit the black paint scheme with red/silver details I was planning on using for my SRA army.

I decided to go with sand basing and a sand colored coat with earth tones and a heavy wash for my scheme this time around as it fit the desert equatorial fluff of Terra Nova better and also because I'd never done either choice before. I painted up a quick two set of models (my command Jaegers) to test out the scheme. Its not too complicated as it relies on the wash for alot of the depth/detail and pretty much requires only a few steps per model (Base color spray, brown "feet" and shoulders, two color metalic weapons and engines, flesh wash, and then head sensor and rocket tip detail work). I'm not under any misconceptions that the scheme will win me any painting awards but I think it looks good enough to be called tabletop quality.






I still eventually plan on putting on some white eagle decals for the regiment icon as well as the usual hazard/warning markers. The question I guess I'd ask any readers is whether you think dry brushing the washed armor in the same color as the rocket tips is a good idea? I'm not the greatest with normal edging/highlighting as I tend to lay it on pretty thick despite my best intentions but that is the other option. My hope for the next week is to get through the majority of the other models in the pic above with the brown and metallic details in preparation for my weekly trip next friday to the FLGS to play Deathwatch and purchase a few pots of flesh wash (I'll probably just have them drying during the game now that I think about it!).

It's a basic but well done scheme. I was thinking maybe some scorched marks would look a bit better, IMO.

LeBaron wrote:It's a basic but well done scheme. I was thinking maybe some scorched marks would look a bit better, IMO.

Thanks. Someone on the dp9 forums suggested something similar and I decided to blackwash the front and back faces of the rocket packs for a little additional contrast (and the black color matches the idea of rocket scorch marks from previous launches). It won't win any painting awards but it's quick and effective which right now are my two biggest concerns. I'll have pics on my next update in a few days as the rest of my two GP squads are drying from their flesh wash as I write.

I finished my first two squads yesterday (pic above). The decals and base looked a bit too bright and I decided to at least put some of the same wash over the decals to muddy them up in accordance with the armor they're on. I'm still undecided on the base color I chose. Initially, I thought it would be quite similar to the sand basing but that's not the case as it is waaay brighter than I had anticipated. I even tried using the wash on a test model with the same color but the result was very uneven and I decided not to do it for the GP squads. I may go back and redo the bases in a slightly darker earthier color (dwarf flesh? I'll check that out this friday at the FLGS) but the obnoxiously bright base does bring attention to the models. As the only HG player locally (except for one guy who has models but hasn't played yet), I don't mind if the bases attract the eyes as people may then ask me about the game and models. Next up on the plate for this week are my 6 Cobras (3 striking, 3 support). I'm hoping that by the end of this weekend they'll be done as I have to buy another pot of the flesh wash friday (my rate limiting factor at the moment).

Awesome! I'm just starting into HG: Arena, so this is right up my alley.

Any Basilisks planned? They're my favorite Southern gear since they look so similar to VOTOMs.

I like that much better then the two test guys you first showed off. The darker colors just look better, IMO. The bases aren't bad being that light. There are plenty of dark camos that are used in light colored environments so it doesn't really bother me much. Keep us updated!

ancientsociety wrote:Awesome! I'm just starting into HG: Arena, so this is right up my alley.

Any Basilisks planned? They're my favorite Southern gear since they look so similar to VOTOMs.

I did give serious consideration to some bazooka wielding scope dogs!! Unfortunately, the Basilisk is technically a downgrade of the Iguana and isn't available in the SRA faction that I've switched to build my army solely from. You can field tons of them (in fact, an entire army of them!) in an ESE force and a more limited number of them in a MILICIA army. How do you like the arena rules? How do they differ from normal HG?

LeBaron wrote:I like that much better then the two test guys you first showed off. The darker colors just look better, IMO. The bases aren't bad being that light. There are plenty of dark camos that are used in light colored environments so it doesn't really bother me much. Keep us updated!

Thanks and will do. I plan to get the brown parts done on my cobras tonight. Did you end up buying any HG models for your CSM force?

warboss wrote:

ancientsociety wrote:Awesome! I'm just starting into HG: Arena, so this is right up my alley.

Any Basilisks planned? They're my favorite Southern gear since they look so similar to VOTOMs.

I did give serious consideration to some bazooka wielding scope dogs!! Unfortunately, the Basilisk is technically a downgrade of the Iguana and isn't available in the SRA faction that I've switched to build my army solely from. You can field tons of them (in fact, an entire army of them!) in an ESE force and a more limited number of them in a MILICIA army. How do you like the arena rules? How do they differ from normal HG?

Cool, I've not played HG: Blitz! so I don't really know how it compares. Arena is pretty cool. It's a little similar to Necromunda in that you can get all sorts of perks, bonuses, new weapons, etc. in the post-game sequence. The combo move charts are interesting and definitely add to the excitement of the fight. My favorite perk are the Arena Clowns, which are essentially unarmed Gears and, if your opponent goes after them and misses, causes the crowd to lean towards your side! I'm trying to get a cheapo Gear to paint up for my Clown right now.

Great plog! I need to find time to sit down and read it properly (mainly looked at the pics this time), as I'd love to get into a mech combat game and so far HG is the front runner.

R.

I haven't bought much of anything in about six months or so. You know how the times are. I have looked and, while they are a bit pricey, I don't think they're as bad as GW stuff... bloody money hungry bastards and they 'Fine Cast'. 'Fine Cast' my ass.

ancientsociety wrote:Arena is pretty cool. It's a little similar to Necromunda in that you can get all sorts of perks, bonuses, new weapons, etc. in the post-game sequence. The combo move charts are interesting and definitely add to the excitement of the fight. My favorite perk are the Arena Clowns, which are essentially unarmed Gears and, if your opponent goes after them and misses, causes the crowd to lean towards your side! I'm trying to get a cheapo Gear to paint up for my Clown right now.

I might eventually get into that game as it seems like the customization and lower entry point might appeal to some of the local gamers. For now, it looks like I might have found another opponent. The guy who had his gears in his car (described earlier in the blog) actually started painting up some of them over the past three weeks since I last saw him. We chatted for a bit and I showed him how to incorporate Razorbacks (his favorite gear) into a Northern army so he placed an order for some of the dice/markers and a couple of razorbacks. He seems to be leaning towards an army similar to mine (a few GP squads with a pair of fire support squads to back them up) as a start point... hopefully people seeing painted armies duking it out will encourage some more play locally. I also got a look at his mini-sized rulebooks and I definitely think they're preferable. Balance, I don't know if you're still following this blog but, if you are, put in a good word to the higher ups about selling a two pack of the mini-me rulebooks separately please!

precinctomega wrote:Great plog! I need to find time to sit down and read it properly (mainly looked at the pics this time), as I'd love to get into a mech combat game and so far HG is the front runner.

R.

Thanks! The text is mainly me typing out my mental machinations about how to construct an army to rule Terra Nova. Don't be surprised if it puts you to sleep! Are you able to buy HG in the UK easily now? The announcement of a UK distributor for DP9 stuff was big news a couple months back on their forums.

LeBaron wrote:I haven't bought much of anything in about six months or so. You know how the times are. I have looked and, while they are a bit pricey, I don't think they're as bad as GW stuff... bloody money hungry bastards and they 'Fine Cast'. 'Fine Cast' my ass.

Yeah, I saw my first finecast minis (no capitals/proper noun deserved for that, just like with the GW "H"obby) yesterday and it was quite ho-hum. The Astorath had a decent sized bubble (bigger than his nose) at the top of his head but was otherwise fine while the space librarian was bent but without any obvious defects (although I could only see the top layer of sprues in the packs). Definitely not the best minis EVAR!! that GW was claiming they'd be although they will be easier to convert. As for DP9 stuff, the gears themselves are cheaper than likesized 40k models; the elite gears like the Jaguar and Black Mamba are about the same size as a SM terminator and cost $9 each in the two packs. They do price the larger resin kits like tanks and larger strider robots at a definite premium though so I wouldn't plan an army with them if cost is the number 1 consideration.

This weekend I finished off the bread and butter of my two planned Fire Support squads. The 6 Cobras (three bazooka-wielding Striking variants and three mini-gun Support models) are still awaiting their combat squad leaders (the sergeant equivalents) though as I'm trying to do similar models as a group. The first pic is with the main details done brown on the shoulders and feet, boltgun/brass on the engines and weapons, and a few other details picked off with the same colors. The Cobras do have a style feature that isn't present on the previous Jaegers I did (the horns on their shoulders) so I decided to do them with the same color I will eventually use on the rocket tips and base. I'm still trying to do decent tabletop quality paintjobs with minimum time/effort so my 5 color rule still is in effect! Also, I put a certain RPG under them in ancientsociety's honor.



I did a few conversions with the Cobras that differentiate them from the "stock" models. The support cobras (with the mini-guns and artillery gun on the back) had some of their pieces switched around but nothing new added. Maybe I've played 40k too long but it just seemed that the junglemower minigun was massive enough to need a front support to properly wield it so I used the back strut that was supposed to support the artillery gun and used it as a handle instead (with a quick cut and reposition on the hand to hold it). I only had two of the arms needed to do this (you need the left arm that would normally be open faced to do the conversion) so I had to mangle a normal one for the third one. As my greenstuff-fu is weak, I molded the area with glue and then filed it down a bit. If you zoom in real close it looks ugly but otherwise doesn't look too awkward with a normal inspection. The back artillery gun is repositioned in the center of the V-engine and pinned at a different angle to keep it more secure now that the support strut is gone. Normally, I try to position and glue bits that are sticking out with two points of contact with bigger ones but that wasn't possible with this so I just pinned it instead. (That's also why you'll see some of the chainswords touching arms and torsos via their handle and shoulder rocket packs touching the engines as I wanted them glued in two spots... they fall off easily!) Here's a stock support Cobra pic from the DP9 website to compare them to.



The striking cobras have a small WWII panzerschreck inspired shield added to their bazookas from my 40k bits box and chainswords added but are otherwise standard variants. The army variant I'm using can upgrade one squad to full chainswords from the little vibro-daggers that are normally carried. HG really isn't a close-combat heavy game but I thought that since the Cobras were central to the look/theme I was going for that they'd look cool mounted on them. The bits would probably be more effective in game on units that are meant to get very close to the enemy but I like the idea of the big boys carrying the chainswords... maybe it's another remnant from playing 40k lol!

Since I ran out of flesh wash with the Jaegers, I brought the minis with me to my FLGS for the weekly Deathwatch game as I intended to buy and use the wash right away (and let them dry while RP'ing). Today, I touched up some of the smaller details that need bright colors (so I can't do them prior to the wash) like the rocket tips and eye sensors. After that, it was off to the overcoat station (with a fan going to help them dry quicker between coats) with the eagle decal placed inbetween coats. With that, my second batch of Southern minis are done. Eagle-eyed dakkites can even spot which class of minis I'll be working on next! As usual with the dakka gallery, the pics are zoom-in capable once you click on them.



I initially hoped to have the whole army done in a couple of weeks but I'm already running behind on that schedule. At this point, I think I'll revise my personal and blog timetable to a more realistic "one class of minis done a week" schedule. That should get me done with the core of this army (2 GP, 2 fire support, 1 recon, and 2 strike squads) by the end of the month.

warboss wrote: Balance, I don't know if you're still following this blog but, if you are, put in a good word to the higher ups about selling a two pack of the mini-me rulebooks separately please!

I am, and will suggest it. It might be a DP9 Online Store only thing, as the guys are a little concerned about too many items for sale.
(In the old HG Tac era, most Gears were 1 to a blister and there was a blister for most variants, so there were a lot of blisters for the line even though it had a lot of holes... And retailers and distributors complained. So now despite being a lot closer to '100%' (there's a few options without models, such as Caprice ATVs/ORVs) there's a much more concise product line.)

Balance wrote:

warboss wrote: Balance, I don't know if you're still following this blog but, if you are, put in a good word to the higher ups about selling a two pack of the mini-me rulebooks separately please!

I am, and will suggest it. It might be a DP9 Online Store only thing, as the guys are a little concerned about too many items for sale.
(In the old HG Tac era, most Gears were 1 to a blister and there was a blister for most variants, so there were a lot of blisters for the line even though it had a lot of holes... And retailers and distributors complained. So now despite being a lot closer to '100%' (there's a few options without models, such as Caprice ATVs/ORVs) there's a much more concise product line.)

I mainly skipped the tactical era but did notice tons of blisters (with alot of duelist type special character gears IIRC) on the racks from that time. I do like the switch though to 2 packs with one of most of the upgrades included in the blister. Thanks for putting in the good word about the smaller books. I actually posted a thread on the DP9 forums but from the response I may not be in the majority regarding this unfortunately.

warboss wrote:I mainly skipped the tactical era but did notice tons of blisters (with alot of duelist type special character gears IIRC) on the racks from that time. I do like the switch though to 2 packs with one of most of the upgrades included in the blister. Thanks for putting in the good word about the smaller books. I actually posted a thread on the DP9 forums but from the response I may not be in the majority regarding this unfortunately.

There's some definite interest. I can't guarantee anything, but I personally feel the mini-books feel a niche and would rather have more books out and don't care which version it is.

I know my former LGS had a spinner rack of the blisters and they were "interesting." as you had to hunt for minis... It's just about possible currently for the guys to set up a 'mini store' for conventions with about 6-8 feet of peg-rack space for the current line without overly crowding or doubling up things, and that's for a game that has a lot more factions and models. At the time of the Tac stuff, there was North and South Gears, the older CEF Hovertanks, and a few special items. No Caprice or Utopian stuff, or nearly as many Strider and tank models.

Just finished up my Mambas last night for my two planned strike squads. I took me a while to make a decision about their configurations (the rest of the army was a no-brainer for me) as well as actually getting the bits. Each squad of four gears will have 3 Mambas, two of which will be the gattling-laser Blazing variety and another with the Razorfang Brawler loadout with the final gear being a Black Adder snub-gun tank hunter. For non-southern player blog readers, the fluff for tank-hunting squads in the South usually has the laser Mambas sniping off smaller turrets and systems to disable a tank while the Black Adders close in for the ultimate kill. I added in the Command and Control variant of the Mamba to help regenerate command points for free rerolls (the off-white sensor pod on the shoulder is a satellite uplink) as well as to stun bigger enemies with its heavy grenade launcher prior to the laser/snub attack by the squad mates. While its not very easily seen on the pic, I did add a thick cable connecting the gun to a port on the engine as the laser is slowly recharged in the fluff via the method. Next up for the week are my four iguanas! I'm hoping to get in a full sized game tonight so we'll see if that happens (my possible opponent wasn't sure if he was going to be able to make it last week).



After the Iggies are done, I'll take my first group picture! I still have another 6 gears planned for my initial 2,000pt army (2 more Jaeger variants with no upgrades allowing me to field my GP squads as non-veterans, 2 Sidewinders to act as commanders of my fire support squads, and 2 Black Adders for my strike squads). After that, I've got some ideas cooking for a OpSec stealth team (which will need a different paint scheme as they're stealth teams) and a paratrooper gear cadre to round out the force.

Mamba is win, I remember messing about with HG mini's years ago and always loved the Black Mamba,King Cobra and Grizzly.

Nice looking Mambas! I've always wondered if the laser-armed variants are too many TV in one basket and would love to hear how they play.

I'm hopefully putting up an article next week showing how to assemble these guys:

Santobell wrote:Mamba is win, I remember messing about with HG mini's years ago and always loved the Black Mamba,King Cobra and Grizzly.

Definitely agree that there are some pretty gears in the line. As an old Northern player, I have a fondness for their angles but I'm warming up to the curvy lines of the South now that I've switched over. The Support Cobra and Kodiak were always my favorites back in the 1st edition RAFM minis days.

Balance wrote:Nice looking Mambas! I've always wondered if the laser-armed variants are too many TV in one basket and would love to hear how they play.

I'm hopefully putting up an article next week showing how to assemble these guys:

The laser Mambas are actually cheaper than the stock model as they're a 5pt downgrade. While the laser is nice, the fact that it is the ONLY weapon on an elite gear and can run out of ammo on your first roll (as well as the loss of the indirect fire capable rockets) I guess necessitates the points return. I do like their stats and uses on paper though (no experience with them yet) and they do give my army an intrinsic anti-aircraft defense that it wouldn't otherwise have.

As for the caprice models, they're definitely the ones I like the most from the "new" crop of HG designs that weren't around back in the days of 1st edition. I'm not a fan of the golems and armigers of the other factions but the Caprice walkers have a neat look that says different planet. If I were to start another army, I'd probably be picking between CEF and Caprice so as to get a different looking and playstyle army for the second one. For now, I've still got plenty of Southern minis still to go and even a recently acquired Black Talon force to work on. Since it seems I may have an opponent for HG locally, I may end up selling or trading away the Talons (hopefully locally to generate another player).

So, unfortunately my opponent for HG was a no-show yesterday (he was 50/50 to begin with last week when we talked) but I got in some different games as well as painted the base colors of my iguanas for a while. By the end of the weekend, my four little scouts should be ready for their debut. I did notice when painting them that even my new basecoat on them went on a little bit gritty but not even close to the disaster that was the black primer at the beginning of this blog. We'll have to see how they turn out!

In order to meet my initial goal of finishing my 2000TV army in a month and in preparation for a hopeful game tomorrow, I put the nose to the grindstone (or in this case my painting desk) and got two squads worth of guys over the past week.

First up are the scout gears in my veteran Recon Squad. The paint job is pretty much the same as the previous versions except that their chests turned out to have more bumps and handles modelled onto them than previous gear types and I'm not really happy with how the decals turned out. I used softener on them to get them to cover better but it ended up distorting them a bit. After I get a few games under my belt with the whole army, I might come back and redo these guys after a wash in the stripping solution.



After they were done (this weekend actually since I ended up mostly painting them on Friday), I moved on the filler gears for my army. Most of these guys are comprised of the only "upgrade" gears outside the 4 standard variants (Jaeger, Cobra, Iguana, Black Mamba) that the SRA is allowed to take. The two sidewinders (guys with fins on their heads) are a good choice for combat group leaders in my Fire Support squads as they have detect 3 which will allow them to defeat the most basic stealth upgrades available as well as moderate concealment. At only 5pts more than the standard Jaeger you start with, they also have an added punch in case I decide to split my fire and not use coordinated attack for the squad leader's action. The two with tiny heads are Black Adders which will be attached to my two Strike squads. The weapons they wield (snub guns) are the premiere antitank weapons at close range and I hope to use them for the final knockout punch after the BBEG target is softened/weakened by the Strike CGL's heavy grenade launcher and coordinated actions as well as peppering shots from the gatling laser Mambas. Finally, the two Jaegers are the stock variants that I plan to use in my two GP squads when I'm playing lower PL games where I can't afford to make them veteran. They'll replace the paratrooper-rifle Jaegers for a rebate of a few points and a veteran slot each.




Over the past month, I've pretty much been avoiding the television and trying to get in an hour of painting a day. During one of my sessions, my cousin stopped by and caught me in the middle of painting my little army men. When I explained that they were for a new game I was getting into set on a desert world, she decided to make a nice desert themed playmat for me as a surprise. Yesterday, she came by again with my present in time for my group shot the next day. My obnoxious base color sticks out a fair bit but I think the actual gears and sand basing fit well with the colors (keep in mind that the dakka autocorrect image loading features do change the colors somewhat and that the mat is actually lighter in person).



And, without further adieu, here is my month's effort... my 2000pts SRA army painted and based!



These two pics have a Fire Support Squad and Strike squad each. The Strike cadres are identical but one FS is filled with Striking Cobras while the other has Support Cobras.





Here is the head and body of my army, the two GP squads and the recon squad that'll contain my army commander.



As usual, you can zoom in as needed by click on the pic to get to dakka's gallery. I've still got another 2000pts unbuilt/NIB but I think I'll try and get some games under my belt before I start adding more to the force. It's not a real army until they cut their teeth on the field of battle!

Warboss, they look excellent, as always. Are those Gatling Laser Cannons in the 2nd Support Squad (the ones attached to a single arm, not the double-handed ones)?

Also, any idea how exact DP9 is with the 1:144 scale of the infantry/vehicles? I found a bunch of great Japanese model railroad scenery in 1:150 scale on Ebay...

Great looking force - recently puchased a strike cadre for some demo games I'm hopefully going to be running.

I'm a North Guy myself.

ancientsociety wrote:Warboss, they look excellent, as always. Are those Gatling Laser Cannons in the 2nd Support Squad (the ones attached to a single arm, not the double-handed ones)?

Also, any idea how exact DP9 is with the 1:144 scale of the infantry/vehicles? I found a bunch of great Japanese model railroad scenery in 1:150 scale on Ebay...

Thanks! You are indeed looking at gatling lasers in the strike squad (the support squad has the bigger termie bases Cobras). I liked how the the single one I originally had worked in the game (on a Mamba they're accurate enough to almost guarantee a box of damage) so I tried to get some more through trading and purchases. They're also rulewise the only thing I found in my southern list that could reliably take down incoming airstrikes. I haven't actually played using those rules but I wasn't keen on the idea that there was nothing I could do about it, lol.

I don't know how close to 1:144 scale they truely are. I know that they use railroad scale terrain for some of their older pics and can't see scenery being much out of place at 1:150. Scenery should be ok but I'd probably stay away from infantry at that scale, though. For my demo games, I've been using the true 25mm LOTR ruins and whatever 15mm stuff I can borrow from the FoW gamers at the FLGS.

Earthbeard wrote:Great looking force - recently puchased a strike cadre for some demo games I'm hopefully going to be running.

I'm a North Guy myself.

The north is definitely cool (I'm a reformed Revisionist Northern collector)! One thing I'd recommend for the demo is to not take the long shots you may be used to in other games like 40k. If you don't have at least equal modifier to the defender, just maneuver closer or to a better firing zone instead of taking the shot. In my first game, nothing happened because the two sides just hung back and kept taking shots at long range through cover (the attack was rolling 2d6 at -2 or -3 while the defender was just a straight 2d6 roll). Also, read up on the coordinated action, crossfire, indirect fire, and stun rules as the ability to give defenders penalties on their roll is key to making the shot count.

Working the modifiers is definitely a key 'skill' for playing HGB. I was extremely happy during a demo at GenCon when one player had pretty much nothign left and rolled a maxed-out (2d6, both 6s, which equates to a 7...) Snub Cannon shot at point-blank range on an enemy, who was stationary (-1 to defend) and proceeded to roll something like a 2.

Which means that an enemy Jaeger was made very, very dead. Also made the demo exciting as it went from a massacre to an almost even combat.

I require more updates!

Balance wrote:Working the modifiers is definitely a key 'skill' for playing HGB. I was extremely happy during a demo at GenCon when one player had pretty much nothign left and rolled a maxed-out (2d6, both 6s, which equates to a 7...) Snub Cannon shot at point-blank range on an enemy, who was stationary (-1 to defend) and proceeded to roll something like a 2.

Which means that an enemy Jaeger was made very, very dead. Also made the demo exciting as it went from a massacre to an almost even combat.

Are you going to GenCon this year? Make sure you take some pics and recruit some players in the SE United States! And, yes, snub cannons make for a definite *splat* if the rolls favor the shooter even just a bit! I've already maxed out on them for my gears unfortunately with two Black Adders. I have two Vipers unbuilt still but, despite having a variant in the fluff with snubs, you can't outfit them with it in the actual minis game. :(

ancientsociety wrote: I require more updates!

Lol, good to know I'm missed. I was pretty much sitting down for a dedicated hour or two of painting every day for the month I was redoing my army posted above, trying to accomplish a single task on all the gears in a sitting (for instance, doing all the chainmail colors on all the gears in one squad sequentally). I burnt out for a bit with the painting and trying to get the force done so that I could run some demos.

My last two weeks worth of efforts were fruitless (I usually try to demo HG before Deathwatch games and the RPG fell apart last minute for the past 2 weeks) but I've got another attempt today set up hopefully. I haven't heard back from the guy with the Northern army (he works nights and tends to game midday weekends which don't work for me) so I started posting on another local-ish (60 miles away each way) store's forum to see if there were players there. I've gotten in contact with two of them and will try to head up there around the end of July for a game. *fingers crossed*

At this point, I'm starting to get the modelling itch again but am having a bit of trouble deciding what to put together next. Initially, I had planned to finish up my Gear Squads (or cadres as they're called in my army) with a stealth OpSec Cadre and a Paratrooper gear cadre left in my *to do* box. On one of my failed trips to the FLGS to get in a game, a friend from the Deathwatch game saw my painted minis and asked to look through the book. He was very surprised to see that the game had tanks as he thought (probably from my initial selection of minis and the name of the game itself) you ONLY used little anime robots. That got me thinking that I might have to also work on the combined arms minis (tanks, striders, infantry) before adding more gears to the mix so people who see my army don't pigeonhole the game as just mechs.

I'm not anxious to start working on the itty bitty infantry to be totally honest as I don't have much experience at that scale so that leaves striders and tanks. I've got a single Naga (which is partly miscast... see the beginning of the blog) and a Fire Dragon but would prefer to have a unit of 3 (one big, two small) if I'm going to start work on them. I'd have to order another Naga from the FLGS and get the replacement torso for my original Naga to get the mojo of the cadre where I want it. The other option I've been entertaining recently is to try and dig out my old Battletech/Robotech officer battle pods as stand in's for two additional Nagas. Its been a while since I looked at them (and I doubt that they're complete parts-wise after all this time) but it would be nifty to have three of those types of walkers if I could get them looking right together. I'll probably take some pics of them tomorrow blue-tac'ed together to see if the sizes work together and if i've got the necessary bits. The final and most likely option would be to work on the tank squadron. Like with the striders, I'd like to have two small and one large tank in the cadre and that's already the case since I have a single Visigoth and a two-pack of Huns. More info tomorrow (and hopefully pics of my battle pods as well as tonight's possible game) but I'm obviously open to suggestions in the meantime.

warboss wrote:
Are you going to GenCon this year? Make sure you take some pics and recruit some players in the SE United States! And, yes, snub cannons make for a definite *splat* if the rolls favor the shooter even just a bit! I've already maxed out on them for my gears unfortunately with two Black Adders. I have two Vipers unbuilt still but, despite having a variant in the fluff with snubs, you can't outfit them with it in the actual minis game. :(

Sadly, no GenCon for me. My Corporate Overlords at DP9 will help with the trip a bit, but it's still expensive (mainly the lodgings, and I'm getting too old to travel without some crash space pre-arranged). I'm trying to go to The War Store Weekend if they need help, as I can drive and it should be a cheaper room.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I need to take some pics of my Caprice force... i think they're all built now.

And, then, start painting. 14 Mounts and 80 Infantry!

Balance wrote:I need to take some pics of my Caprice force... i think they're all built now.

And, then, start painting. 14 Mounts and 80 Infantry!

80 bases or 80 infantry?? That's still alot either way. You could always start a blog here on dakka with them; that way, I wouldn't have to be the only HG one! My HG game last week was unfortunately a bust as my opponent came late and left early despite actually appearing to have alot of fun playing (and kicking my butt at the same time). At least I got a single round in on my new playmat.. grumble...grumble..

It's 80 infantry, but I paint notoriously slowly. :(

On the plus side, it looks like I'm going to The WarStore weekend!

This P&M brought me to the dark side, broke down and bought a PRDF GP Squad and the 2-player starter kit.

You ruined me.

ancientsociety wrote:This P&M brought me to the dark side, broke down and bought a PRDF GP Squad and the 2-player starter kit.

You ruined me.

Glad I could help a fellow Chicagoan! (albeit displaced in my current case) What do you plan on doing with the North/South minis in the starter? I'm also jealous of your smaller sized rulebooks. Still no luck in scheduling a full HG game down here unfortunately. I'm hoping I can get one in when I travel across town to visit another store and meet with 2 potential players there but that won't be happening for another 2-3 weeks. To be honest, the lack of actually getting a full game in has soured me a fair bit on building more. I'm not considering selling them or anything drastic of the sorts but I'd be lying if I said the inability to actually play the game wasn't a big downer.

This is, regretfully, the damage GW's done to tabletop gaming. It is very, VERY hard to get new players, in spite of your well painted models, full terrain, and awesome playscape.

Do not despair? I would suggest putting out a call on all the forums you can find, and maybe see if you can arrange a 'sale' with your local FLGS. You'll run a campaign, and they can give a discount to all players in the group. Or the store can buy some of the starter kits, youpaint them up, and the store has a two or four ready to go sample armies for use to use in demos, and to start people into the game.

Luck and fortune!

warboss wrote:

ancientsociety wrote:This P&M brought me to the dark side, broke down and bought a PRDF GP Squad and the 2-player starter kit.

You ruined me.

Glad I could help a fellow Chicagoan! (albeit displaced in my current case) What do you plan on doing with the North/South minis in the starter? I'm also jealous of your smaller sized rulebooks. Still no luck in scheduling a full HG game down here unfortunately. I'm hoping I can get one in when I travel across town to visit another store and meet with 2 potential players there but that won't be happening for another 2-3 weeks. To be honest, the lack of actually getting a full game in has soured me a fair bit on building more. I'm not considering selling them or anything drastic of the sorts but I'd be lying if I said the inability to actually play the game wasn't a big downer.

Sorry to hear your struggles...

I have a few extra Jagers, so I might combine them into a Southern GP squad. The Hunters are destined for the Arena.

I'm actually thinking of joining the Pod Squad and demo'ing the game, both at my FLGS and Adepticon.

ancientsociety wrote:
Sorry to hear your struggles...

I have a few extra Jagers, so I might combine them into a Southern GP squad. The Hunters are destined for the Arena.

I'm actually thinking of joining the Pod Squad and demo'ing the game, both at my FLGS and Adepticon.

I'm actually working on a short article for the Aurora fanzine to make the stock Hunters/Jaegers a bit better when fielded straight out of the box without model swaps. Which store is your FLGS? I know that Games Plus used to have a fledgeling HG scene years back but that died down after one of the edition changes so you may want to try there if its not already your store.

warboss wrote:

ancientsociety wrote:
Sorry to hear your struggles...

I have a few extra Jagers, so I might combine them into a Southern GP squad. The Hunters are destined for the Arena.

I'm actually thinking of joining the Pod Squad and demo'ing the game, both at my FLGS and Adepticon.

I'm actually working on a short article for the Aurora fanzine to make the stock Hunters/Jaegers a bit better when fielded straight out of the box without model swaps. Which store is your FLGS? I know that Games Plus used to have a fledgeling HG scene years back but that died down after one of the edition changes so you may want to try there if its not already your store.

Very cool.

I live in the city so GP is a little far right now. I generally game at Black Sun Games, though I'm also close to Dice Dojo

ancientsociety wrote:Very cool.

I live in the city so GP is a little far right now. I generally game at [url+http://blacksungameschicago.com/]Black Sun Games[/url], though I'm also close to Dice Dojo

Yeah, I've heard about them but haven't visited. Chicago has ZERO games stores when I left within the city limits that you could actually play in; I used to buy my stuff at the Hancock Gamers Paradise but that closed down even before I left. Its good to know that you don't have to travel 20 miles like I used to just to get in a game!

warboss wrote: Its good to know that you don't have to travel 20 miles like I used to just to get in a game!

In the snow, uphill both ways, I presume?

warboss wrote:

ancientsociety wrote:Very cool.

I live in the city so GP is a little far right now. I generally game at [url+http://blacksungameschicago.com/]Black Sun Games[/url], though I'm also close to Dice Dojo

Yeah, I've heard about them but haven't visited. Chicago has ZERO games stores when I left within the city limits that you could actually play in; I used to buy my stuff at the Hancock Gamers Paradise but that closed down even before I left. Its good to know that you don't have to travel 20 miles like I used to just to get in a game!

Yeah, around 2009, after all the Gamer's Paradises closed, there was only Games Plus and the Bunker to play at, then BSG opened, then Gamer's Asylum (in Evanston, which closed last year), and finally Dice Dojo.

I was sad to see Gamer's Paradise go as, I worked as Asst. Manager for the Villa Park branch in high school, and it got me started in tabletop gaming. Unfortunately though, upper management made very bad decisions (switching inventory from primarily gaming products to tourist-y ) after ~2000 and their days were ever numbered.

If I ever had the venture capital for it, I'd open a nice, well-stocked games store here in the city with a wide selection of games and demo like mad.

ancientsociety wrote:Also, any idea how exact DP9 is with the 1:144 scale of the infantry/vehicles? I found a bunch of great Japanese model railroad scenery in 1:150 scale on Ebay...

The infantry generally look 'pretty close' with 1:150th to N-scale stuff.The bases add enough height that you don't think too much about door heights from what I've seen.

Balance wrote:

warboss wrote: Its good to know that you don't have to travel 20 miles like I used to just to get in a game!

In the snow, uphill both ways, I presume?

In the snow both ways? Frequently. Uphill? No, lol. The only hill in the chicagoland area of any note is the old garbage dump in Northbrook that they built a subdivision and golf course on. (not kidding!)

It's been a while since my last update but I finally started up on the last two squads I have left and planned for the army. I decided to share the wealth and traded/sold off the non-gears in the force as frankly I didn't think I'd ever use them in a game. Most games tend to use around 3-4 squads in Heavy Gear as that is the sweet spot (any more and the game tends to bog down a bit and/or take too long) so my eventual nine squads of gears should be plenty (especially since I'll have at least one of every gear cadre type the SRA can actually take without relying on MILICIA or Talons). Secondly, I simply haven't gotten a local scene started and it's a bit of a bummer. The closest local store (about 25 miles away) only has one other customer with any minis and I tried for a few months to get together with him but no luck (he works nights and evenings are generally when I'm free). The other 40k players just thought the game was too different and preferred to just stick with the familiar 40k scene instead. At the next closest store with any HG players (65 miles), I got in contact with three people who own minis but never played but only one of them ever came to the demo and not much came of it when the other players didn't materialize.

So, in a nutshell, my Cobra Commander (pun intended), Paratrooper squad, and OpSec squads are the remaining pieces to my HG puzzle. I decided to start up again with the commander and the paratroopers assembly first. I decided to go with my original idea of a army commander in a Brahmin Razorfang Cobra with a medium Bazooka, vibro rapier, and ECM/ECCM upgrade. Since he'll be the one passing down most command points, the built in ECCM will help in making sure I can break through any interuption by opposing players. With all the "upgrades", he actually loses all but a single main weapon (the bazooka) but frankly that should be enough. With the satellite uplink, he may instead choose to regenerate a command point if there are no viable shots available during his activation. He'll be painted pretty much to match the existing army as already shown in this thread.



As for the Paratrooper squad, I decided to go with a Long Fang Mamba with linked MRPs as the CGL, two hunter paras with LGM upgrades, and two Commando Iguanas for a bit of extra punch. I modelled them with folded tarps on their buttplates (which you sadly can't see below) as part of their parachuting method of insertion. I've decided to try a two-tone spray camo paint scheme that is similar to Israeli Air Force patterns. If you look at the picture, you might notice the blue tac under the Mamba's foot as the minis aren't glued yet to the bases. I'll spray them from below with light grey and then use the normal sand camo the rest of the army uses from above. I'll wash the top with my usual Ogryn Flesh and the bottom with some thinned down blue wash. Hopefully my poor man's technique of just using the spray cans will give me a nice variation between the two colors although I expect the edges between the two colors to not be as defined as in the example pic below. Fingers crossed!

All finished with the Paratroop Cadre for my Heavy Gear Southern force. The two tone paint scheme came out ok but took a while with the overly complex method I used (see below) and probably would have looked the same if I had simply painted it with a brush. I basically primed the whole model grey and then washed the entire model with watered down blue wash. I then covered up the parts to remain blue grey with some blue tac (no pun intended) and sprayed the rest with my sand color and washed the uncovered parts with ogryn flesh (my previous scheme). I think it gives the model the general look that I was hoping for but yet again isn't anything particularly astounding... if I ever do something like that again, I'll simply paint it on! They've got the blue grey on the inside of their legs and the underside of the arms as well as on the rolled up parachute on their buttplate (basically anything that would be visible from below when they're parachuting in was the idea). Here's the Long Fang Black Mamba (who costs enough points to practically force the army commander to that squad when fielded!!), two Jaeger paratroopers upgraded with Light Guided Mortars (I don't think they'll use it too much but it looked cool on their backs and I was already going with looks over practicality with the squad commander), and two Iguana Commandos (the only point cost effective upgrade to the squad!).



Next up will be the OpSec stealth squad composed of two Snakeye Black Mambas and two Chameleons with medium sniper rifles. I wasn't sure about the paint scheme so I posted on the DP9 forums and got a very nice idea. Initially, I wasn't sure if I was going to use the traditional stealth scheme with them (black base with some metallic weapon colors and the occasional edge highlighting) or go with making them look as close to the sand I base with as possible (basically, just the sand spray color and watered down ogryn flesh wash to outline a few details). Feor suggested just taking the normal scheme I use and darkening it one large step (so the brown I currently use for the shoulders will be the base color with black as the shoulder/foot color.. along with some darkened metallics). The idea keeps my original scheme of earthtones but adds a definite stealth feel to it and I like it.

Well, my final squad of Southies is done and in my foam carrying case. My OpSec stealth gear squad of two Snakeye Black Mambas and two rifle toting sniper Chameleons painted up in a quasi-stealth scheme of the same brown as I use on my army's shoulders and feet. I'm not too happy with how the decals turned out (especially on the standing Mamba) after my attempt to darken the regimental symbol to match the stealth. I've since darkened that particular mamba's decal yet again but that doesn't fix the way the overcoat crumpled the design a bit. The flash on the camera does tend to exaggerate the issue a bit but its still visible with the naked eye regardless.



Now that I'm done with these guys, I've only got two gears left in the army to work on, both of which are Cobra chassis that I plan to use as my army commander when fielded. The first is an electronic warfare variant Razorfang Brahmin Cobra (whoo.. that's a mouthful!) and a King Cobra upgraded to carrying a Light Laser Cannon. Other than that, I've also started assembling some of my left over bits from various game systems to make a pair of bunkers with turret tops. More info on those with the next update in a few days as the glue is drying on those bunkers and the King Cobra...

Well, it only took me a couple of months but I've got another two figs done for the army. The theme for the army figure-wise was always that it would be a Cobra heavy force with the commander in a Cobra variant of some sort. Since I'm playing SRA, that actually is a bit harder than it sounds since the rules for where the army commander goes depends on which squad is the most expensive with a Black Mamba. In the end, I decided to use my last two planned minis for the army as my alternate commanders (or in really large games.. the commander and political officer). Both are equiped with vibrorapiers and have upgrades suitable for their ranks. The Brahmin Razorfang Support Cobra is probably the best choice mechanically as it has almost all of the armor and survivability of the King Cobra but also has much needed electronic warfare upgrades (as modelled with the dish on the back and satellite uplink on the left shoulder). The political officer (which grants a reroll once per turn to any unit nearby) will usually occupy the King Cobra as its more of a front line in your face type fig. Unfortunately, I didn't do a very good job of cleaning the model and only noticed the mold line on the chest after applying the wash.



This actually finishes up the army that I started over a year ago for the most part as I only have two figs left to paint (two Vipers). Unfortunately, the variant of the viper I'd like to use (the one with the snub cannon) isn't available in my army faction so I don't see myself putting together those figs at this time. If this changes with the next army book (fingers crossed), i'd gladly put them together and add them to my strike squads. On a whim, I also started working on my quick and easy support turrets for the army and might have some pics of those in the next couple of days/weeks/months (hey, gotta be realistic!) as well as a new army pic of the whole force.

Not a big update but I had to rearrange my carrying case for HG to accommodate the new models and that, of course, necessitated an updated group shot! As always, click on the pic to get to Dakka's zoomable gallery.

Forged in Flames.. a partial review of the new Southern army book.

It's been a while since my last update (and unfortunately still no one to play against locally) but I haven't given up hope yet. The new Southern army book (Forged in Fire.. referred to as FiF below) was just released in PDF form and I recieved a copy of the pdf and the delayed hard copy as a Christmas present. At first I wasn't planning on getting the hard copy myself and was going to wait a bit on the pdf but I have to say I got a bit excited when I recieved the gift. I'll comment a bit on the overall style of the book first (working off of the PDF as the hardcopy is delayed till sometime in January) and then go through some of the army mechanic changes as they pertain to the squads that I've built over the course of this blog.

The overall style is quite nice and harkens to in parts to an earlier 1st edition style of artwork while still retaining the newer artist's style as well in others. In the old days of the RPG, the technical entries for the gears that contained the game stats had a very anime inspired black and white line art style with additional white text on black background. The 2nd edition of the RPG switched over to more of a realistic technical look to the gear pictures but maintained the line art style. The technical parts of the new book harken partly to that style with red text and anime line art on a black background along with variants shown on the next page in the more static frontal 2nd edition RPG look. The picture below (spliced via web pics and cell phone images) shows the old styles on the top with the new ones shown in technical/crunch areas of the book below.



Character art has also changed significantly from the previous Locked and Loaded entries. The older book primarily used the Barbe style art taken from the RPG whereas the new book eschews it largely in favor of the talents of newer artists. While I do like the new more realistic character styles, the old fogey purist in me would be lying if I said I didn't miss the older exaggerated anime art at least somewhat. Luckily, the return of the line drawings largely satiates that appetite. I'm very behind on my HG timeline so I actually haven't read much of the fluff regarding the world setting in the PDF yet. Unlike 40k, the timeline in HG advances roughly parallel to ours in years so I'm missing much of the recent going ons that occured in the War of the Alliance books as well as NuCoal.

While I don't have the physical book in my hands to judge the actual print quality, I do have some comments about the released info about it. Normally, DP9 has come out with over the years two versions of each book, a full color deluxe (but still softcover) version for a premium price and a black and white entry level version at a discount. Unfortunately, they've decided to stop this practice apparently with the last book (NuCoal) and the FiF book is only available in the full priced and full color $60 version. In addition, the new starter packs for the south and NuCoal don't include the "mini" version of the book but instead contain a coupon for the pdf. While only a fool wouldn't admit that digital is the wave of the future for RPG products, I don't think we're there just yet. As mentioned in the first paragraph, I actually decided *NOT* to buy myself the dead-tree version of the book and was instead frankly waiting for the pdf to go on sale before buying it. I don't have any opponents to play against currently so there is no rush for me to get a copy of the rules. The full color book isn't a good value IMO (this is not limited to DP9's product offering but my general view on gaming books including the switch to a more expensive and full color 40k series of codices as well) and I'm still not confident that it will fit in my foam carrying case (GW standard case) without crushing my models. A perfect hardcopy fit for me would have been a minibook version and I would have bought a starter set if it had come with that without any qualms; I'd sell or trade the minis and keep the mini-books for my gaming copies. DP9 is rightfully criticized as pricier than most of the competition when you compare apples to apples (which fanboys generally don't when they cherry pick Inifinity models/books to compare them to) and I think that increasing the entry point into the game for players (which the hardcover book does) is a bad move for a game which doesn't have a large following to begin with. I haven't been able to convince anyone in my large metro area to play the game beyond a single demo and a more expensive army book (which 9 out of 10 gamers use in my area instead of digitial ones) that eschews the previous tradition of multiple quality and price SKUs certainly won't help in that regard.

On a technical note, the PDF is nice but also suffers from the lack of a "light" version. The file comes in at over 100mb for the army book and frequently chugs on my new Kindle Fire HD. While I like the detailed artwork that you can zoom in 400% and still be impressed by the clarity of, a significantly compressed portable version that doesn't overwork portable devices would be much appreciated. On the forums, this issue has been partly address in that DP9 staff has said part of the digital bloat is due to the pdf being compatibly all the way back to Adobe 4.0 and that they'll be releasing a version that is compatible only with more modern reader programs (lowering the size to around 80mb). I'd say that going even further for a portable version would probably be best if they're going through the trouble already to change it. Also, I'm not the most perceptive person when it comes to finding typos in books but I've found around a half dozen mistakes with another couple dozen found by others and collated into a thread on the DP9 forums. Luckily for fans, the hard copy was delayed so that there is a good chance that these typos and issues may be resolved prior to the first printing of the hardcopy book.

Review Part 2: General Army building changes

Where as the majority of figures and options individually have made it into the new version, the overall army building mechanic has changed significantly. Apparently this new style was evident in the NuCoal book but I didn't pick up a copy of it so I was unaware of the scope of the changes. In general, you chose an army faction (SRA in my case) that modified general rules and then chose a regiment type (Gear Regiment in my case as well) that gave you the basic rules for what goes where in your army. In addition, you could choose from a half dozen or so "special character" type regiments of note that modified your army even further. Regiments of note are simply gone now along with any army builds that they specifically made legal (like all veteran squad armies). While some versions of my army list could use RoN builds, I constructed (both on paper and physically with the weapons options) my force to be completely legal with just the standard SRA faction rules so the loss of RoN didn't affect me much personally except for limiting potential options for the force. You still choose from amongst the same factions as before as well as from around half the same regiment types (paratrooper and special forces generic regiment types are new and likely partly take the place of the RoN types that allowed similar builds previously). What goes where however has changed significantly though in each faction and regiment type. Since my focus has largely been on an SRA gear regiment, I'll be focusing on those changes most due to familiarity.

General veteran bonuses have been smartly moved from being listed individually in each squad (or cadre as they're called) to a general list at the start of the army section. Almost every squad had veteran options for increasing stats and/or adding sturdy boxes so it makes more sense to list those just once and leave the squad sections for squad specific changes. The squads themselves have largely stayed in the same classification (core, aux, spec, elite) with a few exceptions (like my paratrooper squad pictured earlier in this thread that is now simply illegal in ANY gear regiment) but squad pages have changed significantly in both style and content. Faction and regiment type rules have majorly changed what models are available for each player. The SRA has always been limited in models available being the rich boys of the south so are affected a bit less. My sidewinder trooper upgrade gears (one in each of my Fire Support cadres) that could largely populate any squad except for paratrooper and stealth cadres are now only available to two faction specific upgrade squads. Desert Vipers went from being a strike squad upgrade option to simply disappearing completely from every faction but one. Some new options are added in the form of new model releases (Diamondbacks and Fer de Lance for instance) as well as a limited (for the SRA at least) selection of "downgrades" that were previously unavailable. This change is a bit of a negative for me personally (lol.. my luck that two of the three uncommon models I chose to use were the only ones that got LESS available) but overall is probably a net positive for the SRA playerbase in general as the sheer number of models you can choose from has increased. Other factions may not have fared so well as Mekong and HAPF players are currently lamenting the loss of existing models from some squads and the wholesale mandatory replacement of certain squads with NuCoal equivalents. I'm not well versed enough in those particular details so won't comment about it beyond a simple mention.

Individual upgrades have largely stayed intact with a few convoluted options going the way of the dodo. Basically, if you built a model with upgrades that matched on of the earlier published RPG variants, you're likely to be ok. If you just chose from multiple somewhat unrelated upgrades that fit your playstyle together, there is a good chance that they're gone. My razorfang brawler command mambas now require conversion to just simple brawler mambas as the razorfang variant was cut back significantly. My razorfang brahmin cobra (which did actually match an RPG variant both in rules and model conversion) is now illegal as well. For my now illegal paratrooper cadre, my jaegers upgraded halfway up the longbow variant tree and will now either have to lose the mortar or change the gun to a rifle. Most of the rest of the individual models in the army stayed legal. Kudos to DP9 for keeping in general the wheat and getting rid of some of the overcomplicated chaff (except for my cobra commander!).

The pages are dominated by art (in the 2nd edition "frontal" line style shown above) showing the models in each variant of the squad. Previously you bought a one size fits all stock version of the squad and then picked individually from a buffet of choices to upgrade models/weapons individually and independantly from each other. Now, you choose from amongst three general builds (displayed in 3 lines of squad pictures that take up 2/3 of the page roughly) and then choose from a more limited set of options listed below that may apply to all or just one of the general builds shown above. For instance, previously when you bought a general purpose (GP) squad, you got 5 stock Jaeger models with the exact same basic loadout that you could (if you wanted) upgrade 2 models to carry special upgraded weapons in any combination listed below. Now you have to choose between three predetermined builds that contain 2 of the same upgrade weapon in each with some limited options to upgrade the squad further. Some people might suffer under this particular change if they went for variety in their squad weapons loadout but I largely repeated weapons within a squad so came out with legal combos (at least with regards to THIS change). Overall, I think the change is a net positive for the game as squad building was considered by many to be unnecessarily complex. This doesn't make it much less complex but any change in that direction overall is probably a good one.

And now I come to my single biggest complaint with the new book and it's mechanics. Previously, the south was unique in that you started with 4 gears in a squad and had the OPTION of upgrading to a 5th; this was the case since the original blitz version of the game. Some squad boxes (like the Fire Support cadre) came with ONLY four models and plenty of players built their armies using blisters of 2 figures (which came with more upgrade bits) to get to the minimum squad size of 4. With the new book, every cadre has now been moved both in the fluff and in the rules to an effectively mandatory five models. There is technically an "option" to keep 4 gears for sufficiently stubborn commanders but the requirements and costs are so severe that you'd be a complete fool to use the option. You can ONLY use it with PL3 or PL4 armies (negating technically half the PL options available to a player)... I'm fine with that... You can ONLY use it with veteran squads... I'm fine with that as well even with the more limited number of vets slots effectively available to players with the Legion Noire and SIU RoN gone... You can ONLY remove a stock jaeger from the squad so the option isn't available to a third of gear squads right there... not happy with it but I don't see that restriction as unreasonable (just too strict IMO).

Despite all of the serious restrictions listed above, they decided that you also have to WASTE an additional veteran upgrade to remove the model as well with no other benefit. That last part is frankly BS as it is unnecessarily punitive to players that did nothing more "wrong" than building legal squads with blisters. In effect, you can only do this with maximumn two squads in your army (with the most elite ones excluded since they don't have Jaegers like Op Sec squads) and you end up wasting a minimum of half your veteran choices to no effect other than to make your existing squads legal. As I said before, I'm a fan of simplifying the army construction rules but not at the expense of existing players who used an almost decade long army wide standard mechanic. It's been said that this was done supposedly for game balance but frankly the other restrictions are already balancing enough without the additional veteran slot cost. The tin-foil hat cynic in me sees this change along with the presented obvious solution of "BUY MORE MODELS!!!" as more of a money grab than a rebalancing of a mechanic, especially coming from a company that would change game rules with a new edition every 2 1/2 years for "balance" reasons requiring players to spend money to largely buy the same tweaked rules at twice the rate of any other game company. See my original post in the thread for more thoughts on that. Either way, the fix for this is a simple change in one sentance on one page to get rid of the extra veteran cost that absolutely cripples players who did nothing wrong/cheesy/overpowered/etc. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this change might occur but I'm definitely not holding my breath as being fair to existing players comes at a cost of potential sales. Imagine the uproar if 40k marine squads suddenly went from 10/5 in a full squad and combat squad to 12/6 requiring every marine player to buy more models to make his existing long legal army legal yet again. Very poor move on DP9's part as you'll see the effect it has on my army in particular below when I got through it squad by squad.

FRP Games has some heavy gear stuff on UBER SALE. Use the code "END2012" to knock another 50% off of the CLEARANCE prices.

Here's a heavy gear link for you, that just lists clearance:

http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=overstock&div=0&level=0&mfg=DP9

Dunno if this will help you.

Thanks for the info! I actually already ordered from there and zeroed out their stock of King Cobras in anticipation of a new unit to add to the army (spoiler! coming in a later chapter of the review) but I appreciate the heads up as I didn't mention their sale here myself. For anyone willing to brave my walls of text, sorry about any typos as I'm focusing on writing the whole thing before proofreading for typos.


Part 3: Review of Individual Cadre Changes

In this section, I'll try going through each of my cadres in order to list the changes necessary to field my existing army in the new rules. I'll list whether or not the squad's general structure is legal with my current build and then specify which individual models are illegal and need to be converted. Skip to the bottom of this post for the much abbreviated TLR version and pic.

2x General Purpose Squads: Squads legal, 1x model in each ILLEGAL

These two squads largely came out ok as I stuck with well know variants of Jaegers overall and luckily added a 5th model for weapon upgrade variety. With the new 5 gears/squad rule almost without recourse, that 5th model that I made for variety out of leftover Jaegers saved the squads (even if the model variant itself is illegal). I upgraded the 5th gear with a paratrooper rifle that is no longer a weapons option but can relatively easily change the weapon to a LAC for another standard Jaeger or convert him to another third upgrade weapon usable with the now less "well-funded" rule without costing a valuable and much rarer veteran slot. As I stated earlier, the standardization of weapon upgrades within a squad also saved my bacon as I opted for 2x Lbzk upgrades instead of going for more variety with one of each. Overall, the changes necessary to this squad are what I'd expect in an army book change over and have no complaints.

Recon Squad: Squad ILLEGAL, all individual models legal

The curse of 5-gear squads strikes! My recon squad composed of legimately purchased two-packs of iguanas (to acquire the necessary but rare electronic warfare upgrade bits for variants) is now completely illegal. The squad can never gain a standard Jaeger in order to utilize the ridiculous rule for 4-gear squads so I'm now forced to buy another blister pack (leaving me with one unnecessary gear) or to break up the squad to fill spots left open in the myriad of other squads that get screwed over by this rule. I'm leaning to breaking up the squad as I frankly don't want another iguana and might not even have the empty slot to store him in my carrying case... This change is completely unfair and unnecessary in my book.



2x Strike Squads: One Squad ILLEGAL after combining parts of the two, one model in each ILLEGAL

The 5-gear squad rule strikes again! This time it strikes down two of my squads with one fell stroke. A quick solution to this fabricated issue is to take the black adder in one squad and add it to the other as the 5th gear. I actually considered several times using my desert viper blister to add to these cadres as a 5th gear but I frankly didn't need another desert viper but instead wanted a pit viper in the squad. I had hoped that the viper series would become more prolific and give me access to a pit viper somewhere but the exact opposite happened and the existing legal desert viper instead got cut out of the SRA list. Since I actually have two of these squads, buying an extra blister and trying to match it to the existing army's paint scheme (as well as buying another expensive set of decals since I'm almost out of my eagle emblems) is only moderately annoying as it doesn't end up leaving me with a useless gear like with the recon squad above. This squad also becomes mandatory veteran due to the watering-down of the well-funded rule that previously allowed me 2 blazing and 1 brawler mamba without a vet slot (as well as att/def3). The illegal models in each are the razorfang brawler mambas. The fix for this is relatively easy and I frankly expected this variant to go away. If it weren't for that 5 gear rule, these two squads would have turned out fairly well despite the changes.

2x Fire Support Squads: Both Squads ILLEGAL, one model in each ILLEGAL

5 gear squad rule combined with a entire gear model that just up and left the standard southern list completely. Sidewinders are now only available in the double veteran costing SRA specific swap squads so their removal leaves me with only 3 models in each FS cadre. I can't combine the models from both because of the new rules are choosing predetermined loadouts (2-3 support cobras OR 2-3 striking but not a mix of both). Except for breaking up my also illegal recon squad, I simply don't have any existing gears that can be put into this squad without making the few legal squads I have illegal. Luckily for me, you can swap the two Jaegers that are now a part of the revised FS cadres for 2 iguanas including a black box upgrade for veteran CGLs in gear regiments. Unfortuantely, I'll have to switch the hunting weapons back to the stock LAC to make the black box iggies legal. Two models (the sidewinders) and an entire cadre (the recon) are sacrificed to appease the 5-gear rule god. :(



Paratrooper Cadre: Squad ILLEGAL, 2 models ILLEGAL

Paratroopers are now simply not availabe in gear regiments at all so the squad is illegal despite it ironically being the ONLY squad that I had that was meant to be fielded at 5 gears. (The GP squads had the option but I never actually chose to do so). My two jaeger variants are halfway down the longbow upgrade tree and I always considered them to be fodder for simplification. Luckily removing the mortar isn't too much effort to do and paint but none of that matters if I can't take the squad in the first place.

Black Ops Cadre: Squad ILLEGAL, models legal

Formerly known as the Op Sec squad. Much like the recon squad, this squad was built using blisters of 2 models and is now illegal due to the size and has NO options for model transfers from other cadres. Yet again, I'd have to buy another blister and have a wasted miniature that I'd be unable to use. Ugghh... On the bright side, all the models currently there are legal due to my general adherence to RPG upgrades/downgrades. The loss of this squad's legally also precludes me from EVER fielding a PL4 army as I currently have no other options for the mandatory elite choice needed for PL4 armies. Major inconvience because of (surprise) the same stupid rule as almost every entry above.



Army Commander Model Choices: 1 of 2 ILLEGAL

Not that big of a deal here as I hoped that the brahmin EW striking cobra would stay legal as it matched an RPG variant but knew there was a good chance it would go away due to the complexity of the options needed to get there. I haven't decided what I'll do with that model yet but I'm not too worried. The king cobra actually became more available in the army bucking the "you're illegal now!!" trend noted above. I've always liked the model but it was frankly not worth fielding previously; the only reason I had one was that I like the design and I felt that I needed one for my cobra themed force. With FiF, it actually became more survivable with the changeover at no additional cost and gained an extra squad to join (more on that later) as well as increased numbers in strike squads. It's a bit overshadowed (both literally and figurately) by the Drake that is almost always available as a swap but it fits in with my army theme as well as plays on my nostalgia from 1st edition. Bravo, DP9! That's how you convince me to buy more... not with a crappy army breaking rule like mandatory 5 gear cadres but rather by making cool looking units actually worth using (but not overpowered). I order 3 cobras and a black adder blister at the FRP sale to boost my forces as I like those models and always wanted more. Carrot!! Not the stick!!



So to recap:

TL : DR....

This is what is left of my previously entirely legal army that could be fielded all together at the same time... Out of 9 squads, I'll be left with only 5 legal squads after switching models around as much as possible and doing a bunch of weapon and upgrade swaps. Almost half my army is now defunct thanks largely to a single rule.. the effectively mandatory 5 gear squad size.






That'll be it for tonight as I doubt even the most dedicated reader has gone through all this without falling asleep. Tomorrow I'll go over the mostly positive changes to what is left of my force as well as some possible new additions and ways to salvage stuff from the dreaded 5 gear cadre rule.

Alright... time for a bit of change of pace compared to the last couple of posts to focus mostly on the positive. The 5-gear rule and it's restrictions seem to be a bit controversial due to it's effects on army collections so DP9 staff mentioned that they will take a look at it (as well as some other changes that negatively affect model collections). There are no guarantees but any change would be appreciated so I won't beat that drum again until I see what changes, if any, occur. In addition, without the Gear Garage files for the new units, I can't easily compare TV costs between old and new. I did compare a few units and it seems like almost all went down in cost (usually 20-30TV) compared with L&L with the only cadre that went up that I checked being the previously undercosted support cobra FS cadre. I didn't ever use the GU5 values so I won't hazard a guess about that comparison.

So.. what has changed for the better?

1) Gear Regiments actually have a specific unique bonus as do the other regiments. Previously, having a gear regiment just meant that certain cadres and combat groups switched around the slot that they occupy. In this case, gear regiments can upgrade most gear cadre CGL's EW without a veteran slot and veteran Iguanas can upgrade to Black Box iggies as well. Previously, equivalent black box iggies were limited to only to recon cadres. Considering that my recon cadre isn't fieldable as is currently, the ability to swap them out (along with the other 2 standard iggies) to other under-strength squads is nice. I'll have to take off the light rifles (hunter upgrades are recon only) but I'll be able to add nice FO models to my fire support squads as well as give the army (and most importantly it's commander!) some ECCM without a recon cadre. Previously my striking brahmin commander filled that roll but that exotic set of swaps is gone and my AC was looking for a new home. A maneuverable ECCM iggy would definitely fit the bill.

2) Non-cadre specific upgrades are listed on one page instead of repeated on each squad's page cluttering it up. The added possibly unintended side effect is that some squads that didn't previously get access to certain upgrades (like armor jackets or att3) now do since it's a one size fits all listing.

3) Best of the Best now doesn't require an att3 veteran cadre to use so it acts effectively like a "free" veteran upgrade (as long as you just want attribute increases) in a PL3 or 4 army. With well funded being on a bit smaller budget than previously and non-vet att/def3 upgrades disappearing from most individual unit descriptions, any freebie like this helps.

4) GP Cadre: For my particular build, no problems here as the only thing that changed was the upgrade/swap lists got even bigger. Gunner upgrades (MACs) strangely aren't a standard loadout (not that anyone took them in the past except for brand new players) but the brand new flamm (flamethrower) Jaeger is. In addition, blitz Jaegers are now a possibility even for non-veteran cadres via the well funded rule. I actually don't need to change a thing with my two GP squads in order to field them. I had previously toyed around with upgrading a model in this to a sidewinder but that option (as well as the sidewinder in almost all the squads) is now gone.

5) Recon Cadre: Increased availability of the EW models in the squad compared with before. Black box iggies can now occupy 4 spots in the cadre (previously max 2) including the gear regiment bonus and the new to blitz variant Loudmouth is an available upgrade for two. I can't think of a single thing that got worse with this squad as long as you own 5 models. This is a big boost to the EW power of the south which before was frankly very lacking. There is some talk about the massive ELINT detect rating but that model isn't likely to ever make an appearance in my army and am not too familiar with it. It seems that it would be a must buy for non-SRA armies who face stealth armies like Black Talons on a regular basis.

6) Strike Squads: Overall, I'd say this one (at least for me) took a hit compared with before. The previous strike squad was so chocked full of options when you factored in well-funded. I previously got the exact cadre I wanted for both my strike squads without spending a veteran choice. Unfortunately, with the not-as-well funded rule being more limited and the first blazing mamba upgrade and att/def 3 gone from the non-vet list, there is no choice for me but to use the now more valuable and limited vet slots on my strike squads. A second problem for me is that the previously available desert viper option is now gone and that model was ironically the only unbuilt blister that I had left. For those building one of these from scratch, the positives compared with before is that the King Cobra is no longer a vet only upgrade and you can now get multiples of. In addition, flammcobras are now a new upgrade option as well. While I don't think I'll take advantage of the flammcobra uprages as I've hit my likely limit of 7 cobras, I did just order 3 more King Cobras specifically for the new SRA only heavy strike cadre and I could instead just add them here instead. The Drake, the newest gearstrider in the army, makes his appearance as a swap for two Cobras in the squad. He's got better armor, stats, and weapons than a King Cobra and the same upgraded 0 maneuverability for only a limited price increase. I'm not a fan of the model's look and I am a big fan of the Cobra's so I don't plan on picking up any but the relative power/cost of this model compared with similar gearstriders is causing a stir over on the DP9 forums... which means it must be a good choice for power builds!


7) Fire Support: With my cobra themed army, these squads hold a particular interest for me. Right off the bat, the first thing I noticed was that the style of double/triple of the same upgrade continues here as it did throughout the book. For me, this actually fits my previous designs for the fire support cadres as I always did triples of the same loadout. For others that had a single FS squad in their army with a mixed loadout for variety, it's not a good thing. The basic loadout options are regular cobras, striking cobras, and support cobras (with the first two throwing in a replaceable Black Adder in for a cobra). I do have a pair of adders (with another pack on the way) but they're earmarked to fill holes in my strike squads. Besides, in my case, I'd need to replace those adders anyways to get my 3 cobras in each squad. King Cobras are still two per squad but the first one has moved out of the regular upgrades into the vet only category. You can use the only well funding upgrade to take it without the vet slot though it's not too big of a change. The big changest to the FS cadre is instead a change to cobras overall in that they've gotten the previous brahmin upgrade to 0 maneuver as part of the standard chassis. Previously, this was an SRA vet (or SRA ties armies) only upgrade so the biggest beneficiaries of this change are non-SRA players but even SRA players benefit in that they can take a single one without a vet slot via well funded. The authentic support cobra with the junglemower gun has strangely moved to vet only but the practical effect of that ingame is nil for me personally since I previously *always* used vet FS squads for the Brahmin upgrades. Finally, the new big boy of the southern force, the gearstrider Drake, makes his 2nd appearance in the FS squad with a vet option to upgrade two models. Slashing cobras upgrades got a large boost in cost but this is partly mitigated by the overall decrease in cost of the basic cobra; I've never personally used one of these variants so I'm not sure if the general statline has a significant change that resulted in the increased cost. Finally, the artillery cobra makes its first appearance in blitz as well. If anything, I may turn my illegal AC brahmin cobra model into an artillery variant as I like the look.

8) Paratrooper Cadre: This unit took a big hit in availability in that is isn't available to gear regiments at all. You can still take one in a Special Forces regiment (which requires that you have an OpSec/Black Ops team handy) or a Paratrooper Regiment (which means your whole army has to be capable of being airdropped). The squad itself stayed largely the same except for the addition of a few more Mamba variants as well as the removal of the Mamba CGL requirement. This last part makes me happy because I never really liked the look of a single mamba sitting amongst the airbrake and roll bar equipped paratrooper gears so this is definitely a plus visually.

9) Black Ops: Formerly know as the OpSec cadre. The squad officially lost it's veteran requirement and the standard version of the squad includes att/def3 upgrades available without a vet slot. If you like Snake Eye mambas and have the models (and don't like Green Mambas due to their inferior stealth ratings), you'll likely end up spending vet slots anyways to get the right mix of full stealth gears. For new players, this unit is a worthwhile investment as its one of the few units you can take in a gear regiment that are elite which opens up the PL4 army option and opens up the full stealth army as the mandatory prerequisite for Spec Ops Regiments.

So, not much to visually post today as I've been occupied hobbywise recently with two Heavy Gear related projects. The first is collecting the models and bits necessary to make my army legal again. I'm almost done with the collection of these items and will soon be able to post pics of any changes as well as the trio of new Gears that I plan to add (namely 3x King Cobras!).

The second thing I've been working on is a set of simplified house rules for playing faster and simpler games of Blitz based on my own observations as well as those of people that I tried (unsuccessfully) to get into Blitz. I figured a formal blog was a better format for that project instead of my more visual modelling blog here. If anyone is interested in learning how to possibly play quicker games of Heavy Gear that still feel like Heavy Gear and use the same core rules and mechanics, feel free to check out the blog below.

http://scifisitzkrieg.blogspot.com/



More updates to this particular blog will likely start over the upcoming weekend when I get the chance to start breaking some arms/legs/weapon mounts on my gears!

Just noticed your sig in the X-Wing thread and as I started playing HGB myself this month I thought I'd give this a bump to see what you were doing in that vein at the moment.
So there.

Most of my Heavy Gear related hobby effort over the past two months has been focused on the blog. I've started playing on Vassal since I still have no opponents in my metro area unfortunately which has taken the little wind I had in my sails for converting my army with the newest field guide. I do hope sometime in the next month to actually finish the guys needing conversion only and then start work on the three King Cobras I have waiting in the blister.

Even though the required conversions are less than what I needed to do in the first place to get the models finished, I consider it poor game design when my 35 model HG force needs more work to stay legal with one book change than the 300+ models combined I have for Blood Angels, IG, Dark Angel, and Tau forces I own.

I can definitely see that blunting your enthusiasm, which is a shame.
From everything I've read it seems like DP9 were doing it with the intent of creating a more coherent game in the long run rather than to profit in the short term. Doesn't change your situation right now of course.

I'm about to start putting my NuCoal gears together and hope to get my second game in this weekend.

Well, it's been a while since I did a substantial update but I finally got around to updating my army back to 100% WYSIWIG legal after the Forged in Fire field guide changes. As previously stated, my standard build under Locked and Loaded only had 20 of the 36 figures come through unscathed and playable as is. Some whole units are unusable (usually due to the switch to 5 gear squads) like my Op Sec/Black Ops Cadre whereas I'm able to salvage others by folding them into other squads that need a fifth (like my recon squad that *poof* just became CGLs for other 4 gear cadres). In a nutshell, I've got 10 models that I needed to convert (see spoiler below) and another two squads that I can't use until I get an extra Snakeye mamba blister (on the way).



As for new figs/units, I picked up the some extra King Cobras (since I'm going with a heavy Cobra theme for the army) and got an xmas iggy that I'll be turning into my new Chatterbox AC as well. Also, I built two free turrets for support options as well using dried out GW paint pots and left over bits both from 40k as well as HG (including the HRPs/HACs from my cobras that no longer have access to them. I didn't take pictures of the just converted/patched figures but rather only of the completely new additions. Here we have the built and base coated Heavy Strike Squad King and Hooded Cobras as well as my AC Chatterbox Iguana and a spare Jaeger that I need to make a squad legal at 5 models. I tried adding a bit more dynamic poses to the King Cobras as I'm not a fan of the "come at me, bro!" standard gorilla pose. One model is done up in a simple firing position (like my original King Cobra model) whereas another is running and the third is in a resting Captain Morgan pose. The Iggy is the kneeling xmas Iguana that I converted to a chatterbox. I kept body and shield but replaced the baton with a vibrorapier and added the Chatterbox head and sensor equipment.



I've gotten as far as doing the main colors on the models as well as the primary wash. GW changed their washes and I had to mix a bit of the Reikland Fleshwash into my remaining supply of Ogryn Flesh in order to try and match the army colors a bit more closely. The models below still need multiple details like sensors eyes, rocket tips, and power cords done but they're at least half way done! One of the two turrets with both its weapon options also is shown below. It's nothing spectacular but it was also pretty much free except for the minimal cost of the glue and paint to put it together.



I've still got to finish the models above (some painting, decals, basing, and then overcoating) as well as start work on my Green Mamba for my Black Ops squad (which when finished will also allow me to field my paratrooper squad as well). After that, the only forseeable work for the army that I'm considering at the moment working on terrain and possibly buying a model to use as my airstrike counter. I'm not a fan of the super tiny official airstrike counter and am considering something a bit larger to use for airstrikes. The top contender at the moment is the Seraphim Dropzone Commander model as it slightly reminds me of the Azrael HG Southern Bomber from the RPG. I think I'd have to round out some of the corners to make the model look a bit more southern but otherwise I think it'll make a good model. I'm still not set though on the idea as it sort of feels like a bit of a waste of time and money to use on something that only appears for a single turn (assuming you even take the option with your support points!).




The terrain I mentioned above consists of a few roadblock highway dividers made from old Forgeworld sprues as well as putting together the Dropzone Commander Cityscape cardstock set that I just got. When the army is finished and the buildings constructed, I'll take a group shot in the southern metropolis!

Do it. Fact: Having a painted, extra cool counter for your one-turn effects, like air support or orbital bombardments, means a higher chance of success!

It's a FACT.

I hope that's true. The only web theory that I've encountered myself is the new painted model curse where they do nothing their first time out on the tabletop. I think though that I'll likely do the Archangel fighters instead. I've got exactly two slots left in my GW foam and the Seraphim sticks out a bit too much. I found the pics on the Hawk Games website showing the scale of the fighters and the pair of Archangels would fit in the slots whereas the Seraphim tail would be an issue.

Briancj, I hope you're right about the painted model airstrikes working better than just empty bases or tokens because I bought some!

Finished my triple King Cobras (one regular, two hooded variants) along with the airstrike markers and some additional stragglers (Jaeger Gunner and Chatterbox Iguana). I broke down and finally bought the snakeyes blister I need to make my Black Ops squad legal (which will allow me to use my paratrooper cadre as well) but the ebay seller is taking his/her sweet time shipping them despite marking them shipped with tracking a week ago (with no actual info on the tracking)... grumble... grumble... I've also got some Visigoths that I got a great deal on supposedly on the way as well so hopefully both will arrive next week. As always, the pics below are hosted on dakka so you can click on them to be taken to their gallery page for all your zooming in needs.



I've also been assembling the Dropzone Commander Cityscape set I picked up a few weeks ago and am very happy with my purchase. It's solid cardstock that is preglued and somewhat scored so it's very easy to put together. You just bend into the rectangular shape and then glue down the roof ledges and roof floor into their proper positions. Technically, you don't have to glue either as the tight roof fit is good enough to keep the building in the correct shape via friction and not gluing would allow you to disassemble the building for easy storage/transport as well. The only thing is that I would *NOT* put any models on the rooftop if you don't glue it except maybe 6mm-12mm plastic or light resin infantry as a metal model can cause the roof to fold back down. With superglue, the roof is strong enough to even support a relatively heavy metal model like the King Cobras above (I tried!). A surprising tidbit is that putting the buildings together used up ALOT of superglue; I had 5 of the smaller 0.7oz tubes and still needed to make a run for more to finish the last couple.



The set retails at $45 USD and includes 20 buildings (4 of each of 5 sizes) as well as 24 double sided 1'x1' tiles (enough to make a 4x6' game table). I tend to use 3x4' tables for my Heavy Gear Flash games (see my blog link in my sig) and that is how I built the city above. I took one of each building and made it into two separate "damaged" and rubble states which is why the buildings on the right are so dark compared to the others. As you can see, the 20 buildings populate a 3x4' table quite nicely without any other terrain. If you've got additional terrain, it's probably a good idea to use it on a 4x6' space using all the tiles as the building density you see above would be exactly half. That's not, btw, a complaint as I think the value you get for your $45 purchase is incredible with this set but rather an opinion that a 4x6' table made up to be a true city needs about 1 1/2 sets of buildings and some additional terrain (cars, roadblocks, forests, statues, etc) to feel full.



Here's a close up of the second largest building along with some common and not so common minis for scale. The DZC scale is technically 10mm and I think the building work well for both Heavy Gear (12mm) and Robotech (6mm), the two main games I intend to use this with. The HG Sidewinder is the official version (albeit converted a bit in pose) but the Robotech minis are plastic and metal kits from long ago which are a bit bigger than the ones coming out soon (fingers crossed!) from the Palladium Robotech Tactics kickstarter. I've included a tape measure taped to the building as well to give you a measurement of the scale (metric just like the ones shown in the robotech kickstarter pics). Also pictured above is a papercraft building created on my upper end of medium grade printer on the best settings using the heaviest cardstock I can with my printer. While I'm admittedly comparing apples to oranges (the DP9 colors are more pastel than the darker DZC pdf files), the quality of what I built doesn't compare to that of the Cityscape buildings.

I definitely recommend the set for anyone looking for a high quality yet cheap and easy to assemble urban terrain set. If the set were a movie, I'd give it 3 1/2 stars out of 4 with points taken off only for a slightly low building density (25 buildings for $50 would have been better IMO) and the strange lack of simple road curves on the tiles (only straight pieces and intersections... no turns). All in all, I'm very happy with my purchase.

I started work on two unexpected bundles today. My initial idea with my SRA army was a strict gear regiment with one cadre of each type minimum of every cadre availabe to the SRA. With the new cadre options available to the SRA in FIF, I'd have to add another 50% more models to my collection (3 republican squads, city gear squad, MP, etc). When I saw a good deal on some Visigoths, I decided to just get them instead. They allow me to field a PL4 gear regiment and (with the Black Ops cadre when its back to full strength) that means that I'll be able to field my full collection with two army lists (PL4 Gear Regiment and PL3 Spec Ops Regiment).

The Khan variant seemed like a no brainer so I wanted to model both the visigoths as such even if the variant model doesn't currently exist. The tech diagrams in FIF seem to show some electronics behind the cupola on the turret plus front/rear bumpers that aren't on the normal model. I decided to use the Khan turret bit from my unsold old upgrade pack plus the armored skirts from the same to convert the standard new style Visigoth to a Khan.





It's not shown in the picture but the turret is also magnetized as well just in case I want to use my other upgrade bits to make another variant (unlikely frankly as the Khan is hands down my favorite).

I really appreciate the DZC review!

 warboss wrote:

Wow, I've always been fond of the DP9 models, but with your painting on them, they're awesome !!

The buildings look great for playing too... Nice review !

Thanks! I'm glad the review was a help. It really is a good terrain set for the price and I'm looking forward to using it for the first time.

Well, I've gone and done it.. I've finally finished my southern army yet again. I finished up the tanks this weekend and taken a few glamour shots (hey, might as well call it like it is!) of the whole force. I ran out of my Ogryn Flesh Wash on my gears just before I decided to buy the Visigoths and had to get a pot of the new replacement, Reikland Fleshshade. I've used GW's new washes over the past year while finishing my Space Marine army and I can say without a doubt that I don't like the new formulations. They don't "flow" properly (or at least how I am used to washes doing) and dry on flat surfaces as splotchy messes. I've tried three colors over the past year and had the same issue, including with the Visigoth tanks. I had to do light but heavy dry brushing to cover up some of the splotches (very little paint but with alot of brush pressure) and I'm okay overall with the results.



With these two tanks, I've officially run out of space in my Heavy Gear carrying case. Barring some drastic change in the future like another army book coming out for the South, my army is pretty much done. I've still got an allied NuCoal force still NIB that I'll start if I ever find a local opponent to play against. In the meantime, here is the re-finished army on a part of the city scape terrain. It's just shy of 4000TV that can be fielded as a PL3 Spec Ops Regiment and a PL4 Gear Regiment.



Paratrooper Cadre, General Purpose Cadre, and Fire Support Cadre along with one of the Visigoths and an HRP Support Option Turret



Two Strike Squads, Airstrike markers, and a Fire Support Cadre



Second General Purpose and Fire Support Cadres, Visigoth and HRP Turret along with a Black Ops Cadre

Now you need some games!

Impressive army !!!

[Also agree with your point on the new washes ]

Not really a southern update specifically but I did finish my Northern OpFor force that I plan to have face my primary southern army in any demos.  The exact make up of the squads as well as the squads themselves is still in flux but pictured here is the initial loadout I worked on.  Veteran GP, Strike, and FS squads with an infantry platoon for variety.  I got the army mostly painted except for a few figs that I had to match to the existing scheme (as well as fix dozens of paint chips, breaks, and simply missing parts that the guy didn't include).  Thanks to Azure Devil on the dp9 forums for helping me out with some AGMs bits!



Picture below is part of my cityscape cardboard terrain set dressed up with a few extras like trees and roadblocks. I recently commented on HG terrain density so figured I'd post here and see what people thought about this. The set below is a 3'x4' table using 4/5 of the buildings included in one cityscape set (and 1/2 the floor tiles as it comes with 4'x6'). I like the density below except for right in the front of the pic (and it's mirror spot on the other side) but feel it would be a bit too sparse on a full 4x6 table (basically double the space below). I do plan on adding a few n-scale plastic cars as well to liven up the city additionally.



As usual with my pics, you can click on them to go to the dakkadakka.com gallery for all your zooming needs in case you need a closer look.

It's been a while but I've been working on some minis over the past 6 months in the meantime. I've had Nucoal minis for a while and needed a kick in the pants to finally work on them and the holidays gave me the free time to finish most of them off. Here are two Nucoal hovertank squads as well as two sections of GREL hoverbike infantry to back them up. Also, I took advantage of the incredible savings during the Battle Foam Black Friday sale and picked up a custom foam bag to carry my minis around in. It took some time but I finally got my battlefoam order.  The bag and foam are quite nice but the wait is definitely something to consider if you're ordering during the supposedly Christmas season sale.  I'll probably take a bit of a break from painting till I the North pdf comes out as I'm not sure which army I'll want to work on finishing next.  Pictured below is most of my completely painted/based/finished collection for the South, North, and now Nucoal.  Like most gamers, I still have alot of figures in the blister as well as needing anything from TLC or a complete stripping/repaint.  With almost 3 dozen gears if you combine the north and nucoal still needing work, I should have enough models to fill up most of those empty slots by the time the beta rules come out.

Well, it's taken quite a while but the Northern Field Guide PDF has finally come out after an almost 6 month delay. I spent the past week working through the various builds (including some extra time this weekend after the revised version came out) and my army is ready for Lion's Wrath. I added one completely new fig (the Cheetah SECCOM) and converted three others (two Flash Jaguars and a Rabid Jaguar) from existing painted models to give me a legal force. My original strike squad build was affected by the changes as you couldn't use a pair of Mbzks and AGMs in the same build so I had to find them a new home. I converted two other Jaguars into Flash variants to fill up the empty spots and converted a regular Grizzly into a Feral Rabid variant to lead my new dragoon squad made up of remnants from my now illegal GP squad (no Mbzks at all in GPs anymore).





I painted up the Cheetah SECCOM to match the army's painting scheme (see earlier in this thread for some issues with that purchase or at the blog link in my sig) which is clean and simple and matches my paint style. I don't really use any advanced techniques but rather just use 5-6 base colors (not including the primer) and 2-3 washes while trying to stay within the lines. My Cheetah SECCOM is upgraded with an extra sturdy box (the shield) from an Arena blister I had (as is the base Strike Cheetah that I used to create the model). My strike squad is the "elite" squad (although technically a Spec choice on the force org) with high tech and high accuracy weapons via the lasers and guided missiles. My dragoon and fire support squad provide the OOMF! with more traditional high damage direct and indirect fire weaponry like rockets, mortars, bazookas, and snub cannons. The airborne squad is there to provide some variety in playstyle as well as deployment. The infantry I plan on using will be from the support guide free pdf that DP9 released a few months back. Normally gear regiments have no access to regular foot infantry but I didn't see any disclaimers about that in the support guide so I'll be using my infantry as Pioneer variants instead. I have a single badger that I picked up second hand but it doesn't have the bits to use it as a mechanized infantry platoon nor do I have the necessary second badger to go along with it.

PL4 Northern NLC Gear Regiment

Veteran Fire Support: Cheetah CGL, 2x Strike Jags, 2x Grizzlies
Veteran Strike: Cheetah CGL, 2x Flash Jags, 2x Arrow Jags
Veteran Airborne: Cheetah SECCOM CGL, 4x Hunter Paratroopers
Veteran Dragoon: Feral Rabid Grizzly CGL, 2x Assault Hunters, 2x Strike Hunters
Pioneer Infantry Platoon (2x Sections)

My initial army was Northern Guard and I do plan on playing them as NG most of the time when I don't use all the various combat groups but in order to use the whole force at once I need the NLC special swaps to get my Cheetah SECCOM in. For smaller games around 1000TV, I plan on using the infantry, strike, and fire support squads as NG instead in line with my original army intent.

I've still got another dozen or so gears to paint up for my Northern collection (some weasels, white cats, kodiaks, ferrets, and more jaguars) but I think I'll hold off for now. I've got enough to play twice the average sized game with the above force. My Nucoal force (pictured above earlier in the thread) still has a GP squad of Chasseur Mk2 gears that needs to be assembled and painted and I'll likely switch gears (get it!?!) to them instead over the next few weeks.

Just a quick update this time.... Next up on my collection "to do" list will be the final entry (for now) and my last unpainted models in my Nucoal collection, my veteran Chasseur MkII GP squad. I *really* like the look of these models and think they capture both the classic HG look as well as add a bit more modern flair to the polar styles for extra variety. I had a couple of miscasts (two LRPs that I just replaced from my bits box) and a fractured knee miscast but luckily it was on the odd man out 6th gear out of 3 blisters when I only need 5 for the squad. The LRPs aren't fixable but the fracture through the knee could be eventually converted to a bent knee position with a bit of greenstuff and some pinning so no big problem there either. The first primer coat is on the models and I do intend to cover some of the deep recess bare metal spots but I figured I'd post a pic in the meantime.




I'm still figuring out how to work out my Nucoal paint scheme (see my hovertanks and infantry earlier in the thread) for the gears but I'm hoping to get them done before a possible game this weekend. *fingers crossed*

Nice models... And with the infantry close by, it gives the army a whole new sense of scale !

Well done

Cool stuff warboss!

I'll have to post up shots of what I'm working on soon. I've just been a slacker and haven't been taking pictures of things as I go.

I did steal your idea about using the Dropzone Commander citystuff for Heavy Gear. I actually just dropped the order on the Warstore to get it coming, along with some more Gears!

So are the NUCOAL Gears getting the Black/Red/White scheme of the other stuff?

Yggdrasil wrote:Nice models... And with the infantry close by, it gives the army a whole new sense of scale !

Well done

Thanks. I made a concerted hobby push to showcase a larger variety of models since I started this thread about my southern army. During a demo a few years back, one friend thought that Heavy Gear *only* had gear models and nothing else because of the name and a quick look at my gear regiment southern army that I made purposely pre-FIF to be only gears. Since then, I've added tanks, hover vehicles, and infantry in parts but no striders yet. I had planned on adding some northern striders but the model in playtesting for the Northern PDF that I liked and planned to buy got shunted just yesterday over ot Paxton... grumble... The bright side is that it saves me about $80 I guess.

Chemical Cutthroat wrote:Cool stuff warboss!

I'll have to post up shots of what I'm working on soon. I've just been a slacker and haven't been taking pictures of things as I go.

I did steal your idea about using the Dropzone Commander citystuff for Heavy Gear. I actually just dropped the order on the Warstore to get it coming, along with some more Gears!

So are the NUCOAL Gears getting the Black/Red/White scheme of the other stuff?

Thanks and, yeah, they're getting the black/white/red scheme but I'm not sure just yet on the details. I'll be using the army painter guide I made up a few years back when Dakka introduced the feature (see link above and below). There is a reason I chose the chasseur MkII and fusiliers as the base models for it!

http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/painter.jsp?i=14

I definitely recommend the cityscape set as it is a great terrain purchase for the price. I assembled my buildings but I'd probably not recommend doing that for most folks if storage is an issue (and I do regret it a bit) or if you don't plan on putting infantr on the roof. You can just unfold them if you leave them as is and they occupy a hell of alot less space in that case. I actually did a comic book style battle report a while back showcasing the cityscape set so feel free to check it out.

http://scifisitzkrieg.blogspot.com/2013/10/tales-from-terra-nova-battle-report.html

Well... I'm not entirely happy with the scheme I chose for the hovertanks as I was going for bright contrasting colors to the base coat of black but it came out a bit too contrasting and that follows on to the gears likely as well. This is what I've been working with so far and I hope ti doesn't look too much like someone in a tuxedo with white gloves!

I think it looks fine. The White, as White usually is, is going to be rather glaring, but that isn't a bad thing really. I see what you're saying about the 'gloves' though.

The color-scheme creator doesn't account for things like painting the lens on the helmet, and other little doodads and details that you would paint on to break up color patches.

I should add, great use of the plethora of skull decals on the other NuCoal guys. I didn't even catch that the first time I looked at them! I think all of us gamers have 300 stacks of those bloody things that we never use. I might go fishing through them for cool stuff to put on my MP Gear Shields...

It took me a few months of very intermittent painting but I've got my NuCoal GP squad done. My Fort Neil Tank Regiment force is now complete and has some supporting units to flank around the main hovertank assault with every model capable of moving at least 16 inches in hover mode. The GP consists of 5x Chassuer Mk2 hover gears with two Lbzk upgrades and two MAC upgrades along with the command model.



I think the paint scheme turned out a bit better on the gears than it did on the tanks and bikes. I had initially planned on putting the skull decal on the front chest panel but it looked odd there and detracted from the solid red so I instead put it on the right shoulder top instead (after trying about the calves as well). They still remind me a bit of men in tuxedos but I do actually like the overall look in the end unlike with the tanks. Here is the whole army in a pic just as a reference.



Special thanks goes out to Paradox 01 on the DP9 forum for a tip about putting a brown undercoat on top of black when you want to put red as the final color. I suspect this will be last Heavy Gear hobby work that I do for a long while. My only opponent in the state has pretty much gone belly up in terms of interest in playing for a variety of reasons and there is alot of uncertainty in Heavy Gear at the moment with the upcoming release of the next edition Beta rules. I'll still try and play my FLASH! house rules locally here if I can get an opponent but I'll likely bow out of the new edition until the final version shakes out next summer. I've still at least a dozen more unpainted Northern gears that I'd like to eventually work on as well as probably another squad's worth of odds and ends gears that I don't plan on working on currently so I'll have plenty on the plate next summer if I like what I see.

In the meantime, I've also put my 40k Deathwatch Truescale marine squad on hold for the moment as a dastardly thread on Dakka (http://ironhands.com/votomscampaign.htm) got my interest in VOTOMS piqued again. Infinity is coming out with a new edition this summer which I plan on checking out so I figured I'd get some models to use along with my existing 40k collection to test the waters with that new ruleset.



The thread on Dakka which gave me the idea of using them as TAG (Tactical Armored Gears) models and Paint it Pink Blog's very nice VOTOMS articles on various model sizes (http://panther6actual.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/VOTOMS%20Miniatures) helped alot in getting the scale right. I basically plan on trying out the rules using my Cadian IG as Nomad Infantry and the VOTOMS as Gecko TAGs. Additionally, I wouldn't mind trying out 28mm Heavy Gear using my FLASH! rules and 40k figs. Basically, the cadians would be northern infantry with the VOTOMS as 28mm Gears (Hunter XMG?). Opposing them would be my xenos "earth" forces with either Tau or Eldar tanks as Earth Light Hovertanks and eldar "GREL" jetbikes or Tau stealth suit FLAILs.

In any case, thanks for reading and I hope to post an update with the VOTOMS soon (or at least not the two months it took for the NuCoal GP squad).

I have no legitimate use for more VOTOMS yet I picked up three more for a great price! At least now I'll have a full squad of five when they arrive in a few weeks as it seems all the VOTOMS in North America were bought out long ago and I have to buy them from various far flung locales.

Since I have a full squad theoretically, I decided to try and kit them out like a squad in Heavy Gear. Along those lines, I decided to make two of them "strike" variants with bazookas. At first, I had hoped my left over RAFM larger scale heavy bazookas would do the trick but they were much too small. I decided to instead convert two weapons from things I had laying around so below you'll find pics of my new bazookas constructed from left over 40k bits and sprues as well as two dried out ball point pens. I'm not a sculptor but I tried to make them at least reminiscent of HG style bazookas as I prefer that look to the more rounded versions you find in VOTOMS.





Included in the second pic is the old RAFM scale bazooka for size comparison. I plan on using two of them as the "gunner" versions with the MAC GAT-22 rifle and the last one converted to a command variant. I'll have to add some extra comm gear somewhere to visually identify the "command:" Jager. Ideally, I'd prefer to field them as a squad of 5x Basilisks but I can't find a way in the Heavy Gear Southern Field Guide to field 5 Basilisks including two Strike variants and three Gunners.

If I'm missing some swap in FIF that allows this, feel free to tell me in a comment below! I'll likely wait till I get the remaining three models before I start painting them as I prefer to do assembly style painting (i.e. all the weapons on all the models in a row before moving onto some other part).

Those look like a lot of fun warboss. The scale seems excellent for 28mm, and the models look pretty flexible. Speaking of, are you leaving them all poseable or did you glue all the joints prior to painting? That's the thing that always confuses me when I'm working on those kind of models, if I should lock them in place to paint or try and paint them while leaving them pose-able.

I think the Bazooka turned out well, and is instantly recognizable. Moreso once it gets painted up and they get a scheme tied together.

As for running 5 Basilisks, you're already running all sorts of fancy custom things... what's it matter if you mash up the rules a little?

Thanks! The scale looks great for 28mm gaming but unfortunately they're way too big for the Geckos counts as that I had planned. From looking at the few side by side shots of Infinity TAGs online, I'm guessing they're a tiny bit bigger than even the mighty Jotum let alone the barely a TAG geckos. I'd have to have gotten some truely 1/60 VOTOMS to use them as planned with Infinity. If anything, maybe I can use them as Lizards but it seems like you can only ever have one in a force when I peeked on the aleph toolbox.

For 28mm HG games, they're actually just a standard force with nothing fancy or custom surprisingly. If I can't find a way to use them as Basilisks then they'll be a veteran Jager Gearhunter GP cadre with 3 gunner upgrades. Since I plan to test them out in a very small game versus either my "CEF" eldar or tau (since they both have hovertanks), I wouldn't want to go crazy with them. They feel like they need a bit of a boost versus a single light hovertank but I'll try out the above first before I do something more exotic like counting them as sidewinders in a Republican GP. The VOTOMS in the show really are lightly armored and disposable which is why the Basilisks are a good fit beyond just the visual. I guess since my models are all Red Shoulder Custom variants that in the fluff are heavily modified that they could just as easily go in as other more advanced gears as well. To be honest, I haven't yet worked out the TV lists for that and will have to see how the two sides of 40k figs shape up in HGB.

As for the poses, I suspect I'll leave them posable. In my limited experience, super glue doesn't work well on these types of models with and I'd have to glue ALOT. They surprisingly posable with hip, knee, and ankle joints for the legs and shoulder, elbow, and hand joints for the arms. I'm a bit worried that the simple acrylic GW paint I'll use will rub off a bit at the joints though with accidental movement. They look too rubbery though for use though in tabletop gaming as is IMO which is why I'd be hesitant to leave them as is. I guess I could hit them with some flat sealer and see if that helps but I'll probably wait till I get the rest. I'm not too worried about ruining their "resale" value as I don't plan on ever selling them so that doesn't factor into the decision whether to paint or not.

This comment is way late, but fabulous looking models.

Thanks! Hopefully the frequently just plain bad photography didn't hurt your eyes too much. My usual cell phone in the dimly lit basement pics won't win any photography awards ever!

There frankly hasn't been any real activity on my HG hobby front (or frankly any hobby front) in recent months for a variety of reasons. My Heavy Gear inspired 28mm VOTOMS are still pretty much ready to be painted except for the two that I was using painting tests on. I did recently though sell some hobby items and recycle that money back into pure nostalgia by getting some original larger RAFM scale gears. I still plan on selling my southern Blitz era army that I started this blog about (under similar large lot at a discount circumstances!) which makes the purchase even more perplexing. My only excuse is pure nostalgia.




And the assembled models:





It's been roughly 15+ years since I last took a close look at the RAFM models in person and there was definitely some retroactive rose colored glasses effect going on for me. While still nice, I can now saw that I'm firmly in the "Blitz" era camp for favorite HG model style. They're a bit chunkier (I hesitate to say chibi as DP9 came out with complete chibi models that I don't actually like) with the class size differences exaggerated (so scouts are smaller than the RPG fluff height compared with troopers for instance). The new plastics in the current scale look ok but, other than the Caprice models, don't inspire me to buy them personally. I already have three full armies and definitely don't need any more in blitz scale unless a very active play group suddenly and spontanously sprouts up next to me locally. I do hope though that the soon to be released plastics inspire more folks to take a peek at HG and become potential opponents.

With the above recent haul, I probably have enough to play the new HG rules with the original minis. I'm not sure yet what I'll do with them (sell them? build them? a bit of both) but I'll keep this thread updated regardless. Right now I'm leaning towards selling most but not all of the south and any repeats of northern gears to try and make my money back yet have enough to do small to medium scale mecha games. We'll see...

IMO, your RAFM Heavy Gear stuff would work fine for any modern squad-level skirmish game. You could probably use Infinity as your game engine, although I suspect you'd find KOG light too streamlined.

The style thing is kind of interesting to me. My Southern stuff is 1/144 Tactical-era, but my CEF stuff is necessarily Blitz-era. As the styles are completely different, it works out. I think I could integrate Caprice plastics without any issues, either. Except, I don't really recognize Caprice as Heavy Gear-like.

From what I see, the plastics exaggerate size far more than Tactical Era, yes?

Anyhow, I look forward to seeing how much of this you end up building.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
IMO, your RAFM Heavy Gear stuff would work fine for any modern squad-level skirmish game. You could probably use Infinity as your game engine, although I suspect you'd find KOG light too streamlined.

Or give them all a shot. I'll of course try the official HG rules first and give them a fair shake before making a decision. My gut instinct is that I'd prefer to play closer to the skirmish scale side of things in terms of model count 10-15 "gear" sized models per side; hopefully the living rules will scratch that itch.

The style thing is kind of interesting to me. My Southern stuff is 1/144 Tactical-era, but my CEF stuff is necessarily Blitz-era. As the styles are completely different, it works out. I think I could integrate Caprice plastics without any issues, either. Except, I don't really recognize Caprice as Heavy Gear-like.

You shouldn't have any issues. Even if your southern stuff is tactical and say northern stuff is blitz, the difference isn't really noticeable to new players if you just change out the tactical weapons since they're the most obvious. The worst case scenario would be if you mixed and matched the same model/variants from the various eras as is within the same squad side by side as that would accentuate the differences.

From what I see, the plastics exaggerate size far more than Tactical Era, yes?

It depends on what you mean. From a look at the pics, they've kept the size differences between classes and the larger weapons... but their overall body proportions (like arm and chest thickness) seem slimmer and closer to the tactical minis than the more recent squatter blitz era stuff as are the stiffer poses. Maybe its just me but they seem like a middle ground between the two.

Anyhow, I look forward to seeing how much of this you end up building.

Thanks! So am I. So far I've just been cataloging what I actually have. I've already found one honest mistake in the list of blisters the seller gave me as one model he thought was a hunter was actually a hunter commando... but the "commando" part was rubbed off of the blister after 20 years. Since that one was one of my missing favorites, it was a pleasant surprise. I'm at the moment now only missing the King Cobra from my personal fav list.

So it took me a few days but I cracked open a few of the blisters. As the grizzlies were some of my favorite, I decided to open those first and start on the core of a fire support squad. I didn't notice it at first but my rabid grizzly was a strange mispack as it was both missing bits and included USED bits from another kit with 20 year old yellowed super glue on the bottom of the head! I guess QA wasn't as tight as it is now back in the day (see more below).

I definitely remember the models as being prettier at least in the blister than they are in person 20 years later. Besides just the missing/swapped used piece above, there are frequent mould lines and minor slips as well (especially on the rocket pods). The sculpting while nice is very antiquated at times, especially on the rocket packs. The packs look like someone just took a needle and kinda sorta poked holes in semi dry green stuff, eyeballing the angles, number, and orientation.. and that's probably what actually happened, lol! Pegs on arms simply don't fit into the holes on the shoulders and flat joint surfaces are convex instead. There's definitely alot more prep involved in the classic models than compared with modern (soon to be replaced) metal Blitz scale offerings.

Initially, I had a hard time deciding which variants to actually build and exactly how to build them. For instance, I have an assault grizzly pack with all the necessary bits to build a 1st edition RPG loadout assault grizzly. I could do that but the variant no longer exists in the upcoming Blitz rules. Instead, the only bazooka armed Grizzly in the new rules is the "destroyer" variant which was an upgrade of the assault grizzly with an even bigger bazooka. No problem, right? Except that the loadouts for everything but the bazooka have changed for the "destroyer" in the 20 years since. The Hbzk is the same but the rocket packs changed location and type, the mortar magically reappeared, the heavy spike gun reverted down to just a simple knife, and the frag cannon (think mecha sized shotgun) turned into a pack gun (think mecha sized uzi). Of course, the pack contains almost none of the above. Looking through my 20 year old bits pile (some original rafm bits were still in my 40k ork bits pile!), I found some needed parts so that I wouldn't have to open another blister just yet and scrounged the rest from the other grizzly packs (assuming they were extra there). I decided to go with the modern loadouts whenever possible. Sometimes I was restricted by the actual physical size/position of the parts, other times they just weren't available, and in one case I just wanted to change the asthetics.

I started with the Rabid Grizzly as I initially thought it was the variant with the least amount of changes necessary.



As you can see, I put some green stuff on the front of the ugly pin hole rocket pack; I'm going to try instead to just paint on the rocket pips. I initially tried some quick impression sculpting (pushing some existing modern rocket packs into the still wet green stuff) but it didn't work well so I just flattened out the surface instead. Also, in the original RPG art (and the Rafm models), the angular northern gears had curvy rocket pods whereas the curvy southern gears had angular pods. I decided to reverse that to have the aesthetics match. You can see the original hex base that came with the models as well as some optional bits that I'm considering using. Even back in the original Rafm days, the gears spilled over the edges of their bases. I think I'll instead base them on 40-50mm round bases (which actually would be legal in current blitz!). I'm also considering adding the grenades and ammo cannister to the model as shown below (on the butt plate and forearms) but I'm not sure if it'll end up making the model too "busy". Finally, the head is technically incorrect but it kind of matches the "extra armor" motiff of the variant (you can see the correct distinctive head when I post the destroyer variant). I also added an extra armor plate over each shoulder joint to give it more of a tough look.



I'm a little torn on that as they'd cover up the distinctive butt plate design of the gears. If I did it for one gear then I'd probably put extra ammo for each one in that weapon (and they do that occasionally with the current metal scuplts as well). Particularly eagle eyed HG experts might notice that I cut off the butt plate from the engine (they're moulded as one piece) to give the model a bit more variety in posing. I'm not as much of a fan of keeping everything in back all in exact alignment and apparently neither is the current staff at the company as they have had them moulded separately since. Thanks again and let me know your thoughts if any on the addition of the bits issue.

You like it, so so that's all that really matters.

Also, my Tac-era 1/144 Southern Gears have a mix of rectangular and circular small rocket pods on their shoulders. I'd have preferred all circular, I think.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
You like it, so so that's all that really matters.

Also, my Tac-era 1/144 Southern Gears have a mix of rectangular and circular small rocket pods on their shoulders. I'd have preferred all circular, I think.

Do you mean for your southern gears? If so then I'd agree. The angular pods don't look bad (I've got enough of them in my blitz army for sure) but I think I'll like the curvy ones on the southies more. Who knows... maybe I won't when I actually get to seeing them in person! but it's been an idea of mine for years. I actually at one point considered redoing all the rocket pods on the force shown in the first few pages here but then I regained my sanity.

Well, yeah. I only have a handful of Gears, of which all but 1 are Southern, and the odd man out is the Arena Strike Cheetah, which will end up wearing UN Peacekeeper colors.

Tha'ts a nice one to have though; I'm biased though as it was my Blitz era Northern army commander. I worked on the second grizzly and took a few pics. Here's the previously mentioned Destroyer Grizzly variant:



The general basis for the fig is the RAFM assault grizzly but I've upgunned the bazooka to a heavy version as well as changed the other weapons to match the current rules. The arm is the same but the original medium bazooka had to be clipped/filed off and the new one glued on. The end result is a bit comically huge which I wasn't expecting but the other one was a tad too small (especially since it'll be the weapon on a bunch of smaller trooper gears as well). With the larger weapon size, the position of the engine cylinders actually became an issue for posing and the one I chose is basically the most level right arm pose I could get. The waist was angled down initially and when I put the torso on the gear always looked like he was looking for a dropped coin or his keys on the ground... so I extended the waist a bit in the front which angled the torso up just enough. I drilled a hole in the hand and put in a pack gun and added the usual bits including the same rocket launcher. The rockets aren't actually WYSIWIG but the new rules simplified grizzly rockets all to the same statline so shouldn't be an issue. The original strike grizzly is supposed to have a smaller rocket on each shoulder and the destroyer probably has them on the back of the engine (they're strangely never shown in the rpg art). I had some bits lined up for the heavy spike gun on the left forearm, a spare fragcannon, and extra head bunny ear antenna but decided to go with the modern loadouts instead. Here's a group photo with the Rabid Grizzly...



Next up will be the Crossbow Grizzly blister that I'll probably convert as a Thunder command variant.

A little dude like him as Commander? I'd think a Kodiak or something would be more fitting.

Squad commander (i.e. CGL), not necessarily army commander. I'm not sure what I'll do with the Kodiak but I'm leaning towards him being the army duelist or, to a lesser extent, the army commander. Unfortunately, they're mutually exclusive. In blitz, I was a big fan of my commanders actually spending their time commanding unlike in 40k where they're mostly beatsticks (hence my earlier comment about a strike cheetah blitz army commander). Putting the commander in something as expensive as a Kodiak might be a waste of its combat potential. Something like the white cat would be the modern equivalent since the strike cheetah changed so much.

OK, got it. I agree that's more "realistic".

OTOH, for a game about giant robots... Oh, well, nevermind.

And yeah, that Bazooka is crazy.

The third grizzly fire support gear is built. I decided to upgrade the third grizzly from a standard crossbow variant to a thunder command gear as well. The change ruleswise just adds some comm boosts and a satellite uplink and must be used as the squad commander. Modelwise, I made a few more changes in line with the old RPG art.

The assault/destroyer grizzly (bazooka guy) was supposed to have a moderately upgraded comm signified by a single bunny ear on the head in the dog. In the current rules, the destroyer gets no such buff so I left the bunny ear off. The thunder variant though has a full set of ears which worked out well since I now had access to two bits. Additionally, I added a sat uplink cone to center of the backpack from my smaller scale blitz bits box. It's technically supposed to be off to one side but that wasn't a particularly sturdy conversion so I glued it centrally instead. Finally, the "pointy" arm looked a bit more commander-ish so I swapped it out from the Destroyer variant where I suppose it was supposed to be a sort of arm stretched out counter balance to swinging the bazooka around.







And by special request on my blog, here is a size comparison between similar Rafm and current metal Blitz scale models. From L to R: cheetah scout, jager/hunter trooper, jaguar elite, and grizzly fire support gears. I don't own any gearstriders though nor any normal striders unfortunately.

Here's the final grizzly family member in RAFM scale.. my Kodiak Destroyer um... chaplain... or duelist... or army commander... not sure which (or what combo of those) yet!



I changed up the rocket pod just like with my previous gears (although using a smaller bit to signify the lack of dual pods in the current rules). Due to the relative size of the protrusions like the engine cylinders and the bazooka, I frankly didn't have much posing options. The arms pretty much could only be elevated as much as they arm due to bumping up against the engine and the torso couldn't really be swiveled much either. In the end, I decided to go with a more on purpose looking static pose trying to make lemonade out of lemons. I took off the pack gun from the left arm (as well as the circular rocket pod) and drilled out the hand. I converted my last 40k grey knight halberd into a duelist weapon/melee staff similar to the one used by the gearstrider Scimitar. I then added a few cloth bits (also from 40k) to make the character model a bit more similar to the cover art of the original northern Blitz book (and the art on the current Northern chapter page in the living rulebook). I considered adding back a folded pack gun like I did to the Crossbow grizzly but ultimately decided against it (as well as the APGL) as I thought the model would look too busy.

Here's a group shot of all four together.



I was relatively surprised by the similarity in size (minus the missile launcher) of the Kodiak to the other grizzly models. This matches the RPG fluff on which these old models were based but I suppose I just got used to the injected size differences between classes in current blitz. I had hoped to use the Kodiak as a Gear Strider in current scale Blitz but it's a bit smaller than I had hoped. The Scimitar (according to the original DP9 press release) is 68mm tall but they didn't state to which part of the model (it has a humpback tower/turret behind and above the head). I assume that it is to the literal top of the model; in the case of the Kodiak, it's about 62mm to the top of the missile launcher and about 52mm to the top of the head. I'll have to actually see (and hopefully compare) it to a real Scimitar both in height and bulk to see if it's a worthwhile substitute. It's not too much of a problem in the current living rules as the LOS by default is substituted by a rectangular profile regardless of the actual model dimensions.

Finally, I can deny it no longer... my new cell phone camera sucks at taking model pictures. Part of the issue is the time and location of the pics (in the evening when I can work on the models and in the not so bright basement where I do the hobby work) but the camera app doesn't have great features as well (like no dedicated macro function). I tried retaking some pics last night with my old dedicated digital camera (a simple consumer model.. nothing fancy) and it was a little better but still not much. Today, in between clouds, I tried taking some natural lighting pics and will slowly be replacing the previous blog entries with the better pics. Without further whining about my lack of photography prowess, here are the new better but still not great duo pics!

Um, you're gonna drill all of those barrels out, right? The Bazooka barrels look awful if you don't.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Um, you're gonna drill all of those barrels out, right? The Bazooka barrels look awful if you don't.

I've been considering it but I'm wary. Drilling out to the size needed might warp the exterior dimensions given that the cylinder walls would be pretty thin. I drill like crazy through flat larger surfaces (like the torso arm holes) but hollowing out a cyclinder is risky. I might try it on one of the spares carefully with a pilot hole of a small diameter and maybe then sequentially larger drill bit diameters.

I've drilled a LOT of bazooka barrels, and the biggest ones I drilled were the Imperial Guard Missile Launchers. This is best done in stages, with ever increasing drill bits, +1/16" or +1/8" steps.

You'll need an X-acto knife and/or dremel to ensure that the hole centers properly. Center early and often.

You only need to go in 1/4", 1/2" would be overkill, even on those big minis.

The barrel *will* get hot AF while you're drilling it. Drill them all at once, and let them cool down while you're working a different one. Cutting oil of any sort will be a *big* help.

The outside will NOT warp if you take your time and are careful.

Having some actual depth into the barrel will help tremendously when you paint it.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tips. I hadn't thought about cutting oil/lub to keep it cool. I wonder if chainsaw oil will work for that? It's on the cutting surfaces of that tool so maybe.

I'm sure it's better than nothing!

Good luck!

I mostly took the weekend off. Tonight though I swapped out the Kodiak rocket launcher for the same one the grizzlies have for consistency. I've also been considering what squad to build next. My general choices given the models I have are general purpose, recon, and strike squads. Personally, I'm leaning towards the strike squad of Jaguars and to a lesser extent the recon squad.

With the Fire Support grizzlies, the blisters were all different with vastly differing bits that couldn't be replicated easily... that isn't the case with either the recon cheetahs as well as the strike squad jaguars. For both squads, I can build either four different models like the Fire Support squad or build a bit more optimized two pairs of two variants. For instance, I have two normal cheetahs (one built), a cheetah fang and similar cheetah fang, and a white cat and similar white cat EMH. Any thoughts? I'm leaning a tiny bit towards different loadouts for the squads mainly for visual variety. It's not like this army will be any sort of "tournament winning" force.

Finally, the last question is of the basing. I had originally planned on buying some 40-50mm lipped circular bases online for the models when I realized that I still had a large stash of decent 40mm bases left over from Robotech that I'll probably never use since I don't see myself assembling more of those forces. They have markings for the front arc already on them (although very faintly which would be covered up with most basing material) which helps as well.

I decided to follow the template set up by the Fire Support squad in making each model in the squad a unique variant. The models that I had to choose from were two Fire Jaguars, a Jaguar Predator, and a stock Jaguar. The Predator was out as it has no equivalent in the current living rulebook (LRB) so I decided to turn it into a bazooka armed Destroyer variant instead. The stock Jaguar, while supported, was too similar in loadout for my tastes as the two Fire Jaguars (all three wielding MACs) so I decided to try and convert it to a Flash Jaguar instead. For the Flash variant, I thought it might be nice to convert the arms into a folden across the chest position as opposed to simple at its side. I took some cutting, pinning, and filling but I'm happy with the final result. Finally, I decided to try and convert one of the two rocket based Fire Jaguars (the unassembled NIB model) into a missile firing Arrow Jaguar instead to stand alongside the assembled Fire Jaguar. Picture below are the Destroyer and Flash variants.







Unfortunately, when I opened the three blisters I had (one Fire Jaguar was already assembled and painted), I noticed that every single Jaguar head was different. One had the extended visor just as the assembled Fire Jaguar, one was angular similar to modern Jaguars, and one was oddly curvy but not very similar to the cury Fire Jaguar heads either. Unfortunately, the engine in that pack also didn't match and it appeared that I had yet another RAFM mispack. From looking at various pics online, I had a hunter "bits" plastic bag in my Jaguar blister instead of the correct one. You can see the various heads in the pic above as well as the engines below.



I decided to only build three Jaguars (similar to the three Grizzlies... not including the Kodiak commander) since I only had three correct matching engines. The heads, however, were a different story as I'm still not sure what to do. On a lark, I figured I'd try to email Rafm and see if they had any extra bits left over from that era. I realize it's a very long shot and hopefully they'll be able to help. If they can't my only options will be to either use wildly different heads or try to press mould additional heads. For now, I'll hold off on the decision about the heads and next build the last Arrow Jaguar addition to the squad.

I tried various possible solutions over the weekend to my issue of the mismatched Jaguar heads this weekend. Raiding the various bits boxes didn't help and several different attempts at press moulding just ended up with the following mostly low detail and frequently unusable bits.



The two best cast pieces still had detail issues on the bottom half (although the less detailed top turned out fine) so I decided to cut off the bottom and try to convert existing blitz scale heads into the bottom portions. Unfortunately, it just looked like the blitz heads were wearing a small hat instead of a cohesive single head. In the end, I settled and used the two Fire Jaguar heads as the normal heads and the Thunder Arrow variant used the mispacked hunter head.



I'm not entirely happy with the pose on the missile launcher commander model. I was going for a "follow me, men!" type raised arm but instead it looks a bit more like a Papal wave unfortunately. I had planned on turning the torso more but then the head wouldn't be oriented in the same direction due to the missile launchers. I may revisit this pose in another few days after I finish the next squad. I also converted the MAC to a bulkier version using some 40k and Robotech bits. The MAC is one of the worst offenders in the underscaled weapon department for Rafm era models with the supposedly bigger weapon coming in smaller in volume than the LAC and even the pack gun. Here's a side/back view of the three.



Next up will be the three gear Recon squad of cheetahs.

I did a partial repositioning of the Arrow Jaguar's head and missile launchers. Initially, I wanted the model's front view to look as similar to the old RPG art as possible but unfortunately the pose overall suffered IMO. I took off the head and missile launchers, scraped clean the superglue, and repositioned them to look a little more like I initially intended. I imagine the advanced tracking systems on the Jaguar have the missile mount on that side turn to where his sensor cluster (the head) is pointing so I turned the one mount and left the other facing straight forward (but still at the RPG tilted angle from the vertical.

Next up, I worked on some cheetahs. These guys were less time intensive as I didn't thankfully have to (so far!) worry about mispacks and the conversions were relatively minimal. I clipped and repositioned the normal cheetahs arm to infront of him and added a Blitz scale dagger to liven up the pose a bit more. As usual, I swapped out the curved rocket pack for an angular one. Additionally, the pic showed me that I missed some spots when stripping and reposing this model so I'll have to go back and do some concentrated scrubbing tonight.



The second model from the recon squad was the strike cheetah. Whereas the normal cheetah is a mix of Electronic Warfare and defensive capability, the strike cheetah focuses more on the latter and adds some offensive punch. Initially, it was an aidrop capable unit but strangely it has been split up into three separate bazooka cheetahs, only one of which is airdrop capable. Either way, here is my Metal Cat/Strike Cheetah/Para Strike Cheetah. The changes to the stock model were adding a pack gun to the left hand, swapping the Rapid Fire Bazooka for a Light Bazooka, and the rocket launcher swap.



Next up will be the White Cat Cheetah variant and some group photos!

I like the idea of making each model different. I think I'll do something like that for my CEF stuff.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I like the idea of making each model different. I think I'll do something like that for my CEF stuff.

I did it both out of necessity and equally choice as I can convert only so much based on my bits. If you get enough of the new plastic CEF tanks, it's probably a good idea just for visual variety. I personally have little to no chance of using these in the foreseeable future so an efficient in game optimized for lost out to variety and visual preferences.

Here's the currently complete recon group. I built the third cheetah as a White Cat with two small conversions: the rocket launcher and the EW forearm bit.






I might change the rocket pod back to the vertical one if I decide to build another stock Cheetah (my only planned repeat!). My group photos turned out really badly due to the lighting so I'll have to wait until the weekend to try again in better light. I also had another idea about the Jaguar heads and decided to try casting the fire jaguar head instead of the more modern one that I initially tried. I'll post an update about that tomorrow along with some group shots and further ideas this weekend.

Right now, I'm just focused on what metals I've got in hand. Also, if I'll just be playing against myself or my friends, like a board game, then it won't matter so much how they're built.

I think you'll be in a similar situation, with units that equip for looks rather than some sort of pickup / tournament setup.

Definitely. I don't think I've ever seen a HG tourney and that includes Gen Con let alone played in one. While the bazooka was an ultra efficient tool in blitz for the North, I don't think that's the case in NuBlitz though... and I've got a bunch. I like the look and some of my Rpg favs were bazooka gears so I've been sprinkling them throughout...but I'm making sure to also consciously add other weapons as well. The only one I'm missing at the moment is the snub cannon and I have that tentatively planned for a hunter.

A group shot of my force as of today. I somewhat successfully cast a lower detail head for the third jaguar and magnetized it and a normal head for easy swapping as needed. While it isn't as sharp as the original metals, it's better than the picture indicates. I have to stop thinking of the groups as squads as I've been referring to them since they're not actually legal squads. From the 10 models, I can field two legal squads out of the three strike, dragoon, and fire support options. My next trio was intended to be Hunter variants but I think I'll hold off until the new rules come out hopefully next week. Three of the four hunter variants I can build don't actually exist in the current rules and would require significant conversion and/or substitution. I'm hoping some more options open up with the 2016 revision. Alternatively, I could start working on some infantry in the meantime or even start my southern force.

Nice shot. How many Gears are left to build?

For the North, I still have two infantry blisters, four hunters, two cheetahs, a field gun, and two stealth gears. For the south, there are two to three gears of each general class plus two infantry. Plus a strider for each side.

Oh, OK, plenty of stuff!

I'm assuming you'll make a basic (LAC/LRP) Hunter, a basic Jaeger, and the basic Command versions of each? Of the 4 Hunters, that just leaves a Bazooka Hunter and one more specialist Hunter?

Unfortunately, no. All four of my hunters' bodies look VERY different from each other and three of the four don't actually exist in the Nublitz rules. The recon, commando, and armored hunters would have to be converted on top of using counts as additionally. The last blister is a stock hunter that I was either going to build as is or as a predator hunter (snub cannon).

Oh. I think I'd build the one stock, simply to have a bone-stock basic Hunter in the collection. For your purposes, I'd build the other 3 out of the box and play them "count as" under nublitz.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Oh. I think I'd build the one stock, simply to have a bone-stock basic Hunter in the collection. For your purposes, I'd build the other 3 out of the box and play them "count as" under nublitz.

That would end up having three of the four hunters armed with the same main weapon (LAC) and the same secondaries (LRP). There isn't anything per se wrong with that but I've been trying to inject some weapon variability into the collection as well (which is why I was going to use a snub cannon... none of the other models have one and it's not a common southern weapon either). Either way, I'll probably hold off for a bit until I see the new rules and if any new variants were added (and hopefully no changes made to my current ones!).

Oh. I wasn't aware that would be the result.

No worries. Unless you're an old time HG RPG nerd like me, you wouldn't. I appreciate the suggestions though.

The 2016 update to the Heavy Gear rules came out this past weekend. While I didn't have a chance to go over the actual rules in any detail, I did take a look at the army construction chapters. One major change is that the number of different UAs has been significantly reduced. I'm glad to see this seeing as how I both privately (prior to) and publicly (post release) advocated strongly for that unsuccessfully back in 2013/2014. With this latest slimmed down army organization, I decided to see if what I could do with firstly my painted Blitz scale models and then my new Rafm scale collection.

A few years back when I was trying to demo and drum up support for the game, a player commented after an intro game while skimming through my rulebook that he was surprised to see more than just gears in Heavy Gear. At first I was perplexed at the comment but then took a look at my collection at that time (100% gears) and considered the name and cover art of all the books. Since then, I made it a point to include more than just gears in my forces despite my personal interests, especially in the forces I bring to demo. Gears are still the overall main focus of my collection but not the only one. Additionally, I wanted to make sure I brought models that will use a variety of weapons, deployments, stats, and special rules instead of just frontline commandos backed up by backfield bruisers (my initial southern army). If those weren't enough restrictions, space was also limited in my carrying case so all three forces had to fit in mostly a single foam tray. From my collection, here are the various lists I came up with at 132pts (+-1pt) each after evicting some Robotech models from their foam slots!



Starting with the North, we have a Fire Support squad of two Grizzlies (including the CGL) and two destroyer Jaguars. The Jaguars belong honestly more in an old time strike squad but the low tech but devastating explosive brute force weapons can also fit here in the Fire Support squad . They'll likely be deployed up on the front lines guarding the 5th member of the squad, a support unit Cheetah. The Cheetah recon gear is there to provide FO as well as some ECM support for the squad. The second squad is a high tech strike squad of two Arrow missile Jaguars and two laser sniper Flash Jaguars led by a Cheetah. To round out the three activations, I have a platoon of four anti-tank infantry squads. With this force, I've got a representation of indirect fire (guided and normal), some advanced weapons like lasers, infantry and their unique rules, and some solid electronic warfare.



Opposing them is my Southern Republic gear regiment. I went with extremes here in that I took both the most basic gear squad (GP) along with two of the most elite in that army. I have a five many Jager GP squad including some grenade launchers/LAC combo rifles and some bazookas led by a command Jager. This was important to me as I didn't have any "trooper" class gears like the hunter in my northern force. Backing them up is a strike squad of two bruiser King Cobras with their haywire damage causing particle accelerators. Finally, we have a special forces stealth squad of two three various mambas and a chameleon recon gear. This squad utilizes both the stealth and paratrooper rules potentially in a game.



Rounding out the final force is my Nucoal tank regiment. The standard 132pt force consists of two squadrons of missile and laser armed Fusilier Javelin hovertanks backed up by a pair of larger, tougher (but slower and more expensive!) Longfang Hetairoi hovertanks. This covers the previously unused hover mode movement as well as multiaction larger vehicles. For smaller games, I've included two support squad hover gears (Chasseur mk2 gunners) to add a bit of granularity to potential squads at lower point totals.

With these three armies, I've got a variety of weapons represented as well as general classes of gears. Flanking, airdrop, and normal deployment is represented along with special categories of rules like stealth and electronic warfare. Finally, nongears are shown as both infantry as well as tanks are included. I attempted to include support options like turrets, conventional tanks, and aircraft alternatively in the southern force as well as an APC in the north but neither the points nor the remaining available foam slots worked out. I'm also missing a strider in a list as well. I had initially planned to use my Rafm Kodiak as a blitz gearstrider but there are lingering questions about his size relative to the orginal model on top of the fact that couldn't fit in the case without removing more (necessary) robotech demo models. I may eventually revisit that decision though in the future though. Next up will be my Robotech demo lists and models that I keep in the same case.

I like it!

Do you have a Mammoth? I think that is *the* iconic Strider, right?

Also, no recon drones?

Thanks! No mammoths except for the one I recently got in Rafm scale. I used to own a naga, saggitarius, and other vehicles in blitz scale but I sold those expensive resin kits early on and made most of my money back on the big southern lot that I started this blog with. Gears were always what drew me to HG so I focused on that for a while. The northern Scimitar gearstrider actually looks ok to good but I'm definitely not a fan of the Southern Drake or the Nucoal gobot tank either. The ony actual strider I could see myself possibly ever getting for these armies is a Thunderhammer now that it has the pregnant belly APC bits and rules. Realistically, though, I'll probably leave the strider models for a potential small caprice army similar to how I left the tanks for Nucoal. I actually have two visigoths but have held off on rebuying striders due to the resin DP9 costs; the upcoming caprice boxed set though intrigues me since the prices are actually quite reasonable. That should scratch the strider itch for me.

Ironically, I did have two recon drones for the nucoal force as they're very light in that regard (EW stuff). In the past, some of the command upgrades for tanks granted ECM so I didn't need a dedicated recon gear for that (although I did consider using drones). I'm in the process of stripping one drone possibly for use with my rafm scale stuff (they're usually mounted on a gear's outer calf) and the other is done up in northern colors. I'm debating how to put them on the tiny bases like the plastic ones have as well as how to make them not faction specific (all my factions have different colored bases). I also redid the pics posted above because dakka's auto pic filter did a horrible job this time autocorrecting them (and I cropped them while I was at it).

That RAFM Mammoth must weigh at least a pound! Don't drop it on your foot!

The Southern Drake is awful, and I wouldn't buy it at half the MSRP. Really, the Southern Striders are generally bad. I get that they're trying to make the Drake more like the Naga, but the Jager is the iconic look, and HG seems to have abandoned it. The Scimitar is pretty good, and I do kinda like the Hussar. Not a fan of the sprawl-legged Striders like the Thunderhammer, as they're not Gear-like.

I'm thinking a few scratchbuild generic drones on wire stands for my stuff. It's a flying scope - how hard could it be?

Oh yeah, the larger pictures look *MUCH* better. I rebalance and crop anything I'm going to upload into gallery. I suppose if I didn't do that, I'd use the Dakka auto-balance.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That RAFM Mammoth must weigh at least a pound! Don't drop it on your foot!

The Southern Drake is awful, and I wouldn't buy it at half the MSRP. Really, the Southern Striders are generally bad. I get that they're trying to make the Drake more like the Naga, but the Jager is the iconic look, and HG seems to have abandoned it. The Scimitar is pretty good, and I do kinda like the Hussar. Not a fan of the sprawl-legged Striders like the Thunderhammer, as they're not Gear-like.

I'm thinking a few scratchbuild generic drones on wire stands for my stuff. It's a flying scope - how hard could it be?

Oh yeah, the larger pictures look *MUCH* better. I rebalance and crop anything I'm going to upload into gallery. I suppose if I didn't do that, I'd use the Dakka auto-balance.

I'm actually a fan of the striders NOT looking like bipedal humanoids when possible as it distinguishes them from gears and adds a bit of crunch to the universe in that the mechanics that work at 3-5m tall and X tons don't necessarily work the best at double to triple that height and 5-10x the weight. The generic drones should work ok. I've got a bunch of servo skulls so I'll have to see if those work with some conversion (namely chopping off the actual skulls and replacing them with HG style bits. Possibly using spare heads from unbuilt command models might work! Yeah, I saw how bad those pics were in the post here and reuploaded them to dropbox from my phone and edited them. Usually the autocorrect feature here works pretty well but not this time (the lack of proper cropping though was entirely on me).

Gah! Keep those servo skulls as-is - they're awesome for 40k. Maybe we should do a trade.