New Heavy Gear Blitz! Starter Sets

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**Balance**

New Northern Army Starter Kit (Available to order May 20th, shipping May 26th)
The Starter Army box has everything a new player needs to field a Northern Faction Army along with both the core Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked & Loaded rulebook and the new Field Manual rules supplement, two squads of miniatures (Strike and Fire Support) with a variety of weapon upgrade options, four D6 dice and a measuring tape. The Northern Army combines the surgical hitting power of a Strike Squad and the long range fire power of a Fire Support Squad, making a compact and deadly force capable of dealing with any threat. Be the Shield to Home and League!

Includes small b&w L&L Rulebook & Field Manual books, 10 pewter miniatures: Strike & Fire Support Squads, 4 d6 dice & 1 measuring tape, assembly & painting required. DP9-9222, $111.00 CAD.

New Southern Army Starter Kit (Available to order May 20th, shipping May 26th)

The Starter Army box has everything a new player needs to field a Southern Faction Army along with both the core Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked & Loaded rulebook and the new Field Manual rules supplement, two cadres of miniatures (Strike and Fire Support) with a variety of weapon upgrade options, four D6 dice and a measuring tape. The Southern Army combines the surgical hitting power of a Strike Cadre and the massive fire power of a Fire Support Cadre, making a compact and deadly force capable of upholding Southern Honor at any cost. Death to all Northern Aggressors!

Includes small b&w L&L Rulebook & Field Manual books, 9 pewter miniatures: Strike & Fire Support Cadres, 4 d6 dice & 1 measuring tape, assembly & painting required. DP9-9223, $111.00 CAD.

New P.R.D.F. Army Starter Kit (Available to order May 20th, shipping May 26th)

The Starter Army box has everything a new player needs to field a Peace River Defense Force (P.R.D.F.) Faction Army along with both the core Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked & Loaded rulebook and the new Field Manual rules supplement, two squads of miniatures (Strike and Fire Support) with a variety of weapon upgrade options, four D6 dice and a measuring tape. The P.R.D.F. Army combines the surgical hitting power of a Strike Squad and the versatile fire power of a Fire Support Squad, making a compact and deadly force capable of defending Peace River from any threat. Polar Trespassers Beware!

Includes small b&w L&L Rulebook & Field Manual books, 10 pewter miniatures: Strike & Fire Support Squads, 4 d6 dice & 1 measuring tape, assembly & painting required. DP9-9224, $111.00 CAD.

New P.A.K. Army Starter Kit (Available to order June 3rd, shipping June 10th)

The Starter Army box has everything a new player needs to field a Port Arthur Korps (P.A.K.) Faction Army along with both the core Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked & Loaded rulebook and the new Field Manual rules supplement, a Light Hovertank Squad (2 x LHT-67 new sculpt and 1 x LHT-71 new sculpt) with a variety of weapon upgrade options, a platoon of 40 fearsome GREL Infantry plus 3 Commando Infantry, four D6 dice and a measuring tape. The PAK Army combines the fast armored firepower of Light Hovertanks and the unrelenting attacks of GREL super soldiers into a compact and deadly force capable of defending Port Arthur from any threat. For the Korps!

Includes small b&w L&L Rulebook & Field Manual books, 46 pewter miniatures: 2 x LHT-67 new sculpt, 1 x LHT-71 new sculpt, & GREL Infantry Platoon plus Commandos, 4 d6 dice & 1 measuring tape, assembly & painting required. DP9-9225, $111.00 CAD.

The new Northern, Southern, and P.R.D.F. Army Starter Kits will be available to order on the Dream Pod 9 Online Store starting Friday, May 20th and will start shipping on May 26th. As you can see above we have updated the Army Starter packaging as well as changed the contents to now include Strike and Fire Support Squads, along with small b&w versions of the Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked & Loaded Rulebook (204 pages) and the Heavy Gear Blitz! Field Manual - Core Rules Companion (60 pages), plus 4 d6 dice and a measuring tape. The new P.A.K. Army Starter will be available to order starting Friday, June 3rd and will start shipping on June 10th, along with the new sculpts of the LHT-67 Light Hovertank (DP9-9214, 1 x LHT-67 new sculpt, extra weapons, $22.00 CAD) and LHT-71 Light Hovertank (DP9-9215, 1 x LHT-71 new sculpt, extra weapons, $22.00 CAD) for the P.A.K. and CEF Factions.

Written by: Robert Dubois (May 19th, 2011)

The PAK box set includes the new Light Hovertank sculpts:

The LHT-67:

The LHT-71:

(For those not aware of the back-story, the original LHT models were sculpted for the hex-based versions of Heavy Gear to represent the iconic CEF Hover Tanks, and were definitely undersized. With Heavy Gear Blitz! newer, more detailed models were made for the main Hover Tanks, and the guys decided to retcon in the Light Hover Tanks for those that had the old models. The new models are more detailed with more appropriately-sized hatches and such.)

**warboss**

Very sexy box covers! I only fear that the inclusion of more capable gears than the lowly hunter/jaeger means we'll see even less on the battlefield.

**Balance**

The main thing is that a lot of people started with the starter sets or hunters/jaegers so the past starter sets weren't useful as people already had a bunch of them (and who really needs more than 2 GP squads for most builds?)...

**spaceelf**

Looks like a good time to get into Heavy Gear. From what I understand the boxes have everything that you need to play. How many more models would be needed to fill out a force for a 'standard' sized game?

**warboss**

spaceelf wrote:Looks like a good time to get into Heavy Gear. From what I understand the boxes have everything that you need to play. How many more models would be needed to fill out a force for a 'standard' sized game?

While I can't comment on the CEF army (not too familiar with them), the North and South armies provide you with some cream of the crop elite squads. If you buy the separate starter set, you can mix and max the minis to get another general purpose squad (the tactical marine squad of Heavy Gear) as well as have two copies of the rules. That should give you enough for a decent sized game of 750 TV (their version of points). Basically, multiply the TV by 2 to get a roughly equivalent idea of the size of a battle if you're more familiar with 40k. The only "major" squad/fig type you'd need after that would be a recon squad with the smaller (but bug eyed and perceptive!) recon gears. There are more specialty ones that come in blisters like stealth teams and paratroopers but those four are the big ones you'll encounter.

Balance wrote:The main thing is that a lot of people started with the starter sets or hunters/jaegers so the past starter sets weren't useful as people already had a bunch of them (and who really needs more than 2 GP squads for most builds?)...

The lowly hunter (technically an assault hunter) is what got me into HG back in 1st edition after seeing a pic. I support anything that puts more stock hunters/jaegers on the tabletop! All in all, the change does put more useful gears in people's hands though as most players seem to gravitate towards the elite ones anyways.

**Balance**

spaceelf wrote:Looks like a good time to get into Heavy Gear. From what I understand the boxes have everything that you need to play. How many more models would be needed to fill out a force for a 'standard' sized game?

It depends a lot on the game size (TV = Threat Value = 'Points') and PL (Priority Level = What kind of 'force org chart' is used= PL 1 will be heavy on rank and file, while PL4 will be top-heavy with elites) but in general most lists have 3-4 Combat Groups (Squads) and these sets have two (Strike and Fire Support) so they're nearly there.

They should be technically playable as-is, though. Strike and Fire Support squads have a lot of options for each faction, so you can theoretically make a lot of points out of them, but I wouldn't recommend building the models to the 'maxed out' standard as you may not want it in a larger list. For a comparison, think of why you generally don't want every option open to a 40k squad, just one or two upgrades to make them better at their intended purpose.

I just threw a quick list together in Gear Garage for a Southern SRA list with a Strike and FS Cadre... I'm at 595 points just to match the basic box contents! Realistically you'd tweak this a bit: For example, I'd kind of want to move one of the Spitting Cobras in the Strike to the 'Long Fang' because the rear-mounted Very Light Field Gun is just cool looking, plus it's a point reduction... But anyway, from this you could easily add 200-400 points by a combination of 'soft' upgrades like skills along with a squad of infantry and/or some add-ons like a Strider, Tank Squad, or another Gear squad.

Here's my basic list, by the way:

New Roster ([acronym="Southern Republican Army"]SRA[/acronym], Southern Republican Army). 595 TV, PL 3, 4 SPs, 2 CPs
Ruleset: Post 1940 armies - All published rules, Extensions: Field Manual
Fire Support Cadre (Auxiliary) 285TV

[*]Command Jager [2/2/1/1] LAC,LRP/24,APGL,HG,VB CGL 45TV (Jager->Command Jager +5 TV)
[*]Spitting Cobra [2/2/1/0] HAC,MRP/18,HRP/48,LGM,LMG,HG,VB 80TV
[*]Spitting Cobra [2/2/1/0] HAC,MRP/18,HRP/48,LGM,LMG,HG,VB 80TV
[*]Spitting Cobra [2/2/1/0] HAC,MRP/18,HRP/48,LGM,LMG,HG,VB 80TV

Strike Cadre (Specialist) 310TV

[*]Black Mamba [2/2/2/2] MAC,LRP/32,APGL,APGL,HG,VB CGL 80TV
[*]Black Mamba [2/2/2/0] MAC,LRP/32,APGL,APGL,HG,VB 70TV
[*]Black Mamba [2/2/2/0] MAC,LRP/32,APGL,APGL,HG,VB 70TV (Jager->Black Mamba +25 TV)
[*]Jager [2/2/2/0] LAC,LRP/24,APGL,HG,VB 45TV
[*]Jager [2/2/2/0] LAC,LRP/24,APGL,HG,VB 45TV

Generated by Gear Garage V0.41 - Now with Field Manual support!

(Gear Garage's output exports BBCode that isn't quite 100% compatible with DakkaDakka, unfortunately.)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

warboss wrote:The lowly hunter (technically an assault hunter) is what got me into HG back in 1st edition after seeing a pic. I support anything that puts more stock hunters/jaegers on the tabletop! All in all, the change does put more useful gears in people's hands though as most players seem to gravitate towards the elite ones anyways.

I need to get back to my "Jaegers are too good for us" ESE list that focuses on Basilisks as the basic troopers...

**spaceelf**

Does anyone have better pictures of the contents of these boxes?

**Balance**

I'll ask the guys to take some, but the head office for DP9 is off to a convention this weekend so may not have a chance.

**Nicorex**

When are these being released?

**spaceelf**

I think that you can get the sets from d pod 9s website right now.

Thanks for the update about the pics. I was mostly just looking for more detailed pictures of the figures that come in each box.

**Balance**

Nicorex wrote:When are these being released?

I beleive they start shipping tomorrow with the exception of the PAK set. The PAK starter is a couple weeks out.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

spaceelf wrote:I think that you can get the sets from d pod 9s website right now.
Thanks for the update about the pics. I was mostly just looking for more detailed pictures of the figures that come in each box.

I think the guys* literally pack the boxes with the appropriate 'stuff' kind of like how GW sells their army boxes by packing a big box with a bunch of smaller boxes. As such, you can look at the DP9 Online Store and look for the appropriate Strike and FireSupport boxes to see the full contents.

North Strike - North Fire Support

If you look at items in the store the box sets will have a small link at the bottom of the item description to see the components of the item so you can see the contents of the boxes. Here's the parts pic for the North Fire Support, for example:

* I do work for the DP9 website, but I'm several hundred miles away across a border, so it's not always clear.

**GalaxyGames**

pretty cool stuff.

**Balance**

Here's pics of the box set contents, at least the ones that are now shipping:

North:

South:

Peace River PRDF:

**Da Boss**

Hmmm £70 for an introduction to a new game and scale. Tempting, tempting. Would need to find a group though.

**Balance**

By the way, I should say I was wrong as apparently the guys don't waste space on extra cardboard.

We have a quickstart up on the main DP9.com website, but I'm waiting for a QS revised for the Field Manual that's included.

Also, the PDF versions of the L&L main book now have the Field Manual included. If you've purchased the PDF from DTRPG, check your account and you can now download the Field Manual as a bonus.

**Dais**

Not really my style but those are nice looking starter sets and couldn't have come at a better time.
My best wishes to the guys at DP9 for making a big splash with these.

**warboss**

Interesting, I figured they'd come with the paperback sized versions of the rulebooks but they have the normal sized from the pics. Are there any pics on the website of the mini-books in the starters? Will they be available for sale separately?

**Balance**

I think they are the small rulebooks... keep in mind that if you rotate one of the plastic clamshells the length of the clamshell is about equal to the width of the rulebooks, and the clamshells are not very long.

Still, I should probably forward this to one of the guys.

I don't believe they're selling the small books separately, but that may be because the guys didn't think there'd be demand. Again, I'll mention it.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
In case it's not clear, I haven't seen one of these in person myself. The fun of being a remote contributor...

**Eumerin**

Da Boss wrote:Would need to find a group though.

Start one. I've been showing up at my local store to run demo games this week.

^_^

**Balance**

Da Boss, we've had some recent interest from the UK as Wayland Games has added the line. You might find there's some people in your area if you check.

**Griever**

Can you really call something an "army" if it's got 9 models in it?

I really wish there was a sci-fi miniatures game around the scale of 40k.

**malfred**

Griever wrote:Can you really call something an "army" if it's got 9 models in it?

I really wish there was a sci-fi miniatures game around the scale of 40k.

Answer: Yes.

**warboss**

Griever wrote:Can you really call something an "army" if it's got 9 models in it?

I really wish there was a sci-fi miniatures game around the scale of 40k.

You mean like AT-43, VOR: the Maelstrom, and Warzone? Unfortunately, all three high quality and diverse attempts failed for various reasons. I think its best if other games find their own niche.

**Sucio Sanchez**

While I haven't played a game yet as I'm building and painting, the rules for this game offer up some awesome strategy that I have been missing lately from 40K. Looking forward to playing finally. I think that convention the DP9 people are coming to is up here in Toronto. My friend was mentioning something about it.

**Balance**

Griever wrote:Can you really call something an "army" if it's got 9 models in it?

9 models is on the small size, sure. "Army" in this sense, is gamer slang for "the stuff I'm using" and would probably be better termed as 'Force' or 'Team' or something.

After all, by Wikipedia an 'Army' would definitely be 80,000+ men. I don't know if even many Epic or historicals games meet this requirement!

Keep in mind that in the setting Heavy Gears fill a niche between infantry and tanks. They're deployed in relatively small squads more like tanks and are very dependent on mobility and teamwork to achieve objectives.

There's "full" armies (sorry, forces) that have less: The Black Talons are formed from the best of the Terra Novans and have access to a lot of special gear, so people have built a 1,000 point list with a single Combat Group of 4-5 Gears.

On the other extreme, a 1,000 all-infantry force could be 16 platoons, or about 640 men. This probably wouldn't be the most fun list: your opponents would not want to sit through your movement, and your ability to reliably damage anything but other infantry would be minimal. Realistically, you'd probably go to at least 10 platoons so as to save some points for weapons, mobility upgrades,

For movement, Heavy Gear alternates Combat Groups, and each platoon is a combat group. Since the enemy at 1,000 probably has 3-4 CGs, there'd be some back-and-forth, then a lot of turns as the Infantry player moves theirs.

As for damage, the standard infantry has Assault Rifled that are DM x2. In HGB, to determine damage tou cmpare the attacker's die roll to the defender's and look at the difference (the Margin of Success or MoS). Multiply the difference by the DM and compare to armor. So to scratch a Hunter (Common trooper gear) with normal infantry you'd need a MOS of 8. (MoS 8 x DM 2 = 16, which is greater than the Hunter's Armor 15). That's not impossible, but it's certainly unlikely. The infantry would need to do everything possible to accumulate positive modifiers and hope the opposition does something stupid like standing still. Keep in mind that that lucky hit by itself doesn't do much. Expect to need a few more to actually remove a unit!

Realistically you'd look at adding some sort of infantry heavy weapons to the squads in each platoon. There's a selection of options, but if you expect to have to deal with armored vehicles, I'd consider the Anti-Gear Rifle the minimum. It has a DM of x7 and an inherent +1 to attack rolls as it's an accurate large-caliber rifle designed to punch through armor. Now you only need a MoS of 3 to do the same damage, but you do need to be stationary... Still, if you want big numbers on the field you could deploy 12 platoons, 480 men, with 1 in 10 with a Anti-Gear Rifle. There's still some points left for additional upgrades for a few platoons as well.

There's other options as well: Infantry Mortar teams can be devastating and are long range, and there's an option for Rocket Launchers with a further upgrade to Anti-Gear Missile launchers. Mortars and missiles both benefit from spotters, and the AGMs can benefit from a mobile spotter with
a Target Designator.

For mobility, there's a few options as well. Infantry can be equipped with ATVs (Quads or motorcycles) or put in Off Road Vehicles (ORVs, similar to Jeeps or Humm-vees) for extra mobility. The ORVs provide a stationary firing platform as well. There's also Riding Beasts.

Infantry with the previously discussed options are basically enhanced infantry. The ATVs, ORVs, or riding beasts are upgrades and don't add models. True APCs do add models, which can be effective on their own. The Northern Badger has two Light Autocannons similar to those carried my many trooper Heavy Gears and can certainly protect itself and cargo. The other factions field APCs with a range of standard and optional armaments based on their doctrine and technology base.

Note that Infantry have a few other options not discussed such as add-on drones, skill upgrades, additional armor, specialist teams, etc. which makes them pretty detailed if desired. The above was also written by looking at Northern Infantry: various factions add special gear such as Caprice infantry with climbing gear or the scary CEF GREL super-soldiers who have a range of special upgrades as they're vat-grown massive troopers.

**Balance**

I see my wall of text killed the thread.

**spaceelf**

I am waiting for the PAK starter army. My FLGS carries Heavy Gear, so I assume they will arrive soon.

**precinctomega**

I love the look of these boxed sets. I was looking for exactly this sort of "game in a box" product for under £50.00 at Salute this year and came away disappointed. I suspect I'd've bought Heavy Gear Blitz if it had been available that day.

The minis are a vast improvement on the Battletech stuff (which adherents assure me are "classic", but which I tend to think are "rubbish"), although I still don't like them as much as I like Reaper's CAV series. But I love the LHT photos in the OP. If there were more decent images, just like these (decent size, clear focus, neutral background) of the assembled, painted mechs, I might just be completely sold.

R.

**Balance**

precinctomega wrote:The minis are a vast improvement on the Battletech stuff (which adherents assure me are "classic", but which I tend to think are "rubbish"), although I still don't like them as much as I like Reaper's CAV series. But I love the LHT photos in the OP. If there were more decent images, just like these (decent size, clear focus, neutral background) of the assembled, painted mechs, I might just be completely sold.

It's more that Battletech is a different style: Due to it's roots, the eclectic nature of Battletech's designs is a feature for many fans. Heavy Gear, from the first books in the 90s, has pushed that each faction has unique style cues: The North has sharp corners, the South rounded. Earth focuses on Hovertanks, while Caprice has bug-walkers.

For more pics, have you seen DP9's Gallery? It should have painted pics of most current designs.

**spaceelf**

I also think that more pics would help sell the game. 3d rotations are nice. As are pictures of the fully painted miniatures on professional tabletops. You can't have too many pics.