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*comes up out of defilade*

...

Phew.

*rubs left hand*

Howdy, fellas.

Far as the Terra Nova DMZ, guys and gals are sharing many pictures of Gears, asking rules questions, getting answers, and all in all just chilling.

Me, I'm recovering from a little spat I had about a week ago. My left hand was sprained and might have a couple minor fractures. Can't afford insurance, so I just iced it. Guess I got to test out the RPG rules on healing rates.

Ow.

Anyway, Ghislain not being able to supply the cover is mildly disappointing, but I'm hardly one to complain. The man did great work for his time, and I would never be averse to seeing him again at a future date.

On the RPG front, being a writer, I have been, of course, writing. Suffice to say, all and sundry have been asking questions, and I know I don't want to under-deliver.

So, I beg your pardon for the silent routine. It has been somewhat necessary.

As to whether or not the Heavy Gear IP is 'toxic'... I don't think so. It does require its own atmosphere. The idea of World War 2 fighting is a thought I have reflected on in the past, and something I would like to distance from in some respects. At least, the idea of there being an 'Axis' and an 'Allies' off the setting.

Most importantly, the desire to move the story forward and expand on what was begun by the Pod members. That is one of my desires, not only to break out of the 'niche market', but also to provide everyone with stories and places to go in their minds.

Until later.

The last link was to a post that was removed, I believe, and the last Arkana post still active was a month ago.

The update they are speaking of was on the Arkrite Press private playtest forums, which were created specifically for those who purchased Test Pilot patches.

I know that some of the guys were chatting on the DP9 thread concerning Arkrite, but I do not know what to do in regards to that. Delivering the rules that were shot down would have been pointless since they were not what the playtesters liked. Edit: I also don't know whether those conversations on the private forums are under confidentiality or not.

Plus I don't want to break my NDA or make promises in Arkrite's stead since I'm just a freelance writer. I certainly don't want to cause a backlash. But I am doing my best.

Yeah, security certificate got messed up somehow, but Greg fixed it.

Sorry, I've been working hard on something of late, and just yesterday whatever virus has been floating around in my system finally decided to kick into overdrive on me.

I'm fighting it off right now, but I don't plan to let this slow me down.

Recently they had a test battle report of a spam list using all armor here:

http://battlesforterranova.blogspot.com.au/2016/11/armoured-tide-battle-report-prdf-vs-cef.html

Hey, Al. We noticed your question (Wunji did), and he gave me an answer to your question.

In regards to resin, it would be more expensive for the customer, and not a great long-term investment for a company. A resin landship would retail for around $20-25, at least, making a reasonably-sized force around $200. The goal is to get the army cost down to about 25% of that.

I wasn't aware of that. Wish you'd said something sooner, warboss. He's no longer a group admin.

I'm referring to content being deleted. If there were objections, I didn't hear about them. And while I have a lot of admins there, I'm the owner. I had to trim some of the inactive admins anyway.

I apologize. I must have completely missed those replies... my bad.

I can ask. I'm focused on the writing for the RPG and Dreadnoughts. The Group is very active, we have had at least a half dozen battle reports of late, and more people painting. Of course, we still have to deal with the holiday season, which also will cut into folks backing the KS, but it was either now or mid next year in comparison to the competition.

warboss wrote:Actual money is relative to costs and total funding. I'll reserve final judgement until if/when I see a gameplay video but right now I'm thinking they'd have been better off going with a Starfleet Battles style setup... chits and tokens strategic boardgame with a real $10k funding goal for a small initial print run for the actual game with existing fleet scale minis as optional add ons; if they fund beyond their goal, they followup with stretchgoals of 1"-2" new landship minis and eventually tiny epic 40k sized updated ground unit minis. That is admittedly the WFPA take on the premise; they seem to have opted instead for the SRA version of the game.

What's wrong with the Republic? LOL

Tamwulf wrote:A game company should not rely on Kick Starters for every new project.

Land Ships in HG are these huge, land based super sized aircraft carriers. They were so huge that they had no stats in HG except for very specific scenarios and only for a small section of the ship. Sure, they were present in the fluff, but they were unplayable in the actual game.

Now consider that Heavy Gear is a Mech game, and along comes this fleet based game set in the same universe, but with no mechs. Where are the gears? How will they influence the game? Strike 1. In the fluff, these ships were rare, and the center of a Land Fleet (much like Aircraft Carrier groups of the US Navy). The idea of 3-5 or more of these fighting in the same battle... where are the escorts? The Cruisers, Frigates, Destroyers? Strike 2. The final strike: The gaming industry is becoming flooded with fleet based games: Firestorm Armada, Dystopian wars, Halo Fleet Wars, Dropfleet Commander, and Battle Fleet Gothic still has a huge following. There are a couple more out there as well. The KS shows nothing unique, or special about this fleet game besides it being in the HG Universe. Strike 3, it's out. There is no example game play. Is this a finished game? Will it use the incredibly complicated and arcane resolution system that the new version of HG Blitz has?

Basically, unless this game has some new, innovative game resolution system that just blows me away, I won't be interested.

I've come to recognize that folks will often question what is 'innovative'.

What I can say is that Gears, striders, tanks and aircraft are included, and in fact play a large role as attached ground forces.

The landships are centerpieces, yes. However, they act more in the style of an amphibious assault carrier, combined with a forward operating base, or FOB. They retrieve the attached ground and air forces (when the weather permits) and act as anchors for the maneuvers of the entire detachment.

Toward that end, to avoid the comet trails of SW Armada, the various capabilities are kept simple.

There's a few basic terrain types that one uses on the tabletop.

You get Clear, Rough, Difficult, Impassable, and Urban.

The cardboard templates for terrain you lay out until both players are satisfied with the set-up.

Depending on the type of terrain one is in, the attached ground force's capabilities (mobility, maneuver) fluctuate. So, a tank formation on Clear ground has an overall superb advantage in dice compared to an infantry counter on Clear terrain. Flip-flop that for urban areas.

I disagree with you strongly on Heavy Gear Blitz Living Rulebook being arcane or or complicated, but then that's your decision and tastes. Not everyone enjoys 2nd edition anymore, and everyone had various opinions about the editions preceding the Living Rulebook.

Having discussed it with Wunji, the initial idea for gameplay is simplistic enough that it could rival OGRE in some forms.

The older generation of landships (destroyers, frigates) are still around, but they are outdated, and instead usually form as escorts for the new classes. New class descriptions represent their particular 'strengths', and overall are streamlined to operate independently from any tenders. Instead, they can deploy for prolonged periods and use their ground forces to collect what resources they absolutely need to stay in operation, although after a while, they begin to wear out.

So, the original 'idea' of landships as 'super-sized aircraft carriers' (which really only applied to the Vortex-class, and that was a medium-class carrier at best), is now being replaced with this new, more modern fleet.

Streamlining what game? The Living Rulebook, or Dreadnoughts?

Well, Tamwulf, here's a list of known battle reports I've seen shared of late, detailing matters.

https://ideaswithoutend.wordpress.com/2016/11/15/heavy-gear-blitz-battle-report-150tv-north-vs-south/

http://battlesforterranova.blogspot.com.au/2016/11/armoured-tide-battle-report-prdf-vs-cef.html

http://battlesforterranova.blogspot.com.au/2016/11/lasers-for-days-battle-report-cef-vs.html

Also, there's more shared on the Terra Nova DMZ.

As for Dreadnoughts, the resolution sounds closer to what you personally desire, although in a strategy situation, rather than a skirmish scale.

I wish Spartan Games all the best in their endeavors.

I'm going to focus on getting things written up for folks interested in Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts, and hopefully more will support it.

Edit: Happy Thanksgiving.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Yeah, I know it's dynamic, which is helpful. I just saw that it was 2 bad days (and accelerating), and noted that a 3rd bad day is usually the point at which a campaign should be cancelled by the creator. It looks like we're getting that 3rd bad day.

It's poor practice not to have gameplay video and rules at launch. There's no reason to believe that these rules will be good without evidence via print & play. Although there was some fair amount of high-level chatter by the creator, saying it's going to have X, Y & Z isnt' the same has having actual rules for X, Y & Z, much less working rules for X, Y & Z...

It's OK to have a low goal, for a minimal product set. If it's like BFG, with 1 "big" model design per side, and Gears / whatnot as bitz - just 2 small sprues, 4x6" each. $30k might just cover that tooling. However, I think the campaign is more ambitious than that.

I glanced through the comments last night, and people were saying that the ships were miles long? Supercarrier-sized land vehicles? In an ostensibly "hard" SF universe? I play Ogre Miniatures, and taking it that far is just beyond ridiculous. Does nobody understand the square-cube law?

I'm reminded of the square-cube law every time Gearstriders are brought up.

There were explanations given for landships in the past fluff, and the current fluff was going to give an even greater in-depth explanation, which I feel was on-point.

The individual who alluded this comment: "I understand the scale vs scope in this game (and in others). I am quite the scale junky. These ships are so huge they must be self sufficient. Imagine how many crewmen it takes to staff one of those landships. The bathrooms...think of all the bathrooms 60 mile by 30 mile wide ship has? Do not forget all the dining facilities too. How many janitors and cafeteria staff does a ship like this need to function? Supposedly the NC1701D Enterprise only had one bathroom in the middle of the ship. I hope these landships are not designed that way. What a cruel joke for the head engineer to play. CHances are his high school bullies are assigned to the ship. This is his revenge against them.
What do you do if you are 20 miles away in ZZZ1789D deck and you have to have an emergency anal evacuation? It is a good thing there are like 500,000 janitors on the ship. They need it.
I bet that is a mark of pride to be on leave in your janitor dress uniform. The girls really go for those guys with the sanitation engineer insignia.
I also cannot help but think about Rimmer going on a 3 week hike through the red dwarf with those little robots. Every time I see those model ships I think of Rimmer's slide show.
Thank you, you guys are the best. Enjoy the rest of the show
I've got merch in the back."

That's him joking around.

It was also his first time backing a Kickstarter. Of the four comments he left, one was an interest in making 2mm-3mm Gears, the rest spent defining the 'super-scale' of the Dreadnoughts.

All of which were a joke.

Yes, the largest landships were up for grabs first, and yes, the Susano-O class rivals a Nimitz-class supercarrier (roughly 300 meters). It's not the most offensive thing to hard science fiction.

Tamwulf wrote:

BrandonKF wrote:
I wish Spartan Games all the best in their endeavors.

I'm going to focus on getting things written up for folks interested in Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts, and hopefully more will support it.

Edit: Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Post Thanksgiving Brandon.

Just to clear some things up- the actual game play for Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts isn't actually done yet? Hasn't been written or play tested yet? Is that what you are saying?

I think you will find that expanding out into the fleet based games will be a challenge. Without some kind of innovative, exciting rules, the only thing this game will have going for it, is that it's set in the Heavy Gear universe, a universe known for it's mechs, not it's Landships, and trying to get those prospective players into the game will be difficult at best.

IMHO, and take it or leave it as you see fit, gears will have to play some kind of viable, key role in the game. And you won't be able to just have a token with some generic gear silhouettes that add +1 to your combat modifiers when in base contact with the Landship for example. If you make this game with the Landships/Dreadnoughts as the central theme, it will fail. Create a game with at least equal importance placed on the Gears + Landships and it will succeed.

The rules were written in large part, however, I hesitate to use the words 'innovative' or 'exciting', because quite frankly, it's almost a catch-phrase of Kickstarters today. That's not a ding against others who truly do come out with exciting Kickstarters, just that, as you have said, fleet-action games are often filled to the brim, and I don't like over-selling anything.

However, would I say they are innovative in their own way? Yes. The rules are simple, easily defined, and there were only a few pieces that needed massaging, largely involving Air Defense.

I personally felt that it could be defined as a combination of chess, OGRE, and Harpoon, though with some key differences.

Heavy Gears are a part of the wider combined-arms ground forces that would be involved. Their role is middle-of-the-road in the array of units. There was no "add +1 to combat modifiers". Each Unit has set Maneuver, Move, Skirmish Power and Engagement Power ratings. With certain Heavy Gears, that would change, depending on the Player's choices during their Turn.

A Turn gives the player one Order to spend, plus whatever Orders they wished to spend through their Command Point usage. Then it went to the other Player. Like chess.

Difference, you could give a Standing Order to one specific Unit, and that Unit would complete that Standing Order every Turn until you assigned a different Order to it. Once it had a Standing Order, you couldn't assign any further Orders to it, unless it was a Landship (for example, a Landship could Travel to Destination, its Standing Order, and then carry out other Orders through Command Point usage).

There are also several other things included (Mission Cards, Event Cards, and Weather Tracker), all of which were intended to be simple, yet powerful in their own right.

warboss wrote:The image I posted is continuously updated instead of static so it shows today's totals despite being posted yesterday here in the thread... and it doesn't look any better. Unfortunately, this is roughly the progression that I alluded to earlier on that I expected but hoped wouldn't happen. I suppose the next question is whether or not the feedback received will be incorporated into a reboot of the campaign +/- cancellation (which may or may not be too little too late regardless after this false start) or whether or not this vision is simply the only version that Wunji, Brandon et al. dreamed of making. While the second option is reasonable, I hope they go for the first and incorporate some of the feedback here in the thread and elsewhere online into the next campaign. The big bullet points for me would be in a dakka style KS post mortem for the campaign:

1) Game scale/mechanics matching the game components. The size of the models simply doesn't jive with the chits and tokens style gameplay alluded to in the game. Smaller scale resin tokens made in the same scale as the old Fleet game match the old board game mechanics more than massive minis game miniatures.

2) Show, don't allude to, the game. I really am surprised there was no starter rules PDF and/or gameplay video available at launch. We've been hearing about the noncommittal, legally nonbinding yet we want you to pledge real money gameplay and game mechanics "impressions" and "inspirations" posted by Wunji instead of seeing the actual rules either in print or in action.

3) This one is a bit presumptive and an educated guess based on Dave's and Wunji's posts about the KS... Set a real goal instead of an artificially low one. The funding goal for an all plastic box with big models seemed mighty low. This is a common *BAD* practice in the industry since KS came around with low stretch funding goals to appeal to backer's fragile wills with the hopes that momentum will carry the project through to the real funding target. Several projects in the past exceeded their posted low stretch goals yet were cancelled suddenly because it became evident that the real much higher funding total would never be reached. That won't be the case here as the funding total never approached the goal but the statement about artifically low totals (if that is the case here as I suspect) stands.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

1. Chits and tokens weren't the end goal, but seeing the response, I suppose things might flex now. I will have to discuss it with Fusion Core. I wasn't entirely crazy about the idea initially, and I'm still not. That's not a ding against all those who like chits and tokens, I just liked the vision of an open-format tabletop using board-game rules that could flex however players (including myself) wished to, with just a few cut-out terrain pieces, and perhaps some 'centerpiece' models, like a three-dimensional Catan mountain range representing a particular mountain peak. (Personally, I would have been fine with the small Fleet-scale Gears, tanks, and whatnot, rather than the larger single counters).

2. An oversight that will need to be remedied.

3. The goal for the original four vessels wasn't artificially low. The original goal for the molds was around the breakpoint. Personally, I wasn't interested in 'breaking folks' fragile wills'. I know Fusion Core wasn't, either. Some folks said that the goals set for the additional molds was too high, others, such as yourself, said it was too low. Just goes to show that individuals looking from the outside through different lenses will see matters differently.

The 'wills', I see in reference to what's going on with the Kingdom Death Kickstarter. Though frankly I don't believe said individuals are 'fragile', rather I see the kind of excitement I wish would be attributed to Heavy Gear, not merely for nostalgia's sake, but for genuine excitement. I imagine that the man behind that game is probably over-the-moon and also biting his thumb hard, realizing the immensity of what he is being given and entrusted with. Had that been me, I'd have dead-fainted for at least a couple hours, and then gotten to work. But, I'll still work things over here, in all respects. Perhaps things will turn around now, or perhaps not. If there is a cancellation, Fusion Core will reset, then resurrect later, with everything in place. It's a learning process, and I've learned quite a bit merely as a Collaborator in the project. It's an in-depth look at how a Kickstarter is run.

Albertorius wrote:

BrandonKF wrote:
I'm reminded of the square-cube law every time Gearstriders are brought up.

I resemble that remark!

So you do. Very often, in point of fact.

We will continue to discuss this, you know, until I'm dead and buried. Hopefully not for awhile.

warboss wrote:

BrandonKF wrote:

1. Chits and tokens weren't the end goal, but seeing the response, I suppose things might flex now. I will have to discuss it with Fusion Core. I wasn't entirely crazy about the idea initially, and I'm still not. That's not a ding against all those who like chits and tokens, I just liked the vision of an open-format tabletop using board-game rules that could flex however players (including myself) wished to, with just a few cut-out terrain pieces, and perhaps some 'centerpiece' models, like a three-dimensional Catan mountain range representing a particular mountain peak. (Personally, I would have been fine with the small Fleet-scale Gears, tanks, and whatnot, rather than the larger single counters).

I think you misunderstand me. Chits and tokens weren't a suggested end goal but rather the starting line on the way to the end goal of big plastic minis (and with intermediate stretchgoals of fleet scale resins). IMO it should have been the initial funding goal version of the game with the components getting more and more grand as more and more money rolled in theoretically instead of starting with the end.

Well, I made a faux pas of my own in my writing.

I was meaning to allude to the idea of hexboards.

Initially, hexes was the idea considered.

But I've grown rather fond of open boards, rather than the old 90s-style Battletech and hexboards of Heavy Gear. OGRE, I give a pass, because it's simple, quick, and plays fast.

Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts was intended to play much in the same way, only with more freeform templates. Cut out some cardboard, mark it with the terrain, maybe use a printed terrain sheet to represent the type of terrain in that area, lay it out on the battlespace, and voila.

While I suppose that using flat counters is fine for a starter set, or even as a freebie for aspiring players who don't have the funds, I'd much rather use miniatures, even if they're only a straight color plastic that can later be painted to the owner's desires. Heck, even OGRE Designer Edition's 2.5-dimensional OGREs were of interest to me when I see them.

Your point about the grander design as funds came in is noteworthy, and something I personally would have to keep in mind. Which brings me to the below:

3. The goal for the original four vessels wasn't artificially low. The original goal for the molds was around the breakpoint. Personally, I wasn't interested in 'breaking folks' fragile wills'. I know Fusion Core wasn't, either. Some folks said that the goals set for the additional molds was too high, others, such as yourself, said it was too low. Just goes to show that individuals looking from the outside through different lenses will see matters differently.

The 'wills', I see in reference to what's going on with the Kingdom Death Kickstarter. Though frankly I don't believe said individuals are 'fragile', rather I see the kind of excitement I wish would be attributed to Heavy Gear, not merely for nostalgia's sake, but for genuine excitement. I imagine that the man behind that game is probably over-the-moon and also biting his thumb hard, realizing the immensity of what he is being given and entrusted with. Had that been me, I'd have dead-fainted for at least a couple hours, and then gotten to work. But, I'll still work things over here, in all respects. Perhaps things will turn around now, or perhaps not. If there is a cancellation, Fusion Core will reset, then resurrect later, with everything in place. It's a learning process, and I've learned quite a bit merely as a Collaborator in the project. It's an in-depth look at how a Kickstarter is run.

I'm guessing the fragile wills comment touched a nerve as you mentioned it three times... I just can't think of any other way to describe the herd mentality of gamer crowdfunding. If something is hot, folks back a project they have little to no interest in just to not miss out (and some who back for financial resell gain). If something instead plateaus, they accelerate the fall by backing out even though it won't cost them a dime to stay in on a project that isn't likely to reach its stated goal. I can't think of any reason why for the last four days the funding total should be decreasing. The update on the 23rd didn't contain any earth shattering revelations like Wunji's secret plans to binge on chasing loose women and gorging on poutine with the funds. The project is no better or worse planned or executed than it was days earlier when it began and the money flow was still positive. And yet the exodus started... that's what I refer to as the fragile wills of backers. YMMV but if you're kickstarting a project and are willing to put money down on it in the first few days then you should be firm enough in your resolve to weather a few folks leaving midway. Did they back but only on the value premise of all the stretch goals being met and added to their pledge for free and bailed when only the initial offering might happen? Who knows... it's about as stallwart a bunch as a herd of cats apparently.

As for the initial goal, if that is the break even point for just the moulds, what happens if there is an unforseen delay/complication like with HG? Wunji wouldn't have stretch goals to unilaterally renege on like Robert and Dave did to save money if he only met his initial goal. What about punching out the sprues? Printing the card and paper components? Multiple shipping (within China, to the US, to backers) steps? I mentioned in the beginning that he may have money set aside for that but that isn't what KS has accustomed backers to believe. The goal feels artifically low for what he was offering and that to many educated backers is a red flag. It's kind of the opposite cause but same end effect as above but from a different group/psychology of backers.

I look forward to hearing what eventually comes next though and wish you luck. This current project simply wasn't what I was interested in but maybe the next version will be.

Two different groups to appeal to, that I understand. The fragile wills comment touched a nerve only in the regard that I wanted to properly express myself without appearing arrogant or condescending towards other Backers. As someone who has only of late been involved in Kickstarters, mostly small charities, and Heavy Gear, and some terrain boards, I would not presume to know why someone chooses to back out of a Pledge. Typically, when I've Pledged, I don't pull out.

Which leads me to the elephant in the room.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Kingdom Death 1.5 launched on the 25th. It pulled $2M in 2 hours, and is now over $5M in under 5 days. That's what's sucking up all of the KS money.

SPM's Way of the Fighter got the same treatment, and collapsed for much the same reason.

I'd strongly suggest cancelling now, getting the game rules into P&P condition, and then relaunching Feb-Mar, after people's wallets recover.

I have strongly disagreed with you in the past, Mr. John, but on this, I grant you that that might have to be considered. Strong as I might have my misgivings about our previous conversations, I do respect your experience and your weathered tone on these matters. I'm not Fusion Core, of course, so I have no capability to press the 'Cancel' button. I'm just the mouthpiece, so to speak.

I have regularly been checking in with multiple forums to see what kind of impact the announcements have had.

Here, on Dakka, there was a short period of excitement and interest and questions.
On Beasts of War, the post largely laid dormant until a couple individuals noted the plastic prototype miniatures.
WargamersAU, there were several individuals who mentioned that the looks of the miniatures were 'horrible'. When I responded by showing the prototypes, and invited them to ask questions, there was no response.
On TheWargamesWebsite, Rhoderic, an old fan, mentioned he didn't like the size, in particular, but was otherwise hopeful for the project, and of course, of late, has offered much the same advice as has been given here.
BGG, no response.
RPG.net, I misplaced the KS thread, but after it was placed in the appropriate forum, the post went by the wayside with no response.
On Facebook, lots of shares by hardcore fans in smaller Groups, but in larger Groups, the announcement gets lost in the noise of 'Superman vs. Batman, Goku vs. Superman' discussions.
On G+, folks occasionally notice and give it a +1, some have commented.
On Twitter, very little presence outside of my own tweets.

Of course, quite a few hardcore fans themselves mentioned that they just simply do not have the funds to Back at this time, and I understand that fully. And we do have to deal with the fact that we are in 'competition', so to speak, with other Kickstarters.

I do wish we could get something out in the larger gamer media outlets to provide folks with something more 'meaty', as there were several mentions of 'armadas', and I think that that is a loaded term. Learning curve.

Albertorius wrote:

BrandonKF wrote:
So you do. Very often, in point of fact.

We will continue to discuss this, you know, until I'm dead and buried. Hopefully not for awhile.

One could argue that I did it not often enough, taking it all into account. But it's not just me, as you know.

Right now I'm trying to provide alternate solutions for the problem, though.

BrandonKF wrote:
But I've grown rather fond of open boards, rather than the old 90s-style Battletech and hexboards of Heavy Gear. OGRE, I give a pass, because it's simple, quick, and plays fast.

Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts was intended to play much in the same way, only with more freeform templates. Cut out some cardboard, mark it with the terrain, maybe use a printed terrain sheet to represent the type of terrain in that area, lay it out on the battlespace, and voila.

You shouldn't really be looking at BTech or Heavy Gear in this instance, actually. That's not really what we're talking about when we say "hex and chits" games, even though we played those on hexboards. You should be looking to something more like... well, this:



Strategic level wargames, which seem to be the level you guys are going for. The above is a turn of Ardennes '44, but it's just an example. You can of course replace the actual chits for more pleasing minis, as long as you provide the same info in a similar way.

While I suppose that using flat counters is fine for a starter set, or even as a freebie for aspiring players who don't have the funds, I'd much rather use miniatures, even if they're only a straight color plastic that can later be painted to the owner's desires. Heck, even OGRE Designer Edition's 2.5-dimensional OGREs were of interest to me when I see them.

Minis as counters instead of chits is definitely very doable with the above.

Of course, quite a few hardcore fans themselves mentioned that they just simply do not have the funds to Back at this time, and I understand that fully. And we do have to deal with the fact that we are in 'competition', so to speak, with other Kickstarters.

It is a difficult time of the year, that's for sure. Black Friday, christmas sales and everything else eats up people's disposable income, so anything that people might find interesting but not that interesting probably falls by the wayside, or there's simply a need to prioritize. I would also advice to cancel now, rethink your strrategy and come back stronger come february or whereabouts.

AndrewGPaul wrote:Another possible example would be the Command. & Colours games (Ancients, ACW, Memoir '44, WW1) which are sold as games using wooden blocks on a hex map but which are commonly played using miniatures on hex-based terrain.

One could argue that you didn't enough, Albertorius, but then, one could also argue that I didn't argue enough in the past. I often chose a 'wait and see' approach. I've grown rather tired of waiting though, as I expressed elsewhere. But I think you and I both have our minds set in those matters, and we'll continue to discuss options to work around that. You do bring valuable information and points to the foreground, which I appreciate, since I do tend to think in far larger terms than others might comprehend as feasible.

The chits included in that example picture provided in that picture of Ardennes '44 are a bit tightly packed for the ideas Fusion Core has in mind, far as I know. It works great for a strategic level of command, but lends itself to very wooden (pardon the pun) interaction.

Dreadnoughts' Ground and Air Units includes slightly more data than OGRE, or those described in Command and Colors games, or Ardennes '44.

Chiefly, Maneuver, Movement, and Attack. All dependent on which type of terrain you're in.

A couple other stats included are Regroup and Power.

That's just a basic overview, of course.

Vertrucio wrote:Pretty sure the lack of funding boils down to the squandering of the HG license overall.

Haven't had time to read through the crap storm and fighting here. But let's be frank, HG can't even touch Dystopian Wars in terms of name recognition, miniature quality, and actual releases. This isn't the fault of this new game, but it is Dream Pod 9s fault for not maintaining their brand.

I think the concept of big land ships, large ground scale war is a good one. After all, that's basically what DW is (but with a crappy ruleset).

Decouple this idea from HG, create a bigger universe and more designs with a similar look. Sculpt actual ground unit models instead of stand ins, show what the rules will be like, and even show a table in play, and you've got a recipe for a successful kickstarter.

Sorry, decoupling from Heavy Gear isn't going to happen, Vertrucio, as far as I'm aware. Frankly, I wouldn't want it to.

There's been some fighting here and there throughout the years in this thread since I first joined in and have had a listen to what everyone had to say.

That doesn't change. There's always going to be some fights between people who are passionate about ideas.

What does change is how we come to agreements about those finer points.

warboss wrote:

 Vertrucio wrote:
Haven't had time to read through the crap storm and fighting here.

I don't think either exist (at least in relation to the Dreadnought project) in the thread recently. A year or two back for Blitz? Sure... but not now for this offshout. Pessimism/realism with a large dose of constructive criticism though abound.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrandonKF wrote:

While I suppose that using flat counters is fine for a starter set, or even as a freebie for aspiring players who don't have the funds, I'd much rather use miniatures, even if they're only a straight color plastic that can later be painted to the owner's desires. Heck, even OGRE Designer Edition's 2.5-dimensional OGREs were of interest to me when I see them.

Your point about the grander design as funds came in is noteworthy, and something I personally would have to keep in mind. Which brings me to the below:

I'd much rather use minis as well but it's a potential lower cost starting point for both players (total cost of the starter set) and Fusion Core (as a KS initial funding goal). Thanks for posting and keeping us updated, btw.

It's what I do.

HudsonD wrote:The timing could be better I guess, but blaming such a failure on the excuse, or the Kingdom Death KS is just lazy.
The Dystopian Wars KS is doing quite ok on its own, despite facing the same issues.

I addressed Dystopian Wars in my previous posts. I wish them the best. I do the same for those behind Kingdom Death.

I call it a learning experience. Moving on.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Hex and chit is the most natural approach for this, for a grand strategic battle with naval-size units. However, you're doing a minis game. Physically, I'd look at Command and Colors (Memoir '44 / Battle Cry / BattleLore 1E) for they handled hex-and-minis gaming - it's quite elegant for the scale, and the hexes are well-sized at just over 2" across. Ogre Miniatures is also a nice hex-and-minis game.

Regardless, your minis are prossibly too big for the scale of game that you envision. Smallest unit should be 3/4" long, largest <2", if you intend a sense of scale and any significant positioning prior to engagement. OTOH, if it's a no-tactics, no-maneuver 40k furball, then huge minis are fine.

Heheh, no, John, Fusion Core wasn't interested in doing the furball.

The big miniatures were because, well, frankly, they look great, plus, they give some added 'weight', if you will, as to the abilities and presence a landship has in the battlespace. They're powerhouses. Even strider and tanker crews get a chill when they know the enemy has even one landship in the vicinity.

At the current TV costs for a standard game, you might be able to bring at most half a dozen of the vessels to the battlespace, but you wouldn't have much room for Ground Units, and without those, you're shooting yourself in the foot (figuratively). Ground Units, like Infantry, Heavy Gears, and Tanks, can control Objectives, which is the primary means to gain Victory Points. You could also destroy the Objective with a Landship Artillery Strike (or an Air Unit Bombing Strike) and deny it to the enemy (and in some Missions, that's the case), but most of the time you'd suffer a ding to your Victory Points, because you're eliminating a valuable strategic or tactical asset to your own forces in the process. Wipe out too much, you're liable to end up in front of the amirals and admirals (depending whether you're South or North) explaining your 'strategies' when you decided to lay waste to a target filled with civilians caught in the crossfire.

Short run to the hangman's noose from there.

Strategic Strikes also cost you TV, and include orbital artillery, tactical nuclear warheads, and antimatter warheads, but again, you're likely going to suffer Victory Point loss at the end of game because you're using valuable assets, and unless you garnered major Victory Points from the act, you'll have a Pyrrhic victory on your hands. You might not end at the hangman's noose, but you'll be demoted to an out-of-the-way outpost where you won't be handling such precious materials so carelessly. But hey, maybe someone will give you a second chance (unless again, you struck a civilian target in the process). In addition, they're expensive, and the chances are that something might not go according to plan. Launch a tac nuke or antimatter missile, and it gets intercepted before it strikes the target, and you just lost more Victory Points because you wasted a valuable asset "and like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!"

By contrast, a Maelstrom Landship, for example, would pack (roughly) 8 Air Units (about 80 TV), and 10 Ground Units (100 TV). That would mean 1 Maelstrom and 18 Units in total, roughly about half the force you could bring to a standard 500 TV game, a quarter of your force for a division-strength operation at 1000 TV. That's a lot of usable forces to accomplish Objectives, and still put a hurt on the enemy.

Anyway, the size of the miniatures will likely be discussed more, as well as other matters.

Edit: As for why include more miniatures than you could feasibly deploy (if you have two of everything, but they cost so much, why include them in the Starter Set?), I believe that was part of the plan to include the modular kits later on in the Stretch Goals. Rather than have multiples of the same variant, you could build each individual vessel, with one of each sub-class, so to speak, and thus have flexibility in choosing which vessel you brought to which engagement.

 Albertorius wrote:

BrandonKF wrote:
One could argue that you didn't enough, Albertorius, but then, one could also argue that I didn't argue enough in the past. I often chose a 'wait and see' approach. I've grown rather tired of waiting though, as I expressed elsewhere. But I think you and I both have our minds set in those matters, and we'll continue to discuss options to work around that. You do bring valuable information and points to the foreground, which I appreciate, since I do tend to think in far larger terms than others might comprehend as feasible.

I was thinking more about the time when the Cat was originally presented, really ^^. I hope you forgive me if I'm too brash or if I say something out of line in the heat of the moment. I do mean well, even if I'm more interested in keeping the setting I like going forward and less in making it more widely appealing.

As to the larger terms comment, if that's regarding the population scaling that's being discussed, it's not so much that we don't comprehend them as feasible (they're kind of iffy from a population growth POV, of course, but that's another thing), but rather that we don't feel there's an actual need for them. To each their own, but you're in a much better position to muscle your opinion into the setting,

I am, but I also listen to what is told to me. Recall my previous numbers versus now. That's in large part due to the observations you, the other playtesters, Arkrite and Fusion Core brought up.

Less is more in that instance.

Interesting, thanks for the roundup. That amount of information seems very doable on a minis base, tbh (take a look at the amount of information crammed on a X-Wing base, for example).

The above was an example on what I personally (and I think most boardgamers and fands of the genre) think when talking about "hex and chits" game, rather than a suggestion for your game. The above depicts units from a really big offensive (we're talking millions involved here, and thousands of... well, everything), and I believe your game is meant to represent actions with much smaller forces, so it should be proportionate to that.

That said, the above and other games like the aforementioned Memoir '44 are a good representation of something I feel would fit the kind of game...

For a starting point, in my humble opinion.

It's worth discussion.

Heheh, no, John, Fusion Core wasn't interested in doing the furball.

The big miniatures were because, well, frankly, they look great, plus, they give some added 'weight', if you will, as to the abilities and presence a landship has in the battlespace. They're powerhouses. Even strider and tanker crews get a chill when they know the enemy has even one landship in the vicinity.

Great as they may look, I think that form should follow function. IMHO, if the current version of the mini is too big for the intended purpose, then it should be remade to fit the function.

The last part feels kind of strange to me, because that's simply not the way I think regular troopers in in the setting would go around thinking about landships. I mean, it's on another whole scale, after all, like a base or our modern wet fleets. Mostly, they will worry about what they bring with them (for example, if the USA moves a fleet, people in the zone gets worried about the air power it brings with it, or the marines it carries). The actual weapons on the ships seems to me the lesser of the threat.

Yes, but that's because we live in a world where ships can't cross land or deal with aerial threats on the fly with directed-energy weapons. Now imagine if said task force could maneuver over land with the troops. Now you don't know where precisely it's hiding, and it's firepower can flex with the forces it supports.

However, I know that folks are still iffy about the large scale, so it's something to think about.

Thanks for the rundown.

You now, since your comment about units getting depleted and the like, I've had something stuck on my mind: resource point economy.

From a strategic point (and this would work beautifully for a hexes game), it would be nice if landships and ground bases generated a certain amount of "resource points" each turn, that they could later either distribute to units to keep them supplied (if you have a supply line to them, of course), use to effect repairs on themselves or stuff on their hex, or spend to launch air attacks or artillery/ortillery strikes, for example. Something similar to how Focus points work in Warmachine, actually...

That's where Turns, Cycles, Command Points, Regroup, and the Recovery and Reserve tracker come in.

Each Turn lasts one Order, plus whatever Orders the active player uses with Command Points. Once he or she is finished, the other player starts their Turn. Either player can call a Cycle at the end of their Turn, or wait. As long as the Cycle continues, Command Points don't regenerate.

Each Unit has SIG. The worse the SIG, the more worn out they are, the easier they are hit, the quicker they go to the Scrapyard. You can burn a Turn Order or Command Point Order to roll to Regroup, replenishing them and decreasing their level of SIG. But again, CPs don't regenerate until a Cycle is called. If you want, you can also roll to Withdraw the Unit to go to the Recovery tracker.

Any Units that you withdraw from the field at diminished capacity go to their respective stage of Recovery, and don't move up the tracker until a Cycle is called. However, calling a Cycle to move your Units up the Recovery tracker gives the OPPOSING player their full Command Point pool.

So, you can try to burn out your opponent’s CPs by waiting a long time, but if a majority of your forces are in Recovery because of wear and tear, your opponent can conservatively maneuver to accomplish Objectives unopposed.

Personal issues require his immediate attention. I won't elaborate further, as it is strictly private. However, I've told him and I tell you, I am continuing writing, and editing, and copy editing.

I'll discuss the finer points brought up above when I'm not at work, which will be a few hours from now.

Albertorius wrote:Landships don't fly, after all, they just hover a couple meters above ground, and the orography, woodlands and the like of the terrain will have a much greater impact than water will have on a regular ship (water is kind of flat most of the time, unless there's a really big storm). While you keep yourself to the Badlands you're mostly OK, but even there if your ship is on the Barrington Basin you're not going to go nowhere near the Karak Wastes with it, and on a less general level, the moment you reach any significantly hilly terrain you will need to find an alternative route.

There are few ways to hide landships, too, given the amount of radiation (and well, sand clouds) they generate, unless they stay grounded, which would have its own sets of problems. They're easier to hide than fixed bases, sure, but it's not like currently nations don't keep tally of other countries' assets. I don't think that will be changing anytime soon.

They can hover a little farther than a couple meters off the ground. That's been the impression for a long time.

They don't use hover-fans to float, so sand clouds aren't generated by their repulsors. Their thrusters might throw some up, but those are usually designed for forward momentum, not vertical.

In addition, they utilize thick EW screens, through a variety of units. Those will be detailed in the fluff.

warboss wrote:
I appreciate your responses, Brandon, and especially their timliness but I'm guessing your not the one making the final call on things. The lack of response is troubling for a kickstarter; if it funded but later things went sour either personally or professionally, would this be the type/lack of response to expect as a Dreadnought backer in 2017+? I'm not asking you to elaborate further but personal issues, even if very serious, don't preclude five minutes of attention for a week unless Wunji himself is seriously incapacitated (which at that point it would be his responsiblity to delegate that to someone like you). I don't expect problems to be solved nor issues completely addressed in that five minutes but the complete lack of any effort for the past week on his part as this falls apart is absolutely grounds for concern both now and for a future potentially revamped project (especially in addition to the apparently serious issues present within the campaign that contributed to it not funding like scale issues and no gameplay demos).

No, I don't make the final call on things. But as the Kickstarter's collaborator, as a Heavy Gear promoter and writer, as a fan, and as a virtual friend - even if that doesn't count for much - I feel it's my duty to stand in the gap.

Paint it Pink wrote:
So, the relevance of the above to the discussion of Ogre in relation to Dreadnoughts is hopefully obvious. The miniature to ground-scale is an issue.

Personally I would make the ground-scale larger, because while I might not like the disparity in Ogre, it can clearly be made to work, and therefore offers a solution that keeps large models fighting over maps.

Oh yeah, gosh another twenty odd pages to this post. However popular HG is or is not, it sure can generate a shed load of discussion.

Killionaire wrote:Oh hey, familiar names and faces.

Checking in on this: It's pretty clear there's a few factors. I haven't played any HG in like 2 years, when there was that whole prior-to-new-edition clusterfeth of half-baked armoy books and the like.

In this case with this new Dreadnaughts game... there's many issues. One thing alone: I don't find the models appealing. They're uncharismatic lumps with some polygon angles. Is that our scifi game, about apparently robot jeeps and hovertanks? Because that's not what draws people in. The old Vortex-class Carrier is awesome: It looks and feels great. Even when not in a cheesy video game cutscene. These new guys are bland.

Comparing it to a chit and hex game? My god, that's one way to ensure the game dies in obscurity. Chit and Hex are all incredibly niche.

A strategic scale game is great. That can be cool. I recently got way into the Homeworld Deserts of Kharak prequel (which incidentally, is about land-carriers dueling in the deep equatorial desertlands...) and it's a fantastic idea. But execution is key.

JohnHwangDD wrote:To clarify, the ground scale that they talk about for this game is 20km per inch (1/780,000 scale) - what would normally be handled as hex-and-chit.

At that scale, 4 feet on the gameboard is 960 km. That is just under 600 real world miles. That is enough to encompass the entire Bos-Wash corridor, dipping down to Richmond, and grabbing a bit of Maine! Manhattan would be about an inch long. As an in-scale terrain item, the Statue of Liberty would be 1/2500 of an inch tall (<<1 mm).

Or, one could battle from Detroit to Washington on the same tabletop, with the Blue Ridge Mountains cutting across the bottom, and Lake Erie cutting across the top.

If gaming in the West, the Grand Canyon is less than 1 cm deep.

1" = 20km is a patently ridiculous scale for miniatures gaming, but works fine if you're playing hex-and-chit games of the Battle of the Bulge.


OTOH, the miniatures are 1/2500 scale, which should really be 1/2400 to match existing naval wargaming. At this scale, 1:1 minis:ground scale is possible, and probably desirable. Manhattan being 2 miles (3.2km) wide means it's 4 feet wide on the tabletop. Of course, Gears are only 2mm tall...

1/1200 is even better due to the inclusion of land elements. A Gear stands 5mm tall, like 1/300 human infantry. Under this scheme, a 12 cm landship model is "only" 150m long, which is still ridiculously large for a land vehicle. If you downscale the biggest landships to 9 cm, then they are a little over 110m long - that is not completely implausible. That's roughly the size of the Goodyear Blimp / football field. It would be ponderously slow, but one could imagine it moving across some open ground.

These comments deal with material I want to handle collectively, so I'm keeping them together, and they also address Paint-it-Pink's mentions as well.

First, downscaling the landships in actual size to 110 meters in length isn't going to happen.

For reference, this is the Fleet Scale landship miniatures at present (all of which are 1/4000 in miniature scale) with their Gear/tank/aircraft counters (cast in 1/350 miniature scale):



This is the Vortex:



The Vortex is 285 meters long.

So, it's almost as long as the Susano-O, which is rated to be roughly 310 meters in length.

In reference to Killionaire's mention that the models are uncharismatic lumps - this is the Khan. It's 260 meters in length.



The Vortex gets a pass in looks because it's designed like a retro aircraft carrier, but insofar as looks, the Khan and its fellow Southern landships aren't much different from the current line-up, like the Sanguinaire and Khagan (a modernized version of the previous Khan):

The Sanguinaire is currently the tiniest of the landships that will appear:



As you see, it's rated at 230 meters in length.

Let's compare and contrast some more.

Here is the Iowa:



Here is a Ticonderoga-class cruiser.



And here is an LCS, the Independence, part of the inspiration for the current Dreadnoughts:



So, looks-wise, the Independence isn't 'regal', in the sense of the older Iowa, but it's functional.

One of our biggest talking points about Heavy Gear is 'hard science fiction'. "Hard" can mean different things to different persons, but I personally feel that it's ultimately wrapped up in a sense of verisimilitude that such a design could actually exist in the minds of the gamers.

I look at the Vortex, I see a cool design, but, even as a teenager, I recognized that the deck layout was hazardous in some respects. You have two landing strips that aren't much wider than the aircraft they're designed to launch, both joining at the center elevator to lower to the hangar below, and their flight path is directly over the helipads from the aft sector.

Now, I look at the Maelstrom:



Forward ramp for launching STOL conventional winged aircraft or VTOL aircraft with less thrust than needed for their vertical take-off, offset landing strip that's wide enough to accommodate possibly three aircraft (or one larger transport aircraft) without having to shutdown the helipads/VTOL pads on the aft deck, reasonable accommodations to use the aft end as a landing strip for aircraft if they need more runway...

It's function over form (and, in the case of the Khagan, improving function, since the runway is no longer coming out the sides, as it does with the Khan, but instead, like the Sanguinarius and Imperatrice, is located on the top of the vessel).

However, as Fusion Core shared in their last update:

" We like where the size is; it doesn't take up too much table space, still looks plenty impressive, and as a game piece, is right about where a human-sized player picks it up and gets the sense that it's an important item.

Our 3D-printed prototype models are kind of a halfway stage in the plastics design process. The 2D art of the landships is our main reference for mood and look of the ships; ideally, we want that feel to carry through to our final miniatures as much as possible. However, at 1/2500 scale, many details have to be exaggerated in order to a) be visible and b) hold paint. There's also a general desire for "greeblies," distinct textures, ridges, and depressions that help add dimension to a miniature without the need for airbrush shading. Finding a comfortable compromise between these often-conflicting requirements isn't easy.

Although the 3D printed miniatures have limited details, they help us find answers for the aforementioned concerns by allowing us to physically work with model size, proportions, and gross detail. For example, after building and handling the Susano-O prototype, we found that we might need to exaggerate the size of the gun turrets just a smidge, to make them more visible when looking down at them on a table and to make the gun barrels easier to paint and handle. We also found that the missile hatches, while perfectly visible in the 2D art, are just a pebbly pattern on the physical model, necessitating a redesign of the hatches for the miniatures. Panel line abundance and thickness are also concerns, and we do want to be able to add some more sharp lines to make washes and highlighting more effective.

That said, these ship designs are intentionally less "busy" than many modern sci-fi vehicles. We really tried to inject a sense of an object that's built for a purpose (even if that purpose is wholly fictitious), so the hulls needed to have a sense of solidity to them, and the armaments had to be of reasonable size. We know that's a departure from traditional miniatures gaming, which tends to maximize table appeal with wild silhouettes and massive weaponry, but if there's a niche for us to fill, this is certainly the best way to find out."

So, it's not unlikely that, like the Fleet-scale vessels, the Dreadnoughts will have certain proportions (namely, around the weapons) enlarged to make them easier to paint and visually more appealing.

As it stands, making them smaller will make this more difficult, however, it will be something to review and discuss.

-----

In regards to the ground scale.

The way that I see Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts, this is intended as a 'low' strategy game, at least in respects to my personal terminology.

Instead of controlling entire divisions or corps, you're in command of a task force that roughly equals a regiment to brigade-sized element. However, that element has the advantage of large war vessels for support and transport, in addition to the capability to deploy armored personnel carriers, tanks, striders, or Heavy Gears, and, if you so choose, what I term "higher-level" assets. A company of Heavy Gears is equivalent in manpower to a modern U.S. Army armor company, roughly 85-100 men and women. Heavy Gear regiments run about 400-500 men and women, with 250 Gears, plus attendant technicians, infantry support, and headquarters unit.

Each 'counter' in Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts contains roughly a platoon of 12-20 Gears, with maybe an IFV or two in support. An infantry battalion in Heavy Gear is roughly 800 men and women, most mounted in either APCs, like Badgers or Caimans, or mounted on ATVs, or, in some cases, living cavalry mounts. The largest vessel, the Susano-O class, can carry over 100 Gears, plus several companies of tanks, a couple companies of infantry, and more. The smallest, the Borasco, carries 30 Gears, a couple infantry companies, and no tanks.

This is 'low-level' in the case that you're not bothering with all the tactics that you deal with in Heavy Gear Blitz. It comes down to operating in a limited scope, a sector of responsibility, and using your units and landships wisely to accomplish whatever mission objectives are given to you over a course of days or possibly a week on the outside. Each Unit counter during maneuvers and engagements assumes that the lieutenants, rangers, sous-sergents and others "in the thick of it" are nominally efficient and capable of doing their jobs without you micromanaging them every step of the way. You tell them to go someplace, they will go there by the best means possible, they'll maneuver their units into all the different formations possible to assume the best offensive and defensive postures, and you're left with the 'big picture'.

Is 20 kilometers in an inch too much? Possibly. It will be discussed.

--------

With all that in mind, I'd like to thank you all for your thoughts. And I would appreciate it if you all continued to provide feedback.

However, I did want to underscore that the size of the landships themselves isn't going to change, at least in-universe terms. These aren't Goodyear blimps. And there are certain expectations that will be clarified - and perhaps overturned - with new revelations in the fluff.

Okay, I've spent awhile composing this, and I need to hit the sack eventually, but I'm off to go do some other things.

Also, long time no see Killionaire. You should stick around more often, or come visit in the Terra Nova DMZ, there's a lot more activity of late.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Has anybody ever been to the desert? It's not flat. It has giant hills and dunes.

National Training Center, and Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar.

And if you brought in Jabba as the original fur jacket, he'd likely only be the size of half a pinhead. X-3

Albertorius wrote:Brandon's comments about unit sizes are fairly interesting (thanks much for those, btw), but is it me, or they feel fairly low for the scale? I mean, that would mean that unless you cluster your units a lot, they will be really isolated, if each inch of terrain is multiple kilometers... (when the represented units are buffier is not much of a problem because they feel better able to sct independently, but a single platoon seems too small for that IMHO).

The scale of the units remind me of the old Battleforce, or Epic: something that feels more suited to a more "tactical" scaling of the terrain, for lack of a better word... tactical engagements, the fighting parts of a battle instead of theather management.

Tactical scale, or rather, my perception of it, involves individual troops and platoons. This is slightly above that level.

An equivalent force to a platoon in Heavy Gear terms is roughly three squadrons or cadres (whether you're North or South). That's 12 to 15 Gears. Much of Heavy Gear Blitz involves that level of combat, typically in very built-up areas, or at shorter ranges than would typically be seen.

Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts expands on the idea that Heavy Gears are one-man infantry fighting vehicles, capable of engaging over 1,500 meters from their targets. You need legroom to maneuver like that, just as tanks and infantry do. Infantry in this scale aren't merely foot troops. Their forces include Caimans, Badgers, Mastiffs, Hoplites, and the occasional Heavy Gear as back-up (like the much-loved and much-hated Asp). However, the exact composition doesn't affect base stats in Dreadnoughts. There might be some options here or there, but for the most part, Gears are Gears, scout Gears are scout Gears, tanks are tanks, and striders are striders.

Tamwulf wrote:One of the things that concerns me about all this:

Has all development, play testing, and writing stopped on heavy Gear Blitz as DP9 rolls out this KS for a game no one really asked for or wanted?

We still only have the "Quick Start Rules" for HGB. When are we going to get the full version of the rule book? The new plastic Gears are, well, I think the consensus here is "OK", not bad or great, just OK. I tend to agree with that. When will we be seeing the other factions going plastic? Still have PAX/Peace River, NuCoal, Utopia, Eden, Black Talons... I'm not even seeing updated data cards on most of these factions. Since the Kick Starter Pledges went out, we've seen ZERO further development or even news about the new edition of HGB. What's going on?

Which brings up another point, and the #1 reason why DP9 really should have changed the name of the new edition from Heavy Gear Blitz to something else: Go look at the website and you see Heavy Gear, Heavy Gear Locked and Loaded, Heavy Gear Blitz, Heavy Gear Blitz 1.1, etc. etc. I wouldn't say just delete all that content, but maybe move it into an archive tab of "old stuff" and start converting everything over to the new edition? Make it 100% clear that THIS is for the latest edition of Heavy Gear Blitz, and THIS is from previous editions and kept only as a reference. The downloads section is a complete mess right now. They are still listing the new edition as Heavy Gear Blitz Beta, not to be confused with the file that says Heavy Gear Blitz Alpha... They are still listing the Field Manual under...



OK, I'm not going to get all upset or worked up about this. DP9 obviously can't manage their own product line worth a , and now they want us to buy into Dreadnoughts. Newsflash: I don't want to play Dreadnoughts, I have no interest in Dreadnoughts, and I wish them success in whatever they are trying to do with Dreadnoughts. What I WANT them to do, is

FINISH YOUR GAME FIRST BEFORE STARTING ANOTHER KICKSTARTER!!!

Tamwulf wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
Oh, haven't they? I was under the impression that they had already released the new edition...

All we have for the new edition is what was promised in the KS: The North, South, CEF, Cparice armies in plastic, a quick start rulebook, patches! (everyone's gotta have patches!), and digital versions of the KS factions and rule book. Oh, I think they released another Chibi Gear to celebrate something. Because, you know, everyone wants to use Chibi gears in a game!

The Kick Starter was a success, and DP9 needed to build off that success. Instead of finishing the new edition, they have decided to concentrate on a new Kick Starter and game. /sigh

The last update to anything related to the new edition of Heavy Gear Blitz was in July of 2016. The last update for the "living Rulebook" was in July, while the thread for it has little tweaks here and there, FAQ's, etc. etc. but none of it has been incorporated into the Living Rulebook yet. Kinda makes it a Dead Rulebook, eh? LOL

Tamwulf, the Quick Start Book is just the most basic stuff from the Living Rulebook for new players.

The Living Rulebook is the finished product. Any revisions that occur will be updated directly there. It isn't going to paperback, unless you want to download it and print it off yourself. It's similar, in most respects, to Corvus Belli's Infinity rules design. A free rulebook that you don't have to purchase to play.

It took Infinity more than a couple years to change their rules from version 1 to version 2. And the latest, version 3, didn't come out until a couple years ago, and is still going strong.

From the base that Dream Pod 9 has now, they can flex the rules if they absolutely need to.

So, why would Dream Pod 9 absolutely need to update the rulebook monthly or every couple of months, when most companies don't do it, and such constant updates were one of the larger complaints while the Beta was ongoing back in 2015?

Heavy Gear Blitz Living Rulebook is not hard to find, either.

Google it, you get DP9's website, and DriveThruRPG's download is five results down. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144759/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Tabletop-Wargaming--Living-Rulebook

Google "HGB Living Rulebook", the DTRPG link is the third result.

warboss wrote:

 brettness37 wrote:
DP9 has licensed the setting to someone else for Dreadnaughts. Not sure what they are working on themselves, but this Kickstarter is not theirs.

Yup, this is licensed to Wunji and his company. While he is a longtime DP9 collaborator, I don't recall ever seeing his name even mentioned when I peeked behind the scenes for a year or two to see how the gear sausage is made. Other than probably approvals, I don't see Robert and Dave (who essentially are DP9 in its entirety) having a hand in this or this impacting the bottom line beyond scheduling (like not trying to debut the Jovian Chronicles redux at the same time as Dreadnoughts for instance). He'll probably help out at the gencon booth like he did when I was attending years ago and get some space in the display there but I don't expect this offshoot to have any effect on HG proper. Love your avatar btw.

Just as brettness put it. Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts is licensed and being worked on by Fusion Core.

As for Jovian Chronicles, there have been rumblings.

Tamwulf, I can point you to at least a dozen games played with the new rules by newer players on the Terra Nova DMZ.

Maybe, if you joined us there, you could ask questions, get clarifications, and also learn some new tricks yourself.

As for development, I don't have a say in when Dream Pod 9 decides to update their rulebook, but I certainly don't expect them to keep "developing" when they've already settled on this as the finished rules. Anything beyond this is not 'development', so much as it is massaging the current rules.

warboss wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

A regular Gear section usually amount to 3-4 squadrons. Now, in a 20km diameter hex that would mean 15-20 units to control an area of 314 square kilometers, which feels... awfully spare IMHO. that's 16-21 square kilometers per Gear. Yes, they absolutely could be the only units in the zone, of course, but there's only so much a unit that size can do in that much space, particularly in built-up areas. Actually, a significant part of the hex should be out of range of the unit's weapons.

I'm ok with that. Evening assuming that the squadrons are spaced out geometrically as far away from each other on the corners of the hex, they're still less than an hour at combat speed away from help (and 15min at top speed). That assumes you can't stack tokens voluntarily on a hex from increased density as well (and I don't believe Brandon said that). It also depends on the time frame used per turn as to how appropriate the scale/density is.

There's still no hexes insofar as I know.

But yes, the time scale involved isn't being measured in minutes or seconds. Think hours and days.

Honestly, as far as the cancellation, I knew it was coming eventually. For now, it's back to work.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Wait, HG has "accurate weapon ranges"? I thought HG's "hard SF" was limited to the fluff, not the tabletop.

Can't tell if that's wit or honest incredulity.

The Tactical scale and RPG scales were interchangeable back in the 90s.

Mostly finished light rules for Dreadnoughts.

Worked on a section of the RPG.

On Steam, there are some new faces in the Discord chat because of its promotion.

Others are becoming aware of it too.

It might not fit your personal narrative, but it's their product.

As for the big fat pfft, their update reads: Stompy Bot Productions was set to release Heavy Gear Assault on Steam Early Access December 15th, 2016. What happened? Well, we believe Valve is overwhelmed with the upcoming Winter Sale and other happenings over there and as a result they were unable to give us final approval in time for our launch date despite us giving Steam 7 days for approval. As an end result we are stuck in Steam purgatory and we’re not happy about it! On December 15th, 2016 @4pm PST we released Steam keys to our early backers and alpha testers so they could play our game. Today we’ve decided to release a batch of our free Steam key giveaway for our splash page newsletter subscribers ahead of schedule. We don’t know what’s up at Valve but we will be sure to post an update as soon as we hear from them. #SteamDevPurgatory

Happens.

Peace River and New Coalition are probably getting a Kickstarter this year.

For your needs of explaining FO rules and Gear rules, the Duck Brothers give a good overview, and even enter the massive headache of FO for you.

You can start browsing here: https://duckbrothers.wordpress.com/2017/02/16/heavy-gear-spotlight-black-mamba/

And feel free to join the Terra Nova DMZ on Facebook, gives you plenty of other folks to chat to and share pictures.