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What's the difference between the rulebooks?

Well, there's three versions of the main rulebook (Heavy Gear Blitz: Locked & Loaded). Softcover and Hardcover are pretty obvious, and Deluxe is full-color. Personally, I bought the hardcover, although I also own the PDF.

Black Talon - Return to Cat's Eye is a big book with multiple new factions (Caprice Liberati and Corporate (The 4-legged bug walkers), CEF (The hovertanks and purple people), and the Black Talons (elite special ops in stealth gears) as well as 'something for everyone' (pretty much every faction gets a new upgrade option or something) and the latest storyline updates. (Earth is back. They aren't happy.)

There's also some older books (Heavy Gear Blitz! and three army list books) as well as even older books designed with RPG use in addition to tactical use.

Does this answer your question?

Yes. I think I have the right one now, too, thanks!

I bought a Southern General Purpose Squad. What do I do with that now?

Build a South army???

GP Squads are Core choices in any south army.... so if you're making a Priority Level 2 army that fulfills one of your two choices.

Cool. Are the loadouts standard in the box?

Careful! The Southern Box has a stripped down Jager that's only available to a MILICIA force or mercs. Sprue contains: 2 MACs, 2 Paratrooper Rifle, one Light Bazooka, alternate head for command Jager. Run of the mill Southern GP can take 2 of those special weapons. Vets can pick up more.....

Ah, I see.

Guess I'll read up on the forces part of the book. Too bad I didn't see a color one. That would
have helped tremendously.

The full-color version is, admittedly, pricey.

The new book (that's only available in PDF at the moment) has a couple changes that are 'fixes' for the Southern lists. I think the most specific is that the MILICIA's option to take convicts will change a bit as it is a bit abusable as-written.

I believe these changes are going to be in a free pdf errata doc, but everyone has been busy getting the book out, which has been a long process.

I'm starting to think Emirates.

malfred wrote:I'm starting to think Emirates.

ESE is a fun force. When I have time (I'm thinking 2012... :( ) I want to finish my small ESE force and put a writeup on Dakka.

Some quick & dirty background on the ESE for anyone who is reading and is curious:

The Eastern Sun Emirates was founded when Earth abandoned the colonies. One ship, the Eastern Sun, decided to throw it's lot in with the colonies and landed on the planet of Terra Novan instead of making dash for home. The ship had a lot of high-tech resources that allowed the crew to essentially walk into a leadership role on part of the planet and they did so, forming a hereditary government...

Several thousand years pass, and the modern ESE is still a feudal society. Most of the population are laborers and much of the League's industry is in the form of mining and similar. There's a small 'Solicitor' class that handles all the bureaucracy and such, and an even small class of the Emirs themselves; Nobles with absolute control over their territories beholden only to the Patriarch. The current Patriarch, Oliver Masao, is insane.

However, he is the Patriarch, and by ESE law must be obeyed. He recently ordered the "Mother's massacre" when he announced his title would be handed to his last remaining relative, which made tensions in the ESE even more unbearable.The ESE is in the midst of a civil war as various groups of Emirs try to eliminate rivals or break out of the cycle of madness. Commoner riots are frequent and the Southern Republic is threatening to step in, especially since some rebel groups are believed to be sponsored by the North.

ESE forces on the battlefield reflect this chaos by a rule that each ESE force must declare a tie to another power which provides a special bonus. For example, those with ties to the North may have a squad of Northern Heavy Gears in the force, while those with ties to Mekong Dominion may use special MD rules for the force's Honor Guard.'

The 'Honor Guard' is another ESE special rule. The command Combat Group is considered the Honor Guard and the kind of group selected makes another kind of group a Core choice. For example, an Infantry honor guard makes infantry a Core choice, while a Paratroop Cadre makes Recon Cadres a core choice.

The ESE also has some special swaps and options: They tend to use older Gear designs and produce Iguanas locally, so they get easier access to those. Also, due to the need to put down riots they can add machine guns to many units.

They're interesting. Lots of options to theme in different ways and the paint schemes are very wide open.

Fascinating stuff. So in order to build my force I have to read up on the other ones?

Ha. That's totally evil

malfred wrote:Fascinating stuff. So in order to build my force I have to read up on the other ones?

Ha. That's totally evil

it's an ESE-specific thing, but yeah.

The options for the Emirate Ties are:

AST: The 'Loyalist' allied South. This variant is more tied to the less-elite unified South army, MILICIA, so it gets the fun stuff like convicts and Fresh meat (rare recruits.) I'd consider the MILICIA and, by extension, an ESE force with ties to the AST, to be kind of like 40k IG.

SRA: Ties to the Southern Republic. Very elite force. You might even be doing something like the Sardakur Gambit from Dune. (I.E. your troops are actually SRA pilots in your uniforms!)

CNCS: You've allied with the North! Your force may share a common religious passion or may jsut feel the North is a better master than the South. The North wants an 'in' on the southern land and is quite happy to back some rebels.

Humanist Alliance: The Humanists are a bit... odd. And they're having their own problems, as a targeted disease is knocking out the 'leader' cast of their society. The Southern Republic has swooped in to 'administer' during the crisis. I think a couple cities even exchanged hands from the ESE to HA... You mainly get access to the HA's high-tech toys, primarily some special options on Striders and even access to their prototype hovertanks, the Hetaroi. (Note: Sadly there's no model yet for the Hetaroi.)

Independent: You're on your own. The good news is you can get easy access to Badlander formations (the Leagueless), which can be a way to build some very odd squads. I have had a lot of trouble with Leagueless lists as they have too many options and it's quite possible to build a squad that isn't good at anything.

Mekong Dominion: If you're working with the MD, someone is probably getting paid. Still, the MD ties give access to some of the Dominion's special rules. Note that I believe RtCE limits access to Vibro-katana a bit.

PRDF: The other money option. I'm using this in my ESE force as I really wanted to include the fun Coyote the PRDF has. With this option I can include a single squad of Coyotes that were presumably sold to my Emir in return for some sort of favors now or later...

Cool stuff.

Does it ever get unbalanced, them mixing the lists like that?

I don't want to field an eye-roller force (not that I'd actually play against anyone, lol)

Not that I've heard of... John Buckmaster (The writer for L&L) doesn't do the "Well, it should be a common unit so let's make it cheaper..." thing GW is known to do at times. Units are priced based off the admittedly-flawed VCS (Vehicle Construction System) used for the 2nd edition RPG rules, then 'massaged' a bit for the Blitz! game. (Perks/flaws that don't exist in Blitz! are dropped, crew and 'automation' are rolled up, and a few other things. Also, the values are divided by 10 and rounded to the nearest 5, then adjusted if playtest indicates a unit is over or under costed.

He's got some great and dedicated playtesters. They'd always like to do more test games I think, but that's always going to be true and sometimes the game just has to ship.

One (Gambit on DP9's forum) is pretty good at looking for the most obnoxious loopholes and demonstrating them. He destroyed the competition at a CanGames event a couple years ago with a (now illegal) force of airdropped Caiman APCs. Each was lightly armed with only light armament, but there was enough in the right places to be nasty. He's big on finding those loopholes and odd point spreads whenever possible.

Demonstrate rather than post about it? Nice!

ESE and MD sound like what I want to do. I'll build an ESE force and just play them as
having ties to the Mekong. Maybe eventually (a year or more) I'll go ahead and start a
Peace River.

Not to steal the post, but i've been thinking of starting the game as well. From what I've read I lke the Humanist Alliance (if I've got the correct name) could you tell mne a little about them?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Heavy%20Gear%20Blitz!

They sound a little like they were inspired by the race in Orson Scott Card's Ender series. I forget
the name, but it's a race of humanity where mental abilities are associated with obsessive compulsive
behavior. The republic pretty much enslaves them similar to Mentats from Dune. I don't know
how on target I am, but I'm basing my suppositions off the summary Balance prepped.

Mmm...Pi wrote:Not to steal the post, but i've been thinking of starting the game as well. From what I've read I lke the Humanist Alliance (if I've got the correct name) could you tell mne a little about them?

The HA is a caste-based society. One tweak is that castes are assigned by testing instead of by heredity, and there's some rare cases where castes can be changed if there's a really good case for it.

The three castes are Preceptor, Protector, and Commoner. Commoners are the majority of the populace and do most mundane tasks. HA society is such that they really don't look down on the commoners much... They have an important function, and have a great deal of leisure time to indulge in HA-friendly hobbies (like art and music). probably more time than the other two, actually. Protectors are the police and military of this league. There's an amusing illustration of a police officer in the RPG book for the HA that shows a walking police car. The poor guy has hard body armor, lights and cameras on shoulders, a big sidearm (double barrel, one with tranq darts and one with bullets), etc. Looks miserable to wear, but the HA is big on everyone being part of the team, which shapes their battlefield preferences.

The Preceptors are the smallest caste and being a preceptor is a great honor, but also a great deal of work. These people form the politicians, scientists, and even 'spiritual' leaders of the League. (Note: The HA tends to be somewhat anti-religion. It's tolerated, but considered a divisive influence on their 'perfect' culture.) The higher-ranking HA Protector military officers have Preceptor 'advisors' that act as a mix of political officers, tactical advisors, etc. Something interesting is that being a Preceptor carries with it the duty of being a mentor to the community. Even high-level researchers are expected to give time to mentor students and otherwise work on the grand social experiment that is the Humanist Alliance.

To outsiders it's all a bit cult-like. The RPG material is generally non-judgemental, but there are cracks in the HA even before the Theban Blight (see below). The HA prefers rehabilitation over punishment, so criminals are generally sent to reeducation centers and similar. Repeat offenders can be sent to the 'Legion of Lead' a force of drug-addled convicts kept as a source of cannon fodder. The HA can be unfriendly to outsiders despite the official policy of wanting to extend their caste system.

Recently the HA suffered an outbreak of a new disease known as the 'Theban Blight' which has been linked to a Southern Republic bioweapon developed as a fail-safe should the HA threaten the Republic. The Theban Blight or 'Twin Falcon Intiative' has killed most of the Preceptors and left the league leaderless. The Southern Republic moved in quickly to 'administer' the region, denying humanitarian aide attempts from the North, and many Protectors have become guerrilla warriors fightng to free their league and restart the ancient social experiment.

it's an interesting league. The current rules don't really hook into the backstory too much, but it's good stuff to know.

On the battlefield, the HA show a definite preference for Striders (the larger walkers) and tanks. One theory behind this is that the culture strongly values teamwork and contributing to the whole over glory for ones self, so multi-crewed vehicles are more common than Gears that have a single pilot. The core choices for a HA army are Strider Cadres and Infantry Platoons.

They have special rules to represent their mastery of high-tech weapons on their striders. Note that officially they should have shared all such things with the Southern Republic, but it seems the HA kept a few things quiet. They created the Sagittarius and can field the design with energy weapons instead of rocket pods. They also have special upgrades for the Dragon.

Striders can be a bit weak in Blitz as most have multiple weapons (but can only fire a couple a round) and the Sagittarius' VLRP (Very Light Rocket Pack) is a lot of very weak missiles, so the use is limited. Many feel the HA really does shine here, as their upgrades can make the Striders much more useful.

The HA also has access to a unique unit, the Hetaroi. This is a hovertank based of tech from the CEF forces and other sources. There's no official model for the Hetaroi yet (although it has rules) but we're hoping one is released soon.

what books should I look at to start?

The main book for HGB! is Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked & Loaded which is the current main rulebook plus some army lists for the Northern and Southern Leagues, Peace River, PAK, and Leagueless factions.

Note that I linked to the Pod's online store for the softcover version, but it's also available in hardcover, or a pricey full-color version. A PDF is also available from Drive-thru RPG and e23.

Admittedly, I help them out with their website, but I like the L&L book. It looks nice, it's very 'information-dense' and has a lot of useful stuff in it: rules, army lists, data cards, and background stuff.

Ok, Thanks!

So how many miniatures are used in an average game? I've always preferred the 'Votoms' style mecha over the larger BattleMechs.

Unfortunately no one in Cincinnati carries the game, but I notice Boookery in Dayton is having a demo next weekend. I may have to swing by and check it out.

The sample armies in the book cover a range from 15-21, with the '21' being a mixed force with both tanks and infantry. This is at the 1,000 TV (Threat Value, I.E. points) level, but some regulars play at 750 or 1,500.

Heavy Gear has always tried to stress 'combined arms' in all editions, and I think HGB does a pretty good job of this.

Tanks are big and mount some heavy weapons. They also have multiple actions which let them use actions to fire multiple weapons, participate in electronic warfare or similar, mark targets for other units, and other tasks. However, tanks are vulnerable to pack tactics (Use a squad of Gears) and losing a single tank may really hurt a force. Also a tank's actions are all concentrated, whereas a Gear squad has multiple actions that can be used independently better.

Gears can't match tanks in sheer firepower, but they are flexible and can mount weapons for all sorts of tasks.

Infantry are interesting in HGB. I was expecting them to be little more than point fillers, but they can be surprisingly useful. Their main hindrance is speed, and APCs can add a lot to the cost. (There are also options for Off-Road Vehicles (I.E. small vehicles like Jeeps) or ATVs (Bikes, quads, etc.) as well as making them airdroppable.) They also have light armor and limited heavy weapons, but they're surprisingly resilient if they can get to cover. The limited heavy weapons are just enough to scare Gears and might scratch a tank on a lucky hit, so they can't be ignored.

One more quick question. What are the absolute most common gears for each faction. The ones that are so common that they couldn't leave home without them even if they tried. I'm interested in the Northern gears and don't want to end up buying something that I won't use if I happen to pick something up next weekend.

Pretty much ever faction has what I call the 'Big 4' or designs to cover almost the most critical roles. The four roles are GP trooper, Heavy/advanced trooper, fire support, and scout.

In general the basic trooper is a design that's been around for ever and has dozens of weird variants,a t least in the RPG material. Most have a eprk int he RPG rules called 'easy to modify' because they're mature, sturdy, and well-documented designs. They get a 'Sturdy' box in the Bitz! rules which makes them a bit more resistant do damage. In BLitz! most have a command variant and several weapon and equipment swap options.

The Advanced trooper is generally a commander/specialist's machine. The usual position is that the armies would love to make these main-line units, but there just isn't production capacity to replace every Gear in the force/

Fire Support units are physically bigger and may actually be equipped for several roles including assault, artillery, or (of course) fire support. Most have multiple weapons and have higher point values.

North South PRDF Trooper Hunter Jaeger Warrior Advanced Jaguar Black Mamba Warrior IV Fire Support Grizzly Spitting Cobra Crusader IV Recon Cheetah Iguana Skirmisher

Yes, the irony that Jaeger is German for 'Hunter' is not lost on anyone. In canon, the Hunter was developed and the South stole a prototype so as not to fall behind in the arms race. The guy who had to do a quick redesign to make it 'Southern' wasn't happy that he was told to forgo his prototype walker design (an egg-shaped design that may have eventually led to the Naga) and redesign a Northern design so he gave it the Jaeger name as an act of protest that stuck. The Hunter and Jaeger have pretty much identical stats, although the options vary.

So Hunters and Jaegers are the most common designs, but they're not necessarily the favorite. My WFPA force has a wopping 4 hunters in it as it's built around tanks and smaller non-standard recon Gears like the Ferret.

What's the difference (in game terms) of making General Purpose Squads your Honor
Guard for ESE or Fire Support?

malfred wrote:What's the difference (in game terms) of making General Purpose Squads your Honor
Guard for ESE or Fire Support?

Two things I can think of:

1. It gives the army a different Core choice: with a GP squad, your Core choices are GP squads and Infantry. With a Fire Support squad, you get Recons and Core instead. At PL 1 or 2 you need Core choices (Think 'Troops' in 40k), so this builds your army a bit. In the ESE I'm fiddling with the Honor Guard is a Paratroop Cadre, so Recon squads are my core... I make them relatively cheap and flexible by dropping the Jaegers for Basilisks. Plus, hey, they're an older, cheaper Gear that the ESE's emirs might love as they can see a bigger army in the field even if they're in inferior equipment.

2. Your Army Commander is in the Honor Guard. HG commanders can be ace pilots, but may be more concerned with doing 'command stuff' instead of leading right from the front. In the case of my ESE, its hindered a small bit as the commander is off-board until he airdrops in. First turns with this army could be tough as using Command Points is limited.

Here's my ESE list:

ESE w/PRDF Ties PL1, 1000 TV

Paratroop Cadre (Specialist) (Honor Guard, Veteran)
Black Mamba (Army Commander) +1 Attack, +1 Defense, +1 Leadership
Black Mamba Second in Command (Leadership 1) 10
Iguana Paratrooper
Iguana Paratrooper

Infantry Cadre (Core)
Section 1/Escouade 1 w/Light Mortar
Section 1/Escouade 2 w/Anti-Gear Rifle
Section 2/Escouade 1 w/Anti-Gear Rifle
Section 2/Escouade 2 w/Anti-Gear Rifle

Recon Cadre (Core)
Iguana Add Satellite Uplink and Exposed Auxillaries 5
Basilisk
Basilisk
Basilisk

Recon Cadre (Core)
Iguana Add Satellite Uplink and Exposed Auxillaries 5
Basilisk
Basilisk
Basilisk

Light Tankstrider Squad (Auxilliary)
Wild Coyote
Coyote w/Hunter-Killer Drone
Warrior

The last squad is my PRDF tie squad... I might lose the Warrior, but I figure it's a PRDF 'observer' sent to assist with the very new and somewhat exotic Coyotes.

Okay, here's the part about the game that I won't be able to crack until I play it (if ever). What
sorts of things do Recon Squads do vs. General Purpose squads? All of this stuff, even with
the rulebook, is extremely confusing to me, so picking options for my first box screws me up
totally.

No problem. HGB is a somewhat complex game as there's a lot of interaction between different systems.

(Note: In the following I do a lot of comparisons to 40k. This is not meant as an insult to 40k. If you want those, go to Dakka Discussions.)

GP squads are the equivalent of Space Marine Tac squads. They're multipurpose and can be tweaked a bit, but they're intentionally not specialists. They can take objectives, recon a little, shoot things, etc.

Recon Squads are much more focused and similar to SM Scout Squads: Lighter armor, less powerful weapons, etc. The advanatge to Recon Squads is they can participate in a few 'sub systems' (my term, not the games) like Forward Observing, Target Designation, and Electronic Warfare.

Forward Observing (FO) is, essentially, spotting for the big guns. Recon squads tend to work hand in hand with Fire Support squads. In some cases, the Fire Support squad can take a single scout gear on it's own to provide local recon support.

Anyway, the Recon squad's models can spend actions to FO, which essentially allows friendly units to use the unit to provide line of sight.

Target Designation is a better form of FO and provides a bonus for guided weapons (There's guided missiles and guided mortars in the list).

Any unit can Forward Observer, but Target Designation requires special equipment (the Target Designator perk) that Recon models often carry. TD is the stereotypical 'shining a laser on a target for the missile to home in on" vs. 'radioing map coordinates' for normal FO.

Both of these trigger 'comm events' which is another area Recon units can excel in. They generally have good sensors and comm gear and can usually take special equipment for ECM (Electronic Counter Measures) and ECCM (Electronic Counter Counter Measures). If there's a lot of ECM and ECCM on the table a comm event can turn into a little mini-duel as the electronic warfare specialists attempt to jam comms, then the opponent tries to punch through the jamming.

It sounds more complex than it is... The Comm Events concept would probably be way too complex in WH40k, but it adds flavor in HG as HG doesn't have psykers and daemons... The electronic warfare adds a similar dimension but in a way that fits the setting better.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh: My 'Recon Squads' in the list above are a little weird as the Basilisk is somewhere between a dedicated scout and a trooper. It doesn't have the TD or ECM of a scout but it has a weapons load out comparable to a GP gear.

I should dig up the list I made one day intended as a "Imperial Guard in HGB" list... Tanks, self-propelled artillery, and lots of infantry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Because I'm bored today, here's how to recreate the basic feel of a classic 'old school' Imperial Guard army in HGB:

This is an 800 TV Northern Guard force and should be playable at multiple Priority levels. 200 points provides enough to add heavy weapons to the infantry squads or, alternatively, the Field Guns could be dropped in favor of a 2nd Aller.

Heavy Tank Squad (Specialist) 285
Aller Tank
(It's a single main battle tank. The Aller is a pretty nice tank, with a Heavy Rail Gun as it's primary armament and several additional weapons. Dropping to the Hardy Aller cariant would save some points and switch the main gun to a Very Heavy Field Gun that is perhaps a bit closer to the Imperium's Leman Russ tank.)

Light Tank Squad (Auxilliary) 255
Tyburr
Tyburr
Tyburr
(The Tyburr filsl the role of the Imperial Guard's favored artillery, the Basilisk in this list. As with the Aller, there's a variant that some may feel would be a closer match, but the variant (The Stormhammer) has a Heavy Field Mortar instead of a Light Field Gun and I think that matches the profile of a Griffon better.)

Infantry Platoon (Core) 60
Section 1/Squad A
Section 1/Squad B
Section 2/Squad A
Section 2/Squad B
(Infantry are cheap. The IG knows this well. These would presumably be equipped with heavy weapons at 5-15 points a squad. The weapons include Light Machine Guns, Chainguns, Anti-Gear Rifles, Grenade Rifles, Rocket Launchers, Light Mortars, and Target Designators.)

Infantry Platoon (Core) 95
Section 1/Squad A
Riding Beasts 10
(Rough riders! No way to represent hunting lances, really. You could give the squad a Demolition Drone, though.)
Section 1/Squad B
Section 2/Squad A
Section 2/Squad B
Section in Badger APC
(One oddity of the Northern Guard is their APC seats 20. However, they have better artillery options in my opinion.)

Field Gun Section (Specialist) 105
Field Gun
Field Gun
Field Gun
Well, the old-style IG Heavy Weapons looked kind of like towed guns with the wheels and carriage assemblies. A few would look nice, as HGB Infantry Heavy Weapons are hand-held.)

This would be an 'interesting' list to see in a game. The tanks would be juicy targets, and if someone was really building this I'd probably suggest looking at mobility options for the infantry so they can actually get to targets (Infantry can get Off-Road vehicles, ATVs, Riding Beasts, and true APCs in addition to paratroop squads). The total lack of Gears is odd, but certainly doable.

So is it generally better to modify the squads with upgrades or can you run "naked" lists
with no problems?