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Scott-S6 wrote:Having just read the rules, my first observation is that the modifiers for shooting are nearly all negative.

Given the way the opposed rolling works, given no modifiers you need to be shooting at a gear with low defence to have a decent chance of having a better base roll.

The only positive modifiers available are for enemies entirely in the open, being in the enemies rear arc and being in point blank range. Of course, the enemy can wipe out most of those by running in a circle.

The impression given is that everything possible has been done to prevent you hitting. More than half the weapons in the list have a negative accuracy modifier basic! And how many have a positive? 1.

While the complete weapons list is not that bad (most weapons have 0, not -1, a few more have +1,) that's more or less the problem.
That, and all the positive modifiers and most of the negative modifiers to the defense tend to be much easier to get at short range (< 6".)
Well, except the positive modifier you can get by not moving... which come with a massive penalty to your defense, meaning that artillery is going to shoot at you, hit you and kill you ... most of the time before you can actually use the modifier!

And it's worse than that. If I am generous, and suppose that the defender has a penalty of -4 on its roll and the attacker has -2.
The basic weapons, firing at the basic gear, only has 55% chance of doing some damage, and most of that is minor damage.
In fact, a squad of Imperial Guard taking 9 shots of lasgun on some space marines has more chance of doing some damage (65%, if my quick calculations are correct.)
Except that lasguns are supposed to be ... not that good ... while I just compared the basic weapon, with a common attack penalty against a hard to get defense penalty.

Seriously, if you are shooting with -2, and it's not an indirect shot, don't bother : run instead of shooting.

Oh, and guess what we kept mentioning in our playtest reports ? Yes, that some positive modifiers to the attack rolls would be nice, because shooting was ineffective.

Guess what did not change (except, to be fair and IIRC, the "in the open" bonus, which tend to only happens at close range.)

Oh, and so it's clear : zero is the lowest result possible for a roll. And the result of the attack must be at least 1 more than the result of the defense, and most of the time, 2.
This seriously lower the influence the -4 in that case.
A roll of 0 vs -2 would be much more effective : 60% chance of effect, with 10% chance of an insta kill.

while the minis and the rules are nice, i'm not a fan of the company after they negated TWO of my collections of heavy gear. i bought a ton of their stuff when it was released in 1st edition and 2nd came out about 2 years after the first book was released along with the minis that were out of scale of the previous ones. within 2 years of first publishing HG, they negated both my books and minis. when i finally decided to give them another shot 10 years later (and 3 more editions for them), they did the SAME thing. i bought blitz and it's supplements when they came out and within 2 years they announced locked and loaded (blitz 2.0) that is NOT compatible with the previous books. yet again they negated my collection. if you're interested in getting in to the game, keep that in mind. whenever they need a few more dollars, they just reboot the rules for the extra cash. most distributors DON'T carry their products because of the number of times they've made entire stockpiles of their products unsellable by coming out with new editions.

Right, I've just finished reading the full rules and I'm underwhelmed. The impression given is that it's kid's battletech. (when I say battletech I am, of course, referring to classic - not that more recent abortion). It might have been a fun little system if shooting actually worked and running around in circles didn't (speed for targetting should be shortest distance between start and end point, like with assaulting vehicles in 40K)

Something I find a little alienating, like battletech, is that the pilot is an afterthought - the combat potential of a gear or a mech is entirely about it's hardware. (to be fair, 40K suffers from this a bit as well)

My main observation is that the OP is confusing level of detail with depth. 40K is both deeper more complex than HG - HG is more detailed. By comparison, 2nd is more complex and more detailed than 5th but 5th is still deeper.

For contrast, Stargrunt 2 is an interesting system (free to download) - it's extremely simple and extremely low detail but also very deep. Equipment is largely abstract, performance is determined almost entirely by the quality and motivation of the troops. For example, range is determined by quality, not by weapon. This seems counter-intuitive but is actually very realistic (infantry rifles are almost never fired to their full range potential and cannot be fired accurately to that max range by most soldiers, especially when under fire)

Balance wrote:

Balance wrote:a lot of people don't like the 'feel' which does simulate range heavily, as long-ranged shots are much less likely to do anything 'big'.

Drop-off with range is exaggerated from 'real life' for the sake of making things more entertaining.

Oh, so you meant "abstracted/exaggerated" more than "simulated" ? Well, yes, I quite agree there.
If anything, the drop-off is far too exaggerated though, which makes the whole ranged aspect pretty much moot, save for certain exceptions. In a game where "light" guns are 20mm autocannons, that's kind of weird.

Mrondeau mentionned a supposedly crummy lone imperial guard infantry squad being more effective at range than your average gear, this is not only true, but it gets even worse when you factor in range.
An IG lasgun squad has a maximum range of 24" when not moving, and an effective range of 12" for maximum firepower. Since the squad moves 6", that means you have an effective threat bubble of 18".
Comparatively, your average gear has an effective range of 6" (at most !), and moves about 6" at combat speed, for an effective ranged threat bubble of 12". At most. On the other hand if you move at top speed (and you lose the ability to shoot when you do that), your speed goes up to about 10-12", and you become pretty much immune to incoming fire, while still able to stab someone if/when you reach them. (Stabbing isn't that effective either, but you still have better odds than using your gun).
The dakka is not strong with HG.

So, all in all, since you can move fast without risks, and only extreme short range will produce results, both sides will just quickly rush to a scrum in the middle, where the first one to slow down dies, rendering any other maneuvering, including placement, largely irrelevant.
Speaking of placement, the scenario book actually specifies a table size of 2' by 2' (!!!) for the smaller missions and a maximum size of 3' by 4' for large battles (think 1500-2000 points for 40k). Since you play along the width of the table, that does mean it's easy to start within 12"-15" of the enemy, so turn 1 point blank scrum in the middle isn't that hard to achieve. At which point things do start exploding at an entertaining pace, and the battle is over within 30 minutes of playing.
Some people like that, and that's fully understandable. Others, that enjoy such things as tactics or maneuvers, will find games such as 40K more enjoyable.

P.S : No matter how much I might enjoy a game, I'll never lick it.

drahazar wrote:5th is a simplified game and dose not have a lot of depth

like HG or some other games (battletech)

And there on HG V2 At least all thier armys get updated at the same time

and their rules are pretty solid as well something GW struggles with

Um, have you even played 40k 5E? It's a *streamlined* game with more actual tactical depth of play than any previous edition of 40k. And I started with 40k back in 2E.

Perhaps you're confusing "depth" with "chrome"? Detail for detail's sake doesn't make a better game. It just makes a more detailed game. HG has a lot of BS detail, like the pretend precision of model costs for example. The Veteran multipliers were definitely pulled out of the designer's ass as arbitrary numbers.

Um, like 40k 3E, HG V2 required a reboot because of the new edition.

"Solid"? My playgroup gave Blitz one night, and it was pretty rapidly determined to be utter crap. Perhaps if the game could be cleaned up to be more like 40k / Flames, with an emphasis on playability, we'll take another look at it. And it's a real pity, as the minis are pretty decent.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Perhaps you're confusing "depth" with "chrome"? Detail for detail's sake doesn't make a better game. It just makes a more detailed game. HG has a lot of BS detail, like the pretend precision of model costs for example.

John totally gets it.

Scott-S6 wrote:Right, I've just finished reading the full rules and I'm underwhelmed. The impression given is that it's kid's battletech. (when I say battletech I am, of course, referring to classic - not that more recent abortion). It might have been a fun little system if shooting actually worked and running around in circles didn't (speed for targetting should be shortest distance between start and end point, like with assaulting vehicles in 40K)

It actually used to be like that, two editions ago (i.e. before Blitz.)
The defense modifier depended on the true distance moved. Including the effect of terrain.
Running behind the trees would be better than through because of that.

Scott-S6 wrote:
Something I find a little alienating, like battletech, is that the pilot is an afterthought - the combat potential of a gear or a mech is entirely about it's hardware. (to be fair, 40K suffers from this a bit as well)

It might not show, but the skills of the pilot are actually important.
Not nearly enough to compensate for the penalties, but enough to show.
In the -2 vs -4, the probability of effect goes to 70%, when the attacker has skill 3 instead if skill 2.
Of course, skill 3 is not the norm, and it does not usually boost that much.
If you look at a more attainable shot, 0 vs 0, the difference is 23% vs 30%.

Scott-S6 wrote:
My main observation is that the OP is confusing level of detail with depth. 40K is both deeper more complex than HG - HG is more detailed. By comparison, 2nd is more complex and more detailed than 5th but 5th is still deeper.

What I found even more frustrating that the range problems is that, if it was not for the range problems, the game had the potential to be much deeper.
The details that you can move-shoot-keep moving, the Reaction Fire rule, the EW rules and the detection and FO rules were nice, and could add a lot of depth.

Then you realize that the only way to hit/survive the artillery is to rush at top speed toward the enemy and wait for him to make a mistake.
So you end up with a scrum in the middle.

Scott-S6 wrote:
For contrast, Stargrunt 2 is an interesting system (free to download) - it's extremely simple and extremely low detail but also very deep. Equipment is largely abstract, performance is determined almost entirely by the quality and motivation of the troops. For example, range is determined by quality, not by weapon. This seems counter-intuitive but is actually very realistic (infantry rifles are almost never fired to their full range potential and cannot be fired accurately to that max range by most soldiers, especially when under fire)

That's probably nitpicky, but I would not really call SG2 "low details," as some of the rules can get quite detailed indeed (medic, and so on.)
I would use like low complexity : there is not that much important differences between the units. Quality and leadership, exact weapons. That's about it.

I would say that HG has about the same level of details, but more complexity. Small example : just determining which vehicle has the best defense required the comparison of 2-3 defense mods and the armor.
That's actually something I like in a game, so YMMW.

Still, I think your core point is that depth is independent from detail and complexity, and I agree totally.

mrondeau wrote:lots of words

I think that could be summed up in a lot less words by saying "great concepts, terrible execution". So, yeah, at first glance, just like Confrontation 3rd ed, it looks very good. Then you start actually playing the game.
And the honeymoon is over.

mrondeau wrote:Then you realize that the only way to hit/survive the artillery is to rush at top speed toward the enemy and wait for him to make a mistake.
So you end up with a scrum in the middle.

Having read the rules now I understand why the Heavy Gear computer game was so weird - the only way to hit anything was with the mortar and similar. Then you'd end up running out of ammo on everything else because you just couldn't kill anything with shooting.

In the interest of fairness, I have to mention that this new "balance" of the game where ranged warfare is neutered to oblivion and artillery is utterly deadly (if a bit random) is relatively recent, so I doubt it'd have affected a game released years before.

Reading this thread, one wonders if Heavy Gear couldn't be saved by reworking the rules and stats as a "mod" using the Flames of War or 40k game engine...

JohnHwangDD wrote:Reading this thread, one wonders if Heavy Gear couldn't be saved by reworking the rules and stats as a "mod" using the Flames of War or 40k game engine...

while i can't comment on FoW, please don't reference the 40k game engine. if they did that, all i'd have left is the art to remember the game by.

Some things to keep in mind:

A certain amount of 'missing' is intentional. If hits at range were more common, you'd see a lot more units destroyed at long range (this seems obvious, I admit...) which would lead to short, boring games. A lot of people really dislike 40k games where 1st turn winner can clear the board with shooting, as I remember...

There's some positive modifiers that can have a lot of effect. The Quickstart rules don't mention all of these... Two I can think of are a bonus for crossfire and a commander can give his/her squad a bonus to attack rolls instead of attacking.

The Quickstart also leaves out some other 'subsystems' as it's intended as a sort of 'demo' version, not the full game.

As for the 40k 5th discussion, something I noticed with that release is the parts didn't equal the whole. A lot of comments here and elsewhere seemed to feel that various rules would be the worst idea ever, but found that when actually played, the game worked better than expected, and was actually playable.

Balance wrote:Some things to keep in mind:
A certain amount of 'missing' is intentional. If hits at range were more common, you'd see a lot more units destroyed at long range (this seems obvious, I admit...) which would lead to short, boring games. A lot of people really dislike 40k games where 1st turn winner can clear the board with shooting, as I remember...

Except that the level of 'missing' is unreasonably high, which is kind of the problem.

Balance wrote:Some things to keep in mind:
There's some positive modifiers that can have a lot of effect. The Quickstart rules don't mention all of these... Two I can think of are a bonus for crossfire and a commander can give his/her squad a bonus to attack rolls instead of attacking.

FYI, both of those are penalty to the defense roll, not bonus to the attack. Which means they do not help when shooting with a -2 on your attack roll.

Most of the problems come from that : it's easy to boost the defense, but really hard to boost the offence.


As for using 40K's rules... no. just no.
The assumptions and style behind both games are just too different.

Balance wrote:Some things to keep in mind:

A certain amount of 'missing' is intentional. If hits at range were more common, you'd see a lot more units destroyed at long range (this seems obvious, I admit...) which would lead to short, boring games. A lot of people really dislike 40k games where 1st turn winner can clear the board with shooting, as I remember...

Actually, the more common complain about 40K would be too much "charging with swords", and not enough "shooting people dead with guns". But regardless, if we go with the end-result, there's no question L&L was intended to severely limit ranged firepower. Why ? That's an excellent question, but we can only wonder. Unfortunately, this went kind of too far (to say the least), and results in a game with very limited tactical scope. A pity, when it had so much potential.

I guess this would be the most ironic part there, since mechanic-wise HG is the better game, but the balance is so bad that the potential is utterly wasted. 40K has its issues, and I doubt we'll ever hear the game mechanics described as "elegant" or even "modern", but it actually works pretty well, and in the end, that's the only thing that matters.

@Hudson: If HG is pushing HtH / close-fire over ranged fire, then that's a lot more like 40k.

JohnHwangDD wrote:@Hudson: If HG is pushing HtH / close-fire over ranged fire, then that's a lot more like 40k.

I actually dropped HG for 40k because ranged attack are more useful in 40k...
That's how bad it got in HG.

40k is a good game don't get me wrong otherwise I would not have been playing it since 2nd. How ever 40k has issues with it keeping updated codexs, supplements like index astretes, eye of terror. Rules that are cloudy and you have to roll for to figure it out waiting forever for a FAQ.

And the HG quickstart is just that short version there is more to shooting I do agree most killing comes around short, medium and some long range. Though I would try the game if you have not and be your own judge don't take my word or anyone else's for it but it is a really enjoyable game to me.

I personaly would like 40k to get more in depth with its rules to me its a little to simple. realy wish they would update my DE and Necrons and balance out the armys some more.

Ugh, so even though I think going onto a primarily 40k board and dissing their game and then trying to pimp Heavy Gear is bound to fail, I'm going to post my thoughts on HG and 40k anyway.

Heavy Gear, with zero optional rules, does have some range issues. Which is why they've got More Carnage in the rulebook, and just recently released a free PDF called GearUp that contained some defense mod changes. With these two changes, the distances are actually quite reasonable and much damage will be done at decent ranges, and taking cover becomes more important than running top speed straight at the enemy.

GW has been around a very long time, and has undergone quite a few revisions as well, and still doesn't get everything right.

I like both 40k and Blitz. I like the quick, streamlined nature of 40k, and the grim dark fluff. And I like HG for its extra details, and combined arms mechanics. And I love the look of the mecha.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Reading this thread, one wonders if Heavy Gear couldn't be saved by reworking the rules and stats as a "mod" using the Flames of War or 40k game engine...

The basic game engine per se has plenty of 'legs', frankly. The implementation is confused by ties to the RPG from the late 1990s, and has not keep pace with the modernization of many games towards playability over 'chrome'. In many ways, the current Blitz implementation is very analogous to 40k 2nd edition, in that the chrome is front and center, but could be massaged with some TLC. I am rather biased in saying this, since I've assembled a collection of house rules to do just that. However, the community at large is small and fragmented enough that players are rare. Last year's Gencon tournament had approximately 7 players if I remember correctly; and one of them I provided an army!

Like Mondreau and HusdonD, the game as it stands does not appeal to me as a game. I love the models, and have an embarrassingly large collection of them, but I find it difficult to defend the game. I still play occasionally, but find it difficult to be excited when the rest of my friends have given up the game as pointless. And I mean that quite literally so; my friends will no longer play the game due to the imbalances and weirdnesses associated with it.

There are some signs that the issues are known about at the higher levels and that there may even be movement towards correcting them; but my gut tells me it's more rearranging deck chairs rather than comprehensive reform. It's alot like the heath-care debate where you have so many people who want different things, and right now the traditionalists are winning. However, the upcoming product appears to be a Gladiatorial game which has zero interest for me, so who knows.

For all of the wall of text above, you can get people excited in the game. It does have combined arms at the center of the game, and at least tries to incorporate them well. It does have a fantastic selection of models (seriously, checkout the CEF HT-68 / HT-72 hovertanks, the Caprice Ammon, or the Paxton Cataphract). And it has quite a bit of potential; here's hoping they can make good on it!

JohnHwangDD wrote:@Hudson: If HG is pushing HtH / close-fire over ranged fire, then that's a lot more like 40k.

... Eh, when I say HG makes 40K feels like grand strategy and a sniper-fest that doesn't mean 40K is actually that
(Although 5th ed is surprisingly deep and tactical, more than one would expect from a GW flagship product)

ferrous wrote:
Heavy Gear, with zero optional rules, does have some range issues. Which is why they've got More Carnage in the rulebook(...)

"Moar Carnage !" (a rule that basically gives a flat +1 bonus to all ranged attacks) was actually considered not optional in our group. I'd rather not mention what we think of the game without it...
Ironically, the lead designer himself posted that this rule was added as an after-thought shortly before release, and not even actually tested.

IceRaptor wrote:
Like Mrondeau and HudsonD, the game as it stands does not appeal to me as a game. I love the models, and have an embarrassingly large collection of them, but I find it difficult to defend the game. I still play occasionally, but find it difficult to be excited when the rest of my friends have given up the game as pointless. And I mean that quite literally so; my friends will no longer play the game due to the imbalances and weirdnesses associated with it.
There are some signs that the issues are known about at the higher levels and that there may even be movement towards correcting them; but my gut tells me it's more rearranging deck chairs rather than comprehensive reform. (...)
For all of the wall of text above, you can get people excited in the game. It does have combined arms at the center of the game, and at least tries to incorporate them well. It does have a fantastic selection of models (seriously, checkout the CEF HT-68 / HT-72 hovertanks, the Caprice Ammon, or the Paxton Cataphract). And it has quite a bit of potential; here's hoping they can make good on it!

We're pretty much in agreement there. The minis are wicked, the gameplay appears deep, but once you start actually playing it, you realize the game as is, just plain doesn't work.

Ultimately, this not only results in very shallow "tactics", but this also hurts unit selection (and mini buying). When you know an Aller MBT is actually out-gunned by your average gear squad. You stop deploying them. When you realize your badass-looking striders are actually big, expensive, vulnerable targets, you stop deploying them. How many times have newbies been warned about striders on the actual DP9 boards ?

HudsonD wrote:
When you know an Aller MBT is actually out-gunned by your average gear squad.

Now let's be fair; that's no where near true. The outcome of that matchup depends too heavily on terrain, the weapons the gears are carrying and the remainder of the tank's composition to make that a blanket statement. It can be out-gunned in built-up terrain, just like it can dominate an open board (especially if it has a height advantage). And if you're using the optional rules from GearUP v1 the gears have an even worse time of it. Stock rules in typical terrain - advantage gears. GearUP + More Carnage + open terrain - advantage tank.

HudsonD wrote:
You stop deploying them. When you realize your badass-looking striders are actually big, expensive, vulnerable targets, you stop deploying them. How many times have newbies been warned about striders on the actual DP9 boards ?

Again, striders are more complex than just 'bad' all around. Sagittarius function well as ECM platforms (even if that's obviously not what they were intended for), and Nagas can be quite useful as either a Command model, or with the AGMs or LFGs. Mammoths suck, as do Thunderhammers. Fire Dragons are more on the suck side of the scale than not, but they can also be useful in certain situations. Are there more efficient models for the roles they fill? Yes - but that's endemic to any game. Are there certain models that are actual detriments to take - yes (Mammoth, Thunderhammer). But it's not as black and white as it's being made out to be.

Blitz suffers from an endemic confusion about the intersection between the game and the background. It's supposed to be realistic - and markets it's self as such (at least in 2E) - but doesn't have enough utility in direct ranged combat to make that work well. Being a hybrid between a mass battle and skirmish system, alot of sins end up being masked by objective play, so many people can have fun with the game, while others find it frustrating beyond compare.

IMO it's worth a look with an open mind - if for nothing else to have an excuse to buy the models - but it most certainly has problems.

IceRaptor wrote:
Again, striders are more complex than just 'bad' all around. Sagittarius function well as ECM platforms (even if that's obviously not what they were intended for), and Nagas can be quite useful as either a Command model, or with the AGMs or LFGs. Mammoths suck, as do Thunderhammers. Fire Dragons are more on the suck side of the scale than not, but they can also be useful in certain situations. Are there more efficient models for the roles they fill? Yes - but that's endemic to any game. Are there certain models that are actual detriments to take - yes (Mammoth, Thunderhammer). But it's not as black and white as it's being made out to be.

You will notice that Sagittarius and Nagas, as well as Fire Dragons, are southern striders, and that both Mammoths and the Thunderhammers are northern striders.
That's kind of a big problem right here.

Paxton striders are not that bad either, but nothing compared to Nagas.
2 Anti Tanks Missile (that are also anti-everything) launchers for 170TV, on a model that's not bigger than a house!
I would have traded every single of my striders for that without hesitation!

mrondeau wrote:
That's kind of a big problem right here.

I won't argue that most factions have lame ducks, and some factions gets hosed with their unit definitions / army composition rules. it's worth keeping in mind that the Northern faction was the first 'codex' created, so they are the weakest, and there's been no move to cycle around and fix them. The curse upthread that they invalidate collections has made them very shy about changing anything, so the North is likely to be a weaker faction for a long time.

However, a bit of house rules easily fix both of those models, as you well know. That's beyond the reach of most newbies of course, but if someone really wants to field a Mammoth, if nothing else I can help with out. And the GearUP modifiers to help them by removing the speed negatives they used to suffer under; a Mammoth + Mastodon upgrade is only -1 DEF, which is decent for armor 27 (decent, not great).

IceRaptor wrote:
Blitz suffers from an endemic confusion about the intersection between the game and the background. It's supposed to be realistic - and markets it's self as such (at least in 2E) - but doesn't have enough utility in direct ranged combat to make that work well. Being a hybrid between a mass battle and skirmish system, alot of sins end up being masked by objective play, so many people can have fun with the game, while others find it frustrating beyond compare.

Big snip cause I'm very short on time, but basically, I would agree, if, and that's one serious "if", the objectives themselves were balanced; this is just not the cause, far from it. Even if HG was perfect as is, flawed objectives would be a significant gameplay issue on their own.

IceRaptor wrote:
Being a hybrid between a mass battle and skirmish system, alot of sins end up being masked by objective play, so many people can have fun with the game, while others find it frustrating beyond compare.

I was trying to make a more general comment about how objective based play tends to hide problems; I was not saying that the objective system per se makes all of HGB's warts vanish. But often people have fun with HGB in spite of it's problems, and it tends to be because they enjoy the skirmish scale and objective play, rather than anything else.

And that's why I was suggesting Flames / 40k as the game engine. Both support objective play, and both are of similar scale.

Really, my only interest in HG is tied to the minis, and the gameplay itself is a major turn-off.

IceRaptor wrote:
I won't argue that most factions have lame ducks, and some factions gets hosed with their unit definitions / army composition rules. it's worth keeping in mind that the Northern faction was the first 'codex' created, so they are the weakest, and there's been no move to cycle around and fix them. The curse upthread that they invalidate collections has made them very shy about changing anything, so the North is likely to be a weaker faction for a long time.

I just wanted to specify that the distribution of good and bad striders was not uniform, which is not obvious if you just skim your post.
Although, I must say that the south does seems to be really min-maxed compared to the others factions.
But that's far from new. It was similar in Blitz, Tac and 2nd ed.
Since HudsonD used to play north, well, it definitively colors his impression of striders.

HudsonD wrote:
Big snip cause I'm very short on time, but basically, I would agree, if, and that's one serious "if", the objectives themselves were balanced; this is just not the cause, far from it. Even if HG was perfect as is, flawed objectives would be a significant gameplay issue on their own.

IceRaptor wrote:
I was trying to make a more general comment about how objective based play tends to hide problems; I was not saying that the objective system per se makes all of HGB's warts vanish. But often people have fun with HGB in spite of it's problems, and it tends to be because they enjoy the skirmish scale and objective play, rather than anything else.

I will not comment on the fun part, that's purely a question of opinion.
But the objectives are not balanced : some are easier, some are harder and Blockade is a good way to lose a game.
And some are random : you randomly select a group at the beginning.
Personally, I prefer a game set up that does not end up advantaging a player randomly. I prefer it when both players have an equal chance of winning.
If you don't really care about that, that's not a problem, and the difference is not that big, unless you are very unlucky, or you have decided to try Blockade.

I know it take a couple of games for many of the defects to become obvious (which is true for all games, I guess,) and that many of those defects go against the way the game is presented, so I prefer to warn people.
After that, I know that some like the game as it is, and that it's possible to enjoy it despite, or even because of, what I consider to be major flaws.

JohnHwangDD wrote:And that's why I was suggesting Flames / 40k as the game engine. Both support objective play, and both are of similar scale.

Really, my only interest in HG is tied to the minis, and the gameplay itself is a major turn-off.

Personal history here : I started playing HG because I wanted a game without squad coherency, where the shooting can be done at every point in the movement, where close combat is the exception, not the rule (at the time, VibroBlades were used as damage sinks more often than as weapons.)

All that is not present in either FoW or 40K.

In other words, if I want to play 40K or FoW, I would play 40K or FoW.
Not every game need to be the same.

IceRaptor wrote: Stock rules in typical terrain - advantage gears. GearUP + More Carnage + open terrain - advantage tank.

so... to recap.. if you use a whole bunch of optional rules and tweak the terrain majorly, a whole class of expensive ($$ and points) vehicles is viable? ugg... i remember the rules being more elegant than that in regular blitz before the company screwed me over *AGAIN*... perhaps it was because i only actually played twice as it was quite difficult to find an opponent in a city as small as chicago.

warboss wrote:
so... to recap.. if you use a whole bunch of optional rules and tweak the terrain majorly, a whole class of expensive ($$ and points) vehicles is viable?

Pretty much spot on with the optional rules bit. But the terrain issue is a bit trickier; Heavy Gear Blitz is extremely sensitive to terrain density, and can wind up playing entirely differently based upon the lack (or abundance) of terrain. So 'tweak the terrain majorly' is a bit misleading; if you are playing HGB with the same level of terrain as 40k, that's pretty much a killing ground for gears. If you play with a warmachine or FoW amount of terrain, balance shifts back to gears, dependent on how many fire lanes. If you play with dense terrain, like Infinity or Mordheim, tanks are pretty useless, since the gears can get too close to them. The first two gears who pop their heads out will die, and then the tank will get nuked.

The amount of terrain that must be missing before tanks can be useful depends on those optional rules; without them, 'scout' gears seem nearly unkillable at range. Running 'unkillable' scouts into the teeth of my friend's heavy assault troops - spending two turns without damage - is what caused my friends to swear off the game. The optional rules tone down those modifiers so where a decent shot at medium range or so from a stationary tank should be lethal, even on the 'unkillable' scout. Without the optional rules, you have a pretty bad chance of damage on a charging gear (somewhere in the 25-40% range); fortunately any hit should be close to vaporizing the target.

But yeah, heavy vehicles get the shaft a bit under stock rules.

warboss wrote:
ugg... i remember the rules being more elegant than that in regular blitz before the company screwed me over *AGAIN*... perhaps it was because i only actually played twice as it was quite difficult to find an opponent in a city as small as chicago.

Yeah, Heavy Gear has always been fringe, even back during the days of the video games. I think there's all of two players in the Columbus, OH area; and maybe 5 in the nearby Dayton, OH area. Not exactly a large playerbase by any measure...