Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Thanks very much for the feedback, as well as the size comparisons and ideas, guys. I'll use those from Mr. Agis as an example in discussions in the near future, so others know what kind of ideas you're all having as far as 'approximate size' for these counters.

So, there have been numerous questions from all the Backers regarding the playstyle, the scale, and the overall vision for the game.

Fusion Core provided a ton of good information, including in their most recent update, but honestly, I didn't want everyone to have to look at constant walls of text.

Towards that end, I compiled all the pertinent information in this post on my blog:

http://heavygearthunderrun.blogspot.com/2016/11/what-is-heavy-gear-dreadnoughts-about.html?view=classic

Hopefully this will be concise enough for everyone regarding the overall feel of the game.

TLDR:

If you have any experience with the wargame Harpoon, that's one of the big influences over the direction of Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts.

And, while North and South are varied slightly, they're not completely assymetrical. They have certain qualities that separate individual vessel classes from each other, but there's no tried-and-true 'one-size-fits-all'.

BrandonKF wrote:
So, there have been numerous questions from all the Backers regarding the playstyle, the scale, and the overall vision for the game.

Fusion Core provided a ton of good information, including in their most recent update, but honestly, I didn't want everyone to have to look at constant walls of text.

Towards that end, I compiled all the pertinent information in this post on my blog:

http://heavygearthunderrun.blogspot.com/2016/11/what-is-heavy-gear-dreadnoughts-about.html?view=classic

Hopefully this will be concise enough for everyone regarding the overall feel of the game.

From your blog post, I'm not sure the scale is a best fit for the actual dreadnought models. 20km to an inch... but you have 5in long models on the table? I realize it's abstracted but that is a huge literal and figurative stretch. It seems like the game is trying to cater to the modelling crowd by shoehorning in huge models into a satellite view game ruleset where they'd be a tiny speck instead. How long are the in game turns in relation to real life? Several hours? If a gear can move only 20-40kph at combat speed, they'll either be inching along or the turns will be several hours at least. The scale also brings you what exactly the small unit tokens will represent at that scale... is it a gear company and the turn is their daily activity? I was frankly expecting an in to be 1-5km at most.

I was actually talking with Wunji on the phone when you responded, warboss, so he directed me to point out this final paragraph that he included in the update on the Kickstarter (I didn't add it to the post on my blog, I'll edit that for content.)

"Before I finish up this post, I want to mention boardgames. Some of you have surely noticed that this game has a lot of boardgame-like qualities, and would actually play just fine without miniatures. That's intentional. With this game and funding campaign, we wanted to try something a little different, to test the market for interest in a sci-fi miniatures game with strategic elements. It might not work, but that's the beauty of Kickstarter: if the market doesn't like it, we'll know before we drop a hundred grand on injection molds. Obviously, we want to hit all these stretch goals and make some awesome miniatures, but we've always had contingency plans in place. We love the game itself, and even without the pricy plastic doodads, there are paths to getting the system to market.

Next time, we'll get into unit stats."

So, basically, the length of the game turns won't be several hours, it will range longer than that. The idea behind the landship miniatures is because, frankly, it looks cool on the tabletop. Just like OGRE, Battlefleet Gothic, or any number of abstracted games that occur over extended ranges - ranging from kilometers in OGRE, to tens of thousands in Battlefleet Gothic - Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts' miniatures are intended to represent the new vessels in a pleasing format on the tabletop for wargamers and boardgamers alike.

I forwarded your suggestions concerning the size of Gears, infantry, and tanks to him.

I also received more information concerning the unit stats, and the basic idea of gameplay, and having heard it, I'm looking forward to when he can update and fill you all in on it.

Repeated, it seems it got lost in the crowd:

 Albertorius wrote:

Now, speaking here about my personal preference, that would be to play ala "old fluff" with landships: how viable is an army based around a single landship used as a mobile base for a conventional army (batallion to regiment sized, approximately), with maybe 2-3 very small escort corvettes? I'm obviously thinking Vigilance + Harvest Wind Regiment here, which would be the kind of game I'm interested in for HG.

Also, I think you put a couple extra letter here:

BrandonKF wrote:
And, while North and South are varied slightly, they're not completely assymetrical. They have certain qualities that separate individual vessel classes from each other, but there's no tried-and-true 'one-size-fits-all'.

Do you mean "they're not completely symmetrical"? Because I'm not really sure I understand the phrase.

Sorry about losing you Al. Electronic warfare jamming, plus lack of caffeine in the mornings.

Answer to your first question?

Yes, you can scale down to using just those units you spoke of. Unit selection comes prior to the game from the total amount you have available, and you can choose which of those you deploy on the battlespace. So, using only one capital landship is an option, plus ground forces.

To the second point, I was using the term 'assymetrical' to say that the landships themselves were not differentiated by a 'armor vs speed' compoment. That's my mistake in terminology.

Each landship largely is equal to its Northern or Southern opponent.

These are being given actual datacards, while the ground forces are generalized with tinier stat blocks. As the centerpieces, the landships have more options available to how they operate and what they use during the turn.

Edit: The closest equivalent I have personally encountered would be OGRE datacards versus ground forces, or possibly Star Wars Armada ships versus fighter squadrons. Though I haven't seen the landship datacards yet, I'm thinking it's close to that.

Yeah, I really like what you guys are doing for HG and the rules. Backed.

The order of battle thing for list building is a very nice concept.

Although HG did it first, you can see some influence in and from Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak.

It makes me think of Bolo tanks or Ogre. That scale would be nice maybe for BFG

Backed.

Love the concept and the fact that it is inspired by Harpoon.

Thank you for the clarifications, Brandon

From the KS comments:

"Movement: At this scale, movement is fairly simple. A unit has a Movement rating in inches, applied based on the terrain it starts the turn in. With the player's role as a regional commander, the nitty gritty of what to do with the tiller and throttle is someone else's problem. You tell a given ship's captain to head to a certain location and prepare for enemy contact from a certain direction, and they'll manage the exact turns and thrust needed to get there. When an inch is 20 km, the question of where to take a 45-degree turn is simply irrelevant.
Another big reason for this abstraction is complexity. You're handling dozens of units, and measuring individual turns takes a lot of time for very little actual tactical value; you already know where you want to go, so we're not really interested in making you declare exactly how you're getting there. With landships launching aircraft, repairing tanks, resupplying troops, firing artillery, and providing air defense, a player already has plenty to do in the game; our objective is to make each action you take have a clear and useful consequence.
(Facing is important, though, since it determines how a unit is setting up its defense or offense, and choosing whether to move through or around restrictive terrain does make a big difference in meeting objectives and combat effectiveness.) "

It looks like they're standing firm on the scale. It's not my cup of tea personally (especially when combined with the size of the minis... 100km long abstracted landships on the board) as I feel it would be better served by going the full board game route with counters and tiny minis instead but I won't harp on that scale point further.

From the same comment:

"Over the entire battlefield, though, every unit is assigned a single status called Sig (our shorthand for Signal, Detection, and Status). As that implies, it's a combined stat for how visible the unit is, how noisy it is, and how damaged/tired it is; it's a value that summarizes how prepared that unit is to take on your next order:
Zero Sig: Fresh and raring to go!
Green Sig: Bloodied but unbowed.
Yellow Sig: Can't take much more of this, sir.
Red Sig: I guess we can use sharp sticks and harsh language.

Why use a single combined status? Well, the main reason is playability. We really don't like counter deluge. With a few dozen units on the table, it's easy to write rules that result in hundreds of little pieces of cardboard all over the place. So, rather than implement a detailed system of tracking multiple traits, we stayed true to our scale, and went with the level of information a commander would get when pointing to a unit on a map and asking an aide "hey, real quick, how are those guys over there doing?"
Thus, many units on the field won't have counters at all, and units that do will almost always max out at two counters: Sig and Orders (we can talk about Orders another time). Landships also have Sig, but they have multiple components that sustain damage individually, so there are more counters there, but the landships are the stars of the show, so we think that'll be okay (within reason; almost all of a landship's counters are on its datacard, so grease pencils and such work just fine, too).
The single Sig status is used to account for most battlefield effects. Every unit goes through the same three stages of Sig, but different units go up in Sig with greater or less difficulty in various situations. The higher a unit's Sig, the more vulnerable it is to artillery, the worse it performs in battle, and the less likely it is to be able to successfully withdraw from the field. When a unit sustains mild damage, it gains Sig. When a unit has stealth capabilities, its Sig is harder to raise from zero (but easier to raise to Red). Note that high Sig won't directly result in a unit's destruction; an enemy or effect still has to actually inflict damage to get the unit off the table."

That definitely feels very board gamey as well Again, not harping on the board game aspect as they full on said it was their inspiration and goal but it makes the minis feel shoehorned in to partially scratch another itch/genre that people expect (HG is a minis game traditionally).

@Jehan and Ctaylor, glad to have you on board.

@Al, Always.

@warboss, Yes, it's very board-gamey, but it does avoid the rather colorful "comet tail".

Also, since your selection is made prior to the game, you might deploy all your landships on the outset, but...


"For "combat results," if you mean resolution of individual battles between troop units, e.g., a group of tanks vs a group of gears, then that's a roll (made by both participants) that's determined by the terrain the unit is in and what specific orders it currently has. This roll is a damage roll, and both units will always suffer some level of detriment. The minimum result is always an increase in both units' visibility/stress level (see the bit about Sig below).


The units have expended fuel and ammo; also both sides now know more about the opposing unit's composition, status, position, etc., and can use that information to make the next engagement easier (or simply drop artillery on them). A more severe result causes the unit to withdraw from the field. This doesn't necessarily mean they got "defeated;" in the case of heavy gears, for example, it may just mean that after days or weeks of successful battles, they're out of ammo, low on fuel, and their crews are collapsing from exhaustion. If you force such a unit to stay deployed, it becomes more vulnerable to being destroyed, from which there's no coming back (at least not in the timeframe of the game).


If, by "combat results" you mean overall victory conditions, the primary gain of victory points comes from holding objectives and completing missions. Missions are semi-randomized; they're drawn from a pool, so you'll know what 10 possible missions you might get, but you won't know which 3 or 4 you'll actually end up drawing in the game (this allows players to build armies around a broad strategy, but still forces adaptable force selection for each game). Damage and destruction of enemy units is also important, but losing too many of your own units reduces victory points.


The effect is that your forces attack the enemy not for the sake of wanton destruction, but to prevent them from taking your objectives or obstructing your missions. (And yes, we've found that it's REALLY hard to play a "pacifist" game, since partway through, both players are eyeing the same last couple of objectives, wondering what missions the other player has left, doing the math and realizing that somebody's going to have to be persuaded to vacate something.)


Look at victory points as a "job evaluation" when your character returns home from the campaign. Did you destroy an enemy landship? Excellent! Did you end up nuking a city in the process? Not so excellent. Did you complete the missions you were assigned? You're promoted! Did you leave your troops to die without food or ammo? You're fired."


-

The minis might feel shoehorned in, but there's something else to be said about "pinpointing" where they are. In the scheme of the game and universe, landships carry some of the most powerful sensors and electronic countermeasures available. In order to avoid orbital artillery, they have accurate tracking of space-side satellites, and while in peacetime most of these satellites are safe, when a conflict occurs it's an unspoken but understood rule that no satellite with observational capabilities is 'safe'.

So, while you might know the vicinity of where a landship is on the battlespace, you won't know precisely its location in relation to everything else. Hence where 'Sig' applies, I believe. As combat continues, the landship's movements are tracked, and it becomes more and more vulnerable to return fire.

Edit for explanation:

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.

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. That's all really kept in the background however, as this focuses primarily on deploying your ships and troops appropriately to the missions you have before you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Fusion Core recently shared this little art piece of the smaller carrier, the Borasco, featured as one of the Stretch Goals, on Facebook:

This is gonna be so cool! "Naval" fighting in the sands and in canyons with other units moving about assaulting fortified positions that are either built into canyons or mountain sides or something. This is right up there with Big Wars, VOTOMS and Gundam! (Yes, I am a huge mecha anime fan.)
Can't wait to see where this goes and best of luck to the kickstarter.

Hey, gyro, glad you like the concept, and thanks very kindly for the best wishes. The Kickstarter is now sitting just $120 under $18,000, which is almost 60 percent to the initial funding goal.

I spoke with Wunji, who is having some issues at the house to take care of, but things are starting to look a little better now, so hopefully we'll have an update to the KS soon.