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Those are lookin really good, John. So clean.

Tried out some ECM equipped frames in tonight's battle.

My CEF force faced off against a southern force at 150 points on a 6X4 table.

This time i decided to leave the infantry at home and went with an all mechanized force. the extra dice from the ECM really helped out. while i managed to take out a third of his force for the loss of 2 of my tanks. he managed to squeak out a win by 1 point on objectives.

More Heavy Gears.



Tigers, Weasels and Bobcats join the Antelopes.



And some Dingos.

Some Hunters.



And some Wildcats.

While i was tied up in another game i let a regular in our group borrow my CEF force at 150 points facing off against a southern force.





I got a game in later testing out my sub list tank company with type 68 tanks mounting HPAs, it was a pretty brutal left push. i only lost 2 tanks and i managed to tie him on objectives in the end.

Some Chaingun Razorbacks!



I initially planned to paint 4 of these, but the Blitz! 3.1 rules basically only allow 2 of each variant in a squad, so I'm probably going to swap the 2 I didn't paint over to snub cannon Razorbacks.

Also, a FDM building that I painted. I got a big pile of buildings off Etsy for pretty cheap, and they were advertised as 6-8mm scale, so I bought them for Battletech (and hopefully my Mercenaries pledge will ship soon). But look at that ladder, that's 15mm scale. But I need buildings for Heavy Gear too, so whatever.

I decided to try mounting some PRDF Shinobi on 32mm rounds. This is half the squad. I had some unpainted Shinobi hanging about on 40mm and they really benefited from switch, even if I had to carve slots into the bases.



The Shinobi with the vibrorapier doesn't have a power sword effect, his sword is just painted green for camo purposes.

I'm still haven't chosen a texture paint for the bases. My old PRDF basing used a lot of painted sand and I've really come to hate painting sand, texture paint is IMHO very worth the money.

Once I finish the Shinobi I'll probably do some of the newer PRDF gears (Argos, Greyhound, Spartan) and I have a frankly unhealthy amount of striders in my 'to do' list.

Very nice work!

Those are looking great as always, John

So... it seems that DP9 has decided to dip their toes into the digital realm, and has started selling STL files for 3d printing on DrivethruRPG.

The problem is... that out of everything they have, they seem to have decided to start with the least detailed, least interesting, least appealing stuff... recreating their resin scenery basically point for point (if not lessening the details) for their files:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/es/publisher/19/dream-pod-9/category/50372/heavy-gear-stl-3d-models

The first batch, even though it states that's for resin printing, has almost no detail whatsoever that would need any kind of resin printing (those will print perfectly enough in fdm):





At the scale of HG, these are mostly underwhelming and underdetailed.

At least the second batch of sets are stoneheads, which are very much a HG staple... but they have decided to make them completely smooth, with no rock texture whatsoever (a big disappointed, as that would have been cool for a resin print). But at least they're more interesting and evocative:



(this one has at least a bit of texture... not on the heads, of course, on the rest >_&gt:




All in all, so far pretty underwhelming, particularly for the asking price, which seems quite above market averages, and for the shown quality, which is not great.

C'mon, DP9, I want to buy your digital stuff. Make an effort, please? Also, Gears! 28mm Gears, please!

Seriously, if you're able to release stuff at this level, I'd buy a shitton

 Albertorius wrote:
Those are looking great as always, John

Thanks!

C'mon, DP9, I want to buy your digital stuff. Make an effort, please? Also, Gears! 28mm Gears, please!

28mm gears would be lovely for painting projects, especially if they were posable. I'd buy them pre-printed, given DP9 is already 3D printing some of their gears for sale.

HGB is a game that caught my attention, the battletech I wanted to play, cool minis, interesting rules, lore, but unfortunately I live in Europe, and there's no distribution here. Buying from their site from Canada is super expensive, so...

https://rpg-piekielko.pl/pl/menu/heavy-gear-blitz-660.html

https://scifi-trader.net/Heavy-Gear---183.html

 John Prins wrote:
I decided to try mounting some PRDF Shinobi on 32mm rounds. This is half the squad. I had some unpainted Shinobi hanging about on 40mm and they really benefited from switch, even if I had to carve slots into the bases.



The Shinobi with the vibrorapier doesn't have a power sword effect, his sword is just painted green for camo purposes.

I'm still haven't chosen a texture paint for the bases. My old PRDF basing used a lot of painted sand and I've really come to hate painting sand, texture paint is IMHO very worth the money.

Once I finish the Shinobi I'll probably do some of the newer PRDF gears (Argos, Greyhound, Spartan) and I have a frankly unhealthy amount of striders in my 'to do' list.

Nice work! I know I'm a bit late to the party but figured I'd chime in anyways. I'm always amazed when people can competently and consistently do the quartered rocket tips. At my current age and eyesight (as compared to when I started with HG back in 1994), I'm even amazed someone can simply see them clearly with the naked eye!

 warboss wrote:


Nice work! I know I'm a bit late to the party but figured I'd chime in anyways. I'm always amazed when people can competently and consistently do the quartered rocket tips. At my current age and eyesight (as compared to when I started with HG back in 1994), I'm even amazed someone can simply see them clearly with the naked eye!

Dude I use a magnifying visor these days. And my rocket quartering is worse than 10 years ago.

After 12 years, a new Mekong Dominion mini. This one's a Hooded Cobra. It's a variant on the King Cobra, but the original version of this gear had a different torso configuration, which matches the Python's torso. So I decided to make a conversion rather than just do a weapon swap on the King Cobra.



After 12 years I had to figure out which paints I used, because this was prior to me bluebooking my paint schemes.

Just finished a few Peace River gears!

First, the Greyhound:



Second, a Shamshir Argos:



And finally, two Crusader MkV Crisis Responders:

Very nice work as always! Do you get the opportunity to play much? If so, has the current edition/plastics helped in that regard out of curiosity?

 warboss wrote:
Very nice work as always! Do you get the opportunity to play much? If so, has the current edition/plastics helped in that regard out of curiosity?

No, I haven't had much play time. Some of my friends were into Heavy Gear years ago (they even backed the Kickstarter for the plastics) but one is basically too busy with family and work and the other is too hobby butterfly and more of a Battletech player. I want to get some games going at the FLGS to attract new players, so I'm building some terrain and painting up some minis to keep my interest aligned. I should probably just speedpaint some plastics to have a red/blue opps force for demos or something.



I was one of the few backers that got their TerraForms terrain, so I'm finally getting off my butt and building it...



I actually managed to use all the pieces to make 6 compounds. I'll save the more 'urban' stuff for later, though I am tempted to build the nuclear plant.

Well, you definitely have enough eye candy with your painted figs to attract some lookie-loos into hopefully playing!

Jus saw the Pod has added a couple new vehicles to their STL offerings. Nice!

...they're still asking a bit too much for what are very basic designs on a REALLY competitive market (although, again, much better than the truck, and with an added cheaper bundle for both), but it's a step in the right direction IMHO, particularly with the recent... economic climate, let's say.

OTOH? The Murdock/Seeker and the Nightingale are also VERY Heavy Gear designs, distinct and interesting. Would love to see the Barnaby and the Behemoth done this way... particularly if they do it a bit better and a bit more detailed ^^.

At least those two new STLS aren't as expensive as the Camel set.

Meanwhile I been on a 3d modelling bender for HG remaking a bunch of weapons and heads for free.

I got so tired of waiting for a Damocles to be made that I went ahead and said "Fine, I'll do it myself" XD

Duymon wrote:
At least those two new STLS aren't as expensive as the Camel set.

That IS an absolute positive... I simply cannot justify the Camel set for what it is.

Meanwhile I been on a 3d modelling bender for HG remaking a bunch of weapons and heads for free.

I got so tired of waiting for a Damocles to be made that I went ahead and said "Fine, I'll do it myself" XD

Those are pretty neat, good job!

...they're actually better than the current official STLs. Man, that's sad in a way xD

 Albertorius wrote:

Those are pretty neat, good job!

...they're actually better than the current official STLs. Man, that's sad in a way xD

Thanks! That damocles and all my other stuff, such as the hunter commando EW conversion are all free on my cult's page

I've just been making replacement HG weapons and heads for my own collection and sharing them online for about a month because I recently opened up my huge backlog of metal HG minis and found a ton of mismolded weapons and heads I didn't like. (sadly I didn't get into South or Nucoal so won't be making a lot of parts for those lol)

There's something about DP9's 3d designs that don't jive with me. The plastics and their recent gear designs feel static, lacking any of the motion or soul of the minimaniak sculpts. It also baffles me that despite going to 3d printing they don't appear to put a large focus on headsculpts as can be seen in the new wolf and Panda gears. The head is a huge focal point of the gear and with 3d printing I was hoping they'd return to the more complex head geometry that the metals have, at least better than what a total amateur (me) with a month of actual 3d modelling experience can make

I definitely agree. The transition to the line of plastics from the Le Clerc metals reminded me most of the transition from the RAFM models to the tactical scale in that, while technically accurate, lost most of the artistic flare and felt more asthetically soulless. It's not that those other lines were perfect by any means as they had plenty of room for improvement but they had a charm/flare that didn't translate over well unfortunately.

I do understand that part of this is by necessity to make an only two part small mould for the plastics that gives options for (limited and stilted) poseability within those constraints as opposed to a single more dynamic post.

Duymon wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

Those are pretty neat, good job!

...they're actually better than the current official STLs. Man, that's sad in a way xD

Thanks! That damocles and all my other stuff, such as the hunter commando EW conversion are all free on my cult's page

Oh that's excellent. Cheers

I've just been making replacement HG weapons and heads for my own collection and sharing them online for about a month because I recently opened up my huge backlog of metal HG minis and found a ton of mismolded weapons and heads I didn't like. (sadly I didn't get into South or Nucoal so won't be making a lot of parts for those lol)

Mould issues and slippage has always been a problem with DP9 metals >_>

There's something about DP9's 3d designs that don't jive with me. The plastics and their recent gear designs feel static, lacking any of the motion or soul of the minimaniak sculpts. It also baffles me that despite going to 3d printing they don't appear to put a large focus on headsculpts as can be seen in the new wolf and Panda gears. The head is a huge focal point of the gear and with 3d printing I was hoping they'd return to the more complex head geometry that the metals have, at least better than what a total amateur (me) with a month of actual 3d modelling experience can make

IMHO is a combination of poor sculpting quality (you can absolutely do dynamic, detailed and inspiring stuff on 3d... hell, you could 1:1 all the old Ghislaine's illustrations if you so chose... and I'd buy TONS of those... but you gotta know how) and unappealing renders, which make them even worse looking. That and, as you say, really, REALLY simple stuff, when you can go whole hog with them and know that the printers are more than good enough to render it all.

And it's not like HG is particularly hard to sculpt, you know... even if you want to be accurate.

Other people manage, after all:





And yeah, I bought that one. Because it's amazing and because I still love HG, despite everything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:
I definitely agree. The transition to the line of plastics from the Le Clerc metals reminded me most of the transition from the RAFM models to the tactical scale in that, while technically accurate, lost most of the artistic flare and felt more asthetically soulless. It's not that those other lines were perfect by any means as they had plenty of room for improvement but they had a charm/flare that didn't translate over well unfortunately.

I do understand that part of this is by necessity to make an only two part small mould for the plastics that gives options for (limited and stilted) poseability within those constraints as opposed to a single more dynamic post.

I would have bought that for plastics, up to a point (again, other manufacturers manage, so it's more of a knowledge problem). And we did point out the problems and possible solutios for them during the KS, just to be shut down and be called an "agitator".

But for STLs for 3d printing? There's simply no excuse to be that... let's call it minimalistic.

 Albertorius wrote:

And it's not like HG is particularly hard to sculpt, you know... even if you want to be accurate.

Other people manage, after all:

Spoiler:

And yeah, I bought that one. Because it's amazing and because I still love HG, despite everything.

I don't think it was your explicit intent but those two pics kind of remind me of the what you ordered/what you got meme in terms of 3d sculpting and HG. The bottom unposed pic really does remind me of the polar gear plastics unfortunately. :( Caprice being the obvious exception to the above comments as usual though...

I mean, that sculpt is accurate to the lineart ^^. But it's also poseable, and detailed, and works pretty well. It also has a fully posed one if you don't wanna bother:


(except the gun, that is ^^)

Would I prefer something more like the old illustrations? well, sure, but that one? That one's good design.

Plus, the plastics (specifically the polar ones from the first KS) had the additional problems of 1) legs posing started below the skirts, so the poses were,,, weird, and 2) they decided to do negatives of the details for the shoulders and stuff, because that was easier (and well, general lack of detail)

 Albertorius wrote:
I mean, that sculpt is accurate to the lineart ^^. But it's also poseable, and detailed, and works pretty well. It also has a fully posed one if you don't wanna bother:

Would I prefer something more like the old illustrations? well, sure, but that one? That one's good design.

Plus, the plastics (specifically the polar ones from the first KS) had the additional problems of 1) legs posing started below the skirts, so the poses were,,, weird, and 2) they decided to do negatives of the details for the shoulders and stuff, because that was easier (and well, general lack of detail)

Ah man I'm still bitter about that. It's actually what made me take a break from HG back then >_<

I don't get why the murdock looks kinda squished from front to back. When you compare it to the art it doesn't look right

Duymon wrote:
Thanks! That damocles and all my other stuff, such as the hunter commando EW conversion are all free on [url=https://cults3d.com/en/users/Duymon/3d-models]my cult's page[/url

Checked your Cults page, man, fantastic work


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Duymon wrote:
Ah man I'm still bitter about that. It's actually what made me take a break from HG back then >_<

I don't get why the murdock looks kinda squished from front to back. When you compare it to the art it doesn't look right

...yeah I got nothing. But it's a recurring issue... the final sculpts don't really look like the images

Duymon wrote:
I don't get why the murdock looks kinda squished from front to back. When you compare it to the art it doesn't look right

It's something in the render screenshot. The Saker had the exact same problem when they previewed it - looked way too short, like a light pickup truck with smooshed face. But the actual physical model looks just fine.