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 Mmmpi wrote:
I figured out how to get a 2nd TD in a skirmisher unit.
XO's and 2nd In Commands are on the list of commanders. So they can be given CMD variants. You just have to pay an extra +3/+2 pts.

@Warboss
My book says that the North gets TD infantry (squad, EW 4+). If you can keep it near what it's TDing for, you should get the buff with no roll.

Apologies if this is outdated (file on my phone) but is this below not the case here? This is from the July 17th version of the rules and I think one came out two days later that I didn't update on mobile devices.

A Comms roll is used to transmit targeting information to other ready model or to a Commander model that can direct a response. Receivers of Comms rolls that are in
Formation with the origin model still require a successful Comms roll by the Origin model to be Receivers.

FO is a comms roll so even if you're nearby the firing model you still need to roll. Is there an exception elsewhere? I didn't see it under FO either although I did see that the FO range increased to sensor range (yay!) instead of just a blanket 12".

 Mmmpi wrote:
Yeah, I missed that change. Or read it wrong initially.

Also, it seems that the Assault Grizzly and Strike Grizzly varients have been removed (But the Destroyer Grizzly got a point cheaper)

Was there ever a strike grizzly? Yeah, the assault (mbzk) is gone and replaced (at least again on the july 17th file) with the grizzly destroyer (hbzk). I'm fine with the change as its an easy counts as and I came across it with the earlier version of the file (it's not a new change iirc). I was unsure how to model my Rafm bazooka armed grizzly 2-3 months ago because I wasn't sure if the assault grizzly would come back. The current one is a mix between the regular grizzly, assault, and destroyer variants iirc with parts from each.

 Mmmpi wrote:
The assault had a MSC. It's from a about two (beta) books back.

Ah, thanks. I skipped a few in between due to a lack of interest. I was going off of the old RPG variants and (to a lesser extent) previous blitz rules.

bound for glory wrote:
I hav'nt looked over the rules as of late.

Are things looking up for the system?

Yup. The rules are free and the plastics are alot cheaper. If this doesn't help the IP grow, nothing will. The company still engages in the occasional shennanigans if that matters to you. If you've got minis left over from previous eras, you can download the rules for free to try them out. They're the first really new rules in 20 years which so you'll have to determine yourself whether it's an improvement. I will say that they're quicker though.

In playtesting, I advocated for turning the black talons into an optional ally for all TN factions. You'd basically get to use them as your one allowed veteran squad or more in an elite army (with the restriction that your "allies" had to be 25% or less of your total points). I don't think that allies restriction made it into the normal game though and obviously neither did Talons as an ally only force. That's not necessarily great for BT only players but frankly that "faction" was utterly broken in Blitz needing multiple points boosts and they still weren't any fun to play against (or with if you had any shame) and should never have been solo in the game for default normal play (special scenario or campaign play is another story though). YMMV.

John Prins wrote:
The Dark Series gears were all just upgraded (and stealthed up) Northern and Southern gears. The Claw series were all experimental Paxton gears introduced in "Black Talons: Mission to Caprice" that were re-named, given a stealth coating and crammed into the 'all new' Black Talon army for Blitz.

Black Talons were horrible to play against. They had 3-4 dice for offense and defense and often you couldn't even shoot them because of Stealth, and most of them were carrying one-hit-kill weapons thanks to superior fire control, accuracy and the many, many dice they could throw. Due to the Priority system they weren't unbeatable - elite armies had MORE objectives to fulfill than lesser armies, but that usually meant your tactics vs Black Talons was "fulfill one objective then run and hide the rest of the game".

Hopefully the changes in the rules (especially Stealth) make them more tolerable to play against. They'll never go into plastics, though, they're far too low volume an army (half the units of anything else).

Agree completely. The only thing I might add is that their achilles heel (multiple super recon gears like weasels plus lots of indirect fire) made them not very fun to play with because they suddenly lost half their abilites (namely stealth). It was very much a rock paper scissors game in that you'd (given normal dice rolls) likely know the outcome of a game just from looking at the armies. If the talons faced a normal force, they easily won. If the other player had the $$ to build a decidedly anti-talon force with minmaxed recon gears then the talons usually lost. The whole premise of an elite army of invisible super gears piloted by the best of the best of the best (because the BOTB was already a TN planet faction thing!) whose abilities consisted of multiple gamebreaking mechanics to ensure your opponent's models literally couldn't do ANYTHING is great for RPG or story fiction... but sucks as a tabletop gameplay mechanic. I had a talon army that I played twice... once against in a demo (the guy was frankly a TFG new talon player who picked up a few models at gencon who refused to acknowledge the "fanzine" gear up points cost boosts because it had the word optional in the article) with a balanced southern force... and the talons won but at least I put up a fight. I then said lets play another with mirrored forces and I absolutely creamed him and asked him if he thought that was a fair matchup. Needless to say I never heard from him again. I would also point out that you could achieve in all fairness almost Talon levels of unfun games by taking multiple stealth squads in polar factions as well (especially the south).

As you said, balance is better now by virtue of the stealth rules not being completely stupidly broken but the talons IMO still aren't very balanced. When I looked at like for like models (as close as I could at least) like the Snakeye Mamba vs Dark Mamba comparison. For 1pt, you get an MRP, 1" reach on your vibroblade, autopilot, and an extra hull point. Each one of those is easily a 1pt upgrade each for other factions but talons get each of them for 75% off. The sniper panther vs dark jaguar sniper variant is another. The North version gets a HRF instead of a MRF.. but the talon gets autopilot, extra hull, 1" range on the vibroblade and a 1pt discount compared with the northern gear. I'd easily given the option ALWAYS take the talon versions of those gears instead of the polar ones. The point values for the other talons including claw series are spitballed as well (no real VCS in nublitz to ignore like was the case in normal blitz for paxton and nucoal) so in all likelihood have the same discounts factored in as well. It's not as bad as in blitz but the trend does continue.

John Prins wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:


Believe it or not, they were not much fun to play with either.

I generally found people went with Black Talons because it required the minimum number of models to paint. It was extremely inexpensive to get started with BT, but it's the exact wrong army for a starter to play. Someone who knew what they were doing with BT was really unpleasant to play against.

That's why I picked it up as a opfor for my primary (at the time) southern force. Low model count, easy paint job, great fluff, different tactics... but still the gears that I loved. Even for a relatively veteran player (in terms of years a fan not necessarily in person blitz games sadly), it wasn't the right army to play in demos or anything other than the flying pink unicorn rarity of a HG tourney.

A bit off topic but a few years ago, there was an interesting article about an experiment watching two robosellers. Basically, the sellers would see what the cost was of an item on amazon including shipping and list it for a few bucks more. They basically programmed their algorithm to account for the possibility (the author postulated) of *BUYING* it from a cheaper seller when someone actually bought it from them at a higher price and then recycling it back to the end consumer. This process was likely automated by a program. It was interesting because there apparently in this case were only two "sellers" of a particular used out of print text book, both of whom were robosellers. One was apparently set to match the price to a buck or two under the next lowest competition and the other was roboset to sell it at several dollars above the highest.

The second seller would, for example, see the book at $15 so would charge $5 more at $20. The first seller's program was set to for example sell at $2 under the next lowest and later that hour raise the price to $18.. which in turn would cause the second seller to increase to $23... ad nauseum. With the two programs alternately increasing each price, the book went from a price in the teens to several thousand dollars with no purchases nor likely any human interaction. Please not that I used the term robo so this aside is totally on topic for a robotech thread.

Did the original pledges promise to include everything in the final retail packaging? I thought in all the quotes above that would come later. If anything, if it were up to me and possible (just spitballing here), I'd offer to ship it without the retail box in a smaller format if it fits and saves everyone money. I at least offer that to folks who buy stuff from me in the Swap Shop that comes in a big empty box.

I suspect companies got tired of paying for their own mistakes and missteps resulting in 12+ month delays during which their shipping costs increased which is why we saw free shipping and flat rat subsidized shipping fall out of favor instead for nebulous TBD future "actual" shipping. Even if DP9 isn't profiting off of the shipping, they did a poor job of managing expectations of the shipping during the KS. I suppose actually putting realistic shipping rates per pound to various sample countries (say one on each continent) for an estimated weight even at 2014 prices might have cost them some pledges. After seeing what happened with this KS (even if it isn't a direct fault of DP9's), I don't think I'd ever pledge for a kickstarter with a completely open ended future shipping cost. Luckily, as a disgruntled Robotech backer watching the kickstarter platform do absolutely nothing to even declare the KS the partial failure it absolutely is, I won't be crowdfunding anything soon.

Nomeny wrote:
How is the Kickstarter a partial failure?

Are you asking me? I was referring to Robotech in that sentence in case you missed that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 bound for glory wrote:
I'm late to the party, again.

Can you link me to where The Pod screwed people ot of gears?

In a nutshell, the canadian dollar's value tanked after the kickstarter. DP9 watched it tank for months and did nothing (like moving it into US currency). Because their kickstarted funds lost roughly 15-20% of their value, they rolled back two funded stretch goals (one mini each) and did NOT replace them with the metal models at the same price as they promised in their kickstarter campaign or (iirc but not 100% sure) offer refunds but instead just offered them at a discount still above what the kickstarter charged or allowed folks to shift funds to other models. They "made it up" to backers by including extra bits (which would have been on the sprue anyways because the alternative was... what?... empty space?) and tweaked the Caprice sprue to get in another model iirc (again... they would have done that anyways unless they wanted obviously barren sprues). Google heavy gear kickstarter and look for the updates roughly late last year for the direct quotes.

In the end, it was IMO a regrettable blunder 90% their fault but not a deal breaker partly because they were timely in telling us and open about it (unlike Palladium). YMMV and other(s) certainly viewed it in a worse light.

 bound for glory wrote:
LOL! Do you have a link to Palladiums shenanigans? Back in the day, my group played the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/651554.page

This is the second thread complaining about the three years delayed kickstarter with no realistic end in sight for half the rewards. The previous thread was locked after 200 pages when palladium with great aplomb announced a "restart" of the conversation regarding the kickstarter and a new openness... followed by a full year of showing almost nothing and months without a peep (even copy pasted KS updates). Google robotech kickstarter for their "spin" and read the thread above for the reactions.

Cool! Was it packed efficiently without wasted space/cost? Robotech's core box and add-ons for the base pledge were particularly bad at that.

Yup, thanks John Prins. That looks pretty tightly packed without space wasted. If they pack the international packages that way then they really did all they could in saving money at least in regard to shipping by package volume.

The answer is for both rules crunch and backstory fluff that it depends. I realize it sounds like a cop out but it really isn't. In terms of old rpg fluff, one polar faction was described as preferring generalist squads whereas the other favored specialist squads (although I can't recall which was which). I don't think they ever commented on badlands and off world factions but I'd guess generalist given the fluff on interstellar travel weight limits and supposed badlands manpower deficiencies compared to polar forces (which is completely ignored in the rules).

Gameplay wise, it depends on your personal playstyle. I prefer specialists squads because I rarely find generalists to be worthwhile. In 40k, id lump antiarmor marine devastators together because if I didnt then half the squad felt useless (heavy bolters pinging off of a tank with no chance of damaging while 2 lascannons did the real work). In hg, it's less of an issue because you can split fire but you still lose synergy bonuses sometimes when doing so. I think my opinion is best summed up by the full phrase of "jack of all trades, MASTER OF NONE".... most folks leave off that last part. Sorry about the poor format but I'm posting from a cell.

Thanks for the link, Brandon. I'll be checking it out. In related HG news, Heavy Gear Assault is supposed to hit steam sometime next month apparently.

http://www.mmorpg.com/interviews/heavy-gear-assault-launching-to-the-battlefield-in-december-1000011300

Unfortunately, the publisher of the game (Stompy Bot) is being sued by some company I've never heard of for a breach of contract in the meantime.

http://thecse.com/sites/default/files/investorx/BOT/1611111347096827.pdf

There was a long discussion months back on the official forum that proved weapons that you'd think would be long range "sniping" types like rifles were absolutely not but instead medium range beatsticks and worse in every other situation. I don't know how many of those models use rifles but that may be important to keep in mind. Only advanced weapons like lasers were true snipers in both name and actual rules and did a better job for the same price. I can't comment on the list other than that since I haven't crunched any numbers yet let alone actually played.

Just to reiterate, they're not DMRs as rifles are paradoxically LESS LIKELY TO HIT than other weapons including ACs in heavy gear. When they do hit, they hit slightly harder but only at medium range because of the combined hit/damage mechanics.

While I can't speak for Firestorm Armada, Halo fleet battles ships are a bit more pricey in resin for similar sized ships (and sold in two packs or more typcially) but there is the added cost of the Halo license involved in that. I wish Wunji luck with this (even if he did tell me at Gencon that their new original blitz rulebook would last for years!). I didn't know he was responsible for Lightning Strike which I enjoyed despite not finding an opponent.

For completeness, here is the link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1438910159/heavy-gear-dreadnoughts-plastic-miniatures-wargame


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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

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

I'd stress the added benefit of having someone else pay for the relatively huge proportion of the total cost that is upfront with plastics. With resin, the ongoing "tail" costs are much more prominent and the company, not strangers on the internet, is responsible for those. Ten years ago, something like this absolutely would have been made in resin in North America with the risk entirely on the shoulders of the company. Nowadays, with crowdfunding, letting the backers risk their money for hopefully a shared benefit like a discount is business as usual. I'm a bit jaded though with the whole idea of crowdfunding due to Robotech so apply salt as needed.

I was doing some surfing for dreadnought content and swung by Brandon's facebook group. Everyone's favorite youtube channel that resembles an annoying over ad bannered repeating pop up window website is now looking for the public to buy the models for him.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/302254736538781/

Sigh... it's bad enough that he shills for pretty everyone that hands him a dollar by prefaces videos with a half dozen ads that in he past were at times LONGER than the actual content on top of stripping other channel's HG videos of their logos/intros without telling them and reposting them... but now he won't even buy his own models. IMO he's putting the cart before the horse in this case and should be making the content and THEN asking for funding. Too bad he's a mod on that group (who in the past has deleted content that didn't paint him in a good light like with the aforementioned "borrowed" videos that got him a 6 month no ads copyright strike after which he ragequit youtube.. but not really) so you can't even comment honestly about it.

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

I'm glad he's not an admin anymore. I don't frequent facebook much so it may take months for news to reach me from there like with this). Are you're refering to the "borrowed" videos (and there was more than just one)?

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

After a simple innocuous comment about it being an older reposted video on both youtube and one of my only ever posts on your group disappeared, I mentioned it here in this thread right after you posted and even PM'ed you about it here on dakka. In any case, you made the right call in his case.

BrandonKF wrote:
I apologize. I must have completely missed those replies... my bad.

No worries; that part is old news. You may not want to allow him to cyberbeg though on the group as allowing him opens the door for others to do the same. Posting actual content and THEN asking for patronage is a different story and not the same thing as just panhandling. I know times are hard but it's a bad precedent to set. YMMV.

How is the traffic on the group since the kickstarter delivered? Has DP9 started retail shipping yet?

 HudsonD wrote:
Looking at the numbers, that KS is DOA, period. From the second update posted, Wunji knows it, too.

While I'm not thinking it is DOA, I do think that the current rate of funding and likely end amount barring a sudden surge of interest would have been more appropriate for a resin starter and not a plastic kit. There is this line from that update:

" 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."
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1438910159/heavy-gear-dreadnoughts-plastic-miniatures-wargame/posts/1741565

Now.. you can assume that he is referring to the stretch goals but I'm not sure that is the best assumption because if the "market doesn't like it" at half that amount it still means it funded with a few stretch goals as well thrown in... so then what? Continue knowing it's be a "failure" despite funding? One option is that they're including their own money into that amount (i.e. if it funds for $30k, they've got $70k+ ready to thrown in already planned and set up) to reach the $100k. That's reasonable... except that Dave recently also said that he didn't want to address a different project until the kickstarter funding iirc 4x over (so $120k).

"Bad news first: The rules will be delayed. To exactly when I cannot say but this is to prevent conflict of attention with the Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts game going live soon on Kickstarter. I promise a X-mas or New years present for you all for being extra patient (And I will drop the rules early if Dreadnoughts hits 400% funded!)."
http://dp9forum.com/index.php?showtopic=17736

Two unrelated comments? Possibly. Dave just being nice and not wanted to steal their Thunder? Probably. The realist in me is suspicous after following closely dozens of miniature game kickstarter campaigns since Sedition Wars (albeit not funded them) and watched several cancel AFTER reaching their artifically low kickstarter funding goals of the same amount as Dreadnoughts because they didn't reach their ACTUAL secret goal needed to make the project. They set the initial goal low, pad some stretch goals with things they had always planned on including, and hope that they fund and the momentum carries them through to their REAL goal before the campaign ends. If they don't reach the real number or start backsliding late in the campaign when it loses steam, they cancel. I suspect that those two statements are related and that the real target number needed/desired is actually in the 6 digits for a full plastic starter. HG funded at not much over that and still had to cut back on stretch goals to pay the bills and that was over two years ago with prices rising in the meantime likely.

If they have their own funding ready to pick up the difference betwen 30k and 100k then they'll should be fine at least in terms of initial fulfillment. If they don't and the 30k goal is artificially low to encourage bidding and they don't exceed it by a large amount, I guess we'll see a KS cancelled for reorganization message in another two weeks. YMMV. Season with salt as needed. If your eyebrow is raised for more than four hourse, contact an optimist immediately.

At first, I was going to quote and respond in the KS thread for this project but didn't want it to seem like I was trying to actively discourage funding so posted here. I still think it is a worthwhile discussion to have though.

 HudsonD wrote:

 warboss wrote:

Snip

Ahah, nope !
There's no way they have 70K $US set aside. I'd be amazed if they had even 10K saved for that purpose.

That Wunji posted "we don't need those plastic doodads anyway" just goes to tell you he's lucid about the KS hopes of success at this point. Whether he learns the right lessons from this is another matter...

The reality is that he is correct and doesn't need them judging from what he is posting.. I reposted his comment from the kickstarter over in the news and rumors thread. The game basically sounds like an old avalon hill chits and tokens style strategic game with some overly large minis shoehorned in to cater to the minis crowd. YMMV but it doesn't sound like the premise and mechanics for the game match the marketing and physical pieces. At most, it should have some small FFG style game pieces like in Fortress America (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/115293/fortress-america) but it's being crowdfunded and marketed like Descent instead. Again, this is all without the benefit of actual playtesting the game or even a gameplay video on the kickstarter (a big mistake IMO to not have one ready to go right away).

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

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

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

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

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

Strike 2: Not sure that is true in NuFluff for NuBlitz. Everythign is cranked up to 11, remember? NuCoal and Paxton grew like crazy overnight both in power and population so flooding the sands with fleets of previously rare landships is less of a stretch (but still a stretch). As a historical footnote, that sort of naval growth isn't unprecedented; see the US navy during WW2.

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/us-ship-force-levels.html

The US navy had 8 aircraft carriers (fleet and escort combined) at the time of Pearl Harbor at the very end of 1941. By VJ day in mid 1945 less than three years later, they had 99! And that doesn't include the number that were built and sunk during that time either.

Strike 3: Nothing unique? Landships IMO by definition distinguish them from all of the above thematically as well as the close integration of ground units into the combat. I have no idea though if that new subniche will hurt or help the game though.

I agree that the lack of gameplay video with the rollout of the campaign is concerning. If this is a game different in scope (very strategic compared with the other games) as well as theme (landships!), an actual demo of a game could have helped... could... not sure if it would though given the discrepancies above. I'd have put that as strike 1 though.

@Albertorius:

Obviously I agree. I wish them well but I just don't think the game is for me. I would have preferred a more minis-centric feeling game to go along with the minis instead of a classic board game that *sounds* like it clashes instead with them thematically. As you said, there is nothing wrong with board games (both newer style streamlined ones with minis and older style chits and crunch avalon versions) but I just don't think the combo of the two works in this situation. If they cancel to reorganize, I'd recommend picking either a board game (with stretch goal smaller metal/resin fleet scale minis using the same designs b[/img]ut made by DP9 in house) or making it a proper plastics minis game in both theme and mechanics.

If they go full minis game, I'd recommend changing the scale to 5km per inch with a turn taking roughly an hour in game time scale. You'd still have an appropriate sense of scale with Brandon's previously mentioned landship arty lob to 80km possible on a 3'x4' table and hopefully most of the mechanics can transfer over that fit in that new timescale. Instead of a typical game being the month long Battle for Indiana, it'll be the first day of the Battle for the Greater Metro Indy Area (referencing the location of the company for both game and time scale).

Again, all of the above is of course based on reading the tea leaves of Brandon's and Wunji's posts since unfortunately no gameplay video was posted to my knowledge; apply salt as needed. Here's also a helpful quick chart from Kicktraq on the project.





@Brandon:

Does Wunji have a dakka account? If so, I'd recommend him posting as well. It's not that you haven't been doing a good job but rather that it's in his best interests to do so as well; I don't think we've been too harsh on the subject to interact with. Let him know that he can set up both a company account under the company's name in case his personal one has an inappropriate or unhelpful name (i.e. WeirdbutWunji).

I think you'll both find that the most common opinion (certainly not unanimous or even a large majority though) is quite different on both the Infinity rules and AOS here on dakka at least.

So... what's the contingency plan if any?