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HudsonD is full of hyperbole. Really, is HG is need of an update? Yes. No more so than say, WFB or some of the older codices. Are some objectives easier or harder than others? Sure. Any worse than killpoints, or 'ardboyz scenario 3? Is the North worse off than the Necron codex? No. Are there worthless units in 40k? Yes, in just about every codex there are at least one or more subpar units.

Does this make HG or 40k unplayable? Obviously not.

mrondeau wrote:

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.)

OK, no problem.

IceRaptor wrote: 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.

Which is a big problem, but not with the game itself.

I'm fairly certain that the playtests were not working that well because the tester were effectively not playing the same game, due to terrain placement (and some element of play style.)
DP9 and HG are fringe enough that the law of large numbers does not help to compensate for that.
I think that some of my most... heated... discussion on dp9forum were ultimately caused by that.

We usually tried to use the middle amount of terrain.
I'm certain that some were using a 40K ish amount during the playtest.
In that case, ranged fire that would have been usable for us would have been overkill.

Same with Indirect Fire (aka artillery) : we think that's its too random (i.e. does not hit something often enough) and too deadly when it hit.
Players that prefers to keep their gears organized like a 40K style squad will think it's more than accurate enough.

As for the optional rules, I have not tested them. They were published after my HG group disintegrated, and I frankly doubt I would be able to find players to test them with. Or that I really want too, because they only fix part of the problem with range attacks.

That being said, they do seem to help.
In particular , stationary mode, which used to come with a greater penalty to the defense, is more survivable, and Top Speed, which used to be a "I'm invincible!" option is less overpowered.
Walker, which striders are, also get a nice bonus compared to tanks.

Overall, this should at least lower the interest of rushing toward the big central scrum.

Stationary gear should be able to shoot something at range, while still be very vulnerable to artillery, so you should see turn of movement, to get into a good position, followed by turn of shooting, followed by turn of running away from the scout that want to send you position to the big guns.

If I did not have my previous history with the game and its maker, which does colors my opinion, I would probably test it with those changes.

Oh, and rapidly, concerning the objectives, the main problem is the randomness.
Let's say you choose your 2 objectives for the game. You want to destroy an enemy squad, and to keep one of yours alive.
Both objective have the same value.
You randomly select the squads.
Suppose that, randomly, you end up having to destroy the enemy elite squad and keep your alive.
Suppose that both squads have 5 gears.
You need to destroy 3 of his elites gears to get 1 VP, 5 to get 2.
If only one or two of your elite gears is destroyed, you get 1 VP. If 3 or more are destroyed, you get none.
See the problem ? In that setup, if you risk your expensive elites, you help your enemy, while his can be risked without helping you.

I really enjoy Heavy Gear with the GearUp/MoreCarnage rulesets.

Here are some reasons why I like Blitz. I'll try to keep the bashing of other systems to a minimum, as I just don't think it's the way to go, and I still play and enjoy 40k anyway, even though I do bash it =)

1. 15mm is a great scale, those who play FoW probably already know what i'm talking about, it's damned convenient to be able to place your entire army in one small case.

2. full PDF support. It's a small thing, but having official PDFs that I can actually highlight and search the text is awesome, ctrl-F for the win! Comes with built-in bookmarks as well. I wish GW would do this, the illegal market is going to flourish no matter what, but at least give people the option to give you money for electronic copies.

3. HG does combined arms really well, taking all tanks or all gears or all infantry isn't overpowering and actually hampers your forces effectiveness, and not through any strange arbitrary rules like scoring or non-scoring either. Tanks do great with fire lanes, not so great at close quarters work because of they can't turn on a dime like a walker. They are still deadly and I love'em. Infantry can be hard lil buggers to unseat from cover, and able to provide fire support, but tend to fall versus dedicated AI weaponry, and if not upgraded can't really do much to gears.

4. HG simulates electronic warfare with ECM and ECCM. A force with lots of indirect fire but losing the EW war is going to be hampered. It also has Air Strikes & Off-board artillery

5. It's not You-Go with all your models, I-Go with all my models, which doesn't scale well, and puts too much importance on going first. (2500pts of IG gunlines versus each other...the guy going first has an advantage, not insurmountable but lets face it, it matters) The game also scales well at the lower end of the spectrum, the low point games, which 40k has a hard time doing.

Someone said that HG was too simplistic compared to Classic Battletech, and to that, I say great, but try playing a 20 mech vs 20 mech game in CBT, and see how long it takes you. CBT is a fun game all in its own right, but it's more for very small amounts of units. The way i see it, complexity and number of units wise, it goes from Star Fleet Battles to CBT to Heavy Gear to 40k. since SFB is the most complex, does that make it the best game? No! They all have their place.

6. It has rules for move-shoot-move, reaction fire and command points, and its cover system actually checks for whether or not the cover your behind is solid or just foliage and it makes a difference. It also has stealth and detection rules.

All in all, I really dig HG:Blitz, not saying it's the next coming of the messiah and has no flaws, or that you should give up your 40k and all other games, just letting you know about a game I enjoy and am passionate about.

ferrous wrote:
2. full PDF support...

Yes, I got used to that, and it's really annoying not to have access to it.
Especially when I just want to try a new game : there is no shipping cost and delay for a PDF...

ferrous wrote:
4. HG simulates electronic warfare with ECM and ECCM...

This is one part of HG that deserves mention. This adds a second battlefield on top of the normal one.

ferrous wrote:
5. It's not You-Go with all your models...

One more thing that is really nice. That, and the fact that you roll to defend against attacks, keep all players busy at all time during the game.

Ferrous did not mentions the support points system, which is nice. I have not seen an equivalent in any other game.
You get a couple of points, that you can spend just before the beginning of the game, after seeing you opponent's army, the table, and determining objectives (including the random part.)
Those points allow you to get airstrike, off-board artillery, and a few other things.
This means that you can patch for weakness in your list, or exploit weakness in your opponent's list.
Let's say that if you see a lot of tanks, and you don't have that many Anti-tanks weapons, you can get a bomber, or some heavy artillery strikes.

I don't think I mention that before, but overall, there is only about 10% of the rules that are bad, 20-30% that are not that good and the remaining 60-70% is good.
The 20-30% part goes from "annoying" to a "serious problem," but those serious problems don't happen that often, or can be easily managed by acting like adults.
I include the army lists in that, but they are not worst than most games.
The problems with the objectives go either here or in the 10%, depending how much you care about the balance of the game.

It's just that the 10% that is bad is a game killer, IMHO, since it affects the core of the game.

HudsonD wrote:

drahazar wrote:yeah I did it was fun 5th is a very simple game compared to HG. have you played HG to even say 40k is more tactical?

40K 5th ed has manoeuvering and ranged warfare. HG doesn't.

As for playing the game, check the 1.0 southern and paxton books, and the L&L rulebook playtesting credits...

lol, unless they revamp the whole game HG is nothing but Manuevering and range warfare.

Well, having read through some of this, and not wanting to get too in-depth with other people's specific posts, I do want to point something out, especially to the likes of those who think HG ranges are too anemic. (HudsonD etc)


Back in HG 2nd ed, TAC, there was the skirmish scale. Fairly much this is what you would want to play:

Take basic scale, cut time down from 30 second to 5 second rounds.

You add in some detail, nothing much, but what changes is this:

Take the movement ranges: Leave them.

Take the weapon range bands: Multiply by 5.

Leave the rest of the game as is mostly.

Now.


Blitz! L&L is doing this same thing, but only multiplying it by 3 IIRC.

SOooooo....

If you're really having issues with the game for it's ranges, take everything you see in Blitz! L&L, and double it.

That should just about solve any problem you have. You end up with a 6 mult, instead of x5, and you get about the same sort of gameplay you had back in 2nd ed TAC, but with all the new smooth-fast-easy gameplay of the Blitz system.

And since you're just playing with friends, you never have to worry about any sort of any rules lawyer telling you you're playing wrong.


So. Double your ranges, leave movement. You'll get a more 'ranged' game than normal, and you'll be completely happy. I doubt anyone could make much complaints about ranged ANYTHING with that modification, since you've sort of side stepped back to when HG was a ranged game, and now fast like blitz.