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.

DP9's history has definitely been quite odd, and while I've never really been privy to the details of most of the drama, it's clear there's been a lot of it from perusing the DP9 forum (was especially amused by coming across a thread where one DP9 employee and a former contributing writer got into a mighty nerdrage spat over the RPG era CEF hovertank rules, the former contributor describing how he wrote the rules to match lore expectations and the other dude telling him they were insanely broken and unbalanced ), and a lot of older products/rules range from fantastic to "wtf", and I'm honestly surprised DP9 is still in business at all. I'm pretty sure Heavy Gear will continue to remain niche, but I'm far more enthused about the current rules and state of affairs than I ever was previously.

With regards to background material, depending on what faction you're going to play I'd say look for the old RPG era Sourcebook for that faction (most can be found for cheap, $5-15 online, a few are more expensive/rare), and see if you can find one of the various "Life on Terra Nova" books for a good overview of everything.

The Fer De Lance is a cool model, it's the Southern Republican Army's honor guard unit, very fancy-pants

 Vaktathi wrote:
DP9's history has definitely been quite odd, and while I've never really been privy to the details of most of the drama, it's clear there's been a lot of it from perusing the DP9 forum (was especially amused by coming across a thread where one DP9 employee and a former contributing writer got into a mighty nerdrage spat over the RPG era CEF hovertank rules, the former contributor describing how he wrote the rules to match lore expectations and the other dude telling him they were insanely broken and unbalanced ), and a lot of older products/rules range from fantastic to "wtf", and I'm honestly surprised DP9 is still in business at all. I'm pretty sure Heavy Gear will continue to remain niche, but I'm far more enthused about the current rules and state of affairs than I ever was previously.

With regards to background material, depending on what faction you're going to play I'd say look for the old RPG era Sourcebook for that faction (most can be found for cheap, $5-15 online, a few are more expensive/rare), and see if you can find one of the various "Life on Terra Nova" books for a good overview of everything.

The Fer De Lance is a cool model, it's the Southern Republican Army's honor guard unit, very fancy-pants

Yeah love the Fer De Lance design.

I'll keep an eye on it. Saw ebay had some. Including a collection. Prices were a bit high though. At least the EU based ones. But i'll see.
Much appreciated feedback!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I purposely am no longer on facebook.
Nor do I want a twitter account.
I purposely am avoiding most social media.
Hate those things.

I'll mostly play solo anyway I think except when I can set up a rare game with my buddy.

I did hear of a lot of the nonsense from my buddy. I'm hoping the plastic transfer continues via Kickstarters and they just try to push on with a stable line.
It's not like there is a community of HG over here.
Heck there is barely a truly active GW community anymore. Except for the skirmish and boardgames of GW. 40K/AOS are more dead than alive.

Seems drama and horrible businesschoices have killed of many promising games. Privateer Press was going to start over here and before it got off the ground distribution was cut off at the source. Battletech I got my hands on relatively easily but with enormous order delays.
And when companies aren't shooting themselves in the foot there is the shadow of GW. Who is the only one with a massive playerbase. And even there 'massive' is relative.

The only thing I really regret about HG atm is the sorry state of distribution.
I loved the games I played of it with a buddy a few years ago.
Good system if not a bit convoluted here and there. Nice mech designs.

But in a store i've only seen some models when I was a teen. (blisters) And i'm 36 now...

I have a lot of problems with DP9 as a company, and regarding what they have done with the lore. That said, the setting is still lovely and you can just ignore mostly everything past Storyline Book 4 and be done with it.

Life in Terra Nova is one of the best scifi setting books ever done, simply put. The setting is beautifully detailed, with a "lived-in" atmosphere that makes Battletech look like Disney World in many aspects, where Gears have a place but are not the end-all-be-all of it, and where you can play a lot of different games.

This company frustrates the hell out of me.

Why take your 2-player starter out of production when you have no actual LOS on replacing it?

I could order the now OOP 2-player starter from the UK at above retail, pay almost $40 for shipping, and it would still be less than ordering the separate army boxes and rulebook from DP9.

So feth it. I won’t be trying HG Blitz any time soon.

Are you referring to the current plastic one?

As near as I can tell.

Then, yeah, that's frustrating. I figured there was a chance you might be referring to the older metal minis one. According to their store entry, they were supposed to have a new two player set in May but I'm guessing the pandemic put the breaks on that (or at least gave them an excuse to delay since it shouldn't have prevented releasing the rules pdf on time).

The guy writing the KS updates says he is way far behind on the new rulebook’s layout because every time he ships out packages to the US he has to self-quarantine for fourteen days.

I mean ...

Maybe I’ll look in on this thread again in 2022.

I have it on good authority that the COVID is not transmissible via electrons over the internet. He should be ok to open up his desktop publishing software and send the completed digital files to the printer and drivethrurpg without endangering anyone's life. I suppose if he wants to be extra careful then he could add in the borders and graphics while wearing proper PPE.

 Manchu wrote:
This company frustrates the hell out of me.

Why take your 2-player starter out of production when you have no actual LOS on replacing it?

I could order the now OOP 2-player starter from the UK at above retail, pay almost $40 for shipping, and it would still be less than ordering the separate army boxes and rulebook from DP9.

So feth it. I won’t be trying HG Blitz any time soon.

Ebay has some still I believe.
I'm actually surprised it went out of print.

Besides the forum you may also get to the discord server.

Lot of the discussions are there, and many suggestions for lore researching, painting, modeling and general wargaming stuff.

https://discord.com/invite/ExrBaMK

 Pointman wrote:
Besides the forum you may also get to the discord server.

Lot of the discussions are there, and many suggestions for lore researching, painting, modeling and general wargaming stuff.

https://discord.com/invite/ExrBaMK

Thanks I joined up!

What's more active.. the facebook group or discord server? How do they compare with the official forum? I'm genuinely curious as I don't participate in them to any meaningful degree.

Discord has more active traffic than both the DP9 forums and FB combined I feel.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Discord has more active traffic than both the DP9 forums and FB combined I feel.

Thanks. The little experience I have with Discord gives me the impression that trying to have a conversation over a time period of more than a few minutes is a jumbled mess. I prefer the forum/subforum/thread format myself and even facebook has individual posts with dedicated comment threads at least. With Discord, it seems like you just get the main room and then subrooms with completely open chats. Am I being a boomer (despite actually being Gen X) and missing a key feature?

 warboss wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Discord has more active traffic than both the DP9 forums and FB combined I feel.

Thanks. The little experience I have with Discord gives me the impression that trying to have a conversation over a time period of more than a few minutes is a jumbled mess. I prefer the forum/subforum/thread format myself and even facebook has individual posts with dedicated comment threads at least. With Discord, it seems like you just get the main room and then subrooms with completely open chats. Am I being a boomer (despite actually being Gen X) and missing a key feature?

That's not unfair, and the depth of conversation generally isn't as deep as it (can) get on forums, but there is more activity (especially on the painting and modelling end) and a lot of stuff that gets to DP9's forum seems to start on Discord.

 warboss wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Discord has more active traffic than both the DP9 forums and FB combined I feel.

Thanks. The little experience I have with Discord gives me the impression that trying to have a conversation over a time period of more than a few minutes is a jumbled mess. I prefer the forum/subforum/thread format myself and even facebook has individual posts with dedicated comment threads at least. With Discord, it seems like you just get the main room and then subrooms with completely open chats. Am I being a boomer (despite actually being Gen X) and missing a key feature?

Discords usually are better at giving me quick answers to standalone questions.
Forums is usually much better as a repository of information, projects etc.

Thanks for the replies. I'm glad that I didn't miss some key feature to help with following discussions.

 HudsonD wrote:

Writing a program to roll 10,000 attacks is a convoluted way to test stats, when you can just look at the numbers, and see the unbalances immediately.

This is arguably necro, so apologies in advance. But I wanted to chime in and say that I strongly disagree here. The way the math works on the mechanics is *weird* and it's probably better to validate your understanding by checking the numbers rather than guessing. That was true in the original mechanics, and it's true even in my reworked ones.

That's what combinatorics are for. Also, enumerating all dice rolls rather than using a Monte Carlo method that's both more computationally expensive and an approximation.

 IceRaptor wrote:

 HudsonD wrote:

Writing a program to roll 10,000 attacks is a convoluted way to test stats, when you can just look at the numbers, and see the unbalances immediately.

This is arguably necro, so apologies in advance. But I wanted to chime in and say that I strongly disagree here. The way the math works on the mechanics is *weird* and it's probably better to validate your understanding by checking the numbers rather than guessing. That was true in the original mechanics, and it's true even in my reworked ones.

Hey man, long time no see, how've you been ?

So I scored an unopened carded old school RAFM Assault Hunter. That's cool and all, but why am I bringing it up? Look at the parts below, notice anything?



Welp, apparently someone forgot to pack a pair of arms into the blister back in 1996...



I'd call RAFM, but I don't think they'll be able to help me

On the other hand, the Grizzly, Hunter Commando, and Armored Hunter all look to be good, so we'll see how those build out.

I've also had missing parts in sealed blisters as well as mispacks. Make sure you compare all the parts you can as just because something is there doesn't mean it's the correct part! I ended up with a mispack/missing rate of 1 in 3 when I opened up a dozen or so blisters. I actually did contact RAFM just in case but they unsurprisingly weren't able to help, lol.

I'm unsurprised by any of those statements

The other three thankfully look good, imma try and build the Grizzly alongside a current scale one for giggles. Not sure what I'll do with the armless Assault Hunter. What's weirding me out more than the scale is the way they all have the butt armor hanging off the engine backpack instead of attached to the hips.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'm unsurprised by any of those statements

The other three thankfully look good, imma try and build the Grizzly alongside a current scale one for giggles. Not sure what I'll do with the armless Assault Hunter. What's weirding me out more than the scale is the way they all have the butt armor hanging off the engine backpack instead of attached to the hips.

Pretty much the only use is for spare parts for the inevitable next mispack. I had to rob Peter to pay Paul with my missing/incorrect parts and still had to get help from Ashley with a head. She just posted on her blog about a miscast as well that she noticed and had to fix. As for the buttplate, I think it was originally an armored fuel tank so it would make sense to be connected directly to the V-engine if I'm remembering that correctly.

Also, welcome to the wonderful world of RAFM scale fire support!

Those are some glorious minis!

The fuel tank thing makes some sort of sense, it's a small detail change but one that really hops out once noticed.

 warboss wrote:

Pretty much the only use is for spare parts for the inevitable next mispack. I had to rob Peter to pay Paul with my missing/incorrect parts and still had to get help from Ashley with a head. She just posted on her blog about a miscast as well that she noticed and had to fix. As for the buttplate, I think it was originally an armored fuel tank so it would make sense to be connected directly to the V-engine if I'm remembering that correctly.

You are indeed remembering correctly, the butt plate is a (very) reinforced fuel tank. That's also the reason why gears powered by electric engines (like the Black Cat) either didn't have a buttplate altogether or it was a much smaller one that worked as the front ones.

 Albertorius wrote:

You are indeed remembering correctly, the butt plate is a (very) reinforced fuel tank. That's also the reason why gears powered by electric engines (like the Black Cat) either didn't have a buttplate altogether or it was a much smaller one that worked as the front ones.

Thanks for confirming that. Also, I never consciously made that connection about the electric gears! Cool. It's almost as if there was a lot of love, creativity, and attention put into the universe during that initial period that can still temporarily warm the cockles of the most grognard gamer hearts decades later... and seemingly lacking in subsequent years. *cough* gearstriders *cough*

Edit: Regarding my above praise, I'm clearly not including the initial "borrowing" from VOTOMS.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'm unsurprised by any of those statements

The other three thankfully look good, imma try and build the Grizzly alongside a current scale one for giggles. Not sure what I'll do with the armless Assault Hunter. What's weirding me out more than the scale is the way they all have the butt armor hanging off the engine backpack instead of attached to the hips.

It's a pity I don't have any spare arms for your Grizzly, and can only lament mispacks and miscasts.

However, these two links will take you to the catalogue pages on my blog.

Northern Gears: https://panther6actual.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
Southern Gears: https://panther6actual.blogspot.com/p/rafm-heavy.html

And while you're browsing you can check out my conversions, and see what I've been doing. Reposing and magnetizing them. In the process of doing this I've decided to make replacement parts for my missing aerials. This may lead to bigger parts, but it depends on how hard it is to replicate and cast replacement parts at home.

The work you put into your stuff is amazing, and far beyond any level of patience I possess

In looking for options for arms for the Assault Hunter, I found I have the super snubcannon from a northern Scimitar left over that looks about the right size, and I looked at the arms from the plastic Kodiak that DP9 has for sale but I think they'd be too small.