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.

Albertorius wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Has anybody ever been to the desert? It's not flat. It has giant hills and dunes.

We have a couple in our country. I can attest to that ^^. Still flatter than hills or mountains, though xD.

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. The song just never bothers to mention that it's twice a year. Unless I'm there. Last time I was in Madrid it rained for 16 straight hours and on three days. Locals thought I was a witch.

warboss wrote:

 Mmmpi wrote:
Not to distract from the discussion of futuristic gear-capable cruise liners:

I decided to use the Rumbl service the Podbay was advertising, well use again as the last guy I challenged never actually answered me. I'm close enough to Canada that I decided to challenge Rob himself to a game.

Wish me luck?

Congrats! I haven't check it since it was first mentioned here a while back (late last year?) but the closest person at that time was hundreds of miles away. Hopefully, a few more popped up in between. EDIT: Just checked... 198 miles away for the closest opponent. :(

Also, assuming that somehow the Dreadnoughts game gets off the ground (anti-grav joke there folks) and I actually get some of the stuff, would it be bad form to model one of them with Jabba and friends partying on the back? I can make a sarlacc terrain piece if I have to.

Only if he's the original fat guy in a fur jacket like a space Henry VIII!

Well, Rob just turned down the challenge. *Le sigh*

BrandonKF wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Has anybody ever been to the desert? It's not flat. It has giant hills and dunes.

National Training Center, and Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar.

And if you brought in Jabba as the original fur jacket, he'd likely only be the size of half a pinhead. X-3

Which at that scale means he'd only be the size of two SUV's. Seems legit.

 warboss wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

I always took the "few" as a "few hundreds" TBH, because going by the pics it what it felt like.

A few hundred centimenters is by definition a few meters... and now we're back full circle to Brandon's initial quoted altitude. LOL

As he was answering to my comment about the orography thing, I got the impression that his "a little farther than a couple meters" meant more like "tens of meters".

Which still would make most non-flat terrain fairly impassable, of course...

EDIT: Hm, maybe this is because I'm european and we use centimeters, but if the original landship quote would have said "a few feet" I would have translated in my mind much differently. To me, in that context, "a few centimeters" meant "a meter or two", whereas I would have taken "a few feet" for granted as "2 to 4 feet"

Huh. Interesting

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mmmpi wrote:

Albertorius wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Has anybody ever been to the desert? It's not flat. It has giant hills and dunes.

We have a couple in our country. I can attest to that ^^. Still flatter than hills or mountains, though xD.

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. The song just never bothers to mention that it's twice a year. Unless I'm there. Last time I was in Madrid it rained for 16 straight hours and on three days. Locals thought I was a witch.

Ah, so it was YOU.

Seriously now, it's not nearly that bad, and actually this season tends to rain quite a lot. It's just that where it rains it's not very well balanced at all.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Not to distract from the discussion of futuristic gear-capable cruise liners:

I decided to use the Rumbl service the Podbay was advertising, well use again as the last guy I challenged never actually answered me. I'm close enough to Canada that I decided to challenge Rob himself to a game.

Wish me luck?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, assuming that somehow the Dreadnoughts game gets off the ground (anti-grav joke there folks) and I actually get some of the stuff, would it be bad form to model one of them with Jabba and friends partying on the back? I can make a sarlacc terrain piece if I have to.

MicroMachines Jabba's Sailbarge would make a great "counts as" Ashanti landship.

Brandon's comments about unit sizes are fairly interesting (thanks much for those, btw), but is it me, or they feel fairly low for the scale? I mean, that would mean that unless you cluster your units a lot, they will be really isolated, if each inch of terrain is multiple kilometers... (when the represented units are buffier is not much of a problem because they feel better able to sct independently, but a single platoon seems too small for that IMHO).

The scale of the units remind me of the old Battleforce, or Epic: something that feels more suited to a more "tactical" scaling of the terrain, for lack of a better word... tactical engagements, the fighting parts of a battle instead of theather management.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
1993? VOTOMS hit the air in the mid-80s!

The landships don't exactly make sense, especially in the notion of a giant desert with high winds - that's what creates the huge dunes in the first place!

1983 to be precise.

Landships always were the more "this is here because it's cool" part of the setting, that's for sure, and TN winds are stated as being as strong and sudden as to make long range flight unfeasible, actually.

OTOH, if the slopes are gentle enough dunes should not be much of a problem if landships can lift a meter above ground. The path would be visible from basically everywhere, though (I think they would be flatting/throwing aside the sand below them with their thrusters and lift fields), and non movable stuff would be tricky.

At the end of they day, they are one of the parts of the setting that follow the rule of cool more closely instead of believability. As long as they work more or less as wet navy ships swapping the oceans of water for oceans of sand, we would be in the same place as in the original depiction.

One of the things that concerns me about all this:

Has all development, play testing, and writing stopped on heavy Gear Blitz as DP9 rolls out this KS for a game no one really asked for or wanted?

We still only have the "Quick Start Rules" for HGB. When are we going to get the full version of the rule book? The new plastic Gears are, well, I think the consensus here is "OK", not bad or great, just OK. I tend to agree with that. When will we be seeing the other factions going plastic? Still have PAX/Peace River, NuCoal, Utopia, Eden, Black Talons... I'm not even seeing updated data cards on most of these factions. Since the Kick Starter Pledges went out, we've seen ZERO further development or even news about the new edition of HGB. What's going on?

Which brings up another point, and the #1 reason why DP9 really should have changed the name of the new edition from Heavy Gear Blitz to something else: Go look at the website and you see Heavy Gear, Heavy Gear Locked and Loaded, Heavy Gear Blitz, Heavy Gear Blitz 1.1, etc. etc. I wouldn't say just delete all that content, but maybe move it into an archive tab of "old stuff" and start converting everything over to the new edition? Make it 100% clear that THIS is for the latest edition of Heavy Gear Blitz, and THIS is from previous editions and kept only as a reference. The downloads section is a complete mess right now. They are still listing the new edition as Heavy Gear Blitz Beta, not to be confused with the file that says Heavy Gear Blitz Alpha... They are still listing the Field Manual under...



OK, I'm not going to get all upset or worked up about this. DP9 obviously can't manage their own product line worth a , and now they want us to buy into Dreadnoughts. Newsflash: I don't want to play Dreadnoughts, I have no interest in Dreadnoughts, and I wish them success in whatever they are trying to do with Dreadnoughts. What I WANT them to do, is

FINISH YOUR GAME FIRST BEFORE STARTING ANOTHER KICKSTARTER!!!

Oh, haven't they? I was under the impression that they had already released the new edition...

 Albertorius wrote:
Oh, haven't they? I was under the impression that they had already released the new edition...

All we have for the new edition is what was promised in the KS: The North, South, CEF, Cparice armies in plastic, a quick start rulebook, patches! (everyone's gotta have patches!), and digital versions of the KS factions and rule book. Oh, I think they released another Chibi Gear to celebrate something. Because, you know, everyone wants to use Chibi gears in a game!

The Kick Starter was a success, and DP9 needed to build off that success. Instead of finishing the new edition, they have decided to concentrate on a new Kick Starter and game. /sigh

The last update to anything related to the new edition of Heavy Gear Blitz was in July of 2016. The last update for the "living Rulebook" was in July, while the thread for it has little tweaks here and there, FAQ's, etc. etc. but none of it has been incorporated into the Living Rulebook yet. Kinda makes it a Dead Rulebook, eh? LOL

DP9 has licensed the setting to someone else for Dreadnaughts. Not sure what they are working on themselves, but this Kickstarter is not theirs.

 brettness37 wrote:
DP9 has licensed the setting to someone else for Dreadnaughts. Not sure what they are working on themselves, but this Kickstarter is not theirs.

Yup, this is licensed to Wunji and his company. While he is a longtime DP9 collaborator, I don't recall ever seeing his name even mentioned when I peeked behind the scenes for a year or two to see how the gear sausage is made. Other than probably approvals, I don't see Robert and Dave (who essentially are DP9 in its entirety) having a hand in this or this impacting the bottom line beyond scheduling (like not trying to debut the Jovian Chronicles redux at the same time as Dreadnoughts for instance). He'll probably help out at the gencon booth like he did when I was attending years ago and get some space in the display there but I don't expect this offshoot to have any effect on HG proper. Love your avatar btw.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamwulf wrote:

Which brings up another point, and the #1 reason why DP9 really should have changed the name of the new edition from Heavy Gear Blitz to something else: Go look at the website and you see Heavy Gear, Heavy Gear Locked and Loaded, Heavy Gear Blitz, Heavy Gear Blitz 1.1, etc. etc. I wouldn't say just delete all that content, but maybe move it into an archive tab of "old stuff" and start converting everything over to the new edition? Make it 100% clear that THIS is for the latest edition of Heavy Gear Blitz, and THIS is from previous editions and kept only as a reference. The downloads section is a complete mess right now. They are still listing the new edition as Heavy Gear Blitz Beta, not to be confused with the file that says Heavy Gear Blitz Alpha... They are still listing the Field Manual under...

I advocated in proof of concept/pre-alpha testing for a rename to just "Heavy Gear" like with D&D in 5th edition (or Tomb Raider in video games) instead of keeping the confusing blitz name...and I got no response as to why they wouldn't. I don't know if it has anything to do with the heavygear.com domain name belonging to stompybot and their pc game i.e. if they licensed the rights to the simple HG name to them.

 brettness37 wrote:
DP9 has licensed the setting to someone else for Dreadnaughts. Not sure what they are working on themselves, but this Kickstarter is not theirs.

I seem to remember hearing something about Jovian Chronicles?

 Albertorius wrote:

 brettness37 wrote:
DP9 has licensed the setting to someone else for Dreadnaughts. Not sure what they are working on themselves, but this Kickstarter is not theirs.

I seem to remember hearing something about Jovian Chronicles?

Yup. I quoted Dave earlier in the thread in reference to what I believe was an artificially low funding goal to encourage pledging.

http://dp9forum.com/index.php?showtopic=17736

I wouldn't be surprised if they had something putzing around for Arena as well.

 warboss wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 brettness37 wrote:
DP9 has licensed the setting to someone else for Dreadnaughts. Not sure what they are working on themselves, but this Kickstarter is not theirs.

I seem to remember hearing something about Jovian Chronicles?

Yup. I quoted Dave earlier in the thread in reference to what I believe was an artificially low funding goal to encourage pledging.

http://dp9forum.com/index.php?showtopic=17736

I wouldn't be surprised if they had something putzing around for Arena as well.

Interesting... one would have thought they'd want to actually finish and release HGB before that, but eh.

As to Arena, well... god knows it needs a rewrite from the ground up to make it actually work.

Albertorius wrote:Brandon's comments about unit sizes are fairly interesting (thanks much for those, btw), but is it me, or they feel fairly low for the scale? I mean, that would mean that unless you cluster your units a lot, they will be really isolated, if each inch of terrain is multiple kilometers... (when the represented units are buffier is not much of a problem because they feel better able to sct independently, but a single platoon seems too small for that IMHO).

The scale of the units remind me of the old Battleforce, or Epic: something that feels more suited to a more "tactical" scaling of the terrain, for lack of a better word... tactical engagements, the fighting parts of a battle instead of theather management.

Tactical scale, or rather, my perception of it, involves individual troops and platoons. This is slightly above that level.

An equivalent force to a platoon in Heavy Gear terms is roughly three squadrons or cadres (whether you're North or South). That's 12 to 15 Gears. Much of Heavy Gear Blitz involves that level of combat, typically in very built-up areas, or at shorter ranges than would typically be seen.

Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts expands on the idea that Heavy Gears are one-man infantry fighting vehicles, capable of engaging over 1,500 meters from their targets. You need legroom to maneuver like that, just as tanks and infantry do. Infantry in this scale aren't merely foot troops. Their forces include Caimans, Badgers, Mastiffs, Hoplites, and the occasional Heavy Gear as back-up (like the much-loved and much-hated Asp). However, the exact composition doesn't affect base stats in Dreadnoughts. There might be some options here or there, but for the most part, Gears are Gears, scout Gears are scout Gears, tanks are tanks, and striders are striders.

Tamwulf wrote:One of the things that concerns me about all this:

Has all development, play testing, and writing stopped on heavy Gear Blitz as DP9 rolls out this KS for a game no one really asked for or wanted?

We still only have the "Quick Start Rules" for HGB. When are we going to get the full version of the rule book? The new plastic Gears are, well, I think the consensus here is "OK", not bad or great, just OK. I tend to agree with that. When will we be seeing the other factions going plastic? Still have PAX/Peace River, NuCoal, Utopia, Eden, Black Talons... I'm not even seeing updated data cards on most of these factions. Since the Kick Starter Pledges went out, we've seen ZERO further development or even news about the new edition of HGB. What's going on?

Which brings up another point, and the #1 reason why DP9 really should have changed the name of the new edition from Heavy Gear Blitz to something else: Go look at the website and you see Heavy Gear, Heavy Gear Locked and Loaded, Heavy Gear Blitz, Heavy Gear Blitz 1.1, etc. etc. I wouldn't say just delete all that content, but maybe move it into an archive tab of "old stuff" and start converting everything over to the new edition? Make it 100% clear that THIS is for the latest edition of Heavy Gear Blitz, and THIS is from previous editions and kept only as a reference. The downloads section is a complete mess right now. They are still listing the new edition as Heavy Gear Blitz Beta, not to be confused with the file that says Heavy Gear Blitz Alpha... They are still listing the Field Manual under...



OK, I'm not going to get all upset or worked up about this. DP9 obviously can't manage their own product line worth a , and now they want us to buy into Dreadnoughts. Newsflash: I don't want to play Dreadnoughts, I have no interest in Dreadnoughts, and I wish them success in whatever they are trying to do with Dreadnoughts. What I WANT them to do, is

FINISH YOUR GAME FIRST BEFORE STARTING ANOTHER KICKSTARTER!!!

Tamwulf wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
Oh, haven't they? I was under the impression that they had already released the new edition...

All we have for the new edition is what was promised in the KS: The North, South, CEF, Cparice armies in plastic, a quick start rulebook, patches! (everyone's gotta have patches!), and digital versions of the KS factions and rule book. Oh, I think they released another Chibi Gear to celebrate something. Because, you know, everyone wants to use Chibi gears in a game!

The Kick Starter was a success, and DP9 needed to build off that success. Instead of finishing the new edition, they have decided to concentrate on a new Kick Starter and game. /sigh

The last update to anything related to the new edition of Heavy Gear Blitz was in July of 2016. The last update for the "living Rulebook" was in July, while the thread for it has little tweaks here and there, FAQ's, etc. etc. but none of it has been incorporated into the Living Rulebook yet. Kinda makes it a Dead Rulebook, eh? LOL

Tamwulf, the Quick Start Book is just the most basic stuff from the Living Rulebook for new players.

The Living Rulebook is the finished product. Any revisions that occur will be updated directly there. It isn't going to paperback, unless you want to download it and print it off yourself. It's similar, in most respects, to Corvus Belli's Infinity rules design. A free rulebook that you don't have to purchase to play.

It took Infinity more than a couple years to change their rules from version 1 to version 2. And the latest, version 3, didn't come out until a couple years ago, and is still going strong.

From the base that Dream Pod 9 has now, they can flex the rules if they absolutely need to.

So, why would Dream Pod 9 absolutely need to update the rulebook monthly or every couple of months, when most companies don't do it, and such constant updates were one of the larger complaints while the Beta was ongoing back in 2015?

Heavy Gear Blitz Living Rulebook is not hard to find, either.

Google it, you get DP9's website, and DriveThruRPG's download is five results down. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144759/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Tabletop-Wargaming--Living-Rulebook

Google "HGB Living Rulebook", the DTRPG link is the third result.

warboss wrote:

 brettness37 wrote:
DP9 has licensed the setting to someone else for Dreadnaughts. Not sure what they are working on themselves, but this Kickstarter is not theirs.

Yup, this is licensed to Wunji and his company. While he is a longtime DP9 collaborator, I don't recall ever seeing his name even mentioned when I peeked behind the scenes for a year or two to see how the gear sausage is made. Other than probably approvals, I don't see Robert and Dave (who essentially are DP9 in its entirety) having a hand in this or this impacting the bottom line beyond scheduling (like not trying to debut the Jovian Chronicles redux at the same time as Dreadnoughts for instance). He'll probably help out at the gencon booth like he did when I was attending years ago and get some space in the display there but I don't expect this offshoot to have any effect on HG proper. Love your avatar btw.

Just as brettness put it. Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts is licensed and being worked on by Fusion Core.

As for Jovian Chronicles, there have been rumblings.

 Albertorius wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
1993? VOTOMS hit the air in the mid-80s!

The landships don't exactly make sense, especially in the notion of a giant desert with high winds - that's what creates the huge dunes in the first place!

1983 to be precise.

Landships always were the more "this is here because it's cool" part of the setting, that's for sure, and TN winds are stated as being as strong and sudden as to make long range flight unfeasible, actually.

OTOH, if the slopes are gentle enough dunes should not be much of a problem if landships can lift a meter above ground. The path would be visible from basically everywhere, though (I think they would be flatting/throwing aside the sand below them with their thrusters and lift fields), and non movable stuff would be tricky.

At the end of they day, they are one of the parts of the setting that follow the rule of cool more closely instead of believability. As long as they work more or less as wet navy ships swapping the oceans of water for oceans of sand, we would be in the same place as in the original depiction.

Within setting, if the winds are that strong, and it's a giant desert, then massive dunes would result, and even landships would be buried...

But if it's just an excuse to reskin a wet naval game, then that's fine. But don't have the ground / sea scale so far off the model scale. 1/2400 models and 1/5000 hexes work. As does a 1:1 model:ground scale.

BrandonKF wrote:
Tactical scale, or rather, my perception of it, involves individual troops and platoons. This is slightly above that level.

Ok then. I would argue that it's not what you usually call "tactics" as opposed to "strategy" but ok.

An equivalent force to a platoon in Heavy Gear terms is roughly three squadrons or cadres (whether you're North or South). That's 12 to 15 Gears. Much of Heavy Gear Blitz involves that level of combat, typically in very built-up areas, or at shorter ranges than would typically be seen.

Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts expands on the idea that Heavy Gears are one-man infantry fighting vehicles, capable of engaging over 1,500 meters from their targets. You need legroom to maneuver like that, just as tanks and infantry do. Infantry in this scale aren't merely foot troops. Their forces include Caimans, Badgers, Mastiffs, Hoplites, and the occasional Heavy Gear as back-up (like the much-loved and much-hated Asp). However, the exact composition doesn't affect base stats in Dreadnoughts. There might be some options here or there, but for the most part, Gears are Gears, scout Gears are scout Gears, tanks are tanks, and striders are striders.

The current scale you're working with is 1''=20km, going by the comments in this thread. If your units are spread over the gaming zone they might as well be in another country, for all the help they will be to any other ally. Even having your nearest unit at 3'' mean they are 60 km apart. It simply does not matter how advanced or how "not merely foot soldiers" the mighr or might not be: they will be all alone out there, with no support whatsoever (and even more on Terra Nova, the "no, you don't get to fly" planet [exaggerated for effect here]).

You might need leg to maneuver, alright. The scales you're talking about are not "legroom to maneuver". They are "the table is my whole country". Engagement range is also misleading, if you think about it. An M16 has a maximum range of 2.700m and a lethal range of 900m, but still you don't spread soldiers 1km apart from each other. If you want to keep the 1''=20km scale, something of the following will happen:

1) You will need to cluster your units all pretty much in the same inch to be able to work together.
2) If they are spread out, all your engagements will be like separate HBG games played with regular minis on a soccer field.
3) You will need to shorten the scale to better reflect your units.
4) You will need to enlargen the units to better reflect the scale.

There is also the fact that the small excerpts of rules that you have shown seem to be better suited to bigger units (units of that size won't really get depleted as much as suffer casualties, for example). IMHO the odd duck out from what you seem to be wanting to do is scale. Shorten it and you can do a game much better suited to the kind of units you want to represent in the field and the scale you want to use for your landships.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Within setting, if the winds are that strong, and it's a giant desert, then massive dunes would result, and even landships would be buried...

But if it's just an excuse to reskin a wet naval game, then that's fine. But don't have the ground / sea scale so far off the model scale. 1/2400 models and 1/5000 hexes work. As does a 1:1 model:ground scale.

It would depend on the type of desert, of course, but yes, the main objective of landships have always been to mimic wet navies. I've always rolled with it because of that, although it's not the setting fact that most interest me by a long shot.

When it was first mentioned, I was thinking that a gear token for instance would be at least a section of gears (3+ squads plus a small dedicated command element).



http://smilodon-populator.deviantart.com/art/Heavy-Gear-Section-Org-Chart-316793653

This is the only image I could find and that is from Smilodon's reimagining of HG tactical organization. I don't recall how different that is from the old RPG organization but that is the type of force that I see deployed to cover a single 20km hex for the active battlefield that the game represents.

Tamwulf, the Quick Start Book is just the most basic stuff from the Living Rulebook for new players.

The Living Rulebook is the finished product. Any revisions that occur will be updated directly there. It isn't going to paperback, unless you want to download it and print it off yourself. It's similar, in most respects, to Corvus Belli's Infinity rules design. A free rulebook that you don't have to purchase to play.

It took Infinity more than a couple years to change their rules from version 1 to version 2. And the latest, version 3, didn't come out until a couple years ago, and is still going strong.

From the base that Dream Pod 9 has now, they can flex the rules if they absolutely need to.

So, why would Dream Pod 9 absolutely need to update the rulebook monthly or every couple of months, when most companies don't do it, and such constant updates were one of the larger complaints while the Beta was ongoing back in 2015?

Heavy Gear Blitz Living Rulebook is not hard to find, either.

Google it, you get DP9's website, and DriveThruRPG's download is five results down. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144759/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Tabletop-Wargaming--Living-Rulebook

Google "HGB Living Rulebook", the DTRPG link is the third result.

One of the primary reasons for DP9 to go with a "Living Rulebook" was the ability to update as needed and not on any kind of set schedule. The last time the living rulebook was updated was 17 July 2016. Since then, there have been almost 3 pages of corrections and errata brought up to the living rulebook, and each time was a "Thanks!", "We're working on it" and "it'll be in the next update!" So.. when will this PDF document that would take all of a couple hours to update with these corrections, be updated?

You are also looking at the game as a veteran of DP9. If I was a brand new player, and I went to the DP9 website front page, I would see "Free Living Rulebook Ebook" with a small graphic of Heavy Gear Blitz. WTF does that mean? What's a living rulebook? What is that the rulebook for? And why are there all these other links on the front page to Heavy Gear Blitz? When I do a google search, I know that I'm looking for the Heavy Gear Blitz Living Rulebook, because I follow the game. Random guy from Warhammer 40K is going to type in "Heavy Gear Rulebook" and get what? Keep in mind google uses cookies and keeps track of your search history using a predictive algorithm to modify your search results based on what it thinks you are looking for. What's a new player going to get when he types in "Heavy Gear Rulebook"?

Visiting the front page, if you click on the link that says "Heavy Gear Blitz" guess where it takes you? To the OLD edition of HGB with links to all kinds of great reference material, but also to rulebooks. There is no clear indication at all that it's outdated material. Again, this would all be misleading and confusing to a new player.

Where are the rules for the other factions? Oh, that's right! Buried in the forums under the subforum "Heavy Gear Blitz Living Rule Book Development". At least it's pinned to the top. The website is a disaster from a web developer stand point, and from a marketing standpoint, it's even worse.

I reiterate my earlier stance: The website is a mess and needs to be cleaned up for ease of you. All the information is there, if you already know where to look.

When will we be seeing an update for HGB? What's being worked on? The latest development blog (linked on the front page under "Heavy Gear Blitz New Edition News and Downloads") is from July 28th, 2014 and talks about Beta Infantry rules! Under a different link, Dave Mcleod on 11/16/2016 posted a good blog about "I got my Kickstater, what next?"

Another blog was posted on 10/28/2016 called "FAQ and Errata" and written by Dave talking extensively about the Observer Effect. After clicking on that link today, because I read the forums, not the stuff on the front page, I discovered the answers to many of my original , gripes, and complaints about the game, as well as a roadmap of HGB through next spring. The formating of the blog is strange- different font values and pitch sizes, and it rambles here and there, but again, WTF. I really feel like I have to dig, dig, and dig for a gold nugget of information that's buried and "hidden". Oh, and there is an errata line to impact attacks in the blog that is not reflected in the Living Rulebook thread in the forums. So I give up. The rules are still clunky, army creation, while still better then the last edition, still feels way, way over complicated. After trying to follow how to do it in the Quick Start Rulebook, I gave up and just used the Gear Grinder from the forums. It should not be this difficult to make an army to play. Not even Infinity is this complicated.

Who is this game being targeted to? Because it's not new players, and it's not veteran players who gave up on the game.

warboss wrote:When it was first mentioned, I was thinking that a gear token for instance would be at least a section of gears (3+ squads plus a small dedicated command element).



http://smilodon-populator.deviantart.com/art/Heavy-Gear-Section-Org-Chart-316793653

This is the only image I could find and that is from Smilodon's reimagining of HG tactical organization. I don't recall how different that is from the old RPG organization but that is the type of force that I see deployed to cover a single 20km hex for the active battlefield that the game represents.

Typically sections didn't have dedicated command/specialist details (dedicated support companies/command sections were at the regiment level, but the above is a great organization for a HGB army) and the individual squads usually were made up of 5 Gears instead of 6, but that is the unit level that Brandon was commenting about:

BrandonKF wrote:An equivalent force to a platoon in Heavy Gear terms is roughly three squadrons or cadres (whether you're North or South). That's 12 to 15 Gears. Much of Heavy Gear Blitz involves that level of combat, typically in very built-up areas, or at shorter ranges than would typically be seen.

Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts expands on the idea that Heavy Gears are one-man infantry fighting vehicles, capable of engaging over 1,500 meters from their targets. You need legroom to maneuver like that, just as tanks and infantry do. Infantry in this scale aren't merely foot troops. Their forces include Caimans, Badgers, Mastiffs, Hoplites, and the occasional Heavy Gear as back-up (like the much-loved and much-hated Asp). However, the exact composition doesn't affect base stats in Dreadnoughts. There might be some options here or there, but for the most part, Gears are Gears, scout Gears are scout Gears, tanks are tanks, and striders are striders.

A regular Gear section usually amount to 3-4 squadrons. Now, in a 20km diameter hex that would mean 15-20 units to control an area of 314 square kilometers, which feels... awfully spare IMHO. that's 16-21 square kilometers per Gear. Yes, they absolutely could be the only units in the zone, of course, but there's only so much a unit that size can do in that much space, particularly in built-up areas. Actually, a significant part of the hex should be out of range of the unit's weapons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mmmpi wrote:
The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. The song just never bothers to mention that it's twice a year. Unless I'm there. Last time I was in Madrid it rained for 16 straight hours and on three days. Locals thought I was a witch.

OTOH, this is Malaga today:

 Albertorius wrote:

A regular Gear section usually amount to 3-4 squadrons. Now, in a 20km diameter hex that would mean 15-20 units to control an area of 314 square kilometers, which feels... awfully spare IMHO. that's 16-21 square kilometers per Gear. Yes, they absolutely could be the only units in the zone, of course, but there's only so much a unit that size can do in that much space, particularly in built-up areas. Actually, a significant part of the hex should be out of range of the unit's weapons.

I'm ok with that. Evening assuming that the squadrons are spaced out geometrically as far away from each other on the corners of the hex, they're still less than an hour at combat speed away from help (and 15min at top speed). That assumes you can't stack tokens voluntarily on a hex from increased density as well (and I don't believe Brandon said that). It also depends on the time frame used per turn as to how appropriate the scale/density is.

OTOH, this is Malaga today:

An umbrella while wading through waist deep water? Isn't that like closing the shutters after the roof is torn off in a hurricane? I suppose he really doesn't want to ruin his hairdo...

 warboss wrote:
I'm ok with that. Evening assuming that the squadrons are spaced out geometrically as far away from each other on the corners of the hex, they're still less than an hour at combat speed away from help (and 15min at top speed). That assumes you can't stack tokens voluntarily on a hex from increased density as well (and I don't believe Brandon said that). It also depends on the time frame used per turn as to how appropriate the scale/density is.

It's more assuming that they will go forward with scenery and table instead of hexes, as was the original plan. There's a limited amount of stuff that you can pile up together that way (DP9's regular hex bases are 1'' across, so basically it limits it to a unit per inch). If we're talking cardstock or small pieces on a hex, well, then things change for the better.

An umbrella while wading through waist deep water? Isn't that like closing the shutters after the roof is torn off in a hurricane? I suppose he really doesn't want to ruin his hairdo...

I guess it's more it weirded him out ^^. It's been a bad weekend altogether for the area, and they are not used to it. We've even gotten fatalities due to the water, and some quite daring rescues, in a place that's actually 120km away from a desert.

And Dreadnoughts is cancelled finally...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1438910159/heavy-gear-dreadnoughts-plastic-miniatures-wargame/posts/1756160

It's not an ideal outcome, but it's not an awful one, either. A large number of factors were in play here, most of them unpredictable (and of a personal nature, which we won't get into here, except to say that our available time and resources have been greatly, and unavoidably, curtailed these past few months). Of the factors that could be predicted, we'd accounted for them and accepted the risk, and this is one of the possible moves we knew we might have to make when we decided to go ahead with a demo-less Kickstarter this late in this particular year. From here, we simply keep moving forward.

I was under the apparently mistaken idea that the "personal issues" mentioned by Brandon were sudden and unexpected *DURING* the campaign leading to the lack of timely responses to serious issues raised but apparently they've been ongoing for months. So they decided, after knowing for months they were unable to adequately prep this campaign, to go forward with it anyways? Le Sigh. That's not an attitude that I want from someone who is asking me for money a year to years in advance with little to no recourse on my part if things fall apart later on. If personal issues popped up again during a latter stage, would they just release a half assed incomplete game as well? You don't order "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" with someone else's ship if you know you forgot to load the guns and the helmsman called in sick.

Those were originally the primary focus of our plastics efforts, but they got back-burnered in favor of the landships. Seems like our first instinct was our best one, so we'll put the troops back on the drawing board. We'll settle on a firm size; we've followed closely the discussions on the pros and cons of smaller figures, and while we probably won't go way down to 1/1500 or smaller, we'll go for the smallest size that still shows clearly recognizable design traits. We'll get them modeled up at the new size, too, so that we're not using placeholders. And we'll probably move them up into an earlier stretch goal, if not into the main Kickstarter funding goal.

It doesn't spell it out explicitly but it looks like he might be addressing both the ground units scale (the troops reference) and the landship size mismatch potentially to the gameplay (the 1/1500 scale reference as that can't possibly refer to gears/infantry).

Considering how the project was bleeding money, it's kinda silly that they didn't pull the plug earlier.

This is, arguably, the most half-assed "name" KS I've seen in a while.
1. Totally unprepared with rules / gameplay.
2. Non-sensical "hard SF" background.
3. Non-responsive creator.

In 2012, it might have , but it's nearly 2017, and at this point, they needed more than 4 renders and some nice words to fund. In 2016-2017, you need to show that you're read to go into production with 80+% readiness. But still, the reall killer was #3. The creator kinda looked like he gave up on the project.

Oh yeah, 1/2500 is a workable ground scale (1:1 = 6mm Gears). Even 1/5000 works, if Gears become counters.

Tamwulf, I can point you to at least a dozen games played with the new rules by newer players on the Terra Nova DMZ.

Maybe, if you joined us there, you could ask questions, get clarifications, and also learn some new tricks yourself.

As for development, I don't have a say in when Dream Pod 9 decides to update their rulebook, but I certainly don't expect them to keep "developing" when they've already settled on this as the finished rules. Anything beyond this is not 'development', so much as it is massaging the current rules.

warboss wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

A regular Gear section usually amount to 3-4 squadrons. Now, in a 20km diameter hex that would mean 15-20 units to control an area of 314 square kilometers, which feels... awfully spare IMHO. that's 16-21 square kilometers per Gear. Yes, they absolutely could be the only units in the zone, of course, but there's only so much a unit that size can do in that much space, particularly in built-up areas. Actually, a significant part of the hex should be out of range of the unit's weapons.

I'm ok with that. Evening assuming that the squadrons are spaced out geometrically as far away from each other on the corners of the hex, they're still less than an hour at combat speed away from help (and 15min at top speed). That assumes you can't stack tokens voluntarily on a hex from increased density as well (and I don't believe Brandon said that). It also depends on the time frame used per turn as to how appropriate the scale/density is.

There's still no hexes insofar as I know.

But yes, the time scale involved isn't being measured in minutes or seconds. Think hours and days.

Honestly, as far as the cancellation, I knew it was coming eventually. For now, it's back to work.

BrandonKF wrote:

There's still no hexes insofar as I know.

Sorry, that was my mistake... board games on the brain.

'Hard SF' matters a lot less than 'quality product', 'good rules', 'solid support', and 'attracts players'.

There's a reason that say, Kingdom Death Monster 1.5's pulling in a 7 million dollar Kickstarter. Or that even in the same genre as this, a tabletop vehicular minis game, Dropfleet Commander did about 1 million. And produced great quality.

Literally the last thing that matters is freaking out about exactly how many kilometers to scape the board is, when you're using abstractions like 'My models need to be visible' and 'Terrain has to be practical'.

The issue isn't "hard SF" per se, it's that the game didn't match the "hard SF" background. It's an obvious disconnect.

As for KD:M, there is a lot of goodwill garnered by producing boutique minis and actually overdelivering on the first KS. HGD has no such track record, and the minis don't jump out as being obviously amazing, nor notorious. They're just workmanlike, which is fine. It's not obvious what the game does special / better, because the rules weren't released.

 Killionaire wrote:
'Hard SF' matters a lot less than 'quality product', 'good rules', 'solid support', and 'attracts players'.

I suppose it matters alot more to the person who will be making/working on the game if that is their personal favorite genre. It may be the case that it's not worth it for them to devote years (whether part time or full time) if they can't make the game *THEY* want... similar to how some FLGS owners preferentially stock the games they're interested in but not what their customer base may want. Of course, that doesn't necessarily turn out well for the store either....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Killionaire wrote:
'
Literally the last thing that matters is freaking out about exactly how many kilometers to scape the board is, when you're using abstractions like 'My models need to be visible' and 'Terrain has to be practical'.

I disagree there. Figuring out the scale is right up there on top of the crunch priority list along with the intended model count IMO when trying to make a good game and should probably be determined BEFORE you work on the rules. You need to tailor the rules to the type of combat you're attempting to represent with little figures instead of trying to shoehorn one into the other. Traditionally, HG has suffered from this problem. Tactical was an RPG made for 4-5 models (the PC's) per side but played with 2-3x that amount. Blitz IMO was made for 10-15 models but was marketed at double that. I can't speak with any certainty about nublitz though as I haven't played enough (just small solo scenarios).

I think you're mistaking the scope of the game, which is a rather critical design element, with the actual scale of the game. The latter is kind of trivial, all told, and some games don't even specificy scale (FoW !), while the former is... yeah, critical.

The sheer casualness with which the Fusion Core team prepared and then brushed aside this KS "We didn't expect it to succeed anyway", is rather surprising, and not exactly a good sign for potential customers.
Furthermore, I'm not certain they even realize why it failed. (Hint : It's not the timing). For something to be a learning experience, you have to actually learn things from it...

Amusingly, I'm not so hot on FoW as a simulation of any sort, although it's not too bad as a WW-2 themed game. A lot of my FoW issues stem from the lack of scale.

 HudsonD wrote:
I think you're mistaking the scope of the game, which is a rather critical design element, with the actual scale of the game. The latter is kind of trivial, all told, and some games don't even specificy scale (FoW !), while the former is... yeah, critical.

No confusion here as in this case they're related and I'm referring to both figurative and literal scale mismatch. I do think your clearer wording is preferrable though.