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Hey guys, i'm looking at getting into Heavy Gear Blitz. Anyone advise me on what rulebooks i need to get and whats worthwhile picking up?

Many thanks

None. The new edition is in the alpha phase. You can download from the official site for free. It is constantly changing. From the marketing point of view, this is done extremely poor because the new edition will invalidate everything that has been published so far. Other than the basic set up, many options or weapon choices from the starter sets alone may not be tournament legal, not considering about the rest. The army list is a big turn off for me. The new set up is good for massive battle like 40K but simply too restrictive in a skirmish game where you only field about 10-15 models at the most.

For a gaming company, a set of good rules won't sell. What makes people interested are the models and what you can do with them. Retrospectively, HGB would have been dead long ago if it is not the amount of models for various factions and the many weapons choices you can make. It is like the the number of choices of upgrades and items you have in WHFB and 40K. Yes, this makes the game harder to balance. So what, majority of the players are still playing games like 40K and WHFB and only turns away because of the price hike.

I came across many miniature games in my lifetime. I am not optimistic that this will do any good in the future. There are also many "white knights" who defend for the designers. Most of them have no idea what they are talking about. I advise you to take a look at the alpha rules and decide whether you want to invest or to pick up another game.

Hey, I've got issues with DP9, but there's also the concept of the black knight, someone who unreasonably posts as much as possible to put down a game he thinks wronged him in some way.

I say go give the new alpha rules a try. If you like it, why not play?

Knights, either white or black, are those who voiced their opinions without a reason. What so bad about them is that both sides refuse to have any meaningful discussion. All constructive criticism is ignored and the game continues to fade away.

From my previous gaming experiences, different companies have tried various strategies to balance their game systems. In general, I can only think of four:

1. Strip down all options and upgrade to the bare minimum. You have a fixed area size and the amount of army is set at a certain point. In the case of HGB, for example, army size can be set permanently at 1000 TV. When someone fields a Dark Naga, everyone knows exactly what weapons it carries. There is no other variant. Reaper’s Warlord uses this option with some success.
2. Have as many upgrades and options as possible. Usually, players are smart enough to choose the most cost effective combination or to figure out the best synergy for their factions. This option is usually used for games with a relative simple mechanics. It involves constant adjustment of the rules and army values and some units and upgrades will become useless in a competitive setting. Often, no one is satisfied. 40K and WHFB have a bit of that.
3. Make all faction “broken”. Each army has a killer combo and it will be up to the players who can pull it off first. In this case, there is no need to balance each army because everything is “unbalanced”. I don’t play Warmachine anymore. When the game was first introduced, that was the common feeling among the players.
4. Adjustment of the point cost for obvious reasons.

Most game designers used a combination of the above strategies. I do not see any of that happening in the alpha phase of the new edition rule for HGB. Assuming all factions will be balanced at various game size is simply native and inexperienced especially when some units are very powerful and others are not.
Because the game has too many options and upgrade, the designer wants to limit it. The problem is that the army choice is going to be restricted to a whole squad rather than an individual unit. In order to take a particular weapon choice or special gear, you have to have the whole squad consisting of other multiple simple gears that you cannot upgrade or need. Besides, some of the weapon options are based on the storyline or on what a regular real army should be or on the designer’s imagination instead of what is actually useful in play. In a game that typically fields about 3 squads in average. This is too restrictive. The end result is that a player will be hard to adjust his list to any change in the gaming environment accordingly.
No army has a “broken” combo in HGB with the exception for Black Talon’s ability to purchase the '"night" condition. That rule should be banned long time ago.
Each unit will be set at a low cost. Unfortunately, this will effectively limit the opportunity to adjust any overpowered or underutilized unit.
If anyone plays a game of Blokus, trying to leave the big pieces at the end is never a good idea. Sadly, I feel that the designer is doing that at the moment for HGB. It also appears to me that he listens to those who agrees with him and ignores other ideas.
I hope that the game will continue to move in the right direction but with many doubts.