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Heavy Gear Blitz What is it? Combined arms mecha wargame with a unique combination of anime influence (Gundam and VOTOMS principally) and Western hardish-SF (FASA wargames, Battletech and Renegade Legion). It's scale is 1:144th / 12mm, and it's pretty adamant about adhering to it. Primarily set on Terra Nova, an abandoned colony from Earth's glory days devolved into endless factional warfare on a mostly desert world. At least until Earth shows back up 300 years later with a fleet of clone soldiers and hover tanks. As a game it's designed for mecha-centric (called gears in-universe) but combined arms small scale warfare. Typical games are on a 4'x4' table and between 6-15 models representing 15ft tall single pilot gears, infantry squads and tanks. Play emphasizes positioning and coordinated actions. Notable for having extremely good value plastic starter sets for most of the factions in the game thanks to a series of recent kickstarters, and decades of releases of more expensive metal models. The North - Guns, God, and Gumption  A triumvirate of evangelicals, homesteaders, and merchant guilds living in the Northern mountains, and protagonists of many early stories. They have a massive roster of units favoring the heaviest weapons you can possibly carry and a generally utilitarian boxy design. The South - Expansionist Republic  The other polar power, unabashedly antagonistic to its neighbors and made up of myriad authoritarian political structures. They have a pool of units equal to the North, but sporting more flame weapons than anyone else, a more efficient design sensibility and a tendency toward quantity over quality, at least as compared to other Terra Novan factions. Also aquatic units, but this basically never comes up. Peace River - Arms Merchants with a Grudge  At first a neutral weapons developer to all sides, when they finally chose to become involved in repelling the first Earth invasion they proved pivotal, which directly lead to their capitol being anit-matter bombed off the face of the planet. They specialize in above average units with extensive electronic warfare capabilities and advanced weapons. NuCoal - Basically a Polycule with Fremen  The Nu-Coalition of badlands city states with a diverse roster of its own units, and many from other factions, including remnant Earth forces gone native. They can field a wild variety of forces depending on the element of the coalition. Black Talons - 'Nothing Personal Kid'  All metal models, and all units are better versions of other models. Extremely low model count hyper-elite operators operating operationally. Black on black color schemes, stealth and jumpjets on everything. (Not official pic above, those are mine) Colonial Expeditionary Force - The Baddies  Earth finally gets its poo poo together and comes a pillaging. Lobotomized slave clone brains, nuking civilians, and literal colonialism, they really work to fill out the warcrimes bingo card. They have extremely versatile units covering every possible type in the game, standouts being the 10ft tall slave soldiers, hover tanks, brain-jar powered murder bots, and their own take on TN Gears. Caprice - Corporate Trench Warfare  One massive trench hive-city under corporate rule, with quadrupedal climbing tanks. They flip many conventions of Terra Novan gears on their head, and have seen a steady release of new units recently. Utopia - Descent into Drones  A nuked husk of a world where everyone has retreated into the bunkers, and fights via remote drones with liberal use of limited AIs. More complicated to use than other factions with the smallest roster of native units though the most value for money starter set in terms of total units and points. Eden - Brettonia (no seriously)  A world of islands with a feudal form of government, and a matching aesthetic. Swords, lances, and halberds in the hands of melee experts. The most recent new faction, with no plastic starter box and thus a fairly high up-front cost, and sometime soon the largest model in the game if the Baroness airship is ever released. Where Do I Get the Models? A quick note. None of the plastics are outright bad, but some are better than others. There's a heirarchy to the quality of the plastic kits. Dream Pod 9 did the North and South sets first, and it shows. There's some evident learning mistakes in the molds. The Southern Mamba's leg has a glitch in the shin, some of the details are too shallow, and the vent in the back of the Jagers has a leak. Nothing unfixable, and you really only notice if you personally build the models. The next set they cut were the CEF and Caprice sprues, and those are a marked improvement, though simpler shapes, with one exception. They, uh, outsourced the design of the HT-95 tank and there were some translation problems and it wound up designed using the aesthetics of their other game, Jovian Wars. But it was too late, and they just decided it was a weird but functional design. Perfectly fine kits Which brings us to Peace River and NuCoal and Utopia. Those are good sprues. 3rd generation, all the kinks ironed out, extremely posable with good details. No reservations whatsoever. There's an assembly guide with labels for all the sprue bits, which can be a big help getting started. Are you Canadian or in the US? Then direct from Dream Pod 9 themselves. Are you American? Fortres Minis Are you in the UK/EU? Shiny Games Distribution C A U T I O N There exist an older range of models by RAFM for an earlier edition of Heavy Gear. These are 1:87, not 1:144th like the Heavy Gear Blitz game this thread is about. Distinctive indicators are the below packaging, metal bases, and large single piece engine and butplate sections. They also just look chunkier.   Cool models. Wrong scale. So How Do I Play? Heavy Gear Blitz 3.1 Rulebook You want two PDFs from here, with the current rules and units and the upcoming and newly released units.  Heavy Gear Blitz Army Builder (99% Official) is quite good, updated frequently and in a timely manner with new releases, and the dev is diligent with bug reports. Optional (but really good) Beta Rules seriously though the Salvo rule is all but a shoe-in. Dream Pod 9 Community Blog Where many optional new units and formations are published, and the occasional player army showcase. Dream Pod 9 Forums for arguing about the rules where the owner and principal designer will actually see it, or getting word-of-god clarifications. Heavy Gear Discord Server for arguing pointlessly with non-goons. I Would Like to Know More This is an excellent summary of the background - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AciJHsqFHSo There's also a WHOLE lot of background books, decades of lore and narrative. And recently thanks to one mad player, they've been remastered, converted from ancient files off a 90s Macintosh into really nice looking PDFs. Heavy Gear Revitalized Books Heavy Gear Revitalized Books, Wave 2 That's a lot of books. Here's the short guide to them DP9-101 Life on Terra Nova 2nd Edition – This book is the most up to date general planetary overview out there. It is dated to just before the Polar War (the starting point for the Storyline Books) and covers history, geology, lifeforms, and everything you need to experience life on Terra Nova. DP9-004 Technical Manual 2nd Edition – The Technical Manual covers how much of the technology in Heavy Gear works including the iconic heavy gears themselves. From communications to weapons it’s all here. DP9-033, -034, -056, -062 and -067 – These are the Storyline Books which cover most of the events of the universe AFTER the Life on Terra Nova books and up to the start of the War for Terra Nova in 1950. The League Books – This is a set of books, one for each league like the Northern Lights Confederacy and Mekong Dominion. They are deep dives into each respective League to a level on par with the Life on Terra Nova book. The Life On…. Series – Life on Terra Nova just covers Terra Nova. Books for Caprice, Utopia, Eden and Atlantis are also available, and an Earth Companion covers Earth. There was also a Reboot style CGI series made in 2001, but it's more 'inspired by' than 'set in' or even 'based on' Heavy Gear. Wait, Wasn't This a PC Game?  Why yes, it was! But this is not the thread for that, except for the splat book for HGB based on the videogame. By all means go play them, HG2 can be made to run on modern systems. Or just watch the cutscenes. Trailers, Cutscenes, Animatics Slyphic fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Jun 28, 2023 |
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Jun 13, 2023 05:47
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I've been having a lot of fun with this game lately. It's got an incredible playerbase, and is the most collaborative wargame I've ever encountered. Which is remarkable for a game going since the early 90s and being run by one dude out of his garage in Montreal. Some of the better pics of the models and games from my blog           
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Jun 13, 2023 06:02
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Ok I'm interested in reading more about this - mecha game on this scale is something I wanted to get into for some time
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Jun 13, 2023 06:12
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Really good OP that I can take a deep dive in. In addition to the Heavy Gear Blitz 3.1 Rulebook, I was able to find Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked and Loaded - Rulebook Rev 1.1, and Heavy Gear Blitz! Field Manual - Core Rulebook Revised for free from DriveThruRPG. My understanding is that those two products are from previous editions of the rules, but are they still useful for lore and backstory? https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/55540/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Locked--Loaded--Rulebook-Rev-11 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/97110/Heavy-Gear-Blitz-Field-Manual--Core-Rulebook-Revised
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Jun 13, 2023 08:54
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So I found 2 player set for 120$ https://rpg-piekielko.pl/pl/products/heavy-gear-blitz-battle-in-the-badlands-2-player-starter-box-version-3-1-5872.html. Is this any good and are those gears faction locked?
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Jun 13, 2023 09:40
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Covermeinsunshine posted:Ok I'm interested in reading more about this - mecha game on this scale is something I wanted to get into for some time Helical Nightmares posted:In addition to the Heavy Gear Blitz 3.1 Rulebook, I was able to find Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked and Loaded - Rulebook Rev 1.1, and Heavy Gear Blitz! Field Manual - Core Rulebook Revised for free from DriveThruRPG. Covermeinsunshine posted:So I found 2 player set for 120$ https://rpg-piekielko.pl/pl/products/heavy-gear-blitz-battle-in-the-badlands-2-player-starter-box-version-3-1-5872.html. Is this any good and are those gears faction locked? This reminds me of one more thing I need to add to the OP. There's a heirarchy to the quality of the plastic kits. Dream Pod 9 did the North and South sets first, and it shows. There's some evident learning mistakes in the molds. The Southern Mamba's leg has a glitch in the shin, some of the details are too shallow, and the vent in the back of the Jagers has a leak. The next set they cut were the CEF and Caprice sprues, and those are a marked improvement, though simpler shapes, with one exception. They, uh, outsourced the design of the HT-95 tank and there were some translation problems and it wound up designed using the aesthetics of their other game, Jovian Wars. But it was too late, and they just decided it was a weird but functional design. Which brings us to Peace River and NuCoal. Those are good sprues. 3rd generation, all the kinks ironed out, extremely posable with good details. So this starter set is a great buy. As far as faction locking, that's not a huge concern in HGB. There's extensive cross-faction inclusion of units, either as allies, mercenaries, customers, or conquest. There's a chart.  Peace River and NuCoal units can be used in Leagueless, Black Talon, and specific subfactions of the North and South except for the heaviest gears in this box. ETA: There's a channel I saw recently that built and painted the Peace River and NuCoal models from that box set https://www.youtube.com/@thegameroomtgg/videos Slyphic fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Jun 13, 2023 |
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Jun 13, 2023 16:15
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Thanks for the good OP. I ended up getting a decent bunch of models for this game on steep discount awhile ago from a store that had them on clearance, but I haven't gotten around to actual building any of them yet and had some questions. I ended up with two of the plastic Southern army starters, and a pair of the metal silverscales. If you could answer any of these questions I'd appreciate it: The models in the box come with mixed round and hex bases, can you instead mount all of them on appropriately sized round bases? Do you happen to know what scale the infantry models are? What are some good weapons/equipment to be on the lookout for? The variously sized autocannons and rocket packs seem to be the ubiquitous "free" baseline for most gears, but what about the other common equipment? I'm not really expecting an exhaustive list here, but even something like "bazookas tend to be good/bad" or "gunner upgrades tend to be worth it/not worth it" would be helpful. In Battletech for example, PPCs, large lasers, AC/10s, braces of medium lasers, srms, and lrms all tend to be solid weapon systems. In infinity on the other hand HMGs and Spitfires are considered the gold standard of weapons you pay extra for. A unit with good equipment might be paying for it in other ways, whereas a unit with bad equipment might make up for it in other ways. Is there any standard list building advice you might have? Related to the previous two questions, are there any standout unit variants you would recommend building from the South starter box? The army builder lists some units as "extended content". Are these units legal to use in standard balanced play, or are they more for funsies units for casual games that you need to talk with your opponent about beforehand? Sorry for dumping so many questions on you at once.
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Jun 13, 2023 16:40
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Slyphic posted:
Can you when you have time expand on the faction starter sets - how good are they and what to get next. Man I don't know why I'm so excited for this
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Jun 13, 2023 16:48
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Phantombane posted:The models in the box come with mixed round and hex bases, can you instead mount all of them on appropriately sized round bases? I've got my Naga and Hydra on a 60mm base instead of a 40mm because it doesn't actually fit on a 40. I've got my infantry on team sized rounds and push them into triads for squads. I've got a couple gears with particularly wide stances on 30mm hexes instead of the 25mm hexes they came with as well. My Hyena and Caimans have no base whatsoever, and my CEF tanks have clear acrylic flight stands smaller than the footprint of the model. Use whatever looks best. Phantombane posted:Do you happen to know what scale the infantry models are? Phantombane posted:What are some good weapons/equipment to be on the lookout for? Phantombane posted:Is there any standard list building advice you might have? I hesitate to call this a list-building game, but this really is a huge part of it. Phantombane posted:Related to the previous two questions, are there any standout unit variants you would recommend building from the South starter box? Short Answer: http://hgbtools.infohell.net/roster...bra&S-KingCobra Long Answer: The blackbox iguana is an important source of ECM+ coverage, target designators, and long range (36") sensors. You don't want iguanas to be using guns, you want them doing e-war stuff, and the BBI is just the best loadout bar none. Strike gears are the 'average' power level of HGB, so it's best to think of Jagers as chaff units. To that end, the Flame is an excellent anti-infantry unit that can still threaten even heavy targets, and the Blitz has good range and can importantly dump the anti-tank missiles it carries into a fire mission. Mambas, the bread and butter of the South. Airdrop is a big advantage to them. The Long Fang is the best to give a command upgrade, as it wants to be behind cover firing indirectly. The Blazing has an incredibly versatile weapon in the rotary laser, that's particularly effective against nuisance hard-to-hit targets. The Brawler's grenade launcher can help against well defended targets, and can take the dual weapon duelist upgrade for some much better than usual odds against secondary targets in its blast radius. The Gunner variant is also a duelist candidate with the Ace Gunner perk, and is otherwise just a basic solid unit. Having a variety of Mamba makes for a flexible strike team. Cobras. The Flame Cobra is one of very few units with a Heavy Flamer as well as the fire trait on many secondary weapons makes what are often best ignored without upgrades; but don't forget the light guided mortar, that thing is surprisingly effective. The Bushmaster takes a heavy rotary cannon and a light field gun which complement each other's range bands. The field gun needs easy to hit targets, the rotary cannon doesn't. Take the command upgrade on both (razorfang) because you want hard to kill commanders so make them it. Finally, the basic King Cobra with the medium particle accelerator is a major threat to just about every model. It's often best to use its second action to focus the MPA and just make sure to gently caress up a targets life. if I were to buy a South army box again all over again, those are the units I'd tell myself to build. But build what looks cool, and don't sweat it too much. There's only a handful of trap units to avoid (descending order of trap severity): 'Striking' variants with bazookas because that weapon only works when you get lucky and that ain't any kind of sensible plan. Iguana Gunners, because you don't want Iguanas fighting in that range band with the weakest weapon of its class. Either go e-war and ignore the guns, or take one of the rifle packing versions like the Recon or Hunting. Jagers with the Command upgrade because you've just painted a target on the easiest to kill unit on the field and they aren't even very good at being commanders. King Cobra Gunners, because the best part of the King cobra class is the weapons regular cobras can't take so an HRC is kind of a waste. Spitting Cobras, because they just don't do anything particularly well for too many points. Too much a jack-of-all gear when for that point investment you want it to be doing very specific things well. Phantombane posted:The army builder lists some units as "extended content". Are these units legal to use in standard balanced play, or are they more for funsies units for casual games that you need to talk with your opponent about beforehand? They're semi-official. Won't be tournament legal, but likely to be official in the future. They're coming from the DP9's equivalent of White Dwarf articles. Most people I know are happy to see them in casual games. There's nothing broken or OP being released.
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Jun 13, 2023 17:10
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Covermeinsunshine posted:So I found 2 player set for 120$ https://rpg-piekielko.pl/pl/products/heavy-gear-blitz-battle-in-the-badlands-2-player-starter-box-version-3-1-5872.html. Is this any good and are those gears faction locked? I'd say they're quite decent for what you get, but as well it's worth comparing the starter with two army boxes; as the difference between the starters and two army boxes of the factions in the starters is that the army boxes have a couple/few more models (the north/south army boxes have a kodiak/king cobra respectively, plus a couple more bits) whereas the starter set has a physical rulebook. Either option though will likely give you enough stuff to play 100TV games at the very least, likely more (my army box builds ended up at 150TV exactly, which afaik is the "maximum" point value for a normal game). As far as faction locking goes - most factions can be pretty versatile and usually have subfactions that can take units from another faction, but the two in that starter (Peace River and NuCoal) are probably the easiest to mix and match units from - especially NuCoal, which depending on sublist can take north, south and CEF units in addition to their own. On good units - I haven't played a lot of games but generally as long as your list has at least some anti-armour, anti-infantry, anti-air and e-war equipment you have a decent starting point, with AT and e-war the most important since you'll likely be using mostly gears/frames/etc to start; AI and AA are reasonably simple to manage, frag cannons and especially flamethrowers make for good infantry killers while still having utility for heavier targets, and basic autocannons can be upgraded to AA versions cheaply. For AT, I've heard having at least one or two guns at damage (strength) 9 with some AP is a must, because tanks will give your walkers a bad day if you have trouble getting through their armour. I just have the north/south army boxes so far; trying to balance the two against each other I ended up with a north list that was pretty specialised (with a lot of can-opening guns in particular, having a south box so i could take a LBZ to make a Hunter Zerstorer was very useful), but potentially more restrictive with its range bands vs a south list that was much more generalist, with a focus on volume of fire to make up for fewer truly big guns (Black Mambas in particular have some absolutely ridiculously good loadouts for ripping through medium armoured targets). Disproportionation fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Jun 13, 2023 |
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Jun 13, 2023 19:01
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Disproportionation posted:Either option though will likely give you enough stuff to play 100TV games at the very least, likely more (my army box builds ended up at 150TV exactly, which afaik is the "maximum" point value for a normal game). We've been playing mostly at 100-125 TV. 150 starts to feel a little cramped on a 4x4 table, which is what we typically play on. And 125 has a nice list building feel to it where you can take interesting formations, but you can't take everything you want. And it plays 2 hours if we pay attention, more typically 3 and we dick around a bit.
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Jun 13, 2023 19:21
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Slyphic posted:... I've never met a basing stickler yet anywhere in HGB... I suggest all new folks invest in a Varis or some infantry. Starter boxes are a great way to start slogging it out in a ground war, but the game really shines in combined arms battles.
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Jun 13, 2023 19:46
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Is it best to go for the smaller infantry packs that have the specialist troopers or the larger ones that are just regular troops? I'd probably aim to get some extra hex bases with the former instead of using the 40mm round ones so i can swap/split different infantry types around but that'd likely leave some bases under the "recommended" model count.
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Jun 13, 2023 20:20
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Slyphic posted:A very good post Ok, that answered my questions better than I had hoped for. Thanks a ton! For the mambas specifically you mention airdrop as an advantage for them, however it looks like they would be without any kind of e-war coverage if you airdropped them on their own. Is there a decent unit to airdrop in alongside them to help with that, is it just a vulnerability you have to deal with, or is it not as big of a deal as it seems?
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Jun 13, 2023 21:18
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Dr.Tree posted:I suggest all new folks invest in a Varis or some infantry. Starter boxes are a great way to start slogging it out in a ground war, but the game really shines in combined arms battles. Post pics of yours, the thing's a beaut. Disproportionation posted:Is it best to go for the smaller infantry packs that have the specialist troopers or the larger ones that are just regular troops? As for basing infantry, per page 61 and to be backwards compatible with older editions, you can just push three 25mm bases of infantry teams together to form a squad.  It's the most versatile solution. Phantombane posted:For the mambas specifically you mention airdrop as an advantage for them, however it looks like they would be without any kind of e-war coverage if you airdropped them on their own. Is there a decent unit to airdrop in alongside them to help with that, is it just a vulnerability you have to deal with, or is it not as big of a deal as it seems? Both. Mambas are Piloting:3+ and Agile, so they're already hard to hit targets. ECM on top of it makes them extremely hard to hit, but their baseline is more than adequate. Airdropping without ECM is worth it for the extra range onto the board. That said, I also have a couple metal Chameleons with Airdrop and ECM, though that gets to be an expensive group. I've got like one and a half Para-Iguanas in my bits box I should piece together that could do the same. Slyphic fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Jun 13, 2023 |
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Jun 13, 2023 21:37
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Slyphic posted:Both. Mambas are Piloting:3+ and Agile, so they're already hard to hit targets. ECM on top of it makes them extremely hard to hit, but their baseline is more than adequate. Airdropping without ECM is worth it for the extra range onto the board. That said, I also have a couple metal Chameleons with Airdrop and ECM, though that gets to be an expensive group. I've got like one and a half Para-Iguanas in my bits box I should piece together that could do the same. Looking at the sprues in the box again, and it looks like making a para iguana would be pretty easy just by stealing a lac/lgl combo weapon off of the Jaeger sprue, however it doesn't look like there are any parts on the sprues to make the black box iguanas that you recommended earlier, just a little radar dish for the chatterbox/recon variant. Are there any easy conversions you would recommend to represent a black box iguana? The only Ideas I have at the moment are modifying the LRP on the sprue to look sensorish, or maybe just attaching the radar dish and painting it pure black on the finished model. Also, since I have 4 Iguanas total, how many of them should I make black box variants?
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Jun 14, 2023 05:29
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Phantombane posted:Are there any easy conversions you would recommend to represent a black box iguana? The only Ideas I have at the moment are modifying the LRP on the sprue to look sensorish, or maybe just attaching the radar dish and painting it pure black on the finished model. The Black Box Iguana requires no kit bashing, it's all there on the sprue. These are the two important bits. 10 goes on the front of the chest, 16 in one of the shoulder mounts. Give it an LAC and you got a BBI. Just don't give it a (mislabeled) SatUp 17/18, or else you've got a Chatterbox.  I'd make two BBIs and two Hunters.
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Jun 14, 2023 05:51
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Slyphic posted:Forgot to link the plastic assembly guide, that might be a help. Oh so that's what those pieces were for, they didn't look like bits that were on any of the iguana illustrations on gear grinder, so I was a little confused. Thanks for the clarification. I suppose those illustrations are just for the older metal models instead? What's the reasoning on the 2 hunting iguanas? Thanks again for answering all of these questions by the way. I'm hoping to learn enough so that I can start making judgement calls of my own without going in completely ignorant.
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Jun 14, 2023 06:20
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Gear Grinder uses a lot of lineart from older books, which doesn't always match up perfectly with current models. But they look cool, and they give you a good guide for kitbashing. I said Hunting, but I meant Recon, LRF + Sensors:36. In the South starter box, there's exactly 3 weapons that can react fire longer than 18" without sub-optimal range penalties, and two of them are on the King Cobra. Recon Iguanas allow you to threaten a lot more table than the standard 18" semi-circle. If you don't pay attention to it, you can find yourself with an army that fights mostly at close range, and then your opponent can fall back and keep you in their optimal while you're out of his, and that's a bad position to be in, with the only way it can be worse is for them to be outside your max and tagging you with impunity. If you don't want to go the rifle iggy route, make sure you're bringing some mix of Anti-Tank Missiles, Guided Mortars, Artillery Rockets, and Field Guns
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Jun 14, 2023 06:45
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So I finished reading rulebook fluff and I'm kinda torn on either getting south box or waiting for bretonia I mean eden to get starter box in plastic with can take a lot of time. But on the other hand that 2 player box might be best buy since I will be the one forced to push this stuff localy Edit: I decided to buy 2 player starter. Lets go Covermeinsunshine fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Jun 14, 2023 |
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Jun 14, 2023 08:43
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CNCS for Life
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Jun 14, 2023 19:06
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Slyphic posted:Gear Grinder uses a lot of lineart from older books, which doesn't always match up perfectly with current models. But they look cool, and they give you a good guide for kitbashing. I think I might do 2 black boxes, 1 recon, one para, and then load up on some of that bigger longer ranged ordnance. Having the extra longer range weapons certainly sounds like a good idea, but having at least the option to drop an E-war unit alongside the mambas is compelling.The chameleons do look better at that job overall, but I don't have any and probably won't for a long while. I also have the 2 silverscales to help get TD locks from assumed relative safety thanks to their sensor booms, so I imagine I should be able to do indirect fire at longer range pretty well. If it comes down to it I can always get an additional plastic iguana sprue at a later date as well. I think I will attach the weapons on the para iguana with super glue instead of plastic cement though, that way I can rebuild it as a different variant down the road if I want to. I also think that for the recon Iguana I'll try pinning the rifle and the rocket pod, that way by just swapping the rifle for a pinned lsmg and removing the LRP it can also become a chatterbox should I ever desire one.
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Jun 14, 2023 22:19
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I really like my Silverscales. Just a wonderful little toolbox of a gear.  I've been taking them as GP comms officers, and trying to make Jager swarms work. Which still isn't really winning me games, but it's fun. South excels at defensive tactics, but I don't. Got too much bloodlust in me.
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Jun 14, 2023 22:42
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I know this was an older thing but I still love the concept of 1E's force org system where you could weight yourself towards a more elite force, but which meant higher expectations and needed a higher margin of victory to actually count as a win.
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Jun 14, 2023 23:01
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Der Waffle Mous posted:I know this was an older thing but I still love the concept of 1E's force org system where you could weight yourself towards a more elite force, but which meant higher expectations and needed a higher margin of victory to actually count as a win. I'm still a huge fan of the 1st edition Blitz 'Priority Level' system. One of my other favorite wargames, Mongooses' Starship Troopers, uses a very similar system where the units you take dictate how important this element is to you, and the difference in importance between your force and your opponent's determines objectives and deployment. I can understand why they dropped it, because as the model count rose, it would become increasingly difficult to make it fit the 'combat group' first design, but at the same time, I kinda think it would have been worth the effort. For reference:   
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Jun 15, 2023 01:05
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Reading rules what gives me a bit of pause - there is load of loudouts for every gear, then you have additional faction rules and then subfaction rules. Looking at the army builder hurts eyes
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Jun 15, 2023 08:19
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It's definitely intimidating until you learn to tune most of it out as irrelevant. We typically print out a sheet with the unit card display for use during games. My next 100TV South force, for reference http://hgbtools.infohell.net/dataca...ad&Uni-FieldGun Designed for Hold [GP] and Capture [SK] objectives. The Caiman APCs deploy forward then drive towards the Hold points and drop off the infantry and field guns, then hang back for handling anything that tries to rush them. The strike team airdrops near one of the Capture objectives and doesn't let go, while trying to whittle enemy forces near the other objective point down until a 4th turn dash can secure it, sometimes with the help of a couple top-speeding Caimans.  And keep in mind, half the weapons on most gears will go unfired. They're contingency equipment. The APGL is for the rare occassion you get swarmed by infantry. The LVB is for when you close to melee out of desperation against something with high armor, or defending yourself against a close quarters specialist. Yeah, you can go crazy custom, but you really don't need to in order to field a highly effective force. Slyphic fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Jun 15, 2023 |
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Jun 15, 2023 15:42
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Well my starter set just arrived - good think there is this assembly guide because I already got cross eyed staring at the sprues
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Jun 15, 2023 19:30
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Hell yes, my flight stand bases from Australia finally cleared customs, ETA Monday. Got a couple packs of these https://www.back2base-ix.com/en-us/collections/magnetic-flying-stands/products/mac-flight-stands-4-large-60mm for my CEF tank force. 2 HT-68s, 2 HPC-64s, and 3 HT-67s. I've been putting off painting them for a while, waiting on these bases. Those and couple bags of new GREL, and I've got the CEF I want to play. First invasion, no bipeds, Earthers showing up like 'wtf is going on here, fight normal with tanks and infantry god damnit'. Roster 150TV (V3.1) -- FS -- MHT-68 Raider GREL Crew 29TV - Combat Group Leader (CGL) LHT-67 Assault GREL Crew 20TV - Second in Command (2iC) -- FS -- MHT-68 GREL Crew 29TV - Combat Group Leader (CGL) LHT-67 GREL Crew 20TV - Second in Command (2iC) -- GP -- HPC-64 GREL Crew Command 16TV - Combat Group Leader (CGL) GREL Squad 5TV GREL Squad 5TV HPC-64 GREL Crew Command 16TV GREL Squad 5TV GREL Squad 5TV http://hgbtools.infohell.net/roster...uad&C-GRELSquad
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Jun 16, 2023 16:16
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That's a heck of a lot of nasty looking tanks.
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Jun 17, 2023 09:14
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After buying the North V South, and CEF starter a few years ago I’ve finally starter tricking people into buying and painting lists up.  My freshly painted GP squad of Jagers and Hunters across from a recce armiger ace and drone buddies from last nights game.
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Jun 17, 2023 11:53
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Comrade Merf posted:My freshly painted GP squad of Jagers and Hunters across from a recce armiger ace and drone buddies from last nights game. Also, nice lookin models.
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Jun 17, 2023 15:23
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Slyphic posted:How'd fighting Utopia go? I've yet to play or face them, though I've got a starter box on a shelf. Utopia is interesting, you can build armigers up to be terrifying and the passive ability to just have a friendly drone within 3 inches take the hit for them makes actually getting rid of their damage potential really tricky. I wasn't able to kill that recce until the end of the game as he had all 4 of his drones hidden and was rolling 5 dice for defense being in cover, hidden, and having ecm defense up, ended up having to charge in with my both my FS squad and GP to get into melee and dig him out with vibro knives and a mace. GP Squad  FS Squad  Took both halves of the battle for terra nova box and combined them and a bunch of 3d printed parts to make a bandit gang for OpFor giving me a good excuse to fight anyone. Still have 11 more gears to go but Ill probably take a break and paint up my infantry and LAVs for them to ride around in. All our games have just had gear sized units and even then on the lighter end of the armor scale so my 2 bazookas have not had much work done even with a let them have it order their short range and lack of dice they usually don't hit anything unless I can cripple or haywire it first and all that AP goes to waste when everything on the opponents side has 6 armor at most, high damage so when they do hit its been at least a cripple regardless of the target at least so far.
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Jun 17, 2023 20:14
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Those are some very nice looking bandit gears, I like that purpley brown color you used on some of the armor. Also, did you use the alternate/metal style 3d printed heads from game mini garage on these? They look a bit different from the ones that come in the starter boxes.
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Jun 18, 2023 00:46
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Phantombane posted:Those are some very nice looking bandit gears, I like that purpley brown color you used on some of the armor. Also, did you use the alternate/metal style 3d printed heads from game mini garage on these? They look a bit different from the ones that come in the starter boxes. Thank you, the purple is moody mauve from the army painter speed paints range and yeah I replaced all the heads except for the grizzly and iguana with 3D printed heads from GMG along with the hips, lots of the hands are from him as well and scaled depending on the chassis.
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Jun 18, 2023 23:52
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Comrade Merf posted:Thank you, the purple is moody mauve from the army painter speed paints range and yeah I replaced all the heads except for the grizzly and iguana with 3D printed heads from GMG along with the hips, lots of the hands are from him as well and scaled depending on the chassis. It's just a really nice color for the theme you went with, it keeps them looking earthy/deserty without becoming a homogeneous mass of brown/tan that I see on a lot of desert and badlands environment vehicle models. Did you print the 3d printed parts yourself or is there somewhere you can get them printed for you?
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Jun 19, 2023 07:22
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Btw any good sf looking buildings/terrain that match the scale? 3d prints will do.
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Jun 19, 2023 07:53
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Covermeinsunshine posted:Btw any good sf looking buildings/terrain that match the scale? 3d prints will do. If 3d prints are in thenanyone who prints a building in any scale would work. If you messaged the one doing the printing, I'm sure they'd adjust to fit.
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Jun 19, 2023 08:53
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Covermeinsunshine posted:Btw any good sf looking buildings/terrain that match the scale? 3d prints will do. I’ve been scaling and printing Lazy Forgers 6mm stuff. Looking into picking up some N Scale stuff and Game Mini Garage has a decent selection of purpose made STLs of buildings and vehicles made to fit the HG aesthetic.
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Jun 19, 2023 12:41
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Covermeinsunshine posted:Btw any good sf looking buildings/terrain that match the scale? 3d prints will do.  I've also got a bunch of 4Ground buildings I found on clearance. I can't recommend them at full price, but they do look good for HGB, and naturally mix in well with my Dropzone Commander paper terrain. The Dropzone paper terrain kit is amazing value. - https://ttcombat.com/collections/dropzone-commander/products/cityscape TTCombat makes a bunch of MDF terrain at this scale, but I'm not a huge fan of it. They've got a chunky design that doesn't fit the detail level of the models at this scale. - https://ttcombat.com/collections/sci-fi-x Outland Models has a huge range of simple plastic buildings for cheap - https://outlandmodels.com/collections/model-railway-n-scale-1-160-1-150 You can also find most of these on aliexpress, which is about the same place Outland gets them from. If you want to do some ruined buildings, or are fine with doing your own detailing, GCMini has some really cheap and large buildings that are just flat pieces of MDF - https://gcmini.mybigcommerce.com/10mm/ Blotz has a pretty good range of MDF 10mm buildings, about the same quality as TTC - https://blotz.co.uk/product-category/wargames-terrain/10mm-terrain/ Greenmax and TomyTec out of Japan has some great N-scale railroad structures, plastic kits, incredibly detailed, and themselves not too expensive. It's the shipping to the West that's the problem. Expect to pay as much in shipping as for the actual kits - https://www.plazajapan.com/model-train/n-scale/structure/?_bc_fsnf=1&in_stock=1&brand=771 You want to drop some serious dosh on a bad rear end board? Uncertain Scenery has modular city boards that you've got to see - https://uncertainscenery.com/collections/10mm-scale-boards Also, DeepCutStudios has some excellent urban mats you should look at - https://www.deepcutstudio.com/product/wargames-terrain-mat-dropzone-1/ & https://www.deepcutstudio.com/product/wargames-terrain-mat-cityscape-2/
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Jun 19, 2023 14:57
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