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[Heavy Gear] Stompy Bot Productions announces new Heavy Gear vidya!
OtakuD00D
Can I hit the exploding rocks?San DiegoRegistered User regular
Can I hit the exploding rocks?San DiegoRegistered User regular
Heavy Gear
Heavy Gear is a long running franchise by Dream Pod 9 that's been around since 1994. That's 18 years! Largely inspired by Armored Trooper VOTOMS, Heavy Gear features smaller, zippier mechs called Gears. They stand roughly twice as tall as a person on average, and have the ability to speed along via heel wheels/treads. Some have jump jets. Some can hover. They look awesome! Gears, while prominent, are not the sole means of combat in the setting; infantry and tanks still play a strong role. Tanks are actually more powerful and thickly, beastily armored, but they're more expensive to put out into the field compared to Gears on Terranova, the game's main setting. There's tons and tons of factions in the game. The main factions are the Northern forces, Southern Forces, Peace River, Badlanders, the Colonial Expeditionary Force, Caprice, the Black Talons, and the brand-new NuCoal army. The North and South in particular are further broken down into individual sub armies.
http://www.dp9.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=131&Itemid=177 Check this link out to get a good overview of each of the factions, along with emblems, pictures, and a blurb.
Heavy Gear Blitz
HGB is the standard miniature game provided for the Heavy Gear franchise. Your base unit is your gear, which seems to serve as your heavy infantry. You assemble them into different squads, which can have custom weapon loadouts. In addition, you can also field standard infantry and vehicles like hovertanks.
A neat aspect of the game is that you also have off-board assets that you can call in, like artillery strikes or air reinfocement drops. Army lists, aside from point values, are also distinguished by Priority Level ratings, ranging from 1-4. This represents how badass your army is. The higher it is, the more high-end stuff you can take without needing to stock up on crappy mooks as core units. However, you're expected to do better! There are three types of mission objectives to roll for at the start of a match (General, Defense, Offense. Might be another but I can't think of it.), based off how many mission points you have to pick and choose objectives. Higher priority levels are far more likely to end up with Offense objectives, which are generally considered to be harder to accomplish. Higher PL armies are also expected to accomplish most of their objectives, so good luck with that if you want to field all the shiny toys!
Heavy Gear Arena
HGA is the more cinematic of the two Heavy Gear games. Ever seen the TV show? This is pretty much that. Get a team of badass gladiators and pimp them out. You also have access to crazy stunt maneuvers. To give you an idea of how good they can get? Duelists in HG Blitz! are the really good Gladiator characters.
GEAR GARAGE
Gear Garage is amazing. It's a fanmade list builder. It's pretty damn in-depth but not without its problems (IE, select basic stat upgrades BEFORE the Army Leader ones or else you'll have vanishing upgrades). Despite its niggling issues, it's a damn awesome piece of software. Get it here: http://dp9.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=241&Itemid=242
Heavy Gear is a long running franchise by Dream Pod 9 that's been around since 1994. That's 18 years! Largely inspired by Armored Trooper VOTOMS, Heavy Gear features smaller, zippier mechs called Gears. They stand roughly twice as tall as a person on average, and have the ability to speed along via heel wheels/treads. Some have jump jets. Some can hover. They look awesome! Gears, while prominent, are not the sole means of combat in the setting; infantry and tanks still play a strong role. Tanks are actually more powerful and thickly, beastily armored, but they're more expensive to put out into the field compared to Gears on Terranova, the game's main setting. There's tons and tons of factions in the game. The main factions are the Northern forces, Southern Forces, Peace River, Badlanders, the Colonial Expeditionary Force, Caprice, the Black Talons, and the brand-new NuCoal army. The North and South in particular are further broken down into individual sub armies.
http://www.dp9.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=131&Itemid=177 Check this link out to get a good overview of each of the factions, along with emblems, pictures, and a blurb.
Heavy Gear Blitz
HGB is the standard miniature game provided for the Heavy Gear franchise. Your base unit is your gear, which seems to serve as your heavy infantry. You assemble them into different squads, which can have custom weapon loadouts. In addition, you can also field standard infantry and vehicles like hovertanks.
A neat aspect of the game is that you also have off-board assets that you can call in, like artillery strikes or air reinfocement drops. Army lists, aside from point values, are also distinguished by Priority Level ratings, ranging from 1-4. This represents how badass your army is. The higher it is, the more high-end stuff you can take without needing to stock up on crappy mooks as core units. However, you're expected to do better! There are three types of mission objectives to roll for at the start of a match (General, Defense, Offense. Might be another but I can't think of it.), based off how many mission points you have to pick and choose objectives. Higher priority levels are far more likely to end up with Offense objectives, which are generally considered to be harder to accomplish. Higher PL armies are also expected to accomplish most of their objectives, so good luck with that if you want to field all the shiny toys!
Heavy Gear Arena
HGA is the more cinematic of the two Heavy Gear games. Ever seen the TV show? This is pretty much that. Get a team of badass gladiators and pimp them out. You also have access to crazy stunt maneuvers. To give you an idea of how good they can get? Duelists in HG Blitz! are the really good Gladiator characters.
GEAR GARAGE
Gear Garage is amazing. It's a fanmade list builder. It's pretty damn in-depth but not without its problems (IE, select basic stat upgrades BEFORE the Army Leader ones or else you'll have vanishing upgrades). Despite its niggling issues, it's a damn awesome piece of software. Get it here: http://dp9.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=241&Itemid=242
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No one else plays this? ;_;
@Brainleech: Reading your question again, yeah. The bigger stuff went Resin. Stuff like the Naga, Cataphract, etc etc.
I am however looking at this much more closely now; with my 40k Orks I have hundreds of models that I'll field in a game. I have some Warmachine stuff as well and I really like the small model count.
As a fan of giant robot battles I have a lot of Battle Tech stuff but it has it's drawbacks. One of the features that Heavy Gear has going for it for me is its combined arms aspect.
Thanks for the info.
I have never actually played a game.
So, I beg to ask- which armies, how many models for each one? I currently have an 8 model list at that point level. :P Though I've managed to cram 10 models in last night after playing around with Gear Garage and toying with Dark series gears.
2x GP, a fire-support squad, and one specialist squad, respectively.
My current 1500 lists consists of:
Command Naga with dual linked HRPs
Primary Insertion Team: Owl C3, 3 Eagle Troopers (2 HGLC, 1 MAC/LGL)
Tactical Insertion Team: Owl C3, 2 Raptor Commandos (2 HBZKs)
The 10 man list I made in Gear Garage is:
Command Naga with dual linked HRPs
Tactical Insertion Team: Owl C3, 2 Raptor Commandos (2 HBZKs), 2 Dark Mambas (2 HGLCs)
Primary Insertion Team: Dark Skirmisher, 3 Dark Jaguars (2 MBZKs, 1 MAC/LGL)
It'll let you buy the Locked & Loaded rulebook (And the original rulebook, I think) for Heavy Gear Blitz! for free. Here's the thing: It's outdated- but if you get it, they throw in the Field Manual for free, aka the latest core rulebook. Go get it! Learn the game! For free!
In the meantime, here's Beasts of War's hands on with it.
EDIT: All right, here we go, for the writeup. Bear with me, here. This is for Heavy Gear Blitz.
First off, game sizes are determined by two things, mainly: Threat Value and Priority Level. TV is the point cost of everything added up, and Priority Level is decided upon when making the list, ranging from 1 to 4. Priority level is important; it decides many things for you! It's what helps determine whether your force is a disposable defending force in a backwater post or an elite strike squad. Each level of PL has its own force organization chart, of sorts; each has different unit deployment requirements and limitations of how many of (X) unit type you can take (sometimes requiring multiple units of a lower type!). There are four different unit types: Core, Auxiliary, Specialist, and Elite. Besides that, you can tag ONE squad per point of Priority Level as a Veteran squad; veterans can take better equipment and upgrade their stats higher than run of the mill units. Priority level also determines what mission type you're more likely to undergo! As you set up a game, you roll for things like weather conditions and mission type with a d6. There are three mission types, each with their own list of objectives you can pick out: Normal, Defensive, and Offensive. Offensive missions are the hardest to do, and naturally, PL4 lists are VERY much likely to end up with them! High-PL lists are expected to do harder objectives in return to easy access to all the cool shit. You're also expected to do better than your opponent by a good margin. Low-PL lists are happy achieving an objective or two. High-PL lists must pull off MOST of their objective points. Finally, you get a certain amount of special points depending on your PL and a couple other factors. You can spend these to get airstrikes, artillery barrages, drop in turrets, infiltrate units, and stock up on more command points (more on those later). You can also hold stuff in reserve with these points.
Once the mission setup is determined, you roll your commander's leadership stat to determine who deploys first, then you roll to figure out deployment zone types (ala 40k), then finally, you all roll initiative based off of Leadership. WInner determines turn order for that round. From there on out, each player takes turns activating one squad until they run out (ala Malifaux, Dystopian Wars). Once everyone's out of things to activate, everyone rolls another Initiative check to determine the next round's order.
So the rolling system is as follows. You throw between 1 and 5 D6, depending on your model's relevant stat. On average you'll see 2. Veterans can go up to 3, certain elite badasses can hit 4, and Duelists (Only if both sides agree to field them! These are Arena guys!) can hit all the way up to 5. From here, you factor in a metric crapton of positive and negative modifiers, all according to your model's current speed (Stationary, Combat, Top), weapon accuracy, visibility between you and your target... really, there's a ton. Your opponent must then factor in a similar amount of circumstances to determine how much of a defense bonus and how many penalties he's incurring. More often than not, your movement type also factors into your total defensive bonuses: Gears, most of the time, can either run on foot or engage feet-wheels to skate along in what's known as Ground Mode. The key to the game is figuring them out and working the field to stack as much on your side as possible, because the system can get really lethal, really quick. Once you figure out said modifiers, you roll your dice- pick out the highest number in your roll; if it's a six, you then add +1 for each extra six you roll, then adding in (or subtracting) the modifier you just figured out. You then compare to a target number or engage in a contested roll against your opponent. In a contested roll, you're looking for degrees of success - aka the difference between both of your rolls. Let's go over an example:
Nameless Grunt in a Hunter is running in Combat speed towards his opponent, Chirico, who is riding in the mighty Black Mamba. Chirico is speeding along at Top Ground speed. With his chosen weapon and everything else in mind, his total bonus is +1; not too shabby! Since he's just a grunt, he rolls two dice, adding +1 to his roll. He rolls a 2 and a 6; perfect! That means he rolled a 7, total. His weapon of choice is the Light Autocannon, with a damage rating of x8; this means that the weapon will do damage rated at the degrees of success he achieves... multiplied by 8. Chirico then rolls to dodge- he's a legendary ace pilot, so he gets to throw 4 dice against his opponent. Not only that, but his Black Mamba is breezing by at top speed, so he gets a +2 bonus to dodge! Luckily, there's nothing else going on to impose a penalty on him. He rolls a 2, 4, 6, 6. That's already a 7 thanks to the extra 6. Adding in the defensive modifier for his current speed, he's rolled a 9- impressive! That attack wasn't even on his radar.
Chirico responds in kind with his own attack. WIth some deft maneuvering, Chirico manages to end up behind his opponent, delivering a point-blank shot with a light bazooka. Because he's going so fast, he doesn't get an accuracy bonus- and his bazooka isn't terribly accurate, either; it gives him nothing. However, it's not inaccurate so he's got nothing to worry. He rolls a 1, 6, 6, 6. That's a total of 8. His opponent must be REALLY freaking out; let's see what he has to deal with- two dice, plus... Well, he got attacked from behind, so that's a -1. Going at combat speed doesn't give nor take away anything. So in total, he has a -1 to his roll. Ouch. The nameless grunt rolls a 1 and a 5. However, the -1 brings it down to 4. This means Chirico landed a hit with 4 degrees of success. Astonishing. The lowly Hunter has an armor of 15. The light bazooka? x15. Multiplied by four degrees of success, this means that Chirico's attack has inflicted 60 points of damage. In order to determine how much damage you do, you figure out how how many multiples of your opponent's armor rating you've surpassed. In this case, it's easy to figure out because both armor and weapon power are the same. You do a point of damage by simply meeting armor, so in this case, Chirico's managed to inflict four points of damage in a single shot. Most Gears and vehicles have around four boxes of health; each damage level starts to bestow heavier and heavier penalties, so it's easier to destroy a target that's sustained damage before. With this in mind, everything also has an Overkill rating- typically a number 4 times higher than its base armor. If the Overkill limit is ever reached, the victim instantly dies. Incidentally, that's exactly what happened to the nameless grunt.
The above was an incredibly simplified take on a combat round. In order to even attack, one must achieve a combat lock. Truthfully, this is easier done than said most of the time- you just need to establish line of sight to your target. However, this is where concealment comes into play. Different sorts of terrain give varying degrees of concealment and cover. The weather can also contribute to concealment. Your total concealment rating determines how hard you are to spot- which is opposed by an enemy model's Detection rating. If Detection is higher, Combat Lock is achieved, and you can start firing away. This is pretty cool, because it means that recon models are actually worth a damn. They tend to have insanely high Detection ratings relative to the rest of the army. Of course, this all doesn't matter if you're close enough to the enemy- the exact distance is determined by a model's size category. Failing all this, you can still pull off something called Active Lock by making a roll. Once achieved, all you can really do at that point is use any indirect fire weapons you may have, set up Coordinated Attack if you're a squad leader (Squad Leaders actually do something! This just bestows a -1 penalty to a single target for your squad), or Forward Observe (This helps other models with indirect fire weapons find targets to lob barrages at!).
Oh right, and command points. They're like Focus points, if you've played Privateer Press stuff. Kind of. You spend them to make stuff shoot again (out of turn if you want), move again (out of turn, too!), or even attempt to interrupt communication events on the other side (Such as making sure that one scout doesn't mark you for an artillery barrage).
That about covers it, more or less. There's a whole lot to it, just take a look at the field manual!
What TV?
My army: Command Dark Naga, Tactical Insertion Team - Owl C3 squad leader, 2 Raptors w/ Heavy Bazookas and Heavy Panzerfausts, 2 Dark Mambas
His army: 5-man General Purpose squad with Jaguars, a 5-man Fire Support team with two Grizzlies and 3 others, and a 5-man recon squad with 2 White Cats, 2 Cheetahs, and a squad leader of some make I can't really remember.
Opponent's objectives: Survive and Hold.
My objectives: Survive and Wipe them Out.
Survive: One randomly chosen Combat Group from your force is particularly valuable to high command. You gain 1 VP if ½ or more of the Combat Group is not Critically Damaged or Destroyed, and an additional 1 VP if all members of the Combat Group are neither. The Combat Group may not be held in Reserve.
Hold: You must keep and hold a randomly chosen Static Model or terrain piece outside of your opponent’s Deployment Zone. If you have more Models within 6” of the Target at the end of the game than your opponent, you gain 1 VP. If there are no enemy Models within 6” of the Target, you gain an additional 1 VP. Static Models that can be destroyed are not valid choices for this objective.
Wipe them Out: One randomly chosen enemy Combat Group consisting of 3 or more Models must be destroyed, regardless of the consequences. If no Combat Group with 3 or more Models is available, randomize between all Combat Groups. You gain 1 VP if ½ or more of the Combat Group is Destroyed or Critically Damaged, and an additional 1 VP if the whole Combat Group is Killed or Destroyed. The Target of this Objective may not be one held in Reserve.
Spoiler'd for long.
For his objectives, he ultimately rolled a building towards the southwestern end of the map to hold by game's end. His recon squad had to stay alive at all costs. In all fairness, I actually forgot about the building he had to hold until the game's end. I'm also 80% certain he had to protect his recon squad, considering how the rest of the game went. I could be wrong. I'm trying to remember right now, and I'll ask others later.
I, on the other hand, ended up with needing my main combat team to survive. I was really hoping it'd be my Naga, considering the requirements of Survive. Sadly, it wasn't the case. My five-man squad was chosen. I could not lose more than two members of the squad in order to get one VP. This literally meant I could not lose a third of my army. If it were the Naga, I could afford to take as many losses as I'd damn well please and STILL get 2VP assuming the Naga survives. For Wipe Them out, his recon squad was slated for death; the very same recon squad he was supposed to protect. At first, I thought this was a good thing. As a Black Talons player, I hate recon squads by my very nature of being a stealthy army. Turns out that White Cats have the strongest ECM package in the game, or at least one of the strongest, and Cheetahs are stupid-diculously fast and agile.
So I deployed my Owl and one of the Raptors in the northwestern deployment corner and the rest of my army went into the southeastern corner zone. Since both of us were fairly new to the game and the more experienced players went out to dinner, the first round of the game easily ate up most of our game time. The Raptor in the rear deployment area utterly obliterated one of the two Grizzlies before it had a chance to deliver its indirect payload; this is where I realized just how fun it was firing a Heavy Bazooka (x25 damage) against a model currently going on autopilot (Grizzlies can apparently do this in order to maximize their damage output during artillery strikes.). Not long after, that very same Raptor got destroyed after one of the White Cats peeled off to spot him and mark him for death by Grizzly.
It wasn't long before the White Cats and my Owl/Naga got into a really nasty EW-fest. Both sides were desperately trying to mark each other for bombardment, and we fought tooth and nail to stop each other. He had a slight edge due to the White Cat's raw power, but I had the advantage in sheer numbers of Command Points and actions- well, no. Even that was debatable, now that I think about it. It really depends on how we went about things. If he defended himself, it meant he was either blowing his active turn's action, or blowing his command point. I had multiple actions so I was able to simply try again or use a command point, and just bank the rest to defend myself in his turn. Either way it was heavily back and forth. My Naga actually ended up being utterly useless when it came to firing its rocket pods. Most of its attempts to get a bead on something were met with fierce jamming, and the rest of the time I just rolled horribly enough to run out of ammo- twice. Black Talons ignore the first result, and HRPs are not reloadable for the second time around.
So after enduring an attack from his grizzly and friends, the other chunk of my attack squad- two of which spent literally all game hiding in a forest template taking pot shots at what they could, went Stationary for max accuracy, and blew away the three offending recon Gears. If one of them survived that assault, it did not make past that turn. All my Naga could do at that point is take pot shots with its nose gun. I didn't even swap it out for the one with +1 accuracy, either. I forgot to and it was a free fucking upgrade. One of the more severely wounded members of his GP squad self-detonated with a hand grenade- luckily I made it out of that well enough. Another took shots with a Snub Cannon, which is pretty much a Heavy Bazooka with limited ammo. I somehow survived THAT intact, more or less. Then another unloaded with a Demolition Drone- little bugger drops down an AOE with x30 damage. I also made it past that. Well, I think I did. I had a Raptor and a Dark Mamba in the forest, and the Raptor died at one point. I forget if it was because of indirect fire or the GPs.
The 5th member of the squad, a Dark Mamba set aside to guard the Naga's flank, just took off towards the southwestern board edge- as it turns out, the recon squad's squad leader was hiding out over there, camping the Hold objective (Which I completely forgot about)! I made it that Mamba's mission to wipe the fucker out or die trying. By that point, that squad leader wast he last surviving member of the recon squad- the White Cat that marked my Raptor towards the first half of the game got blasted to hell. Now, this is where it gets hilarious. At that point, the Mamba gunning for the last Recon model got dinged a couple of times- he was one damage box away from Critical, two damage points from dying. Now, normally he'd be suffering defense penalties but Mambas have a perk called Rugged Movement, where they suffer no penalties when under Heavy damage. This turned out to be a GOOD thing, considering he was going to unload on the thing with EVERYTHING he had once his activations came around. By then I lost both Raptors and could not afford to lose anything more if I wanted my VP for Survive. If the game tied, he'd win due to having the lower priority level. Because of this, I had to get the Mamba tearing out at Top Speed for the defensive bonuses, but since it wasn't one of the higher-end Talons machines, it only had one action to spend. Going at top takes up your action, ala running in any other wargame. So what did I do? Turns out the squad leader had his back turned to my Owl. The squad leader was already pretty hurt! Owl activates first, goes stationary for accuracy, marks him for coordinated attack (Squad leaders benefit, too) for a defensive penalty, then pops off a shot from his otherwise unimpressive medium rifle (Though to be fair, the Black Talon one has sniper, so no range penalty at the second range band). It was enough to blow the squad leader up. Mamba goes top speed and hauls ass, getting to within 6 inches to contest the objective (Which I wasn't even trying to aim for, because again, I forgot about it.). Mamba predictably receives a ton of flak heading his way and he miraculously dodges it all. Finally, the only other Gear by the objective gets fed up and tries ramming him, only to miss. Due to there being an equal amount of models at the objective, he got nothing.
The entire game came down to a single, heavily damaged Dark Mamba needing to survive everything being thrown at it. Pretty hilarious if you ask me.
I played Mordheim for one summer but then it was lost when we got off the ship back in the states
I play Arena about once a month but with the same person
Thank you for the code!
Also your army is insanely heavily armed.
For my newer stuff, I really can't decide if I want to start with SRA, or a bigger MILICIA army. Eventually both (and maybe some PRDF, Talons, or Humanists on the side), but I'm waffling a lot right now.
I may try to build out a low-cost (cash-wise) Southern Republic army like yours that I can use with pre and post-1940 rules. All crazy elite Gears with big guns. And at least one Support Cobra, because I love those things.
1000 TV full of is still about a dozen gears tricked out. Not even near BT craziness! And that's still including plenty of Mambas and an Opsec Cadre with plenty of upgrades.
I wanna talk to Sampson!