Northern Hunters...

To continue my spurt of painting inspiration, after having completed my Averlander Warband for Mordheim, I decided to tackle some of miniatures for Heavy Gear Blitz!

Since the box of goodies, fresh from Dream Pod Nine's Kickstarter, arrived, I've managed to put together all my Northern Heavy Gears, play a couple of games, and plan my next set of purchases to round out my Northern Force. Of course, it's always nicer playing with painted miniatures, and being on something of a roll (by my low standards at least), I was keen to get some paint on these guys to see how they came up.

So far I have managed to paint my 8 Hunters...

I based my Gears on 30mm round lipped bases.

Using a palate knife and some wall putty, I added some detail to bases to both fill the base slot and give it the appearance of uneven ground.

After the bases were done and dried, I painted the lot with a slightly watered down PVA, in the hope of making sure the putty stayed put...

The miniatures themselves were a joy to put together, a dab of superglue worked almost too quickly. I wrote about the assembly a while ago here.

Wanting to cut down on prep time, I decided to try a Dunkelgelb spray-on undercoat. It looked good enough on my test model, but I left it a week or so to see if any started flaking...

No flaking? Good to go!

All sprayed (some a little heavily).

Some base coating done. Pretty simple scheme: dunkelgelb base, with white sections and metal for the engine and most of the weapons.

The first base coat and a wash with Army Painter Dark Tone (black wash essentially).

Highlighting complete with skeleton bone over the dunkelgelb, white over the white, plate metal and shiny silver over the gun metal and lastly red and blue for the missiles and 'eye' or lens.

All done, except for some basing material like static grass...

I'm still waiting on some basing material to arrive before completing the bases, including some highland static grass and winter grass tufts. Combined with the transfers (which I'm still deciding whether I'll use), the ensemble should be finished nicely.

Overall I'm happy with the scheme and think they came out well. Some simple colour variations mean they are not too bland, and they fairly well copy the paint schemes in the book. I think they'll look nice on the table.

One sour note to this endeavor was the fact that the sealant I used afterwards (paint on matt varnish), softened the putty I had used as basing material. When I pulled the bases off the painting stands I use several of the Gears broke free of the bases with clumps of putty on their feet. These Gears were fairly easy to glue back in place, and you can't tell the difference now between those that did and those that didn't, but... If I hadn't already based my force I'd be changing the material I used, and I don't think I'll be using wall putty again. Having written that, I do have to concede that with the lightness of the miniatures, I can't see it having any impact in the future, but just to know the bases are a little weak is annoying. Still, ce la vie!

Now, I am really keen to get onto my Jaguars... but I have school reports to finish and some work for Modiphius, for the Infinity RPG, to complete, so they'll just have to languish a little longer! Hopefully I don't lose my desire to get things painted over the next week of not painting!

Incidentally, for anyone keen on the Heavy Gear universe, Fushion Core Studios has just launched their Kickstarter for Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts! The game is all about the land ships vital to the Heavy Gear setting. The miniatures look great, and I for one am very excited!

If you're a fan of the RPG, Heavy Gear setting or Blitz, this is well worth checking out!

First real learning game...

I've played a couple of games of the basic scenario in the starter set, the one with 4 Heavy Gears a side. While this does a solid job of teaching you the basics of the dice system (something I was already familiar with due to the RPG), it doesn't really give you a good picture of the game - which is multi-layered and rich with detail.

With plans for a larger game (150 TV - the standard game size), I really struggled to put together the army. I felt that while I roughly knew the rules, I still didn't have a handle on how all the gears and levers affected one another in game. I was also stuck by the fact that the models will be glued together, and as such, locked into whatever role or load-out I selected for them.

The buildings are from Spartan Games (their Planetfall range).

It was good to actually get a solid sized force of models to the table, and it was really my first learning game.

For those who know the game my force was:

PU - UA - GP (32TV)

·         Hunter

·         Hunter

·         Hunter Gunner

·         Assault Hunter

·         Headhunter

PU - UA - SK (45TV)

·         Thunder Jaguar (CO)

·         Arrow Jaguar

·         Flash Jaguar

·         Flash Jaguar

SU - RC (7TV)

·         Wild Ferret

PU - UA - FS (48TV)

·         Chaingun Kodiak

·         Grizzly

·         Thunder Grizzly

SU - RC (16TV)

·         Ferret

·         White Cat Cheetah

Smoke x1

The first turn was slow as we referenced skill points, orders, ECM, Indirect Fire and other sub-sets of the rule system. I'm still not 100% on the rules for some of those (ECM and Indirect Fire particularly), but I am in a better place than I was. With so many layers and interactions I feel like I'm looking at the game through a fog, but thankfully it is clearing.

My force was completely ripped to shreds by the Southern force, I just couldn't get myself into a good position, and poorly used the Recon Units and their ECM capabilities. But, despite that, I had a blast. The rules are starting to become clearer, and I feel more confident in putting together the rest of my force now I have a better handle on what a game looks and feels like. My list above is going to change, I'm going to scrap the Support Units and create a fuller Recon Unit as Primary, and if enough points allow, throw a Ferret or two in for good measure. I know I'll be adjusting the Hunter Unit, and was relatively happy with my Strike and Fire Support guys, though I'll be using the Fire Support differently next time.

I'm still not confident I can put together a good game plan, but I'm pretty sure the next game will get me closer to understanding how all the pieces fit together. It was a lot of fun, and I am very much looking forward to playing again!

Responding Snap Fire crippled this Flash Jaguar...

Making the most of the Lasers...

Good use of ECM by my opponent and continued use of Area Effect rockets fired Indirectly eventually wrecked most of these guys.

I didn't get a photo of the end (well, where we called it due to time), but my force was fairly well in tatters! Still, there is tomorrow...

Gearing Up...

Recently the Heavy Gear Blitz kickstarter landed at the Castle, and what a bundle of plastic it contained! I feverishly pawed over the sprues, and put together some Hunters in order to play through the demo scenario that comes in the QuickStart rule book.

First of all, the miniatures are phenomenal. Very nicely detailed, with plenty of options on each sprue, they go together beautifully and look great.

I hadn't added the weapon arms at this stage, as I wasn't sure whether I wanted to commit to a specific load-out. Laziness won the day in the end...

Some magnets on the bases to hold them in my transport box.

Ready to rumble...

Very impressed with the miniatures, I was looking forward to getting them on the table and seeing how the game played. 

Don't leave cover boys... that would be silly!

CHARGE!

Did I mention not leaving cover? I feel like I did.

Things started well, but in a fit of madness driven by the fact it was a learning game I charged one Hunter out into the open where it was promptly obliterated, and another across an open field of fire into melee, because, well, it was carrying a vibro-blade.

Needless to say, this particular skirmish was never mentioned in the Northern gazettes, and the officer, had he lived, would have been relegated to a border post somewhere on latrine duties.

But, despite the fact I made some silly choices, the game was very interesting. While the mechanisms are relatively simple, there is a lot of detail to them, and many layers of nuance in terms of what various models, weapons and abilities can do. The ability to chain actions, the order in which models are used, the use of ECM and ECCM, as well as Orders and Skill Points will make for a deep and tense experience I think. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and having read through the full rules, am looking forward to a bigger game. I think Heavy Gear Blitz is going to be a staple here at the Castle for a good while!

For anyone interested, the rules, both full and Quickstart (as well as statistics, terrain templates and more) are all available for free download from RPGNow.com - and well worth checking out!

Heavy Gear Blitz!

Last night I had just started to put together a blog post about games I had Kickstarted, that I was looking forward to getting... today, the postman made a section of that (future) post irrelevant...

Heavy Gear Blitz has arrived at the Castle!

Heavy Gear was a role-playing game I played a lot in my younger days, it is a game choc full of great setting material, interesting worlds, and wonderful anime style art. Published by Dream Pod 9, the role-playing game originally came with a set of rules for playing out battles with miniatures on the table, Heavy Gear Blitz is an evolution of that system, and focuses purely on the table-top experience.

While it's been around for a while, Heavy Gear Blitz was never a game I really got into, despite my liking of the setting, the miniatures were hard to get hold of, and quite expensive here in Australia. With the new Kickstarter, Dream Pod 9 has produced a set of plastic miniatures, with a very reasonable price point. In fact, the Kickstarter was thoroughly excellent value, providing four starter armies with a good range of miniatures for each. Between my mate Quinton and myself we got two core sets, which means both lots of fantastic miniatures, but also lots of assembly!

The four armies represent core forces of the Heavy Gear universe, I took the Northern Army (Planet: Terra Nova) and the Colonial Expeditionary Force (Planet: Earth), while Quinton took the Southern Army (Planet: Terra Nova), and Caprice (Planet: Caprice).

Everything in bags...

One set of CEF sprues laid out...

Wasting little time, Quinton and I managed to wrangle a quick meet up and doled out the bags and bags of sprues and bits, and went our separate ways with the homework task of reading the rules and putting together a 50 Point force each. Having a look over the sprues I was a little disappointed to see there were some production issues with the plastics (crackling and dimpling on some, mainly the larger Caprice models (something Dream Pod 9 have said will be fixed next run)), and with the fact that all the hex bases are slotted (when none of the miniatures have slots). I was very impressed however with the quality of the miniatures as a whole, the detail is excellent, the casting is sharp and the models look like they will go together very well. The really look great.

The game has many options, with Gears (the mechs and main fighting units) able to armed with a variety of weapons. I am still chewing over how I'm going to manage that with my models - magnets seem the obvious option, but some parts may be too small - we shall see. There's always the lazy option of just gluing them, since I have two sets I should be able to build a good variety, and I have never been one to insist that 'what you see is what you get'...

All in all I am hugely excited by Heavy Gear Blitz, from what I have read of the rules they look excellent, and the miniatures (aside from some small issues) look fantastic. I really can't wait to start putting them together and getting them on the table, I think it's going to be a blast. It also has me inspired to dust off my Heavy Gear RPG book... So many games...