"Got my copy of Heavy Gear: Locked & Loaded" Topic

The preorders are supposed to start shipping today, but my copy already arrived-- which is cool.

I got the black and white softcover edition and it's quite nice. I've heard the all colour deluxe version is just beautiful. All the information, pictures, etc., looks perfectly fine in black and white though. I've seen some B&W rulebooks where the images that were originally in colour don't translate well into B&W. Certainly not the case here.

I also really like how the army lists are integrated right into the rule book.

As well, the rules for victory conditions, scenarios, setup, etc., are really well developed. One cool thing is that where you deploy can vary drastically from game to game. You can end up deploying on the short edges of the table, on the long edges, in the corners or even in the center with your opponent getting both of the regular deployment zones ("Surrounded").

The rules for airdropping, fighting runs, bomber runs, off board artillery and other such assets also look very interesting.

All in all, I'm impressed.

Thanks for posting Nathaniel;

I have HG Blitz and some Gears, but never played it.

Is this version much different and better set of rules?

Thanks;
Joe

From what I understand, L&L is basically taking all the feedback and issues that people had with Blitz and fixing them. The changes between Blitz & L&L are minor, but in many cases are balance fixes and tweaks on certain things. There's also a mechanic in blitz that they remove and replace with a stunning/crossfire mechanic as the thing in blitz was a bit overpowered.

I've heard L&L has army lists in it, does that include the CEF lists?

The story line has been advanced a bit. The CEF invasion has failed. Earth abandoned several hundred thousand grels as well as contingents of their hover tanks and whatnot on TerraNova. Such forces have formed the "New Coalition" (NuCoal) along with some Badlands independents. Their base of operations is centered at Port Arthur near the equator. As well, there's a PDF army list for the CEF.

The NuCoal army list has Grels, Hovertanks and stuff like that. So between that and the playtest CEF PDF, you can use all your miniatures. If you want to play the original invasion of Terr Nova, taking only Earth Specific stuff out of the Port Arthur list would work fine.

I wanted to add what I can't quite decide is a feature or a bad thing in my little mini review here:

The army lists are not easily accessible/dumbed down. You decide on a TV level (points level), a priority level (how important your force is, what access it has to elite choices which effects your victory conditions) and you also decide on which army you are doing (4 different Northern forces, 5 different Southern, 2 Paxton/Peace River, Leagueless/Independants/Mercenarys, Port Arthur/CEF).

Each one of those armies has different units that count as core, auxillary, elite, special forces, etc.,. For example, the Recon squad of gears is a core choice for Norlight Armed Forces but an Auxillary choice for the other 3 Northern forces.

Your priority level dictates how many auxillary per core, how many special forces, etc.,. So basically you choose a combination of your Army and a Priority Level to get the army list you'll be using. As well, each army has special rules about custom gear choices they can substitute in.

All in all, this has resulted in an army list system that appears to be incredibly flexible to allow you to use the miniatures you want, but it makes it incredibly hard to appreciate the subtlety of choices/upgrades/options for people that don't know the system inside out. I have no idea if it's a good thing to take advantage of the Norlight's ability to substitute Cheetahs for Hunters. From what I gather Hunters are the basic grunt gear that is mass produced while the Cheetah is a more agile scout/recon gear. I guess this means I can make up for the fact that Norlight can't take Recon squads as Core choices by making my general purpose squads full of recon gears (Cheetahs).

As someone who doesn't have a lot of experience with the game, this makes army building quite daunting compared to say, Warhammer 40k's system of "buy an HQ and 2 troops to start, add a fast attack, heavy support and an elite later."

So that's a good thing and a bad thing. Bad in that it'll take a bit of extra thought to figure out what you want to build the type of force you want, but good in that you have tons of options.

Aren't those army lists supplanted by the separate army books anyway?

No, Locked and Loaded is all encompassing and contains the army lists for the North, South, Peace River and PAK the leftover Earth forces.

This is great because the older army books were quite abusable. Which was really odd for a DP9 product.

I already knew the CEF's invasion of Terra Nova failed in what's known as the War of the Alliance. The CEF invaded with GREL units and hover tanks, and have been working on battle frames after studying captured gears.

Here's what's in the Port Arthur Korps army list -- anything with a * can be upgraded to be GRELs or have GREL pilots.

General purpose* squads consisting of a variety of things:
Hunters
Jagers
Headhunter
Command Jager
Tiger
Sidewinder
Desert Viper
Recon Drones
*Veteran General Purpose squads can be upgraded to GREL pilots

PAK Combat Group*
Sidewinders
Tigers
Sabertooth
Basilisk
Ferret
Bear
Wild Ferret
Silverscale
Recon drones
Demolition drones
* Veteran Combat Groups can be upgraded to GREL pilots

Light Hovertank Squad*
LHT-67
LHT-71

Heavy Hovertank Squad*
HT 68
HT 72

Infantry Platoons*
Can be GRELs or normal

Hover Cavalry Patrol*
HPC-64