"Heavy Gear Blitz" Topic

Hi – hopefully someone can help me out.

It seems to very difficult to find people in my hometown or in Germany who know anything about it much less have any Gears to Wargame with.

It doesn't seem to be very popular with many of the game stores in NC and is hard to find on Ebay.

I know there is the Dream Pod 9 website and Noble Knights is where I normally get my supply replacements and additional forces from.

BUT this is what I really need answered – IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE TRULY PLAYING THE GAME?

I am. And you only need 1 other player to get it rolling.
:-)

There are a couple of German Heavy Gear players, and some of them contribute regularly to the DP9 forum.

Now back to painting the house. Wax on, wax off…

I did. When it first came out I dropped a large amount of $ on North, South and CEF forces (adding to my existing HG tac forces). This "encouraged" my friends to play, and we did for quite a while. Locked & Loaded came along, and we played that for a while but I just can't get into the mechanics of the system anymore. Check their forum, they have a thread which is dedicated to finding other players in your area. Goldritter is in Germany, as are a few other players (Paradox 01 might be currently stationed there). Visit and give them a shout out.

Thanks Y'all.

I have about 400 of the new ones and about 200 of the old RAFM line. Just can't find anyone to play with. I'll take a look at the DP9 Forum when I get back to Germany after this deployment.

I had heard that several vendors in the US dropped them recently. Anybody know anything about it? I know they just released the new line-up.

PanzerTC, do you have any of the cards that might have come with the RAFM minis still?

I have some. But most are packed in storage back in the US.

Is there something about the threat value you'd like to know?

customers, stores, and distributors are still unhappy with DP9's frequent rules changes that leave them with non-current stock or game collections. locked and loaded was the 5th version of heavy gear in 13 years since the game first came out. i've personally been burned twice by their flips (in both 1st edition and the original blitz, they announced a "new" edition within 2 years of the originals). they've got a good ruleset and nice minis but i can't stand their constant double dipping and several long time store owners i've talked to agree. you might have better luck finding the game stocked in newer stores that didn't deal with their shennanigans over the past 10+ years.

Not only the Rule changes but changing the mini scale 3 BLOODY times. Say $250 USD for North and South that`s $1,500 USD alone on on frigging game! That and they have had a LOT of quality control problems. Missing bits, miss-cast parts and the like. If you haven`t sunk much into the game yet, maybe wait,Heavy Gear is sue for another scale change.

Two scale changes, not three.

No, Three. RAFM's 1/87th scale, DP9's first 1/144 TAC scale and now the Blitz Scale, which is TRUE 1/144 and smaller than the TAC scale.

Does HG Blitz,(Locked and Loaded) still need the stupid looking plastic markers?

werwulf, that's two *changes* that you've listed. 1:87 to 1:144 to 1:144.

And you're also mistaken. The new "Blitz" minis are not a different scale, they're just new sculpts. In fact, a number of the "Blitz" minis were originally sculpted before Blitz was released.

Paging PANZER TC…..

I have a small collection of RAFM Heavy Gears but I am also missing a few pieces to complete my collection.

From the South I am missing Sniper Infantry (RAFM #1319)and the Stone Mason (RAFM #1308).

From the North I am missing the Black Claw (RAFM #1228), the White Cat EWH (RAFM #1227), and the Kodiak Destroyer (RAFM #1229).

Lastly, but not so important, I have never been able to get my hands on the Heavy Bazooka.

If there is any chance that I may be able to purchase any extras you or anyone else may have I would be most appreciative.

You can contact me at MartinShadowWolf@aol.com

A question on Blitz-

If I remember correctly, it was possible to design Gears from the ground up in the original game (similar to Battletech).

Is that still possible in Blitz? Or is it more the pre-made units, just build your army type of game?

Heavy Gear Arena is a smaller scale game, and you get to choose your chassis and the parts that go in the chassis (like actuators and guns, etc)

But the standard Blitz game is more of a wargame, so no customization beyond some weapon / equipment upgrades. (For example, you might take a Jaguar, but upgrade its gun to a Medium Bazooka, or upgrade it to a Thunder Jaguar for a satellite uplink, etc)

(and PS werwulf is crazy, they basically only changed scale once, and then did some resculpts on some models, but beyond the first scale change, the models from Tac and Blitz are completely compatible, and the scale change was done back in 1997. It has been 14 years since then, let it go.)

First of all, DP9 has some really nice sculpts and I have been a fan since they posted the game in Mecha Press.

I thought I was the only person with this opinion but I understand what werwulf is talking about. The newest iteration of Heavy Gear's miniatures appear smaller than the older 1:144 miniatures. I have several of the original RAFM gears and the several North and South squads of the first 1:144 releases. When I line them up, the new sculpts do seem…smaller. I'm not saying that there is enough of a difference to make them incompatible of each other but I can see where a potential buyer may question themselves before they fork out the cash. I am not

I'm not following you, mechaphile. If you're comparing the old RAFM mini's to any of the DP9 mini's then of course the RAFM mini's will be bigger, they were 1:87 scale.

If you're comparing older DP9 sculpts to newer DP9 sculpts, some of them are smaller and some of them are larger. In general, the new sculps are more exaggerated. The new sculpts of the lighter Gears like Cheetahs and Iguanas are smaller than the old sculpts, while the new sculpts of heavier Gears like Spitting Cobras and Grizzlys are larger than the old sculps.

Regarding the newer sculpts; that's exactly what he's saying. The new sculpts are a noticeably smaller. I have a couple right next to each other and the older 1:144 stand a head above the others.

"If you're comparing older DP9 sculpts to newer DP9 sculpts, some of them are smaller and some of them are larger. In general, the new sculps are more exaggerated. The new sculpts of the lighter Gears like Cheetahs and Iguanas are smaller than the old sculpts, while the new sculpts of heavier Gears like Spitting Cobras and Grizzlys are larger than the old sculps."

@ CADmonkey, thank you for contradicting yourself and proving my point. And to correct you, the FEW mini's that Phill from Minimaniak did before the Blitz Mini's, were redone to blitz scale as I have the minimaniak Desert Viper that is bigger than the re-sculpt blitz, and an Iguana recon variant, that was NEVER re-sculpted and doesn't appear in Blitz.

As they say a picture is better than words here are the Tac Scale and the Bltz scale:

As you can see there IS a noticeable size difference. This can also be seen in the last picture when comparing the legs and lower leg unit. The blitz is almost two times smaller. Feet are also smaller and different. Also, there is the Fuel tank molded to the rear of the Blitz mini. On the TAC scale a V-Engine and Tank are molded as a complete piece to be added to the back of the figure.

@Ferrous, I guess I'm crazy cause as far as I know ALL the old TAC scale figures have been re-sculpted to the new Blitz scale, not just a "few" as you suggest. Also you are incorrect with the dates. It was 1998 that the Heavy Gear Tactical BOX set came out. The Tactical figures were not available till 1999. So that would have made 12 years from when you posted but I guess I should "let it go" as you so eloquently put it. I don't know maybe if you had started out with the original followers in the 90's (the few that are left) and put out $500 USD or more on figures just to re-buy them 2 times over you might be a little ed, just ask and GW player.

Well I guess I'll try explaining this again.

The differences between the old DP9 sculpts and the new ones don't matter in the game. They don't constitute a change in scale and you don't have to replace your older DP9 Heavy Gear mini's with new ones in order to play Blitz. I still have the first generation of DP9 minis from 1998/99/whenever and I still use them. I have used them in official tournaments and in games of Blitz with DP9 staffers and no-one has ever said that I was using the wrong scale of miniatures.