"Would anyone be interested in Heavy Gear Tactical online?" Topic

I was debating on starting an online group for heavy gear tactical 2e since it is played on a board, it should be easy to play it online. I live in a gaming dead zone where people refuse to look at anything that isn't warhammer. There's also a few discord servers for HG but no real tactical players.

I was debating on starting an online group for heavy gear tactical 2e since it is played on a board, it should be easy to play it online. I live in a gaming dead zone where people refuse to look at anything that isn't warhammer. There's also a few discord servers for HG but no real tactical players.

I was debating on starting an online group for heavy gear tactical 2e since it is played on a board, it should be easy to play it online. I live in a gaming dead zone where people refuse to look at anything that isn't warhammer. There's also a few discord servers for HG but no real tactical players.

Possibly. After I retire at the end of January.

FYI – I'm in TX, in the Central time zone.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is HGT2e? I bought several "armies" worth of DP9 Heavy Gear Blitz figures this past summer at Historicon and have enjoyed painting them up, but the game itself is "okay." I actually enjoy using Wiley Games Battlesuit Alpha far better.

Is this referring to the same game, or is this some computer game simulator of the same (which I've seen others use for battle reports)? Or something entirely different?

Forgive my ignorance, but what is HGT2e? I bought several "armies" worth of DP9 Heavy Gear Blitz figures this past summer at Historicon and have enjoyed painting them up, but the game itself is "okay." I actually enjoy using Wiley Games Battlesuit Alpha far better.

Is this referring to the same game, or is this some computer game simulator of the same (which I've seen others use for battle reports)? Or something entirely different?

Tactical is the earlier editions of the game, I've never played before, but thought it looked interesting, and I don't have people to play with IRL. Blitz replaced it but they are different systems.

YouTube link

It's similar to Battletech, runs off hexes, has structure damage, etc. There isn't a computer version, but it should be fairly straightforward to play since it uses hexes, the hardest part would be figuring out an elegant solution to record sheets. There aren't ,any people doing it through the internet, as most people play bl;itz online, but I'm not entirely sure if it's due to people not liking it, or if there isn't a visible interest so they don't bother. They use Tabletop Simulator, and I wanted to try doing something similiar for Tactical, using either TTS or a similiar program. Hardest part like I said is figuring out how to do the record sheets in a way that isn't clunky, as I don't know how to put them into TTS.

Ahh, okay, thanks Geck. I just discovered HGB3.1 this past summer so am pretty clueless on past editions. The current iteration seems like a half way decent game, but it seems that many of the weapon systems get "wasted." Since most gears only have one action outside of move, I found I was using just one or two of the usually 3-4 weapon systems per gear during the course of the game. Grenades, APGLs, vibro blades, and on the bigger gears, many of the "artillery" style weapons just never get used. The odd, "short range" penalties caused me some head-scratching (so an auto-cannon suddenly gets less useful at 100 yards as opposed to 200, so to speak)? The ECM/ECCM action effectively replaces the shooting actions, and often causes far less harm, so that was another thing that I noticed rarely gets used except in rare situations….its just better to shoot a regular weapon, overwhelmingly the main gun (often the auto-cannon) or the rocket launcher. Everything else just never gets used.

While the game is not bad, and does have some good ideas (sensors, indirect fire on many rocket/missile weapon systems), the long lists of "not really all that different from the last weapon" weapons, the unnecessary extra weapons, and the other issues I noted above, really just drove me back to Battletech and proxing these otherwise very cool mech models into other figure agnostic game (seriously, try Wiley Games Battlesuit Alpha if you get the chance, good as a social large group game or even solo).

Good luck with your online attempts; that's not anything I've really ever had an interest in.

Wiley Games Battlesuit Alpha if you get the chance, good as a social large group game or even solo

I had the book with the intent on trying it as a solo game, I watched Joy of Wargaming run the other wiley rulesets and it looked ok. I wound up giving it away, basically I got put off of Battletech *hard*, and got rid of most of my stuff. Shop owner told me they had a playerbase, so I wound up dumping over 1k into the game, then he told me I was out of luck basically. Nobody around wants to try anything new, refused to look at it, spent months advertising trying to get people, when I finally got someone he cheated every week, and the shop owners friend suddenly started showing up and would basically be rude the entire time. Combined with always getting complaints from 40k players, getting told my models were because they "weren't painted in scale" by the owner who refused to elaborate, I finally had enough and got rid of my Battletech stuff, and everything mecha related I had at the time. I could write you a book about that place, you wouldn't believe some of the stuff I saw/ heard in there.

I thought about buying the PDF at least, I like the idea of having a bunch of rulesets being able to be merged, and I wondered if I could adapt it to run off a grid (i hate the terrain building)

Yep, I've had some similar experiences with the local game shops. We rarely get to choose who shows up to play…

I'd re-invest in BSAlpha. I've converted Heavy Gear, Battletech, Steel Rift, and even Hammer's Slammers units to the rules with minimal issues. Its an easy solo game because of the card activation system. I did have to create some new weapon systems and adjust some of the other battle systems to more "accurately" reflect some game/universe ideas from the other game systems.

I'll give an example:
Hunter Gunner Gear (I rated it as a Medium Gear):
I gave it a modified auto-cannon (mixing it with a pilot trait to give it more power than the standard)
I added small rocket pod and a close combat weapon. Amongst the many combat systems, I chose the ability to increase chances to recover from shock ("crash couch") and a close combat system to mimic the APGL systems.

I then created "leader" cards using the pilot rules to mimic the different sub-factions of each "nation" in the HG universe (I'm only about a quater through, though). This allowed me to use the same vehicle ratings over and over, and just switch the leader to give a "Mekong Dominion" feel to the same unit (as I interpreted it though the BSAlpha ruleset).

You really can do alot, and its great solo (which I primarily do, as my local store's groups are either all retirees who don't care that you have to work on Friday, or a much younger crowd that isn't my cup of tea to hang with).

Much luck Geck..

Oh, and the time investment was pretty minimal. IT took me about 45 minutes to come up with two complete North/South teams to play. Each with multiple options for the leaders and sub-factions…