paints sci-fi British.
Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts is a new fleet-scale science fiction game featuring landships: massive hovering fortresses that dominate the battlefield and support legions of troops and vehicles. To help fund the game's components, Fusion Core Studios has launched its first Kickstarter campaign. The Kickstarter will fund the manufacture of injection molded plastic miniatures for the Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts tabletop wargame, as well as additional components for a complete retail starter box. The main pledge level is $80 USD for eight landships (four different classes), but stretch-goals will increase those rewards to 20 ships of eight classes.
Each finely-detailed 1:2500 scale landship miniature has various options. For example, the Khagan-class ranger can be built with its gun decks open or closed, and the Susano-O-class besieger's turrets and thruster vanes are separate pieces that can be positioned however the modeler likes. Stretch-goals for the Kickstarter will unlock even more options for the ships, like extended flight decks, command towers, and alternate weapons.
The game is set in Dream Pod 9's Heavy Gear universe, adding large-scale strategy to a game franchise spanning skirmish-scale miniatures battles, pen-and-paper roleplaying games, and past and in-progress video game projects. Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts is a fully standalone product, requiring no previous experience with Heavy Gear. However, players of the skirmish-level Heavy Gear Blitz game will be able to integrate Blitz with Dreadnoughts, using the latter as a campaign system.
Designed for quick play on small tabletops, Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts uses a turn sequence that progresses according to the players' needs; a player can end a turn at any time to allow their troops to regroup and repair, but doing so also grants initiative to their opponent, making each turn an important tactical decision that affects each player's overall strategy for the battlefield.
The Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts Kickstarter will run for 30 days, until December 17 at 8:40PM, EST.
