writes:As you probably know, version 3.0 of Heavy Gear: Blitz is out. It's available on Wargame Vault – the PDF is a free download, and/or you can pay for the printed book.
What is Heavy Gear about?
The colony world of Terra Nova continues to be in a state of constant conflict. Massive polar nations, invaders from Earth and even armed gangs have turned its arid landscape into a never-ending battlefield. Old grudges and fragile alliances set the stage for complete chaos while the Northern, Southern, Peace River and NuCoal Factions fight countless wars in the name of power, profit, revenge or mere survival.
Having failed to conquer Terra Nova once before, Earth has added her subjugated colony worlds to a new Colonial Expedition Force (CEF) invasion force of GRELS, FLAILs, and Hovertanks. Ships blacken the sky, unleashing unending waves of would-be conquerors onto Terra Nova’s war-torn surface. Even Utopia’s newest technological marvels of war have joined the CEF to claim a piece of the planet. Will the factions of Terra Nova unite as they did in the first invasion? Will that be enough this time? Or will Earth grind another planet under her iron heel?
The War for Terra Nova has only just begun… Gear Up and join the battle!
To understand a little about the latest version, I decided to update the stats on my Northern Guard Recon Squad.
This squad, painted for us a few years back, has had a hard life so far – a painting 'disaster', and then back to my workbench several times to repair broken limbs. Now, I'd like to update the stats and later add more models until I can field a larger force on the tabletop!
Before play, you decide what size of game you want to play, which determines the Threat Value (i.e., army points) each side can spend for their forces. One side plays a Terranovan colony force, and the other side plays Earth or an Earth ally.
You then add Combat Groups until you've used up all of your TV points. Building Combat Groups in the new edition has been extensively streamlined compared to previous editions, and perhaps due to the new plastic models making it easier to field variant Gears (i.e., mecha).
You choose a Primary Role for each Combat Group: General Purpose, Strike, Fire Support, Recon or Special Operations. Then you add Gears or other troops to the Group, until you have between four and six Action points. Each troop type is rated for its Role and Action points. Some troops are restricted to only two per Group. There are optional rules for having a Secondary Role for the Group, and for adding upgrades. One troop is designated the Group Leader.
To help players construct their Combat Groups, there is the Gear Grinder website.
On the website, I stay with the current rules version (others are available), and select North as my faction. That gives me a list of troops.
I know that my Recon Squad consists of a Jaguar and four Cheetahs, so I select them. I stick with the basic versions, as my models obviously aren't any of the newer variants and don't have communications gear.
My group is a legal Recon group, as all of the models have the RC role on their roster. Their TV value is 51, and they total five Actions.
If I click on 'All 5 datacards', a new webpage pops up with the datacards:
Or if a click on 'printable roster', I get:
And the roster can be saved to my local system, so I can reload it later.