Saturday 15 October 2016

Gearing Up...

Recently the Heavy Gear Blitz kickstarter landed at the Castle, and what a bundle of plastic it contained! I feverishly pawed over the sprues, and put together some Hunters in order to play through the demo scenario that comes in the QuickStart rule book.



First of all, the miniatures are phenomenal. Very nicely detailed, with plenty of options on each sprue, they go together beautifully and look great.



I hadn't added the weapon arms at this stage, as I wasn't sure whether I wanted to commit to a specific load-out. Laziness won the day in the end...



Some magnets on the bases to hold them in my transport box.

Ready to rumble...
Very impressed with the miniatures, I was looking forward to getting them on the table and seeing how the game played. 



Don't leave cover boys... that would be silly!

CHARGE!

Did I mention not leaving cover? I feel like I did.

Things started well, but in a fit of madness driven by the fact it was a learning game I charged one Hunter out into the open where it was promptly obliterated, and another across an open field of fire into melee, because, well, it was carrying a vibro-blade.

Needless to say, this particular skirmish was never mentioned in the Northern gazettes, and the officer, had he lived, would have been relegated to a border post somewhere on latrine duties.

But, despite the fact I made some silly choices, the game was very interesting. While the mechanisms are relatively simple, there is a lot of detail to them, and many layers of nuance in terms of what various models, weapons and abilities can do. The ability to chain actions, the order in which models are used, the use of ECM and ECCM, as well as Orders and Skill Points will make for a deep and tense experience I think. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and having read through the full rules, am looking forward to a bigger game. I think Heavy Gear Blitz is going to be a staple here at the Castle for a good while!

For anyone interested, the rules, both full and Quickstart (as well as statistics, terrain templates and more) are all available for free download from RPGNow.com - and well worth checking out!







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