Wednesday 7 March 2012

Unboxing: Heavy Gear Blitz Northern Starter Army

   
   
Its a shiny box! The second best kind of box...

OK so yesterday I was a total hussy and gave you the merest glimpse of a lovely pair of... boxes! But today I'm going to give you a better peak at both of them. First up is the Northern Army Starter Kit. Now when I first looked at the game the price of the starter army kits on Wayland Games did make me wince just a little bit. If I'm honest it still does to a degree, but not because I don't think what's in the box isn't worth it, but because I think it'll put many people off of trying the game out. There's no easy way around it Dream Pod 9 though, or fans of the game. Personally I wouldn't call them 'Starter Kits' but army deals, as that's kind of what they are. I'm not going to talk about how much TV (the points values used in Heavy Gear Blitz) is in this box, I'll leave that for the full review, but this is a really good basis off of which to build an army, in fact it's pretty much 'done' with this box if you want it to be... you won't though once you see the Shiny mecha! What do you get in the box though? Lets take a look:


Ta da!!! The box is well packed and crammed with stuff.

First out the box are a 'lurid' yellow tape measure and dice. Nice! They're certainly distinctive.

There are two boxes liked this crammed full of bits. I'm not opening them though...

...because I'm worried about losing stuff. This is the second box, and as you can see there's lots of stuff

beneath those boxes is this rather nice letter, telling you about the game and where to start. Nice touch!

Finally we have the new Field Manual and Locked & Loaded, both are a good size for transporting. I approve.

Taking a look inside Locked & Loaded we see it's a Black & White version.

Obviously I'd have preferred colour but it's clear and well laid out, which is the main thing.

So those are the pictures of what's in the boxes. But what about an 'actual' list of things? Oh OK go on you've twisted my arm:

  • 4x Jaguar Gears
  • 4x Hunter Gears
  • 2x Grizzly Gears
  • 2x Drones (recon & demolition)
  • 4x Lurid Yellow D6's (well they stand out!)
  • 1x Lurid Yellow Measuring Tape (just so you don't lose it)
  • 1x Locked & Loaded Core Rulebook (5.5" by 8.5" Black and White)
  • 1x Field Manual Rulebook (5.5" by 8.5" Black and White)

There are also a host of optional weapons... erm... options (not the best sentence structure there) as listed below:

  • 2x Snub Cannon (girls at bars carry these)
  • 4x  Light Autocannon
  • 4x Medium Bazooka
  • 6x Medium Autocannon
  • 2x Heavy Guided Mortar
  • 2x Heavy Autocannon
  • 2x Ant-Gear Missile
  • 8x Light Rocket Pack
  • 4x Medium Rocket Pack
  • 4x Deployable Pack Gun
  • 10x Vibroblade

As you can see the box really is crammed full of goodies. Having had a fiddle about with them so far I'd say that both the Jaguar Gears and the Hunter Gears are about the size of a plastic Games Workshop Space Marine mini, or thereabouts I guess. The Grizzly's though I'm saying are probably going to be a fair bit bigger than a Space Marine. Not by huge amounts, but certainly noticeable. So for 10 high quality metal mini's with loads and loads of weapons options, plus two rulebooks I'm going to say it's not actually bad value for money at £78, now I didn't honestly expect to be saying that. It's still a hefty entry price compared to some games out there, but it compares favourably with HoMachine I guess and looks positively frugal when compared to the cost of getting a new 40k or Fantasy army, the mere thought of that fills me with dread now! So there you have it, my first Heavy Gear Blitz unboxing, and I've liked what I've seen. Peace out!

19 comments:

  1. Mecha do incite joy in me...

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    1. As they do in me. I really miss my Battletech days, not so much because of the game but because of the Mecha. Big giant Robots are just cool. Heavy Gear seems to be the only really well supported Mecha game out there right now, luckily it seems to be a good game to boot! So I'm a very happy bunny indeed.

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    2. Yes almost nothing generates quite as much joy as a beautifully designed mecha.

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    3. Indeed! I would tell you to come round and have a look mate, but I'd be worried with all the stuff I show you that I'd be in danger of bankrupting you!!! And I wouldn't want that buddy!!!

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  2. ooo... Oh how I miss Battletech, but you've got me intrigued with Heavy Gear.

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    1. Sorry Tim, reading my Blog does that to people. Apparently I'm a really bad influence, my friends parents used to say that when I was young... turns out they were right!!! I'm really enjoying my first tentative steps into Heavy Gear Blitz. You should take a look at it yourself, you can download the field manual for free off of their website.

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  3. Yeh after you get the starter open and get the Gears together, and see what you get the cost is'nt that bad. Can't wait to start playing this with rich. Maybe i can interest jake, he's very up for Gruntz 15mm sci-fi. Looking forwatd to see what you think of the game when played. Cheers pancake.

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    1. Jakes a games whore... he'll play it. I'm sure he'll protest, but truth is he'll love every minute of it. Until he doesn't :P

      Gruntz is actually something I'm really interested in taking a closer look at if I'm honest with you. I'm working on an article on 15mm wargaming at the moment, although progress is going quite slowly on it. I'll get there with it though.

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  4. Im realllllly tempted to look into HGB, however I've never worked.with the 15mm scale, the rows and rows of very small soldiers and vehicles always seemed to be an overwhelming task to paint. However I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to painting and if I cant get detail it drives me mad. lol

    God help my wallet if that hurdle is ever crossed. >.> <.< >.>

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    1. TBH with you I'm the same way. Don't get me wrong I'm not some awesome painter that kicks ass, but I do like to paint every miniature to the best of my somewhat limited abilities... but the great thing with 12/15mm mini's is that they're really easy to make look good actually... well I think they are any way. We'll have to see I guess because I'm going to be painting some of this stuff up soonish I think.

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  5. A great review there, especially for my favourite northers (boo to the south). Trying to get more players interested in my area, as there's currently only myself and one other guy who plays C.E.F. We do have a player who's just started a P.R.D.F. army but hasn't got much.

    I think you make a point thought about the both the price point of the starter sets and what people think. I've spoken to other people about it and they seem to be under the impression of "that's expensive for an army of 12mm mecha". It's the obvious thing of you say it's 12mm so people think it'll be cheap but due to the genre of dealing with giant robots it isn't, as effectively you end up playing a 12mm game with 28mm miniatures.

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    1. Thanks for the compliment. The full review is a few weeks off though yet. My reviews tend to be way more in-depth than this and look at all aspects of the box far more than I have hear. This is just what's in the box / my initial thoughts.

      You're right about the 12mm thing though, it does give you a certain 'perception' of what to expect in terms of cost and size of mini's I guess. While I think the metal Gears seem reasonably priced I do look at some of the resin mini's and tanks and think really? o_0 I'll have to see what they're like in the flesh so to speak but my gut instinct was definitely that they looked expensive.

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    2. A good point about the fact that the gears are all metal, while a lot of companies are switching to resin. Admittedly DP9 have switched to resin for the bigger things like striders and tanks but still.

      I think the other points is that obviously while I love the fact you get all the bits to play with, you are also paying for them. And also the fact that you're doing so in their universe, and I always find that games with their own universe, figure range etc always charge more for their stuff, simply because they are the only source of figures for that game.

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    3. Yeah but I don't mind paying for options so much. I suppose I never really have. Plus I'm told these are easily magnetized by a number of people. As I've said all along with HGB, if the game is good and I enjoy it then I guess it won't really matter what the cost is, it'll be worth it for me. As long as I continue to give people as much info as I can in my reviews it'll be up to others as to whether or not it's for them. I hope loads of people in the West Midlands UK do decide its for them though... because that's where I live and I want opponents!!! lol.

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    4. Oh yeah, I'd much rather pay a bit extra and get the bits than not. And yeah same for a lot of games, if the game is good then the cost is worth it.

      If you're ever short of opponents you can come up to Glasgow, though it's a bit of a trek for Agamemnon.

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    5. I think almost all gamers are the same matey. If we like it we turn a blind eye to how badly it depletes our bank balance. lol.

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    6. Just noticed the glaring typo, curse the iPad auto correct. And yeah I think you're right.

      Anyways, shall be watching this with interest, currently in the process of building and painting my own black talon force so I am.

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  6. Not satisfied with one starter set, you bought two.
    -_-
    Yer da woist.

    Planning on running 'demo' games, and corrupting innocent hobbyists, huh?

    That being said...these are pretty nice kits.

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    1. SinSynn it's far worse than that... I actually have a third force, the NuCoal faction, I did a load of pic's for that stuff here:

      http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.com/2012/02/all-way-from-land-of-maple-syrup.html

      when I got it. These were actually sent me by John Nguyen at DP9 and will be going into the hands of friends and we'll have 3 of us going round pimping the game. There's also two others who I know who are definitely starting as they've ordered stuff a 5 others have told me they will do when pay day comes round. Yep I'm at it again!!!

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