Giant robot games and "The Oath"

Well as mentioned there would in fact be giant robots in this blog, cause ever since I saw my first episode of Robotech many moons ago, I've had a soft spot in my heart for them. Eventually I found Battletech and enjoyed it for a time, but I found the rules too complicated, with the mechs being likened the titans they were meant to be and taking an age to fell. Also I was never entirely sold on the design aesthetic of the miniatures, being too boxy and clunky looking for my tastes.

Then one day, upon a visit to my FLGS I happened upon the Heavy Gear rulebook. I saved up my money, bought it and never looked back.

Set in the far future, on the colony world of Terra Nova, Heavy Gear pits two polar nations, The Confederated Northern City States and the Southern Republic (or North and South) against each other, along with several independant city states. To add something else into the mix the Colonial Expeditionary Force from Earth has come forth, wanting to reclaim Earth's formerly abandoned colony worlds for the resources they hold.

Produced by Dream Pod 9 I feel it's a game worth a look. While 12mm in scale, I shall admit it's more expensive than you may think, due to the price of the miniatures which are slightly higher than average, and also the fact it concentrates on Gears (the slang name for the giant robots, developed on Terra Nova initially for labour purposes), therefore you end up playing a 12mm game with effectively 28mm miniatures. Still I feel they would work well for other things, I intend to shoehorn them in as large scale powered armour suits along with some GZG troops I intend to buy for Tomorrow's war.

At the same time, DP9 have recently come out with a nice range of game specific scenery as seen below

Badlands outpost

Wind turbine

 These, along with various others in their range allow you to assemble small settlements that are typically found in the badlands, the equatorial desert no-mans land that separates the two powers. And since DP9 are currently doing offers right now I might pick some up. Again some due to having doors etc are specific to a 12mm setting, while others such as the wind turbine are probably more useful for well any setting. It could be a massive turbine in 6mm to a small rooftop turbine in 28mm. They also do a good line of stone heads in an Easter Island style.

And now on to the other part of this post. The Oath. Myself and 3 other members of my local gaming club are travelling to Salute this year, and we've all taken an oath to work our way through our backlog of miniatures and not to buy anymore figures till then. So far I've managed quite nicely. I'll have a bit of catching up to do but I'm thinking of getting some of this scenery as they're currently doing an offer. So really my opinion is that scenery doesn't count as figures. It's used to enhance the game. At least that's what I'll tell myself to quiet my conscience.