Erion

Then I'll find you in the vendor hall. Thanks.

I re-extracted everything and it seems to be working now. Must have not had everything selected in WinRAR when I unzipped it. Thanks for the assist.

I just downloaded the Force Manager software and there are a bunch of files missing when it runs. Weapon.dat SA.dat Upgrades.dat support.dat factions.dat generation.dat I'm also getting an error: "can't open file 'data\icon\CAVFM.ico' (error 0: the operation completed successfully.) Failed to load image from file "data\icon\CAVFM.ico"." I'm hoping it's as simple as some files missing from the ZIP archive.

The Origins Event Grid landed yesterday, and while there are indeed a couple of events on there, both are in the evening when I am meeting up with others for food and gaming. Is anyone running basic demos of the during the convention as opposed to big scenario games?

So, how much of this is going to be available at Origins? :)

I believe I said this before. I'm pretty sure I will say it again. Go to gruntz.biz. Follow the links and give Robin approximately 15 of your dollars to download his well-done,extremely flexible set of rules designed for 15mm sci-fi games. Spend a couple of days getting familiar with the rules, and then start using the builders to give stats to your CAV models. When we were first learning Gruntz, we used the JORs as a guide to reconstruct the CAV units from the ground up. Gruntz even has a Card Deck unit activation option. Damage track style effects are built in to reduce your systems on critical boxes. You used to kind of have to fudge some of the weapon types, but they now have Gatlings (GGCs) and Fully Automatic Cannons (RGCs) the whole way up to assault class (Rhino, Emperor, Thunderhawk, etc). The biggest Mechs can have a total of six weapons systems (four main and two anti-infantry), so you can even build the Vanquisher with six GGCs and two missile launchers. Infantry can be given all kinds of special abilities to represent the different species strengths and weaknesses. And since Gruntz is already small-scale, you don't really have to do much with the weapon ranges (though some have said to more accurately reflect CAV you might want to double ranges). Soft and hard targets are differentiated by whether or not armor piercing weapons have any effect on them. A word of caution: I got the Gruntz rules to use with my existing CAV collection, but it turned out to be a gateway drug into the living, breathing world of 15mm scifi. Lots of cool stuff out there. A lot of it designed by guys who had a hand in the original CAVs. Your wallet has been warned. Another Word of Caution: The Points system is NOT tournament ready. A 100 point mecha will likely walk all over 100 points of infantry simply because of the difference in weapon damage potentials. The basic infantry weapons are very unlikely to get through an assault-class mechs' defenses. This is not to say that there aren't squad heavy weapons available to the infantry. But a swarm of infantry with no support is not going to do much against a giant stompy robot of similar cost -- Just like small arms on the modern battlefied aren't going to do much more than chip the paint off off an M1 tank.

QFT. Also: *Sigh*

Didn't see this before I started a new thread about 15mm CAV up in reaper general. With reaper's reputation for excellent models, I think they would do VERY well using the existing designs in a larger scale.

Word.

Hey Nanite! The Bashan Combat Mount 2-pack is on sale through 2/11 at the DP9 Online store. Just being helpful...

If you ever come to NukeCon, you can borrow some of mine. If I ever get there, you can count on it.

Not a thing. We must never speak of this again.

I love lists. Care to share? If/when my finances recover, heavy gear is on my own list. This is by no means comprehensive or final. Keeping/Expanding Warmachine/Hordes (love MkII) Uncharted Seas Firestorm Armada (The fleet I want isn't even out yet) Heavy Gear 40k Tau (They're my favorite) Keeping as is AT-43 & Confrontation Monsterpocalypse (not much in the second set of factions caught my eye, and they need to figure out that they'd make way more money selling faction-specific packs for a bit more dough. It's still oodles of fun to play). War of the Ring (mostly older stuff converted for use in the new and very nice mass battles system) WFB High Elves Orc and Pro Elf Blood Bowl teams. Still on the Fence 40k Eldar 40k Grey Knights (Not much, but there are rumors of a new codex in development) Infinity (small Combined and PanO forces, but nobody else local is even remotely interested) BFG Warlord (but only because the models are useful in D&D) Liquidating/Liquidated All Other 40k (Marines, Necrons, Bugs, some Guard. Most is already Gone) All Other WFB (Brettonia, Lizardmen, Wood Elves. Already gone) Flames of War (Already Gone) CAV (Already Gone) Starship troopers (Already Gone) Pretty much all other CMG's. Void/Urban War/Metropolis I think that's it.

Lars, Customization is greatly reduced in the Blitz Rules. There are still variants available of almost every basic Gear design in the game (weapon swaps and such), but they're all done within the context of upgrades to pre-defined squad options. The days of building your own Gear from the ground up are gone. In addition, there's a much more defined army building process for each faction than ever before. Options do exist for variant forces (different member states in each of the polar alliances, for example). These are all very good things in my opinion. The old rules for building custom gears made engineers wary. The core of the system is still the same, but the details have been much streamlined. The game still very much feels like the Heavy Gear you remember, but plays faster and requires less bookkeeping. I also haven't been at all disappointed with the frequency of releases (printed and models) since the re-launch of the game with the Blitz! Locked and Loaded edition. Nary a month goes by without something new, and the core rulebook now contains the rules, plus complete faction guides (rules and background) for North, South, Peace River and the Badlands right up until the Deployment of the first Black Talon teams to Caprice. Black Talons and updated CEF forces (Caprician Mounts, CEF BattleFrames) come in a separate Black Talons book. I'm currently evaluating my commitment to a number of the game systems I currently collect/play, and Heavy Gear is near the top of the "KEEP IT" list.

Heavy Gear got awesome when the Blitz! edition of the rules was released about two years ago. The Caprice Combat Mounts were actually released last summer with the Black Talons expansion book. I have been resisting the urge to build a Caprician force to fight against my PRDF ever since.

Spartan Games is releasing Firestorm Armada Next week. Given how nice their Uncharted Seas fleets are and how easy it was to pick up the basic rules, a lot of us are looking forward to this one locally. Links and such

You won't get any argument from me that GW has a monolithic wall to be scaled before someone will be able to compete with them on a level playing field. But if they keep doing stuff like $49.50 for 10 greatswords (or 20 stormvermin. I think that's $0.50 less than the equivalent metals would have been a few months ago) or offering "deals" like the whopping 7% discount you get for buying their new $750 imperial terrain set for 40k (essentially 2 free bastions), and people are going to start looking elsewhere. And they're going to start liking what they see. And sooner or later GW isn't going to be the gateway drug to wargaming that they have been for decades. Don't get me wrong. GW's stuff is ridiculously cool. Heck, I'm talking to somebody at the LGS to see what kind of discount they'd be able to work out for me on the aformentioned $750 terrain set. But I'm not buying nearly as much of it as I once did, and I won't even think about finishing the High Elf Army I started a few years ago now that a single 5-man rank of special or rare infantry costs me $25.

Technically it's not even officially out yet (thus the ). But Privateer put the rules and cards in unformatted PDFs between now and January when the books will be released. Besides, I didn't see any disclaimers about the age of the game. But yeah, it would be nice to see CAV aspire to something more than the shamblng not-quite-dead thing that it has become.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck.

Given the vast range of choices available to someone thinking about starting up a new wargame you don't see that as a problem? The current state of the rules can be really off-putting to new players. Which is why the pdf of the CAV2 is finally being updated with all the errata for RC09 or so the plan go. Personally I think the lack of regular product release and no hard copy of the rulebook would be more of a turn off for new players. Name me one game that doesn't have errata? Warmachine WkII. But I can't say I disagree with you about the lack of both a hardcopy rulebook and ongoing product support as being off-putting as well.

Given the vast range of choices available to someone thinking about starting up a new wargame you don't see that as a problem? The current state of the rules can be really off-putting to new players.

Have you tried stuff of legends?

Rob, Do not make me come over there.

That Mega Dredd is constructed entirely of things that are awesome.

Warzone/Mutant Chronicles, I assume?