Spartan II

The Spartan was designed by Peace River Skunkwerks to be an easy to produce heavy trooper gear that could be used in place of Warrior IVs. Simpler, easy to produce components were sourced from other Peace River designs particularly the Crusader. These larger parts made the Spartan quite a bit larger than other gears of its class. Paxton unveiled their new gear to the public as part of its rebuilding campaign with the tagline “Bigger & Badder”. The larger actuators and joint components had an unexpected side effect once the gear hit the market.

T-XM1500/2 GOLD MAMBA

Archetypes are one of the optional rules for Heavy Gear. They represent different specializations a character can pursue, and players will recognize them as similar to the classes or jobs found in other roleplaying games. An Archetype represents a career long – or possibly life long – focus for a character, so they must be chosen during character construction and can’t be changed. A character starts at Rank 1 in their chosen Archetype and gets an ability then, and each time they rank up, up to Rank 6 in total. Ranking up typically happens at major story junctures, and is one of the many ways characters can advance over time. 

HACS-01MG-FU/A BEARHUNTER

Heavy Gear Fourth Edition aims for a combination of open ended rules with well defined game effects. Anything the player imagines can be a Skill, Trait, or equipment and those rules get applied in the same simple ways. Heavy Gear 4e When and how they get applied though is up to a process called Lobbying.  

The Player Lobby

HACS-01MG-FU ARMORED HUNTER

Today we want to talk about some of the basics that guide what a session of Heavy Gear looks and plays like. Before getting into any of that though, we should talk about optional rules. Heavy Gear Fourth Edition contains some rules which are tagged optional. By default these are on but a Director might choose to play without them. These rules add more complexity to the game and cover area’s otherwise entirely left to Director discretion. They can be thought of like mods to a video game – something that is rarely essential but provides a richer experience. The game functions fine without any of them, and may be a more streamlined experience, but we recommend using them. Some examples of optional rules are the wealth system, burden (how much players can carry), and Archetypes (which act like character classes in other systems.)  

F-32 Maru

F-55 Zikru

Like the F-27 and the F-32, the pads on the F-55’s hands and feet utilize “Lacerta-tech,” produced by Lysander Incorporated, which can be engaged to produce Van der Waals force. This Lacerta-tech, combined with additional climbing equipment, makes these frames excellent climbers.

The core units of the City Militia Defense Forces are the Gear cadres which field either older Gears or newer cheaper Asps. These units perform the role of a stop-gap measure until assistance from a regular military unit arrives. Most of the pilots in these Gears are retired veterans or members of the Youth Guard training to be ready for duty in the SRA or MILICIA.

Using Specialist Combat Groups in Heavy Gear Blitz!

Constructing a Specialist Combat Group is a bit different than a normal Blitz! combat group. Instead of picking the role and secondary role for the unit and filling it how you please, you must instead adhere to strict rules for composition, which may even include only running specific variants or upgrades. In exchange for adhering to this rigid formation, you may be able to run some models in a Role they may not normally fit in, or gain access to some unique options.

These groups may not be given secondary roles, and are only able to be used in armies from the force they come from, unless noted otherwise. They may however have any upgrades permitted by army and sublist rules, so long as the composition requirements are still met. Restrictions on the number of a specific variant apply as normal, for example, if a Specialist Combat Group is taken in the SK role, then model variants without SK+ may only be taken twice.

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Getting your character made in Heavy Gear is pretty simple once you know the concepts. It can be done before the game, but is really best done with all the players and the Narrator together as a sort of session zero. Today we are going to run through the process.

Building the Team, National Origin, and Lifepath   

The player characters in Heavy Gear are referred to as a Team. They might be a military, corporate contractors, or even a group of criminals brought together for a heist. The important part is that they are in this together. The Team works for a Sponsor, such as the military the Team serves in, a corporate entity, a revolutionary movement, or just about anything else. The Sponsor helps determine which vehicles the Team can choose from.