Off the Shelf: Heavy Gear Sabertooth Northern Gear

I painted this one a few years ago, but never featured it here, so now as good a time as any!

It's a an older generation Heavy Gear metal model, from the original run of 1/144th scale Gears.

The Sabertooth is a medium Gear used by the Northern forces.  I used a combo of Vallejo yellows for a desert scheme.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

The Book That Launched A Thousand Games

3025 was a very good year. At least as a 16 year old kid in 1986, it seemed so to me. That's when I first bought the BattleTech Technical Readout 3025, a very dog-eared copy of which I still own today:



Perhaps it was the Duane Loose BattleMech artwork combining original designs and some "borrowed" ones from Harmony Gold's RoboTech franchise, or maybe it was the clever writing and arrangement that made me feel like I was reading some futuristic Jane's publication. I think it was a little of both.

The profiles of famous 'Mech jockeys with each machine's write-up were the clincher. I especially loved the account of Quickdraw pilot "Frownin' Jack" Breslin and his 60 ton Quickdraw, long one of my favorite 'Mech designs.



That quirky Quickdraw was Breslin's life, and as I began to play BattleTech and later other sci-fi and fantasy games, I adopted those sorts of role-play elements into my gaming more and more.

Here's a pic of an Ostroc and Quickdraw I painted two years ago:



In 1996, after having been away from miniature gaming for a few years, my interest in the hobby became re-invigorated by the arrival of Heavy Gear and Dream Pod 9's Vehicle Compendiums.



It took a while, but now dP9 finally has a line of miniatures to live up to the amazing material contained within these two books.

As gamers we'll spend just a small portion of our time actually gaming. It's the time spent reading, talking, and thinking about gaming that can be the most fruitful and fulfilling way of filling the gamer's existential vacuum. That's where books like the Technical Readout and Vehicle Compendium come in.

I have no doubt that the hours I spent pouring over the BattleTech Technical Readout 3025 represented formative moments in my gaming life. It's a testament to this book's magic that I can still pick it up today and lose myself in its yellowing pages.

In my mind, 3025 will always be a very good year indeed!

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Heavy Gear: Bear

I've been messing around with RoboFire again, and I want to try a few new wrinkles out in the rules. Some of the stuff I want to do will occur in 15mm, and I ordered some Rebel miniature HAMR suits for that.

In the meantime, to scratch my mecha itch I pulled out another Heavy Gear mini from my backlog. This time a Bear to go with the Mad Dog-R I painted last May. This batch of minis is part of a slow-burn Northern force I am putting together. The idea is that they would be deployed in a mountainous area. Anyway, the Bear represents a successor variant on the Mad Dog chassis.



And here are some shots of the pair of Gears together:







As Gears go these would be considered older models, long ago outgunned and out-developed by the high-tech Grizzly.

I've got another two-pack of these guys to go, and the nice thing about it is you get the parts to build two full models, and can do one of the three variants: Mad Dog R, Bear, or Den Mother. Next I'll do a Den Mother. I may do a Hunter or two first, as any good unit should have some standard trooper Gears.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

'Mech Scale Comparisons

Blog watcher Counter Fett asked me if I would post some scale comp pics of various 'Mechs that I own from different companies. So here they are.



Above we have from left to right, Rampage (BattleTech), Warrior (Heavy Gear), Orion (BattleTech), Mad Dog (Heavy Gear), EM-4 Giant Robot, Blue Moon Robot Walker.



Above we have a closer shot of the Orion, Mad Dog, and EM-4 'Mech.



Above is a closer shot of the Warrior, the Rampage (an Assault class 'Mech in BT), and the Mad Dog again.



Above here's a BattleTech Commando (a light 'Mech) and the Mad Dog (considered a mid-sized bruiser in Heavy Gear).



And finally, above you can the Commando and the Warrior side by side.

Hope this helps folks!

--Scott

Heavy Gear: Mad Dog R

Continuing with my scale and genre shift, I dug out some of my unpainted Heavy Gear models. I had wanted to do a Western Frontier Protectorate mountaineering force so I assembled some models to work on that project, then promptly moved on to something else.

So it is nice to have that stuff in reserve for times like these. There are so many Gears I like among the Northern faction options, but chief among them is the Mad Dog R, Den Mother, Bear two-pack.

I wanted to use the same scheme for this group of gears that I used for some BattleMechs I did a while back.

Here's what I've managed to complete today:











And here are some comp shots with other HG stuff I've done:





This week I hope to receive some 15mm Valkyrie suits from Art Crime productions, and when I get them, I will be sure to paint them up and show them off here!

Thanks for checking out the blog!

--Scott

1/87th Scale Heavy Gear

A while back I did a test paint job for another group of models using a 1/87th scale Heavy Gear kit. These metal kits from RAFM were really amazing, but often plagued by quality control issues. And the scale was ultimately unsuited to the level of game the Heavy Gear rules wanted you to play.

If you ever see any of these models around, I encourage you to snatch them up. They'll be quite useful as robots in 28mm games, or anthropomorphic combat walkers in 15mm sci-fi games. I've most recently used this model in some 15mm sci-fi gaming.







This paint job was done using GW's old Boltgun Metal spray, followed up by some stippling with various greens and yellows, and an application of the Dip (Minwax Tudor Satin 360). These days I might be just tempted to use Devlan Mud.

If I have a chance I will dig him out again and take some scale shots next to some 15mm sci-fi infantry.

--Scott

Heavy Gear: Bashan Mount

I love Heavy Gear. Love the models, love the background. It provides a different Mecha vibe from BattleTech, a different flavor if you will. Anyway, we used the Bashan Mounts for play-testing with Galactic War I over the last year or so.

This figure goes together beautifully, and has the benefit of looking scale neutral, so that you could use it with 12mm (Heavy Gear), 15mm (GWI, Stargrunt, etc.), or 28mm (Shadowrun, Rogue Trader). For 28mm games, it would make an excellent attack drone.







I painted this in a quick and dirty style, starting with an Army Painter metallic undercoat, then stippling on some military green colors. The base was cut for thin styrene card.

--Scott

Heavy Gear: Golems (Beta Squad)

As promised, here are some pics of the HG Beta Squad Golems for my Edenite/CEF forces. These guys will provide some ranged punch against more heavily armored foes. I used the same method to paint them as I did the Alpha Squad, but just replaced the Foundry blue I used with a Foundry green.













And here is a comp shot with one of the Alpha Squad members:



I've got more Golems on the way. These guys would also work well as attack robots for 15mm sci-fi games.

--Scott

Heavy Gear: Golems (Alpha Squad)

I've been a fan of the Heavy Gear universe and game since 1997. Even back when RAFM was doing the minis in HO (1/87th) scale there were hints that one day we might see miniatures from some of the other colony worlds like Caprice, Eden, and Utopia.

Fast forward to 2010 and a revitalized Dream Pod 9 is cranking out some the niftiest small scale (1/144th, or 12mm) sci-fi mecha you'd ever want to see. Including miniatures for the aforementioned colony worlds. I've really taken a shine to the Eden Golems. The whole power suit thing really plugs into my love of the old Exo-Squad cartoon show. If you've never seen this show, do yourself a favor and check it out for free on Hulu.

So Thursday night I cranked out my first 4 Golem suits and I am really happy with my results. This is an Alpha squad--the Beta squad I do next will have some stand-off weapons capable of punching the armor of lighter Gears.











I also took some comparison shots to give folks an idea of the scale of the Golems relative to other HG minis.









Next post on HG will feature the Beta Squad Golems.

--Scott

Heavy Gear: Flails

While I am waiting for my new CEF stuff to arrive for the Heavy Gear project, I thought I would knock out that Flail platoon I picked up a few months ago. I don't have the full background on these yet because I do not have the book, but I believe Flails are battle suits that contain vat-grown GREL brains. Kind of robots with cloned human brains as their CPU's. Unlike normal Heavy Gear infantry, they're mounted one to a base instead of 2 or 3 to a base.








I went with a fairly simple and military-looking paint job using Charadon Granite over a Boltgun Metal spray coat. Once I have my book I will go back and do some kind of unit insignia on them.

Love the models! Very unique and slick.

--Scott

Heavy Gear: Desert Viper

A few years ago one of the main designer's at DP9 started his own sub-company to produce lesser known Gear miniatures in resin. I snagged a few favorites when they became available, and one of these was the Desert Viper, a Southern League Gear that now sees most of its action among the various militias of the Badlands.












Being a sucker for drum-fed guns, this has always been one of my favorite Heavy Gear designs. I've got a few others painted up in this same scheme, so I'll have to photograph them as well when I get the chance.

--Scott