How Much Proprietary Is Too Much?

 So full disclaimer here before anyone decides to come kicking down my door: I am not inherently against the use of proprietary items in games. You may have guess that from every single game I've done unboxings and first impressions of thus far. All of them use something, and I've never thrown a shitfit over it.

That being said, is there a point when it becomes too much?

Now I want to clarify something, when I say proprietary items I don't mean basic stuff like stat cards or upgrade cards or tokens. Those are all pretty essential and not really a deal breaker for anyone as far as I know (although I am firmly in the "offer stat cards for fucks sake" camp). When I talk about needing proprietary items to play a game I mean specialty dice and the likes.

I think that these types of things can be done well, and correctly. In games like Godtear, Oak & Iron or Warhammer Underworlds the special dice and such used don't bother me in the slightest becasue they are, by and large, self contained games. And in all three of those cases, buying a starter set just makes sense (especially for Oak & Iron). Obviously they can be expanded with new champions/ships/warbands respectively, but by being that sort of board/wargame hybrid they feel less...manipulative. This also applies to something like X-Wing, or at least did when I played back after Episode 7 came out. I bought the starter box, but only had three ships I didn't want to worry about. yeah I bought an extra pack of dice because some of the combos got a little crazy, but it was largely self contained.

And that brings us to another Star Wars game, and probably the most egregious offender of too much proprietary in my opinon: Legion. You may recall that I quite enjoyed my game of Legion way back when, and I still maintain that it is a solid enough game. I get why people like it mechanically, although I think it should be 15mm, and if asked if someone who enjoys Star Wars and wargames should look into it I will absolutely tell them yes. But it does go fucking mental with the proprietary stuff. Basically everything in that game is proprietary: the dice, the movement tools, the range rulers for shooting, even the god damned bases aren't standard sized. Yeah, the normal infantry are on 27mm bases. Who does that?

And to make it worse, as I mentioned in my first impression post, if you buy a starter set (over $100 investment, mind you) it doesn't even get you enough dice to actually play the game proper!

This gets you three more of each type of dice

It just baffles me how anyone could think this was the best way. And it brings me to my main issue: what does it add to the game? What does not using inches for measurement add to the game that the special tools do? The only thing I can think of is that it means no conversions in countries that use the metric system. That's not enough to justify it for me. What do the dice add? Nothing to real value in this nerd's opinion. It just lets them have different levels of dice, which could still be accomplished by just using a tiered dice system and letting people use the piles of dice they likely already own.

Again, not a bad game, but it does, to borrow one of my favorite British terms, absolutely take the piss.

It wouldn't be so bad if things were easily converted for those who don't want to spend money on extra stuff (i.e. anyone who maybe wants to start by buying one of the battle force sets that don't come with range tools or dice), but it seems even that doesn't work. The shortest movement tool is roughly 3 inches, for example. Not exactly 3 inches, but roughly around that mark. 

Now this probably all sounds like someone who hates proprietary items in games, and as I established I'm not one of those. So let me talk about two games I find myself quite enamoured with that use proprietary items: Bot War and World of Twilight. 

Bot War uses non-standard dice. Okay, not great because again it would be nice to have to keep track of a separate pile of dice, but whatever. Here's the difference, and where I really draw the line with Legion: one pack gets you enough to play a normal game. 

Five of each dice and some energy cubes

If you don't want to buy the two player starter, this is a whopping $15. Bam, done. Compare that to the Legion dice pack, which retails at $18 and doesn't give you enough dice to roll a small squad's shooting without having to re-roll at least one die. Now, there are the rare few models in Bot War that have stats that will require you to roll more than five dice, but I think there's a total of four in the whole game.

Lord Humongous here being one of the rare ones (and he stands at over 5 inches tall)

So that dice pack is, generally speaking, enough to play the game comfortably. And that's the key thing to me: I want to have to buy as few things as possible to enjoy the game. Obviously with a platoon scaled game you need more models than you do a skirkish game, but I want to keep the extra purchases of non-model items to a minimum.

The other game I mentioned as being a good example of proprietary is World of Twilight. Brief aside: World of Twilight is one of the best games I've ever played. The rules are solid and innovative, they're fun as hell and the game packs so much charm per square inch that it verges on creating some sort of singularity. It's an absolute fucking disgrace that more people don't know about it. Go check it out, for the love of god.

Now in World of Twilight combat is handled in a unique fashion. Each model as a combat score, and when fighting you take a number of combat stones equal to your combat score and choose what you will allocate to attack and what you will allocate to defense (Bushido does a similar method using dice, and is also awesome). The game also uses a random activation system akin to Bolt Action, but there are two activation tokens that denote when combats are fought (outside of special abilities that let you initiate one out of turn). Sounds like you need a ton of stuff to play, but it all comes in one easy to use package.

And for the low price of ten quid (or roughly $12)

But all of these things can be substitued pretty easily if you don't want to make that extra investment (although it's dirt cheap). Combat stones? Use coins, heads are a success and tails a failure. Activation tokens? Use different colored dice, it's not like we gamers are in short supply of a variety of dice. So these extra things aren't actually required to play the game, although for the cost the official stuff is great. 

This brings me to the point I made earlier: these things feel like a new take. Special dice for the sake of special dice? I'm a little iffy on. If the game does other things right then I'm willing to let it slide, for the most part. But in World of Twilight the core mechanics are so unique and different that you can't really replace them with a normal dice roll. I suppose you could do 1-3 is  fail and 4-6 is a success if you wanted, but seeing how you use a d6 to make Tough rolls it could get confusing quickly. But becasue it does something different it doesn't feel like as much of a copout, you know? Why does a game that uses dice need special dice? Does it, really? 

Again, I'm not against these types of things at face value. Legion is a good game, Crisis Protocol is a good game that suffers from the same design philosophy, I'm sure Shatterpoint is fun. But I'm getting to a point where needing tons of extra stuff for a single game just feels like a way to gouge me. If things were cross compatible it'd probably sting a hell of a lot less. 

A game can do proprietary right, and many games do. But the best way, if you ask me, is to keep it to a minimum. And if your core mechanic is going to require something special, make it available in a single purchase. Games like Bot War, World of Twilight, even MERCS show that you can have a gimmick without going overboard. And I think more games that want a gimmick that requires special parts need to keep that in mind.

Less is more sometimes.

Being a game critic may have ruined gaming for me.

 I've played a lot of games. I've read more rulebooks than I can keep track of, tried mechanics and known the workings of way too many different games.

I sat down to think about it the other day and my estimate is that I've played, in one capacity or another, somewhere in the realm of 35+ different miniatures games.

Holy shit.

And then I really thought about it, and thought about the fact that I haven't played anything in six months, and that I haven't wanted to. I started to wonder why that was. At first I was just busy with life, my job required me to work 60+ hour weeks which left barely enough time to breath let alone dedicate hours at a time to tabletop gaming. But now I work a regular 40 hour a week job, and still I find myself just not wanting to.

Okay, that's not entirely fair. I want to play games, but the games I find myself wanting to play nobody else around me plays. And I think that's the real problem here. I want to play stuff nobody else gives a fuck about, and I'm too old and tired to deal with people and their piss-weak excuses to not even try shit these days. I'm talking games like Bushido, MERCS and Endless Fantasy Tactics that keep grabbing my eye. Not to mention stuff coming down the pipeline like By Fire & Sword 2nd edition and Warzone Eternal. 

In fact, it's that last one that sent me into this spiral of not gaming. I wanted to blame it all on Warzone, but it's not fair to do that. I did it to myself. 

You see, Warzone Eternal is almost the perfect game for me. It's skirmish, so low model count required. The models are mostly single piece models which means no fiddly bullshit assembly (yes, Mantic, I'm still fuming about these fucking Forge Fathers and the absurdly dumb method you designed them with). The rules seem solid from the beta document they recently put out. And it's fucking Mutant Chronicles, my first true love of gaming. It should be a home run for me.

But then it hit me: I'd have to build a community for it from the ground up. Fuck that. I've been around gamers long enough to know that starting a new community for a not popular game is going to end in failure nine times out of ten. I got stupid lucky with Heavy Gear, which means my next handful of attempts to get people to expand their horizons beyond some of the worst rulesets on the market are bound to end in disaster. And quite frankly, I just can't do it anymore. I can't handle the depresson that comes with that, the knowledge that people will see a game and go "that looks really fun, but if I don't buy $500 worth of Space Marines every month GW will murder my family" is just too much for me to bear these days. I'm pushing 40, and frankly I just have better shit to do with my life than fret over people being closed minded about their toy soldiers (says the hypocrite bitching about it on the internet).

I thought Warzone was to blame, that it triggered something in me that sent me on some manner of exestential crisis. I realized, though, that it isn't Warzone. It's me. It's the fact I was a games critic. I spent years reading rulebooks, testing mechanics and writing reviews. It was my job, it was my main source of income during my college years. And I loved it. I got to experience so many new games, so many different games all offering their own takes on the hobby. I got to see how different mechanics worked, how games chose to resolve things and get a little glimpse into the heads of the designers. I loved reading the books and testing the games. If not for that job I probably wouoldn't be the gamer I am today, I probably never would have discovered even half the games I've tried and loved. I discovered one of my favorite games (World of Twilight) through that job, and it opened up some doors for me that got me where I am today. 

But it has ruined me as a gamer. I can't shut off my brain now, I can't help but over analyze every game I come into contact with. And that means that I've discovered mechanics that I simply can't stand, that I can't ignore how utterly shit they are. The two big ones being the notoriously outdated and clunk IGOUGO and phase systems. Sadly, these are the mechanics that permiate some of the most popular games, and certainly the most popular games in my local scene: Flames of War, Team Yankee and Warhammer.

I would love to be able to turn my brain off and play those if it could mean getting to play games regularly, but I can't. I can't ignore the glaring issues with the core rules, and I can't have fun with those games. I tried with Flames of War, I really did. I had a sizable Italian army and played the game for years. But for some reason it just never fully clicked with me. Then I realized what it was: I hate the god damn system. I sold my Italians not too long ago, some $500-600 worth of stuff based on my best estimate. I keep thinking maybe I can just suck it up and play Team Yankee, but then I think about the rules and find myself going "never fucking mind, then."

I should be happy that people play any of the games I enjoy around me. I've got a good Battletech community, a handful of people playing Heavy Gear, we've got a healthy group of people playing One Page Rules and even some people playing Warmaster. And I love all those games, I do, but I always find myself wanting more. I've been wanting to do more skirmish gaming since space is a concern in my life, and been looking at stuff like BF&S becasue it's 15mm so a large army takes up the same amount of space as a small army in 28mm games. I keep debating getting in Star Wars Legion and Middle Earth Strategy Battle game because those are both solid games with existing players in my area. But is it worth it?

So you see, the problem is me. I'm an unpleasable prick with a wicked case of gamer ADD who can't shut his stupid brain off to play with plastic tanks. Ultimately, though, it makes me wonder if I want to. It makes me wonder if this is all worth it. I can keep playing the stuff I enjoy, but am I just going to make myself depressed knowing there is so much more out there that I won't get to enjoy because of bullshit reasons? Will I find myself longing for the games I never got to play, and ultimately sullying the whole hobby for me? 

I don't know, but what I do know is that this little pitty party has gone on too long. Thanks for reading.

Unboxing: Oak & Iron Starter Set.

 Hey all! I know I've been away for a bit, been busy working on some secret projects I'm not really at liberty to discuss. Suffice to say, between said projects and everyday life this thing sort of got away from me for a bit. 

I haven't done any in person gaming for a bit (thanks COVID!), and I've been horrid about getting anything painted. I'm working on my PRDF army, I've started working on some of my Godtear models (I managed to snag the limited edition metal models off eBay, so my collection sort of exploded) and I've got a giant bag of unbuilt plastics.

I did, however, manage to pop over to one of my favorite gaming shops (the ever lovely Demolition Games in Salt Lake City) and grab me something that had caught my fancy: Oak & Iron! So I bought me the starter, and I thought today I'd do a quick unboxing and give my two cents (for what two cents is worth in this economy).

Oak & Iron is an age of sail combat game by the good folks at Firelock Games who you may know as the makers of their other age of sail combat game Blood & Plunder. But whereas Blood & Plunder is about the individual soldiers fighting and infantry, Oak & Iron is all about those boats. I'd been looking around for a good age of sail naval game, and while I did take a look into Black Seas from Warlord Games, it didn't really tickle my fancy like Oak & Iron does. Mainly because I wanted pirates, and Black Seas is all about Napoleonic Wars battles (so it also omits the Dutch that this game features). I'm also still a bit mad at Warlord Games, so there's that.

Anyway, this starter box retails at $70 and you get quite a bit of stuff. A rulebook (that's already a tiny bit out of date), a game map, tokens, cards, dice and of course the models. So, let's take a closer look at everything in here, shall we?

We'll start with the rulebook. It's not super long, clocking in just under 30 pages total, but manages to pack a good amount of information.

Oops, just noticed this is upside down...

Like all good games, the book is in glorious full color with plenty of pictures to provide examples of how rules work. I'm not going to really go into the rules here, I'll wait until I can at least play a game (thanks COVID!) before diving into that. Suffice to say, they share some similarities with X-Wing, and I mean that in the best way.

Now I mentioned that the rulebook is already sort of out of date, what do I mean by that? Well Firelock have released a Version 1.01 online, which mainly just adjusts some things and address some clarity issues. It's nothing worth getting worked up about, and newer copies of the box should have the new rules but just be aware. You can download the updated book as a PDF, and honestly the changes are small enough that they take up less than an entire page.

Next we have the map.

This sea map is the playing area, and it folds out to a 3x3 area. It's made of a nice, glossy, material that feels durable which is nice. I would like to, provided I get a chance to play this game a good amount, replace it with a nice neoprene mat in the future, but for the time being it should do the trick. The colors are nice and vibrant, too.

You also get a bunch of tokens on punchboards. You get four in total, with the first three being all terrain features to be used when playing.

Yes I could have taken pictures of each one, yes I'm feeling a bit lazy.

Much like the map these are bright and vibrant, which from what I understand is what the Caribbean looks like (I've never been). They're good thick stock, and once punched out shouldn't take up too much space. My fog banks started popping out the moment I opened the box, but that's not a problem. Just be aware. These are also double sided, so you get plenty of versatility out of them.

The other punchboard you get is full of game tokens.

Still way less than your average game from Fantasy Flight.

This one includes stuff such as the movement tools, range ruler, wind token, nationality tokens, wake and reload markers along with an assortment of other tokens for things like sail setting and boarding and so forth. Again, these are all on fairly thick card so they should hold up to play. Firelock also sells an acrylic set of tools which has the movement tools, range ruler and wind token if you want some added durability in those (again, if I can play enough I totally want a set).

Next we come to the cards.

Not including the ship stat cards or the nation cards outlining their special rules, you get 140 cards in this box set. That's a hefty number if you ask me. All the cards are made of a solid material, and I am happy to report no damage to any of mine that I can see. There are 39 initiative cards in this box, some generic and some faction specific, which should lead to plenty of combinations when playing to help keep things fresh. I wish the set up cards (the ones along the bottom in my picture) came with more options, but maybe that's for a future release?

That's not even all the cards...

Speaking of future releases, Firelock offers a ton of options for cards if you want to expand. You can buy the Expansion Deck which is 50 cards: 11 new upgrades, 19 new generic admirals and then reprints of cards that had errata in the Version 1.01 update. It's not needed to play, as long as you have the errata sheet handy, but I'm debating picking one up. You can also buy digital card packs directly from Firelock's website. They have an admiral pack, an upgrade pack and an initiative pack. Each of these include new cards to add to your collection, but it does seem a bit odd to only do them in PDF. I guess a 37 card pack is too small to justify printing for them? Whatever the case, you have options. The Expansion Deck retails at $25, and the digital packs are $9 a pop.

Lastly, before we get to the ships themselves, you have the dice.

Now, Oak & Iron does use proprietary dice. I know a lot of people will bitch and moan endlessly about this, and while I did have a moment of "really, guys?" I don't mind it too much. You get six dice in the box, and I can't see any print issues with mine. Now six dice is should be plenty for using the models in this box, but if you want to expand to the bigger ships of the line and whatnot you'll want to buy an extra set of these guys. Some of those big boats can get absolutely insane with the number of dice they toss out.

Alright, shall we get to the boats?

I'm on a boat!

You get six ships in this starter: A Light Galleon, a Fluyt (pronounced like flute), a Petite Frigate, a Corvette, a Brigatine and a Sloop. This is a pretty good mix of the smaller ships, with the Light Galleon being the biggest, and the Sloop being the smallest.

The models are cast in a brown plastic for the hulls, and the masts and sails are molded together in a creamy white. Assembly isn't hard, per se, but some of the connections can be tight and I'd be wary of trying to pull them apart too many times. I will admit that the Sloop is a right pain, and I couldn't figure out how to get that sail assembly together. Firelock offers plenty of downloads, but an assembly guide for that thing would be nice. Speaking of downloads, they offer a ship recognition guide which is pretty helpful since a fair number of these can look quite similar.

The Corvette.

The mighty Light Galleon.

Size comparison of the two.

The detail on these is pretty solid. Nothing mind blowing if you're expecting something on par with some Games Workshop models, but crisp enough to feel right. The decks have individual planks, the hulls are lined with cannon ports, and the aftcastle on the bigger ships are nicely detailed.

Damn, lookit dat booty.

You also get six identical, clear, bases. These have markings for wind arcs and also have a handy little slot in the back to put in a token to designate ships if you happen to be running multiples of a single class.

Speaking of getting multiple ships, if you want more of these particular models without buying a second starter box then you'll want to grab either the Gentlemen of Fortune (Sloop, Petite Frigate and Corvette) or the Merchant Men (Light Galleon, Brigatine and Fluyt). These ship expansions will run you $30 a pop, and get you three ships, bases, stat cards and the tokens needed to add them to your fleet.

You also get the stat cards for the six ships in this box, of course.

These cards are bigger than normal, which surprised me when I popped open the box. They're double sided, with the back showing off what the upgrades listed at the bottom of the cards do, but apparently that picture got lost in the void somehow. You do also get some little plastic clips that you can use to track hull and crew damage, but I opted to sleeve them for the sake of not risking damage to the cards. You can use any tarot sized sleeves, but I bought a pack of the ones made by Fantasy Flight Games.

Insert witty condom joke here.

Lastly you get a neat little touch: six sheets of faction specific sticker flags.

These will let you mark your ships as being for a specific faction if you're so inclined, but you totally don't have to if you want to freedom to jump around between factions each game.

All in all this is a fairly solid set. You get a good amount of stuff, everything seems to be good quality and it's all packed in a way to ensure the components are in good shape when you open it up. I will admit that if you want to play you'll want to grab one, even if you already have a friend who has one. It's the only way to get the various cards in it (sans the updated ones in the Expansion Deck), which you're going to want. It's totally worth it, but I am always a little annoyed when a company does that. Still, despite that, this is a great set for what looks like a damn fun game. And if the cross-over rules with Blood & Plunder ever actually come out, that'll just add to the value (although they do have a campaign available).

Hopefully I'll get a chance to sit down and shoot some cannon in the near future, and once I do I'll be sure to give my review/first impressions.

Take care, stay safe, and remember: do what you want because a pirate is free, you are a pirate!

First Impressions: Star Wars Legion

Ah yes, time for another review/first impression of a game that Jeremy bought into and wanted me to try. So here we are with Star Wars Legion!

We did the starter scenario laid on in the rulebook, albeit with a few small changes to add special weapons into the mix with our squads. I opted to take on the role of the Empire, and Jeremy ran the rebels. The special weapons taken were a single Ion Blaster in one Rebel Trooper squad, the other had a Z6. The two squads of Stormtroopers each had a DLT-19 heavy blaster and an HH-12 Rocket launcher. It's a good thing I never fired said rocket launchers since those weapon loadouts are totally illegal (Stormtroopers can only take one special weapon). We also had more terrain on the table than the book suggests, mostly left over from the Heavy Gear game we had just played (which I took no pictures of since my models weren't painted).

The forces are deployed

Now you might be wondering why I'm not doing a full review of this, and the answer is pretty simply that I don't think we played enough, or deep enough, to really give a legit review. Also the rulebook is free on Fantasy Flight's website, so you can absolutely take a look for yourself if you're really interested in something more in depth (or hit up YouTube, I'm sure there are several reviews up).

A Rebel AT-RT takes up the flank

I will admit that I've had my trepidations about Legion. I'm a big Star Wars fan, enjoy the movies (well, five of them at least) and I tend to find myself looking at the books anytime I go Barnes & Noble. It's been a part of my life for a long time, and I have lots of fond memories tied to it. I used to play X-Wing back before Fantasy Flight decided that it needed a second edition overhaul that invalidated all the cards I had. Anyway, my concerns about Legion. It needs a lot of models. In a standard 800 point game you need at least 13 models, and that's barely going to scratch the surface. In a 28mm scale game (or maybe closer to 32mm?) that's more models than I care to have to paint. 

I'm also not, generally speaking, a big fan of licensed miniatures games. They tend to be a little pricier because of licensing issues, and they feel more narrow in scope since the creator of the game can't just make new stuff and when it comes to painting it feels really narrow if you wanna avoid people bitching about "you didn't paint it right!"

Okay, on to the actual game. Sorry, just needed to get those out there.

Stormtroopers prepare to move

Mechanically I actually enjoy quite a bit about this game. First thing I want to note is the turn priority. Using command cards from a hand of seven, trying to outplay the opponent to play the card with the lowest number of pips while also making sure you can get enough units orders that you wanted right from the get go. It adds an extra sense of outsmarting the enemy, and I know that commander and operative specific command cards can also have extra special effects on them. 

The order system is pretty neat as well. As I mentioned command cards will let you place order tokens on a certain number of units (and sometimes on specific types if I recall). So what happens with the units you can't issue orders to? Those tokens get shuffled up and put into a stack that you can draw from, essentially giving you a random activation order. This is one of my favorite mechanics in wargaming, so I was stoked to see it in some capacity here as well. When it's your turn to activate a unit you can either pick a unit on the board with an order, or pull from your stack depending on what you want to do.

The Speeder Bikes down a guy in a single salvo

Movement is one of the nicer things about this game as well. Each unit can move using a predetermined measuring tool (because FFG is apparently morally opposed to things like tape measures and not milking you for every cent you have with peripherals), with speeds of one, two or three. What makes it so nice is that you just move the unit leader, then place the rest of the models within move one of them. This speeds up movement immensely, and I like the idea that you can shuffle guys around to suit what your goal is. It adds a lot of flexibility and some tactical depth to positioning your forces.

Imperial Stormtroopers unleash a hail of blaster fire

 Combat is pretty simple, really, although it can seem clunky when trying to read it as written in the book. It does, of course, require special dice because it's a Fantasy Flight game, but I'm a little less hostile towards this than other folks. I will say, however, that it's bullshit to only give three of each dice when a basic squad of four Stormtroopers without any special weapons will need to roll four white attack dice. At the very least they could have included enough dice to preform a basic attack in the start box.

The trickiest part with combat, that we found, was figuring out defense and how many dice defenders got. It's not that it's actually complicated (you get to roll a die per hit rolled by your opponent), but the rulebook is laid out pretty terribly and we found ourselves having to flip through multiple pages to find some pretty basic information. In fact, the layout of the rules is one of the biggest gripes we had with the game. Some stuff just seemed to be in weird places, and it seems like it could have used another pair of eyes to point stuff out. It's not the worst book I've ever seen, but it isn't great by any means.

Darth Vader wants to play, too

I'll say this: I enjoyed most aspects of the game. It has those classic Fantasy Flight touches that can be a bit annoying (specialty tools for everything, several shipping containers worth of tokens, more cards than a desperate businessman), but overall it's a fairly solid game. Mechanically everything seems to work pretty well, and nothing seemed overly complicated but also not super easy and dumbed down (although I'm sure someone will argue that point with me).

The things that bother me most are the rulebook layout, the number of models required (honestly, the moment I need more than a dozen guys I want it to be 15mm), Fantasy Flight's seemingly inability to keep anything in stock (how long have B2 Battle Droids and Phase 2 Clone Troopers been out of stock now?) and the starter sets.

Wait, what's wrong with the starter sets? They seem a great deal! Sure, if you like both armies that come in them. If you don't, then they're sort of a pain in the dick. I know, I know, the idea is to trade with others or simply sell the models you don't want, but selling stuff can be a hassle and you might have stuff taking up space for a while. The trading argument really riles me up because this isn't a god damned card game, I shouldn't have to go around asking people for trades. I wish Fantasy Flight just did faction specific starter sets. Just take the models from the two player sets, maybe a different commander to entice people further, slap them in a box with some upgrades and get them on the shelves. It just seems so odd that they chose not to do this, and it bugs the hell out of me because that's just sort of what you do with a miniatures game. 

Luke Skywalker waltzes into the fray

Overall, I actually do like the game. Despite my issues with it, it is a solid game with some strong mechanics. Everything flows pretty smoothly, and there's a deceptive amount of depth here that one might miss by a quick glance. The Rebels and the Empire have tons of options and playstyles available, and it looks like the CIS and Republic are slowly getting there as well. The models are pretty nice as well, despite some wonky bases (seriously, they're like five inches tall). This is a good game, and if you're a Star Wars fan who loves land battles it's worth checking out. I don't see myself diving headlong into it right now, but it may well be on my list of future investments.

Hope you folks enjoyed this little look into Legion, and I'll hopefully have some hobby stuff done in the near future to show off along with more battle reports.

Review: Heavy Gear Blitz Peace River Defense Force plastic starter army.

 Alright, thought I'd dive into these guys as I got them a couple of weeks ago and have been meaning to do this since they arrived. So let's dive in with some info.

This is the new plastic starter army for the Peace River faction of Heavy Gear Blitz. This is the stuff that was funded via Kickstarter a couple years back, and I managed to get my hands on a set as PRDF is my primary faction of choice in Heavy Gear. In fact, two of their units, the Crusader IV and Red Bull Mk.2, are what really got me into Heavy Gear as a world and tabletop game.

I'm going to be making a lot of comparisons to the plastic Southern army that came out about five years back, since they are much easier direct comparisons than going against my Caprice army. For those of you who maybe have the plastic Northern models, the same basic comparisons will suffice.

Stacks and stacks of plastic!

So in this set you get 18 models: six Warriors, six Warrior IVs, three Skirmishers and three Crusaders (you can build them as either the IV or the V variant). This is a pretty hefty number of units, and gets you well more than enough to get to a standard 150 point game. Compared to the Southern box you get five more Gears (the South box comes with three drones as well, but those are hardly comparable to a full on Gear).

So really you get quite a bit of stuff, and each sprue comes with plenty of weapon options (although not all of them as you'll see) which makes this a very flexible set for, what I assume will be, $60 USD.

Let's get into the individual models, shall we?

Starting off we'll go with the Warrior. This is the standard workhorse Gear of Peace River, being fairly similar to the Northern Hunter or Southern Jager. Nothing super fancy, but Peace River does tend to have better Electronic Warfare stats than the polar armies which sets them apart gameplay wise. The Warrior isn't great at EW stuff, but can pull its weight with a slightly better EW score than its polar competition. Let's take a look at the sprue, then.

So first thing you might notice is that there are quite a few parts on this sprue. It's pretty tightly packed with bits and bobs. Three different legs, two sets of arms, two heads (one for the Chieftain command model) various weapons and so forth. You get the parts to build the aforementioned command unit, as well as weapons to build the Vanguard, Scourge and Sweeper variants (medium autocannon, light bazooka and light frag cannon, respectively). The one thing missing, in my opinion, is the option to build a Pilum variant with the light anti-tank missile. You only get the light rocket pack as far as missiles go in this. Bit of a shame, but if you have the plastic models from the North or South you should have  a few laying around to build one if you wish (which is what I'll be doing).

Now there are a ton of little parts around the edges of the sprue there, and most of those are the skirt armor that attaches to the legs along with some extra bits like extra ammo magazines and such. And this is where things get a little bonkers with these guys, the parts count per model is insane.

Pictured: insanity.

That's a single Gear. That's 20 damn parts if you put the vibro-blade on the model. The skirt armor being separate bits, the antennae on the head being separate and the new arm assembly means there is a ton of stuff to clean. I timed myself doing just prep (not assembly) of the Warrior IV I built for this and it took 11 god damn minutes. Just clipping and filing. Cleaning the skirt armor, especially, was a huge pain in the ass because they're so freaking small. I get the idea behind it, and it does lead to lots of posing options over the plastic Jager, but I'm not entirely sure that it was worth it. The Jager is ten parts in comparison. I'm not super slow when it comes to prep, but that's still daunting when I need to build more of these things.

Once built, however, the model looks quite good. The detail is real nice and sharp, and the new posing options are pretty nice. I dig the new arm assembly allowing for the swivel opens up a lot, although the ball jointing the legs didn't seem to do as much as I would have expected.

Full disclosure: I glued the butt plate on upside down, I should have checked the pictures first. The plastic assembly guide hasn't been updated yet, so I was mostly winging it.

Always double check before gluing on butt plates.

Side by side with an enemy Jager.

Moving on to the Warrior IV, this is an upgraded version of the Warrior. Same base chassis, better armor and EW equipment. The miniatures can look fairly similar, obviously, but there are some differences. The shoulder armor is different, the body is slightly different and the rocket pack is at a jaunty angle on the Warrior IV as you'll see.

The Warrior IV sprue comes with the same weapons as the Warrior, allowing you to build the same types of variants. Again, it lacks the ATM to make a Pilum variant. More crucially, though, I feel like I would have gladly sacrificed the frag cannon to get the rotary laser to make the Fusillade variant. I just think it's an overall better weapon, and it would have made this sprue feel a little more distinct from the standard Warrior. If you have the plastic kits for the South you'll have access to some as the Black Mamba sprue has one, so at least I can still build one. Still, I think that would have been a nice option to come on the sprue to start with (granted I think the Fusillade got added back into the game after these kits were already planned out, so I'm not too annoyed by it).

I will say, with the new ball joint attachment for the legs it makes trying to do a standing pose much trickier because now you have to line up more stuff. On the Southern models the legs just plugged into pre-shaped slots so it worked a little easier. I didn't intend for this guy to be walking, and he's actually not making much contact with the base. The pose looks nice and menacing, but it was a total accident.

I also think these guys may end up a little shorter than the Black Mamba, but I won't know for sure until I can get one built in a similar pose. 

On to the recon Gear of the set, the Skirmisher. These guys are small, fast, can pack a decent punch and carry all the EW equipment. Not to mention having better sensors with longer range, being able to deploy via airdrop and having the Agile trait so they're harder to hit. These guys are able to get across the battlefield quickly, paint some targets for bigger guns and dodge enemy fire all at the same time while being able to throw out some impressive firepower for a Gear their size.

The Skirmisher sprue actually gives you quite a few options as far as weapons. You can build a stock model (light rifle), the Vanguard variant (light autocannon), Sweeper (light frag cannon), Scourge (light bazooka) or the Assassin (medium rifle). You can also build it as the TAG version of all these with the included Satellite Uplink. So this is actually a pretty versatile little sprue, all things considered.

There is something to note, however. The two arms bent at a 90 degree angle are both left arms. There was some sort of screw up when the sprue was being made and instead of a left and a right we got two of the same. So that sucks a bit, but it's not the end of the world.

 First thing to note here: this thing is way more posable than it's Southern counterpart the Iguana. The Iguana is a sort of static model (at least the plastic ones), but the Skirmisher is able to bust a move like there's no tomorrow. The other thing to note is that because of the smaller size of the Gear itself, the parts are a bit smaller. What does this mean? It means those skirt plates are an even bigger pain to clean properly. If you've got something to clamp them down with that's advised. I will admit to a fair bit of swearing trying to clean parts on this guy. Also some of the connection points on the Sat Uplink are weird and were a bit tricky to get at with my files. It looks great once built, but it took more effort than I was thrilled with.

Lastly we come to the Crusader. As I mentioned, this is one of the models that got me into Heavy Gear in the first place. Something about how no frills, utilitarian and bad-ass it looks just drew me in. This is Peace River's primary fire support gear, comparable to the Southern Spitting Cobra. While it lacks some of the versatility of the Spitting Cobra (no field guns, sadly) it still packs a hell of a punch and is a beast on the battlefield. While the Crusader IV is susceptible to particle accelerators and haywire effects, the Crusader V has accounted for this weakness at the expense of a single rocket pack.

The first thing to note on the Crusader is that everything is so chunky, which was great. The size of the parts made prep way smoother, even if there are still a ton of parts. Weapon wise the Crusader doesn't come with a ton of options, but it does come with all the options it needs. You have the standard (heavy autocannon), Scourge (medium bazooka) and Demolisher (medium snub-cannon). The only visual difference between the IV and the V is that the V will only have one rocket pack while the IV has the dual set-up. The Crusader is a simple beast compared to the Spitting Cobra, but it does come with a huge screw you axe.

The arm assembly on this guy is also pretty interesting. On the Spitting Cobra the arm is two parts: the upper arm and shoulder are one piece and the lower arm and hands are another that connect at the elbow with a hinge joint there for posing. The Crusader has a three part arm assembly (four if you count the extra armor on the shoulder section) with the shoulder part, some of the upper arm and then the rest from the bicep down. This gives the arm an outward swing, plus the bicep swivel and the ball-joint connection at the shoulder proper. 

This means that without even doing any cutting or anything you get tons of posing potential out of the arms on this guy. While I did like the elbow joint on the Spitting Cobra, this does seem a better deal and opens up way more doors. Considering that I'm planning to build one of my Crusaders as a duelist this makes me real thrilled with getting it into a cool pose. Considering the Crusader doesn't come with much in the way of leg posing this is still a nice way to mix things up.

Welcome to the Big Boys Club.

As you can see, this boy is thicc. Fairly bulky compared to the Spitting Cobra. I love the way he looks when all built, even when put into a fairly static pose like I went with here the Crusader looks mean. Assembly is, obviously, the easiest on this guy due to the chunkitude of all the parts involved, and I feel like it was pretty quick going together as well. I will say, since the legs can't do much in terms of posing I sort of wish they had stuck with the old peg and slot system. Getting him to stand up properly and not be all wonky was a bit more hassle than I'd have liked. I get why these guys don't come with a running leg, but having extra options would have been nice.

The obligatory group shot.

I want to give a few assembly tips on these guys (if you want a more in depth guide let me know and I'll see what I can do).

1) Glue the butt plate on before gluing on the legs so you and ensure that everything fits together.

2) Glue the rocket packs on before gluing on the arms.

3) On the Skirmisher, if you're going to build the TAG variant make sure you glue in the head before putting on the rocket pack and Sat Uplink. It gets real crowded real fast there.

4) I suggest gluing the legs on and then the skirt armor to try and cover gaps as best you can. It may not always work, but if you do the skirt armor before gluing on the legs it can make posing a bit trickier.

So what are my overall opinions on this set? I dig them, but I'm also annoyed with them. The detail is wonderful (which was a complaint on the original plastics), the new arm system allows lots of poses and character and once built these guys look amazing. But, there are some pretty major gripes here. The ball jointed hips don't feel like they add enough in terms of posing to be worth it, the separate skirt pieces adds to the parts count and are a real bitch to clean, the Warrior and Warrior IV sprues are a bit too similar and lacking some options I'd have liked to see and the prep and assembly time per model is a bit obscene compared to how quickly my Southern stuff went together. While I'm stoked to have gotten my hands on these, and stoked that there's now a cheaper option to get started with my favorite army in the game, the frustrations do add up. I'm happy to have these, but I will say I'm dreading building the rest of the models and I certainly don't see myself opting to buy a second starter in the future.

Hope you all have enjoyed, stay safe and stay sexy.