Heavy Gear Blitz! Tournament: Part 4

Gameday

The hours leading up to Cangames was very stressful. I always stress before any kind of event. It's like my normally laid-back personality saves up all the worry of everyday life for when I'm about to leave the house and go somewhere. With all the insane, unrealistic fears were a few valid concerns: transportation of miniatures, entry into Cangames, lack of rules knowledge, unfamiliarity with tournament games, and the people I'd be meeting.

My eight-year-old GW miniatures transport.

Tranporting Miniatures

I've had a Games Workshop miniature carrying case for a long time. It's really time to get a new one as I feel its design is bad for delicate miniatures. It looks like a black plastic briefcase. When opened it splits into two compartments held down by plastic staps. Inside if an egg-crate foam which meshes together to hold miniatures firmly.

The problem is miniatures with thin protrusions, like weapons that make the miniature wider than the case can allow. Back in the days of mostly two-dimensional castings this wasn't a problem. With my Gears I was afraid of weapons breaking. One of the Grizzlies was holding his autocannon pointing 45° from the rest of his body. It wasn't until after Cangames that I noticed that the autocannon had broken the superglue bond to the Grizzly's hand. It hadn't fallen off because it was pinned, just rotated. I haven't bothered re-gluing it as it won't pull out of the hand, and it would just break when I pack up the Grizzly for transportation.

The other problem I noticed after the fact was that since miniatures are sandwiched between two layers of foam and them held suspended in the foam the heavier Grizzlies were slipping with each step. Not much, not enough to really move them within the case, but certain enough to rub a bit of paint off the same spot on their heavy guided mortars. A case where the miniatures are supported on all sides by foam won't have this problem.

The eggcrate foam sandwiched miniatures. This style of case tends to damage long delicate pieces and rub paint off miniatures.

At least now I have an excuse to purchase some nice miniature carrying cases. Be a good idea to build up for next year, when I plan to move into a house.

Arrival at the tournament

I recommend that people show up early to these sorts of things. This gives you time to settle in before the tournament starts. I showed up a couple of hours early to make sure that I wasn't rushed and I had the advantage of being comfortably settled before it was time to play. Since this was the first Cangames I pre-registered for I wasn't sure how I was getting my access pass. It turns out that I had nothing to fear. I gave my name and was promptly handed an envelope with my pass and freebies. Easy.

Never played before

This was a big concern for me. Painting had taken up all of my time before the tournament so that, beyond pulling out the old hex-maps for pictures I didn't actually play any solo-games to familiarize myself with the rules. The Blitz! rules are easy to learn, but you still don't know them until you've played a few games. Like entry into Cangames, this turned into less of a problem than I had feared. Mason had played his first demo game that day and my first opponent seemed to be new to the rules as well.

Each game gave me greater confidence, although it wasn't until the last game that I really started learning tactics instead of just rules. Playing three games quickly like I did really are an effective way to learn rules compared to playing three games over a number of days or weeks.

Bryan R's Infantry. The APCs were his, but the infantry stands were borrowed from DP9 when he realised he had misunderstood the infantry rules and based his wrong.

My fear of the actual tournament was unfounded as well. I don't think the tournament was normal based on other people's experiences. In the Heavy Gear Blitz! tournament everyone was so friendly it felt more like playing a game down at the club or with friends. Scratch that, I have friends who are worse sportsmen than each person I played that day.

The People

The best part of my experience, by far. Because I had turned up so early I was able to sit and just hang out with everybody. Robert Dubois and Phillipe Le Clerc were there to represent Dream Pod 9. Both were great guys to hang out with. I spent most of the time chatting with Phillipe about sculpting and miniatures in general. I had some miscasts that had given me problems and he chided me for not getting them replaced.

Mason was on hand, trying to paint a Ferret in the dim light of the curling rink. It was great to see his work in person. Unfortunately he was just putting the base colours on the Ferret, so I didn't get to see any of his gradiants magic. He was also involved in the conversation, more-so once he decided to let the Ferret dry. I was suprised that it was part of his army, that his army was only 6 Gears strong and that it wasn't painted. He paints well, but not quickly.

There were other participants around and I really enjoyed the time I spent before the tournament just chatting and relaxing. When the time finally came around to play I was very relaxed and no longer so afraid of looking foolish and forgetting rules.

Game One

My first game was against a Northern army. I didn't take notes, but I remember a Nova Redriders HMA Squad and some Cheetahs, so potentially a Recon squad. Things looked even for half the game, but looks can be deceiving as my opponent was gaining more of an advantage as each turn passed. When the timer ran out I had taken a lot of casualties and hadn't accomplished my mission objectives as well as my opponent. He had over 1000 victory points and I was happy to hear that I couldn't have less than 0.

My biggest failure in this game was a lack of aggression. Most of the combat took place in my deployment zone or close to it. I moved slowly, tried to keep to cover but ended up losing most firefights. I inflicted damage though and a lot of points were lost for having units left in my deployment zone.

A look at my deployment for Game 2.

Game Two

After a quick break to tally the scores and assign tables for the next round we started again. I was playing a Southern force very different from the Northern Force of the last game. Where before I was facing Gears now I was facing a combined arms force of Hovertanks, Gears, Infantry and a Naga Strider. I was starting to feel confident in the rules at this point, though me opponent was nice enough to answer any clarification questions I had. One Sunday a month there's a Heavy Gear day at Fandom II and my opponent in this game runs it, so it was a good chance to clarify any rules I was unsure of.

Learning from the first game I was more agressive on the attack, but still too slow. Once again I was caught in my deployment zone. Fortunately my mission didn't penalize me for this so it was just going to come down to a slugfest. All of my opponents equipment was very scary, with the Hovertanks and Naga doing a lot of damage. With their multiple actions they were taking out one of my Gears each time they shot.

I did well to concentrate my fire on the Hovertanks and destroyed the unit. The GP squad I sent against the Naga was chewed up and my Firesupport squad was flanked by my opponents GP squad and mauled. Again, my opponent scored well and I was happy I couldn't get less than 0.

Pizza Break

As a group we decided to walk down the street to pickup some pizza. Cangames takes place just on the edge of Ottawa's downtown core, eight blocks from the Sens Mile. The Senators had just defeated Buffalo to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals. Like all game days I was wearing my jersey. It was fun to be downtown as the fans drove up and down the streets in decorated cars, honking and shouting to celebrate the victory.

Behind the furthest hill were Bryan's infantry. A scary force to be staring down, especially being outnumbered in Combat Groups.

Game Three

Back at Cangames we settled in, ate our pizza and received our table assignments for the third and final game of the tournament. My last game was against Dream Pod 9's sculptor, Phillipe Le Clerc. There were 7 players in the tournament so Mr. Le Clerc was taking part to ensure an even number of players. It was fortunate for me that I was able to play him. I was able to learn some of the tactics of the game from him, which soothed some of the frustration of the earlier battles. From Mr. Le Clerc I learnt what mistakes I'd made in the earlier games which lost them for me.

The trick I had been missing was the speed at which to move my Gears. Until this point I had been setting my Gears to Combat Walker speed. It allowed me to move the Gears like infantry, in any direction without having to worry about turning radius. It also moved the fastest through difficult terrain. The problem is that for a Hunter, 13 of my Gears out of 15, this gave them a -1 to defence. With the Hunter's poor armour this amounted to an extra step of damage taken every time it was shot at. Since my opponents weren't making this mistake they had a big advantage in all firefights.

By comparison, Combat Ground speed is slightly less manueverable, requiring 1" moved forward for every 60° turn, or pay 1 movement point to turn 180°. The advantage, aside from moving an extra 2" every turn, no small difference, was a 0 defence modifier. I could also switch easily to Top speed which gives me a +2 to defence. The disadvantage of Top speed is that it gives a -3 modifier to attacks. This modifier is the same for Walker and Ground movement, so it's better to get the extra defence; +1 defence for Walker Top speed.

Basically, I learnt to move as fast as the terrain would allow. Not only could I move to positions faster, but I was less likely to die along the way. The -3 to attack is huge, so the trick is to get right into short to medium range with an entire Combat Group and suppress with light weapons. Once the target is suppressed (full MAP) you have a -2 or -3 to attack and they have a -1 to defend. Keep that up and you'll win the firefight. Gain local superiority and you should gain a significant advantage.

I've destroyed one hovertank and heavily damaged one, but they're very much a big threat. There's a Naga hiding on the far side of the hill and you can see my casualties of the board in the top right.

I would say this is the basic tactic of the game. Without this you'll have no chance. With it you can use more advanced tactics to win the game. With it I was able to walk away from my first game with victory points. I still lost, but I understand where my mistakes and I learnt from the loss, so I felt good about it.