Well I went to pick up my Heavy Gear parcel yesterday at 7.30am before heading out to work only to be told that it had been put into my recycling bin! In a mild panic (recycling is picked up on a Tuesday morning here) I rushed back and discovered it secreted amongst empty cereal packets and newspapers!
Not the most auspicious of starts but at least it hadn't been taken away for recycling! Sadly this meant I didn't have chance to even open it until I got back that evening and after opening the box, I thought I would post a mini review on the miniatures themselves!
The first thing I noticed once peering into the well packaged box was just how small the actual box of miniatures are! They are presented in a rather nice little box with full colour photos of the Gears themselves slightly confusingly they also show a stand of infantry which isn't included but hey ho!
Upon opening the package itself I found the miniatures themselves each in its own little plastic compartment (I must admit I rooted through it so its not as well organised as it was!)
The Gears themselves come in a surprisingly large number of pieces for such a small kit, for example the body is in two parts, the head and arms and backpack, not to mention weapons and even armour plates all come in separate pieces, mounted on a central sprue.
I do feel that while this allows for greater posability, its also making it a bit unnecessarily complex, which in turn I am also guessing is also putting up the cost of production. I must admit I would prefer each Gear to come in fewer parts, possibly with the body cast as one piece and the guns already mounted on the hands as it will require quite a bit of faff to pin and stick them all together.
The Gears are themselves really nice sculpts but theres a fair amount of mould lines needing cleaning off and the metal itself is a little bit pitted, resulting in a rather rough finish on the otherwise smooth panels. Once its been cleaned and painted, I doubt it will be noticeable so its a minor quibble.
All in all they are nice models but my main reservation which would put me off buying them again was the sheer price of them. The pack I got usually costs £27 which works out at almost a fiver per figure which stands about 23-25mm tall. No matter how well detailed it is, I just dont think my budget would stretch to buying them again without the hefty 50% discount that Waylands was offering.
While the Gears themselves are quite pricy, the vehicles themselves are just stupidly expensive for a 10-12mm scale piece of resin, especially when many of them are essentially boxes with wheels and guns and even with the 50% discount, I just dont see them as being value for money!
I can understand why Heavy Gear has struggled to gain much of a foothold in the UK as despite the quality of the rulesets with their lavish illustration and the miniatures quality, the cost is just unreasonable, even when compared to GWs price gouging. Many folks will probably say AHA! But you only need one squad a side to play but for me, they're just too expensive!
With all that said and done, I am quite glad I picked them up though as they make decent battle armour for my now fully 15mm scale Battletech project and will be seeing action as the first elements of my Capellan Confederation armed forces!
In related news, I played out a small skirmish between my Federated Suns mech lance and some marauding Wilsons Hussars and much to my surprise the Hussars wiped the floor with the poorly trained Davion March Militia. The high point was a Hussars Forestry Mech burying its chainsaw in one of my Fed Suns Stealth Light Mechs heads.
I did manage to get some pics of the action so will post a battle report in the next day or so!
Till then all the best!
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