Heavy Gear – 62nd-Century mech action

In April 2017 we presented the Heavy Gear Bundle, featuring the Dream Pod 9 RPG of 62nd-Century mech warfare and cataclysmic change on the world of Terra Nova. Heavy Gear is DP9’s flagship game. Starting as a tactical miniatures wargame of armored combat on the distant world of Terra Nova in the 62nd Century, Heavy Gear spawned two video games and an animated TV series. The tabletop RPG is renowned for exciting combat, a detailed and plausible setting, and an epic storyline that is often praised as “metaplot done right.”

This bargain-priced collection presented the 2003 Third Edition of Heavy Gear along with the Silhouette CORE Deluxe Edition rulebook that drives the system, plus a generous range of 3E supplements and all five Storyline books. It’s everything you need for a complete roleplaying campaign of military action on Terra Nova. There were five titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $43):

• Silhouette CORE Deluxe Edition (retail price $12): The system that drives Heavy Gear 3E and the other Dream Pod 9 RPGs.
• Heavy Gear Player’s Handbook 3E (retail $9): The rulebook that introduces the 62nd-Century setting, its character archetypes, equipment, and technology.
• Terra Nova Companion 3E and Vehicle Companion 3E (retail $9 apiece): Comprehensive guides to the Heavy Gear planet and its Gears, striders, tanks, aircraft, and specialty transports.
• Operation: Jungle Drums Redux! (retail $4): An ideal introductory adventure, a special operation in deep jungle that introduces characters significant in the later storyline.

Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got our entire Bonus Collection with nine more titles worth an additional $65:

• Earth Companion 3E (retail $9): All about the New Earth Commonwealth and its Colonial Expeditionary Force (CEF), which seek to reconquer Terra Nova.
• Storyline Books 1-5 (total retail $28): The standard-setting 15-year epic that showed other companies how to handle metaplot — 1: Crisis of Faith (retail $6), 2: Blood on the Wind (retail $5.50), 3: Return to Cat’s Eye (retail $5.50), 4: Storm on the Horizon (retail $5.50), and 5: Distant Shores (retail $5.50).
• Life on Caprice (retail $6): Venture offworld to this Earth-occupied colony ripe for revolution.
• NEW! Character Compendium (retail $7): Ten groups on Terra Nova that can interact with player characters as allies, friends, enemies, or contacts.
• NEWER! The Art of Heavy Gear Volume 1 (retail $15): A full-color 220-page compendium of cover art, action scenes, and illos of characters striders, vehicles, gear, and creatures.

[Note: These .PDFs are image scans from the 1990s hardcopy originals. The print is readable but light. Most text can be copied; the optical character recognition (OCR) is generally good but not foolproof.]

That’s a US$108 value, yet cheaper than a can of oil for your HACS-12MG-DL Nemesis Jaguar. Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to the charity chosen by Dream Pod 9’s Robert Dubois, Make-A-Wish International.