Saturday 17 January 2015

CASE-2X Combat Armour: Shiny Distraction

I've been mumbling about Heavy Gear for a while, having gone so far as to put my money where my mouth is by signing up for the KickStarter, and buying miniatures, but my intent is not so much to play games in the Terra Nova setting, rather to play games in the my own setting. 

For those who follow my writing blog you will know I've written my first novel working title Bad Dog.  I've even written the first drafts of two sequels, so I'm quite invested in my story, and being a wargamer I want to play games in my universe.

The above are a load of bits & pieces that arrived recently.  

Some were bought specifically to provide the parts for converting some Dream Pod 9 miniatures to make a model of my CASE-2X combat armour, called Dogs by the Marine Corps pilots in my novel.  My first attempt at making a Dog can be seen here.  I wasn't totally happy with it, because it just looked like a slightly modified Heavy Gear Jager, which funnily enough was what it was.

So here is my second attempt using the main torso from a Heavy Gear Mamba to change the look of my combat armour suit.

On the left is my heroes mecha from the first novel, and on the right is her officer variant from the sequels.  

I've used the Dream Pod 9 snub cannon to represent the 20mm auto-cannon, modified with a frag cannon to represent an under barrel grenade launcher.  I've also added a parts to represent the over the shoulder sensor post and the arm mounted snub 50 cal, which is part of fixed load-out for all Marine Corps Dogs.  

The command variant adds a shoulder mounted rocket pod, and has extra antennae for all the communications gear a command suit carries.  The head on the command model comes from Dream Pod 9s Razor Fang Mamba.

Tell me what you think.  Be honest, this is for posterity, as in they will become canonical  and I want to get the look right.  For instance I could go with Mamba heads for the basic Dogs, and use Cobra heads for the command variants?  My next step is to make models up for the rest of the named characters in Bad Dog, followed by an Army Special Forces suit from the first sequel called Strike Dog, and an Air Force Forward Observer suit from the third novel called Ghost Dog.

After that there will be rules.  Whether these will be variant Heavy Gear Blitz Beta, or something else will rather depend on play-testing of the new rules from Dream Pod 9.  Either way models will be made and games will be played.

16 comments:

  1. The guns seem a bit oversized, but I haven't run the numbers on lifting strength and so on. Is it possible to get rid of those shot trap angles in the shoulders, maybe by slimming down the pauldrons a bit? Or does that not really matter when you're dealing with hypervelocity penetrators?

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    1. Gun choice is limited by what DP9 make, but I'll look at my armoury again and see. The trouble is that the alternatives are too much like enlarged real world weapons, which doesn't work for me. Whereas the snub cannon looks more SF. Good questions about the shot traps, don't know is the answer.

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    2. Try again to get this post right. Have discussed with partner and after much gnashing of teeth I will make up an alternative gun from the parts I have and I will post an update as soon as possible.

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  2. I don't know much about HG figs and what the alternatives are, but I agree that the one on the left looks a bit GWishly large.

    I think its really awesome that you are converting figs to fit your own home grown and obviously well developed universe. I'm looking forward to watching this project progress.

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    1. The guns on both have been changed (they were both the same casting, just seen from a different angle) with a cut down and modified heavy rifle casting from DP9 that is now going to be what I use for the standard 20mm M41-AC2 these mecha are supposed to be carrying.

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  3. Hm...have you looked at the weapons packs for something more fitting, like the one for the Black Talons...?

    http://store.dp9.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=69_62&product_id=396

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    1. I hadn't looked at the Black Talon stuff, so thanks for the link, but I did scour the parts list, and as a result have the equivalent of a Heavy Gear arsenal of freedom tucked away for future conversions.

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  5. Shiny. :-) BTW, I got my paws on a copy of OHMU. Nicely done, Ashley.

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    1. I'm honoured you went to the trouble of seeking a copy. One day I may do something, like release the construction rules, but it's a lot of work for no real reward.

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    2. Took me a while, but it worked out in the end and I enjoyed the read. And since we don't have enough time to do stuff we enjoy as it is, don't sweat it.

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    3. However, if anyone one wants the raw notes and excel spreadsheet, then just email me (use the contact form at the bottom of the page if you don't already have my email) and I'll send you the stuff we used when writing OHMU.

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    4. Still have my book from Back In The Day. (Now signed by the author.) :-)

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  6. I strongly prefer the new look using the mamba parts but I do have some questions/comments/criticisms. Do the combat armors in your universe have secondary movement systems like the wheels in VOTOMS and Heavy Gear? If not, I'd recommend clipping off the back heels of the feel and converting something else in their place. Alternately, if they have a jump jet type movement, you could look into using the chasseur Mk II legs instead since they have rocket nozzles. Also, I'd probably advise not calling them "dogs". We're obviously both fans of VOTOMS and the visually derivative Heavy Gear and 20 years later HG is still getting flak for being "just" a VOTOMS clone. Since the iconic suit in VOTOMS is a scope dog, I'd probably say it would be best to find a more unique name than "dog" for the armor suits especially given that you're using HG model bits. I hope that helps. I do like the backpacks and the use of the cobra heads though as they do distinguish the model alot more from the original.

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    1. In order:

      1. Yes they do, based on the idea of snow mobiles.
      2. No jump jets on CASE-2X suits.
      3. Unofficially called Dogs by the Marines, because they are Devil Dogs, and inspired by Darpa's BigDog project (it's lampshaded in the novel as this). The official Marine nomenclature is CASE-2X or CASE-2X-C4.

      Thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback, and I hope my answers have clarified things for you. If you want to keep track of the novel then please do consider following my other site: http://ashleyrpollard.blogspot.co.uk/

      My plan is, as and when it's appropriate, to feed information as teasers for the novel before it's published. Of course that may be some time as I haven't sold it yet, but people are reading it and if they like it then who knows?

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  7. Thanks for the link; I'll check it out! Any thoughts on using "hardcase" instead of dogs? It goes with the official nomenclature and jibes with the idea of US Marines affectionately being called "jarheads". I assume with the DARPA reference that the marines are USMC and not Royal Marines. Just an idea...

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