Heavy Gear: Vehicle Companion
01/02/2004 . Source: Stephen Hunt 
pub: Dream Pod 9. 256-page sourcebook. Price: $29.95 (US). ISBN: 1-897042-00-0. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.dp9.com
Based in Canada, Dream Pod Nine have always produced some of the best quality gear for roleplayers and wargamers, and I'm happy to report that the Heavy Gear Vehicle Companion doesn't deviate from their previous track record.
This is a sourcebook containing c. 200 vehicles from their Heavy Gear universe. If you've ever been into manga and anime you'll be on the same page as Heavy Gear even if you've never roleplayed or wargamed in your life.
Robots. BIG flipping robots mainly. Battling mecha, most with human pilots, some AI-driven.
Each vehicle gets its own page complete with description, game stats, and a lovely lovely picture.
A lot or RPG houses stint when it comes to the visuals ... art costs a lot of money, good illustrators are hard to find, and the ranks of RPG and wargame books filled with the scratchings of the publisher's A-level art class output is legion. Not the Dream Pod crew, though.
Each of their pics is an intricate monochrome masterwork with a technical art Syd Mead meets Appleseed feel. A few of the pictures even come with a Dorling Kindersley-style cutaway and full technical diagram. The artist in me guesses these are either Adobe Illustrator works or airbrushed Rotring pen jobs, but however they're produced, they really make the source book.
The book has eleven chapters, each chapter covering the bots, aircraft and ground vehicles of one of the competing Heavy Gear political systems .... The North, the South, the Badlands, the Duelists, the Paxtons, the Black Talon, The CEF, Caprice, Utopia, Atlantis, and Eden .
There's some pretty cool stuff in hear, mecha like the HACS-02-MG-SEC Jaguar MP, which lets the pilots of the North's military police force take on deserters and drunken troublemakers with a 60mm pump-action fragcannon. Ouch. Now that's got to hurt.
If mecha aren't your cup of tea, there's plenty of other vehicles represented in the books, from motorcycles to forward sweep-wing jets, hovertanks and VTOL attack craft.
All vehicles come with game statistics for both Dream Pod 9's own Silhouette CORE system as well as Wizards of the Coast's Open Gaming License (OGL). Obviously, if you're going to get this book, make sure you also buy a copy of the Silhouette CORE rulebook of Wizards' Roleplaying Game Core Book.
At some point in the future this should integrate with Dream Pod's planned SilCORE miniatures rules which - rumour suggests - will take the Silhouette tactical rules and remake them as a universal system to drive all DP9's wargames, much like the RPG rules do for their game worlds.
Stephen Hunt |
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