'...it's kinda like, the geek equivalent of paper dolls...'

Yes. I said that at work today (like my coworkers didn't think my gaming hobby made me weird enough to begin with). When I was asked 'What are you building?'

I was making these:

Paper terrain for Heavy Gear. I had commandeered a light table, T-square & an exacto knife which made assembly MUCH easier than at home.

Heavy Gear is an odd scale, "N" scale for trains I think. It's been a while since I've last been to a train shop, but I somehow doubt that military/futuristic scenery isn't likely to be found there. So Dream Pod 9 has paper terrain for you to fold. Kinda basic & bland (especially after playing on my city fight-like table on a weekly basis), but needed. I donated most of my non-city terrain to the FLGS some time back, so the table will be kinda sparse. A few hills, some painted GW craters, my objective markers (which in this scale could pass for generator-like-things), that's about it. I'm kindova terrain whore, the more the better. However I don't think that will work in Heavy Gear especially as I have hover tanks. Unlike Classic Battletech, where you can make a piloting check, and if passed your hover tank that's hauling ass will turn on a dime. In Heavy Gear, if your hover tank is moving and turns, its sideways for a few inches for you (they call it 'drifting').

Speaking of which, here's my army:

The Port Arthur Korps (PAK)

The PAK, humans & GRELs (Genetically Recombined Legionaires) are the stranded survivors of the CEF (Colonial Expeditionary Force, Earth forces basically) forces who failed to reconquer Terra Nova (the primary setting for Heavy Gear). They've since gone native, and in the current fluff, are fighting against the returned CEF invasion force that is trying to conquer Terra Nova for a second time. That probably makes little sense if you're not familiar with the game's background. If you're not, go check it out here. The fluff is superb (having a companion RPG makes that possible)!

What you see above are 3 LHT-67 & 2 LHT-71 light hover tanks, and a GREL platoon consisting of 4, 10 man squads and a 3 strong Morgana Commando Squad. Sounds good, except that I have no idea as to what they really do, aside from look cool.

We tried Heavy Gear some years ago & found the rules to be mind boggling as they tried to make it as realistic as possible, which...to me made Classic Battletech look about as easy as a game of Uno. DP9 has since revamped the rules in Heavy Gear Blitz, annnnnnd.........it still looks mind boggling (not quite as bad, but still makes my head hurt). But damnit we're gonna give it a try! The minis are cool, the fluff is cool, that's all you need in a game...

...right?