The first and most glaring of this book's shortcomings is the lack of this sentence on the back cover: "WARNING: In order to use this book, you must also own the Southern Vehicle Compendiums One and Two." Without those two volumes, you have an incomplete book, which at best gives some nice setting information and a couple of new vehicles.
On the other hand, if you do own those two volumes, you will find a fairly handy guide to creating units of the Southern MILICIA. The Southern MILICIA is a multi-national force of the Southern Alliance. Languishing in the shadow of the Southern Republican Army, the MILICIA is second in line for both equipment and qualified personnel. The closest parallels would be the ARVN or the Romanians during the Stalingrad campaign.
As with all DP9 products, the first thing you will notice is the graphic layout. Crisp and clean, it bears the mark of professional design. Even though some of the artwork seems to be recycled, it does not detract from the content. However, the lack of color does. The entire book is in grayscale, including the pages on uniforms and camoflage schemes. I counted a total of six pages that should have either been placed in a center color section or removed entirely and replaced with non-graphic content. In this case, color would not have been a luxury, but an actual added value.
Each chapter is headed by a short piece of fiction. Half of the pages are a linked story about a gear pilot who is credited with a questionable kill. The other half are short vignettes that do little to advance the usefulness of the book. At least four of the pages should have been replaced with guidelines for using your custom regiments in a campaign, with the longer story condensed to the front of the book.
After the usual chapters on history and background, the heart of the book are the esquade and cadre lists. The lists are fairly complete; listing gear models, pilot skill levels (rookie, veteran, etc.), and threat values. There are two nice innovations in this section. First, each basic unit is listed at three different levels: standard, senior, and prime. This allows you to adjust the skills of any given unit. Secondly, each unit has a list of variants, allowing an even wider selection of forces with interesting game effects.
Rounding out the book are five sample regiments, and seven RPG-formatted officers. The regiments are okay as examples of what can be done with the system, but none really captured my imagination. The RPG characters are all command-level officers of the listed regiments. Each has a game mechanic that would be interesting to use for the tactical game, but as far as NPCs go, I would have liked to see a couple of quirky NCOs instead of an all-officer lineup.
Besides the lack of color and the superfluous fiction pieces, there is some evidence of a cut-and-paste attitude towards the development of this book. For instance, the infantry section lists the Badger APC (a Northern vehicle) for mechanized infantry units. This is not a single typo, but a consistent error throughout the entire chapter. I get the impression that much of the book was copied and edited from the Northern army book.
Despite the lackluster presentation, this book does have some startling strengths. The first is its attitude towards its subject, the Southern MILICIA. Instead of vilifying the MILICIA or writing it off as a second-rate force, the book presents it as a group of dedicated if unappreciated professionals who get the job done with the limited resources at hand. The longer piece of fiction does a good job of reinforcing this, as does a nice section on awards and medals.
Secondly, it continues the Heavy Gear tradition of basing their scenarios and campaigns on regimental orders of battle. I like the approach, and the rules give a great deal of freedom in the creation of new compagnies and regiments. Also, the wide variety of cadres and esquades allows you to whip up interesting TV-based scenarios with a minimum of higher-order mathematics.
Finally, the three new combat vehicles are fairly specialized, yet useful. The Asp is a necessity for any urban roleplaying campaign, being a light gear used for counter-insurgency missions. The Hydra, an amphibious strider, looks like a great support unit for the Devilfish regiment that is featured earlier in the book. The third unit, the Command Caiman, was especially nice to see since the counters are found in the Shadow War scenario pack.
If you are an advanced Heavy Gear player, there are three basic uses for this book. First, the background provided is enough to get a good Southern MILICIA roleplaying campaign going. Secondly, it is a good source for pregenerated esquades and cadres for pick-up tactical games. Finally, the custom regiment concept could prove useful for designing a miniatures army, guiding your selection of your next purchases. Overall, the book is worth the $18.95, but with just a little more work, it could have been worth a full $24.95.
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