We just had our weekend of the store’s Heavy Gear “Slow-Grow” league, and response was phenomenal!
This past Friday (2013-02-08) was the first evening for the league, and we had NINE people show up! For the sake of transparency, it should be mentioned that two of the nine who showed up didn’t play but instead just watched some games. I’m also counting myself in that total –which is totally legit as I came to the store on my evening off and actually got a game in as well! (But I think the game I got in might be better fare for a post on its own …possibly part of a “work in progress” report?)
Sure, nine players sounds pretty small potatoes, but in a store that feels absolutely packed when there’s a dozen people playing miniatures games in the store, nine people is pretty awesome –especially for a smaller game like Heavy Gear.
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Jaded Gamercast 
Very interesting guys, i am just wondering have you guys ever heard of 15mm sci fi?
There is some 15mm sci-fi out there–essentially Heavy Gear sits in and around that scale (I think DP9 says their scale is officially ‘N’ Scale–about 10-11mm; but their infantry is crazy close in size to Flames of War’s 15mm that leaves me thinking its scale is more like 13mm).
Is Star Grunt 15mm? Regardless, I think the problem with sci-fi in lies not in whether there is 15mm scale games made, but whether you’ll ever have someone to play against, should you find a system you like.
If small-scale sci-fi is what you’re actually after (and you’d prefer to skip past GW’s Epic game), I’d recommend looking into Dropzone Commander; which, though a 10mm scale game, has actually created enough buzz and excitement that finding people who already collect/play will be far easier than it would any 15mm SF miniatures game.
Personally, if giant robots don’t make you retch, I’d check out Heavy Gear as it definitely strives to create a game of combined-arms warfare –albeit with 13-foot tall fighting robots making up a good part of those combined arms. Not only can you make armies that are just infantry, tanks, artillery and air support, there’s a couple factions that actually have NO giant robots!
(Ask Lange about his Colonial Earth Force which uses hover tanks as their rank and file.)