MechaStellar – Monthly Roster Update – December 2023 – Combattler V and Voltes V

For this month’s MechaStellar update we are adding the classic combining super robots Combattler V and Voltes V, a well known staple for the SRW games. We have also updated the Core Rules to VER 9.3 with a changes that allow Close Combat [CC] weapons to prevent a counterattack and a streamlining of the SRW module. The Wargame Rules to VER 9.2 to account for some VP updates as well as the inclusion of the “Highly Skilled Pilot” upgrades which allow you to use a Skill like Accelerate or Bullseye for free once per turn. A summary of all changes can be found at the bottom of this post. You can find the updated rules and mecha profiles on the game downloads page: https://mechastellar.com/game-downloads/

Combattler V, Voltes V and Daimos are part of the Robot Romance Trilogy created by Toei, animated by Sunrise and directed by the late Tadao Nagahama. The character designs for Combattler V were done by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko (of Gundam fame) while Voltes V and Daimos were done by Yuki Hijiri known for his designs on Locke the Superman. 

The shows share common themes and story beats, with Voltes V often being seen as an improvement over the original Combattler V formula by taking the sympathetic villain and keeping them for the entire show’s run, whereas in Combattler V the fan favorite villain lasted until the mid point of the show, at which point the show was greenlit for a second half and had to come up with new villains and plotlines. 

My personal thoughts are that Combattler V has a stronger first half than Voltes V, but a significantly weaker 2nd half, whereas Voltes V is strong the whole way through. Internationally, Voltes V tends to be much more popular, it’s a very beloved show in the Philippines even having its own live action remake with impressive CGI for the Voltes machines.

Both the shows are rather foundational in the mecha genre for they popularized the 5-man color coded pilot team of a combining super robot which would become a genre staple and also inspire the 5-man color coded team for the Super Sentai (Power Rangers) franchise. They also have excellent fight choreography and engaging story telling, highly, highly recommend if you haven’t seen it yet.

Both Combattler V and Voltes V are remarkably similar looking robots with a Super Electromagnetic (Choudenji) power source, they both have very similar attacks. For those familiar with their combination attacks in SRW the biggest difference are their finishing moves with Combattler V using the Choudenji Spin, paralyzing the enemy with Super EM waves then turning his hands into drills and spinning into a drill tornado and through the enemy, while Voltes V paralyzes the enemy with the Super EM Ball before slicing into it with its chest mounted Heaven Sword and finishing it off with a V Slash. 

We had a lot of fun designing both these very similar robots and adjusting their loadouts to make them distinct from one another. One thing that makes these robots very distinct is the fact they have 5-man pilot teams. We have been experimenting with 5-man teams for the last two years now and what we found works best and has the lowest mental burden is letting you select two pilot traits every Round. In this way these 5-man pilot robots have a lot of flexibility in their pilot traits. We also experimented with adjusting number of Actions, but found that Actions was simply too strong to balance around.

As for the Core Rules these were updated to VER 9.3 and have a few significant changes within. We’ve enjoyed knockback quite a bit in playtesting and it moved out of a module into the core rules recently. Close Combat [CC] weapons have been converted over to Push / Pull weapon mechanics featured in the last major update. These weapons can now knock back targets a significant amount, and we want to reward the choice for using a subpar weapon like fists or kick over say a beam saber by giving them a unique tactical option which is knocking your opponent out of melee before they can counterattack. 

The SRW Module by popular request received an overhaul to streamline its mechanics and cut down on the number of things to remember. We’ve also renamed it to Strategic Robot Warfare and given it specific Secondary Objectives to give it a different gameplay feel which we’ll cover in a follow-up design goals post. 

The remaining Core Rules changes involve updates to Commander and Pilot traits as well as some clarifications to the Stellar Warfare rules.

The Wargame rules had VP updated for Simple Battle where “Lost a Prototype” Frame 4+ was replaced with “Lost a Critical Machine” Cost 500+ to avoid loopholes where a cheap Frame 4 unit would lose you VP but losing a very expensive Frame 3 unit would not.

We’ve also added in the Highly Skilled MS Pilot upgrades which allow you to utilize a pilot skill for free once per Round. This is a great way to further improve your Mobile Suit pilots and make them unique by say giving them a free use of Shooting Counterattack each Round (works great when combined with the Three Times as Fast Commander trait). It also allows you to have older machines punch above their weight class if you were to give them the Bullseye skill allowing an ancient machine a solid change of hitting a newer model which is great from a Cross-Era (OYW – Zeta) perspective.

Last but not least, as a reminder we have updated all the Mission Packs this December with Federation vs Zeon, Mazinger and Getter Robo all being converted over to the campaign specific slower more granular Pilot Advancement system. Federation vs Zeon sandbox campaign also received missions 11-15. Be sure to check them out and post about your campaigns.

Happy holidays and Merry Christmas!

Unit Roster Additions

• Combattler V & Voltes V (4 units)
• Gundam (x9) – GM Command Early (Blue Destiny), GM Raid, GM Striker Metal Spider, Gasshia, Gigan, Psycommu Zaku, Bishop, Papua & Pazock Transport Ships

Unit profile Updates

• Tweaked Gundam X profiles. 
• Fixed missing [G] [S] tags on various units
• Updated Vision of the Future (Gundam X & Escaflowne)
• Rebalanced Gurren Lagann to fit the entire Brigade + Warship into a 2000pt army
• Added Faction Specific Commander traits for Gurren Lagann and After War Gundam X
• Simplified various Super Robot Profiles to cut down on the number of things to remember when running a Super Robot army
• Removed the ATK+3 Hits from This Hand of Mine, Hell & Heaven, Big Bang Punch & Grandasher
• Updated Dragon Gundam’s Shin Ryuusei Kochouken & Big O’s Final Stage.
• Updated the Gyan’s hide bombs to be DMG 1000
• Rebalanced the Five Pilot Team Trait
• Fixed an error where Amuro was displaying Newtype IV, instead of III
• Fixed an error where GaoGaiGar Firepower role units had the wrong accuracy listed
• Updated wording on Blindside weapons to clarify that the [M-1] Blindsides one target.  Units affected Mazinger God Scrander, Susanoh Warship, Ideon.
• Updated Warships to further lower costs on the expensive ships (example White Base 500pts -> 350pts)
• Adjusted various Federation and Zeon units to be +/- 20pts to make it easier to form thematic team combinations.
• Example: 2x Gelgoog and 1x Gelgoog Cannon = 500pts
• Example: 3x GM Command [G] and GM Sniper II = 500pts
• Example: 7th Gundam and 2x G-Line and 2x GM Command = 1000pts
• Example: GM Night Seeker x3, GM Sniper Custom + Ambusher = 1000pts
• Weapon Updates
• Updated Weapons for colossal sized units
• Updated Alex Beam Rifle and Gatlings
• Updated MMP-80 & GM Cold Districts Machine Gun
• Fixed Big O weapons that weren’t in compliance with weapon upgrade rules
• Melee shield rules clarified to say “Engagement range” so it includes point blank attacks
• Minor improvement to Shoulder Shield
• Gave Warship [AA] Guns Overwatch II
• Rebalanced Big Blast Divider / Hornet Missiles as well as Rocket Punch type attacks
• Updated AOE Death Ray type weapons including the Satellite Cannon
• [CC] weapons converted to be Push/Pull weapons. 

Core Rules Updates VER9.2R4

• Updated Challenge to require all your attacks that Round
• Increased engagement range for small size figures to 4″
• Melee Clash – Included a note about weapons that force movement (like a Shoulder tackle [CC]) which preemptively ends melee before a Counterattack.  Noted that in the melee example. Removed the Super Robot bonus on Melee stat of 10d10. 
• Based on feedback changed Vigilant Leader to +1 Accuracy within 24″
• Updated Commander Traits – Decimator, Rallying Leader, Bold Leader and Three Times as Fast
• Upgraded Giant Slayer to be +2 ARM PEN vs larger targets.
• Updated Practiced Professional / Seasoned Veteran to instead trigger vs Basic & Skilled Pilots instead of lower level pilots, this way its more valuable to skilled pilots.
• Updated Legendary Pilot to match Renowned Pilot
• Based on feedback upgraded Fighting Spirit and it’s Level II versions to keep power parity with Renowned Pilot
• Clarified cover height for larger figures and cover VS Indirect Fire
• Gritty Battles added an option to allow the first failed Armor Save each turn to cause Battle DMG instead of 1000 DMG.
• SRW Module Update – Due to popular request greatly streamlined the SRW module trimming it down to 1-2 special rules per type (Real Robot, Super Robot, Warship) and dropped the max Armor Saves down to 5.  Modified the melee movement quirk to operate on Challenges.  Adjusted Redline to require Full Throttle to reduce the action potential for Turn 1 Alpha strikes.  Adjusted Victory Points in the SRW module to incentive attacking multiple targets each round instead of focusing on only one target.
• Moved knockback to Defend the City Wargame Rules
• Clarified what happens when a warship is sunk and units are onboard
• Clarified that Warships have their weapons destroyed only within Sensors range.
• Fixed a version control issue where a few previous revisions (M-Particles Sensors Range, Merciless Melee, Three Times as Fast, etc.) were missing.

Wargame Rules VER 9.2 Updates

• Replaced “Lost a Prototype” with “Lost a Critical Machine” which triggers based on cost instead of Frame 4+
• Highly Skilled upgrades added to Wargame Rules.  These allow you to use a Pilot Skill for free once per Round
• Warships count for double VP in wargame rules
• Capturing a Point requires you to end your turn on it. (Updated for Mission Packs as well)
• Updated Defend the City VP.  Gave Push/Pull Weapons a bonus.

Mission Pack Update

• HP Repairs improved to 1000 HP for grunts and 2000 HP for Frame 3+
• The first objective each mission is worth +30pts
• Several mission in 1-10 received a minor increase in enemy points (+10-30pts)
• Requisition Limits increased to +20 per mission, so by Mission 10 you will be at a requisition limit of 230 instead of 130.  This will allow you to acquire more advanced units like the G-Line series by the end of the ground campaign.
• Put the requisition limits into a table at the end of each mission pack instead of at the bottom of each mission.
• Switched over to the granular 20 level advancement system with all pilot skills being usable
• Clarified that Campaign uses Ace Evade instead of Flawless Ace Evade (the mission packs were written before Flawless Ace Evade existed)
• KIA – Skilled and Ace Pilots may reroll the death save
• Behavior Table “Flank” – Minor wording tweak where they will attack if able, otherwise they will use Full Throttle
• Fixed various typos on the Getter Robo and Mazinger Mission Packs and converted them to the 20 Level pilot advancement

Bonus roster update for Great Mazinger: https://mechastellar.com/2023/12/30/mechastellar-bonus-roster-update-great-mazinger/