Category: Gundam Tabletop

October – Melee and Close Range Weapons Overhaul

We’ve received a lot of feedback regarding GaoGaiGar and to a lesser extent Getter Dragon specifically regarding weapons that give 3 Hits on a Critical Hit.  The chief complaint being that these units can often stack many hits to the point where it’s almost impossible to resist them in melee.  As a result we’ve had to look over these units and this weapon type and consider solutions.

For those who exclusively play Gundam units the bottom line up front is that Beam Sabers and Heat Hawks are dropping down to 300 DMG per hit, Heat whips and Dragon Fangs are now a melee attack option.  Units with high crit abilities such as Sandrock or Minaret Gundam are having their weapons reworked.  For the Super Robot fans read on below the break.

Continue reading “October – Melee and Close Range Weapons Overhaul” →

MechaStellar Monthly Roster Update – July 2023

For this month’s update we are adding new units from Gundam Wing including some units requested by one of our all-star players that come from side story manga called Gundam Wing G-Unit, and was released in the US as Gundam Wing Last Outpost. 

First up we have the upgraded version for most of the Gundam Wing pilots including Deathscythe Hell, Altron, Sandrock Custom and Heavy Arms Custom.  We are using the Endless Waltz (EW) versions for imagery but we are keeping some of the original weaponry such as Sandrocks Beam Submachinegun and Altron’s Beam Stinger which were not present in the EW Movie.  Heavy Arms however, we kept the greatly expanded loadout from EW because who doesn’t love 4x Gatling Guns.

In addition to that we’ve expanded the unit roster for Oz with the Taurus and Virgo units.  While the Taurus is present in the Gundam 1/400 collection the Virgo unfortunately is not.  You can however find SD versions of the Virgo which we have used in playtesting, it’s a little bigger and bulkier but at least the height is close enough to the 1/400 scale.  These mobile dolls are powerful units and we’ve opted to try and make them as cheap as possible while maintaining their key abilities, this way your Gundam Wing pilots can mow them down by the dozens.

As a reminder you can always use proxy figures while playing, if you have a dozen 1/400 Rick Doms and want to use them as Virgo’s instead, go nuts!  Some ingenious players will use standees to hold a printed out image of a Mobile Suit, similar to what you’d see in a lot of board games where a tiny plastic clip (standee) is holding up a cardstock image instead of a traditional miniature.  And of course there are always virtual tabletops.

We’ve also included the Tallgeese II piloted by Treize Kushrenada, the Virgo II from White Fang, and the Mercurius and Vayeate used by Heero and Trowa while they fought off Quatre in the Wing Zero.  (Wing Zero & Epyon along with Burning & Master Gundam are Tier 3 units and we’re holding off on those for a while longer). 

Gundam Wing G-Unit / The Last Outpost is a sidestory taking place near the end of the TV series before White Fang is defeated.  A colony that was developed Gundams comes into conflict with an Elite OZ unit, the Stardust Knights.  We’ve included the custom Leos from the Stardust Knights as well as the variants for the Mecurius and Vayeate that appear in the sidestory.  The principal protagonists and antagonists, the G-Units, Hydra Gundam and others will be released at a later date, they still need additional time for development and playtesting.

That’s all for this month, we have another Gundam update next month then after that we will have Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann!

Mecha Unit Profiles can be found on the game downloads page: https://mechastellar.com/game-downloads/

MS – G Gundam Miniatures

In this post we’ll look at some of the models available for G Gundam including the smaller 1/400 collection (1.5-2″), the slightly larger 1/300 (2-3″) and the Mobile Suits in action 4.5″ figure. On the whole models for G Gundam are hard to come by, both for Gunpla plastic kits as well as action figures and gashapon. The images will also be added to the larger Gundam 1/400, 1/300 and 1/200 miniatures page. You can find the tabletop rules for MechaStellar on the game downloads page.

Fortunately, the widely popular Mobile Suits in Action Line (MSIA or MS in Action) line of action figures from the 1999 through the 2000s has the biggest variety of models for Mobile Fighter G Gundam.

The MSIA range has a good level of detail and is very sturdy even after all these years and are great for posing and letting the kids play with them. Since they come with large amounts of accessories similar to the more modern Robot Spirits / Robot Damashii line its usually best to keep some plastic bags on hand to keep all the accessories (beam sabers, weapons, special attacks, etc.) in one place.

Pictured above is the Shuffle Alliance. Many of the popular Gundam’s from this series also have a battle scarred version which have a good deal of weathering and battle damage on the model and often come with a piece of terrain as seen above where Dragon, Shining, Rose and Maxter are all battle scarred.

The Mobile Suit in Action range is also one of the only places to find some of the more esoteric designs. Pictured above is the Matador Gundam, Zebra Gundam, Mandala Gundam, and Cobra Gundam. There were only a few fighters that did not receive MSIA figures, that said some of the more popular ones (such as the Windmill Nether Gundam) are very hard to find these days.

While many of the Mobile Fighters from G Gundam received a Gunpla treatment, they are difficult to find nowadays. Since then typically the only Gundam’s to receive model kits are Shining Gundam, Master Gundam and Burning / God Gundam. Although 20 years later, Rose Gundam received a new kit but on P-Bandai only.

Gundam S.O.G. 1/300 and 1/400 G Gundam

For the smaller gashapon on the outside edges we have the 1/300 SOG Burning and Master Gundam released as part of a special set at the end of the SOG range. In the middle are the 1/400 range which includes Burning / God Gundam, Shining Gundam, Master Gundam with Fuunsaiki, Nobel Gundam and the Dark / Devil Gundam. Unfortunately there aren’t any other fighters in the 1/400 range.

Mobile Suit in Action Gundam S.O.G. 1/300 and 1/400 Burning Gundam Master Gundam

Above you can see a comparison photo showing the heights of the 1/400, the 1/300 and the MSIA figures.

MechaStellar VER 8.8 Design Goals – Mental Math & Focus

Kou Uraki face 0083
Wait what was your shooting accuracy again?

This is the 2nd in-depth post looking at the changes made in VER 8.8, you can read the full VER 8.8 summary here and the design goals post on the weapon rebalance here.

With the update to VER 8.7 we upgraded several of the Pilot Traits to have 2 effects, a good number of these ended up giving a +1 Evade bonus.  While this was a nice bonus, especially for several units who were middle of the road for Evasion, I personally got a lot of great feedback on these our players and other members of the team regarding that.  Mainly that with VER 8.7’s goal of reducing mental math, adding a slew a +1 Evade bonuses runs counterproductive to that goal.

And that’s a great point!  So in VER 8.8 we went about trying to scrub as much mental math as we could from the game.  No longer will your gameplay halt every time a Skilled or Ace pilot comes up and you have to add in several steps of bonus accuracy and bonus evade, and “what was the target number again??” 

Lesson learned! Let’s see what we can do instead.

Continue reading “MechaStellar VER 8.8 Design Goals – Mental Math & Focus” →

MechaStellar FEB23 Update – VER 8.8 Released

For this February’s update we are updating the Core Rules to VER 8.8 with a renewed focus on trimming down Mental Math we’ve updated several Pilot Traits and the Focus action. We’ve also updated the short range weapons (16″) including beam boomerangs, heat rods and the infamous Rocket Punch as well as Machine Guns and Gatling Guns. Lastly, “Finishing Blow” has been added to add some more variety to Melee combats when it comes to assigning ATK and DEF dice.

We’ll have two in-depth posts exploring the weapons update and the focus/pilot traits update, here’s the first one focusing on short range weapons and machineguns. We’ve also updated the VER 8 Example of Play to match the rules update. Below the break you’ll see the summary list of updates for MechaStellar VER 8.8

Continue reading “MechaStellar FEB23 Update – VER 8.8 Released” →

MechaStellar VER 9 – Tabletop Gundam Gameplay Example – Round 3

Ez8 Gundam Zaku II Acguy Gundam Ground Type

In this series of posts we are going to do a Tabletop Gundam Gameplay Example for MechaStellar using units from the 08th MS Team. You can look at the Mecha Unit Profiles for the Federation and Zeon on the downloads page. Click here for Round 1 and Round 2.

Below the break we will cover the 3rd round of a 5 round game of MechaStellar. We will go turn by turn each round and include some insights into the Gundam Tactics.

Continue reading “MechaStellar VER 9 – Tabletop Gundam Gameplay Example – Round 3” →

MechaStellar VER 9 – Tabletop Gundam Gameplay Example – Round 2

Gundam Ground Type Zaku II Dom

In this series of posts we are going to do a Tabletop Gundam Gameplay Example for MechaStellar usings units from the 08th MS Team. You can look at the Mecha Unit Profiles for the Federation and Zeon on the downloads page. Click here to for Game Setup and Round 1.

Below the break we will cover the 2nd round of a 5 round game of MechaStellar. We will go turn by turn each round and include some insights into the Gundam Tactics.

Continue reading “MechaStellar VER 9 – Tabletop Gundam Gameplay Example – Round 2” →

MechaStellar VER 9 – Tabletop Gundam Gameplay Example – Setup and Round 1

Tabletop Gundam Tactics

In this series of posts we are going to do a Gameplay Example for MechaStellar using units from Mobile Suit Gundam. We are using some fan favorites from the 08th MS Team including Shiro Amada, Karen Joshua, and Terry Sanders Jr, who will be referred to as Shiro, Karen and Sanders for short.

On the Zeon side we have an assortment of Zaku IIs, Zaku Cannons & Doms all being led by an amphibious Acguy. You can look at the Mecha Unit Profiles for the Federation and Zeon on the downloads page. The Gundam models used for this example are from the Gundam 1/400 collection. You can use larger size figures such as Gundam 1/144 scale, here’s an example battle report of what figures of those scale look like on the tabletop.

Below the break we will cover the game setup, deployment, and the 1st round of a 5 round game of MechaStellar. We will go by turn by turn each round and include some insights into the Gundam Tactics.

Continue reading “MechaStellar VER 9 – Tabletop Gundam Gameplay Example – Setup and Round 1” →