With MechaStellar VER11 released we have been hard at work updating profiles to the latest VER. Last month we did Super Robots and G Gundam. For the November update we have added in a large number of units from Zeta Gundam updating all the AEUG profiles to VER11. We’ve also added in Gundam X to the AU profiles. And we’ve updated Jaegers and Kaijus from Pacific Rim to VER11.
We’ve also added in dozens of Kaiju for various Super Robot shows and updated the Core Rules to streamline Triggers and clarify Long Range vs Close Range Attacks. This is a very important blog post so please take the time to read through it. Thank you!!!
As we mentioned before, Rules updates are now on a 6 month schedule, that way players can master the game without having to worry up minor rules tweaks each month. That said, please keep giving us feedback so we can add it into the 6 month update. Here’s the VER11 After Action feedback form: https://forms.gle/aszwjLG1S2fs1wSQA
Update Summary
Balance Patch
Adjusted Vulcans for improved CIWS but lower ATK
Adjusted points weighting for Opener weapons
Adjusted Shield Rush to be a [Crash] attack
Roster Update
20 Units from Zeta Gundam
15 Units from Pacific Rim
33 Kaiju from Mazinger / Getter Robo / Combattler V and Voltes V
On one side we have the Garmilas Fleet from Space Battleship Yamato which has forged an alliance with ZAFT from Gundam Seed represented by a squad of BuCUEs as well as the Cosmo Rangers J9-II and the Baxingar robot. Since Baxingar has a space Shinsengumi vibe we thought it would pair well with Garmilas empire. As for Garmilas and ZAFT, well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, with the Plants looking on as Garmilas launches meteor bombs at Earth. Team Meteor Bomb.
On the other hand we have a heavy super robot force, with several interstellar robots including GoLion (Voltron) and GoShogun as well as the far flung Gurren Lagann. Then we have Earth’s defender, GaoGaiGar, and a pair of GM Customs, all that the Federation could muster. This is team Earth Defense.
It’s a bit of a wild mixup of forces, but that’s what MechaStellar is all about. Grabbing the robots you love and trying to figure out a good story to have them fight over.
Team Meteor Bomb
Garmilas 2x Destria Heavy Cruiser
Garmilas 2x Kelkapia Hi-Speed Cruiser
Garmilas 3x Astro Fighter Debake (we’re using one fighter to represent a squad of 3)
ZAFT – 3x BuCUE (we’re using a LaGOWE to easily identify the squad leader)
Baxingar
For Bonus Objectives they are using Baxingar’s Last Stand which gives bonus VP for each Save it fails.
Team Earth Defense
GoLion (Voltron)
GoShogun
GaoGaiGar
Gurren Lagann
2x GM Custom
For Bonus Objectives the team is using Defender of the Universe which gives bonus VP for controlling or contesting CPs.
Note: Unit Point Costs have changed drastically since this game series was first run, with some of the Super Robots being a lot higher in points.
Battle 1
GoLion starts the battle off and uses its Foot missiles in the Blue and Yellow lions to strike at the BuCUE squad, blowing up the cover. The agile BuCUE unit manages to dodge any serious damage.
Baxingar with it’s advanced deployment range, takes the midfield Control Point (CP) immediately. He uses the Zeal pilot skill to first attack the cover GaoGaiGar was hiding behind, then it fires off some powerful Antiship missiles vs the less agile GaoGaiGar. Fortunately, Protect Shade keeps GaoGaiGar alive to continue fighting.
GaoGaiGar moves up to return fire with Broken Magnum but Baxingar dodges it. The Garmilas Hi-Speed Cruisers move forward and continue to blast the slower GaoGaiGar wiping out its Protect Shade barrier and causing considerable damage.
That said, GoShogun is just as agile as Baxingar, it presses forward and strikes at the Garmilas Cruisers with the GoSaber, absorbing a hail of [AA] fire from the warships, but it manages to sink one cruiser.
The ZAFT BuCUEs use the Zeal skill, they launch into melee, attacking GoShogun with their double-bladed beam sabers. Then they disengage from melee and rush for the next control point.
Fortunately, Gurren Lagann and a Zeal skill gets their first. The GM Customs provide covering fire.
At the end of this round Team Meteor Bomb controls their deployment CP plus the center, although that will soon change as GoLion charges in Round 2. Meanwhile Team Earth Defense has their deployment CP + the Eastern CP. Both sides earn [M+4] Morale Points to use in Round 2.
Round 2
GoLion surges to the center CP and locks Baxingar in melee. The two melee specialists lock blades but neither score a strong hit. Meanwhile, GaoGaiGar moves towards the center CP.
The Garmillas fleet continues blasting with their positron cannons but GaoGaiGar and Gai’s courage somehow defies all odds and survives.
Gurren Lagann moves in and uses its drills to sink one of the Destria heavy cruisers. Meanwhile GoShogun hacks at another one.
The BuCUE squad captures the Eastern CP and fires their railcannons at GGG. The GM Customs move in to engage and contest the Control Point.
At the end of the Round, each player controls their Deployment CP while all other CPs are contested. They each earn [M+2] Morale Points for Round 3.
Round 3
In a shocking upset, Baxingar wipes out GoLion beating the Beast King in glorious melee combat, and with Zeal also manages to finish off GaoGaiGar who was already down to his last 300 HP.
GoShogun takes out another Kelkapia Hi-Speed Cruiser. Gurren Lagann has a chance to finish off the Destria Heavy Cruiser but instead….
BLINDSIDE – Gurren Lagann attacks from behind hoping for an easy victory.
That said, Team Earth Defense has been blowing through Morale Points to sink Garmilas warships. However, the benefit of the heavy warship force was that Baxingar hasn’t been spending that many Morale Points. They use giga Flash, and Billy the Shot with his blind swordsman otherworldly senses, manages to whir around and deals a devastating counter strike putting Kamina and Simon out of action.
The GM Customs at least held their own, taking down 2x BuCUEs while the Squad Leader escaped.
At the end of the Round Team Meteor Bomb has 2 CPs while Team Earth Defense has 2 CPs, each player earns [M+4].
Round 4 & 5
GoShogun engages Baxinger in the center, the last two Super Robots facing off. Baxingar has pulled off an amazing feat so far fighting off so many super robots, but can he last?
Alas, he is finally brought down. The last BuCUE captures the enemy deployment CP and fires on GoShogun who proves too agile to bring down. The GM Custom fires on the BuCUE but doesn’t score significant damage.
We continue to Round 5 with the last 3 units all surviving.
Heavy destruction on both sides, but for Team Meteor they had a huge victory, destroying several super robots yielded a huge amount of Victory Points.
Obviously a different strategy was needed here.
Game 2
This was a rather quick game. Due to some bad rolls on both sides it resulted in huge casualties by Round 2, but some fantastic camera shots to go with it.
Baxingar one-shotted GoLion in Round 1, and the Warships took out GoShogun. Meanwhile Gurren Lagann spiralled through the entire BuCUE formation.
This game GaoGaiGar got to use the Goldion Hammer to absolutely obliterate some Warships. A victory for Team Earth Defense, but the dice results skewed the game a bit.
Intermission
For the next game we opted to rotate the battlefield, making it much wider but with a shorter mid field. It was easier to fight in melee but also harder to control lots of CPs, one of Team Earth Defense’s objectives.
Game 3
Another Round 1 bloodbath with Baxingar going down immediately after GaoGaiGar lands a HELL & HEAVEN attack, shortly thereafter the Destria Heavy Cruisers blow GGG off the battlefield.
Meanwhile GoLion and Gurren Lagann do what they do best, by rampaging and smashing through giant warships.
The BuCUEs capture a control point and then are engaged with GoShogun who slaughters 2 of them in 2 Rounds. But thanks to the “Boost” rule the BuCUEs get to move each time they use Flash. The lead unit maneuvers behind GoShogun, goes first in Round 2 and makes a potent Blindside attack combined with Focus bringing him down.
But it doesn’t end there!
The hero BuCUE takes out Gurren Lagann next.
Off screen the warships get lucky and take down GoLion.
The lone GM Custom, last remaining Team Earth Defense unit manages to bring down a cruiser. He later avoids getting gunned down by the Astro Fighter Debake squadron.
Absolutely unexpected BuCUE victory!
While Team Earth Defense did pretty well on bonus objectives, no one expected the BuCUE would be the super robot reaper. The loss of all their forces was a huge amount of VP that launched Team Meteor Bomb to victory.
This was a fun trio of games with a lot of twists and turns, and heart pounding super robot battle cries anytime a theme song rotated through the playlist. We had a lot of fun playing these games and we hope you enjoyed reading!
With MechaStellar VER11 releasing late in August, we have finished conversions for all the classic Super Robots from VER10 to include favorites like Mazinger, Getter and Combattler / Voltes V. Additionally, by popular request we’ve also updated all the G Gundam profiles from VER10 to VER11. We’ve been posting previews daily.
Also the Solo / Co-Op campaign packs for MechaStellar have been converted to VER11!
As we mentioned before, Rules updates are now on a 6 month schedule, that way players can master the game without having to worry up minor rules tweaks each month. That said, please keep giving us feedback so we can add it into the 6 month update. Here’s the VER11 After Action feedback form: https://forms.gle/aszwjLG1S2fs1wSQA
For this month’s update we have a few format tweaks, weapon balance updates, as well as an expanded pilot upgrade system. See below for a summary of updates.
UPDATE SUMMARY
Conversions
Updated Solo Co-Op Campaign Packs for Federation vs Zeon to VER11
Patreon Subscribers have access to playtest version for Gundam IBO and SEED
Formatting
Based on Feedback Experimenting with making the profiles larger, starting with AU Gundam
Fixed some issues where text was not fitting in cells (thank you for those who caught those)
Various typo and formatting fixes
Balance Patch
Adjusted points scaling for Evade DEF and Melee DEF. Nimble Flyer & Angel Wings Cost+, Full Armor & Tracked Vehicle lower Cost. Units affected: Gouf Flight Type, Tracked Units, GP01, GP04, Tallgeese Flugel, Full Armor types.
Adjusted Combat roles due to Evade / Melee DEF. Guardian + Battler gain Close Range Sensors+4″. Guardian & Warships HP-600.
Discovered an error that affected weapons with combination triggers. Rebalanced all those weapons. Minor tweaks to some Barrage or CIWS weapons.
Removed requirement that all units must have a [CC] weapon, but they do need a minimum one melee type weapon. Adjusted HP accordingly. e.g. GMs are baseline 2100HP now.
Weapons & Mech Profiles
Fixed a weird error where Char’s Zaku II had 10d10 Zaku Bazooka
Zaku F2 and GM Command Role updated to Guardian
Updated Bigro to be Size 0
Rebalanced Big Zam & Neue Ziel, GP03 to be cheaper
Fixed an error where GP00 had Nimble Flyer & Shield
Fixed error on Gelgoog Cannon and Gerbera Tetra for HP, Slots and Weapons
Removed move bonus from GP01. Raised GP04 point cost.
Updated Beam naginata to be Counter, rebalanced Chevalier saber to be lower points
Fixed an error on Heat Hawk (Twin Heat Hawks was correct)
Updated Atomic Bazooka
Needle Missiles +10pts
Antiship Missile Rebalanced
Updated Dobergun
Pilot upgrades
Added Driven
In case you missed it, here’s some Design Goals post and a Battle Report featuring Hashmal from Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans.
If you like to play MechaStellar Solo or Co-Op with your friends, the Campaign Mission Packs for Federation vs Zeon have been updated to VER11.
If you want a simple mission pack for a Zeonic Front or Gundam Senki kind of campaign it’s perfect. You can also make custom missions too if you feel like tinkering.
There’s pilot progression where you can upgrade your Shooting, Melee, Evade, Morale etc. or purchase unique traits like Newtype or more mundane ones like Steel Resolve.
Setting wise its around 0081 to allow you to use any GM variant you can think of while playing. Do well on missions and you’ll have more points to requisition better GMs, Goufs, Doms etc.
Gundam SEED released in VER10, and had been in playtesting since VER 7. Gundam SEED (and Astray) were our most highly requested series, so we were happy to finally release a highly polished product. Look forward to it. In this post we’ll cover the current development for Nanolaminate armor.
SEED will soon be updated to VER11, one of the benefits of this update is opening up more design space on weapons and also for defensive abilities. We used this to update VER10’s Nanolaminate armor from IBO and also for Phase Shift Armor from Gundam SEED. For both of these we are basing it around Saving Throws, which was expanded in VER11 to go from just Armor Saves to also include Mobility Saves (typically machine guns or small missiles), Break Saves (typically bazookas or large heavy weapons like a mace / gundam hammer), and then formalizing Stun and Push / Pull into their own category, whereas previously there were alt. Armor Saves.
With the new Save categories we could better represent Nanolaminate (heavily resistant to all armor Saves and especially AP armor piercing saves) and also Phase Shift (heavily resistant to [K]inetic and E[X]plosive saves but weak to beam [E]nergy saves).
That said we didn’t start there.
Here’s what we’ll call VER10.5, it’s mostly identical to VER10 but it includes the first major step to VER11, the weapon Trigger system. Things like target numbers to hit or def from pilots haven’t been developed yet, and likewise the expanded Save system hasn’t been created yet.
This is more or less using the VER10 system we had for Phase Shift, just a flat defense bonus and higher defense bonus vs Kinetic and Explosive weapons. Not bad, but we were trying to move away from flat bonuses from a design perspective, with Shields (and Cover) being the only item that would keep a flat bonus.
Here’s the Destiny Gundam profile which was used in our VER10.5 playtesting, at this stage we were started to integrate the expanded Save system, but we were still doing the flat bonus to Hit, instead of the TN. You’ll also see on the profile a lot of things have changed such as the Bonus Objective (Operation Angel Down), Phase Shift Armor, the Lumiere system, and no longer needing to burn white space on things like “This trait gives improved attack”.
In this system we were treating Phase Shift as a Barrier, which seemed to represent the system pretty well. Phase Shift is essentially a separate pool of HP that can block Kinetic, Explosives and Melee weapons, even beams too. The exception being those catastrophic beam hits that tear straight through the machine, as represented by AP Saves.
Overall it worked pretty well and fit the fiction. But while playing, especially with Hyper Deuterium Phase Shift which can regenerate Phase Shift each round, the question came up.
Wait why do I need to track two different HP pools? Why not just one.
One of the glowing benefits of new players is that they see things from a completely different angle than the Devs. Thanks to that insight we developed the current VER11 implementation.
For VER11, Phase Shift units have a very high pool of Armor HP. Phase Shift also reduces Saves DMG by 200, making these units impervious to machine guns and small missiles saves. On the other hand, [E] Saves cause significantly more damage.
Since Phase Shift runs on batteries, you also lose HP every round, making every Round a race against the clock, and providing a lot of tactical decision making in whether you want to dodge or just let Phase Shift take the hit.
Iron Blood Orphans is a fan favorite of many players and is an oft requested series we add to MechaStellar. In the next several months we’ll have Mobile Suits from Gundam 00 and IBO making their debut. Look forward to it. In this post we’ll cover the current development for Nanolaminate armor.
MechaStellar VER11 added a lot of design flexibility for us which has been very helpful when we try to redesign abilities like Phase Shift Armor and Nanolaminate Armor to try and better represent how it behaves in the original setting, while also allowing your opponent to still have fun if they bring a lot of [K]inetic or E[X]plosives vs Phase Shift, or a lot of [E]nergy Beams vs Nanolaminate.
IBO’s Graze first debuted in VER10 by player request. Here’s what the profile looks like then.
Nanolaminate gave a huge DEF bonus vs Energy (Beam) attacks. It also provided bonus defense vs attacks outside range 16″, to simulate the world of IBO where you have to get close, even with shooting, to make a dent in the armor.
The downside of course being that if your opponent doesn’t bring an Beam heavy armor, then you have effectively wasted a bunch of points on antibeam coating. We gave an option in VER10 to reduce the units points by 100 if the enemy does not have beam weapons.
Still, it’s not perfect, and we’d prefer it if grunt units were cheaper than 150pts. Here’s the initial VER11 playtest version of Nanolaminate.
We started off with something similar, keeping the +1 DEF vs ATKs at R:16″+ but instead of the bonus Defense vs Energy, we instead tried an option where you would auto pass Saving Throws vs [E]nergy Beam weapons.
This represented the fiction really well, the nanolamine quickly dissipates beam weapons. However, it is an extremely powerful ability, and if a unit relies on beam weapons and they average 3 saves, then on average you will pass 1 save and the other 2 are auto pass which makes beam weapons worthless.
Fits the fiction well! But not very fun from a gameplay perspective. Balancing this points wise is also difficult since its effectively an always-on skill “Iron Wall” vs [E] attacks. Setting this at 150pts proved to be a bit too cheap for such a strong ability. And as we mentioned earlier, we don’t want grunts to become super expensive.
We wanted an ability that ideally would encompass the anti-beam and the anti-long range using the same mechanic, rather than using two mechanics (pass [E] Saves and +1 DEF vs long range) in the previous iteration. We went through a couple options, and brainstormed for a bit on how this would affect [E] weapons (Beam rifles) as well as melee beam weapons that were lacking the [E] tag.
Then after discussing heat weapons for a bit and realizing that those are also not really present in the IBO setting, we opted to have the ability become anti AP Saves.
With the new design space in VER11 with multiple type of Saving Throws we decided to have Nanolaminate represent and anti-Save DMG ability. In the above example, all Saves are DMG-200, this instantly eliminates machine guns from causing save damage, which is rather appropriate given IBO favor’s rifles over machine guns for their grunts. Likewise, it rewards Cannons (high range and damage but low Save) vs Bazookas (high damage and saves), great since in IBO cannons are much more common.
Last but not least, having it target AP saves hits both beam sabers and heat hawks and mechanically agrees with the setting that has traditional high hardness weapons rather than beam sabers or super heated weapons.
Since MechaStellar is a crossover game, beam rifles and beam sabers are still able to hurt nanolaminate units, both on base damage (100 – 200 DMG, compared to a 400 – 600 DMG) and also on Saves, although they are drastically reduced. A Beam rifle at R:16″ does 0 Save DMG, while in point blank range can deal 300 DMG, likewise for the Beam Saber.
That’s all for now on Nanolaminate. Here’s the profiles for Hashmal and the Pluma updated after this game.
With MechaStellar VER11 releasing late in August, we have a small but powerful update for September a Gundam Wing Update. In addition to updating all the VER10 profiles to VER11 we’ve also added in the Tallgeese III, as well as options to add the Glory of the Losers equipment for the Gundams such as Sandrock’s Armadillo unit, HeavyArms Igel unit, or Shenlong’s Liaoya sword.
As we mentioned before, Rules updates are now on a 6 month schedule, that way players can master the game without having to worry up minor rules tweaks each month. That said, please keep giving us feedback so we can add it into the 6 month update. Here’s the VER11 After Action feedback form: https://forms.gle/aszwjLG1S2fs1wSQA
For this month’s update we have a few format tweaks, weapon balance updates, as well as an expanded pilot upgrade system. See below for a summary of updates.
UPDATE SUMMARY
Formatting
For Elite Pilot swaps, used the last column to show how many bonus points a pilot costs.
Fixed an embarrassing typo in the upgrade rules, Ace Pilots get 6pts for upgrades not 8
Various typo and formatting fixes
Weapons & Mech Profiles
Update large beam cannon and mega beam cannon affects GP03, GP00, FA7th, HFA 7th, Virgo
Updated Heavy Beam cannon affects Neue Ziel, Guncannon II, Virgo
Updated Heavy Gatling affects Heavy Gundam, Heavyarms
Updated Fire SPT Missiles to be Opener Trigger.
Updated grenades to be AOE
Added Guntank II
Updated GM Spartan to Performance 2
Rebalanced GP01Fb, GP03, HFA 7th to have Move 8″
Updated some named pilots to use the new upgrade system
Pilot upgrades
Rename overzealous to daring. Renamed Burning Soul to Hot Blooded.
Some traits got more expensive, like Steel Resolve
Added the following traits: Hot Blooded / Burning Soul, Fearsome, Guts, Persevere, Deadeye, Swift Strikes, Tactician
Standardized the pilot point system for pilots with a special trait like Newtype, Daring, Steel Resolve etc.
Better late than never, for the August MechaStellar Monthly Update we are releasing MechaStellar VER11. You can find the update rules and profile sheets on the MechaStellar game downloads page.
It’s been a long road from the VER11 announcement to release. Check out the VER11 Roadmap post for all the design goals that went into VER11.
Overall we want this to be the best Version of MechaStellar that is Fast, Fun, and most of all easier to teach to new players. Switching to a “dice roll only” core mechanic does a lot to accomplish this, and we’ve rebuilt several systems like Pilot Skills, and Elite units to enhance this. We think both VER10 and VER9 players will find a lot to enjoy in VER11.
We also want VER11 to be a more consistent and reliable edition which is why it went through a large amount of playtesting to try and iron out all the fine details. Some feedback from our beer & pretzel style gamers is that constant rules tweaks and balance updates made things hard to follow and easy to forget rules changes. Since MechaStellar started off as a garagehammer game we want to make sure we take care of those players too. Our plan is to only update the core rules every 6 months, rather than trying to patch the game every 4 weeks. (We’re still going to be updating the unit roster each month as normal.) That said, if you find something that’s broken, please let us know so can fix it for the next update.
Unlike VER10 MechaStellar is also launching with the Gundam Build Fighters rules from day 1 which has also been expanded to include simple to follow instructions on swapping out pilots and weapons and a system to design your own custom pilot.
With that said, please enjoy MechaStellar VER11! On the initial release we have Mobile Suit Gundam Universal Century (UC) from 0079-0083. In the upcoming weeks we will be releasing Zeta Gundam, CCA, Super Robots and Warships. In October or November we will release Gundam 00 which will be the perfect accompaniment to the new Trigger Mechanic. Look forward to it!
Please vote in the update poll to let us know which Tier 3 units you would like to see next!
As an aside, as the layout editor I wanted to say thank you all for your patience. We had planned on releasing VER11 in August and the rules team finished before 01 August, but at the end of July I decided to update the format for VER11 and many profiles now use the bottom right quadrant to store the mobile suits weaponry as well an easy reference if you want to swap out pilots. While it took a lot of time to implement (almost 2 months total to update UC Gundam from 0079-0083) I think it was well worth the effort but keeping the profiles cleaner and also minimizing profile bloat.
For example for MechaStellar VER10 final, the UC profile sheets had 86 profiles for Zeon and 69 profiles for the Federation. In VER11 there are 64 profiles for Zeon and 60 profiles for the Federation (including 1 new one). In total a reduction of 31 profiles. With less profiles and more room from a cleaner layout we were also able to increase font size.
Also, due to an unfortunate glitch, all of our images got stretched and de-rez’d so I had to remove all of them and manually insert and resize all of them which unfortunately takes a lot of time. On the plus side, it gave me a chance to adjust the file size for all the images, so the Mech profiles have gone from 32mbs down to 16mb in file size.
While the end product may not seem that different from VER10, altogether it took about 6 hours a week for 8 weeks to make this all functional. I’ve learned a lot since then, and implemented a few tricks that will make updating Zeta, CCA and Super Robots much faster, so please look forward to that and thank you for listening to my layout editing gripes.
In the last few weeks while waiting for layout editing to finish, the rules team had a chance to tweak various rules and also update Victory points based on feedback from our all-star 40k players. The Dev team also did some experiments regarding break saves, to resolve a problem with shields at a low power levels (One Year War) and while it developed a novel concept, ultimately we went with the simple solution that Siege weapons now also reduce Shield level by 1. Thank you to all the playtesters who provided feedback on that.
Weapons were also tweaked to try and better align the expected damage for various weapon type, some of the siege weapons in particular were falling behind the crit weapons so various weapons were rebalanced, which is why some of the preview sheets (created 2 weeks ago) may not match the final product. Thank you for understanding!
Thank you so much to everyone who volunteered to playtest. And a big thank you to the Dev team, especially those who came out of retirement just for this update. Thank you to Red, Yuria, Kyle, Tyler, Mike, Dominique, Charles, Rob, Yoshiaki, Sandeep, Alex, Jorel and Luyi; could not have done it without you.
As a follow-on to our previous battle report we had the aquatic zeon force in a partially submerged city fight (using our imagination for the water of course). This time against the crew of Space Battleship Yamato (2199 version). Yamato is well known for having dynamic fights and ever changing scenes, and having it fight inside of a colony, especially a submerged one seemed like it would be on brand for the venerable series.
In addition to the Aqua Zeon force from before, since Yamato is a very expensive unit, we added in a Gelgoog force and several Zaku’s all equipped with Antiship rifles. The odds were stacked against the Yamato crew.
(In this particular game we were not using Squad rules, but we did in subsequent games in the series)
A Black Tri-Star moves to the center point, while a lone Cosmo Tiger II takes the high ground, captures the CP and rains fire down below. (In this map we set a condition that you can only capture the center CP if you take the high ground, which was often a death sentence.)
Yamato does what they do best, BLAZING AHEAD FULL SPEED WITH GUNS LOADED
It uses Havoc to blow up the cover and begin attacking the Hy-Goggs who burn through Momentum. For a moment there, there was a chance that both Hy-Goggs with antiship missiles would get blown off the field.
The Cosmo Tigers begin weaving around the battlefield firing their lasers and capturing control points.
After 5 Cosmo Tigers make strafing runs one of the Black Tri Star goes down!
The Gelgoog team presses forward but the Cosmo Tigers luck their way out of being hit
Meanwhile the ship hunting Zaku team begins blasting away at Yamato.
Since we’re using the 2199 version which has a wave motion barrier, we realize that barriers in general haven’t been updated in a very long time. There’s a long talk about how we want to better reflect them but ultimately it gets put on hold for this game and later games in the test series. It’s been several months since we played this battle report, in the meantime we did update the Barrier rules which you can currently see in the core rules document.
A Cosmo Tiger in reserve ambushes and almost kills a Musai. (This is one of several examples where we realized we needed to put more limits on Reinforcements / Ambush)
A new Round, time for a Gelgoog Cannon to start unloading into the Cosmo Tigers
A Cosmo Tiger takes the high ground and tries to finish off a Gelgoog to no avail, their superior HP pool weathers the laser fire.
Yamato blazes forward, keeps the control point and blasts three amphibious units off the battlefield. In this test series we were demo’ing having [AA] weapons be free counterattacks, which was nice when dealing with superior numbers.
This was the series where we were testing updated warship reactions for increasing AA fire (+X hits on AA weapons and +X DEF vs Missiles) which also helped.
Speaking of, we got lucky on the counter attack and took out another Black Tri Star here.
A Cosmo Tiger finally takes out a Gelgoog, but it’s backside is open and it gets taken down later.
Another Cosmo Tiger finishes off a Gelgoog.
The last Tri-Star plus the Zaku Antiship team kept hammering Yamato until it finally sunk.
With Yamato lost is there any hope left?
Certainly not for Earth, it was carrying the Cosmo Reverse System!!!
Remember the Goggs? Well they decided to ambush this Round and torpedo the Cosmo Tiger on the enemy player’s home CP.
Another Gelgoog down
REVENGE! For sinking the Yamato
Cosmo Tigers unfortunately can’t handle melee
Melee death #2
Melee deaths #3
After Action Report
Overall this was a complete blowout on the Yamato forces and a bit of a shock. Yamato was king in other playtests so we weren’t expecting it to go down so easily, and relatively without a fight. Granted…..Zeon did list-tailor to be antiship focused but still.
As a result of this playtest we made several balance tweaks to Yamato, updated a few core rules for Warships to give Warships more options to increase their chance to hit with regular weapons and [AA] weapons. We also tweaked all the fighters weapons, and adjusted the speeds for jets. This test series was also prior to the Dunbine release which had a major update for all small units which make almost all of them either cheaper or with +1d10 Evade die.
As for Yamato, adjustments to the HP formula helped it a bit, and it sparked an ongoing conversation regarding Barriers. For future games in this test series, we opted for the classic Yamato (sans the Barrier) which held up better. This game in particular resulted in a lot of favorable balance changes to warships and fighters so we hope you enjoy them.
In this MechaStellar battle report we have a classic Gundam SEED battle with Freedom and Justice vs the drug enhanced biological computers for Calamity, Raider and Forbidden Gundam. As a bonus, there’s a short one on one fight between Freedom and Providence at the end. This test series was done when we were prototyping all the SEED units, whenever possible we like to demo out specific battles or moments from the show to see how well it plays out on the tabletop as well.
In this case though, the evil trio from SEED ended up being harder to kill than expected.
Points were still being adjusted at the time for both sides, but the dark trio were short on points and so brought a squad of Strike Daggers with them to capture Control Points (CPs). The Strikes are proxies for Strike Daggers shown above.
With Justice having a strong defense most games wound up with Justice boosting to capture the central CP, and Calamity going for a rapid fire barrage and forbidden doing the same.
To play up the teamwork / best-friends angle we see in the show, anytime Justice or Freedom was badly damaged, we would have the other Gundam stand in front of LOS to take all future attacks. This game series was before we applied the global “-1 Hit” to all units, and so Justice was taking a lot of hits early on, Freedom intervened and fires it’s AOE Plasma Cannons.
The Strike Daggers continue their mission of accelerating towards the CP. The D.Trio player was hesitant to start them too far up the board since he was worried either Freedom or Justice would Zeal and wipe them out too early. So Round 1 & 2 was spent moving towards a center line CP. (In this game series, 3 Control points were on the center line in no-man’s land).
Raider goes for the flank and captures a CP for some so both sides own 2 CPs. It’s hyper machine guns were effective at draining Momentum. (In an old prototype of the rules, the N-Jammer Cancellers for Freedom and Justice provided unlimited phase shift, but excessive hits would stun the pilots unless they burned Momentum. It ended up being a cumbersome system and so we opted for the current version of Phase Shift, that while not show accurate, still provides a hefty defense vs [K] weapons.
A battle shot of Forbidden trying to swoop in and scythe through Freedom, but Kira + SEED mode held the line. This was back in the time where SEED (and the related Berserker / Killer instinct abilities) were overtuned and providing too large of a critical range bonus, with consistently good rolls of 7+ Freedom and Justice would be invincible as we found in some other ace matches vs Gundam Wing pilots and also Physalis / The O.
Speaking of wiping out daggers, Freedom disengaged capped that control panel and blew up most of that squad. (We briefly tested squad mechanics in this battle in July 2025, but 6 months later it’s still not quite ready yet).
Calamity unloads on Freedom with Zeal, using it’s shield beams, bazooka, and beam cannons and Kira’s lucky dice eventually failed him.
Justice goes into melee with Calamity but fails to destroy it, and the CP is contested while Raider captures the enemy CP. It’s Round 2 and the Freedom / Justice team now have 0 CPs, while the D.Trio have 4…
Round 3 and Athrun captures a control point, and Calamity can’t move fast enough to contest it. However, Raider is able to swoop from behind. The enemy team is generating too much Momentum and Athrun isn’t able to defeat them by himself.
After Action Report
We ran this game series for 10 play tests, and the SEED Trio of Calamity, Raider and Forbidden won every time. We weren’t expecting that since Freedom / Justice had been on a roll in every other game. I think this is one of the first series we did where one team focused heavily on defense and it worked out really well, we rarely have a game series where all three protagonist (or antagonist) units survive through 5 rounds.
We learned a lot from this series and it helped us decide on which way we wanted to move forward with on Phase Shift, lowering lethality across the board, and on certain weapons. We also continued to run Freedom and Justice in other series just to verify they weren’t weak (they aren’t) they just happen to have an achilles heel facing Calamity, Raider and Forbidden.
Bonus Report
While we are reenacting battles, we decided to do Freedom vs Providence a couple times to see if 1-vs-1 games were more fun compared to VER9.
While MechaStellar is primarily a wargame, a number of our players really love doing 2v2 Ace battles. 1v1 leaves a bit to be desired, since positioning (especially for blindside) doesn’t matter as much.
Unless of course you go 2nd in one Round, position yourself for Blindside, and then go first in the next Round. This was a fun test game and helped us adjust Dragoons a bit, we had also started experimenting with “Free attack” weapons like Vulcans, and Shield beams (and also warship beams) all the way back in June / July 2025 but not all of that made it into public release immediately. We knew it was a big change so we wanted to iron that one before releasing, especially since Funnels were ultra broken in playtesting when we first did them in VER6 (and our playtesters will likely say they stayed broken all through VER8 hahaha)
Overall a fun test for the game, it was around 60/40 with Freedom vs Providence win rates. It was also good to test out the various climactic events and tweak them as needed.
This report was written long after the fact when we discovered the test photos, so it’s not as in-depth as other battle reports so instead we decided to focus on what was changing and what was being tested. Hope you enjoyed reading
