With the core rules update and recent balance patch for MechaStellar from the Jan/Feb update we are still doing some final adjustments on Nu Gundam and Sazabi for the Char’s Counterattack release. We also want to give them some more time to playtest with the new rules before getting a release. While we still work on that here’s an update for not one but two Super Robot OVAs, Hyper Combat Unit Dangaioh and Hades Project Zeorymer.
Dangaioh is this author’s first mecha anime OVA, found on the shelves of blockbuster one day many years ago. I remember the incredible flashy action and the names of the characters but not much besides that. I went looking for this series about 10 years ago, and thankfully the character names are unique enough that finding the name of the series was very easy. Dangaioh is a very short OVA by studio AIC and also extremely high budget in it’s initial episode. The opening song is done by two anime song legends Mitsuko Horie and Ichiro Mizuki (Aniki) and the Mecha designs were done by Obari. Dangaioh was at one point going to be a Mazinger OVA, but disputes between AIC and Toei caused it to become an original robot, with very similar attacks instead. To be honest, I absolutely love the design of Dangaioh, and the OVA in general. The only problem is there isn’t more of it.
Dangaioh episode 3 somewhat ends on a cliffhanger. Many years later a Great Dangaioh TV series airs, which only slightly touches the plot of the original Dangaioh and when it does so it’s at the very end of the show and ends on another cliffhanger. While the OVA is rather bittersweet the ending itself is still satisfying enough and lets your imagination provide it’s own final ending, the TV series does not add to that or improve it. I’d recommend skipping the TV series for that reason.
For SRW, Dangaioh debuted in Super Robot Wars Compact 2 Part 1: Earth Crisis
Our next series is Zeorymer. Another OVA with incredible mecha animation. The series is known for being rather violent and with a main character, whose, for lack of a better term, split personality is remarkably evil. It’s a short and enjoyable OVA with some really unique designs.
Hello everyone! For February’s update we had a very large balance patch which affected all units as well as a very big update to the MechaStellar Core Rules. Because of that we were not able to finish the full balance update for Warships or for Super Robots in time. As of today they are complete! As a bonus, and a thanks for your patience we are also doing a bonus update with the Super Robot show DANCOUGA which will be the first combiner show we add to MechaStellar. We’ve also updated GoLion (Voltron) to also have combiner rules.
Dancouga (1985) is a very interesting show. It begins as a military sci-fi show and the titular giant robot doesn’t show up for about 16 episodes. During this time, we see a devastating alien invasion of Earth with the protagonist being the some of the sole surviving military forces fighting back and using the latest prototype machines called “Cyber Beasts”. These jets and tanks are able to transform into an animal type form, so your tank might turn into a Liger or a Cougar or Mammoth and begin wrecking the place. Naturally all four Cyber Beast Machines can form up to form Dancouga! The keyword to combine is THX-1138, a reference to a movie produced by Francis Ford Coppola and the directorial debut for George Lucas.
While Dancouga starts off as a somewhat grounded military show, it later turns into what I would call an Anime version of “The A Team” with the protagonists going from place to place and solving the citizens problems. It’s very campy but also very fun, but also includes some of the sadder episodes of character development.
What’s very interesting is that after the first alien general is defeated the next one relies on mind games and subterfuge to defeat the Dancouga team. They quite literally start building mind control devices and try to turn Earth’s citizens against the resistance force. It’s a very interesting plot and a big departure from the rest of the series.
Dancouga the TV show ends on a cliff hanger that is immediately followed up by the OVA Dancouga Requiem for Victims (1986) which closes out the TV show as they travel to the alien’s home planet / dimension and fight the final battle of the war. Interestingly, the OVA introduces a number of supernatural elements that were only briefly alluded to in the TV show. What’s more, Dancouga’s signature sword is not used until the OVA, prior to this Dancouga relies on its fists (and Ryo’s martial arts) or it’s heavy fire power.
Following this is the OVA God Bless Dancouga (1987) which follows the cast on Earth living their new lives after the war. While the Dancouga Requiem OVA was a very good OVA, the budget in God Bless Dancouga greatly exceeds it and the animation is superb. It’s a very fun story with the introduction of a new enemy, the cast is all there as well as an upgraded Dancouga. It’s a bit on the short side and we don’t get as much character development as you’d like, but to quote Obari, “In the end, robots will battle each other”. The action and animation more than make up for it.
Lastly we have the OVA Dancouga Blazing Epilogue (1989). This one is a bit of a departure which different character designs and a much lower budget than God Bless Dancouga (and I would also argue less than Requiem too). The OVA is set even further down the line with the heroes mostly forgotten when another alien invasion shows up and the return of another familiar enemy. It’s not bad, but it also doesn’t really add much to the series. Unfortunately, the lower budget means the robot fights are nowhere near as impressive as the previous series.
My knowledge of Dancouga comes from SRW games and it’s plotline and characters were not my favorite so I didn’t have high expectations going into it. That said, I ended up really enjoying the TV show, OVA Requiem and OVA God Bless Dancouga. Blazing Epilogue doesn’t do much for me though. Give the show a chance and try out Dancouga on the tabletop!
Happy New Year everyone! For this year we’re switching from end of month updates to beginning of the month updates. So from now look forward to updates on the first of each month! For this month’s update we have the long awaited Char’s Counterattack! Although, Char won’t be seen until next month. Instead debuting we have the Geara Doga and the Jegan as well as two related machines!
In addition to these four new units we also have a huge balance update affecting Hit Points, Victory Points, and all weapons with the biggest effects are high rate of fire weapons like vulcans and machine guns. Additionally, we have some major updates to the Core Rules and Wargame rules.
These updates include a Squad system, to allow your grunts to punch above their weight class, and also a nice bonus for elite squads like the Black Tri-Stars. Several other systems were revised to accomodate this mechanic, like Tear through the Ranks, AOE, the “Tandem Fighter” upgrade. The Support ATK / DEF system was entirely retooled, based on a lot of player feedback that the measuring and pre-measuring was getting cumbersome and slowed the game down. The new Support mechanic instead gives your own unit a Support bonus to enable Armored Core style gameplay where you use missiles to apply pressure before firing your primary weapon. Support weapons can still be used to improve your allies while in a squad.
On the downside, this is a huge rebalance update and we have not finished Warships yet. We were also hoping to include a Combiner in the Super Robots update for GoLion / Voltron but we need some more time to finalize it. We’ll add a bonus Super Robot series as penance for being delayed.
Below you’ll find a summary of rules updates.
Core Rules Updates
QoL updates for Warships. Fixed loopholes on Reinforce and other mechanics.
Added a Squad System
Retooled the Support weapon system
Updated the Iron Wall pilot skill
Made it so Boost lasts the whole Turn instead of a single attack
Returned Counter to be an Elite option only
Armor Saves back to 5 dice
Finisher Saves at more than 10 dice reworked to no longer give easy access to 1000s of DMG
Updated targeting, only Skilled and Ace ignore targeting rules, Battle-Tested still have to target closest / return fire
Added in Elite levels to represent units that are heavily upgraded which now affects your starting Momentum
Added a Barrier system
War Game Rules Updates
Rearranged upgrades, many upgrades no longer increase VP.
Elite Upgrades (i.e. Improved Barrage / Dodge etc.) that increase VP also increase Elite Level which affects starting Momentum
Raised cap on Elite Upgrades
Updated Events and Hazards
Updated VP earned on game modes and secondary objectives
Updated several pilots traits, i.e. Killer Instinct,
Added Speed upgrade
Added a weapon upgrade
Mecha Balance Patch
Renamed MS Bonus to Mech P. (Performance)
Remove the global -1 Hit on all units
Massive rebalance to VP. Elite units and higher Frame units are worth significantly more VP.
Massive rebalance to HP. Most units received a significant HP boost.
Fixed errors and rebalanced Gurren Lagann and GaoGaiGar
Made SEED Zaku and Gouf’s cheaper. Made Hizacks cheaper.
Upgraded all Frame 5 units with +2 EQ slots
Updated Luna Titanium, Gundanium, Phase Shift
Made Hizacks cheaper for the forthcoming Geara Doga / Jegan update.
Removed Support ATK / DEF from most non-E[X]plosives. Kept Support ATK / DEF for non-handheld weapons (i..e shoulder mounted minigun)
Rebalanced Missile Pod / Salvo / Fire Support
Allow for high rate of fire weapons like machine guns and vulcans to be above 10d10 ATK on the design side, the excess dice are converted into Hits ref. core rules.
Rebalanced Shotguns to be DMG 100 high damage weapons
Sniper weapons ability changed to Target any Unit | Ignore Cover / Support DEF
Nerfed all weapons with a RF penalty (Snipers, Railguns, etc.)
Updated Blinding Flash to be a weapon rather than a trait to make it more fair
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! For this month’s MechaStellar update we are rounding out the Aura Battler Dunbine roster with a complete set of the Aura Battlers from the TV show as well as the Zelana, Wing Calibur Fou, and the 4 legendary Aura Battleships.
You can find the updated units under “Warships” on the gamedownloads page which currently holds Harlock, Yamato, Dunbine as well as Warships from Gundam (and support units like Saberfish and Magella Tanks). https://mechastellar.com/game-downloads/
Aura Battler Dunbine is an outstanding show with some outstanding insectoid mecha designs. It has recently seen a major merchandise revamp with a huge portion of its roster both heroes and grunts getting figures for the Robot Spirits (Robot Damashii) line. The figures are incredible, please check them out. There are also older gashapon available for those who prefer small size minis.
Summary
Added 20 units from Aura Battle Dunbine to the MechaStellar roster
Significantly rebalanced how size affects all units, especially small units like Aura Battlers, Jets and Tanks
Rebalanced all small units. Yamato’s Cosmo Falcon / Tiger received an upgrade
Rebalanced all Warships
Look forward to Char’s Counter Attack next month! Happy New Year!!
Hello everyone, for this month’s update we have Aura Battler Dunbine. A personal favorite of Yoshiyuki Tomino and one of the many ‘Real Robot’ Mecha series launched by Sunrise in the 1980s. Aura Battler Dunbine is also the first isekai anime, and follows Show Zama and other people from Upper Earth who are transported into the fantasy world of Byston Well. People from Upper Earth are notable for having remarkable Aura Power which allows them to pilot Aura Machines, generally Aura Battlers or Aura Bombers and fight as flying knights. Dunbine is without a doubt one of the best series Tomino has created with a rich world, a multitude of warring factions, excellent character drama and also one of many series that earned him the name of “Kill ’em all” Tomino.
For this month since most of the Dev staff was busy with the holidays it’s only a small update but you’ll see the rest of the Aura Battlers in the December update. Since Dunbine (and later Xabungle) feature a lot of warships we’ll be including those in the Warships PDF.
Additionally, we’ve updated the Core Rules to include Flow Charts in the rules summary section, an upgrade to Boost to deal with the Zeal, and some upgrades to Warship reactions.
Hello everyone! For this month’s update we have the long requested Gundam Seed Astray with the Red Frame and Blue Frame as well as a pair of their upgraded forms both of which debuted in Super Robot Wars W. We also have all Warships updated to the latest balance patch as well as new units including the Eternal and Kusanagi from Gundam SEED, the Nazca and Laurasia class, and various small craft like tanks, jets and helicopters. One of the nice things about Gundam SEED is that some of these look very generic so you can easily grab some cheap Jets and Helicopters and field them on the tabletop now.
We’ve also made a few more minor balance adjustments based off of Warships (which in turn affect the quasi-warship Meteor units or Big Zam) and a few unit rebalances based off some recent playtests. (Battle reports forthcoming). Last but not least, we consolidated a few more pilot traits we missed in the last past. While there’s less variety than before, we feel confident that the gameplay is going faster, smoother and units in general are benefitting from many of them having either built in ATK 3+ or DEF 3+ and a 2nd ability.
Summary of Unit Updates
Warships Rebalanced
Big O + Big Duo rebalanced
Hy-Gogg + Z’Gok E + Gogg rebalanced
Based on feedback Rebalanced machine cannons / gatling vulcans to be 10d10 base attack dice
Various points adjustments / rebalances (mostly minor)
Core Rules Updates
REV107 – Based on feedback you now rotate your model when making all attacks, not just melee attacks. If your unit is 2+ Size larger, you are not considered engaged. Size 2+ Units are tall enough to melee attack an enemy on the High Ground. The Fly requirement to engage is limited to only Warships / Aircraft. Rapid Fire can no longer be used on Counter. Renamed Target Lock to Lock On, because abbreviating it to TL confuses my simple brain when I make battle report notes, sorry 😥
REV106 – Updated Reinforcements to allow for units to arrive and activate instead of missing an entire round. Moved Control Point setup to before Deployment since it’s now standardized in all game modes. Updated CP setup to be 8” or 16” away from table edge.
REV105 – Updated Battle Damage that E[X]plosives cause damage when disabled. Challenge now requires an Elite unit to issue, to ensure elite units with challenge related abilities get to use them.
REV104 –Updated Warship Captain’s Orders to be simpler with more broad application letting you turn an [M-1] ability into [M-0]. Updated and renamed Warship Overwatch, moved “all weapons fire” to actions section. Updated warships to 90° turning.
REV103 – Clarified Push / Pull that you lose [M-1] or take 1000 DMG if a failed save would push you into another units / terrain / off high ground. Updated examples to match. Updated VP in Simple Battle.
Wargame Rules Update
REV32 – Updated VP in Simple Battle. Updated Level 2 Pilot traits for Warmonger, Unfaltering Courage, Steel Resolve. Updated Fierce Reputation.
The latest update has quite a bit of changes both to the Core Rules, Wargaming supplement and the Unit Profile sheets. In this post we’ll cover a brief overview. Which we’ve broken into three segments. Some of these we will cover more in depth in followup posts. For the first segment let’s cover Lethality.
Lethality Update
One of MechaStellar’s claim to fame is having a level of lethality that emulates the world of Mobile Suit Gundam, where grunts, and even heroic Aces can meet their untimely demise from a well placed bazooka shoot or a beam vaporizing the cockpit. And while we’re very proud of that, it also means living on the knifes edge both for gameplay and designing game balance. But it’s also an incredibly fun challenge, and why we’ve continued to work on this game for the last, gosh, I guess we’re going on 9 years now.
MechaStellar has gone through many versions since then, each with it’s own version of lethality, with earlier versions leaning hard into the “instant-death” effects and the last few versions making failed armor saves (and now Finisher saves) being deadly but not always a guaranteed dead unit. Some of these we’ve been working on heavily the last two months and others (like Battle Damage) have had intermittent tests since the switch from VER9 to VER10. Lethality has been adjusted in the current update to MechaStellar VER10 in the following ways.
Armor Saves reduced from Max 5 Saves to Max 3 Saves.
This is how it was in VER9 as well, but we’ve found beam weapons have had a little too much potential energy loaded in them, and dropping it down to 3 still keeps them lethal while not being overbearing against an HP sponge Super Robot that happened to roll five 1s.
To balance that out, beam weapons have also been adjusted, in general going down -100 DMG, but going up +1 PEN, so they are more likely to have a deadly vaporizing hit compared to before. This also has the added benefit of less times where a robot is destroyed from base beam damage without even needing to roll armor saves (which always felt a little odd).
HP Rebalance
The HP formula has been on the operating table a lot the last 6 months now, although it’s not always apparent since we try to ensure that after we tweak it, most units stay roughly the same, while some outliers are brought in. With the change to Armor Saves, we also want to make sure that grunts like a Zaku will still die when hit by a beam rifle, so if there’s several hits and 3 armor saves there should be a very sizeable change that Zaku is dead. (Leo’s, of course are made out of explodium)
Shield Update
Shield bloat was cut down for the forthcoming Battle Damage update. But another casualty of that, was all the GMs which had cheap shields, now had much more expensive shields. This is a problem, because we try our best to make sure grunts mechs on both factions are equal points, and we also make the most of their equipment slots. In order to ‘pay for’ these expensive shields we’d have to either drop GM HP sharply, or keep it the same and raise everyone else’s HP. And I don’t think the world was ready for 4000 HP Zaku’s just yet. Fortunately we found a compromise, by looking for another avenue to make Shields cheaper, while dropping GM HP but not as sharply. We struck a good balance here, and Shield enthusiasts are overall happy.
Battle Damage
Speak of Shield breaks, we are bringing back Battle Damage from VER9 over to VER10 and this time it’s now a part of the Core Rules. However, we’re able to keep the ‘optional module’ flavor by limiting this only to Elite Units. Since Battle Damage can be a bit of pain to track, limiting it to Elite units helps A LOT. Just don’t setup a game with 10 elite GMs and 10 elite different colored GMs.
Battle Damage is a fun system to let you simulate all the times we see beam rifles shot and explode, arms cut off, thrusters hit, and the rare MAIN KA-MI-RA being disabled. Right now, the system is still a little too fiddly so we will likely pare it down to just a couple options that are easier to remember in the future based on playtester feedback. Overall, we’re happy that it works and it provides another avenue to keep your named pilots alive for longer.
Starting Momentum
Speaking of named pilots, the rules for Starting Momentum have changed and now in general you will be starting with much higher amounts of Momentum. We’ll cover this in detail in another post.
Similarly, Flash and Iron Wall now have super version that all but guarantee you to survive a heavy hit (if you’ve got a surplus of Momentum). Likewise, Valor is now limited to Round 2+ to prevent Round 1 Alpha Strikes which were becoming a problem again.
Finishing Blow
Last but not least we have Finishing Blow which received a major update. We’ll cover this in detail in the next post. The important thing to note, is that the target now rolls Finishing Blow (just like Armor Saves) and the numbers are now reversed being a 1 instead of a 10.
Hello everyone, for this month’s update we are adding in the METEOR units from Gundam SEED. We also have a huge balance patch affecting various units, pilot traits, and the entire weapons arsenal. There are also various revisions to the core rules to to clarify various questions that have come up, as well streamlining movement and allowing for stronger versions of Flash and Iron Wall to allow for more survivability of units.
Unfortunately the balance patch is quite large so as of today only the rules and unit profiles for Gundam are complete. The roster update for Super Robots and Warships is planned for next week. Keep reading for a quick summary of changes. We’ll do in-depth posts next week as well to go over changes.
Summary
Core Rules Revision
REV102 – Updated Facing rules. Updated IDF in space. Updated Iron Wall again. Updated Critical Strike. Clarified various items based on playtester feedback.
REV101 – Updated gameplay tools for Hexastellar / MechaGrid gameplay. Updated wording on Challenge again. Updated IDF in Space. Allowed for Super Flash / Super Iron Wall at M-6. Updated AOE and Push/Pull.
REV101 – Removed from Barrage and Target Lock the clause for getting +1 Hit instead of +1 Shot. Rebalanced machine guns to be base 10d10 attack, so barrage and target lock still becomes +1 Hit for those weapons per pg2. Updated Battle Damage to correspond with removing Shield profile bloat. Solo unit Support ATK /DEF is now limited to the traits range. Armor Saves are limited to 3 dice.
REV100 – Closed loophole on challenge where challenge traits had no use if you went 2nd and player 1 only had a single unit. Clarified disengage. Updated and renamed Melee Elite bonuses, free Disengage is only one on melee elite option now. Updated Finisher formula. Valor is now Round 2+
REV99 – Converted Battle Damage from VER9 to VER10
REV98 – Big update to Starting Momentum & Shifts (M+2 to move closer)
REV97 – removed type restrictions (MS/Super Robot) on Flash & Iron Wall. Improved Iron Wall and reset it to [M-3]. Finisher is now rolled by the Defender, it activates on a 1 instead of a 10. Added a clause about going over the 10 dice Finisher limit. Updated Accelerate to coincide with the Hexastellar Movement update. Updated Push/Pull weapons which no longer deal DMG on failed Armor Saves unless you hit another object.
Wargaming Rules
Updated all Pilot Traits and consolidated
Unit Profiles
Added Meteor (Freedom) and Meteor (Justice)
Major improvement to G Gundam Units, improves to Wing units
Hello everyone, some key members of the Dev staff are travelling / on vacation on August so no update this month.
The next update includes an extremely large balance patch. This patch is intended to allow for additional unit customization in the future so you can adjust HP and Movement values for your units.
Hello everyone, for this month’s MechaStellar update we have another batch of SEED units to debut. This time we have suits from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Stargazer including the eponymous Stargazer, the fan favorite Strike Noir as well as the overtuned Blu Duel and Verde Buster who unfortunately were the first on-screen phase shift Gundams to be destroyed by ordinary grunts. Speaking of, we also have the Kerberos Bucue to add as well.
In addition to Stargazer we have also added in the Providence, another Funnel DRAGOON using Mobile Suit as well as his arch Nemesis Mwu La Flaga piloting the Perfect Strike. The Providence has proven to be a very powerful unit on the tabletop in testing, and we really enjoy the Challenge focused traits to have him face down with either Mwu or Kira. The Perfect Strike comes in at 900 points to give you flexibility to add in more pilot upgrades on either Mwu, or perhaps Kira and Athrun if you’re running them as a team.
Last but not least, a lot of the AU units have received some preliminary updates in preparation for next month’s update. The goal is to eventually have all units have their Sensors and Movement values in multiples of 4, we’ll talk more about this in a follow-up Design Goals post. We’re targeting to complete this in next month’s update.
Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy the treasure trove of SEED units we’ve put out the last couple months. If you’d like to request a specific SEED variant please let us know in the comments below.
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