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.
Hello everyone, we are going to postpone July’s update while we continue to finalize the core rules and mech profiles for MechaStellar VER11 currently targeting for August release. In this post we’re sharing some recent playtest photos for MechaStellar VER11.
We’ve had some major improvements on Squads, Warships, Momentum Generation and Lethality. In the most recent Gundam focused playtest we had only 50% casualties in a grunt game at Round 5. We think you’ll enjoy VER11 which will be a more streamlined form of VER10, with units surviving longer, better integrated morale & mechanics, weapons each embracing a specific battlefield role, and a more strategic feel to spending Momentum.
In the meantime we will continue doing VER11 Profile Previews once or twice a week.
And we plan on doing about 10 or so Design Goals posts leading up to the VER11 release in August. Stay tuned!
Hello everyone, this month’s update VER10 is finally released with only two major changes, one is adjusting the Finishing Blow mechanic so it’s not hyper lethal with high rate of fire weapons like machine guns. The 2nd is removing the defense dice bonus for Elite Squads. We’ve also included a one page cheat sheet in the Core Rules. Lastly the Ra Cailum and Rewloola as the iconic warships of Char’s Counterattack have been added to the MechaStellar Roster.
Recently we’ve been doing a lot of testing with small size units and small size weapons, this includes the recently released Aura Battler Dunbine, as well as future series requested by our playtesters. Unfortunately, while Finishing Blow has been working well with Super Robots, it has been absolutely unplayable with small size units gaining an immense advantage. This is due to small size weapons breaking the 10d10 dice cap and getting too many auto-hits.
Ironically, while writing a MechaStellar VER10 retrospective on the 2 years of updates, we had an issue with auto-hit weapons (like vulcans) and Finishing Blow from the very start, so we’ve come full circle on this.
While the change to Finishing Blow in the Core Rules does completely curb the problem, still small size units have not been very satisfying to play from the perspective of Playtesters. As for the DEV Team we’ve been struggling to make small size beam machine guns work with Yamato’s starfighters as examples.
We’ve been hard at work the last 2 months trying to resolve this problem. We’ve also taken a lot of playtester feedback onboard regarding the rules getting a little complicated in VER10. While brainstorming problems we eventually started calling the rules draft VER10.5. But when we finally made an R&D breakthrough we realized the core gameplay had fundamentally changed.
And so the next rules update will be VER11.
VER11 is going to reuse 70% of the same rules as VER10 but it will be different in 3 key areas.
The Rapid Fire stat is removed and instead each weapon is given a battlefield role giving each weapon type some unique gameplay advantages. Barrage type weapons (i.e. Machine Guns) have been a playtester favorite.
Pilot Skills are being reworked to make each skill have a distinct use. The Valor Skill has turned into an extremely fun skill to use.
Making the game easier to teach to a new players. This includes updating how Saves work and better integrating the Morale stat.
The next post will be a VER10 retrospective looking at the timeline of various changes.
After that we’ll preview some VER11 rules and then eventually some design goals posts. Please keep in mind while we’ve been aggressively playtesting, a lot of things will be subject to change. When VER11 hits open playtest, we’ll keep VER10 online just like we did for VER9.
If you’re interested in trying out the DEV copy of VER11 please contact us on social media.
May’s update is a light one. Based on playtester feedback we are busy working on a balance patch, an update to Finishing Blow and a major core rules overhaul that will streamline a number of items to cut down on the amount of decision making on each turn or combat action. This will be a very big update for the game and we are hoping it will make overall gameplay much, much faster; turning a 1 hour game into a 40 minute game. Look forward to June!
For this month’s update we have the long awaited public release of Nu Gundam and Sazabi. As well as two other fan favorite mobile suits. Nu and Sazabi were first used by the Devs all the way back in VER4 and hit closed playtesting in VER6.
Since then Nu and Sazabi became a favorite pair from one of our all-star playtesters who proceeded to dominate his FLGS all the way back in 2021, if you’ve ever wondered why there were so many updates to Funnels despite very few funnel units (back then), now you know. Nu and Sazabi across many version had their profiles revised a total of 67 times.
Nu and Sazabi are very iconic mobile suits so we’ve put a lot of care into building them and rebuilding them for each version of MechaStellar for our playtesters, and now for the open public. Of the holy trinity of Super Robot Wars there is Mazinger, Getter Robo and Gundam. Typically with their final forms being Mazinkaiser, Shin Getter Robo and Nu or Hi-Nu Gundam.
We also included an optional ability for Nu to represent how in crossover games like SRW or Dynasty Warriors, Amuro and the Psycoframe have been able to do incredible things like turning off the Moonlight Butterfly of the Turn-A Gundam. Hope you all enjoy.
While SRW tends to treat Hi-Nu Gundam as a straight upgrade to Nu (and likewise the Nightingale as an upgrade to Sazabi) we prefer to treat them as a side-grade unit which is very similar in armaments but with a slightly different playstyle and unit stats. After all, Nu and Hi-Nu are meant to be the same unit but different incarnations.
Here’s a synopsis on the origin of Hi-Nu from legendary Gundam expert Mark Simmons
In Beltorchika’s Children, the Nu Gundam is still called the Nu Gundam, even though it does use a mega bazooka launcher at one point. That’s why the cover shows the standard anime Nu Gundam – it’s supposed to be the same thing.
Aside from the Newtype magazine illo that balofo posted, the original source of images for these guys is in the mecha profile section at the beginning of the Beltorchika’s Children novel. The Psyco Doga isn’t pictured in this section, and aside from the Nightingale, all the mecha are listed with the same names and specs and model numbers as the movie versions. (At this point, the movie specs had smaller head heights. That’s why everyone says the Hi-Nu is 20 meters; the book just listed the standard specs for the Nu Gundam, and at that point they were saying the Nu was 20 meters tall.)
So if the Nu Gundam is just called the Nu Gundam in Beltorchika’s Children, and they listed the standard Nu specs and description, where the heck does the “Hi-Nu” come from?
Well, in the book’s mecha section, designer Yutaka Izubuchi took some liberties with his designs and drew them all a bit differently. What we now call the Hi-Nu started out as, simply, “that cool version of the Nu Gundam that Izubuchi drew in the mecha section of Beltorchika’s Children.” It was only later that this cool doodle got its own name and back story and was recognized as a distinct mobile suit. The “Hi” prefix, confusingly, seems to be an homage to the original Hi-Streamer novels. 🙂
Of all these guys, the only one that was reasonably fully depicted and clearly identified as a unique machine was the Nightingale. It’s named that way in the Beltorchika’s Children novel (unlike the Hi-Nu), it’s depicted in the mecha profile section (unlike the Psyco Doga), and Izubuchi drew nice pictures of it for Newtype and B-CLUB magazines. The one thing it didn’t have in the mecha section, unlike the other features machines, was a model number.
Whew! That’s pretty long and detailed, but I’ve seen people getting this mixed up for decades, and I keep hoping that if I explain it one more time it’ll stick.
— Mark
For this April we are releasing Nu Gundam, Sazabi, Hi-Nu Gundam and the Nightingale. We hope you enjoy these Tier 3 Juggernauts and look forward to more in the future. Pictured above is the Nightingale from the “Gundam Artifact” collection which is slightly larger than 1/400 scale minis but still fits in nicely.
One last note, there have been some minor tweaks to a few of the weapons on the GBF rules.
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!!
MechaStellar 