Hello everyone, this month’s update involves a very large balance patch that is affecting HP, Movement, Sensors, Rapid Fire and Victory Points. I am still behind on doing the layout editing and QC so unfortunately it will be delayed a week.

Hello faithful readers!

I hate to say it but we’re going to break our long streak of monthly updates and have one delayed. Most of the past month has been rules tweaks based on feedback, some rebalancing of Unit Roles, and rebalancing some units in the current roster, plus the eternal purgatory of layout editing. (My favorite 🙂

We’d prefer to push this release back one week, and focus on converting some more units from VER9 into VER10, that way our Zeta Gundam fans and Super Robot fans have some more units to play with.

So we’ll see you one week from now.

Here’s the current plan

Space Battleship Yamato – September & October

Gundam Seed – November & December

Aura Battler Dunbine – January 2024

VER10 – Planned release January 2024, with monthly roster / rules updates for the drafts: https://mechastellar.com/ver10-drafts/

Two more of the Braves series have been added to the VER9 drafts page: https://mechastellar.com/ver9-drafts/

We have the 2nd series Fighbird and the 3rd series Da Garn. You can read a quick synopsis of either show here: https://mechastellar.com/2023/05/29/where-to-start-the-braves-yuusha-series/

Additionally, profiles for Gundam and a few other series had a quick revision uploaded. There was an error on Sniper types which had their accuracy 2pts higher than it should have been which has now been corrected.

Since Turn A Gundam is Tomino’s end to Gundam I thought it would only be fitting that the first Tier 3 Gundam unit on the MechaStellar roster be from Turn A Gundam.

Draft profiles for Turn A Gundam and a few supporting units can be found on the VER9 drafts page.

Just a quick update since I’m on travel. The draft profiles for UC Gundam have been updated on the VER9 Drafts page. I noticed a few units had too large of an HP gain like GP02 and the Full Armor Gundams, the revised HP formula will still greatly improve grunt HP while keeping the heavy hitters closer to their previous HP totals.

Additionally there have been some tweaks to Beam Rifles, Beam Cannons, and melee weapons including the Beam Saber and Heat Hawk to better work with the new Shields paradigm and make the standard GM shield more useful against these weapons.

Also here’s a quick draft for updated Secondary objectives:

Destruction

Top Gun:  +2 VP anytime your Skilled or Ace Pilot destroys an enemy Skilled or Ace Pilot or if they destroy the enemy Commander.

Strongest Prototype: +5 VP anytime your Frame 4+ unit destroys a Frame 4+ Unit.

Rout the Enemy: +1 VP for every unit destroyed (Max 5 per Round).

Surprise Assault: +1 VP when you destroy a unit in the first Round of battle. 
                              +3 VP when you destroy a unit with Tactical Advantage.

Undefeated: +2 VP every time your Commander destroys a unit.  Gain a bonus +2 VP every time your Commander destroys a unit with a Melee Counterattack.  

Survival

Bonds on the Battlefield: +X VP equal to the total Pilot Level of 3 surviving units.

Last Bastion: +3 VP if your Commander survives. Gain a bonus +3 VP if 50%+ of your units (round up) were destroyed as well.

Minimize Losses: +5 VP if 50%+ of your units (round up) survive the battle.  Gain a bonus +1 VP each time you spend at least 1 Momentum to save a unit.

Flawless Insertion: +10 VP but lose 1 VP for each of your units destroyed in Round 1

Invincible: +1 VP each time your unit take 0 DMG from a Shooting or Melee attack.

Control the Battlespace

Repel the Enemy: +1 VP anytime an enemy model leaves your half of the battlefield or is destroyed on your half of the battlefield.

Dominate the battlefield: At the end of each round gain +3 VP if you have units in 3 quadrants, +4 VP for 4 quadrants.  Do not count units within 8” of the center.

Behind Enemy Lines: At the end of each round gain +2 VP if you have 1 unit within 16” of the enemy table edge and +3 VP for 2+ units.

Scorched Earth: +5 VP when you use a melee action on a Control Point destroying it.

Swelling Momentum: +2 VP at the end of each round if you have more Momentum.

Here’s an example of the VER9 Layout for the Federation Mobile Suits.

Also here’s a pair of rules we’re considering for VER 9. One to provide a benefit to units with high Sensors range (besides the standard deployment bonus) and another meant for Kaiju and other colossal creatures who lack a shooting weapon.

Below is a collection of photos of when we were testing the Earth Federations Magellan class Battleship as well as the updated Stellar Warship rules for MechaStellar VER 8 focusing on the Captain’s Orders section. Below is a very brief battlereport as well. You can find the first Magellan battle here and the third one here.

We begin with a Magellan with a Skilled Captain and two Salamis cruisers in its strike group each carrying a Guncannon and two GMs while a brand new GM Sniper Custom is aboard the Magellan. They are striking at the Zeon fortress A Baoa Qu and this sector is fielding two Musai cruisers (one with a skilled Captain), a Gelgoog, three Doms, a Zaku Commander and 5x Zaku IIs.

Continue reading “MechaStellar Playtest Photos – Magellan Class Battleship #2” →

Here are some additional snapshots of what the VER 9 Layout will look like for Getter Robo and GaoGaiGar along with some comparison photos of the old and new. Overall for grunt units it continues to look a lot cleaner.