Category: Wargaming

MechaStellar – Model Kits and Large Figures for Gundam Units

A comparison of figures with front to back being 1/400, 1/300, 1/200, 1/170, 1/144 scale for Gundam 00 Raiser and Guncannon
A comparison of figures with front to back being 1/400, 1/300, 1/200, 1/170, 1/144 scale for Gundam 00 Raiser and Guncannon

While the MechaStellar wargame is often played using small scale figures such as the 1/400 Gundam range or various Super Robot Wars gashapon (capsule toys) you can also play it using your favorite large figures and model kits. While our other post focused on small scale minis that are 1.5 to 4 inches in height this post will look at all the larger figures including Gunpla, Robot Spirits (Robot Damashii), Mobile Suit in Action (MSIA) and G-Frame.

We’ll examine the pros and cons of each Gundam mini collection and at the end we’ll have a number of comparison shots showing the different ranges side by side.

The primary purpose of this guide is to let you see the size of various Gundam models. That way if you decide to start collecting and want to mix and match you know which ranges work well together and which figures you want to battle it out on the tabletop.

When playing MechaStellar as a SRW style game with mecha from different franchises we advise you to pick either a Versus movie scale (all figures are roughly the same height) or an approximate scale where some very large robots (i.e. 100+ meter robots like Daitarn 3 or Ideon) are represented by larger figures while everything else is around the same height. You can read more about the recommended size and scale here.

Continue reading “MechaStellar – Model Kits and Large Figures for Gundam Units” →

MechaStellar Battle Report – AU Gundam vs Getter Gainax

This MechaStellar Battle Report involves a 3vs3 match using the Supreme Robot Warfare (SRW) module. On one side we have three AU Gundam’s including Shining, Wing and the GX Divider piloted by Domon Kasshu, Heero Yuy and Garrod Ran. On the other side we have Armageddon Getter Robo, Eva Unit 01 and Gurren Lagann piloted by Ryoma, Shinji, Kamina & Simon.

Narrative

For this SRW game we reasoned that the Gundam Pilots were being forced to fight against their will, possibly Relena, Rain and Tiffa were being held hostage by the Romfeller Foundation or New UNE. Meanwhile, NERV has become the last bastion for the resistance following the 7th Space War, they have a rag tag team of robots and pilots to resist the New UNEs far superior resources.

Below the break we’ll have a Round by Round battle report with plenty of photos of tabletop mecha action.

Continue reading “MechaStellar Battle Report – AU Gundam vs Getter Gainax” →

Asteroid Terrain for Gundam and other Mecha figures

One of the hallmarks of MechaStellar is combat with a backdrop against the stars. In this post we’ll look at a quick way to create asteroid terrain for your space battles. You will need some lava rock which you can find at garden or home improvement store or even Amazon as well as some clear acrylic flying stands and lastly a drill to put some holes into the rock. Below you’ll some photos of the asteroids and Gundam figures of various scales.

Continue reading “Asteroid Terrain for Gundam and other Mecha figures” →

Terrain for Gundam and other Mecha – N Scale Buildings

Gundam N Scale Buildings 1/400 Collection Neue Ziel

You can play MechaStellar with figures and model kits big and small. For players who prefer to use larger scale figures and models for Gundam and various other Mecha series you will also want to use larger terrain. In this post we’ll look at N Scale buildings and a few different scales of Gundam figures.

Continue reading “Terrain for Gundam and other Mecha – N Scale Buildings” →

MechaStellar Battle Report – Snipers vs Firepower Mecha

GM Sniper Custom

While doing some test games for some adjustments to Snipers and long range skills we put together a pair of games taking some extreme army lists.  For this game we had a match between two Federation forces with one heavily skewed towards Snipers and while heavily skewed towards Firepower units.

You can find the game rules and the mecha unit profiles on the MechaStellar downloads page. The miniatures used for this matchup came from the Gundam Standart and Ultimate Operation collection. You can read more about them here.

Gundam Ground Type Guncannon Guntank Full Armor Gundam

The Firepower forces decided to build a castle in the far corner to protect their units with lower Melee. The Commanders were the GP04 Gerbera and Full Armor Gundam Type B who both used the Unyielding trait.

You can find the game rules and the mecha unit profiles on the MechaStellar downloads page. The miniatures used for this matchup came from the Gundam Standart and Ultimate Operation collection. You can read more about them here.

Continue reading “MechaStellar Battle Report – Snipers vs Firepower Mecha” →

MechaStellar VER 8.8 Design Goals – Mental Math & Focus

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

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

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

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

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

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

MechaStellar VER 8.8 Design Goals – Short Range Weapons Update

This update kicked off with the complete reworking of the thrown weapons from last month.  Our first new series added in 2023 is G Gundam, we began prototyping units in April and started playtesting in July of 2022, with G Gundam being the next release all forthcoming units receive heavy playtesting the two months leading up to release. 

During the playtests for G Gundam models, one unit in particular stood out.  Gundam Maxter almost exclusively uses short range weapons, with a pair of magnums and several different punches including a cyclonic, burning jet of fire, and semi-visible bursting machine gun punch.  We were able to utilize existing weapon profiles to at least give each punch a different special effect but something was lacking.  What we observed was that many of punches (and even the twin magnums) felt rather samey, and it didn’t feel like there was a good time to use one over the other. 

Continue reading “MechaStellar VER 8.8 Design Goals – Short Range Weapons Update” →

MechaStellar FEB23 Update – VER 8.8 Released

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

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

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