In this MechaStellar battle report we are keeping the fabulous teamup between the suit wearing Roger Smith (Big O) and the king/queen aesthetics of the J9-II team (Baxingar) face off against Zeon Remnants. Since we’re using a lot of amphibious units, we reasoned it was an abandoned and half submerged city which fits well with some of Big O’s environments.
This game series we were heavily testing our the “Reinforcements” mechanic which would take the Ambusher traits (and event) and turn it into an easy to use core rule. Thanks to this series we managed to avoid a lot of missteps with reinforcements out the gate, but our playtesters found several more loopholes we had to patch within 2 months of release.
While Big O and Baxingar both were able to Ambush, you do need to put at least one unit on the field so in this case Baxingar (in their Cosmo Bike form and thus hard to target) was first.
On Zeon’s side we also had some Musai’s taking part, because we really wanted to laydown the fire support. This was hot off the heels of a QoL update for Warships and they were a lot more fun to use and lot more worthwhile on the battlefield.
In universe, we reasoned that since Big O’s world is very….well, to avoid spoilers, full of mysteries, having space ships appear in the city wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. Who knows, maybe the movie was set in a colony all along.
A Hy-Gogg captures a CP, then Baxingar takes it’s turn firing an Antiship missile to obliterate a Musai and then laser’ing the Hy-Gogg off the field. A powerful turn (and due to this and other games we later realized that Valor should be a Round 2+ only skill.)
The other Musai gets LOS to support it’s allies and begin blasting. Baxingar is an absolutely glass cannon of a unit, but fortunately with the updated Momentum system it had enough Momentum to use Flash several times and dodge some painful hits.
The Black Tri-Stars are the Aces on this side and they start blasting. (We were also briefly tested a squad system in this game, to see how valuable it would be for Ace units; normally it was only for nameless grunts. It was fairly successful, but we found that individually the Black Tri-Stars were more formidable. More to come on the squad system!)
BIG O!! IT’S SHOWTIME!!!
Big O reinforces, in this series we realize that reinforcing units should have either limited movement, limited actions, or both. So we test out this idea several times and come to a reasonable solution that doesn’t allow for Reinforcing units to show up, blindside nuke a unit, then capture a CP all in one go.
Speaking of Blindside. Some Goggs reinforced on the enemy side last Round, as a limiting factor we let them attack if they used Zeal. Which they were happy to launch megaparticles supported by torpedos pods into Baxingars backside.
Round 2 Big O pulverizes that Z’Gok and captures the point.
Baxingar clears out the home CP by destroying both Goggs. We were testing out the “Tear through the Ranks” as a melee option instead of an event here, which we really enjoyed so it made it back into the Core Rules.
A Hy-Gogg on the Hy-Ground with an antiship missile. Who should send that into? The agile but glass cannon Baxingar, or the slow moving heavily armored Big O?? Hmmm
Big O withstands the blast then we proceed to beat down the Hy-Gogg. It’s at this moment we realize we should add something in the core rules to mention that very tall units can melee units on the high ground because…well look at this picture lmao
Two of the Black Tri-Stars move into position to Blindside Big O later.
The third Tri-Star gets a lucky critical and blows Baxingar off the board. While we made several of the aquatic units Elite to punch above their weightclass, the Black Tri-Stars ended up carrying the game.
Time to Chrome Buster and blow up the terrain and the Tri-Stars
Big O managed to take down 2 of them, but alas the third one got a blinside attack and then won initiative in the final round for another blindside attack. The ground shakes as the giant crashes down into the earth.
After Action Report
We ended up tweaking several of the aquatic units after this, since they didn’t feel as durable (or as cheap) as they could have been. Big O went through several revisions and one of our outspoken players, really loves this unit so we wanted to get it right. Eventually Big O went up a size tier (to reflect it’s weight, rather than it’s official height) which gave it a considerable HP boost and more slots.
This game we also tested out the squad systems for regular units as well as for elite units. We had tested it out a little before but this version felt a lot more stable and less likely to be all or nothing.
We also had a lot of fun with the Zeon team and ended up using them again versus a remarkably different force. Space Battleship Yamato complete with Cosmo Tiger squadrons. Stay tuned for more!
In this battle report we have a 3500pt game using the MechaStellar VER10 rules. When the Space Revolutionary army descends on Earth there’s only one man handsome enough to stop them!
One side we have the Space Revolutionaries including Captain Harlock onboard the Arcadia, and two members of Operation Meter, Duo Maxwell in Gundam Deathscythe Hell and Trowa Barton in Gundam Heavyarms Custom. As for this Super Robot Wars (SRW) story we reasoned that Harlock and his unflinching principles of Freedom clashed with the government of the Earth Sphere alliance, and he enlisted the aid of Operation Meteor.
On the other side we have the Fabulous 7, Treize Kushrenada in the Tallgeese II and Roger Smith in the Big O, two very handsome leads. Then upon realizing how expensive the Arcadia is, we went in search of another fabulous team of pilots to complement them and we wound up with the Baxingar team wearing opulent furs and sporting a playing card aesthetic. In their world they represent the famous Shinsengumi on a backdrop of space, we thought it would be fitting that this group of idealists would be at odds with Harlock.
Forces
Note: The rules may have changed since this post was written so don’t be surprised if some abilities have changed in points or in rules.
Space Revolutionaries (3500pts)
Captain Harlock on board the Arcadia (2000pts) – Commander
Traits – Legendary Captain & Dreaded Captain
Gundam Deathscythe Hell EW (750pts)
Gundam Heavyarms Custom EW (750pts)
The Fabulous and Magnificent 7 (3500pts)
Tallgeese II with Treize Kushrenada – Commander (650+450pts)
+300pts +30VP – 3 Free Skills, 2x Flash and 1x Valor
+100pts +10VP – Grand Strategist
+50pts +20VP – Performance Upgrade (6)
Big O (500+550pts)
+100pts O Thunder
+200pts +20VP – 2 Free Skills, Valor + Iron Wall
+100pts +40VP – 2x Performance Upgrade (7)
+100pts +10VP – Guard Mastery (+3d10)
+50pts +5VP – Additional pilot trait – Hit on a 3+
Baxingar (1000 + 350pts)
+100pts +10VP Morale 3++
+100pts +10VP – Free Valor Skill
+50pts +5 VP – Merciless Melee
+50pts +5 VP – Feint Bonus is +2 Crit Range
+50pts +5 VP – Army of One
Round 1
Treize Kushrenada in the Tallgeese II is up first. He uses Grand Strategist for Support DEF +12″ x2 on the Dobergun giving it Support DEF 24″, since he’s only the unit on the field for his team, Support DEF applies to himself.
He moves up and uses boost to capture a CP and hit Heavy Arms in Rapid Fire range with the Dobergun. Valor is cancelled out by Flash, and Heavy Arms takes minor damage. But in return Tallgeese gets hit with a Quad Gatling Counter for 1400 DMG.
On Heavy Arms Turns he unleashes the Chest Gatilng for 1800 thanks to a Finisher save and then a Micromissile burst for further damage. At the end of this Turn, Treize uses Trust and gets lucky recovering a big chunk of HP. Heavy Arms does the same.
Tallgeese player: I’m reminded of VER7 when Tallgeese was killed by Overwatch by Heavy Arms at our FLGS. At least this time Tallgeese survived!
Harlock in the Arcadia fires off a barrage at Tallgeese but even with Support ATK, Tallgeese emerges unscathed thanks to Boost + Flash. Fortunately, the Dreaded Captain Trait shaves off more Momentum from the Tallgeese. Harlock then moves towards the side Control Point.
Tallgeese player: I was really worried because I thought I was going to be shot off the board Round 1, but I got super lucky on dice rolls. Well, maybe only this Round.
Meanwhile Deathscythe uses his actions + Boost to get on top the central CP.
But Tallgeese isn’t alone, Baxingar is formed by combining 5 Cosmo Bikes of the Space-Shinsengumi members. It arrives on the table edge ready to blindside the Arcadia. The Baxingar members and Harlock had a falling out recently over provincial space government.
On the other side, Roger Smith, hired by Treize arrives. BIG O – SHOWTIME
End of Round Momentum
Space Revolutionaries = 6
Team Fabulous = 7
Round 2
Tallgeese is luckily up first! He challenges Heavy Arms, moves into melee and also captures the enemy deployment CP. Valor is cancelled out by Flash, but the Tallgeese manages to strike a minor blow to Heavy Arms. At the end of this Turn, Treize uses Trust recovering a huge chunk of HP, lucky!
Heavy Arms turns around, uses a move action to get onto the CP while staying in melee and triggers a Momentum shift. He then unleashes the Chest Gatling on Tallgeese, he opts for Valor to try and pull off a Finishing Blow but Tallgeese with Flash manages to avoid taking significant damage. What’s worse is that Tallgeese uses Counter and dishes out 1200 damage thanks to a failed Armor Save.
Heavy Arms uses Close Combat [CC] and manages to kick Tallgeese out of melee, but not far enough to hit the building behind it (or be kicked off the CP).
Big O is up, and boy does he have one heck of a turn. Treize activates Grand Strategist to give him Support ATK and boost Big O. Big O uses Cannon Party for 1800 DMG and Missile Party of 2200 DMG thanks to Finisher. It’s Laser vision causes a failed Armor Save and lastly it uses the Moby Dick Anchors to pull Heavy Arms into melee (and off of the Control Point).
He uses his fists with Sudden Impact but Heavy Arms luckily dodges it. End of Turn Harlock uses Trust to restore Heavy Arms HP.
Harlock is up next, he moves first and then drops two Antiship Depth Charges on the pursuing Baxingar team who burns through their free Flash skills. The space buster does minimal damage to the Baxingar team. Harlock then puts the Arcadia on the Control Point capturing it.
Baxingar is up, Treize uses Support ATK boost again thanks to Grand Strategist, and now at range 24″ is also able to support Baxingar. Baxingar fires off it’s Antiship Missile with Valor and scores only 3000 DMG after Harlock pulls off one heck of an Evade roll. Baxingar closes out with it’s shoulder mounted hyper beam cannons to cause minor damage.
Deathscythe is up next, he uses Boost to gain Fly and bounce between the top of terrain pieces and moves in to intercept Baxingar. He gets into melee engagement range and pops off the Machine Cannons and Vulcans from the high ground, with Finisher it scores 3000 DMG!!!
Harlock Player: If I could sustain these rolls I would have crushed the Earth Sphere alliance. In retrospect I’m lucky Baxingar didn’t use Counter and knock me off after using Vulcans.
The Beam Scythe with high ground advantage scores only 3 hits after Valor vs Flash, but luckily nabs a failed Armor Save and Finisher Save scoring a big chunk of damage.
End of Round Momentum
Space Revolutionaries = 7
Team Fabulous = 7
Round 3
Baxingar is up first, and challenges Death Scythe. He starts with a close combat attack to smash him off terrain, and he chooses “Tear through the Ranks” which will give +1 Action regardless of if he destroys Deathscythe thanks to his “Merciless Melee” pilot upgrade.
Valor is worthwhile here, and even with Flash Deathscythe gets nailed for 3 hits and 3 failed Saves pushing him off high ground and into a building for 2000 DMG.
It then uses its Hyper Beam Cannons as a free action to shoot at the Arcadia, doing small damage, but Harlock Counters with the Space Buster. Dreaded Captain is a great combo with counter, but the Baxingar team has incredible Morale and so it leads to low results. Lastly, Baxingar fires off it’s Foot Missiles scoring more damage on the Arcadia.
The Harlock player is in a tough spot, if he activates the Arcadia he can’t move closer to any enemies and can’t trigger a Momentum shift (they are critically low on Momentum right now). For Deathscythe, he has to choose to either reengage Baxingar or try to support Heavy Arms.
Duo opts to save Trowa. He goes in for melee with Treize, burning off Momentum with the Fearsome trait, then Valor vs Flash scores 3 Hits on the Beam Scythe and 1 failed Armor Save, but Tallgeese survives.
And Counters. Deathscythe barely survives. But on Treize’s turn, the Tallgeese finishes off Deathscythe, too low on Momentum. He then takes the center control point and high ground.
Trowa declares revenge on Treize. He uses a Move action for a Momentum shift, then disengages, and uses Zeal to unload on Tallgeese with 2x Fire Support Missiles and then moves into rapid fire range with the Quad Gatlings.
Thanks to Flash and Boost Tallgeese survives with 300 HP.
Harlock Player: So close to a Revenge VP boost!
Treize uses Grand Strategist twice for Support ATK to give Big O an edge. Laser Vision followed by Sudden Impact destroys Heavy Arms.
Down to one unit! Albeit an expensive 2000pt unit. Can the Legendary Captain Harlock pull off a victory still? Let’s find out.
Harlock moves closer to Tallgeese generating a Momentum shift, it’s Space Buster forces Tallgeese to use their last Free Flash. Then as the last unit, Pulsars + Missile Support ATK blows Tallgeese off the building.
Enemy Commander destroyed Round 3.
Harlock then claims the central CP, currently it’s their only CP.
End of Round Momentum
Space Revolutionaries = 4
Team Fabulous = 7
Round 4
Harlock is lucky enough to go first. Space Buster with Dread Captain luckily drains Momentum then a Rear Arc attack of the Pulsar Cannons annhilates the low HP Baxingar.
Big O moves forward and with Laser Vision and Big O Thunder does a decent chunk of damage to the Arcadia but it’s still not close to 50% HP.
End of Round Momentum
Space Revolutionaries = 6
Team Fabulous = 5
Round 5
Roger Smith in the Big O is up first, he needs to knock the Arcadia below 50% HP to score some serious VP and win the game. Big O challenges Arcadia for a massive defense boost thanks to “Ye Not Guilty”.
Even with Valor and Finishing Blow, Big O’s piledriver arms were unable to break through Harlocks defenses and bring the Arcadia below 50% HP.
The Arcadia returns fire is also unable to push Big O below 50% HP.
Victory Points
Space Revolutionaries = 414VP
Tallgeese +180VP
Commander +30VP
Baxingar + 204VP
Team Fabulous = 288VP
Deathscythe +149VP
HeavyArms +139VP
If they got Arcadia below 50% HP that would have been +151VP enough for a Victory! Close match!!
After Action Report
Team Fabulous
I was initially planning on using Big O to tank hits and have Tallgeese & Baxingar team up move up the flanks to destroy whoever was unlucky to get in there way. When I noticed two of my heavy hitters had a really fun ambush ability I completely changed my strategy. I got really lucky Tallgeese didn’t get blown up in Round 1, but thanks to that my heavy hitters got in super close in Round 2.
I was really impressed with Big O, although I’m kicking myself for not using Final Stage! Baxingar is interesting, I used Army of One with the free skills, but it probably would have been better if I put more free skills on it. I also feel like it’s too much of a glass cannon so I need to be more careful with it in the future. Treize in the Tallgeese was fun with strategist but I’m not sure I rolled a single Crit defense after Round 1 ='(
Space Revolutionaries
I was very worried after I lost both my mobile suits and only had a Warships left. I was counting on Arcadia to blow through Baxingar with it’s paper thin defenses, I knew Big O would be tough to bring down and same with Tallgeese being a dodge tank. Boy did I get lucky though, if they had a little more Momentum and kept Treize alive I certainly would have lost.
Overall I’m happy, ever since the major warship update, warships can now hold their own on the battlefield, and Harlock being the best of the best really showed off at the end.
I do think if we raised the points for our armies a little bit, I could have upgraded Heavyarms and Deathscythe to be a lot more dangerous. Overall really fun game! I hope our favorite Big O player enjoys hahaha.
Forthcoming Rules Update
Thanks to this battle we’re making various updates to the MechaStellar rules
Updated Fearsome / Warmonger Trait
Updating the defensive profile for Tallgeese
Updating weapons on the Arcadia
Update to [AA] weapons
Updating the range of Ambusher abilities to be 20″ instead of 16″
Update Warship Overwatch ability to be Counter focused
Update Antiship weapons to give Finisher instead of bonus hits against large targets
Lower the [M] cost to disengage by 1 if your unit is larger
Bumping up Big O & Giant Robo to be Size 2 to represent their bulk / weight. Rebalancing weapons to compensate.
Updated Captain’s Orders and Overwatch to be a simpler and with broader usage
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.
Hello everyone, for the last few months we’ve been very busy working on MechaStellar VER10 and we finally updated all the Mobile Suit Gundam Universal Century Mobile Suits to VER10. Well, it’s time to spread the wealth with our Super Robot fans too. This month we have converted some additional Super Robots to VER10 including the much beloved Big O. We’ve also added in 4 new Super Robots.
You can find the updated MechaStellar Core rules and the Mecha Unit Profiles on the game-downloads page.
We’ve received a lot of feedback regarding GaoGaiGar and to a lesser extent Getter Dragon specifically regarding weapons that give 3 Hits on a Critical Hit. The chief complaint being that these units can often stack many hits to the point where it’s almost impossible to resist them in melee. As a result we’ve had to look over these units and this weapon type and consider solutions.
For those who exclusively play Gundam units the bottom line up front is that Beam Sabers and Heat Hawks are dropping down to 300 DMG per hit, Heat whips and Dragon Fangs are now a melee attack option. Units with high crit abilities such as Sandrock or Minaret Gundam are having their weapons reworked. For the Super Robot fans read on below the break.
Today we’re releasing MechaStellar VER9, thank you for all the feedback on the draft rules, profile and layout updates. Below you will find a summary of updates for VER9 as well as a roster rebalance to go along with the new layout. The VER9 Design Goal post covers several of these updates in detail.
Recently a player asked about a matchup between Big O and Sachiel. One piece of advice I had was to field more units using the mass produced Bigs we see in flashbacks which would be much cheaper than Ace Pilot. The minis used are the Kotobukiya one coin figures for Big O and the Seika figures for Evangelion.
For this matchup we are using a draft version of the Flashback Big O and Big Duo to try and take down Sachiel. Hopefully we have better luck than last match. Below is a battle report and the mecha tactics employed.
Continuing off of our previous two games we decided to do a teamup match using an Evangelion along with the mass produced Bigs for the Megadeus Army, with 1200pts that would mean facing off against Israfel or Zeruel. We went with the most deadly angel. The minis used are the Kotobukiya one coin figures for Big O and the Seika figures for Evangelion.
Below the break you’ll see a battle report and the mecha tactics of the game.
A MechaStellar player recently asked about a Big O and Sachiel matchup. We haven’t had these two face off against each other yet so we decided to set up a game and see who could come out on top. The minis used are the Kotobukiya one coin figures for Big O and the Seika figures for Evangelion.
Below the break you’ll see a battle report and some of the mecha tactics we employed.
MechaStellar 