Playtest Report

<Meant to post this one two weeks ago>

We haven’t played a large game in a while so we broke out some forest and aquatic terrain and decided to try reenacting the Jaburo Drop from 0079.  We did the scenario three times, each time increasing the size of the army to see how well it would scale; it also gave us a chance to try some of the very minor rules tweaks we were discussing.  The scenario would be a pseudo two-mission campaign with the twist being the second mission (underground) kicks off while the first mission (top side) is ongoing.  The sooner the 1^st mission is completed the sooner reinforcements can arrive.

Continue reading “Playtest Report – Jaburo Drop” →

As we’ve been going through Rules overhauls one thing that has probably changed the most has been shields.  At the bottom we have the latest version.

Continue reading “Mechastellar: Shield Update” →

Our suit roster is an excel sheet with a number of formulas where if you type in the Suit’s Frame Level and Performance level it will auto-populate all of it’s combat stats.  So while we were updating the attack and evade cells to essentially flip flop (Evade now uses the d20, Attack is now a static number) we decided to reevaluate a few of the bonuses each of the combat roles were giving.

Combat Roles Refresher

Each suit gets to choose one of four combat roles that define how they play.

1. Gunner – Ranged focused
2. Battler – Melee focused
3. Versatile – Mix of Ranged and Melee
4. Hi-Mobility – Evasion focused

Looking at the gundam universe for example the most common role will be Versatile as most suits fielded are general purpose.  Below are some examples:

1. Gunner – GM Sniper, Gabthley, Gundam Leopard
2. Battler – Gouf, Efreet, Sturm Galluss, Deathscythe
3. Versatile – Most types of Gundam, GM, Zaku and successors
4. Hi-Mobility – Dom, Kampfer, Hambrabi, Rick Dias, Sinanju

If you look at the Battletech / Mechwarrior universe you’ll see a lot more Gunners dominating the roster.  Heavy duty battlemechs with ablative armor are classified as “Titans” in mechastellar.  They’re rules are a bit different than mobile suits, in a general sense they have more HP and AP but less Evade.

1. Gunner – Blackjack, Thunderbolt, Catapault, Zeus, Jupiter
2. Battler – Kodiak, Violator
3. Versatile – Shadowhawk, Centurion, Battlemaster
4. Hi-Mobility – Griffin, Spider

Now then when it comes to combat roles here’s what we previously posted.  Note, we’ve adjusted some naming conventions, instead of Ranged Attack and Melee attack we’ve renamed them to Shooting and Melee.

• Gunner
  • Shooting +5
  • Action Points +4
  • Evade -3
• Battler
  • Melee +4
  • Move +4
  • Evade +1
• Versatile
  • Shooting +3
  • Melee +2
  • Move +3
  • Action Points +2
• Hi-Mobility
  • Move +6
  • Evade +3
  • Melee +1
  • HP-100

While we were playtesting the streamlined but ultimately boring evasion system we also had a chance to play around with melee a bit.  Not the mechanic per se just the values.  In the original rules we had melee as a clash between two opponents, each rolls a d20 and adds their value, with the attacker getting a free reroll.

Continue reading “MechaStellar: Design Update – Melee” →

Aloha everyone!  We’ve spent the past few months playtesting a different type of attack and evade mechanic for Mechastellar and today we’ll talk about the results.

First up the mechanic.  We had the pleasant experience doing a several large scale playtest games over the holidays in Nov/Dec to try out the VER 2.0 ruleset and it was quite successful.  We had a chance to try high level suits vs army of grunts, prototype vs prototype match-ups, melee master faceoffs (Death Scythe Vs Master Gundam), team games with objectives and multiplayer free-for-alls.

Continue reading “MechaStellar: Design Update – Evade” →

 

Based on some feedback from playtesting we’ve been testing out a few potential overhauls to the base system.  One of them that has been working very well has been to adjust Action Points for units.  This has worked well enough so far we are confident bringing it back into the core ruleset.  Here’s how it works.

CURRENT RULES:

Gunner type units have +2 AP.  Useful for Snipers to fire powerful weapons despite being a low frame level, also useful for artillery units to continue shelling with IDF.

ADJUSTED RULES:

Gunner type units have +4 AP.

Versatile type units have +2 AP.

This provides additional action points for most units in the game.  While it seems like a minor change it has quite a bit of impact system wide,.  For example, your Zaku II can make 4 shots with a Machine gun instead of 2.  Feedback from playtesters was very positive on this front since it allows them to field less units while maintaining threatening firepower.

The bonus AP came as we were testing a prototype change to ATK and EVADE rules.  It was discovered that grunt units like the GM, Nemo, and Barzam weren’t able to put out enough shots to threaten a high performing machine like the Hambrabi or Hyaku Shiki.  Giving all these Versatile suits +2 AP, and splitting off Beam Rifle (3AP) into a 2AP and 3AP (Hi-Power) variant was enough to allow these grunts to threaten high performing suits again.

We’re incorporating these changes into the rules document and hope to have a VER 1.0 ready to be posted in February.  Till next time!

In this post we’ll do a turn by turn post for a small skirmish between the RX 78-2 Gundam piloted by Amuro in his early days and platoon of Zaku IIs led by the infamous Gouf Ramba Ral.  Models used are the 1/400 scale Gundam figures you can get from vending machines in years past.

Gundam  Frame 4  Performance 2  Pilot 2 HP 1200  ARM 3+ (Super Armor & Shield)  AP:9  ATK+5  EVADE 16.

bbFrame 2  Performance 3  Pilot 7  HP 400  ARM 6+ (Shield)  AP:4  RATK +3  MATK+10  EVADE 14

2x Zaku II (Machine Gun)  Frame 1  Performance 2  Pilot 1  HP 300 ARM 7+ (Melee shield)  AP:2  ATK +5  EVADE 14

2x Zaku II (180mm Cannon)  Frame 1  Performance 2  Pilot 0  HP 300 ARM 7+ (Melee shield)  AP:2  ATK +5  EVADE 14

The Gundam has sensors range of 12″ so the Zeonic enemy has to stay outside of that when deploying. The area is rather small so their forces are spread to the edges. The Zeon forces have more units so they go first.

Continue reading “MechaStellar: Turn-by-Turn Ex of Play” →