Note: This was a battle report from MechaStellar VER7 there are a number of updates to gameplay and victory points since that time. For instance in this version only a single armor save was rolled but failing it was instant death.
This is probably my favorite game we had of Defend the City. We had a tag team match with two players on each side. Defend the City is a game mode where the Defenders are trying to preserve the city while the Attackers attempt to destroy it.
The Attacker side had units from Gundam Wing (Wing & Heavy Arms) plus units from Gundam SEED (Freedom & Justice). In the 2v2 game each player picked a Commander trait, Wing had Vigilant Leader and Justice had Three Times as Fast.
The Defender side focused on Mobile Suit Gundam with an unlikely alliance between the Federation and Zeon. They had Big Zam, Zaku IIs, Gelgoogs, Amuro in the Gundam plus two Guncannons along with Gipsy Danger from Pacific Rim. In the 2v2 game each player picked a Commander trait, Big Zam had Resourceful while Amuro had Unyielding.
The players were using the Battle Damage and Climactic Events modules.
Below the break you’ll find the battle report. We were having a lot of fun with everyone at the table and the audience and so only remembered to take a few photos per Round.
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.
For this month’s update we are adding new units from Gundam Wing including some units requested by one of our all-star players that come from side story manga called Gundam Wing G-Unit, and was released in the US as Gundam Wing Last Outpost.
First up we have the upgraded version for most of the Gundam Wing pilots including Deathscythe Hell, Altron, Sandrock Custom and Heavy Arms Custom. We are using the Endless Waltz (EW) versions for imagery but we are keeping some of the original weaponry such as Sandrocks Beam Submachinegun and Altron’s Beam Stinger which were not present in the EW Movie. Heavy Arms however, we kept the greatly expanded loadout from EW because who doesn’t love 4x Gatling Guns.
In addition to that we’ve expanded the unit roster for Oz with the Taurus and Virgo units. While the Taurus is present in the Gundam 1/400 collection the Virgo unfortunately is not. You can however find SD versions of the Virgo which we have used in playtesting, it’s a little bigger and bulkier but at least the height is close enough to the 1/400 scale. These mobile dolls are powerful units and we’ve opted to try and make them as cheap as possible while maintaining their key abilities, this way your Gundam Wing pilots can mow them down by the dozens.
As a reminder you can always use proxy figures while playing, if you have a dozen 1/400 Rick Doms and want to use them as Virgo’s instead, go nuts! Some ingenious players will use standees to hold a printed out image of a Mobile Suit, similar to what you’d see in a lot of board games where a tiny plastic clip (standee) is holding up a cardstock image instead of a traditional miniature. And of course there are always virtual tabletops.
We’ve also included the Tallgeese II piloted by Treize Kushrenada, the Virgo II from White Fang, and the Mercurius and Vayeate used by Heero and Trowa while they fought off Quatre in the Wing Zero. (Wing Zero & Epyon along with Burning & Master Gundam are Tier 3 units and we’re holding off on those for a while longer).
Gundam Wing G-Unit / The Last Outpost is a sidestory taking place near the end of the TV series before White Fang is defeated. A colony that was developed Gundams comes into conflict with an Elite OZ unit, the Stardust Knights. We’ve included the custom Leos from the Stardust Knights as well as the variants for the Mecurius and Vayeate that appear in the sidestory. The principal protagonists and antagonists, the G-Units, Hydra Gundam and others will be released at a later date, they still need additional time for development and playtesting.
That’s all for this month, we have another Gundam update next month then after that we will have Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann!
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.
For this months update we have a major update to the Core Combat Rules along with a balance patch and overall UI improvement to the Mecha Profile Sheets. We’ve also added new units to the roster based on player requests. Below the break is the summary of updates, you can read a more indepth breakdown on a few updates in a follow up posts.
We’re pushing out the roster update early for the month of November. We’ve been testing out for a few months now what the gameplay would be like if we were to reduce the cost of Skilled and Ace Pilots down to 50pts per level. Overall, we’re satisfied with how the Mission Packs are running as well as versus games so we’ve decided to implement the change. All Mecha Unit Profiles have been updated to reflect this, a few units were rebalanced to get down to 500pts or 250pts as a result. Getter Robo profiles will be updated at the end of the month along with a continuation of the Narrative campaign and more Mechasaurus units.
With the change to Pilot costs we can also return to simpler Army Momemtum brackets of 500/1000/1500/2000+. The core rules were updated to reflect that. I’ve also improved the Make it Count universal skill. This was meant to be in October’s update but was missed when we released it.
Sandbox Mission Packs and Demo Games mission packs have also been updated to reflect the new costs.
Rules Update Summary
Cost reduction for Skilled and Ace Pilots
Army Momentum brackets back to 500/1000/15000/2000+
Improved Universal Skill – Make it Count
Unit Profile Update Summary
Adjusted traits that used to give +1 Focus to instead give +1 Accuracy such as Headhunter or Hunting for a Rival
Fix error for beam carbine/heat attack profiles: units affected Zeon Amphibious units, GM Command Space, Neue Ziel, Mazinger Z, Doublas M2, Glossam X2
Fixed error on Gebera Tetra, older profile replaced with newer profile
For Septembers roster update we have 24 new mecha unit profiles including the foundational Super Robot series, Mazinger Z. We are also releasing MechaStellar VER 8.4 Core Rules which streamlines some items in the Stellar Warfare section and provides another option for [Focus] as well as changes to Disengage. Lastly, there’s a large balance update that will address some points cost issues, movement and evade as well as improving the durability of some units.
The last few months our FLGS has been running a lot of high powered Ace combat battles. We’ve gotten some great experiences and feedback from this which led to the current update to the Pilot System.
Hot on the heels of VER 8.1 we are releasing VER 8.2. This update includes some adjustments to Combat Roles, the Pilot system, as well as various balance changes. We’ll cover the Pilot changes in detail in a follow-up post. Below is a quick synopsis. Updated rules and mecha unit profiles can be found on the downloads page here.
MechaStellar 