Tag: Mech

MechaStellar Battle Report – Harlock + Gundam Wing VS Big O + Treize + Baxingar

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

MechaStellar Design Goals – SEP25 Update – Finisher

In a previous post we talked about several items in the MechaStellar SEP 2025 roster update. In this post we’ll cover Finishing Blow, now named Finisher, in-depth.

Finishing Blow has often been a little anemic or too insanely strong dealing enormous amounts of damage.   While the second one is perfect for your average episode Super Robot Anime, it’s not always great for game balance but does make for some awesome moments if you pull it off in Round 5.  We wanted to capture that feeling and make it more likely, more useful, and more deadly without being too overbearing.  Here’s what we came up with.

The last update to Finishing Blow was as follows:

If you have enough hits (i.e. 7+) then roll a d10 for each unblocked hit, every 10 is a Finishing Blow worth 1000 DMG.

There were various effects that lowered the number of hits required like Hot Blooded, and a few effects that made Finishing Blow deal even more damage.   Before this, Finishing blow was further limited, requiring “Finisher” type weapons. 

It was a good distinction at the time, but we opened it up over time and recently we had machine guns kicking off finishing blows luckily.  Nice if you want to replicate the opening scene of Mobile Suit Gundam 0080, but sometimes got a little too common and didn’t quite feel right when Machine Guns were dealing 7000 damage on an exceptionally lucky roll.

For the current iteration of Finishing Blow, now simply titled Finisher.  It’s still open to all weapons as long as you’re lucky enough to get 10 unblocked Hits.  Or, it’s an automatic chance anytime your weapons has Finisher+X. 

What’s more, Hot Blooded (and a few other traits which have been absorbed into the fold) now give Finisher+1 on all weapons.  So Ryoma in Getter 1, is dealing Finishing blows with a Getter Gatling or Getter Machine guns. 

The Finisher+X system remains the same, giving bonus dice to roll.  The major difference now, being that if you wind up with more than 10 Finisher dice, the remaining are automatic successes.  So if you had 13 Finisher dice, there are 10 to roll and 3 that are automatic (+3000 DMG). 

Speaking of Finisher Dice, we moved these over for the Defender to roll.  One is for consistency, that way they are rolling Armor Saves and Finisher Saves so there’s less back and forth.  At one point, we were considering putting Armor Saves and Finisher on the same dice roll, but we opted against that. 

Lastly, the formula for Finisher now includes the Current Round.  This is a mechanic we like a lot and has shown up in a few other places.  And it represents how battles become more pitched and deadly as time wears on.  With this, as Round 5 comes on for your Super Robot Showdown and you bring out your strongest weapon, the odds of getting lots of unblocked hits and a massive Finishing Blow increases (and an even better chance of cracking 10k damage, piercing the heavens and scoring +100VP). 

More importantly, the Round mechanic actually provides an incentive to wait a little before going all out on effects like Valor or limited use abilities / events.  Because in later Rounds you have better odds of striking that ultimate blow.  Hopefully, this will further adjust playstyles to avoid alpha strikes.

MechaStellar Monthly Roster Update – JUL2025 – Gundam SEED Stargazer

Hello everyone, for this month’s MechaStellar update we have another batch of SEED units to debut. This time we have suits from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Stargazer including the eponymous Stargazer, the fan favorite Strike Noir as well as the overtuned Blu Duel and Verde Buster who unfortunately were the first on-screen phase shift Gundams to be destroyed by ordinary grunts. Speaking of, we also have the Kerberos Bucue to add as well.

In addition to Stargazer we have also added in the Providence, another Funnel DRAGOON using Mobile Suit as well as his arch Nemesis Mwu La Flaga piloting the Perfect Strike. The Providence has proven to be a very powerful unit on the tabletop in testing, and we really enjoy the Challenge focused traits to have him face down with either Mwu or Kira. The Perfect Strike comes in at 900 points to give you flexibility to add in more pilot upgrades on either Mwu, or perhaps Kira and Athrun if you’re running them as a team.

Last but not least, a lot of the AU units have received some preliminary updates in preparation for next month’s update. The goal is to eventually have all units have their Sensors and Movement values in multiples of 4, we’ll talk more about this in a follow-up Design Goals post. We’re targeting to complete this in next month’s update.

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy the treasure trove of SEED units we’ve put out the last couple months. If you’d like to request a specific SEED variant please let us know in the comments below.

MechaStellar Battle Report Defend the City Game 2 featuring Gundam & Pacific Rim

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.

The 2nd game that day we were able to accommodate another player who was joyfully able to play as Epyon as well as a Kaiju from Pacific Rim.  Wing and Heavy Arms returned as Attackers while Gipsy, Big Zam, Gundam and Guncannon returned as Defenders along with Deathscythe.  You’ll find the Battle Report below the break.

Continue reading “MechaStellar Battle Report Defend the City Game 2 featuring Gundam & Pacific Rim” →

MechaStellar Battle Report Defend the City Game 1 featuring Gundam & Pacific Rim

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.

Continue reading “MechaStellar Battle Report Defend the City Game 1 featuring Gundam & Pacific Rim” →

MechaStellar Battle Report – GP03 Dendrobium vs The Delaz Fleet

GP03 Dendrobium vs The Delaz Fleet

Here’s a short battle report on using GP03 by itself against a portion of the Delaz fleet. This Gundam tabletop tactics game involved GP03 Dendrobium, three Musai class cruisers, 9 Zaku IIs, and 3 Rick Dom IIs.

One of our players mentioned having issues running GP03 against large numbers of units so we opted to use the Zaku II over the F2 since they’re a cheaper unit and we wanted to try and overwhelm GP03.

The models used are the Gundam 1/400 collection for the Zaku II and Rick Dom II, the 1/1200 Gunpla kit for two Musai and the MSiA Peer Gynt for the larger more detailed cruiser and GP03 Dendrobium. You can read more about miniatures for Gundam and Stellar Warships in these posts.

Below the break will be a more photos and a battle report that tracks Momentum and damage to GP03 Dendrobium as well as a post mortem discussing the Gundam tactics and misplays.

Continue reading “MechaStellar Battle Report – GP03 Dendrobium vs The Delaz Fleet” →

MechaStellar Roster Update – Mazinger Z

Mazinger Z Art Album Cover

Mazinger Z is a classic series from the 70s with both a manga and several TV shows and OVA adaptations. Along with Getter Robo and Tetsujin-28 it is one of the original super robot series, with Mazinger being the first piloted super robot, while Tetsujin-28 who appeared earlier was controlled remotely.

Continue reading “MechaStellar Roster Update – Mazinger Z” →

MechaStellar – Mazinger Z Miniatures

Go Nagai Figure Collection Great Mazinger Doublas M2 Garada K7

2023 Update: Added photos for the Go Nagai figure collection to the very end.

On this page we’re going to discuss the different miniatures available for Mazinger Z to be used with the MechaStellar Wargame Rules. This post is to show you the various kinds of small scale and large figures available to play MechaStellar.

When playing MechaStellar 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.

Mazinger Z Garada K7 Doublas M2 Great Mazinger Mazinkaiser Shin Mazinger God Scrander
Mazinger Z Garada K7 Doublas M2 Great Mazinger Mazinkaiser Shin Mazinger God Scrander

Mazinger Z is a classic series from the 70s with both a manga and several TV shows and OVA adaptations. Along with Getter Robo and Tetsujin-28 it is one of the original super robot series, with Mazinger being the first piloted super robot, while Tetsujin-28 who appeared earlier was controlled remotely.

If you you would like to get into the Mazinger series check out this post.

Shin Mazinger God Scrander
Mazinkaiser
Doublas M2 Mazinger Z

Mazinger as a series is created by Go Nagai and popularized with its first animated appearance produced by Toei animation. The of Mazinger has gone through many incarnations and reboots both in manga and anime form including Mazinkaiser, Shin Mazigner Z (Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact) and of course it forms the holy trinity of Super Robot Wars games with Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, and Gundam who have appeared in nearly every single entry.

Below the break we’ll talk about the various type of Mazinger miniatures and figures out there you can use for mecha minis in a Mechastellar tabletop Super Robot Wars game.

Continue reading “MechaStellar – Mazinger Z Miniatures” →