"Robotech RPG Tactics... just WOW!" Topic

I got my first wave today and I have to say… I'm glad I didn't go above Battle Cry! Holy COW I have a lot of stuff to assemble. Honestly, the boxed set is a lot of stuff.

The box is 6" tall… yeah, 6" TALL and it's stuffed with stuff. There are a ton of sprues with hoards of bits. I think I'll struggle to even decide with to kit my valks with. I think I'll just go simple and stick with the tried and true GU/12 missile set-up. Then I might go whole hog on a couple of elite types and arm them to the teeth.

The book in the kit is amazing! It's light years beyond the standard Palladium paper, two column, Times New Roman standard. It's glossy, tons of pictures and diagrams, and a decent source book for Macross in its own right. The painting guide in the back is crammed with lots of pictures showing all of the Macross mecha in different paint schemes and weapons configerations.

And decals.. man those things are tiny! I can see the real modeling types going to town on these figures. Which is stunning considering their scale. It's 6mm for crying out loud!!

It's an amazing and overwhelming boxed set. I think it will be a while before I can sort through it all and figure out where to even start with the thing. But man, it's going to be a fun ride. I have some pictures that I'll toss out later.

Just for discussion sake, how are you going to start this new project? I'm looking at the starter scenarios on page 73 and use those scenarios to organize my building and painting efforts. I imagine after I plow through them that I'll have enough mecha to start with the standard scenarios. Terrain will be interesting! Who has some good 6mm terrain out there? I guess I'll go some rural/destroyed stuff first (say post Space War I/1st Robotech War) then I might assemble a city for the Zents to trash.

Any ideas on space combat? I haven't gone through the rules yet so I don't know if they go that far. I might keep my bases "black" just so I can do some space fights if RPG tactics covers it. The campaign track on page 91 seems to imply that there is space combat in the game. But the only play examples I've seen are ground combat.

Anyway, enough gushing about this. Again, just WOW!!!

I backed at Reckless…four boxes worth of tiny scale models…

Still waiting on mine. I have a Destroid Monster in my pledge, so no doubt that is on the slow boat from China…

Damon.

@ Garand: I don't know if you saw the backer e-mails but the Destroid Monster will ship in wave two, separate from the wave one stuff. Sometime early-mid next year if I remember correctly.

I also backed at reckless plus some. Knowing my luck mine will come from the last batch off loaded…:/

Aside from the many parts. How are the rules? Anything new? Innovative? Compared to say, Battletech, CAV, or Heavy Gear.
Thanks

"Who has some good 6mm terrain out there?"

I'm planning on giving these guys a try:
link

Thanks Moonbeast. No I didn't see it because frankly the backer emails were becoming a bit tedious… :)

Damon.

@Moonbeast-are they printed and precolored?

It's a ton of stuff…

link

And that's just the basic set!

That Facebook link isn't working. Sorry.

Here are pics of a Battlecry
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The Tactics FB Page is here
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It look's superb but it's not the toys for me.

There are just way tooooo many bits to stick together I'm afraid.

I'd be dead by the time I assembled and painted and decalled a force to play with :(

John T

@ Tgunner: I think they are just laser cut mdf, you need to detail/paint them yourself. I don't own any yet, but I really like the style of the buildings and think you could get great results with them for a minimal amount of work.

"No I didn't see it because frankly the backer emails were becoming a bit tedious… :)"

I completely understand, the relentless onslaught of kickstarter emails that assaults my inbox each week is becoming quite annoying.:)

Why take the emails? I just visit the thing from time to time to find up-dates. I thought the whole six months thing was pie in the sky anyway. Turns out that my estimate was a lot closer… I assumed it would be summer of 2014 before they appeared, so I wasn't upset at all. Besides, it's the same with many Kickstarters. The people running it are pretty new at what they are doing so there's quite the learning curve there plus you have to deal with Mr. Murphy and any trouble he has brewing.

But I've been lucky, every Kickstarter I've been on has produced and I've been pleased with the product

Thanks for the info Moonbeast. That stuff looks great!

One thing I wish the book had though was a list of what the bits for the Valk were, as in the weapons? Am I missing something somewhere that shows that? The assembly instructions shows the bits, but I haven't seen anything that says what they are- reflex missiles? Medium range missiles? Short range missiles? Granted, I can do whatever I want, but I want my weapons layout to be fairly accurate to the show.

Assembly instructions appear to have been based on an earlier version of the parts and then when updates were made to the molds and such the updated drawings did not make it to PB or something and so what is in the box is out of date. I have spoken with them and they are working to update the assembly pics and putting them up online.

Assembly instructions appear to have been based on an earlier version of the parts and then when updates were made to the molds and such the updated drawings did not make it to PB or something and so what is in the box is out of date. I have spoken with them and they are working to update the assembly pics and putting them up online.

Good. Otherwise I'm going to be doing a bare-bones build and adding the external weapons loads later.

It's just a shame that Palladium couldn't get Bandai to do the models in pre-colored plastic like their bigger Valks. That would have been too cool for words (and probably too many parts for sanity, but a man can dream, right?)

@ moonbeast.

link

@Todd636
I played my first game last Saturday and have another this Saturday.

It's totally different than Battletech or Heavy Gear.

You get command points at the beginning of the turn based on your mecha and leadership. You can use these command points throughout your turn to steal activations, boost movement, shoot extra weapons, dodge shots, etc. Basically tactical flavor, so units can do more anime style heroics.

Each squadron activates at a time, alternating activation between you and your opponent. There's no unit coherency on squadrons. Each mecha has stats: speed (in inches), Gunnery, Piloting, armor/defense. You can move up to your speed. And then after that you can make attacks. If you are in range, it's a shooting; if in base to base, it's close assault. Shooting is simple, roll a d6, add gunnery, to match or beat your target's armor/defense. If a hit, they can spend a command point to dodge; they then roll a d6 and add their Piloting to match/beat your gunnery roll. If the damage still gets through you mark it off on your mecha's stat card. Most units will be killed in one hit like Zentraedi pods but destroids can take a few hits. That's like the rules in a nutshell. The basic rules are really really easy and fast play. Then there's a few pages of 'special rules' that add a lot of flavor. Firing missiles, for instance. A Valkyrie can fire Volley 4 which means it fires 4 missiles. If all 4 target the same enemy it becomes Inescapable and they can't dodge (Macross Missile Massacre!). Or you can split and target up to # of enemies in your Volley within a few inches of each other, including out of LOS. But then antimissile defenses can shoot down your missiles etc.

Valkyries can transform at the beginning of the activation and there's distinct advantages to all three modes. For instance the Fighter mode can move very fast and is very hard to hit. Guardian mode is fast and maneouverable and has the best piloting skill, Battloid mode is slower but is a stable weapons platform so has really good gunnery and can Rapid Fire it's GU-11. So while units only have 4 stats, a Valkyrie plays completely and totally tactically differently than a Zentraedi pod.

It's really quite fun and takes only a few turns to get 99% of the rules memorized. It's much faster play than any other robot-based game on the market. I am enjoying it so far but we have only been playing the intro scenarios. I have not played a full points normal sized game yet.

Game looks great I cant wait to get enough models together to play. I can see the rules handling large battles fairly easy. I was very please with the box set too.

I got my stuff last week (Showdown level) and had a whirlwind weekend of assembling and painting. The assembly isn't too bad, once you actually build a sprue. It's the figuring out how pieces like arms and legs fit together and assembly to the model that is the pain point.

My suggestion is to build one unit type at a time, so you retain the lessons from the first sprue and make the rest easier to build.

We're running a huge 10 player game at GASPcon [Pittsburgh, PA] next weekend (Sunday the 16th). We'll have over 75 painted models on the board fighting in the streets of Macross.

For terrain, I'm using a mix of the paper city set from Dropzone Commander, and some old 40k Epic buildings. The DZ stuff is 10mm, but close enough for RRT. The Epic is 6mm, so I'll use them as outlying buildings mainly.

gaspgamer.com for info on the convention (GASPcon 15)

Some Painted Minis -- Not mine

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Someones Minis Reviews as he assembles the Tactics Figs.

My suggestion is to build one unit type at a time, so you retain the lessons from the first sprue and make the rest easier to build.

Totally agree with this!

I started out by building the Zent command sprues (Recon Regult, Marauder/Glaug, and recovery Quel-Gulnau). Bad mistake.

The Quel-Gulnau recovery pods are the simplest build for the Zents, and KS backers get 2 of them (they share a sprue with the recon Regult).

After the recovery pods, jump in on the plain Locusts (erm, Regults). Battle Cry level supporters have 24 of those to build along with 4 artillery Regults. This is a good thing, though, since the basic Regult Attack Squadron is 1 Glaug and 9 Regults. So a Battle Cry KS set will actually give you One Regult Attack Squadron, one Regult Attrition Squadron (12 Regults), and one Regult Recon Squadron (Glaug, 6 Regults, recon Quel-Regult).

If you didn't buy any extra Artillery Regults, you can't field a Regult Artillery Squadron (4 light missile Gluuhag-Regults and 2 heavy missile Serauhag-Regults). The good news is that the Artillery Regults are excellent candidates for magnetizing. The particle-beam Telnesta-Regults have a completely separate weapon arm than the missile-armed Regults (magnets between weapon arm and body), and the missile pods all attach to the same arm with a round plug (magnets between missile pods and arm). You can add a pair of whatever artillery Regult to any basic squadron (particle beams, light missiles, or heavy missiles), so the flexibility from magnets is a very good thing.

The recon Regults are fiddly, and have several pieces that do NOT want to come off the sprue intact. I'm going to have to scratchbuild those later.

The Marauder/Glaugs are not too bad to build, but their small lasers are fiddly to remove from the sprue (they all broke when I was trying to cut them loose, so I'm going to scratchbuild them from some beads and plastic rod later). The antenna is another problematic piece that I need to re-do later. You will find some awkward sprue attachment points, particularly on the engines, so clip the parts as far from the part as possible and whittle carefully.

My goal is to have all the Zents built before I start on the UEDF. Only 12 more basic Regults and the 8 artillery Regults left to build.

Battle Cry level supporters get 9 basic Valks (not counting the characters) in the box plus 2 of each Destroid. The basic Valkyrie squadron is 1x VF1J and 3x VF1A, and you can add a solo VF1S wing commander mini to a squadron. So the best use of the minis in the KS box I can come up with is 1x VF1S, 2x VF1J, and 6x VF1A (two Valk squadrons and a command upgrade)

Maybe some of these pics of nicely painted minis will change the minds of those of you who are thinking of dumping Robotech Tactics just because the minis have too many parts and are too 'time consuming' to assemble. Waaahh!:

The models in this picture are NOT Robotech RPG Tactics models, they were prototype pieces that my company produced and were painted by Maz aka Winterdyne Studios. They probably shouldn't be quoted as RRT pieces as they are completely different sculpts and don't represent the quality of the plastic models for RRT.

*sigh*

I can't count. With 24 Regults, I can't make one Regult Attack Squadron, one Regult Attrition Squadron (12 Regults), and one Regult Recon Squadron (Glaug, 6 Regults, recon Quel-Regult). I'd need to add another 3 Regults to do that (and Regults are sold in packs of 6. Maybe if I buy 3 packs to make an Attrition Squadron?).

While I could do two Recon Squadrons and one Attrition Squadron, the Recon Regults are supposed to be a 1-in-144 level of rare. So having two of those on the field is a bit… 'ahistorical.' But with the packaging of one Glaug, one recovery pod, and one Recon Regult per command pack, people are going to have lots of extra Recon Regults.

Still working out how to magnetize the Artillery Regults. Once that happens, it's time to watch Macross again with a notepad for paint schemes.

Someone posted how to magnetize them and some pics on the facebook page a day or two ago

@Morpheus: Palladium FB or the Robotech Tactics International Unofficial FB? Or another one?

My only real question is how to magnetize the gun arms to the body. That's a ball-and-socket joint, sorta.

The missile pods to the gun arms is self-explanatory, and the only difficulty is getting the polarities correct across the board.

Fortunately, I also have some itty-bitty magnets so I can magnetize the Destroid Command pieces.

Sorry

Robotech Tactics International Unofficial FB

The one I've been running

Hrm… Guess I will need to take a closer look, then, because I didn't see it earlier.

Thanks!

I'll see if I can find it.

Just bumped it. It was from Oct 29th.

OK, found it. Thanks muchly!

YouTube link