Robotech/Macross game at Cyphan Convention

[kalamadea]

I'm moreso hooked on the Robotech universe...not so much the show.

Very much this. I'm just a bit too young to have watched Robotech on TV, but a friend gave me a few of the Next Generation novels when I was 12 or so (far too young to read them in fact, I had to have a dictionary next to my bed for most of them). Another friend gave me a few of the RPG books since he had no clue what they were and the local library had the rest of the novels. I caught episodes here and there but it wasn't until some years later when it released on DVD that I was able to sit down and actually watch it, and by then I had read the books and comics and RPG material to the point I knew more about what was going on than was shown in the cartoon. Because of that the setting always seemed much more serious than the show made it out to be and (for me) it held up a lot better, a lot longer, and was far more in depth than the show ever could have been. Just like al those annoying friends that tell you the book was better than the movie you just watched and loved . For me, the show was more about seeing these stories that I already knew given form on screen, and battletech was initially just a way to play with robotech mechs. Robotech very literally got me reading novels for fun, got me into gaming, and through those things got me some life long friends I still hang out with 20 years later.

Macross purists, on the other hand, can kiss my arse. They spout on and on about how much better macross was and how horrible Robotech was, but I'll take that "butchered" show over aliens that steal your emotional energy, zentraedi captain Ahab hunting the great white space whale, valkyries that you pilot by playing a guitar, singer-pilots that literally fight each other in the mecha as part of a Battle of the Bands, or singing holograms that hypnotize and mind control an entire city just to convince the main character that it loves him. All of which actually happened in macross sequels. Robotech never jumped the shark anywhere near the same extent Macross did.

That said, watch Macross Plus. Despite the singing hologram, it's hands down one of the coolest mecha animes ever created. OVA quality animation, great story, fantastic characters and awesome battles. And the English dubbing is top-notch

[mpennock]

Macross purists, on the other hand, can kiss my arse. They spout on and on about how much better macross was and how horrible Robotech was, but I'll take that "butchered" show over aliens that steal your emotional energy, zentraedi captain Ahab hunting the great white space whale, valkyries that you pilot by playing a guitar, singer-pilots that literally fight each other in the mecha as part of a Battle of the Bands, or singing holograms that hypnotize and mind control an entire city just to convince the main character that it loves him. All of which actually happened in macross sequels. Robotech never jumped the shark anywhere near the same extent Macross did.

Now you're getting into Macross 7, which is just plain silly, and was considered to be a comedy by its producers. If you're talking about sequels, Macross Plus is worth watching, as is Macross Zero and Macross Frontier. You may or may not want to check out Macross II, which was produced by the same team who made the Movie back in '84 and is considered non-canon by the producers of the first series and sequels. It's not great, but its not Macross 7, either.

There really weren't a whole lot of changes made to Macross to turn it into the first segment of Robotech. Most of the 'butchering' that took place was in the second and third segments (Southern Cross and Mospeada respectively). I got into anime by watching Star Blazers, so by the time Robotech came around it was rather exciting to see an actual mecha combat show make it relatively unscathed onto US TV screens.

Maybe at some point I'll post some pictures from my old Mospeada project....

[DoctorDuckButter]

Can anyone point a finger to a page with these minis? Huge fan of the show and was supporting a person trying to get a figure line off the ground, but Palladium would budge.

Thanks

[kalamadea]

The palladium stuff is all in early development. Paulson Games was doing the test minis (which were PHENOMINAL!) in 1/285th, but when palladium announced they were going to be getting essentially bargain price freelance sculptors to do minis he removed all of his pictures so nobody could use them as examples of what to expect since he would not be doing any of the actual sculpting. Sad, both because they were gorgeous and because it was him and the guy from the Robotech Battles blog that pitched the idea so hard to Harmony Gold and Paladium. So we'll see, Palladium has announced a 2013 release, but I don't think Palladium has ever come remotely close to hitting it's own deadline on any RPG book ever, let alone a new game and minis line. Very little hard information has been released yet, its too early to know anything about the game othe rthan it's in the works.

In the meantime, most people are using the slightly larger but harder to find 1/200 scale figures. But few of those people finish and make it to an actual, usable force like this convention game did, and the 3D printed fighters and Queadluun raus are something completely unique (and AWESOME!)

[n815e]

Personlly, I am not ll that happy with Palladium's response that it would cost too much to make miniatures and there would be no market for them and then turning around to announce a miniatures game.

[Michka]

I'm late to my own party here. I leave the forum for about a day and this explodes. So one of the small disagreements Mike and I have is Macross over Robotech. I love Robotech. He loves Macross. Neither of us hates the other show. It's just a mater of taste. My biggest confession is I love the Robotech music. (No, not Minmey's singing, the theme music.)

While the translation of Southern Cross and Mospeada aren't the best, Macross comes pretty close to the mark. Besides, Southern Cross is pretty bad to start with. I mean, there's a transformable helicopter that is used in space battles. We aren't talking about a well thought out story here. The original Mospeada, on the other hand, is fantastic. I actually like the original series over New Generation.   

[Elbows]

Ordered a couple of fighter pods, and one Male Power Armour (time to be a guinea pig!).  Will be ordering more if it fits well.

This now rounds out my entire Robotech lineup, minus ONE gap.  I'd be stoked if a quality figure line was available from Palladium, particularly in 1/285th scale as it would be better for the large size of the mecha etc.  However, I don't trust Palladium or HG...as I feel they've all but suffocated the entire franchise in the US.  Shadow Chronicles was garbage, the rpg is decent but nothing has changed in 10 years (even with the new books).  Being a Robotech fan is relatively tough here in the US, .  I did just receive my custom action card decks for my game though, so I'll be able to start playtesting shortly!

[mpennock]

While the translation of Southern Cross and Mospeada aren't the best, Macross comes pretty close to the mark. Besides, Southern Cross is pretty bad to start with. I mean, there's a transformable helicopter that is used in space battles. We aren't talking about a well thought out story here. The original Mospeada, on the other hand, is fantastic. I actually like the original series over New Generation.

But you love the transformable space helicopter! 

[Anpu]

Ordered a fighter pod for starters, will have to get more and some Nosjadeul ger and Queadluun rau power armors after payday. I grew up playing the Palladium RPG and waching the original Robotech badly dubbed to swedish... I got the complete series in a fit of nostalgia and I am going through it slowly. I've also seen Macross do you remember love, but would love to see the originals as well. Well to bad the fighter pods etc aren't available in 1/100 as it seems to be easier to get the mecha in that scale.

[Elbows]

1/200 seems to be the most comprehensive line...BUT most of it is incredibly hard to get.  Here is a quick breakdown on the 1/200 scale at least.

Veritechs (all types): available in models, and gashapon figures.
Super Veritechs (all types): available in models, and gashapon figures.
Armored Veritechs: available in models, and gashapon figures.
Tomahawk Destroid: available in models and gashapon figures.
Spartan: available in models.
Defender: available in models.
Phalanx: NOT AVAILABLE.
Monster: available in models.

Tactical Pod: available in models and gashapon.
Light Artillery Pod: available in models and gashapon.
Heavy Artillery Pod: available in models and gashapon.
Command Pod: available in models and gashapon.
Recon pod: available in models.
Female power armour: available in gashapon (and 3d printed now!)
Male power armour: available ONLY in 3d printed model.
Fighter Pod: available ONLY in 3d printed model.
Zentraeid Foot soldier: NOT AVAILABLE.

Now when I say..available, this is semi-misleading.  I only mean that the products do actually exist.  Finding/affording them in another matter entirely.  I am happy to say I have all of the now available Zentraedi stuff, and I'm about to start ordering a bunch of Veritechs ( have some enroute already).  I have plenty of destroids, and I am building my own Phalanxes. 

It's not an easy task, or cheap, but assuming I dig the 3d printed models, I'll be extremely happy with the end result.  I'll post up some updated pictures later.

[Anpu]

I noticed that searching for models, the veritechs are easy to find cheap in 1/200 but destroids seem to be rarer, not to speak of the zentraedi stuff.
I've got a spartan (model), a female power armor (gashapon) 2 Veritech battloids, a jet and a gerwalk/guardian mode veritech. On it's way I have a couple of regult battle pods and a MAC II monster.
In 1/100 I have a lot of stuff enroute, including a Glaug/officers battlepod, 3 heavy missile Regult/battle pods 1 Regular battlepod, a veritech and a Phalanx, and a Tomahawk.

[SgtHulka]

I tried to get my own children addicted, renting the series from Amazon. They put up with it, but sadly they weren't as wowed as I was when I was a kid. 

I seem to remember recently noticing that it's now available on netflix.

And I think most of you have got it backwards. The angst wasn't filler for the robots, it was the other way around! Come on, we were teenagers for goodness sake. Of course we wanted teen angst. 

And yes, Minmei was a complete beeeyatch. But that was the whole point, wasn't it?

[Elbows]

Netflix just yanked it unfortunately.  Here are some pics I snapped of some updates to my work in progress...

My first batch of dice straight from Chessex.  Dice are tiered in my game, so each is color coded.


My custom action card decks arrived from Gamecrafter.  I already spotted a few changes I'll make, revamp the deck and then order some replacement cards.


A Gashapon Glaug.  It's an okay figure, lots of joints, may require some glue (leaving them "moveable" for now).  I don't paint very well, so all my models only receive a gaming paintjob.


A pair of Queadluun-Rau (female power armour).  These two are painted in a generic scheme.


I took a chance on one of my other QR's and while I'm not stoked about the colour scheme result, I'm probably too lazy to change it.  This one will be used as an ace or special character, squadron leader yada yada.


The assembled 1/200 scale(ish) Gashapon Zentraedi so far.  No UN Spacy stuff has been touched just yet.

[Elbows]

Honestly, right now, on average people pay $20 per Bandai figure...so $40 for a box of two models (basically GW pricing).  To put it in perspective, I ordered several Monsters from HLJ, new for $20 a pop.  The Monster is a big kit - 5x bigger than the other mecha.  So, if HLJ had the twin-kit boxes for $10-15....I'd buy...a ton.

The early Bandai kits were sold with single models inside (or so I hear).  The later releases had two identical models in each box, each one in a different colour plastic.

I'd actually prefer a smaller scale for gaming, but looking back, besides a smattering of 1/250 scale stuff, there isn't much of anything smaller than 1/200.  I'll admit if HLJ comes out with a reprint of the 1/200 stuff, I'd have wasted a ton of money, but a kit is a kit.

Here's hopin'.

[kalamadea]

Well, lets not get carried away here. There are certainly gamers that would love new 1/285 and 1/200 macross kits  and buy a whole helluva lot of them, but I think it's actually a drop in the bucket compared to the number of modelers worldwide that would rather build in larger scales. The wargaming market is still very fringe, and the people that are wargamers AND into macross/robotech are even smaller. And we're continually getting smaller and older with very little new blood getting into it since there's newer and shinier animes out. The people that are into it are VERY into it, but a passionate minority doesn't necessarily make for a good market. I think if done right it could be a small, viable market, but it will never be more than a very small corner of the gaming industry unless HG somehow gets it together and produces a new (and good) series, or Palladium surprises the hell out of everyone and makes/markets a fantastic game. But don't tell HLJ that, I want my new kits!