MechaTop Campaign Book

 After an initial review of the rules PDF last year (I have the hard copy now), it's time to start indulging myself in earnest into the game.

And the first thing of DLC add-ons, and part of my intitial Kickstarter, to review, is the PDF version of the Campaign Book.

And that is a hefty 102 page file, featuring a gorgeous rendition of the Shinjaku on the cover.

The book is divided into three sections: New Pilot Classes, the Campaign Definition, and the actual MechaTop Campaign, which obviously takes the largest part of the book.

The first section, the New Pilot Classes, features 9 classes.  These are Ace of Combat, Builder, Cyborg, Fanatic, Leader, Mercenary, Nuclear Progeny, Son of War and Veteran.  These offer enough variation to recreate every character from your universe of choice, and make teams for example from the Gundam franchise actually behave as their pilots would have.

They then proceed with all the specific new skills for the pilot classes, and whose skills can usually be bought in any preferred order for the XP costs indicated for a skill.  All classes have subskills in their skill trees, so you can go for a total rookie with perhaps one skill, or a single suit with a pilot skilled out to the max.  Every class of course also has one class specific ability to differentiate them even more from each other, and these aren`t obtainable by the other classes.

The Campaign Definition is just that, a series of reasons and motivations why it would be fun to play the actual campaign system.  It also takes a look at how campaigns can evolve, and how to keep balance more or less sustained during a campaign.  A chart is included to define the victory of the campaign, and how to be able to obtain it, as well as the campaign finale scenario which includes all players of all factions.

There are also rules for a survival style campaign, where your players face off using a fixed pool of models, until these dry up and you get knocked out of the campaign.

And then we move on to the biggest part of the book, the actual MechaTop Campaign.  This is a huge campaign in which the player takes the frontrow seat in the timeline, reliving all the battles and events in the history of the setting.  The campaign book is planned to be a trilogy, and this included the first 24 stories.

All battles are "historical scenario's" and it is suggested to try and use, or proxy, as much as possible the actual models for the games.  It takes some weird angles (for the better), the very first scenario being the actual RX-78-2 at Yokohama being taken into use, meaning you pilot a squad of F14's to stop the giant Mecha.  The whole campaign is laid out as one big story (hence the size of this portion) with pictures, artwork and more.  Progressively, you work yourself through the story, taking control of different mecha and "AI" pilots joining you.

While starting out in a measly jetplane, soon you are commanding "generic" units like Dom's or Zaku's, to Kampfer's and beyond.  It certainly looks like a fun campaign, all I have to do with the 1/400 collection I have is print up some generic units, prepare the solo game mode cards, and then I`ll definitly be giving this a go!

A nicely made book, this especially focusses on what seems a great campaign to get the hang of all sorts of styles and skills with.  Be sure to check in once I actually get playing and of course those reports will appear on the site here as well!