The Book!

This is the full spread color picture that is the front and back cover, it's fantastic!

So I figured I’d review the rule book.  I haven’t got much modeling done since I finished all the Zentraedi Regult but I work 12 hour shifts over the next 3 days and should be able to get a ton done.  I anticipate being finished with assembly by the end of this week.  I’ll be doing a review of each model as I go, a little more in depth than I did with the Regults.

So the book is overall very good quality.  It’s thinner than most rule books weighing in at roughly 112 pages.  Since the game is relatively simple that’s to be expected.  It’s got a glossy full color cardboard spine and the pages are a slick full color glossy as well.  The art is pretty good and there’s tons of it.  There’s only a handful ‘fluff’ pieces, mostly mecha destroying each other (seems to be focused on RDF mecha destroying Zentraedi mecha!).  Plenty of art pieces for each unit in the game found throughout the book though.

That'll learn ya!

A quick shot of the table of contents:

-History of the Macross Saga: This section is only 3 pages.  It includes a quick summary of the macros saga, a timeline and a small short story in a sidebar.

- The Rules: This section goes from page 7 to page 29 with sections for all of the basic rules and special abilities explanations for units characters and weapons.  Some good diagrams to explain how certain rules look visually and overall seems fairly well written and easy to understand.

-The UEDF, United Earth Defense Force: These sections are by far the biggest.  This section alone stretches from page 31 to page 53.  There’s a couple of pages of background with sidebar fluff spread throughout (this is true for the entire book).  Pages 34 to 49 covers all of the UEDF mecha released for this supplement.  Each entry has a short description a full color picture or two and the game stats.  From page 51 to 53 are special heroic characters.  This includes all the iconic characters plus a few more recognizable from the series.  Each one includes a brief description, points cost, available mechs for that specific character and special abilities as well as a full color head shot of the character being described.  The UEDF includes Roy Fokker, Rick Hunter, Ben Dixon, Max Sterling (Miriya after she joins the UEDF), Dietrich, Freeman Davidoff, Kain Weller, Magnus and Miryia Sterling.

- The Zentraedi Armada:  This section stretches from pg 54 to pg 69 and is essentially laid out like the UEDF section.  It includes Azonia, Breetai, Khyron, Miriya Parina (Miriya before she joins the UEDF), Grell, Maloquinn, Pirion-Galarr, Polus-Mjor, Sulreen-Tehr

-The Malcontents:  This section is only 2 pages long and basically only includes a short description of what the Malcontents are.

-Fighting a Battle: This section starts on pg 72 and ends on pg 83.  It includes rules for how to set up a  game – points costs, building armies,  scenarios and table setup as well as special rules for scenarios.

-Campaigns: This section goes from pg 84 to pg 91 and covers rules and guedlines for setting up multiple types of campaigns including narrative campaigns, tree-style campaigns and map based campaigns.  It also includes special rules for units gaining experience throughout a campaign which I thought was a nice touch.

-Role-playing game applications: Palladium has produced the Robotech line of RPG’s for decades.  I remember playing them when I was still in high school and that was a long time ago!  This section includes some guidelines on how to mix Robotech RPG Tactics into your RPG campaigns and is a nice touch for those who play both.

-Painting Guide: this section is one of my favorites.  I believe it was included either as part of an unlock in the KS campaign or after being suggested by players online.  It includes color schemes for characters and units of the official series as well as some variations of schemes for help players come up with their own schemes.  For those sticklers out there it also includes the paint codes for matching them up with the guide itself which helps hobbyists who use multiple paint manufacturers.

-Index: Index seems to be pretty good.  The books not all that big and it’s easy to read and get through so I can’t imagine using this all that often but it’s there in case you need it.

Overall I’d give this book a 9 out of 10!  It’s laid out really well, made of fantastic materials and seems to include everything needed to play the game without having to fill too many gaps.  I can’t give it a 10 out of 10 because it could have included a lot more background information but I assume this is minimal to save on costs and because there might be an assumption that most of the people purchasing it will be familiar with the background.

Later on I’ll give a better breakdown of the rules and the contents of each section as best I can but I thought it might be useful to give a Valkyrie eye’s view of the book in case anyone was interested.