It’s the 7th round of the match and my survival is at stake. My infantry are mopping up with napalm. Infantry purchased to protect tanks from enemy marksman mechs returned in the second round when that was the biggest problem I had. As my infantry dies from rockets and fire, now unprotected tanks are killed by snipers. Without a front line to protect them, my rapid-firing autocannon truck would come to the rescue and my formation would collapse before I knew it. Scattered survivors are wiped out, and if you lose a round, your allies’ hit points are deducted again for the loss, so you can narrowly avoid losing the entire match.
I’ve been behind every game and pretty beaten by the enemy player’s unit composition, but I have a plan. Buy some crawler drones, one of his cheapest units in the game, and send them out in front of the rest of your squad in the eighth round. They don’t live long enough to do any real damage, but they don’t have to. All they have to do is charge with their swift little legs and distract enemy rocket artillery. Napalm-filled rockets, I remind you. They straight to their side.
Enemy snipers try to shoot over their burning comrades, but my soldiers are much better as meat shields because the artillery is distracted by team-killing and unable to destroy my infantry. Able to do the job and protect my tanks from all high damage snipers.My tanks protect fragile damage dealers behind them.With just a few changes, suddenly my entire army works.
In another game, the enemy might be able to click the napalm cannon to tell them to stop firing, but Mechabellum is an auto-battler, so all they can do at this point is watch and moan. is. My mech and battleship shot down the laser cannon that beat them in the previous round, and the big blue beam was too busy wasting time on my little unit, so I turned the tide of the match and went straight It all started when a small, cheap drone disrupted the enemy’s plans for victory.
Minor but significant tweaks like this can have a huge impact on the game of Mechabellum, and building a great army that works well together is like tweaking a delicate warfare ecosystem. Its constant tweaking and iteration is very satisfying. Each unit gets better or worse by beating other units in a vacuum, but it’s not just about playing one-on-one or certain counters. The power of multiple units, well-combined to enhance each other’s strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses, usually defeats single-minded cheese’s attempts.
But what if, in that dramatic match I just talked about, the enemy changed positions to avoid distracting my drone? What if you move the , disrupting your winning strategy? That’s the best part of Mechabellum. you simply can’t. Units are free to move on the first turn they are purchased, but after that, Mechabellum’s defining rule is that they stack where those units were placed, fight, die, and respawn from the same starting point for the rest of the match. is to
like another little strategy game i like XCOM (opens in new tab), Mechabellum isn’t about flipping tables every time you make a bad phone call. An auto-battler with consequences, it’s all about fixing your mistakes, pushing your victories harder, and rolling with punches before your enemies can take back the better.
Being an autobatler, Mechabellum gives you plenty of time to see the moment and think about what to do next. Feeling more like total annihilation than Autochess companions, each match of Mechabellum scales from skirmishes between a handful of cheap units to giant battles between mighty titans and deadly hordes. This larger army he builds one by one, one deployment phase at a time. As with other games in this genre, all units respawn for a new combat attempt at the start of a new round.
This iterative approach is nothing new for autobatlers, but with each unit anchored to the same location where it was originally deployed, Mechabellum’s unified roster of weapons for the various unit types is well within its depth. in the proper ruleset for all of the . shiningSledgehammer tanks work well against crowds with their high-explosive shells, but struggle to take down Steel Balls, laser-armed death rollers reminiscent of Total Warhammer’s Skaven Doomwheels.. However, sifting those sledgehammers with a swarm of crawlers will cause the enemy to play Arkwright to crowd control the swarm, you Play a high damage marksman to take advantage of your focus on larger units. After that, they buy cannons, you buy flying battleships, and the battle escalates as both sides continue to aim above each other.
While other auto battlers usually choose to place their losing units elsewhere and keep fending off these losing matchups, Mechabellum is all about working with the placements you’ve already created. , the mechanism should be better. Define your battles, learn which units do the best job in which situations, and use that knowledge to get the most value out of every soldier you place. Expensive is not always better. How to play is more than just searching websites that tell you what comps you need to build for your meta. About using your brain to come up with as many good answers as possible to your opponent’s deployments, or coming up with your own powerful strategies to force your opponents to react.
These strategies can be enhanced or responded to by choosing from random cards provided between rounds, ranging from changing the stats of certain units to special cards that can be placed on single units to improve them. You can provide everything from items to call-in abilities that provide airstrikes. -Attacks like attacks on normal cooldowns, or overall buffs like increasing the number of consumables that can be consumed during each round deployment.
The set of options is random and varies from round to round, but Mechabellum keeps things fair by giving each player the exact same random set. Prediction is an important part of his Mechabellum match, as you can’t see what your opponent has placed each placement until the battle begins, predicting when, what, where and how your opponent will place your units. By guessing what you’re going to do, you can put prediction counters to exploit anything. You think they’re trying to
When things go wrong, you can make big mistakes.when it goes right, How you felt like the smartest commander in the world, luring your opponent into choosing a specific strategy you wanted them to invest in, and then agreeing, after the round, to dance to your encouraging tune Ambushes your enemies with planned responses that punish you.
For example, there’s a giant mech with two flamethrowers called the Vulcan that will happily barbecue as many crowd units as it can send.it would be stupid to buy that’s all Crawlers flock to matches, knowing their opponents can buy Vulcans and counter them hard. want They buy Vulcan.
Then, after throwing in a few rounds and really waiting for the counter to cost some, elicit a response and float a bunch of Overlord battleships into the line of flamer mechs. You can’t, so you’ll need to buy anti-air counters, but the fast-firing Mustangs and swarming Wasp interceptors just can’t keep up with the armor-enhancing upgrades you buy for your next mighty battleship. That means you’ll need a marksman sniper or melting point laser mech for the high damage needed to beat them, and slow-firing marksmen and single-target melting her points What are you having trouble coping with? A swarm of small, cheap crawler drones.
The swarm that buried the battle to start this strategy returns as not only the initial bait, but also the final closure of the trap. All specialize in blowing up before frying. Stay on top of what’s new and initiative they’re dealing with—throw in some steel balls? Buy the crawler digging upgrade? Attacking enemies with launchers? With no real reflexes or APM requirements to speak of in a turn-based autobattler, making the right choice from Mechabellum’s many options is always the difference between victory and defeat.
I have more to say about Mechabellum. By choosing a set of upgrades to incorporate into your matches, you’ll have options you can buy to fine-tune your units for different situations each round. Strategic wrinkles add more thought to the mix, such as flanking zones that allow for sneaky maneuvers and defense objectives that paralyze entire side armies when one of them is defeated (attackers can Stop pushing into your building, otherwise it will be destroyed and vulnerable).
Stuff like this, and a great practice and test mode where you can try whatever you want in a configurable sandbox, make Mechabellum a true kind of strategy game. strategic, Every decision counts and every wrong call is a chance to learn and improve. It’s an exciting spectacle, even when you’re losing solidly, usually enjoying the game’s superbly modeled combat phase.
The permanent damage dealt to win a match is the sum of the supply costs of all units remaining on the field after the round is over, so it’s not just about winning, but how many Winning makes the difference, and defeat can be avoided by grabbing and taking out enough enemies to soften the overall blow before they finally fall. I am always rooting for these little heroes. Or groaning to see a soldier blunder the right enemy in the right place. You can’t have it all your way.
Moments like that keep each battle exciting, and the iterative progression of building strategy round after round is what makes Mechabellum so appealing. It’s a fresh approach to , and although I initially went in expecting a fun Auto Battler, I found the experience to be genre-defying. Providing me with an incredibly strategic kind of her PvP game.
Mechabellum is Steam Early Access (opens in new tab) on May 11th. You may find that the initial learning curve is steep. It took him six games before he won. I’ve been playing more and more since then, but I’m always learning new tricks and tactics. If immersing yourself in a game is your kind of jam.
Mechabellum has received a number of updates and features team 2v2 battles in addition to its excellent 1v1, and a PvE Survival mode if you want to comp stomp solo or co-op. I’m addicted to PvP myself, so I think I’ll play around with this for a while.
