..."Only King Size can save Japan!"

"Err... I think you said wrong that monster's name."

"I'm not talking of any sorry heap of plush! I'm talking of a few scores of king sized assault mecha, you nerd!"

(Heard near Osaka temple)

Oh No! Giant Mecha Rampage!

This one came about after considering how much fun it might be to play the monsters for once. At the bottom are some short descs of the monsters I thought up, but I really only have a solid enough idea to do a build for Dragon Comet 7 and the brothers Master. The rest, or any other, similar styed monster you lot can come up with for about 350 points or so, are basically open.

This is also intended to be a premeire episode for Rika if the players still don't know her.

Blurb:

It's an all-out slugfest in downtown Tokyo! Or, at least, that's how it begins.... Versatility and the endurance to outlast multiple opponents will stand you in good stead for this one. Bring a friend or take them all on!

General Description:

This is another multi-level evtravaganza for a team of 3-5, though of course they don't know they'll be a team ahead of time. It's intended for "second tier" PCs with mecha in the 200-300 point range, generally.

First level: Hello Tokyo my old friend, I've come to trash you once again...

The initial breifing is very simple, consisting of telling the players that they're playing the roles of giant movie monsters, come to Tokyo for a friendly lil' fight. Also note that giant movie monsters almost never fight to the death, and that all they have to do to disengage and go to the next stage is return to their starting points. At least one of them should emerge dramatically from Tokyo Bay, complete with slightly raggedy brass fanfare. The first thing they should notice is that they seem to have gotten very large... the "skyscraper" models in this OVA are 24m tall with 10K, and with everything else (except the mecha) scaled to match. Monster rampage sirens will echo through the streets, and every move the players make will be heralded by booming steps as if they were actually as large as they seem. Initially, there will be panicked crowds of very tiny people evacutaing, which will have cleared out by the time the Space Monsters arrive.

The Space Monsters show up when one of the players gets down to 3/4 kills or below in any servo. (Come on, you honestly think they're going to NOT fight each other basically immediately? Puh-leeez.) There are as many of them as there are PC's, and the space monsters DO fight as a team, which means that the PCs may get their tails kicked quickly if they don't shape up and work together themselves. Assuming that they do, indeed, sort things out and start getting the upper hand again, the JSDF's Gamma Zeta One and Gamma Zeta Two will arrive and attack all of them equally, but the PCs a little more "equally" if you get my meaning. This level, as a whole is meant to be a fight that they lose - but even if they win, the space monsters will retreat themselves before destruction. At most, one of them may be held down and killed while the others bug out. The only idiots who'll fight to their death are the JSDF... hey, it's traditional!

Powerups on Level One are as follows:

  • Double V-Max: three of them, in the form of the reactors of a nuclear power plant on the north edge of the city. Chowing down on one will produce a play of blue lightning over the affected mecha, and its coloration will turn darker for the duration of the effect. There are two JSDF maser half-track trucks and some blowtorch tanks defending the powerplant.
  • Repair: one of these is stashed on an especially large building near the center of town. Any unit that climbs to the top and stays there for a full turn will have half their damge repaired, the rest on the subsequent turn, after which it will not work for them again. the powerup respawns as long as there are units that have not used it, but is destroyed iof the building is. The building is 30m tall, has 50K, 10SP, and DC 8.
  • Rearm Weapons: the main JSDF base on the southwest edge of town has five hangers, two of which are used for the Gamma Zeta units and the other three of which will act as this powerup if someone crashes through them. The base is defended by five maser tanks, and the GZ units will hurry back to defend it if launched, or launch early if it is attacked before they show up.

Level Two: Star Search

The "briefing" for this level is more of a cut scene, starring a clean-cut young astronomer and a reasonably cute lady reporter who watch a televised message from the Nau'tii aliens bragging about how their society is a perfect utopia and that theyt are going to conquer and exterminate all life on Earth. They also claim that they are unstoppable; either that even Earth's mightiest mecha cannot stop their monster army (if the PCs lost the first battle, as intended) or that they are even now making their monsters more powerful, so that not even Earth's mightiest mecha will be able to stop them a second time. The astronomer then exposits about how the aliens and thier monsters must have been the swarm of maneuvering meteors that landed near Mount Snuh a few nights ago, and the reporter suggests they investigate before telling anyone in authority.

The actual level is set in lightly forested foothils near Mount Snuh, the trees being about 2m high on the monsters and mecha, like a shaggy lawn to a human. Drill Master and Cut Master and enough other monsters to have one less than the PCs will show up in Space Titanium Cyber-armor, and the 'masters will combine into God Drillcutter as soon as both of them have taken damage. They combine top to bottom, DM forming the chest and arms and CM froming the waist and legs.

Both sides should be completely repaired for this battle, and half of the space monsters will fight to the death, while God Drilcutter and any remaining monster flee towards Mount Snuh when the JSDF maser trucks arrive. This happens either when a player is getting close to destruction or when they are about to do in the alloted number of space monsters. The JSDF will only fire at the monsters. The space monsters will head straight for Mount Snuh.

Powerups in this level: None. There is an abandoned mine shaft at the base of one of the hills, which will make the entire hill explode in a 15K BR 10 fireball if something is shot down it, however, and there are signs warning of explosives around the entrance to the mine shaft. The shaft is too small for any mecha unit to enter.

Level three: My power is beyond your comprehension! Or, not.

The cut scene for this level features the astronomer and reporter talking to a small, bespectacled, and fidgety JSDF officer, who thanks them for the information that led them to the monster battle, but they've searched all over the area and can't find any trace of the Nau'tii or their monster army. He then escorts them out the door, and Astronomer Guy remarks to Reporter Girl that he doesn't think the general believed that they'd found a secret cave on Mt. Snuh. Reporter Lass starts to reply, wavers for a moment, then is replaced by Rika! She asks him sarcastically what his fist clue was, then the rest of the animation freezes (having been messed up by being hacked) and she turns to face the screen. She tells each player to get going, already, using thier screen name.

Players will have had half of any damage they had at the end of Level Two repaired at the beginning of this level, as will the monsters they fought in Level Two. Megaa, of course, will be freash as a daisy. The battleground is a gentle depression in the slope of the mountain, with the snuh cap starting a little way upslope and the steep, but climbable, descent to the foothils over a rim on the other side of the crater, which is in fact what formed when one of the blazing-hot space monsters fell from the sky. The floor is smooth enough that wheeled units or humanoids that brought a mecha skateboard along can play around as if it were a giant half-pipe. To the left and right of the crater are ridges, the left cutting off into a cliff a few hundred meters below the crater with rubble at the foot and the right continuiing unbroken to the base of the mountain.

The final monster battle takes place here, and all of them will fight to destruction. At some point, either Megaa's cybernetic control helmet will be damaged or he'll be fatally wounded, at which point he'll quit flying around, slam into the left ridge about level with the crater, and break the end of it off, sliding down and over the cliff to be buried amonst the rubble. Without thier warlord the space monsters will attack each other even over the PCs, while the voice of the Nau'tii leader will come over the comm channels complaining that their base is now exposed thanks to Megaa, and that they can't even controll the space monsters to stop the earth mecha from destroying it without him. This is being in the nature of a Subtle Hint to the players that maybe they should look what's in dat big hole over dere - if they still don't get it, have a sign reading "This way to the aliens" appear with an arrow pointing down the hole and signed with a happy SD Rika head.

The PCs should at this point enter the tunnel, while the monsters are busy fighting themselves. (Even CM & DM will decombine and turn on each other if God Drillcutter is the only one left) In it, they'll find a bunch of aliens (you can tell they aren't humans because they're all wearing silver space suits and sunglasses) running around on gantries where the monsters were fitted with their cyber-armors, a glowing main dome with some smaller, differently colored glowing subdomes, and off to one side a building where a pair of humans that are supposed to be Astromomer Guy, Reporter Girl, and the skeptical JSDF officer are escaping in the confusion. Given player tendencies, mass destruction should ensue. If not, then it'll get trashed anyway when the last space monster, down to about 1/4 kills, comes looking to fight some more. Even if the players are heavily damaged, he should be an easy kill at this point.

The final cut scene just barely begins to play when again, Rika stops it. She assures the players that it was really lame anyway, and then comments that "that looked like fun!" and asks if she can join them next time. She'l announce any rank changes herself regardless of what they say, but if someone is really put out by the cut scene not being shown she'll run it anyway after leaving. The players should egt the idea that she's some human uberhacker if they have any idea at all what she is beyond a disruption. (An example of leading them this way w/o having her lie might be answering questions like this: "Who are you?" "I'm Rika. I'm new around here." "/Where/ are you?" Oh, everywhere, really. You know, the 'net.")

Powerups on this level: Anyone curious enough about what snuh is to go up to it should be encouraged to look more closely; anyone who feels the snuh will regenerate 10% of their total kills/system cost per turn as long as they don't do anything else. On the other side of the right hand ridge (the unbroken one) are several rearm weapons powerups.

Opponents:

JSDF:

  • Gamma Zeta One and Two - these are 10MA MV -3 flying nits, each with 18 kills, SP 8 and DC 8, IA 5 portfolio 3 (Mecha Piloting, Reflex, and Gunnery), a quality 5 Reflector system, and Many 4k BR 1 missiles, which can be fired singly or in flights of up to three.
  • maser half-track trucks - these are 4MA MV -6 ground units, each having 10K, SP 6 and DC 4, and an 8K beam weapon with a warm up time of 2.
  • blowtorch tanks - These are the real popcorn of the JSDF, each having 5K, effectivly no armor, and a 2K projo weaon for a main gun. Doin't worry about how many shots it has, they're not likely to get a first shot let alone any more. Their purpose is to turn all red and runny when one of the monsters/mecha fires at them, or even looks at them funny if the effects crew is feeling frisky. Excample: "You fire your wide angle: hex energy beam at a column of the tanks, which melt into puddles of goo all along the path of the beam. In fact, the tanks in hexes to either side of the beem seem to be getting a little soft around the edges. Over on your right, the three tanks that seemed to be trying a flanking maneuver are melting too, for no readily apparent reason."

Space Monsters:

  • Dragon Comet 7 - a very fast, vaguely bird-shaped fireball. It can project fire blasts and makes slicing attacks with its firey wings.
  • Jukii - a sea monster, rather like a traditional oriental dragon in layout. He can crush opponents in his coils and spit a deluge of frothy pink seawater from his native world or giant, black sea-stones.
  • Plongtor - a heavily armored spiky pillbug that can curl up and roll and shoots silk ala caterpillar Mothra.
  • Guuber - a vaguely peanut shaped monster with three legs and a single, tentacular arm on the top of its head. Fires eye beams and swings an EMW in its one hand.
  • Drill-Master - humanoid with drill-hands and knees. Must survive to the last level.
  • Cut-Master - humanoid with saw blades on its chest and knees. Must survive to the last level.
  • God Drillcutter - combined form of Drill-Master and Cut-Master - has double drill hands and saw blades on upper and lower legs.
  • Warlord of Monsters Megaa - lizardish humanoid with a skull-like head and lots of bony plates and spikes, fitted with a cyborg controller helmet by the Nau'tii aliens.
  • Space Titanium Cyber-armor - basically Command Armor with a big beam gun and a missile rack, plus a projo turret or arm mount. More of a battle frame than real armor, it's just enough to hold the weapons and enough verniers to keep the B mod down to 2 or so. DM & CM have versions that transform as they combine, mounting both missile racks on the shoulders, both beam guns on the arms, and both projo turrets on the hips.

All space monsters can fly, but only DC7 and Megaa can do it while fighting.

Nau'tii aliens - the reason for all the the trouble, the Nau'tii aliens want to conquer Earth and wipe out all the native life forms, apparently because they're bored with their perfect civilisation, though they never really say. Thier secret mountain base isn't much of a defense against big, determined oppponents.

OVA created by CrystalDrogn