A sci-fi strategy boardgame of alien invasion and battles between giant mecha and monsters

In the last month I have had a big change in the combat mechanic for my game, Kaiju Conquest. For the last 3.5 years the mechanic was the same. Any units from opposing sides in the zone must battle for control of the zone. I had a Battle Board designed so the units could be placed across from each other and it was easier for the players to designate which unit was attacking an opposing unit. In the last 3.5 years there were three version of the Battle Board as seen below.

BattleBoard Version 1

BattleBoard Version 2

BattleBoard Version 3 

The mechanic played out for the most part, and although it was thematic with sea attacking sea, land attacking land, air attacking air, etc, but it bogged down game play, especially if there were several zones to battle over.

It was about a month after I had sent the latest version of my game to the six playtesters and their groups, that I had an epiphany about how I can quicken the combat phase. However, I would have to sacrifice the theme a bit. It was worth the risk. I just wish I had thought of it sooner.

The game has been played with the new system and it does work better with less time spent who is attacking whom.  There is also no longer a Battle Board to use. There will be a video coming soon on all the phases in the game, but I will say that the mechanic involves both sides rolling all their attack dice at the same time, the players take out the misses, use Command Points for re-rolls and then total the number of hits they made, The opposing player then gets to decide which of his or her units are eliminated.

There had to be some changes in the cards for this new mechanic to work better. I had to reduce the number of abilities of each mecha and kaiju to just one each for the healthy and damaged sides. I also had to modify their statistics, such as Attack value, Defense value and Hit points to accommodate the new system. Then I had to make a modification to the Resource cards for the mecha and kaiju as to healing and repairing other mecha, kaiju and bases.

The latest cards ready to be cut and pasted together.

I think the game will flow a little smoother now, but time will tell, and I hope my playtesters will tell also the good and the bad. Now for some cutting and pasting while I listen to some inspirational soundtracks.