Sadly doesnt look like theyre too concermed about scale accuracy as theres an out of scale.... Albion? whatever the warship is. shown on the website. No inducation it will provide the combined arms wargame experience ive been hoping for but gotta start spmewhere i suppose. Launch it as a skirmish game, if it picks up then invest into making squad boxes of mass produced mobile suits and tank platoons, etc.
Looking forward to this. Recently started in the gunpla hobby after 40 years in the tabletop gaming world. first kit nearly done is the standard HG RX-78-2 - about to weather it, but decided to fix it to a 3mm thick 90mm oval base for display and superglue it into a dynamic pose. Had considered using Gamma Wolves to play some games with other kits, but will probably look at this upcoming ruleset to use with the kits as opposed the minis - though I'll probably be getting these just to paint up and display.
I hope it accurately reflects the anime that I remember as a kid with one round of combat and then three rounds of solo contemplation about the meaning of life! I kid... partially.
I don't mind if it's unpainted/unassembled but I do hope each model is done in multiple colors of plastic at least like some of the model kits so that even unpainted it looks good. I realize that may mean that all the red or blue parts of multiple models may be on a single mixed sprue but I'm ok with that for a boxed game.
JonathanPeace wrote: Looking forward to this. Recently started in the gunpla hobby after 40 years in the tabletop gaming world. first kit nearly done is the standard HG RX-78-2 - about to weather it, but decided to fix it to a 3mm thick 90mm oval base for display and superglue it into a dynamic pose. Had considered using Gamma Wolves to play some games with other kits, but will probably look at this upcoming ruleset to use with the kits as opposed the minis - though I'll probably be getting these just to paint up and display.
Either way, I'm really enjoying the gunpla hobby.
Holy guacamole!
What a time to start getting into Gundam.
Especially since Santa brought me a RX-78-2, a Gouf and a big bag of Dspaie tools
I know the Bandai IP churn machine is at work here, but a Gundam Minis game is far from yet another Bandai Card Game.
I'll definitely buy in for the base set and some of the frames I love, beyond that we'll see how the game plays and how a community builds as a result.
warboss wrote: I hope it accurately reflects the anime that I remember as a kid with one round of combat and then three rounds of solo contemplation about the meaning of life! I kid... partially.
I don't mind if it's unpainted/unassembled but I do hope each model is done in multiple colors of plastic at least like some of the model kits so that even unpainted it looks good. I realize that may mean that all the red or blue parts of multiple models may be on a single mixed sprue but I'm ok with that for a boxed game.
I think you'll be disappointed. From the looks of it, the parts for each mini will all be on a single sprue (!! wow!) which will prevent them from doing the color-coded plastic like they do for the larger kits.
I remember the Robotech Tactics debacle, where the mechs ended up being drafted into various BattleTech lances because the Robotech game died.
Bandai and Palladium Books are not even remotely comparable as businesses. One is a multi-billion dollar international multimedia business empire, the other one is a mickey mouse organization that exists to appease the ego of a charlatan who is "big in japan" and thinks hes made it because he publishes a game that most people have never heard of.
Ill let you figure out which is which.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
rybackstun wrote: I know the Bandai IP churn machine is at work here, but a Gundam Minis game is far from yet another Bandai Card Game.
I'll definitely buy in for the base set and some of the frames I love, beyond that we'll see how the game plays and how a community builds as a result.
tbh it might just be worth buying for the minis, which you will be able to use with other games (either your own homebrew or just use it as proxies for battletech, etc.). For years, one of the biggest problems with playing gundam wargames is that the availability of minis to play it with was non-existent. 1/100 and 1/144 scale model kits are great, but they are too large to successfully play the type of game that most people want to play.
I remember the Robotech Tactics debacle, where the mechs ended up being drafted into various BattleTech lances because the Robotech game died.
To be fair, many of those original backers actually bought them for that Unseen purpose specifically and considered the actual Robotech game to just be the gravy on the top. Also, the game didn't just die but rather was murdered by Palladium.
I think you'll be disappointed. From the looks of it, the parts for each mini will all be on a single sprue (!! wow!) which will prevent them from doing the color-coded plastic like they do for the larger kits.
I am indeed disappointed. If anything could have pulled that off, I would have expected Gunpla: The Game to do it.
warboss wrote: I hope it accurately reflects the anime that I remember as a kid with one round of combat and then three rounds of solo contemplation about the meaning of life! I kid... partially.
For the part of you that is not joking, have you seen WeaselTech? It's by the same guy that wrote Five Parsecs From Home/Five Leagues from the Borderlands, so it's a similar style of solo-narrative campaign wargame, but the theme is anime-style mecha. The kicker is, the post-game sequence includes a social system, so in addition to adding weapons or upgrades, it can also generate things like rivalries and love triangles between any of the characters.
warboss wrote: I don't mind if it's unpainted/unassembled but I do hope each model is done in multiple colors of plastic at least like some of the model kits so that even unpainted it looks good. I realize that may mean that all the red or blue parts of multiple models may be on a single mixed sprue but I'm ok with that for a boxed game.
I think you'll be disappointed. From the looks of it, the parts for each mini will all be on a single sprue (!! wow!) which will prevent them from doing the color-coded plastic like they do for the larger kits.
Errrr... maybe? That's probably true of the smaller frames, but I have definitely seen Gundam sprues that had multiple colors on one frame. They just have multiple injection ports, and inject different plastic into each one.
tbh it might just be worth buying for the minis, which you will be able to use with other games (either your own homebrew or just use it as proxies for battletech, etc.). For years, one of the biggest problems with playing gundam wargames is that the availability of minis to play it with was non-existent. 1/100 and 1/144 scale model kits are great, but they are too large to successfully play the type of game that most people want to play.
I completely agree, but I would add that it's not only the prospect of official minis, but the secondary market that it will likely create, the same way we saw lots of Star Wars ships show up on Shapeways once X-Wing became popular.
warboss wrote: I don't mind if it's unpainted/unassembled but I do hope each model is done in multiple colors of plastic at least like some of the model kits so that even unpainted it looks good. I realize that may mean that all the red or blue parts of multiple models may be on a single mixed sprue but I'm ok with that for a boxed game.
I think you'll be disappointed. From the looks of it, the parts for each mini will all be on a single sprue (!! wow!) which will prevent them from doing the color-coded plastic like they do for the larger kits.
Errrr... maybe? That's probably true of the smaller frames, but I have definitely seen Gundam sprues that had multiple colors on one frame. They just have multiple injection ports, and inject different plastic into each one.
My guess is that on that type of multicolor injection that there is a buffer zone inbetween involving some mixing and shifting borders so they'd have to account for that which might be difficult for a wargaming sized model sprue; that's actually why I hoped for single color multiple model sprues instead for a boxed set like this.
warboss wrote: I don't mind if it's unpainted/unassembled but I do hope each model is done in multiple colors of plastic at least like some of the model kits so that even unpainted it looks good. I realize that may mean that all the red or blue parts of multiple models may be on a single mixed sprue but I'm ok with that for a boxed game.
I think you'll be disappointed. From the looks of it, the parts for each mini will all be on a single sprue (!! wow!) which will prevent them from doing the color-coded plastic like they do for the larger kits.
Errrr... maybe? That's probably true of the smaller frames, but I have definitely seen Gundam sprues that had multiple colors on one frame. They just have multiple injection ports, and inject different plastic into each one.
My guess is that on that type of multicolor injection that there is a buffer zone inbetween involving some mixing and shifting borders so they'd have to account for that which might be difficult for a wargaming sized model sprue; that's actually why I hoped for single color multiple model sprues instead for a boxed set like this.
Freeze the end of the video. One of the things that it states is "The product in the video has been painted." It also states that "... contents are subject to change."
Haven't there been at least one or two Japanese wargames already? I mean, ignoring the fan written rules, I thought the various Convergence and similar toy lines existed long enough to have caused a game.
These don’t look too much bigger than the Gundam Collection 1/400 figures that also used to have a Tactical Combat game. Long time collectors easily stick them on the hex bases and call it a day.
These might be fun, but it's a shame that the minis have GW-style parts-slicing rather than being modular mini-gunpla. I suppose they are board-game minis at the end of the day. Weirdly this product doesn't appear on the front page of bandai-hobby.net, but the promo page has a Japanese language option, so I assume it will be released there. Let's see if Bandai can keep this product line in supply at retail once it releases, or if they go the dreaded 'p-bandai' (on-line direct sales) route.
Mini-gunpla potentially has disadvantages especially if not done well (see Robotech Tactics models for examples) though I agree with the sentiment. I'm ok with this though for more action-y poses.
This announcement makes it so much more clear why Bandai has been reaching out to a lot of the wargaming and painting youtubers like Peachy and Suggs lately. It's obviously a market they're keen to expand into.
I will likely be picking up some of these suits, even if the game ends up as a generic arena battle game, they will be great for playing Mobile Suit Skirmish with.
warboss wrote: Mini-gunpla potentially has disadvantages especially if not done well (see Robotech Tactics models for examples) though I agree with the sentiment. I'm ok with this though for more action-y poses.
If you look at the picture of the sprue, these are snap together mono-pose models rather than "true" GunPla kits.
Malika2 wrote: What scale will these be in? As in, how tall would a regular human model be here?
Very small. Eyeballing off the video where they show a hand next to the minis I'm thinking they are like a heroic 32mm size, which going off the RX-78-2 being 60 ft tall puts the figures in the 1:500 or smaller ballpark. Who knows if they'll call it a standard scale but they could be around 3mm human height scale.
Chances are they were just making good money with their core models that there wasn't a "need" to expand into this. That said I'm interested - I missed the whole Gundam in the UK when I was growing up (I put it down to it not appearing on channels 1,2, or ITV and if it did then it must have been at very late hours)
Be nice to see a new wargame doing some mecha stuff on the market!
Malika2 wrote: What scale will these be in? As in, how tall would a regular human model be here?
There's no stated scale yet, they mention the average model is ~2 inches tall. Given that the Pegasus is outrageously out of scale, I doubt there's an actual scale for the game.
Malika2 wrote: What scale will these be in? As in, how tall would a regular human model be here?
As i said in another post, there doesnt seem to be a scale here. They are '2 inch tall" miniatures. For RX-78 Gundam that works out to 1/350 scale (human would be 7/32 or about 5.5mm), but for the Archangel (or Pegasus? Whatever) warship that is also presented as ~2" tall? Thats more like 1:2700 or 1:3000
Since it has Gundam in the title, it does quash the hope of non-Gundam IPs in somewhat. Bandai own a plethora of the old Sunrise IPs that would work well in a game.
Daba wrote: Since it has Gundam in the title, it does quash the hope of non-Gundam IPs in somewhat. Bandai own a plethora of the old Sunrise IPs that would work well in a game.
EVA units from the Eva remakes were among the first non-Gundam to get the Real Grade treatment, then we got Mazinger amd Getter Robo among other old models getting rereleases as well. Give em time and support, and I'm sure it'll be enough for Bandai to go the Heroclix route woth IPs....
.... unless a loud group of dumbass One Year fans force em to stop because its more that Earth Fed and Zeon suits...
Been waiting for something like this for ages and very interested, but I really need to see the rules before I'm sold. The models look gorgeous, but if there's nothing unique about the gameplay there are plenty of ways to get gorgeous Gundam models.
Fingers crossed, but I've just picked up too many of these things where the selling point is the novelty of playing with cool figures and the gameplay is just move and roll attacks without any real depth or novelty. The D6's at the display booth and D10s in the video worries me. It doesn't have the feel of a game with a set direction.
I wonder if the rules and supplies will be available to purchase separately.
With 1/144 HG Gundam being only 15-25 bucks each and buildings that scale being easily available, why not stick with that scale and just increase the ranges? The result would be a much more impressive game and the Multicolor HG kits would be a much lower barrier of entry.
I'm not a Gundam expert, but I've built several over the years when I see a model I like.
Eilif wrote: I wonder if the rules and supplies will be available to purchase separately.
With 1/144 HG Gundam being only 15-25 bucks each and buildings that scale being easily available, why not stick with that scale and just increase the ranges? The result would be a much more impressive game and the Multicolor HG kits would be a much lower barrier of entry.
I'm not a Gundam expert, but I've built several over the years when I see a model I like and I have a great
Table space is a premium in Japan. This looks very much designed to fit in a Underworlds sized play space with the hex grid shown in the video.
.... unless a loud group of dumbass One Year fans force em to stop because its more that Earth Fed and Zeon suits...
Considering the vast majority of the release isn't OYW, I don't think that'll be an issue or that they care.
I mean, you get that in Battletech and that hasn't stopped them.
OYW is the best for mini wargaming because of all the non-hero battles it has and the power levels between the mobile suits isn't too terribly crazy. OYW is just like playing 3025/3rd Succession War, it's basic to set up and easy to understand and it covers so many different theatres that it's easy to create your own new story, far far away from Amuro vs Char. You start adding later UC stuff and the difference in power levels goes all wonky, it's like adding in Clan tech. Then you start adding non-UC stuff and you might as well have added Superman to Battletech**
That said, OYW is not my favorite Gundam setting and on a purely selfish level I already have all the 1/300 OYW that I want, I'm really stoked about this game to add non OYW and non-UC mobile suits to my collection. They already have the Aile Strike and Wing Gundam in the first previews, so I'd wager this will be more of a hero battler than a traditional wargame. Hopefully the rules are decent.
For the part of you that is not joking, have you seen WeaselTech? It's by the same guy that wrote Five Parsecs From Home/Five Leagues from the Borderlands, so it's a similar style of solo-narrative campaign wargame, but the theme is anime-style mecha.
BTW, thank you for this! Never would have even looked at it if not for your description. The name Weasel-Tech and the "High octane cybernetic warfare" subtitle made me think it was a cyberpunk game, even as I was reading the summary on Wargame Vault I remained confused, nothing about that cover looks anime mecha game to me. It was only after I bought it and I saw the Robotech font within the PDF itself that I recognised the joke. A solo-playing, 3-vs-many, hero mecha squad vs alien invasion/evil empire mecha anime game is something I didn't realise I needed until now.
(the company is Nordic Weasel, so it's Weasel-Tech just like Robo-Tech or Battle-Tech, for anyone else out there as dense as me)
Eilif wrote: I wonder if the rules and supplies will be available to purchase separately.
With 1/144 HG Gundam being only 15-25 bucks each and buildings that scale being easily available, why not stick with that scale and just increase the ranges? The result would be a much more impressive game and the Multicolor HG kits would be a much lower barrier of entry.
I'm not a Gundam expert, but I've built several over the years when I see a model I like and I have a great
Table space is a premium in Japan. This looks very much designed to fit in a Underworlds sized play space with the hex grid shown in the video.
That's a very good point. Even if a Japanese fan has a shelf full of Gundam models, the space to practically play with them is likely to be harder to come by.
.... unless a loud group of dumbass One Year fans force em to stop because its more that Earth Fed and Zeon suits...
Considering the vast majority of the release isn't OYW, I don't think that'll be an issue or that they care.
I mean, you get that in Battletech and that hasn't stopped them.
OYW is the best for mini wargaming because of all the non-hero battles it has and the power levels between the mobile suits isn't too terribly crazy. OYW is just like playing 3025/3rd Succession War, it's basic to set up and easy to understand and it covers so many different theatres that it's easy to create your own new story, far far away from Amuro vs Char. You start adding later UC stuff and the difference in power levels goes all wonky, it's like adding in Clan tech. Then you start adding non-UC stuff and you might as well have added Superman to Battletech**
They've already addressed this, though. The website states that there's two methods to play, a story based mode that lets you recreate the show's showdowns and an open format that ignores everything and just lets you use whatever you want.
For the part of you that is not joking, have you seen WeaselTech? It's by the same guy that wrote Five Parsecs From Home/Five Leagues from the Borderlands, so it's a similar style of solo-narrative campaign wargame, but the theme is anime-style mecha.
BTW, thank you for this! Never would have even looked at it if not for your description. The name Weasel-Tech and the "High octane cybernetic warfare" subtitle made me think it was a cyberpunk game, even as I was reading the summary on Wargame Vault I remained confused, nothing about that cover looks anime mecha game to me. It was only after I bought it and I saw the Robotech font within the PDF itself that I recognised the joke. A solo-playing, 3-vs-many, hero mecha squad vs alien invasion/evil empire mecha anime game is something I didn't realise I needed until now.
(the company is Nordic Weasel, so it's Weasel-Tech just like Robo-Tech or Battle-Tech, for anyone else out there as dense as me)
You are quite welcome!
The social interaction randomizer is something I think could be added to a lot of genres of campaign-type games with great results. Pulp, kung-fu, space opera, anything ever depicted in anime... how about Greek Mythology? Feudal court dramas (European or Sengoku)?
Anyway, enough hijacking this thread. Although, this game is the original reason I started looking for Gundam minis, so...
Daba wrote: Since it has Gundam in the title, it does quash the hope of non-Gundam IPs in somewhat. Bandai own a plethora of the old Sunrise IPs that would work well in a game.
EVA units from the Eva remakes were among the first non-Gundam to get the Real Grade treatment, then we got Mazinger amd Getter Robo among other old models getting rereleases as well. Give em time and support, and I'm sure it'll be enough for Bandai to go the Heroclix route woth IPs....
.... unless a loud group of dumbass One Year fans force em to stop because its more that Earth Fed and Zeon suits...
My main wish is for cover of some of the old 80s IPs like L-Gaim. A roster similar to ACE perhaps, or the old Real Robot Battle Line game which concentrated on these series which had the protagonists more as military forces rather than a superhero team.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The other one I was thinking of was Battle Robot Retsuden but that one has a couple of Super Robot in it now I look it up.
Tannhauser42 wrote: I'm just looking forward to seeing how it plays with the full scale models. Someone will adapt the rules right away to do so.
Seems to me the mixed scale of game elements might be an issue in that case. Like... will you use a 6 foot Pegasus?
Doesn't really matter on a hex grid. Just need a tall enough flight stand.
This. You literally only need to scale up the hex map, no rules adjustment or adaptation needed. The pre-painted Star Wars collectible blindpack miniatures game in 2003 had rules for using the 3.75" action figures and those rules were literally just "flip the included map to the larger grid size" because the moment everything is measured using grid or Hexes, it all scales.
chaos0xomega wrote: theres an out of scale.... Albion? whatever the warship is. shown on the website.
It's the Archangel from Gundam SEED.
I've seen a lot of chatter about this, with some people thinking that it might even be a rival to 40K. I doubt that will be the case, as this looks more like a skirmish game than a platoon-sized engagement like 40K. But since we know virtually nothing about it, it's too early to start speculation along those lines. On the other hand, the presence of the Archangel means that there will be some bigger units, so who knows? Maybe the game will be capable of smoothly running battles with forty figures on a side (assuming you have a big enough hex map)?
Have to wait until some actual gameplay information gets released.
Speaking of which...
Actual gameplay information (including streamers doing playtest games) *has* been revealed about an upcoming Gundam TCG, which is apparently coming out at around the same time. And oddly enough, the cards for certain mobile suits (presumably custom hero suits) will have a Gundam Assemble figure packaged with them, with the apparent idea being that you can place the figure on top of your card when you play it in the TCG.
Why? Dunno. But they went to the trouble to do this, so...
Daba wrote: The game from a glance looks to be more akin to WH Underworlds.
In fairness skirmish is how many wargames start out. It's MUCH easier to get people to invest in your new game if they can get started quickly. Even with a powerful IP behind it, having smaller games is a big boon toward getting people playing and hooked rather than having a big bumper amount of sales then seeing it fizzle out as no one really gets to game fast enough.
There was also the issue of gaming space in asian nations raised earlier in the thread which is also a valid consideration considering that's the home market for this game.
I suspect another aspect is that focusing on a more underworlds/skirmish scale means that they can go for all the big iconic leader models that will get fans hooked rather than lots of generic mechs.
Who knows, if it does well they might well expand to a wargame type set of rules with a higher model count; generic mechs alongside named hero mechs and more
Looking at how big GWs market share is in Asia, giving the people there an actual working game with a already popular IP, yes that can kill 40k in Asia
kodos wrote: Looking at how big GWs market share is in Asia, giving the people there an actual working game with a already popular IP, yes that can kill 40k in Asia
Again, though, it's not clear yet that this will directly compete with 40K, based on the number of figures involved. We won't really know until we see some actual gameplay or rules, which so far have not been so much as hinted at.
That actually surprises me a bit, given that the TCG is supposed to come out at the same time, and there are gameplay videos online of that.
Honestly I think we are going to see a game where each side has small handful of models, and that's about it. I will be pleasantly surprised otherwise.
AegisGrimm wrote: Honestly I think we are going to see a game where each side has small handful of models, and that's about it. I will be pleasantly surprised otherwise.
I see a game where people are going to use their own gundam models to play, and just grab the rules.
I think it's a good idea for Bandai but using the wrong IP. Gundam is a narrative with a setting rather than a setting containing narratives. It has multiple timelines too and little inuniverse justification for crazy paint schemes. There will be little creativity encouraged officially either with painting, modelling or rules.
The first Gundam was an unexpected hit and thus the "one year war" really did basically exhaust the setting. Similar to how Star Wars was a narrative containing a setting where the story followed a major conflict in which the fate of everyone was involved and... it ended, the good guys won. Not to beat a dead horse for anyone on the internet but that was kind of problem for them making stories going forward. What was shocking was that they felt the need to revive the Empire because it's aesthetic was seen as so crucial and integral to the setting but again, was clearly destroyed at the end of the third film. (I don't care that the Imperial remnant stuff was invented years earlier in the books, hack authors writing tie-in novels for IPs the didn't create will never count) Not to mention, of course, the conflict with the Empire was the driving force of the story. (The Vong then become a parody of what I just said. "Oh look another evil force imperiling the whole galaxy! Oh look we defeated them and made peace now!" What do you do after that? See also the idiocy of "moving the 40k timeline forward".) The Mandalorian and Skeleton Crew are actually an example of them treating Star Wars as a setting for narratives but the latter they ran into the ground since it was in essence more of a limited series and they tied up the main story with Grogu before deciding to go back on all of it and the former doesn't seem to excite anyone after the Star Wars brand writ large has been run dry.
Bandai should instead look to the likes of 40k and it being built from the ground up to facilitate a table top wargame and creativity. They should make something like 30MM tabletop wargaming and come up with all kinds of reasons the pilots and factions would adorn their mechs with camo and heraldry or religious symbols. As well as make a setting which justifies unending and vast scale of warfare. Make the kits easy to kitbash.This way you have all the advantages of owning your own production and IP like GW and have a setting that works well with a wargame going forward unlike Gundam.
Meanwhile AMG don't own their own production or IP. And PP and their new owners don't ever seen to want to make the rebooted setting more open to creativity. Why not art of Khador carrying giant Orthodox-esque banners? See Trench Crusade for all that imagery.
Because if you don't have a hobby side all you have is the game and there is always the danger of a death spiral if people begin to stop playing it. The energy of the hobby side is actually what keeps competitive 40k going and safe.
Bandai has done unit- and base-specific camo schemes before, though. It might not have appeared much on the shows but they've got sourcebooks to pull from. A lot of mobile suits are funky things in bright, bold colours to start with and there's precedence in at least MSG for aces and specific squads to paint their mechs however they please. One of the most famous charcaters painted his military warmachine bright red! There's also a modelling hobby stretching back decades that absolutely encourages customisation and experimentation. I don't think we need to worry about the hobby side of things.
Because if you don't have a hobby side all you have is the game and there is always the danger of a death spiral if people begin to stop playing it.
If the Gundam game stops being popular, Bandai can always shrug and continue to make money hand over fist with gunpla and gadgets for their shows.
As for "creativity and customization", games like Malifaux which focus almost entirely on named characters with their own plotlines do just fine.
If anyone would be threatened, it surely would be Battletech which fills similar niche gameplay-wise?
Yeah, "compete with 40k" is what someone says when they think 40k is the only tabletop wargame around, its a quick and cringey shorthand for communicating that someone is uninformed and doesnt understand the market. This will not be competing with 40k and isnt meant to. It is very clearly targeting a different audience and market segment. Whether it sells well or picks up popularity, I havent the faintest. Ill for sure be picking up and collecting the minis though.
I think it's a good idea for Bandai but using the wrong IP. Gundam is a narrative with a setting rather than a setting containing narratives. It has multiple timelines too and little inuniverse justification for crazy paint schemes. There will be little creativity encouraged officially either with painting, modelling or rules.
The first Gundam was an unexpected hit and thus the "one year war" really did basically exhaust the setting. Similar to how Star Wars was a narrative containing a setting where the story followed a major conflict in which the fate of everyone was involved and... it ended, the good guys won. Not to beat a dead horse for anyone on the internet but that was kind of problem for them making stories going forward. What was shocking was that they felt the need to revive the Empire because it's aesthetic was seen as so crucial and integral to the setting but again, was clearly destroyed at the end of the third film. (I don't care that the Imperial remnant stuff was invented years earlier in the books, hack authors writing tie-in novels for IPs the didn't create will never count) Not to mention, of course, the conflict with the Empire was the driving force of the story. (The Vong then become a parody of what I just said. "Oh look another evil force imperiling the whole galaxy! Oh look we defeated them and made peace now!" What do you do after that? See also the idiocy of "moving the 40k timeline forward".) The Mandalorian and Skeleton Crew are actually an example of them treating Star Wars as a setting for narratives but the latter they ran into the ground since it was in essence more of a limited series and they tied up the main story with Grogu before deciding to go back on all of it and the former doesn't seem to excite anyone after the Star Wars brand writ large has been run dry.
Bandai should instead look to the likes of 40k and it being built from the ground up to facilitate a table top wargame and creativity. They should make something like 30MM tabletop wargaming and come up with all kinds of reasons the pilots and factions would adorn their mechs with camo and heraldry or religious symbols. As well as make a setting which justifies unending and vast scale of warfare. Make the kits easy to kitbash.This way you have all the advantages of owning your own production and IP like GW and have a setting that works well with a wargame going forward unlike Gundam.
Meanwhile AMG don't own their own production or IP. And PP and their new owners don't ever seen to want to make the rebooted setting more open to creativity. Why not art of Khador carrying giant Orthodox-esque banners? See Trench Crusade for all that imagery.
Because if you don't have a hobby side all you have is the game and there is always the danger of a death spiral if people begin to stop playing it. The energy of the hobby side is actually what keeps competitive 40k going and safe.
You seem to have a weird obsession with unnecessarily shoe-horning religious extremism and symbolism into every setting/IP/game....
A good.point, "killing 40k" is the mindset of a single pie that must be carved up.
When manga publishers entered the US in the 2000s and mainstream publishers put out young adult graphic novels in the 2010s they weren't looking to "kill Marvel or kill
DC" they looked to grow the pie.
And they succeeded in a way DC and Marvel never could. So now Scholastic ans Random House are the largest comic publishers by sales.
40k isn't just a game, more so the game doesn't matter at all as almost all people will mention anything but the rules for why they stick to 40k
It is a model building, model painting, model collecting hobby that started off with a game, with the biggest difference is that there is no gundam tabletop game and no popular 40k movies
Looking at certain regions, Gundam isn't set to kill 40k, but 40k was sent out to kill Gundam on the display model market.
Not everything is the USA, and while 40k is popular there with nothing else existing, it is the underdog in other regions (not necessarily well received, a colleague of mine from Asia thinks about 40k models as a joke, when the Imperial Knight is at the same price as a perfect grade Gundam)
And Bandai isn't releasing a game now to go after 40k in the USA, this is a offer for the countries where Gundam is already popular to cover the niche 40k currently has (offering rules for gaming)
Better price, better quality and a game to play
There are those who believe that the market must be dominated by 1 entity (or sometimes two) and that any firm to compete in a market MUST be the one dominant one or else its not worth competing. It's a monopoly viewpoint generated by the same economics that believes that profits must go up every single year without fail otherwise your firm is going to die.
In the end Bandai isn't in the wargame market; this might be their first step and who knows it might just be flash-pan game that comes out; does the rounds and then vanishes like many one-time projects. Or it launches but ends up being more a collector series than a game that's picked up.
And yeah Gundam isn't vast in the western markets so perhaps it gets a niche loyal following here and in Japan it gains a much bigger one.
Who knows, I very much doubt that they rae even trying to go for GW sized otherwise they'd be hitting the marketing WAY WAY more heavily.
If anyone would be threatened, it surely would be Battletech which fills similar niche gameplay-wise?
Battletech ebbs and flows, but is nearly impossible to kill or harm. The setting is great, and the gameplay has been preserved essentially unchanged since it's launch, but it also has adapted and created new versions of itself that are aimed at a modern audience. It's the game you played a few times 30 years ago, then sat down and remembered the rules within 30 minutes.
The scale does sound similar- and that's a good thing. I hope they do something with elevation and flight, or possibly even some stunt cards, because Gundams should be bouncing all over the board and having weird energy surges.
I do enjoy AS, I am aware of Battletech's cockroach durability as a game, as well as it's recent rise in prominence. I'm not saying Gundam game will kill it, but it may cut into its growth. More popular IP, and no offense to Classic battletech, but I can't imagine the gameplay will be anything but more dynamic. That has the potential to drag away a lot of more casual players who settled on BT as the only mecha game in town before.
Why are we assuming that the rules/gameplay will actually be any good? The game is an excuse for Bandai to sling plastic, and bandai isnt particularly known for tabletop game design prowess
Flinty wrote: As long as their customer service is better than those morons at CGL it'll probably find some converts.
That’s an insult to morons everywhere! CGL needs to do a lot of work to climb back to even being referred to as merely morons… good luck to the Gundam game. I doubt it will be much more than a curiosity over here, though.
Bandai should instead look to the likes of 40k and it being built from the ground up
Wouldn't come with it's own built-in audience. Bandai is primarily a company that makes (mostly) animated TV shows and movies to sell merchandise. It's not going to create a brand new standalone IP to dive into a completely new market that it hasn't operated in before.
As far as customization goes, not only is there a tradition of ace suits that have their own custom paint schemes, but there are also TV series that are about mixing and matching from different gun pla kits to create a custom mobile suit design (and then taking that mobile suit design, and using it in a battle arena that unfortunately doesn't exist in real life). Purists might harp if you've got Amuro Rey piloting a Gundam that doesn't have his traditional white, blue, red, and yellow colors. But I don't think most people will care.
Unfortunately, mixing and matching parts isn't going to happen without a lot of work, doesn't fit with a miniatures game, and is a lot easier (and looks better) at the larger scales anyway.
One of the most famous charcaters painted his military warmachine bright red!
There were two Zeon aces that painted their mobile suits red. One was Char, obviously. The other was Johnny Ridden, whose scheme was a mix of red and black.
On another note...
By "compete with 40K", people can mean two things. The first is the style of game. The second is the quality of the figures - and their cost. Given that it's Bandai that we're talking about, the figures will almost certainly be good quality for their scale. And Bandai's figure prices tend to be pretty good.
Third, though not discussed as much, is the difficulty in putting the figures together. It used to be that you could take any pair of arms on a GW sprue, a random head, body, and pair of legs, and build a GW figure. Putting an infantryman together was quite easy. The contents of my Votann Boarding Party box are not like that, and it feels like it needs a matrix of which parts can be used together. Bandai's easier kits tend to put together quite easily. If the new Gundam figures are like that, then it could cause people to look less favorably at GW.
Third, though not discussed as much, is the difficulty in putting the figures together. It used to be that you could take any pair of arms on a GW sprue, a random head, body, and pair of legs, and build a GW figure. Putting an infantryman together was quite easy. The contents of my Votann Boarding Party box are not like that, and it feels like it needs a matrix of which parts can be used together. Bandai's easier kits tend to put together quite easily. If the new Gundam figures are like that, then it could cause people to look less favorably at GW.
From what we saw of the sprue here it looks like they will be quite easy to put together with low part numbers but certainly not modular as older GW minis have been. Of course this could be special starter set sprues with the individual releases using more complex but also more modular sprues
Gundam is a narrative with a setting rather than a setting containing narratives. It has multiple timelines too and little inuniverse justification for crazy paint schemes. There will be little creativity encouraged officially either with painting, modelling or rules.
The first Gundam was an unexpected hit and thus the "one year war" really did basically exhaust the setting. Similar to how Star Wars was a narrative containing a setting where the story followed a major conflict in which the fate of everyone was involved and... it ended, the good guys won. Not to beat a dead horse for anyone on the internet but that was kind of problem for them making stories going forward. What was shocking was that they felt the need to revive the Empire because it's aesthetic was seen as so crucial and integral to the setting but again, was clearly destroyed at the end of the third film. (I don't care that the Imperial remnant stuff was invented years earlier in the books, hack authors writing tie-in novels for IPs the didn't create will never count) Not to mention, of course, the conflict with the Empire was the driving force of the story. (The Vong then become a parody of what I just said. "Oh look another evil force imperiling the whole galaxy! Oh look we defeated them and made peace now!" What do you do after that? See also the idiocy of "moving the 40k timeline forward".) The Mandalorian and Skeleton Crew are actually an example of them treating Star Wars as a setting for narratives but the latter they ran into the ground since it was in essence more of a limited series and they tied up the main story with Grogu before deciding to go back on all of it and the former doesn't seem to excite anyone after the Star Wars brand writ large has been run dry.
Bandai should instead look to the likes of 40k and it being built from the ground up to facilitate a table top wargame and creativity. They should make something like 30MM tabletop wargaming and come up with all kinds of reasons the pilots and factions would adorn their mechs with camo and heraldry or religious symbols. As well as make a setting which justifies unending and vast scale of warfare. Make the kits easy to kitbash.This way you have all the advantages of owning your own production and IP like GW and have a setting that works well with a wargame going forward unlike Gundam.
Meanwhile AMG don't own their own production or IP. And PP and their new owners don't ever seen to want to make the rebooted setting more open to creativity. Why not art of Khador carrying giant Orthodox-esque banners? See Trench Crusade for all that imagery.
Because if you don't have a hobby side all you have is the game and there is always the danger of a death spiral if people begin to stop playing it. The energy of the hobby side is actually what keeps competitive 40k going and safe.
Hard Disagree. If you're going to do an IP-based game, you go with the biggest IP you have access too. Gundam has so many settings and sub-settings and various plots and films that a Game designer has plenty to choose from if they want to balance gameplay, popularity and options for expansion.
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Flinty wrote: As long as their customer service is better than those morons at CGL it'll probably find some converts.
That's certainly a thought, but I do think distribution may be a complication in the USA for Gundam game. As any fan of Gunpla or Gundam Action figures will tell you, some items end up being quite available over here in "regular" stores and outlets, while others end up being devilishly hard to come by. Alot will depend on what their distribution ends up being like.
Do they go for an initial blast via big box stores, risking a flash in the pan and then slide into obscurity?
Will they be able to get traction in the FLGS distribution chain?
I do think this will be one to watch. It's been a while since a company with the financial power of Bandai made a serious entry into the wargaming space. Killing 40k or even Battetech isn't likely to happen, but it will certainly be interesting to see whether Bandai is making a real effort to have a presence in wargaming (and willing to put the $ and dev up to make it happen) or whether this is just a brief sideline product from a company who's interests are elsewhere?
Customization really isn't a feature of modern wargaming, but if you think customization isn't a Gundam feature... you've not seen the endless parades of variants, let alone the pile of equipment options. The RX-78 alone probably has a couple dozen weapons in its arsenal. Alt paint schemes are also quite common. Bandai regularly releases full alt scheme kits and people paint them differently anyway.
Incredibly successful for a very short period of time before suffering from a long, slow, gradual and painful decline before quietly dying in ignominy.
To an extent yes, but even before the ill received 2nd edition the game was starting to struggle and strain under balance issues and declining interests as FFG reached deeper into more obscure content thst wasnt familiar to many fans.
chaos0xomega wrote: To an extent yes, but even before the ill received 2nd edition the game was starting to struggle and strain under balance issues and declining interests as FFG reached deeper into more obscure content thst wasnt familiar to many fans.
And it should be noted that while there is more and less obscure content in Gundam (show of hands - who knows what the Gold Astray is without having to look it up?), there's a *ton* of stuff that's showed up on-screen due to the sheer number and variety of shows, OVAs, and movies. While few people will be familiar with every show, there's a large number of people who will be familiar with any given show.
I don't know if the game will support it, but the setting is also more open to potential 'kitbashing' and custom builds from basic things like taking a different weapon all the way to frankengundams built from different parts of different suits.
I can't seem to find any reliable information about it.
The first models are already available as they are included in the limited editions of the TCG starter decks that launched this month but the actual game only launches next year.
Apart from that I don't think there have been any major news.
Sadly, the starters with minis are really expensive in the USA- Bandai's listing them as 30, which was quite reasonable, but the local shop sells them for 90$. I'd expected 45, but yikes. As I understand it, at this point the miniatures are not actually used in the game as anything more than a token at this point- though presumably they'll be more useful once the mini game comes out next year.
Gitzbitah wrote: Sadly, the starters with minis are really expensive in the USA- Bandai's listing them as 30, which was quite reasonable, but the local shop sells them for 90$. I'd expected 45, but yikes. As I understand it, at this point the miniatures are not actually used in the game as anything more than a token at this point- though presumably they'll be more useful once the mini game comes out next year.
Gitzbitah wrote: Sadly, the starters with minis are really expensive in the USA- Bandai's listing them as 30, which was quite reasonable, but the local shop sells them for 90$. I'd expected 45, but yikes. As I understand it, at this point the miniatures are not actually used in the game as anything more than a token at this point- though presumably they'll be more useful once the mini game comes out next year.
Ouch. At the price I could buy more GW stuff...
Yeah, that was my thought. And the cards, without mechs, were 30, so it looks like the mobile suits are 20 a piece. It might be cheaper to upscale the game and use the smaller Gunpla kits than the little 2" guys.
The MSRP on those sets in the US is $34.99 including cards + mechs, just the cards is $11.99, so the cost per mech is really about $7.50.
When you're seeing them at $90, what you're seeing is gouging. The sets with the minis are "special editions" and presumably limited releases so shops are upcharging on rarity.
To recap, Bandai has two related Gundam games coming out. The first is "Gundam Card Game", a CCG, and "Gundam Assemble", which is some kind of miniatures game.
At GenCon, Bandai had a large area in the gaming hall, with demo sessions for learning the card game, and build-and-take sessions for the minis. The CCG is (sort of) out now. I make that qualifier because supplies are still low, so it may be difficult to buy at any given location, BUT I was assured that nothing they showed was "limited release" or anything similar - so there's no reason to pay FOMO/scalper prices unless you simply do not have the patience to wait for more product to be distributed. This is what they primarily had on display, what they had to demo, etc. They did have very limited quantities available to buy, which came in the format of starter decks (four different themed, pre-constructed decks) and booster packs, and then some kind of bonus/collector version of the starters. These have the same deck that's available separately, plus three miniatures that go along with (some of?) the mobile suits included in the deck. For example, there's a "Heroic Beginnings" starter deck themed around the original Gundam and Amuro Ray, so its "deluxe" pack has minis for the Gundam, GunTank, and GunCannon. The deluxe pack with "Zeon's Rush" starter deck has three Zaku miniatures, which are the three minis they had available for the GenCon build-and-take demos.
Bandai also had a booth in the vendor hall with some pretty things on display, but still no information. They were mostly prepared for talking up the card game. Most of the staff knew nothing of the minis game other than "we know they're making one". The one guy who admitted to "knowing" anything about it, basically said he knew nothing. "Released in 2026. Yes, that could be anything. No, we don't even know what quarter. Yes, I know that's annoying and weird."
I was not able to buy anything, but I did manage to get one each of the minis from the build-and-take sessions. The quality is very good for miniatures. They reminded me of GW's push-fit figures (in a good way), which is an interesting point: they very much seem to be making "gaming miniatures", and not "tiny gunpla". The commitment to minute detail and especially posability that is typical for gundam models is absent, in favor of making simpler tabletop minis. While some conversion is obviously possible, these are not a multi-part kit in any way, so making, for example, a big, diverse squad of Zakus would require some significant modelling effort. Also notably, the gray plastic seemed much more like GW minis than the colored gunpla frames I've worked with (which are admittedly limited).
Still, I think they're very nice, if not very diverse, which again I think compares with GW mono-pose figures. That goes for price as well as quality. I have an aversion to all forms of blind-buy, so CCG's are normally a hard pass for me, but at $35 retail, I was prepared to buy a set and use the three Gundam models for something like WeaselTech, even if I throw the cards in the trash. If I can have some fun with the card game too, then all the better.
I kid... partially. 
