Right up front, I don’t know what’s going on with Gundam Assemble. The only news I’ve read about it is that it’s happening, but that it’s not happening for a while. I know as much as you do, if not less: it’s kind of like Warhammer, but with cooler models, and god only knows what the rules will be.
We try not to engage in rampant speculation or wishlisting here. Not because I respect your time – anyone who has read Meatwatch will know I do not – but because it’s not useful or helpful content. That said, I’m here to engage in exactly that type of baseless speculation, but in my defense it’s because I want to talk about some Gundams I love. Since I need an excuse to do that, I’m framing it as ones that I think Bandai, if they aren’t cowards, should release for Gundam Assemble.
So, the first and most important criterion here is whether the robot looks sick and I want a model of it. Actual Gunpla is cheap enough already, but a range of smaller, quicker to assemble, model kits is looking absolutely ruinous for my bank account. Second, I want to see them throw some weird stuff out there because it would be informative to see how the game handles it. Also, including some deep cuts for the True Gundam Heads would be a good signpost on where the game is heading, though that’s secondary to me just wanting some weird mobile suit models to play with.
On some level, I know what’s going to happen, and if you’ve been paying attention to Bandai’s release schedule for the last decade you probably do too. They’ve already shown the RX-78-2 and the Unicorn, so next up is likely going to be the rest of Unicorn, SEED, and probably Exia (but none of the other, better, designs from 00), with G Gundam and Stardust Memory never to be seen. Every line of kits follows that same pattern, with the only variable being how many garbage nearly-identical SEED Astray designs clog up the pipeline.
In no particular order, here are some robots I think are “cool”, and I would like Bandai to make for their game, and perhaps even to mail them to my house.
MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam
This is low-hanging fruit. It feels safe to assume that there should/will be mobile suits from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. The second mainline release in the Universal Century timeline, Zeta (the show) broke from its predecessor by flipping the Earth Federation to evil, and including a series of extremely weird 80s-looking fish robots. Zeta (the robot) did the same, by turning into a goddamn jet. Despite carrying the name of the show, it doesn’t make an appearance until halfway through, but from there it goes on a non-stop run that might even top Amuro’s single-handed dismantling of the Zeon war machine. The main trio of Zeta suits – the Zeta Gundam, the Hyaku Shiki, and the RX-178 Gundam Mk 2 – are all lovely designs, but we already have the Gundam Mk 1 and the Shiki is only really cool for the paint job, so why not the Zeta. Aside from a recent MG Ver Ka, the most recent Zeta kit is the absolutely odious Real Grade, so a new model, even in pog form, would bring up the batting average there.
I want a model of the Zeta because it’s gorgeous. It’s also iconic, very popular, and if they want to backdoor this via the card game Kamille Bidan will almost certainly show up there for the Zeta to be packed in with. More than that, I want it in both Mobile Suit and Wave Rider form. I think it would be helpful to see how this would play – would a flyer ruin the game like they did Warhammer? – but again the primary driver here is that I like looking at the thing. If forced to, I would also accept the monster truck that is the Double Zeta, and all of its weird-ass combined flight forms, but NOT the GUMP, because it would make Condit happy, and I can’t allow that.
AWS-G-08 Gundam Barbatos
Barbatos is the hero unit from Iron-Blooded Orphans, which is one of the better Gundams overall and (depending on how tolerant you are of Wing’s type of insanity), probably the best alternate universe. It goes through a few variations, and there’s one particular one I want. The base model has six forms, starting off with missing armor that are replaced with salvage, moving to space-based models (something like the GP-01fb), then a heavily-armored land combat form. If you’re curious, the fourth form is the “normal” one – that is, the fully OEM-spec one, as it was first built. These are followed by the Barbatos Lupus, a form which specializes in ripping and tearing, and finally the Barbatos Lupus Rex, which is fully goddamn feral and now has a prehensile tail. Every single one of these eight variants can Get It. One of the illest robots in a franchise full of them, and with all the exposed machinery it would make a good sculpting flex and be very fun to paint.
The form I want specifically is the fifth form ground type. This is basically the fourth form, but with one crucial difference: it carries a massive wrench covered in chainsaws, and beats the everloving shit out of people with it. Combat in IBO is always brutal and often devolves into melee body slams, but the building-sized power tool here will straight up dismember other mechs. It’s so sick. I need this.
The other interesting mechanic for the Barbatos – shared by all the mobile suits from IBO, actually – is that it’s covered in some technobabble nonsense called nano-laminate armor, which makes it functionally immune to beam weapons (Gundam’s version of laser guns). I’m assuming that won’t be implemented on the table top, or the Barbatos would be able to no-sell attacks from anything except, ironically, low-level mooks with ballistic weapons, but it would also be pretty funny, so I can’t say I don’t want to see it.
MS-14JG Gelgoog Jager
I’ve mentioned a couple of titular suits, because that’s easy money if we’re calling shots here. This one is more of a deep cut. The Gelgoog (pronounced “Jeljoog”) first appears toward the end of Mobile Suit Gundam, as Zeon’s final mass-production model – their first to use beam weapons – and finally gives them something able to fight the RX-78-2 on roughly equal terms. The mobile suit itself is actually probably better in most metrics, but given that Amuro has already run hog wild on all of Zeon’s ace pilots by that point, it never does much because all the scared trainees don’t know how to fly it and get blown up before they do anything cool. The Gelgoog would return – the base model MS-14A gets some hero moments in Thunderbolt, and types feature in 0083 and even up through Unicorn – but for my money the Jager is the best of them.
The Jager is a slightly pointier Gelgoog, toting a massive beam rifle. It shows up on screen in precisely one scene, early in 0080 War in the Pocket, but made a dent in my brain that I’ve never entirely smoothed over. The Jager just shows up, shreds a squad of Federation GMs with a humongous machine gun that it uses like a sniper rifle, and peaces out. It is incredibly cool. This might be my favorite mobile suit of all time. It’s one for the freaks.
OZ-06MS Leo
The wretched, long-suffering Leo. Perhaps the most Owned, in both severity and volume, of all mobile suits.
The Leo comes from Gundam Wing, which we already know is getting models for Gundam Assemble, and essentially fills the role the Zaku holds in Mobile Suit Gundam. It’s the first mass-production mobile suit from that timeline, a general purpose unit meant to be the mainstay grunt. Effectively a massively downgraded Tallgeese, it’s a unit that can do everything, and do it poorly. It’s always cannon fodder, but by the mid-point of the show even the Gundam pilots start to feel bad for the thing.
I know there’s already a Zaku or three in the game (there’s for sure an MS-06S, the Char model, and based on the lack of verniers on the bazooka-toting one Fowler painted, I believe that’s a J-type, the ground combat model) but I think the game needs more chaff, because I love an army of shitty idiot grunts. In my mind the Leo would be the worst and cheapest model in the game – just complete dogshit, you should be losing 3-4 a turn to anything – and enable a playstyle of “keep shoveling them forward and fishing for dice rolls”. My understanding is that X-Wing had a similar “TIE swarm” build, but I don’t care about Star Wars, so I want the same thing, but made out of Gundams.
There’s another thing I like about the Leo, a more sentimental one: compare it to the Zaku II. The Zaku is better than nothing, literally. It rolled over battle tanks and tall-masted sailing ships when it was the only front-line mobile suit in the universe, but Zeon never makes a mobile suit worse than it, and neither did anyone else. Even the first generation of Federation units (the RGM-79 GM) are wildly superior. It exists solely, like most of us, to die. The Leo, then, would fulfill a critical purpose: it gives the Zaku something to be better than.
MA-08 Big Zam
Fuck it. Why not.
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