Gundam Assemble Shrinks Gunpla to 5cm and Hands You the Dice
Bandai's new tabletop miniatures game uses Gunpla about 5cm tall that you build and paint yourself. The starter set is out on 31 October, at £34.99 RRP in the UK and $34.99 in the US.
Starter set out Sat 31 Oct
Bandai has turned Gunpla into playing pieces. Gundam Assemble is a tabletop miniatures game played with mobile suits about 5cm tall, which you build and paint yourself before sending them across a hex map. Bandai Spirits says the first wave goes on sale worldwide on Saturday 31 October, with some regions excluded.
Starter Set 01 has six miniatures from across the franchise: the RX-78-2 Gundam, Char's Zaku II, Wing Gundam Zero EW (the US store lists it as Wing Zero Custom), Gundam Epyon, Gundam Barbatos Lupus Rex and Gundam Vidar. The box also holds six unit cards, 18 tactics cards, a game map, cardboard terrain, tokens, ten-sided dice, a handbook and two quick-reference sheets. The miniatures come unpainted and need assembling, and the set is rated 15+.
A game starts at three units a side, and Bandai describes the rules as built for short matches. Each unit's card reflects how that machine fights, and scenarios range from scenes out of the anime to crossover battles between suits from different series.
Two expansion packs arrive on the same day in Japan at ¥3,300 each, with three miniatures apiece. EX01 includes Unicorn Gundam (Destroy Mode) and Delta Plus, and EX02 has Gundam Aerial, Gundam Pharact and Darilbalde from The Witch from Mercury. A Deluxe Set 01 follows in Japan in November at ¥9,900, for five-a-side battles that Bandai says take two to three hours, with White Base and a Musai among its pieces. Bandai's North American arm says more than 30 items are planned across regions within a year.
The starter set is ¥3,850 in Japan. In the UK it has an RRP of £34.99 and is up for pre-order at specialist shops such as Element Games, which lists dispatch on 31 October. In the US, Bandai Namco's official store has it at $34.99 with an expected release date of 1 November. The game's official YouTube channel has a learn-to-play video in which a developer walks through the rules.
Bandai Namco's US store says you can start playing as soon as you finish painting, so plan the weekend accordingly.
