Macrossmartin's MS Gundam Skirmish Thread

[Macrossmartin]

Greetings, fellow lovers of tiny giant robots. 

On this thread, I will chart my adventures into gaming battles set in the universe of the classic 1979 anime series Mobile Suit Gundam.

This all came about after browsing Ebay for cheap substitutes for official Battletech miniatures, on the grounds of being skint. Whilst doing so, I stumbled onto a seller with a swagload of 1/400 scale Gundam PVA Gashapon - basically, collectable, randomly-packed figures - which he'd sorted out, and was selling individually.

I was hooked. I'd been wanting to game something with a Mecha-anime theme since the disappointment that was Robotech Tactics, and, at about five bucks a figure, this looked like the perfect outlet for my desires!

After initially debating modding BT, a friend and fellow otaku discovered a set of free, fan-made rules by a fellow Aussie, called Mobile Suit Gundam Skirmish. Written for battles with 1/144 scale 'Gunpla' Gundam model kits, we quickly made some modifications, and away we went!

We decided to concentrate initially on the ground war stage of the One Year War; a conflict that encompassed all humanity, both on Earth and its thousands of orbiting, artificial colonies. I chose to side with the defending Earth Federation, and he took the invading Expeditionary Force of the Principality of Zeon.

Cutting to the chase, here's some images to show my Federation Army is progressing...


Let's start with a shot of some figures 'in the raw', after some reposing and gluing to bases. As you can see, they're quite nice as far as prepainted figures go. But, a bit lacking in uniformity, and heavy equipment.




Here's some of my earlier figures, my initial nine walkers, alll repainted and decalled. The bases, incidentally, are lasercut 3mm acrylic, 40mm dia.




The hassle with PVA figures like these is the same that plagued the Airfix Generation so many years ago... bendy weapons!    As a solution, I digitally sculpted and printed the bazookas and most of the shields you see here via Shapeways.






Here's the 08th Team, from the eponymous 90's series... they're 'special guest stars' in my army.




... and lastly for the time being, a big family group portrait. I chose to name my army the 12th Mobile Suit Regiment (Blues and Royals), working to the idea that the Federation resurrected the name of that famous British cavalry Regiment as a recruiting tool prior to their invasion of Zeon occupied Europe.




I hope you've enjoyed this first look at my Mobile Suit Gundam Skirmish project. If you'd like to take a look at the current rules, they're available here:

https://donkusgaming.wordpress.com/category/mobile-suit-gundam-skirmish-2/

and, without any desire to direct traffic away from L.A., let me invite you to come take a look at MSGSk's dedicated forum:

http://mobilesuitskirmish.proboards.com/

- but, be aware, most of the topics are about the various attempts many members are making to create new editions of the rules, specific to particular Gundam serials and eras. (I'm working on the new One Year War Rulebook, unsurprisingly!)

Thanks for taking a look, and I'll post more next time!

- Martin

[YPU]

This is awesome! I have a couple of wing suits from the gashapon line I use for Ganesha's ruleset for giant robots vs giant monsters, but seeing a full gundam one-year war group is great.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

They look very nice.

I suppose the licensing must be a nightmare, but I am still surprised there is not an official set of skirmish rules.

[YPU]

They look very nice.

I suppose the licensing must be a nightmare, but I am still surprised there is not an official set of skirmish rules.

Interestingly there was an official Japanese release of a Gundam RPG using modified Mekton Zeta rules. Those rules have an oficial wargaming mod as well, but the Gundam book was never translated.

[Macrossmartin]

They look very nice.

I suppose the licensing must be a nightmare, but I am still surprised there is not an official set of skirmish rules.

Hence, just a set of fan rules, Ultravanillasmurf. I'd love to see these become 'official' but I'm sure it won't happen.

[Macrossmartin]

really nice work.

I wish someone would do something for the 1/144 gundams.

Scurv, follow the links in my original post; the author wrote the original rules for 1/144, and most of the players in the forum use 1/144 also.

[Duke Donald]

I'm not particularly into giant robots, but these are really nice!

[Rhelyk]

Those are fantastic! I've got a bunch of them I picked up over the years with the intention of wargaming, they've seen the table as Battletech mostly, although I've been tempted to use Heavy Gear rules as well. Been many years since I checked out Gundam Skirmish, at the time it was far too basic for my taste in games. There's also The Gundam Fan Project, they haven't posted their rules yet but they're sculpting 1/500 mobile suits for a tabletop game, currently up on Shapeways. I already have far too many of the 1/400 ones to change scales, but it looks promising.

Paintwork is superb, I just give em a basic wash and rebase, you've got them really looking like a proper regiment! I think I might need to have another go at it. I've toyed with the idea of recreating the Gundam Side Story Sega Dreamcast videogame, following the White Dingo unit of GM pilots in Australia during the the One-Year War.

Where is your hovertruck from? There's a Shapeways seller that does a great set of 1/400 M61A5 tanks, haven't seen a hovertruck in that scale though

[YPU]

I'm guessing they are gashapons as well, the ground war set was in 1/144 IIRC.

[Rhelyk]

Certainly not the ground war set, I have the Zeon set and those and they'ye bigger than the 1/400 gundams. Looks like I found them tho, the "gashapon" seggestion reminded me that there was a 1/300 scale set of figures and sure enough, they made a 1/300 Type 74 for the "Strategy of Gundam" line which looks like what MacrossMartni used. A little large, but not terribly out of scale.

I printed out a set of the Skirmish rules, they are not what I was looking at (and disappointed with) 10 years ago. Going through my stuff, might try to scrounge up enough to play a few test games of it. What modifications did you make for the smaller figures?

[Hat Guy]

I've tried to get something like this going around my way for years, but always end up giving up when I can't find players. As you mentioned, everyone seems to want to play different eras.

[Macrossmartin]

... I've toyed with the idea of recreating the Gundam Side Story Sega Dreamcast videogame, following the White Dingo unit of GM pilots in Australia during the the One-Year War.

Where is your hovertruck from? There's a Shapeways seller that does a great set of 1/400 M61A5 tanks, haven't seen a hovertruck in that scale though

Thanks for the nice words, Rhelyk (and others!). Actually, the dark blue and white scheme for the White Dingo Team inspired my colour choices for the Blues and Royals. When I get around to doing my EFSF force, they'll be in the more 'traditional' red and white.

The hovertruck, as some have deduced, is not 1/400 scale. It's from a 1/300 scale set that I actually bought by accident, having misread the scale! 

But it proved serendipitous, because I decided to save myself the hassle of finding 1/400 infantry for my 'conventional' forces, and use 1/285 GHQ Moderns instead. Lots of 'Anti Mobile Suit' missile teams to choose from there.

I hadn't seen the 1/400 Type 61's on Shapeways before. If I had, I might not have sculpted this one in 1/285...





... but obviously I did!  And into the silicone it will go in a week or two, if I can pull my proverbial finger out!

[Macrossmartin]

I printed out a set of the Skirmish rules, they are not what I was looking at (and disappointed with) 10 years ago. Going through my stuff, might try to scrounge up enough to play a few test games of it. What modifications did you make for the smaller figures?

Great to hear you're going to give them a go! They're a little rough around the edges still, some rules you may want to 'house rule' to your tastes (Blast weapons are a little too scary, as writ, for example). Hence the fact I and others are involved with producing a revised edition.

We kept the same movement and weapons distances for 1/400 as are in the rules, halved all effect radii, (such as Blast 6" radius down to 3") and ruled that close combat range is base-to-base, rather than 6". That was pretty much all we changed for the scale reduction.

[precinctomega]

Wow! Those minis are awesome, and the work you're done to fix the weapons and shields is amazing.  I really need to learn some 3d sculpting...

Just to be self-promoting for a moment: you should find that Horizon Wars is well set up for Gundam skirmish, and the simple mech-design rules should allow gundams of every era to be accommodated.

[Rhelyk]

Going through my colection I remember why I never did One Year War, I've only got a few Zaku IIs and a handful of other 0079 designs, the vast majority of my stuff is gundam SEED figures (still my favorite Gundam series). The problem with doing SEED battles is that ZAFT had a whole bunch of different standard mobile suits while the Earth Alliance only had the basic Dagger and the Astray if you included the ORB units, both of which were fairly rare in the random boxes. Without all the spinoffs and side stories that you had with UC gundam, there just weren't all the ground-types Gundams and GM variants and Guntank/Guncannon variants to make for a good tabletop wargame. Great for an RPG where you have a few heroes piloting Gundams cutting down "regular"
 mobile suits by the dozen, but not for a pitched battle. UC Gundam is where that really plays out well. May need to order some figs off ebay pretty soon.