Bandai Namco is taking a stab at another tabletop gaming market with the announcement of GUNDAM ASSEMBLE, a new miniature based game. Brilliantly, the new game is being billed as an extension of the GUNPLA brand, with players having to build the different mobile suits and paint them like other popular figure-based games.
We don't have a ton of details on the game just yet, as along with the announcement this past weekend all that was dropped were some mockup images of the figures and an announcement trailer:
It's clear that the game is played in a similar manner as other miniature games, with the movement of pieces playing a role in the ruleset and each mobile suit having its own special abilities and limitations as well. It also appears that the gameplay will take place on a special playmat (featured in promotional materials) with dice rolls being used to determine different elements of gameplay. It would be really cool if the end product has multiple sizes and configurations of maps available, or an alternate Warhammer styled ruleset (although we doubt it'll take long for fans to create their own if not) to accommodate larger scale games.
The mobile suits themselves will come in varying sizes with larger pieces taking up multiple hexagonal bases. We don't yet know how this will impact gameplay. Other tabletop games typically assign a point value to pieces in a players army, so it would be reasonable to assume that larger suits will require more points to play or have some kind of reasonable handicap.
We still don't know what the release window for the title is yet either, although we're assuming it will be close to the upcoming GUNDAM CARD GAME as a tie-up between the two has already been announced.
Bandai has announced that members of the development team for the game will appear during a livestream on January 10, 2025 on the Bandai Card Games YouTube channel. Hopefully that means we'll be seeing some more details soon!
