Bandai Wants Gundam to Take Over Tabletop Wargaming

For years, the Gundam franchise has been consistently present in anime, video games, and especially gunpla kits. Another main show isn’t the only new thing coming to the popular mecha franchise—Bandai’s taking the enterprise to the world of tabletop games.

During this weekend’s Bandai Card Games Fest, the company announced Gundam Assemble, a tabletop game that sees players use 5cm figures to play different wargaming scenarios. Some are based within Assemble’s original story, others “transcend” the franchise, but the overall aim is for them to be familiar but also distinct. The game’s starter figures, which come out the box unpainted, each have their own individual abilities, and span the series’ major beats, from the original to regional favorites (Wing and Seed) and the last major series, Witch from Mercury. At launch, those figures are:

• RX-78-2 GUNDAM
• MS-06S ZAKU Ⅱ
• WING GUNDAM ZERO EW
• GUNDAM AERIAL
• KAPOOL
• ARCHANGEL

Tabletop gaming is a brand new area for Gundam, which expanded last year with a revived version of its collectible trading card game. This is going to be a Gundam-heavy month, actually: along with that game’s North American beta hitting later in the month (ahead of its full launch later in 2025), episodes from the upcoming Gundam: GQuuuuuuX anime are being recut into a theatrical release hitting Japanese theaters on January 17. The first model from that series, based on its cool-looking mobile suit, is also hitting sometime this month.

As for Gundam Assemble? Bandai Namco hasn’t revealed a date for that yet, but it said to expect more information—such as pricing, rules, and product specs—later in the year.

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