Kampfer - Tumblr Posts
Honestly I have yet to finish this show but from what I’ve watched, wonderful. Warning, it’s not like true yuri because well gender bending, but yeah. The visuals are what counts 😉
And now we come to my feelings on Zeon’s mobile suit designs in Mobile suit Gundam Code:Fairy. After my feelings on the Federation’s MS were…… broadly positive, my opinions on Zeon are a tad more divisive.
First up, the Zaku II Sniper type. Honestly, I get it, you want a sniper unit, but you don’t want to deal with the Zaku I sniper type being unwieldy, so you make a new Zaku variant and give it a fancy rifle. Honestly, it’s just fine. No real strong feelings here.
The Zaku high mobility ground type Alma Stirner custom annoys me perhaps more than it should, because the more I look at it the more I think that a Gouf with a rifle would have been a better choice. My main quibble is that the standard version was one of the best mass-production ms of the entire war, being agile and exceptionally suited to combat on earth, in addition to retaining the regular Zaku’s wide range of armaments. So a fancy custom version of one of the best units available as the unit you start with….. it feels a little much. If you’d started with a regular Zaku then upgraded, then sure, that’d be fine. But knowing how good that suit likely is really makes it ring hollow when the plot tries to say that Alma’s outgrown it.
Right, right, enough complaining. What do I think of the design? I do like the basic High Mobility Ground Type, and Alma’s is essentially an up-armed version of it, being equipped with a heat sword, shotgun, missiles and Vulcans in addition to the normal armaments. I do very much like the Vulcan placement, and the missiles pleasingly evoke the Zaku Desert Type, but besides that it’s really just an ace custom unit with some different shoulders. It does do a good job in-game of being the close-combat specialist to the other two’s ranged firepower, but again, I think a Gouf with a rifle would have been similarly adequate.
I’ll probably cover the Zaku Half-Cannon if I ever do anything about the Zaku Cannon, but I honestly don’t have a whole lot of opinions on it, so I’m just gonna skip.
The Dom Gnomides. HATE. I usually find it difficult to express how much I dislike this design. The base unit being a Dom Tropical Test type? Fine, no problems there. But shackling a giant box to its back? The whole in-universe point of mobile suits is that they’re supposed to be agile units that fight at close range, where visual contact is key and the have to be able to dodge enemy fire. The Dom Gnomides can dodge fire about as well as a slug can dodge salt pellets. In-game, it’s difficult to identify incoming fire because the suits so massive it gets in the way. They took a Dom, a suit known for its high speed and mobility, and turned it into something that would struggle to outrun the Zock. But surely, that massive cannon must make up for it, right? Oh, you mean that massive cannon they obtained by
Grave Robbing?
The Dom Gnomides Pilot, Mira Brinkman, obtains the main cannon from the wreck of the Hidolfr, the mobile tank from Gundam Igloo.
In-game, they justify it with “well, at least we can give commander Sonnen (the pilot) a proper burial” but Mira’s primary concern is obviously the cannon. It’s just quite creepy, because at this point, they’re all sunshine and cheers about the whole thing “oh boy, let’s get a cannon for our suit and bury our fallen comrades along the way”, so knowing that in order to build this, they had to hose the remains of Commander Sonnen out of the Hidolfr just feels…… off? At odds with the tone? I know in war you should strive to recover equipment wherever you can, It’s just a massive tonal whiplash if you’ve actually watched igloo. The Dom Gnomides is armed with other weaponry, but honestly, they’re just fine.
The Efreet Jäger is the only one of the main three mobile suits to get a HG model, most likely because they’d already made a bunch of Efreet Variants. Honestly, it’s one of those rare models I would buy purposefully to mod. Paint some camouflage on there, maybe hook a ghille cloak or something over its shoulder, swap the odd weapon or two and I think it’d look really really good. The Efreet Line is another design series I’m very fond of, simply because the basic Efreet and Gouf are both designed to do the same thing, but approach it from different angles. Both are designed to be CQC suits par excellence, so are armed with heat swords, but whereas the Gouf fights more like a Gladiator, with its sword and shield it’s primary weapons, and then the Heat Rod and Vulcans to trip up the enemy; the Efreet fights more as a raider. Armed with two heat swords, trading defence for offence, and smoke discharges to temporarily blind the enemy to its movements- a fatal mistake in a sword fight. It’s typically also armed with a shotgun, for when something’s just out of range of the swords (though in GBO2, you can swap it out for a bazooka or Machine Gun). The Efreet Jäger is a sniper, unheard of in such a melee-focused line. This is essentially my only real criticism of it, another suit that is absolutely amazing at one thing being pigeonholed into yet another generalist. There are good sniping suits available, like the Zaku I Sniper, so an upgraded unit would fit very well. But instead they took a close-quarters unit and handed it a sniper rifle. I will fully admit that maybe something different for the line would be a good idea, but when it’s entire identity is built around one speciality, shifting to a different one just feels wrong.
The basic suit design is quite nice, the chests been modelled nicely and the asymmetry really plays up that this is a suit built for sniping and guerrilla tactics - asymmetrical warfare if you will. The rifle is gorgeous, and I like how it’s got grenades as part of it’s loadout. If I were to say the Efreet jäger is my least favourite Efreet, that’s more about the strength of the Efreet line as a whole than the weakness of the jäger on its own. I will say that, in game, the Efreet jäger is the best thing since sliced bread, purely on the strength of its sniper rifle having two settings. All my quibbles melt away after using it in-game, since you can just pop out of cover, nail an enemy with either single-shot, or explosive bust ammunition, then move on, with chaff and spotter abilities if you feel like playing support, and a heat kunai and shotgun if you need to fight up close.
Finally, we come to the Titania. It shares its name with the fairly obscure PMX-004 Titania designed by Paptimus Scirocco and is based on the absolutely fantastic Kämpfer (another of my all-time favourites). I do very much love the design, a little overarmed maybe (it’s got Vulcans, so I don’t really think it *needs* the arm gatling, and I consistently forget about the Beam Machinegun when using the Titania in game. GBO2’s decision to make it an optional weapon was, I think, a wise one), but the actual design of the mobile suit itself is wonderful. It’s slightly more heavily armoured than the original Kämpfer (so we’re told, anyway) and this is reflected in its remodelling, squaring off the Kämpfer’s smooth lines with blocky armour. The shoulders are just splendid, giving it a good silhouette along with the fuel tanks (which give the impression of wings). The choice to keep the original Kämpfer’s backpack was also a good one, since it effectively breaks up what could have been a rather boring back, and the extension of this design philosophy to the leg vents is also lovely to see. The legs appear to be slightly dainty, but none the less armoured for it, a design I appreciate. The head is gorgeous, it looks like it belongs one one of the Zabi’s royal Guard and evokes the design sensibilities of the Sleeves. Does it suit a Guerilla unit? No. Do I care particularly? Also no. All in all, it’s just a wonderful design variant on the Kämpfer.
However. The rationale behind its creation in-universe bothers me in the same manner that the Dom Gnomides does.
So, upon receiving the Kämpfer frame, unarmoured (and really missing a trick to tie it into the prototype Kämpfer, but whatever), the chief mechanic looked at it and decided “this design promotes recklessness, and is built for speed and power at the expense of armour”. Yes….? It’s an assault suit, designed to get in, cause as much damage as possible, then get out. Heck, the “E” in the Kämpfer’s model number is stated to stand for “Einhauen” - one strike in German. It’s not built for protracted combat, because it was never designed to be. So looking at the Kämpfer, a very specialised unit, and deciding that that specialisation is, itself, wrong is just kinda dumb. Like, they could have been sent the wrong materials, it could have only been intended to be used for one mission and Noisy Fairy managed to keep it running beyond that, it could have been an indication of how desperate Zeon was getting. Heck, the Kämpfer itself is stated to be one of multiple units built of the prototype Kämpfer each tuned for specialist uses, maybe they could simply use a different unit in the line? All of these options would have been better than “well it promotes recklessness and that’s BAAAAAD”
My other criticism is that it’s stated that they added extra thrusters to the design to offset all the extra weight of the armour and weapons (since the Titania doesn’t cast off its weapons like the original). Really now. You’re telling me you added “extra thrusters” to a unit that was already roughly 60% thruster by volume? I know it’s petty(ier) but it still bothers me.
However, none of this detracts from the fact that the Titania is a pretty sweet design, even if I do think I could’ve been integrated better (glances meaningfully in the direction of the Prototype Kämpfer).
You know when you mention something, and it just kind of sticks with you for a bit?
Anyway, the YMS-18 Kämpfer Prototype was one of many new units designed and build by Zeon during the closing weeks of the One Year War, first appearing in the original model kit manual of the Kämpfer (below left, Green), then the design was updated for use in Zeonography (below right, Blue), which then went on to appear in Ecole Du Ciel.
The Kämpfer prototype was quickly developed into numerous different variations for different roles, of which we know of two at time of writing - the MS-18E Kämpfer, as seen in War in the Pocket (more on that later) and the MS-18F type, which has a whole sentence dedicated to its existence, from which we know it was armed mostly with Beam Weaponry.
Design-wise, I prefer the original design to Zeonography, mostly because I just find the green to be really nice, it’s an excellent distinguishing factor when compared to the original and it’s just a lovely colour in general. I like the more angular head and chest, since they help distinguish it from the streamlined regular Kämpfer (and also imply heavier armour to the critical areas, which the Cyclops team unit lacked). I also like how we’re not given a loadout for it - the original Kämpfer had a bunch of hardpoints and was designed to shed its armament to reduce dead weight, the only inbuilt weaponry being the beam sabers. The prototype Kämpfer being a unit that was built to be developed into other mission-focused designs means that this open-endedness is a benefit to the design team, since weaponry would be swapped out as needed. Zeonography just giving it a Light Machine Gun that was specifically developed for it feels like a step back from that elegance of design. (Note; prior to Zeonography it was typically depicted with the Kampfer/Efreet’s shotgun and/or the Rick Dom II bazooka’s. I’m more forgiving of that since they’re both used by a variety of suits, as opposed to being for the Kämpfer exclusively (plus the shotgun doesn’t look nearly as unwieldy as the LMG)).
The MS-18E Kämpfer was developed from the Prototype Kämpfer and was famously used by the Cyclops Team during Operation Rubicon (the attempt to capture or destroy the Federation’s new Gundam-type mobile suit, the NT-1 “Alex”, as shown in Gundam 0080). Notably, the E in its model number stands for “Einhauen”, meaning one strike in German, signifying its intended purpose - a high-speed assault mobile suit. Its role was to get in, destroy as much of the enemy materials as possible, then get out. To this end, it had numerous hardpoints for the mounting of weaponry which it would shed as each ran out of ammunition, minimising dead weight and allowing it to use its thrusters to their fullest - the reason that it incorporates so much projectile weaponry is so that the generator can be devoted almost entirely to the thrusters - the beam sabers being the one exception (and even then, there’s an illustration of a Kämpfer with a heat hawk). It was even designed to be easily assembled and disassembled in blocks, aiding its use by command teams behind enemy lines. It’s a very, very specialised suit and this is perhaps why I like it so much. However, this persistent focus on speed and offense came at a cost - it had very limited armour even in critical areas and it suffered from a short operational time due to how propellant-hungry its thrusters were, and due to its ammo-based fighting style. Perhaps appropriate for something built for speed, the Kämpfer’s pilot would need to use its arsenal to the fullest in order to destroy enemy targets before a counterattack could be mounted, lest the Kämpfer itself be overwhelmed.
Design-wise, gorgeous. Obviously. I don’t even really feel the need to explain why I like this one honestly, just look at it. Honestly 0080 in general is chock-full of winning designs, but the Kämpfer’s just emblematic. It’s blue, it’s smooth, it’s focused. It’s just an absolute stellar design from an already stellar design series.
The MS-18F Kämpfer High Mobility type is boring. It’s the Kämpfer with the shoulders and backpack of the Gerbera Tetra. I’ll admit this is boring fully because I dislike pretty much every officialised “kitbash” design that isn’t “we cobbled it together with what we had”. They’re just extremely dull to me, because they’re just parts from one suit slapped on another, with barely any effort made to actually integrate the two. Because two mobile suits made in different time periods by different companies would have absolutely no problems working together with near-zero modification. I see what they were going for, since both the Kämpfer and Gerbera Tetra are assault suits designed to get in, do damage, and get out, but the execution’s just so unappealing.
Right, enough grousing. The Kämpfer high mobility type is a customised variant of the aforementioned MS-18F, which was used by a Zeon remnant group (I don’t have a name here) based on the moon, and was piloted by Michelle Kano. It incorporates experimental cutting edge parts slated for the Gp04 Gerbera, part of the Gundam Development Project, and was deployed against the Engage Zero, the other super-secret prototype unit of the Gundam Development Project (or competing design, or extra unit. Honestly its precise relation to the project is unclear). The High Mobility Kämpfer is armed similarly to the Gelgoog Marine Commander Type, the only real exceptions being an optional long barrel for the beam rifle, and a unique set of chain mines with a long rectangular design, for more efficient storage.
(As an aside, I wonder why Zeon Remnant Groups and The Sleeves are considered Terrorists, but Axis Zeon and Char’s Rebellion aren’t.)
The MS-18NF Titania I already covered in my Code: Fairy Zeon MS post, which I’ll link to below. But in a nutshell; Standout Good Design, really good addition to the Kämpfer series, love the form and armour design. Nitpicks are that the in-universe rationale behind its creation is dumb, and I’m not sure where it’s getting the extra thrust from.
EDIT: I didn’t include the Titania in the aforementioned Kämpfer variants, since it’s a custom job by Noisy Fairy, who only received the base frame. (This js emphasised by its model number MS-18NF -> MS-18 Noisy Fairy)
Lastly, The Kämpfer Amazing is a Gunpla from Gundam Build Fighters, built by Allan Adams and PPSE for Meijin Kawaguchi (aka Tatsuya Yuuki), based on the original Kämpfer from 0080. Design-wise it’s an ever-so-slightly sleeker redesign of the original, with brand new weaponry, also designed by PPSE. A general theme with the Kämpfer Amazing is trading out ballistic weaponry for beam weapons, since it replaces basically all of the Kämpfer’s original weaponry with beam equivalents. It retains the beam sabers, but gains a set of beam pistols, which can mount into other parts to become beam rifles and it also gains a set of throwing knives. The small, fin-like protrusions on the main body are actually small heat blades. Finally, the Kämpfer Amazing mounts a set of Amazing Weapon Binders on its back (shown above), which both function as beam cannons and provide a place for two other weapons, which are decided prior to battle. Weaponry such as beam machine guns, a minigun, a rocket launcher or parts for the aforementioned beam rifles (Yeah, I know they’re all called “Amazing X”, but that’s not really as descriptive as I’d like).
I love the Kämpfer Amazing’s design. It’s ever so slightly behind the regular Kämpfer for me, but it’s still just amazing. I like how it’s only slightly sleeker, and the focus on rifles and exchanging weapons for the situation is nice. It really plays into how it moves, and I like how the beam weaponry’s effective but not excessively so. It’s built to have options, but the pilot’s what matters, the Kämpfer just lets them reach their fullest potential. It’s not just reliant on a superweapon or fancy system. But it’s just one of those designs that feels well constructed, and it’s kind of rad that it has all that weaponry but doesn’t feel like it’s too much. That said, it feels very much like how I imagine a MS-18F would be, which is a bit odd. I would also like to call out that I like how the Amazing Weapon Binders have additional thrusters - it provides an explanation for the weight offset, and is a neat way of adding additional thrusters to the design.
Hey, does anyone have any opinions on Gundam Ecole Du Ciel? I’m kind of toying with getting back into it after having bounced off the first time.
(I know the prototype Kämpfer’s in it, but that’s really the only thing of note I remember).
Alright, so GBO2 was kind enough to drop a Kämpfer High-Mobility type for me the other day, so I figured I’d use this as a springboard to talk about the design, and by extension my feelings towards UC Engage’s designs as a whole.
I already went over the Kämpfer and its variants previously, but being able to compare the models in GBO2 changes things a bit.
There’s actually a lot of subtle differences that I hadn’t caught the first time around that distinguishes the High-Mobility type. When compared to the original Kämpfer; the chest’s larger and rounder, the head is wider, the armour on the arms is different and the legs have a feminine design closer to the Gerbera Tetra. It’s very good, the increased mass implies a more powerful reactor and the masses of extra thrusters do make it feel like a High-Mobility unit. The head incorporates Vulcan guns, and the suit itself also incorporates a beam machinegun, again implying an improved reactor. The thruster pack is similar to the Gerbera-Tetra’s but it feels much more like prototype, with its larger fuel tanks and holes for multiple large thrusters, as opposed to the Gerbera Tetra’s more understated look. The design has a much more rounded feel for it, typical of space-use units. It’s just rather annoying, because I’d written it off as “Kämpfer with Gerbera Tetra Thrusters”, so coming back to it and finding all these deign flourishes is…… just sort of odd. Like, yeah maybe I should’ve looked a little closer, or maybe it should’ve been a little more attention-grabbing in the first place?
See, I generally don’t like officialised “kitbash” designs - I typically find that there’s too many familiar elements, so the design doesn’t really have much of an identity of itself. Yeah, battle damage or repair’s fine, but when a designs’ just bits from one suit slapped on another it just feels rather unimaginative to me.
But then again, shared equipment between mobile suits typically speaks of an elegance of design to me - these are machines that are outfitted for war, so standardisation is helpful in that respect. I’m typically a big fan of seeing the MMP-80 machine gun or 90mm bullpup machine gun on one year war units, because they’re so ubiquitous that I don’t think of them as being part of any single design.
I think what I’m getting at is; I don’t think I like the concept of the Kämpfer High-Mobility type (i.e. fuse the Kämpfer and Gerbera Tetra together due to their shared design philosophies), even if the execution’s much better than I gave it credit for previously.
I’ve been meaning to do a post on UC Engage’s designs for a while now, so I figured I’d package it with my thoughts on the Kämpfer High mobility type. I’m not going to go through every design in the game, I just figured I’d cherry-pick 8 designs I’ve got strong opinions on - what I think works, and what I think doesn’t.
Disclaimer: I’m going to be looking at the UC Engage in-game models for all of these, simply because either higher quality models don’t exist, or I’m not inclined to wait around for GBO2 to supply them to me so I can properly look at them (honestly I tend to use GBO2 as a design gallery more than anything else, but because it’s gatcha I really don’t have much influence over what I get). If I ever receive the higher-quality GBO2 Models, then I’ll note any changes of opinion then. I also don’t really care about the plot or story of UC Engage, but I’m given to understand that it’s explicitly non-canon to the rest of UC (since they put Peche and the Engage Zero in Kamille and Rosamia’s final confrontation during Gryps, and introduce a new Doga unit during Chars Counterattack as a counterpart to the Jagd Doga and Psycho Doga), so I’ll only really be considering the mobile suit designs.
Engage Zero
Okay, nine designs, because I should probably talk about the Protagonist’s suit. The RX-78MS00Z Engage Zero. So -assuming I’m reading this right- the Engage Zero was a prototype/competing design to the Gundam Development Project - the GP series seen during 0083: Stardust Memory, that were developed by Anaheim Electronics. The Engage Zero incorporated magnetic coating technology and a prototype movable frame, which would make it cutting-edge at the time of its release. It and its pilot, Peche Montague, would be passed between various groups and upgraded throughout, eventually concluding in the Neo Zeon designed Engage Zero Yonghwavin, a fully psycommu-equipped mobile suit. The general design of the Engage Zero is that it was developed as a Newtype-speciality machine amongst the rest of the Gundam Development Project.
Design-wise…. Eh. I can imagine it’s difficult to “fit in” another Gundam unit in UC canon at any rate (which is why there’s so many Gundam’s and gundam-a-likes running around in the One Year War, since it’s an easy fit), so tying it into the Gundam Development Project is a smart move, but there’s very little to tie it in design-wise. Yeah, there’s some similarity in the legs, but the chest resembles the G-Self more than anything to me. The arms are what I’d describe as inoffensive - there isn’t anything wrong, per se, there just isn’t anything distinct either. The waist seems to want to suggest a Gelgoog influence with the skirt, but it just looks wrong on a Gundam, and it overshoots and makes me think of the Qubeley. The head’s fine, no real opinion there. It’s overall a very feminine design, which I’m not against or anything, it just again feels odd. Like, it’s a feminine design because the pilot is female, but ….why? It just seems a bit odd tonally, especially since it retains the original gundam’s samurai influences, which are typically rather masculine. It’s a feminine design, but in doing so, it masculine-codes every other design. So it’s a feminine Gundam that causes you to question why every other female Gundam pilot has just had (for want of a better term) a non-feminine Gundam. I just find it incredibly odd from that perspective. I imagine that’s why it makes me think of the Qubeley so much, because that’s the most prominent other feminine design we see in UC.
Dijeh Assault Package
Is the fact that there’s actual art of this one cheating? Anyway, the MSK-008S/A Dijeh Assault Package was an upgraded version of the standard Dijeh, and was used in a bombardment role. It’s essentially a Dijeh with additional weapons, armour and, of course, missiles. I like this one, not necessarily because I think it’s an amazing design (the artwork’s doing a lot of heavy lifting), but because I think it fits so well with Karaba as an organisation. They’ve got a fairly limited number of mobile suit designs available, but a lot of them are very good, so it makes sense to manufacture variants to those units for different mission types. A high-spec bombardment unit that can fight well after the initial barrage is always going to be attractive to a Guerilla organisation, hence the Dijeh Assault Type. Even the reused equipment works really well, since Karaba isn’t known for being well-funded. All-in-all, it’s solid.
Roswell Jegan
I’ve used this one as a punchline a few times, so I’m sure my opinion shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. I really just don’t like the Roswell Jegan. It’s basically a Jegan that was used to test fin funnel weaponry designed by Amuro, which would then be incorporated into the Nu Gundam. I’ve kinda got a lot of questions here - where did the psycho-frame come from? How’s the jegan got the reactor to mount all those fin funnels? How did they know it worked? Doesn’t the existence of the Silver Bullet (funnel test type) kinda invalidate this machine’s existence? Why Roswell?
And all that for a jegan with a little bit of additional armour and funnel rack backpack. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m no great Jegan fan, but I actually do like a lot of its other variants, so the Roswell Jegan just feels so plain and drab by comparison. A funnel-mounted or newtype-use jegan has potential, I just don’t think the Roswell is that.
Gelgoog Ls
Regrettably, this is the best image I have. The Gelgoog Ls was an upgraded form of the Gelgoog L, a Gelgoog variant designed for defending VIP’s, which was essentially a standard Gelgoog with a new backpack, large shield and heat lance. The only real difference with the two units is that the Gelgoog Ls incorporated more filigree and mounted Vulcan guns in its much larger head. It’s noted that Gelgoog L pilots were often young and barely-trained cadets, which wasn’t uncommon around the time of the Gelgoogs deployment. The Gelgoog Ls, meanwhile was apparently more geared towards the secret service.
The Gelgoog Ls is a bit of an odd one for me. I’m kind of a sucker for Lance units in general, and the Gelgoog seems to be an attempt to backdate guard units like the GAZ-L and GAZ-R into something that started with the principality. Only real issue is that there seems to be an awful lot of “Royal Guard” units running around. There’s the Gelgoog Ls, the Rick Dom, the Galbaldy Alpha, the Gyan Eos and so forth. That and that customising a mobile suit for the Secret Police seems overkill. What are they gonna be facing that requires that level of force, particularly a goddamn heat lance? (the Vulcans make sense, because they’re typically used against infantry or light vehicles, but the Lance is just overkill). The design itself is just…. Fine. Gelgoog with a shield and heat Lance probably didn’t *need* to be its own thing, but I like how the Vulcans are integrated. I am weirdly fascinated by what the backpack looks like, since I’m absolutely certain I’ve seen that design somewhere before, I’ve just no idea where. (I keep thinking it’s from the Gyan Marine from Gihren’s Greed, I know it’s not that)
Finally, I should note that the head appears to be based on contemporary police uniforms. My initial thought was of the “classic” Gendarmerie (the French police service), with the cylindrical hats, which spun out naturally to the Landespolizei (the German police service) and the Ordnungspolizei (the Nazi police service, which I was very happy to find no similarity to), but it seems to be based more on contemporary dress uniforms than anything else, which makes sense, considering the all of the filigree.
Gaza CZ
The Gaza CZ is a Gaza C that has been modified for use in an artillery role, it replaces the shoulder armour of the original Gaza C with missile pods, and the integrated Knuckle Buster with a belt-fed minigun. The Head and legs also appear to have been slightly remodelled - the head’s sleeker and more pointed, emphasising the monoeye (and likely its role in target acquisition), while the characteristic three-digit foot “claws” of the Gaza C have been reduced to a fairly standard looking foot, with the side thruster being enlarged.
The rationale of the Gaza CZ’s design is to up-arm the aging Gaza-C second-line units and use them as artillery support similar to the Zssa. I like this rationale, because it makes sense that Neo Zeon would want to make use of the massive amount of Gaza-C’s it had, and strapping some missile pods to it is a logical and practical approach to this. Even the Gatling gun is excellent, because it would enable more of the mobile suits generator to be directed to its improved thrusters and thus offset the weight of the heavier equipment, and as a second-line unit, it would typically be operating within easy reach of resupply. I just wish I could get a better look at the feet and see it transformed.
Gabthley B
As in “beta”. The original Gabthley is a design from Zeta I just love - it fits perfectly into my definition of a “mid/late-season weirdo”. So good. The Gabthley Beta was a redesigned and upgraded Gabthley used by the Titans. While the original Gabthley showed promise, the design was judged to be too complex and expensive for mass production, which led to the design of the Gabthley B. There’s only stated to be one produced but it really *feels* like a limited-production suit to me. The design’s just wonderful because it’s a just a hodgepodge of Titans mobile suits - there’s the Gabthley, obviously, but it incorporates the arm claws of Scirocco’s Messala, it looks to have a (single) wing binder from the Gaplant and the feyadeen rifle Mk-II is an upgraded form of the original used by the Gabthley and Hambrabi. The large arms and oddly-proportioned body even make this commenter think of some of the oddities of the Titans Test Team, such as the TR-6 Hyze’nthley and the TR-6 Kehaar II. I’d also like to note that the head’s been completely resdesigned - it’s this blend of the monoeye, visor, the original streamlined Gabthley head and it’s even got some Gundam-style protrusions near the collar. It’s a very commanding design, for a commander type unit, it what I’m getting at.
I do hope we see it in a better colour scheme at some point, however. I don’t typically dislike black-and-purple, it’s just that there’s quite a lot of obscure, bulky titans units with that colour scheme, and they tend to look rather similar (especially since it’s a rather busy design).
Nemo Bellator
The Nemo’s an interesting one, since it seems to have dodged the many, many variants of the GM and Jegan. It’s certainly got a fair few, but (with the noted exception of the Nemo III and the absolute superb MSA-003 Nemo Cannon from Aoz) none of them are really that exciting. A bit of armour plating here, a new backpack there, never necessarily setting the world on fire but being pretty solid “yeah, that’s a grunt mobile suit” throughout.
So the Nemo Bellator being just so boring is rather novel, in a way. A Nemo, with back binders and a mega launcher. No reworking of the body, no targeting equipment (like the Hyaku Shiki), no improvement to the generator. There’s just nothing going on here. And the name “Bellator” just sounds like the creator needed a name quickly so they could knock off for lunch.
Sliferail
The Sliferail was an upgraded Gundam Ground Type that was remodelled with the expectation of deploying in cover operations in forests and wetlands. It was apparently a custom job on behalf of the pilot, who specifically requested the addition of the beam javelin.
This is a design where I love the concept, but I’m ambivalent about the execution - we see a bunch of ace custom units in Gundam anyway, and there was a good amount of Gundam Ground Types around, making them an excellent opportunity for variant designs in different theatres. The Sliferail is essentially a counterpart to the Ez8, showing how another pilot adapted to the changing war situation. The design itself…. It’s not bad, I like the new fins on the legs, and the new head and chest are nice. The colour scheme’s nice, and it makes sense for a wetlands environment. To be honest, it’s probably that I’m quite fond of the “standard” Gundam ground type, and so the Sliferail just feels like a step away from that, and I feel if anything, it should have leant into the changes a bit more. Up-armour the shoulders, put a ghille cloak on there, maybe remodel the lower legs a little more to better distribute the weight or something.
Type 99 Assault
Last but not least, the Type 99 Assault. The Type 99 assault was an update to the Type 100 Hyaku shiki from the Gryps Conflict and was intended to be a competitor to the Formula Series. It was built around U.C. 123. Though it’s stated to be an upgraded to the hyaku shiki, the Delta Gundam Kai influences are obvious, what with the head and chest. Interestingly, the lineart appears to be drawing from Kazuhisa Kondo’s designs, with the larger wing binders and differently styled head (which reminds me of the rather obscure Hyaku Ichi Shiki), though the design seen in UC engage leans more Delta Kai.
I really like the rear arms and integrated leg thrusters on this one, it gives it a really unique feel. The Gatling gun and beam rifle are both nice touches, and it feels like a machine designed for extended operations. It’s a design I would really like to see more detailed illustrations of, since I’d like to look at it in more detail. The leg thrusters also suggest great agility and remind me of the Anksha from Unicorn, which is nice. I do rather like how Anaheim made the Delta Gundam, and just consistently failed to then take that any further. Like, yeah, it happens a lot with Gundam’s too, where they’re built and they perform well and then they’re just sorta never expanded on, but the way that the Delta line just keeps throwing all these great ideas at the wall with none of them sticking makes it fell like….. I dunno, the Sega Saturn of mobile suits?
Closing
And that’s the highlights for the U.C. Engage Design Series. This ended up being a lot more positive than I was expecting honestly, which is nice. Quick shoutouts to: the Giessen Doga for being so boring I don’t even want to talk about it, the Duffel Jegan for being another ace-use jegan to add to the pile, and the Delta Gundam Ans for not having any good images available.