Stellar Warships – Gundam Miniatures

With the recent release of VER 8 Stellar Warship rules it’s a good time to put out a post on what kind of Stellar Warships to use. This post will focus on Warships from Mobile Suit Gundam which you can use with the MechaStellar rules for a Gundam Tactics game with warship fire support.

We’ll start with some very old kits. There are quite a few 1/1200 kits out there for the various space craft in the Gundam universe. Pictured here are the Salamis cruiser for the Federation on the left and the Musai cruiser for Zeon on the right. There’s also kits for the White Base, the Gaw carrier.

I grabbed these last time I visited Japan at the Gundam Base for about $5 each, looking back I wish I had grabbed more (and some Magellans) while I was there. On secondary markets they go for a bit more, I’ve seen them range from $12-30. There are more modern kits out there, the 1/1700 looks nice but of course is going to be small. There’s also 1/400 ones out there but the supply is limited so the prices are extreme often clocking in at $300-500.

The kits are relatively quick to put together, but they do require gluing the parts together, I used Tamiya thin plastic cement myself. The kits are often pretty fragile so don’t be surprised if turrets or pieces fall off, especially during an overseas move. They are also unpainted so that will be a project for me in the future.

Next up we have the Mobile Suits in Action (MSiA) line. This was a line of action figures that made it over to the United States in the 2000s while Gundam Wing, G Gundam and Mobile Suit Gundam were in full swing. While it was mostly mobile suits they did produce a few spaceships, pictured above is the Albion, GP03 Dendrobium, Val Varo (or Val Walo if you prefer), and the Peer Gynt Musai. Flanking the Peer Gynt are two of the 1/1200 Musai kits.

I don’t know what scale the MSiA figures are, but I would hazard a guess it’s around 1/1000, since the Peer Gynt is slightly larger than the 1/1200 Musai. Speaking of scales, another difficulty is that starship sizes have been retconned several times in Gundam, both in the IGLOO series as well as 0083 which featured a major revamp of the fleet. Since then published specifications have changed, so the 1/1200 original kit might be using a different length of cruiser than the 1/1700 for example. I don’t have the 1/1700 but if I ever do it’ll be interesting to compare them.

MSiA also had some land transports for Medea (Yellow) and the Gau carrier (Purple). There’s also a Zanzibar II, The Lili Marleen which was the flaship of the Cima Fleet in Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory. There’s also a White Base but I haven’t tracked one down yet. The MSiA figures are extremely durable, they are a thick plastic and meant to be played with so they can take a beating. Still they’re not invincible, the Gau for example has a bent tail wing in the photos above, and the Albion can lose wings or guns if you’re not careful.

The stellar warships also come with bases which look great when posed on top, especially on the battlefield. In a pinch you can also use the bases as a “home base” objective since it comes with your factions symbol on it.

MSiA was very affordable in the 2000s but since they’re rare nowadays it can often be hard to find them at a good price. I’ve been lucky to find auction lots for $60-80, but some sellers will try to push the price to $120-250.

Speaking of expensive we have the beautiful Cosmo Fleet Special collection released by Megahouse in 2015. Very affordable for the quality level when these came out, they quickly became a collectors item and are very difficult to find nowadays.

Don’t be surprised to see these go for $120-200 for the more common ones and upwards of $400 for highly sought after ones like the Ra Cailum and the Rewloola. The models are beautiful, the detail level very high but with the current price nowadays it is only for the most dedicated collectors. Hopefully we see something like this released again in the future.

IMPORTANT NOTE: There is also a Cosmo Fleet released by Megahouse but these models are extremely small, think 1-2 inches; this is a different set than the Cosmo Fleet Special which is around 6 inches.

I’m not certain on the scale, based on the Rewloola measurements I’m guessing it’s around 1/1500 scale. It blends in fine with the Salamis and Musai cruisers, but looks rather small next to the Albion.

Lastly, you can always keep an eye out for Papercraft, popular ships like the White Base or the Argama might make an appearance. There are also 3D printing options out there which can cover more obscure ships like the Radish, Pazock or Grey Phantom which are unlikely to get a model kit or figure release.

The rules for Stellar Warships and their unit profiles can be found on the game downloads page. Here is a page for collecting Gundam miniatures for wargaming.