When I last wrote about therise of Gunpla, I was firmly told by one commenter that I was wrong, that Gunpla had been around for years and thatTrench Crusadewas the real new kid on the block.
While I know thatGundamhas been around forever and a day, I stand by my analysis that there’s been a recent boom in the popularity of the plastic kits in Western hobby communities. On the other hand, I’ve been following Trench Crusade for years, and it has slowly but steadily built a niche following, culminating in an impressive Kickstarter campaign last year that launched it into the mainstream.
I’m fully Gunpla-pilled now. In the past six months, I’ve gone from casual admirer of the titanic mech models to buying a Gunpla kit in Japan. I perused the shelves of Mandarake for hours, trying to pick out the perfect model for me, a 20-year Warhammer veteran but complete Gunpla noob.
Where To Start With Gunpla?
I didn’t want to pick an Entry Grade kit, as I felt that would be too simple. On the other end of the scale, I didn’t want to jump into a Perfect Grade model in case it proved too much. In the end, I settled on the coolest High Grade mech I could find, Gundvölva. This metal monster first appeared in theWitch from Mercuryseries – the name alone is metal as h*ck – and can be armed with a sword or gun in addition to its shield. It was packed into a suitcase I bought in Don Quixote along with some Bandai Pokemon kits, a souvenir Sapporo beer glass, and a giant Gengar plush. I’ll leave you to guess which was for my daughter.
None of it. All mine, baby.
After being unpacked, however, poor Gundvölva stared at me unopened for months. I hadn’t even started Gunpla properly and I already had a pile of shame. After all, I had Warhammer plans and I didn’t even know what I’d use the Gundam model for once it was built. So Gundvölva languished in a cupboard. Until now.
Bandai Namco recently sent me the Entry Grade GAT-X105 Strike Gundam to promote the release of Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Battle Destiny Remastered. I dove headfirst into this Entry Grade kit, proving perhaps that it’s best to start at the bottom even if you’re an experienced model builder, if only to get over that initial apprehension. But even this simple kit blew me away with technology and quality of life improvements over the Warhammer kits I build every day.
Gunpla Hits Different
The Entry Grade Gunpla kits require no tools to assemble. No nippers to cut the pieces from the sprue, no knife to clean up mould lines, no glue to put it together. As someone who comes from the world of Warhammer, it’s a masterclass equal parts satisfying and shocking.
I went over a couple of the connection points with a knife after I’d built the kit, but it’s by no means necessary.
Push-fit kits made by Games Workshop have rightfully garnered a bad reputation for being fiddly and ill-fitting, but everything on a Gunpla goes together smoothly. The resulting mech is also fully poseable, something that not even the glued-together Games Workshop kits are these days.
Warhammer is firmly in its monopose era, and I hate it. To go from kits that build one dude pointing his gun in a certain direction to a fully-poseable mech is like switching from margarine to butter. It’s basically the same thing, but the toast tastes so much better.
The sprues are technologically advanced, too. Not only can you snap bits off easily and without tools, some sprues have multiple colours of plastic on them. I can’t comprehend how a machine would even do that. But the biggest quality of life upgrade from Warhammer kits is the numbering.
Each piece on a Warhammer sprue is numbered. But those numbers are thrown at the sprue in a random order, as if the designer vomited them into the injection mould and reckoned that would be alright. I get that Workshop packs in a lot of bits into every kit, but you can spend minutes looking for piece 112, only to find it’s on a completely separate sprue.
Not only are Gunpla sprues clearly labelled, every piece is numerically sorted in the order you’ll need them. Building a plastic Gundam is like building a dream. A Games Workshop kit is built in the forges of industry to a soundtrack of heavy metal and the feeling of crusted superglue on your calloused fingers. A Gunpla kit is built while sitting on a cloud, letting ethereal harp melodies wash over your body as the mech practically builds itself.
A Losing Battle
Warhammer has its benefits, sure. The pieces themselves are more detailed, and I’m personally more invested in the worlds it has created (although, with a wealth of anime at my fingertips, that could soon change). There’s also the fact that you can use the models in a tabletop wargame, which is not the case with Gunpla. Unless you were to proxy the GAT-X105 as an Armiger-class Knight or something. Don’t tempt me with a good time…
You must also consider the price. My 6” tall Gundvölva figure costs just £22 ($30) and I paid even less than that in Japan. The Entry Grade kits like GAT-X105 cost even less, about £10 ($14). Single Warhammer charactersstartat £25, for a small Space Marine Lieutenant. I tried to find a plastic Space Marine kit for a similar price to an Entry Grade Gunpla and the best I could do was aSpace Wolves upgrade kit, which doesn’t even build a whole miniature and I’m pretty sure is for outdated Firstborn Marines. Some shoulder pads or a whole a*s mech? The choice is yours.
Truth be told, I don’t want to force the two hobbies into some kind of pointless battle for supremacy. I’m not trying to create the tabletop equivalent of an arbitrary console war. Despite everything I’ve written, I still prefer Warhammer to Gunpla. But Bandai Namco’s impressive kits show a path for Games Workshop to improve its product.
I’d especially like to see Gunpla’s sprue numbering systems make the transition to Warhammer, and I wouldn’t say no to poseable joints, either. I’m sick of having to cut away plastic tabs to give my miniatures unique poses – I don’t want to field four Imperial Knights whose legs happen to be walking in the exact same way. I’d love prices to come down, too, but that feels like an ask too far for an industry leader that already has stock issues even at such inflated prices.
If you’ve never built a Gunpla kit before, you don’t know what you’re missing. If you’ve never built a Warhammer kit before, you’re in for a shock. And if you’re Games Workshop CEO Kevin Rountree, please number your sprues in a logical manner going forwards. I’m begging you.
