Mobile Suit Gundam: Age of Warfare
Introduction
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
-George Santayana
Some time ago, mankind suffered a crisis. With over nine billion people inhabiting the world, overpopulation and dwindling resources left life on Earth more and more untenable, and the newly formed Earth Federation government struggled with quelling the growing unrest.
A radical solution was proposed: humanity must spread out from the planet of its birth and begin colonising the rest of the Solar System, beginning with the Lagrangian points out in space - stable points where gravitational forces could not interfere with, say, a long-term colony habitat.
With the construction of a fully self-sufficient space colony at Lagrange Point 1 or “Side One”, the beginning of a new age dawned, and Anno Domini gave way to the Universal Century calendar.
New Age, Old Ways
For fifty years the Earth Federation insisted all colonies were under its rule, as more and more colonies were constructed and the population swelled to a gigantic eleven billion people - over two thirds of whom were adapting to a life out in space. However, those fortunate enough to remain on Earth looked down their noses at the colonists, disdainfully calling them “Spacenoids” and passing laws that favoured the Earth-born elite. This blatant discrimination would have consequences, as this atmosphere was ripe for a new, radical philosophy to spread among the colonies.
From Philosopher to Ruler
A man named Zeon Zum Deikun eventually found a home at Side Three, bringing with him Contolism: a philosophy that held the Earth, cradle of humanity, as sacred and not meant to be violated by humankind, and that each space colony cluster should be treated as a sovereign nation, independent from Federation control. As charismatic as he was intellectual, the people of Side Three eventually named him as their new leader and declared their independence as the Republic of Zeon. The Earth Federation immediately responded by blockading the colony cluster and denying it access to resources from outside.
For a time, Deikun ruled the Republic alongside his friend and chief of staff, Degwin Zabi, and began a family. This would be shattered with his sudden, unexpected demise.
The New Order
Zabi swore that on his deathbed, Deikun named him as his successor in ruling the Republic of Zeon. Deikun’s followers naturally suspected foul play, which was confirmed in their eyes when he declared the Republic was to turn into a Principality, with himself and his five children at its head as lords of Deikun’s legacy. When their second eldest son, Sasro, was killed in a car bombing, the Zabi family began a purge of Deikun’s followers, including his family. However, they could not find Deikun’s children: his daughter, Artesia, or his son, Casval. Undeterred, the newly-formed Principality of Zeon turned its attention to the Earth Federation that had made their fledgling nation suffer under economic pressure, and began an eleven-year buildup of military forces.
With the Federal blockade still in place, Zeon had no way to match the military might of the entire Earth Sphere in open warfare. A less conventional method was needed, and they eventually found it in an unlikely field: that of nuclear physics.
The Particle that Changed a Solar System
While experimenting with a more compact fusion reactor using helium-3, Professor Minovsky discovered a new type of particle on the inner wall of the reaction chamber. Experimentation discovered it was not only capable of containing the reaction in a much smaller space than he had been using, but also caused interference with low-frequency electromagnetic radiation such as radio transmissions and irreparably damaged unshielded electronics when scattered in the open. When the Professor defected to Side Three, it was the perfect opportunity for the Principality, and a new project was launched to develop weapons capable of operating in a Minovsky particle-dense environment, where radar and most guided weaponry would be useless. Zeonic scientists eventually hit upon a new design with the human form as a basis: the “mobile suit”. Unaware of this, the Earth Federation had begun manufacturing new model warships using tried-and-tested technologies.
Introduction
Men of Steel
The first mobile suit designs looked nothing more than a vaguely humanoid eighteen-meter tall robot. Settling on a humanoid form for a war machine was unorthodox in the extreme, but it had its basis in what would quickly become cold hard fact on the battlefield. Experiments had been performed using carefully computer-controlled “limbs” on space vehicles in zero-gravity conditions, to see if it was possible for them to aid in manoeuvring and allow for more efficient thruster use. The Active Mass Balance Auto-Control, or AMBAC, system, was a success and would become standard issue on all mobile suit units. In addition, with effective combat ranges being reduced to line-of-sight in an environment filled with Minovsky particles, a higher vantage point would make for a decisive advantage in ground combat. Coupled with a high-calibre weapon and heavy armour, a mobile suit could easily outmatch a tank while weathering most aerial assaults.
The very first Zaku mobile suits began rolling off the production line, and it would not be long before they would see active service.
In the 77th year of the Universal Century, the colony cluster known as Side Six or Riah decided to follow Zeon’s lead and claim independence in what would be a brutal but brief civil war, as Riah nationalists clashed with colony defense forces loyal to the Federation.
Degwin and his family saw an opportunity to garner allies, and ordered a blockade and the deployment of their new Zaku units within the colony cluster in a show of force in support of the nationalists.
Surprisingly, the Federation themselves allowed Riah’s independence in a peaceful manner, without firing a shot. But tensions had risen between them and Zeon, and while most of the Federal military was contemptuous of Zeon’s “toy robots”, several scientists began research on the viability of such a strange weapons system.
Their research would only bear fruit in the midst of the most bloody war the Earth would ever witness. On January 3rd, Universal Century 0079, those tensions would erupt and the Principality of Zeon would declare war on the Earth and all its puppets.
The first shots were fired three seconds after the war began, as Zeon forces launched a surprise assault on Sides One, Two and Four. Taking the Federation’s Space Force by surprise, Zeon soon proved they had no sympathy for civilian “sympathisers”, as they fed poison gas into several colonies to exterminate their inhabitants.
However, the Earth Federal fleet rallied. Although they took ferocious losses and had to unleash nuclear weaponry in the process, they managed to damage the colony enough to send it off course, causing it to break up in the atmosphere and hit Sydney instead, completely destroying it.
The Federation’s headquarters of Jaburo was saved, but the cost was still high: while only half of the colony made it into Earth’s atmosphere, it still destroyed 16% of Australia’s total landmass, and the tidal waves and environmental side-effects would eventually kill half the population of the Earth within the next month. With even the botched Operation British causing worldwide devastation, the Zeon top brass were anxious to try again, and ordered an attack on Side Five, known as Loum.
The Zeonic fleet arrived to find the Federation’s forces were lying in wait, and the two of them engaged in brutal, no-holds-barred combat. While Zeon’s mobile suits soon proved themselves as truly lethal weapons of war, with the legendary “Red Comet” Char Aznable singlehandedly chalking up five battleship kills and the Earth Federation general Johann Revil being captured by a team known as the Black Tri-Stars, neither side could claim a decisive victory.
By the end of the Battle of Loum, nuclear weapons had been deployed by both sides and Side Five was all but annihilated with only a few million survivors lucky enough to have been evacuated beforehand. Without Revil’s charismatic leadership, however, the Federation’s resolve weakened, and when Degwin Zabi’s eldest son Gihren began threatening to drop the Federal asteroid base of Luna II onto Earth they began plans for surrender negotiations in Antarctica.
Benefactors
Now War is Declared, and Battle Come Down
This, however, was only the beginning of a much more insidious plan, as they began to attach nuclear pulse engines to one of the colonies to fall victim to them at Side Two. “Operation British”, as it was called, was to involve this colony to be hurled at the rough location of the Federation’s massive underground headquarters in South America.
And the Principality of Zeon was not finished there.The Battle of Loum
Introduction
The Mirage of Surrender
What would later be known as the Antarctic Treaty began as these surrender negotiations, with high-ranking Federal officials and the Zabi family - the eldest son Gihren, his brothers Dozle and Garma, and sister Kycilia - meeting side by side. For a while victory was almost assured, and Gihren was confident the Earth government’s back had been broken by their terror tactics - so confident, in fact, he and the others left for home after ten days and entrusted Kycilia with overseeing the final agreement.
This was a mistake. None of them knew that General Revil had somehow managed to escape captivity, and his sudden broadcast from the Luna II base came as a shock to the entire Earth sphere. In it, he made a rallying speech claiming Zeon’s strength had been expended in the fighting, decrying the Federation’s politicians for being “corrupt and inept” and denouncing Zeon’s genocidal ways, before finally exhorting the Federation to rise up and keep fighting the war.
Rumour had it that Kycilia was so enraged by this she nearly attempted to have the negotiation table itself smashed. The negotiations took a radical turn, and instead of conditions of surrender a ban on all nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons along with the use of colony drops was eventually agreed to. Side Six, which had announced its neutrality after seeing the barbarity of the opening weeks of the war, could expect to have its status respected.
Zeon formed an Earth Attack Force with the youngest of the Zabi clan, Garma, at its head, and launched an invasion of key targets on Earth with the hope of capturing enough resources to keep the advantage in the war. However, shortly after the occupation the situation degenerated into a long stalemate.
While this left both warring factions with some benefits, it left them both with a quandary. The Earth Federation’s conventional arms were no match one-for-one against Zeon’s new mobile suit weapons, and it was only through overwhelming numbers and superior resources that they held on. Meanwhile, the Principality had indeed been stretched by the losses at Loum and was ill-equipped to fight the Federation on a fair level.
Characters
Characters
Mobile Suit Gundam is (regardless of how the Federation and Principality feel about one another) a humans-only setting, therefore only human-based archetypes are available.
In addition, new skills have been added to the skill list:
Piloting (Mobile Suit) (Agility)
The iconic weapon of this new era of warfare cannot simply be operated like a common tank or fighter. Mobile suits are capable of waging war in vacuum, on land, and potentially beneath the waves, and their unique properties take a little adjusting to. Piloting (Mobile Suit) is a subset of the Piloting skill, but it denotes a character’s ability at operating a mobile suit regardless of the environment it’s in.
Your character should use this skill if:
- They’re trying some kind of dangerous or difficult manoevre in a mobile suit, such as attempting an airdrop without a parachute or catching someone in free-fall with the suit’s hand.
- You need them to land on a carrier safely in mid-battle.
- The suit itself is critically damaged (missing a limb, main camera sensors destroyed and so on) or there is a time limit involved.
Your character shouldn’t use this skill if:
- There isn’t any stressful situation with consequences for failure. Simply having a mobile suit walk somewhere during a relatively peaceful moment is something even an untrained operator could eventually figure out. Just ask Amuro Ray.
- They’re piloting a mobile armour. Those operate more like traditional fighters or ground vehicles, with a few notable exceptions that are unlikely to reach player characters’ hands.
Melee (Mobile Suit) (Agility)
While it’s relatively easy to determine that an autocannon or beam rifle isn’t too far removed from a vehicular tank gun or mega particle cannon, the hand-carried melee weapons mobile suits often carry are a different matter entirely. Burying a heat hawk into the underbelly of a warship and engaging another mobile suit in hand to hand combat may both use the same set of skills, but woe to the pilot who assumes the latter is as easy as the former. Melee (Mobile Suit) is used for any hand-carried mobile suit weapon with a range of Engaged, or any melee attack made by a mobile suit regardless of weapon.
Your character should use this skill if:
- They’re engaging something in close combat with a mobile suit melee weapon.
- Their mobile suit has no melee weapon, but they want to engage an enemy with its bare manipulators instead.
Your character shouldn’t use this skill if:
- The enemy is far away. Trying to throw your melee weapons usually doesn’t work very well.
New Careers
Mobile Suit Pilot
So many mobile suit pilots fit into the same stereotype as the fighter pilot from Genesys core. They pilot the weapon of the era, and damned if they’ll let you forget it.
Mobile Suit Pilots are a variant of that career, but with Driving and Piloting replaced with Piloting (Mobile Suit) and Melee (Mobile Suit) respectively.
Operator
Mobile suit teams don’t operate well without support. An Operator is typically the one who coordinates their efforts in the field, keeping them abreast of sudden developments as well as keeping them in contact with allies for larger operations. Operators gain Driving, Piloting, Ranged (Light), Computers, Knowledge, Leadership, Mechanics, and Negotiation as career skills, and may choose four to have a free rank in at character creation.
Characters
New Talents
Some of these talents may be familiar if you have played other Fantasy Flight Games RPGs, while a handful are entirely new.
Parry (Mobile Suit)
Tier: 1
Activation: Active (Incidental, Out of Turn)
Ranked: Yes
When your character suffers a hit from a melee combat
check in mobile suit combat, after damage is calculated but before soak is applied
(so immediately after Step 3 of Perform a Combat check,
page 102), your mobile suit may suffer 3 system strain to use this
talent to reduce the damage of the hit by two plus their
ranks in Parry (Mobile Suit). This talent can only be used once per hit,
and you must be piloting a mobile suit to use this talent.
High-G Training
Tier: 2
Activation: Active (Incidental, Out of Turn)
Ranked: Yes
When a vehicle the character is currently piloting would suffer system strain (either voluntary
or involuntary), the character may suffer a number of
strain up to his ranks in High-G Training. If he does, the
amount of system strain the vehicle suffers
is reduced by that amount (to a minimum of 0).
I've Still Got Tone
Tier: 2
Activation: Passive
Ranked: Yes
When making attacks with weapons with the Guided quality in a Minovsky particle-affected area, ignore one difficulty upgrade per rank of I've Still Got Tone.
Emergency Retraining
Tier: 2
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
Gain Gunnery, Piloting (Mobile Suit) and Melee (Mobile Suit) as career skills.
Clever Commander
Tier: 2
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
When your character is the commander of either the active or opposing force in a Mass Combat check, you may use your ranks in Knowledge (Warfare) in place of Leadership.
Ship Breaker
Tier: 3
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
When attacking a vehicle, ignore the Massive quality if it has it.
Hindering Shot
Tier: 3
Activation: Active (Incidental)
Ranked: Yes
Spend a story point and increase the difficulty of next Gunnery check by 1. If the check deals damage, the target vehicle suffers system strain equal to its current Speed when it moves for a number of turns equal to ranks in Hindering Shot. In the case of mobile suits in ground combat this strain is only one.
Overwhelm Defenses
Tier: 3
Activation: Active (Incidental)
Ranked: Yes
Upon unsuccessful attack with a starship or vehicle weapon, may spend aa per rank of Overwhelm Defenses to lower the target's Defense by one for every aa spent.
Brilliant Evasion
Tier: 4
Activation: Active (Action)
Ranked: No
Once per vehicle encounter, your character may take a Brilliant Evasion action. Select 1 opponent and make an Opposed appropriate Driving/Piloting check to stop the chosen opponent from attacking character for rounds equal to their Agility characteristic.
Equipment
Characters
"Are you on a operation that doesn't involve you being in an 18 meter tall war machine? Yes? Then you wear a fucking bulletproof. No fucking exceptions."
-Commander D. Lister, Nachtmaren independent mobile suit unit
Hand-carried Small Arms
Unlike some similar settings, Mobile Suit Gundam hasn’t really progressed beyond 20th-century slugthrowers for its personal-scale weaponry - possibly due to its origins in hard military sci-fi. Please use the modern day listings for weaponry and armour in a Gundam campaign, with the exception of anti-armour missiles which are disallowed.
Gear and Protective Equipment
Again, a lot of modern-day equipment can be used as-is, but there are a few important items to note. The space suit from the Space Opera chapter in the Genesys book is sufficient for a standard ship crew's space suit.
However, the average mobile suit pilot is equipped with a more snug-fitting space suit with less protection and air supply, on the off chance they somehow survive the destruction of their machine.
Pilot suits only have roughly two to three hours of breathable air and lack mag-boots, but for game purposes work identically to the standard. However, bulkier old-style space suits impose bb to checks that require fine motor skills or dexterity (like, for example, piloting a mobile suit!)
Vehicles and Combat Machines
Vehicles and Combat Machines
“This is no Zaku, boy! No Zaku!”
-Lieutenant Ramba Ral
Given the nature of the setting, it should come as no surprise that Genesys’ optional vehicle rules (see page 220) are in use.
In addition, all ranges listed here are considered as using the extended ranges detailed in the "Range Bands in Space" sidebar on page 225, or the planetary-scale ranges used in the Star Wars RPGs. The ranges of mobile suit combat are vast: to use an example, the Guntank is entirely capable of parking up in Kyoto and performing indirect shelling on buildings in Tokyo, which is reflected in its mass-production cousin's statblock here.
Qualities common to mobile suits:
Manipulator arms (unless stated otherwise the mobile suit is capable of human-like feats of dexterity such as grasping, obscene gestures etc. Yes, this includes improvised weapons)
Humanoid construction (A mobile suit can punch/kick/stomp as though it were a character with Brawn 3, although its unarmed attacks count as vehicular weapons. In addition a mobile suit's arm-carried/mounted weapons are considered to be capable of using all four firing arcs)
Walks Like A Man (Mobile suits can only perform the Reposition manoevre to move when in ground combat, space works like normal. In addition, they can take cover and perform similar personal-scale combat manoevres, but are susceptible to the Knockdown quality on vehicular weaponry)
Rocket thrusters (capable of movement through space, can leap over/through difficult terrain as a manoeuvre, if in an environment with gravity can suffer 2 system strain to fly for one turn but must spend the next on land, can perform the Evade manoeuvre regardless of current or maximum speed)
Minovsky Particles And You
The military applications of Minovsky particles changed the battlefield irrevocably. Their scattering in an area effectively eliminates radio communications and radar. While it has no effect on wire-guided weaponry (something the Federation are anxiously trying to exploit), anyone attempting to use radar-guided weapons in a particle-saturated area is potentially in for a nasty shock.
The below table is to determine the effects of any Minovsky interference in the area, but commonly they tend to upgrade the difficulty of attacks made with weapons with the Guided quality. A d result can be all manner of unfortunate effects, but typically tends to end in premature detonation.
| Minovsky density | Radio Transmissions | Guided Weapons |
|---|---|---|
| 0% | Unaffected | Unaffected |
| Low | Average (dd) Computers check to establish comms | Upgrade difficulty once |
| Medium | Hard (ddd) Computers check to establish comms | Upgrade difficulty twice |
| High | Daunting (dddd) Computers check to establish comms | Upgrade difficulty three times |
| Extreme | Formidable (ddddd) Computers check to establish comms | Upgrade difficulty four times |
Vehicles and Combat Machines
Custom Critical Hit Table
Mobile suits work quite differently from standard vehicles, and as such use this critical hit table instead of the standard one.
| D100 | Severity | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 01-18 | Easy (d) | Thrown Around: The mobile suit is jostled violently, throwing its pilot around in their safety straps. Both pilot and suit suffer 3 strain. |
| 19-35 | Easy (d) | Console Overload: One or more of the mobile suit’s screens or system consoles shatters from the force of the attack, spraying shrapnel across the cockpit. The pilot must immediately make a Hard (ddd) Resilience or Vigilance check or take a wound, plus an additional wound for each f. |
| 36-54 | Easy (d) | Power/Coolant Mismatch: The mobile suit struggles to feed power to vital systems, or to circulate coolant to them. Its pilot can no longer voluntarily inflict system strain on the suit until this Critical Hit is repaired. |
| 55-63 | Average (dd) | Broken Plating: The mobile suit’s Armour rating is reduced by one, as the attack either melts or smashes off chunks of its armour plating. |
| 64-80 | Average (dd) | Weapon Destroyed: Whatever weapon is currently in the mobile suit’s hands is damaged to the point of inoperability. This has no other effect, and has no effect whatsoever if the suit is unarmed. |
| 81-100 | Hard (ddd) | Arm Severed: One of the mobile suit’s arms, determined by the Game Master, is removed along with anything it is holding or has mounted inside it. If the mobile suit has its other arm remaining, a handheld weapon can be recovered. |
| 101-120 | Hard (ddd) | Leg Severed: One of the legs, determined by the Game Master, is removed. The mobile suit can no longer walk on land, and its mobility in either space or atmosphere is severely curtailed. Reduce its current Speed to 0 immediately. |
| 121-138 | Daunting (dddd) | Decapitation: The mobile suit’s entire head is blown or sliced off, forcing its pilot to rely on backup sensors. Increase the difficulty of all ranged attacks its pilot makes by two, and any weapons or equipment in there (such as head Vulcans) are immediately lost. |
| 139-144 | Daunting (dddd) | Direct Cockpit Hit: The attack penetrates the suit’s armour and harms the pilot inside. The pilot immediately suffers the effects of a Critical Injury roll made at +40, and is reduced to one wound should they survive. |
| 145-153 | Daunting (dddd) | It's Gonna Blow!: The mobile suit is stricken to the point where its body starts to come apart joint by joint. The pilot has one round to leave the cockpit and run like hell before it explodes. |
| 154 + | - | Critical Reactor Failure: The mobile suit’s fusion reactor is compromised and it detonates in a brilliant fireball. Nothing is left of the suit or pilot but a scorched stain on the ground or ravaged scrap of metal. Anyone unlucky enough to be within Engaged range must make an appropriate Hard (ddd) check to evade the blast in time, or else take 9 vehicle-scale damage. |
Vehicles and Combat Machines
MS-06 Zaku II
The mainstay of the Principality of Zeon’s mobile suits, the Zaku II is an intimidating force on the battlefield with its asymmetric shoulders and cycloptic mono-eye sensor package in a head that looks more reminiscent of a gas mask than anything particularly humanoid.
Designed as a multirole unit, the Zaku II proved itself a capable machine during the Battle of Loum in the early stages of the war, although it is fast becoming a “jack of all trades, master of none” as new mobile suit designs roll off the production lines.
Type: mass-production general-purpose mobile suit
Crew: 1 pilot
Weapons:
Hand-carried 120mm machine gun (Damage 6, Autofire, Critical 4, Range Short)
or hand-carried 280mm bazooka (Damage 7, Blast 7, Breach 2, Range Medium, Critical 3, Limited Ammo 4)
"Cracker" cluster grenades (Damage 3, Blast 3, Limited Ammo 1)
Heat hawk (mounted on waist, hand-carried in use) (Damage 7, Breach 3, Range Engaged, Critical 3)
MS-09 Dom
Developed to shore up the limitations in Zeon’s ground warfare mobile suits (the Zaku was originally built for space from the outset and so was weighted down by equipment and design quirks it didn't need when in gravity, and its cousin the Gouf had a woefully limited arsenal when it came to ranged combat), the Dom was a true terror on the battlefield. Built around a ground-effect hover jet system feeding off the suit’s reactor, it is capable of gliding along the ground at high speeds instead of using its bulky body to walk.
With its mobility assured, the Dom’s creators at Zimmad Company could afford to load it up with heavier equipment. The chassis was reinforced with heavier armour plating than on a Zaku, and the reactor was found to have enough energy to power a small beam weapon, although its size meant its damage and range were at best negligible.
The Dom is a fine choice for experienced pilots who can handle its extra speed and manoeuvrability, but its hover jet system is temperamental and prone to clogging when subjected to adverse conditions, which can make all the difference should it happen during a combat sortie.
Type: mass-production ground combat mobile suit
Crew: 1 pilot
Weapons:
Hand-carried 360mm giant bazooka (Damage 8, Blast 8, Breach 2, Range Medium, Critical 3, Limited Ammo 10)
or hand-carried 120mm machine gun (Damage 6, Autofire, Critical 4, Range Short)
Heat saber (mounted on back, hand-carried in use) (Damage 7, Breach 3, Range Engaged, Critical 3)
Chest-mounted beam scatter gun (Damage 1, Slow-firing 1, Range Engaged, Disorient 3, firing arc front)
Hover Jets: A Dom's pilot may choose to ignore the limitations on only using the Reposition manoevre to move in combat, as it skims the ground at high speed. However, should the Dom take a critical hit that damages its movement and propulsion systems in some way, it loses this ability and its Handling immediately drops to -1. In addition, it cannot be operated in space.
Designed four years before the war, the Zaku I was quickly deemed inadequate for combat by Kycilia Zabi shortly after the development of the improved Zaku II. However, there were enough Zaku Is produced by this point for the Zeon military to find a home for them among training battalions, rear-line units and the supply corps. Several were used in the colony gassing atrocities of Operation British, and some veteran pilots had developed a soft spot for the older model, insisting on keeping theirs throughout the war. Type: mass-production general-purpose mobile suit
MS-05 Zaku I
Crew: 1 pilot
Weapons:
Hand-carried 105mm machine gun (Damage 5, Autofire, Critical 4, Range Short)
Vehicles and Combat Machines
RGM-79 [G] GM Ground Type
One of the first mobile suits available to the Federation, the GM Ground Type was rushed into service using the earliest data from Project V as a guideline. While originally intended to gain practical combat data for later designs, the Ground Type eventually saw at least forty-two units produced, and was a major participant in the Federal counteroffensives sweeping the globe late in the year. As with its cousin the Gundam Ground Type, sourcing spare parts becomes progressively harder as Federation production lines focus more on the cheaper and general-purpose GM.
Type: limited mass-production ground combat mobile suit
Crew: 1 pilot
Weapons:
Hand-carried 100mm machine gun (Damage 6, Autofire, Critical 3, Range Short)
or hand-carried beam rifle (Damage 8, Breach 4, Range Medium, Critical 2, Vicious 2, runs out of ammunition onhh or d)
Twin beam sabers (mounted in recharge racks in legs, hand-carried in use) (Damage 8, Breach 4, Sunder, Range Engaged, Critical 2, Vicious 2)
Luna Titanium armour: (counts as having the Reinforced rule) During development of Project V, the Earth Federation found it had a small stockpile of spare parts originally earmarked for the RX-78 Gundam prototypes. Desperate for active combat units and anxious to test mobile suit tactics, a limited production line of what would be known as the RX-79 [G] would eventually reach the front lines.
The Gundam Ground Type was a testbed for many optional systems that would never see widespread use, such as a head-mounted periscope and a redesigned modular backpack capable of mounting a parachute or equipment container. During its brief service life, most units would be deployed to Southeast Asia, although a handful of the Ground Types would be sent to the American and European fronts also, where they would prove themselves in supporting the counteroffensives there.
While its performance in combat is proven, sourcing repair parts for the Gundam Ground Type is exceptionally hard due to it being constructed from spare parts to begin with. Many critically damaged units have been repaired using whatever parts were available, including its cousin the GM Ground Type, and so “custom” variants are not unusual to encounter.
Type: limited mass-production ground combat mobile suit
Luna Titanium armour: (counts as having the Reinforced rule)
Arm-mounted shield: (+1 defense, can absorb 3 points of damage in place of the mobile suit before being destroyed)
Ground combat optimised: Remove b imposed by difficult battlefield conditions, cannot be operated in space under any circumstances
RX-79 [G] Gundam Ground Type
Crew: 1 pilot
Weapons:
Hand-carried 100mm machine gun (Damage 6, Autofire, Critical 3, Range Short)
or hand-carried beam rifle (Damage 8, Breach 4, Range Medium, Critical 2, Vicious 2, runs out of ammunition onhh or d)
or hand-carried 180mm cannon (Damage 8, Breach 2, Range Extreme, Critical 2, Limited Ammo 8, Knockdown)
or 380mm bazooka (Damage 9, Blast 8, Breach 2, Range Medium, Critical 3, Limited Ammo 5)
Twin beam sabers (mounted in recharge racks in legs, hand-carried in use) (Damage 8, Breach 4, Sunder, Range Engaged, Critical 2, Vicious 2)
Chest-mounted 60mm Vulcan gun (Damage 4, Critical 5, Autofire, Range Short, firing arc front)
Chest-mounted variable-munitions multi-launcher (firing arc front)
Arm-mounted shield: (+1 defense, can absorb 3 points of damage in place of the mobile suit before being destroyed)
Ground combat optimised: Remove b imposed by difficult battlefield conditions, cannot be operated in space under any circumstances
Resilient: When this vehicle suffers a Critical Hit, a Story Point may be spent to roll a second
result and choose the preferred result of the two.
Vehicles and Combat Machines
RX-75 Guntank Mass Production Type
One of the earliest prototypes the Federation developed on seeing footage of the Zaku I was the Guntank, a bizarre hybrid of both the mobile suit concept and a traditional tank, with tank treads instead of legs, cannons on its shoulders and “arms” that were little more than articulated missile launcher mounts. While in practice the original Guntank prototype was nowhere near the anti-mobile suit weapon its designers had hoped, it did have a niche when it came to long-range fire support, and this led to a limited production run of a simplified mass-production version.
The Mass Production Guntank is more like a standard armoured vehicle than a mobile suit, with a driver in the lower chest and a gunner in a canopy cockpit in the head. Unlike its prototype, it does not have a Core Fighter-based evacuation system for the driver, instead having a waist capable of rotating and acting like a turret. Its cannons were given a slightly lower calibre than the prototype’s 180mms, but they were also removable, and many mass-produced Guntanks would be equipped with cranes in their mounts and pressed into service as combat engineering and construction vehicles.
Type: mass-production long-range artillery mobile suit
Crew: One driver, one gunner
Weapons:
Twin shoulder-mounted 120mm cannons (Damage 7, Breach 2, Range Extreme, Critical 3, Limited Ammo 9, Linked 1, firing arc all)
Arm-mounted 40mm four-tube missile launchers (Damage 6, Range Medium, Critical 3, Blast 5, Autofire, firing arc all)
Tracks for Legs: The Guntank requires the Driving skill for its driver to operate, instead of Piloting (Mobile Suit).
Arcing Fire: If the Guntank does not move, its cannons can be fired at a maximum of Strategic range instead of Extreme at targets in the open. With combat data collected from the RX-78 Gundam prototype, the final piece of the puzzle Federal scientists and engineers had set themselves fell into place.
What they needed was a general-purpose combat unit with the Gundam’s power and effectiveness, but with cheaper and more streamlined components for ease of mass-production and training. With some modifications the RGM-79 was born.
Despite having lighter regular titanium and ceramic armour instead of its older brother's Luna Titanium, the GM was in some ways a slight improvement on the Gundam design, with better sensor range, turning speed and thrust output. Even with concessions needing to be made when it came to armaments (a single beam saber and a shorter-range beam gun as opposed to the Gundam’s twin sabers and full-power beam rifle) the RGM-79 is more than a match for most of Zeon’s arsenal and is affectionately nicknamed “Jim” by many Federation pilots.
The GM is inherently compatible with many optional weapons systems and components designed for the Gundam, and it is not unheard of for aces to scrounge up the sub-generator parts necessary to power a beam rifle, or a replacement backpack with a second beam saber slot. Type: mass-production general-purpose mobile suit
Arm-mounted shield: (+1 defense, can absorb 4 points of damage in place of the mobile suit before being destroyed)
Head Canopy: Should the Guntank ever be subjected to the Decapitation Critical Hit, resolve it as Direct Cockpit Hit centred on the gunner instead.
RGM-79 GM
Crew: 1 pilot
Weapons:
Hand-carried 100mm machine gun (Damage 6, Autofire, Critical 3, Range Short)
or hand-carried 90mm machine gun (Damage 6, Autofire, Critical 3, Range Short, Breach 1)
or hand-carried beam spray gun (Damage 7, Critical 3, Range Short, Breach 2, Blast 2)
or hand-carried 380mm bazooka (Damage 9, Blast 8, Breach 2, Range Medium, Critical 3, Limited Ammo 5)
Beam saber (stored in recharge rack on backpack, hand-carried in use) (Damage 8, Breach 4, Sunder, Range Engaged, Critical 2, Vicious 2)
Head-mounted twin 60mm Vulcan guns (Damage 4, Critical 5, Autofire, Linked 1, Range Short, firing arcs front, port and starboard)
Vehicles and Combat Machines
Where's the Gundam?
This is written with the assumption player characters will be regular soldiers in the Federation or Zeon forces, to whom the Gundam will largely be just a morale-booster or terrifying rumour. Of course, this is more a guide than a restriction, and so for those that really want to delve into alternate possibilities or give their Zeon players a real challenge the legendary RX-78’s stats will be provided below.
Crew: 1 pilot
Weapons:
Hand-carried beam rifle (Damage 8, Breach 4, Range Medium, Critical 2, Vicious 2, runs out of ammunition on hh or d)
or hand-carried 380mm bazooka (Damage 9, Blast 8, Breach 2, Range Medium, Critical 3, Limited Ammo 5)
Beam sabers (stored in recharge racks on backpack, hand-carried in use) (Damage 8, Breach 4, Sunder, Range Engaged, Critical 2, Vicious 2)
Head-mounted twin 60mm Vulcan guns (Damage 4, Critical 5, Autofire, Linked 1, Range Short, firing arcs front, port and starboard)
Arm-mounted shield (+1 defense, can absorb 4 points of damage in place of the mobile suit before being destroyed)
Luna Titanium armour (counts as having the Reinforced rule)
Enhanced Servos (The Gundam counts as having Brawn 4, not 3, when attacking unarmed)
Core Fighter system (On a critical hit result of 145+ the Core Fighter system activates, launching the pilot away from the now-destroyed mobile suit in a small fighter instead of the standard result)
Resilient: When this vehicle suffers a Critical Hit, a Story Point may be spent to roll a second
result and choose the preferred result of the two.
Vehicles and Combat Machines
FF-3/S3 Saberfish
Manufactured by the Hervic Company, the Saberfish multi-role fighter was the Earth Federation’s main frontline unit in space in the early months of the war. While it was relatively cheap to produce, it soon found itself floundering against Zeonic Zaku teams, which possessed both similar manoeuvrability and superior firepower. While the Saberfishes held the line through sheer numbers and clever use of their missile tubes, they were eventually supplanted by GM and Ball teams on the space front. However, the Saberfish’s mark on the war would continue: it proved to be a capable fighter in Earth’s atmosphere, and many of its pilots would find themselves transferred to the Federation’s growing numbers of mobile suit teams.
Type: mass-production high-speed space/atmospheric fighter
Crew: 1 pilot
Weapons:
25mm machine guns (Damage 3, Range Short, Critical 5, Linked 3, firing arc front)
Three-barrel missile tubes (Damage 5, Range Medium, Critical 3, Blast 3, Breach 2, Linked 2, Guided 2, firing arc front)
Type 74 Hover Truck/M353A4 Bloodhound
With Minovsky particles rendering radar and radio transmissions effectively useless, the Earth Federation’s ground army needed a new method of gaining intelligence on enemy positions from a distance. Eventually one of their older light armoured vehicles, the Type 74, would be equipped with a sonar sensor suite and communications package to scan for anything ground-bound on the battlefield. In the hands of a skilled sonar operator the sensors can differentiate between tanks and mobile suits, determine numbers and even between different models.
However, the Type 74 is not designed for frontline combat, with its main defensive armament being a roof turret-mounted 20mm Vulcan gun of little effectiveness against anything heavier than aircraft or light armour. When deployed as part of a team of mobile suits or in support of heavier vehicles it fulfils its role of intelligence support exceptionally well, and its speed allows it to evade the heavier rigours of battle.
The Type 74 was largely deployed in Southeast Asia and Oceania, while the functionally-identical Bloodhound fills its role on the European and American front.
Type: light armoured support vehicle/hovertruck
Crew: One pilot, one gunner, one comms operator, one sensor operator
Weapons:
20mm Vulcan gun (Damage 3, Range Short, Critical 5, Autofire, firing arc All)
Sonar suite: If the Type 74/Bloodhound is not moving, as an action a member of the crew can drive the equipped sonar probe into the ground and make an Average (dd) Computers check to scan for contacts, picking up any mobile suit or ground vehicle moving up to Long range.
If they are attempting to ascertain exact details of whatever they pick up, the difficulty increases to Hard (ddd). Rather obviously, this does not pick up aerial contacts such as Dopps.
Type 61 Main Battle Tank
Produced in their millions in the buildup to war, the Federation’s Type 61 had eighteen years of service before the Zaku made it obsolete. When pitted against the mobile suits of Zeon, it was soon apparent that using standard tactics with the Type 61 would just result in slaughter: the tank’s dual 150mm cannons were dangerous, but at close range couldn't elevate high enough to hit anything immediately vital on a Zaku’s chassis, while the Zaku’s elevated firing position meant it could easily hit the tank’s thin roof armour. In addition, at the reduced ranges imposed by Minovsky interference a mobile suit was often capable of evading tank fire and literally running rings around the slower Type 61.
However, much like the Saberfish the Type 61s held the line through overwhelming numbers and cunning tactics like ambushes from elevated positions (as although they were large for tanks, they were far easier to conceal than a mobile suit and could go places they could not), and it is a foolish Zeon pilot who underestimates a formation of Type 61s heading their way.
Type: main battle tank
Crew: One driver, one gunner, one commander
Weapons:
Dual 155mm cannons (Damage 7, Breach 2, Range Long, Critical 3, Linked 1, firing arc All)
External pintle-mounted 12.7mm machine gun (entire profile is personal scale) (Damage 12, Range Long, Critical 3, Autofire, Pierce 2, Vicious 2, firing arc All)
Vehicles and Combat Machines
Big Tray-class Land Battleship
The linchpin of the Federation ground forces' might, the Big Tray-class is part command centre, part artillery battery, equipped with a fearsome array of cannon turrets and a pair of heavy guns mounted in its bow while its nuclear-powered hovercraft system lets it cruise across land and sea alike. While it is ultimately a relic of the pre-mobile suit era, with the correct support the Big Tray is still devastatingly effective.
Crew: unknown
Weapons: Three triple-barrel cannon turrets (Damage 9, Breach 3, Critical 3, Range Extreme, Linked 2, firing arcs rear, port, starboard)
Twin heavy particle cannons (Damage 10, Breach 4, Critical 3, Range Extreme, Linked 1, firing arc forward)
Massive: When making an attack against a Big Tray-class battleship, the critical rating of any weapon used is classed as two higher.
ACA-01 Gaw Attack Carrier
Zeon recognised they needed a method for delivering mobile suits to the fray in land warfare. While their Musai cruisers were sufficient in space, none of their space fleet was atmosphere-capable at the time barring the Musai’s nose shuttle and the HLV re-entry capsule, and so an aircraft was developed to fulfil that role for the Earth Attack Force.
Sadly this is where the same aeronautical inexperience that plagued the Dopp air fighter reared its ugly head once more. The Gaw was capable of carrying three mobile suits and eight Dopps, but its bulky airframe was sluggish, handled poorly and above all was a huge target, needing no less than eighteen jet engines fed by two Minovsky reactors to grant it flight.
However, what the Gaw lacks in agility it makes up for in firepower. It is equipped with mega particle cannons as standard, and typically has an array of bomb bays on its underside for eliminating ground targets in the time-honoured way aircraft have always done: carpeting them with heavy ordinance.
Crew: 34
Weapons:
Two wing-mounted twin-barrelled mega particle cannons (Damage 9, Breach 4, Critical 3, Range Long, Linked 1, firing arcs port/front or front/starboard)
One roof-mounted retractable twin-barrelled mega particle cannon (Damage 9, Breach 4, Critical 3, Range Long, Linked 1, firing arc All)
Approximately 10 anti air machine guns (Damage 3, Range Short, Critical 5, Autofire, firing arc All)
Underside bomb bay (see "Bombing Run", page 72 of the Expanded Players' Guide. Damage in this case is vehicular-scale)
Ship complement: Eight Dopp fighters, three mobile suits, six support vehicles such as Magella Attack tanks or Cui armoured troop transports (can be removed to make room for three additional mobile suits)
P-01B Luggun Reconnaissance Plane
Zeon’s mobile suits were a true terror on the battlefield, but their effective deployment still required intelligence on enemy units, their positions, strength and numbers. To this end the Luggun recon plane was designed.
While it did the job, the Luggun suffers from a lot of the flaws Zeon’s other aircraft do: specifically a strange unaerodynamic frame that made the craft a sluggish fuel-hog. In addition, its armaments were awkwardly positioned, with twin outward-facing machine gun emplacements on the wings and four centrally-mounted missile launchers that made it impossible to bring its full firepower to bear on an incoming threat.
Crew: One pilot, one sensor operator/gunner
Weapons:
Defensive machine guns (Damage 3, Range Short, Critical 5, Autofire, firing arcs port and starboard)
Missile launchers (Damage 5, Range Medium, Critical 3, Blast 3, Breach 2, Linked 3, firing arc front)
Vehicles and Combat Machines
Gallop-class Land Battleship
Crew: Unknown
Weapons:
Defensive machine guns (Damage 3, Range Short, Critical 5, Autofire, firing arc front)
Main cannon (Damage 7, Range Long, Critical 3, Linked 1, Breach 2, firing arcs rear, port, starboard)