Gundam Battle: Gunpla Warfare – Weekly Event Digest #6

We’ve got a bit of a hot one here, Pilots!  I was not expecting to get any juicy tidbits this close on the heels of the Gundam Unicorn/Kshatriya Sokai Festival, but we’ve gotten sideswiped with a leak way ahead of this week's news!  Barbatos 6th Form and Gusion Rebake, Shiro Amada, and 3v3 Arena!  Even Nadleeh is making an appearance!

I have some mixed feelings here.  On the one hand, Nadleeh is actually pretty cool for a Gundam to introduce as an easily-obtained Event Gunpla, but I was sort of hoping for Virtue to hit the game first.  For those of you who don’t know, Gundam Virtue is a big hulking beast of suit carrying a giant cannon, and can release its outer layers of armor to reveal Nadleeh beneath.  Being smaller and more agile, the Gundam functions fairly differently as Nadleeh than as Virtue, and sports a killer ‘do.

We don’t have much information here except that this confirms that each Sokai Festival is going to accompany a Point-based event, and each Standard Banner is going to be accompanied by a Coin-based event, wherever rewards and progress are concerned.  You cannot use skip tickets to gain progress for achievements during Coin-based events (though you can use skip tickets to farm Coins), and you cannot use skip tickets to clear stages for Points during Sokai Festivals (skip functionality entirely removed due to need of Battle Assessment).

As expected, Heavyarms is depicted on the Event Banner as a returning bonus multiplier suit alongside Nadleeh, as well as the new Standard Banner suits for Barbatos 6th Form and Gusion Rebake.  Expect the "other multipliers" to be coming from the universe of 00 with things like Exia and Dynames, the GN-X Parts, and so on, and possibly others.

Personally I’ve really been enjoying the experimentation Bandai has done with Event structure, and a lot of the Parts released recently have been interesting for me as well (with some notable Parts like DODS Rifle from the AGE Normal event).  Hopefully we’re going to see a pretty spicy selection of Parts here.

This is something I know a lot of people are wanting on both ends of this banner: Barbatos 6th Form and Gusion Rebake are here!  Right now, we have Barbatos 4th Form in the game, and getting 6th Form this early is fairly exciting… But it’s really cool that Gusion was introduced as a 3* Event Gunpla, but the upgraded variant is coming in as a 4*.  This was something a lot of people were worried wouldn’t happen, so I’m glad it’s going down like this.

I’m not really expecting to see the same benefits to 6th Form as we see for current Barbatos (such as in-fighter bonuses), and we may be heading into some different territory that may be Defender-focused or Out-Fighter.  I enjoy this variant of Barbatos much more aesthetically, and we can only hope that this will be a slightly amped up version of the one we currently have.  

Gusion Rebake looks like it’s carrying the Scissor Blade, and I’m hoping that hits the banner as a weapon with a strong EX Skill just for the funsies.  The design is wildly different than the predecessor and will visually synergize with more Gunpla bashes that people will have, while hopefully providing some stat boosts or variance.  This is going to be a really sweet banner, so don’t you go and miss it!

I wasn’t expecting to see Shiro without his canon Gundam from  Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, for which he was the main protagonist, but here he is.  Shiro is our 4* Pilot inclusion this time around, and I’m gonna dare Bandai to make another In-Fighter on me.  Do it; come on Bandai, I want it.  (Really I just want a solid 4* Supporter License for a change. Is that really so much to ask for, Bandai? A Supporter? IT COULD BE SHIRO.)  Maybe this is a sign we’re going to see the RX-79 sometime soon?

Rosamia Badam is our 3* Pilot, which is sort of surprising for me.  Rosamia ended up piloting the Psyco Gundam MK-II in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (though Kamille was ultimately forced to kill her after her mental state became unstable).  I’m going to hope that she’s not another really weird Pilot that is say.. a Shooter with mainly melee attack.  Let’s call this an In-Fighter as well, Bandai, and see what you do when the shoe is on the other foot (Supporter? Please? Good ones. Not those… other ones.)

Not a lot to see here, except that after this run of the 1v1 Arena, we’ll see the first test run for 3v3.  This testing run is scheduled to begin on November 6th and will presumably be running for an entire week, true to form.  Rewards are not going to be the same as they are in 1v1 Arena, as this is a testing phase, but this is going to really change a lot of dynamics about team compositions and the usefulness of some parts.

Here’s the official news on 3v3 Arena testing:

• Time No. 0 of the 3-on-3 Arena will be open from 11/6.
• This test run will be limited to 3-on-3 battles only.
• Please be aware that there will not be a 1-on-1 Arena held, in accordance with this test.
• In the instance the game experiences a high server load during the test, there is a possibility that the 3-on-3 Arena will be suspended.
• Furthermore, please be aware that rewards differ from those received from general Arenas due to this being a test.

That’s all we’ve got for you this week, Pilots!  Be sure to check back around Sunday/Monday for the official news drop, and we’ll have all the info!