Gundam Card Game - Flash of Radiance (ST 08)

Flash of Radiance is the sister-release of ST07 Celestial Drive and part of the third wave of starter sets and booster packs released in early 2026. The two starters formally released on January 16 with the GD03 Steel Requiem booster set following on January 30. The name "Flash of Radiance" of course alludes to "Hathaway's Flash" and is a central theme all throughout the fixed set.


You will quickly recognize the packaging style as it follows the previous starter sets with a dual colour pre-set deck, in this case of blue and red cards. There is nothing new to see on the box itself and much of this review will just feel like repeating myself again.


Inside you find the usual 60 card deck (50 cards for the player's hand and 10 resource cards), a play area sheet and the customary promo pack containing a small (really minor I would say) surprise.


The paper rules sheet/playing mat looks similar to before. As I mentioned in the Celestial Drive review I'm not sure if Bandai actually improves or erratas these things, but it would have to be rather small changes in that case.


Now that we have five deck colours to choose from the neatly divided spread is no longer possible, form here on out some will get more toys than others. The third wave for example does not contain any starter cards for the white faction. As things stand at the moment the red and green decks have the most options from four different starters, blue and white have three appearances and purple only two. It would technically be possible to rebalance with two new starters sporting blue/purple and white/purple combinations but we all know that is not how things will go. Besides, it is not the number of available cards but where the meta cards fall that matter anyway.


Thematically, Flash of Radiance is very focused on "Hathaway's Flash" just like the tight focus on Celestial Being in ST07 "Celestial Drive". While I love the unit mix in this set with a meaty line-up of Messer-variants and a couple of EFSF machines I wonder how well a starter based around two very high-level units is supposed to work. The Penelope and Xi Gundam are extremely high level and point-cost compared to units in other starters that plateau around 4-6 not as here 7-9. If I were to design starters based on these two behemoths I would have made it two different decks centred around each one of them rather than trying to cram everything into on pack. I guess the assumption is that most players are already invested in the game and don't need more entry level cards?


The supporting card section is also unusually bare-bones this time around, there are only two primary pilot cards and one supporting command/pilot-card. Notice the command card "Siege Ploy" which is a reissue of a card from the Wings of Advance starter set (ST02). We have one base card for each colour; props for the beautiful artwork on the Davao card and while the art for the Valiant is also nice why is it not a picture of the ship itself rather than an interior shot? Do better! :)


Side-by-side comparison of the "Siege Ploy" command card from ST02 and ST08 respectively. Isn't it a bit early to start recycling cards? I do appreciate the updated artwork to reflect the differing factions but surely the number should also have been changes to reflect which deck it belongs to, this will create unnecessary identification problems further down the line.


There is nothing new or interesting in the resource card section, it is the same three classes of cards as always. Considering the huge amount of token cards in the accompanying GD03 Steel requiem booster series it is a little bit odd that neither ST07 nor ST08 make use of them.


The promo-card is the usual "foil-upgrade" of one of the cards in the set. With ST08 containing so many cool mass-production type suits that I would like to get that of course did not happen. Not a total loss though, the "Valiant" card at least looks much better without the text box on top. All in all I really like the look of the cards in this starter and with the many mass-production types on offer I may be tempted to get a second one.

Gundam Card Game - Celestial Drive (ST 07)

While product availability has been somewhat of an issue the number of different products Bandai has been throwing into the Gundam Card Game pool is completely opposite. In the little more than half a year that the game has existed the game has already seen the release of three waves of cards and no less than eight different starter sets. Three additional waves of cards are planned for release in April, July and October respectively. I'm wonder if the idea is to burn out the audience as quickly as possible, will the game really have legs to go on at this pace? Whatever the case, we will now take a quick look at the latest wave of starters beginning with ST 07 which introduces Mobile Suit Gundam 00 into the fray.


There will not be a whole lot to say about this set that doesn't already mimic what has been mentioned about the previous six starter sets. Packaging design seems familiar and follows the well-trodden path of the previous starters. We have a combination of green and purple (I guess I should stop using the term violet because card text refers to cards as purple...) featuring the well-known Celestial Being mobile suits and their pilots.


Contents seem familiar also. You get a pre-set deck of 50 cards with ten supporting resource cards but I see here that the cards have been flipped upside down in the plastic packaging, presumably to better protect the foil cards that would normally sit on top?


The combined playmat and rules sheet looks familiar even though I haven't read the fine print to see if there have been any minor updates, errata or rules additions.


Here you can see the current deck colour combinations available through the starters released so far. Green gets its fourth appearance as does red with ST 08, and the purple side augments the previous Tekkadan forces from ST 05.


The unit mix of ST 07 is very tight and a bit unusual compared to the mix we normally see in the starters. Here the focus is exclusively on the four Celestial Being mobile suits carried aboard the Ptolemaios, split into the purple and green decks. Each suit gets two different card levels with both of the meatier suits going into the purple deck. I think this is a nice way of setting up a starter deck but I am a bit mystified by the way a faction is split into multiple deck colours. The theme of the Gundam Card Game is really just an afterthought.


The Pilot- and Command Card portion of the starter is also unusual in that you get four proper pilot cards for each of the suits, none of that combined "Command/Pilot" concept that I really don't like. Just like with the other purple starter deck there is only a single base card available, the Ptolemaios being the perfectly logical choice.


Nothing is new in the auxiliary card section either. You have the same boring resource cards, an EX Base and an EX Resource plus a sheet of tokens to go with the suits and their abilities. Bandai does take the time to update the rules sheet with images of cards belonging to the respective starter so I think they really could have made the effort of creating starter set unique resource cards. It didn't have to be anything fancy, just a black and white insignia of Celestial Being instead of that horrible Windows 95 logotype for example.


The promo pack contains one of the basic cards from the set in a slightly visually updated foil variant. This time I was actually lucky to find a unit card inside, I tend to be cursed with command card variations in these. As you can see there is nothing particularly fancy about the alternate artwork and these are definitely not worth hunting down for the sake of owning them. That's pretty much all I have to say about the contents of this set as I am mainly in it for the artwork collection aspect. The artwork direction continues to be tight and all cards really feel like they belong in the same setting and I really enjoy seeing new depictions for all the suits and pilots.

MegaHouse Excellent Model RAHDX Gundam Archives NEO - Sayla Mass (1:8) (2015 Edition)

MegaHouse is a primary source for up-market Gundam figures and it has quite the decent backlog of characters to choose from. Today we are looking at a really classic example from the RAH Excellent Model series. As far as this series goes, this one is a bit of an evergreen because it has been reissued no less than three times; in 2019, 2021 and as late as January 2025 respectively. These resales unfortunately also offer a good but discouraging example of the surging figure prices in recent years.


The edition we are looking at here is the original 2015 release in the easily identifiable "blue-trimmed" box. I've had this thing in the collection since 2018 and according to the notes it cost ¥10000 back then. You should be able to find figures on the secondary market for roughly the same price, perhaps a little higher, due to the many reprints that are currently in circulation.


All the three re-sale editions are using a box design similar to the one you see above here. The easiest way to differentiate behind them is to look for the release year in the bottom left corner on the front, or (obviously) the barcode on the back of the box. The first and second re-sales are stamped with 2019 and 2021 respectively while the third re-sale from 2025 omits the release year on the front. The chart below also shows the steep increase in MegaHouse's asking prices (stated with or without domestic VAT).

[4 535123 715006] (2015-07) : Original release - ¥9000/9900
[4 535123 826993] (2019-03) : First resale - ¥9250/10175
[4 535123 832147] (2021-12) : Second resale - ¥11000/12100
[4 535123 841781] (2025-01) : Third resale - ¥16000/17600


Sayla is safely sandwiched in generously sized blister packaging which of course means figures of this type eat up your storage space real fast. While the large see-through areas of the outer box give you a good opportunity to enjoy the figure without taking it out of the packaging it also makes the cardboard quite fragile and it is easy to tear in the thinner areas.


Good things come in pairs it would seem. You get two optional heads, two different right arms and two different handguns. You can see the different peg designs used for the heads and arms while the handgun has to be attached without any support.


Tell me this is not a phenomenal sculpt. Style, poise and great paintwork grounded by a simple flat base (with the EFSF logo on, no less). You don't have to mess around with a lot of small components that will fall off as soon as you look in that general direction, no supernatural transparent effect parts or unnatural poses designed simply to curve the body in as many strange ways as possible. The figure also has no ungainly supports to clip around the body or to prop up arms or hair, the right foot has two pegs that go into the base and that's it. You have probably noticed that I didn't push the foot all the way down into the base, this was simply to make it easy to dismantle and store inside the box. It is not uncommon for figures to have very tight fitting pegs and I didn't want to put any stress on the material.


While the figure does come with two different heads the two are really, really similar. There was so much potential here; a shocked face, a suspicious side-eye, turning to another side, instead we get pretty much the same thing twice with a slight change of the eyebrows. Compare this for example to the MegaHouse Gihren Zabi figure which has two very different sculpts of him smirking or holding a firebrand speech.


Besides the two different arms you can also choose which sidearm to equip. On offer is an Earth Federation standard issue firearm (whatever the designation is) and the Zeon Type 62 handgun that used to belong to Ramba Ral.

If you are interested in these larger character figures (standing around 20 centimetres tall) this is a no-brainer as far as I am concerned. There seems to be no upper limited to MegaHouse figure prices with new releases currently sitting around ¥20000 and in that light this figure seems like a very affordable option. As usual, it pays to shop around.

Gundam Converge CORE 047 : gMS-α Red Gundam

It has been a while since I examined a new CORE-figure on the blog - the last one was that broken last shooting set (CORE 043) from 2024. Bandai does keep releasing them but there has been a whole lot of old hat lately. CORE 044 was a second reissue of the Neue Ziel and Dendrobium mobile armours from Stardust Memory - two excellent Converge figures (especially the Neue Ziel) - but I already have two versions of each and didn't fancy paying another ¥10000 for a couple of new markings or subtle sculpt changes. CORE 042 reissued the Byg Zam which was a pretty disappointing the first time around and again quite expensive at around ¥6000.

CORE 045 is the #Sharp-version of the Strike Gundam with all the Striker packs and while it is a little bit tempting it is pretty similar to the old Converge SP-era figures and so paying ¥5000 feels a bit steep. I would have loved it if they released it in the same fashion as the Impulse Gundam with three basic figures in the box to allow you to build one of each variant. If I were to buy the current figure I'd feel annoyed that I would have to choose which mode to display. Then there is of course CORE 046, that peculiar solar panel Renewable Energy-version Gundam which is a new figure I suppose, it is just really hard to find on the secondary market right now.


Anyway, today we are looking at CORE 047, that peculiar Evangelion-styled Gundam stolen by Zeon (and since that is such a common trope in Gundam lore it was ripe for reuse by the repurposing-factory that is GQuuuuuuX). This is a Premium Bandai release that shipped to customers in November last year and came with a pricetag of ¥4345 including tax. We have the typical elongated CORE box although this one is really thin. There is no additional padding inside the box and not really that much to look at on the outside either. The contents are carefully packed so as not to waste space and it would be an absolute chore to try and repackage this thing without ending up with bulging sides.


The figure comes in a total of four plastic bags all neatly tucked into a larger bubble-wrap bag. You might wonder if there was no chewing gum inside the box? Well, it got stuck inside the box and so it missed out on the photo-shoot but rest assured, that same old white gum is indeed included - at least if you are buying it in Japan... :)


We have a couple of mini-sprues here but nothing too taxing. One sprue holds a pair of beam saber hilts for the backpack for a nice bit of colour separation and the larger one has six hardpoint pegs to plug the holes on the shoulders, elbows and legs when not in use by other gear.


Let's start with the clean, unarmed look. All six peg holes are plugged with the black pieces from the sprue we saw above. The right hand is replaced with an optional right hand which is tightly clenched to match the left hand. I really like this clean look and could easily decide to go for it but there are so many other bits and pieces in the box that we have to dig into it a bit deeper. Talking about the overall look of the figure it has one of the creepiest mobile suit faces ever; those intense insect-like compound eyes and mask-like appearance is chillingly good. You will no doubt have noticed the intense strong red colour in these photographs and let me tell you, this thing is very brightly red also in natural light, although the two different red tones are easier to tell apart from each other with the naked eye.


A lot of the budget for this figure has obviously gone into designing its four remote psycommu-controlled Bit weapons. Each Bit is identical and has no special features apart from a transparently coloured peg that can insert into the two accompanying clear plastic stands that are also included. Due to their heavy weight it is not possible to attach an uneven amount of bits to the same base since its footprint is too small to stand upright so you really don't have a lot of options for display here.


It looks alright, doesn't it? Sure, the pose is a bit static and you can't pull off any interesting fight scenes unless you start tinkering with your own type of bases for the bit weapons. Something I tend to moan about from time to time is the jarring mix of black and transparent bases. I would prefer if all Converge figures used a standardized approach for their bases. If it really bugs you, you can always remove the base from the Red Gundam or even place the Bit weapon bases atop a couple of spare black bases to bring them up to the same level.


The coolest aspect of the figure is how you can remove the plugs from the figure's shoulders and elbows and plug the bit weapons into the suit itself for storage; looking pretty hardcore there, sir! Again, the weight of these accessories can challenge an unsupported figure (or one with slightly warped legs as is sometimes the case with Converge figures) but I had no issues with my figure this time.


For the more traditional gear we have three basic weapon options; all going into the right hand unfortunately. I think this premium set could have included a holding hand also for the left side, it would have opened up for some interesting dual-wield combinations. We have two different variants of its non-specific beam rifle (the same weapon used by the White Gundam). I couldn't find any details about the two variants other than the obvious part that one version has an extra grip added to the front at a rather awkward angle but I'm not sure what extends from it underneath the main barrel. The grip-less variant of the weapon is unique to this figure while the Converge White Gundam figure only has the grip-mounted variant. The Gundam Hammer ball and chain is also unique to this figure and has a third hand option molded directly onto it. I will talk a bit more about this weapon further down.


The figure is also equipped with two nicely painted shields in red and grey with a dark red Zeon [GQ] insignia on the front. The shields can be attached to the same elbow joints where the lower bit weapons attach, actually since all the six hardpoints are similar the will technically fit anywhere. I am missing some point about the shields; the build instructions number them differently but the two are identical and the schematic shows how they attach to the same spot on the right arm. At first I thought maybe they are meant to stack on top of each other but each has a large peg protruding from its underside and so I don't get it. Here at least you can see them worn on each arm in Thunderbolt Sector-esque fashion.


I didn't go over each figure with a microscope but the retail White Gundam figure from #Sharp 28 is mostly the same although I can see some differences on the sides of its head where I guess the Vulcan guns are presumably attached. The White Gundam figure has the same six hardpoints as the Red Gundam so you can play around with the gear between the two if you like. I have to say I kind of wish there was also a cheaper retail version of the Red Gundam figure because then I could display one of them with out all these bit weapons as a nice contrast and I'm not paying 4500 yen for that pleasure.


Before we wrap up let's also take a look at the recently released Red Gundam from the Capsule Index Gashapon figure series. The cheaper figure also released in November and I have to say it gas got the premium Converge figure beat on a couple of things. While it lacks some of the painted detail present on the Converge figure it does sport a much more realistic and attractive colour tone and its Hyper Hammer has a looooooong chain made from soft PVC-plastic which lets you bend it around a bit to create an interesting pose. I am guessing that the blue spikes are supposed to be thrusts from its onboard verniers (a motorized weapon with advanced moving parts that you slam into an enemy... who came up with this idea?) which is also a leg up on the Converge representation of the weapon. On the other hand, I do appreciate that the Converge hammer is compact rather than reaching out a lot from the figure, Converge figures work best when they stand around doing nothing after all.

The Red Gundam is currently selling for around ¥4000 over at the Mandarake secondary market. While this makes it one of the cheaper CORE-figures you also aren't getting a whole lot of figure when you compare it to e.g. the White Gundam from the retail series. The colour choice is a bit toy-like and I think it would have been nice if Bandai had tossed in a second weapon-holding hand and also a pair of beam sabers with transparent effect parts. I guess it is not impossible that this figure will be reissued in a different format in the future, perhaps in metallic colour, but I wouldn't wait around for that to happen seeing as it is fairly easily available right now.