The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Mecha Thread Mk II

[Wingnut]

Also, interesting modification to those Railgun Grazes. Was that a new sensor unit in the head or something?

The impression I got was that they were simply using the open mode of their sensors that was shown way back at the start of S1. This was always a design feature of the Graze, but never used fully in combat until now with the proper weapon for it.

[SonicSP]

But here is what I'm a bit confused with... if all the Valkyrias used the same frame... how could the Grimgarde's be made for lightweight and the Helmwige for heavyweight? Weren't they all made for the same type of performance? What would set a Helmwige frame apart from a Grimgarde aside from the opposing equipment? Weren't all the Valkyrias made for lightweight based on what we know from the Grimgarde's info? Or was Grimgarde made specifically for that?

I pretty much agree, I have had the same criticism of the Helmwige when the design first surfaced, it's extremely incompatible and unoptimized with the Valkyria Frame based on the info actually released on it.

The "Valkyria Frame" section of the 1/100 Grimgerde manual seems to note that the Valkyria Frames in general are in fact designed to be simple and lightweight in order to minimize energy loss and they are relatively simple compared to other Frames at the time.

Essentially what it means is Helmwiege's design is unoptimized since the thing is does (being heavy) literally undermines its frame's core feature. Sure you can make modifications to try and make it do a little better but there's only so much you can do.

The Helmwiege's heavy armor and heavy sword design, quite frankly would work far better on a Gundam Frame because of its crazy output to wield the heavy sword and heavy armor. The ease of how Barbatos was able to carry it and uses it against Hashmal appears to also to corroborate that theory.

Mind you, the Helmwiege isn't impossible, it's just not an optimized design for the frame it's using. It likely loses some performance points because of that since Valkyria Frames weren't specialized for that type of thing.

It's like giving heavy armor to a fast, nimble but not muscular person. They can use still use it buts it's not suited to their natural strengths. Or asking someone who trained as a striker in football/soccer to play as a defender - could be done but not optimal and usually done as a makeshift when better options are not available. I understand that the story treats it as an upgrade or good change of sorts but from a background info perspective, it's not supposed to theoretically work well.

Of course for what it's worth the Helmwiege we see now in a modern recreated version so it's possible that some improvements were made that wasn't in the original. Who knows maybe the added some improvements from the Graze Frames, which were Valkyria successors developed over the centuries.

Well, if Gundam can be greatly different from one another, I see no problem.

The difference is the Gundam Frames were essentially built with versatility and high output in mind at the cost of being very difficult to produce and maintain due to the unstable reactors, which is why not many were ever made.

The word versatility had been used as positives for the Rodi and Gundam Frames before in various texts that describe them but it's never been used to describe a trait of the Valkyria Frames to my knowledge. If anything the Valkyria's profile more or less asserts its specialized for lightweight high mobility types.

[E08]

If you look closely when the Gusion Full City detaches from the booster, you can see the Bayonet rifle as one of the weapons ejected from the booster aside from the new long rifle. It was below the new rifle in the booster mode.

I think you need to check the scene in question again, the weapon that is ejected is actually the Full City's new rifle, not the bayonet rifle. The gun-like thing at the front/top of the booster that you thought was the new rifle was not ejected at all, it simply folded to the Full City's back.

Also, interesting modification to those Railgun Grazes. Was that a new sensor unit in the head or something?

The impression I got was that they were simply using the open mode of their sensors that was shown way back at the start of S1. This was always a design feature of the Graze, but never used fully in combat until now with the proper weapon for it.

I think Deathzealot is right, the sensor of the Railgun Grazes are different. The sensor of the usual Graze consisted of a inner yellow circle surround by a yellow circular line with four other lines extending out to the back. The sensor of the Railgun Grazes' did not match this at all.

The "Valkyria Frame" section of the 1/100 Grimgerde manual seems to note that the Valkyria Frames in general are in fact designed to be simple and lightweight in order to minimize energy loss and they are relatively simple compared to other Frames at the time.

Yes, the Valkyria Frame's characteristic is lightweight and minimal energy loss. However, it is not lightweight to ensure minimal energy loss. They are simply separate things.

Essentially what it means is Helmwiege's design is unoptimized since the thing is does (being heavy) literally undermines its frame's core feature. Sure you can make modifications to try and make it do a little better but there's only so much you can do.

The Helmwiege's heavy armor and heavy sword design, quite frankly would work far better on a Gundam Frame because of its crazy output to wield the heavy sword and heavy armor. The ease of how Barbatos was able to carry it and uses it against Hashmal appears to also to corroborate that theory.

Indeed, the Gundam Frame might be more suitable for the heavy sword and heavy armor. However, do consider that the Gundam Frames are available only in limited number. So, having another MS Frame that could do the heavy lifting (so to speak) is not really that bad an idea. As for whether the Helmwige Reincar design is optimised or not, i think it is too early to tell. After all, the model kit manual is not really shy in pointing out the flaw/weakness of the mobile suits (Gundam Gusion, Man Rodi, Grimgerde) and it did not mention any for Helmwige Reincar. Perhaps, later data books might point out the weakness/unoptimized design, but currently there is just not much to go on.

[yazi88]

I'm actually curious in how many Grimgardes and Valkyria units that were produced during the war, cause the Grimgarde kit said something about it being in limited production and came out around the same time as the Gundams... but that could be more about the Grimgarde series itself rather than the Valkyria frames in whole.

[E08]

What the grimgerde kit said was in relation to the overall production number of valkyria frame using ms.

[Deathzealot]

Hmm... Wasn't the Grimgardes just one of the Valkyria Units?

[E08]

Hmm... Wasn't the Grimgardes just one of the Valkyria Units?

Yes. So, overall, only a small number of Valkyrja Frame using machines were produced, with an even smaller number of those machines being Grimgerde.

Oh yeah, as for the number of Valkyrja Frame using machines, according to this picture posted by Balofo in the past, there are rumors that only less than 10 units are manufactured.

Additional weapon information for Barbatos Lupus Rex have been released. In this scan, the mace is listed as 'Extra Large Mace, and the bottom right picture shows two more weapons - 200m cannon in the forearm and heel bunker in the foot.

[Amion]

I've just looked at the Bael, and must now render harsh judgement. It looks worse than I first thought it did. Those wings are far too awkward and silly looking. The rest of the machine might have impressed me, but the Barbatos Rex has a cooler name and overall better design, and the Bael can't even touch the subtle beauty of the Vidar Gundam. I am hoping now that the Vidar wins, even though I'm rooting for McGillis/Tekkadan's side.

Oh, and the Rex has the mace again. Oh, how happy that makes me. I can forgive the Bael being a disgusting, malnourished, deformed Reborns-Epyon lovechild.

So, so far we've got 5 Gundams in the running, six total counting the Kimaris' old outfitting, seven if the original turtle!Gusion shell is added into the mix. (And never counting the Rebake and Barbatos upgrades, which more or less retain the overall theme). Of them all I'm actually rather pleased with their designs.

The Barbatos changed subtly so much that it was always a little fresh. The original needed the mace to interest me, but the Rex has improved the head-design (is it really the same? It seems to look slightly more streamline than it used to...) and its rightful weapon has been returned to the mikanical hands that know how to use it so well. (I deeply apologize for the bad pun, but I couldn't resist)

The Vidar and Kimaris Trooper are/were great, but the former beats out the latter and all the others. This thing is just designed perfect, and any awkwardness in its shape gets properly streamlined with the smart choices in color scheme. And it rocks. So far it's been given the Quebeley treatment of appearing once or twice in the 30's episodes. We presume it will shine in the remaining airtime as a final boss, because Vidar rocks it like one.

The Flauros has the most awesome head design, hands down, to me. And I just love its transformation and classical but unique spin on the Big Gun Gundam. Papa Heavyarms would clap his Gatling in approval. It would be my favorite over even the Vidar (their heads do look similar, after all, and that's a thing for me) if it weren't for the horrendous Reusei-Go scheme. Ugh. Maybe Shino will take over as Pimp for all the Turbines girls and hand-me-down the Flauros to Ride. The Riden-Go's colors would be a much better fit for this thing.

...The Gusion was a turtle with howitzers for abs, or pecs, or something. Heck, it was cool and vicious, and unfortunately wielded by a creepy Jojo's Bizarre Adventure villain. But it had merits in its asteroid hammer, which looked weird just being held there, but makes sense in space-combat. And I somehow appreciated the chubby troll-turtle appearance. Rarely do we get such a goofy machine these days. Zeonic would approve of the design, or sue for attempted plagiarism, maybe. So it was cool enough, while it lasted. It's spirit lives on in the Landman Rodis.

So, I like the majority of the Gundams we've gotten. I count Turtle Gusion as separate because it so radically differs in function and appearance from the Rebake, unlike the Kimaris/Vidar, which, even if they are in fact different machines (maybe the Elion Gundam Frame?) still hold the same premises in performance: high-accuracy duelist combat with thrusting weapons.

Unfortunately, Akahiro's iterations of the Gusion design have not been so well received, and I think I speak for others than just myself. The original Rebake was cool enough in the face, but it is never drawn well or focused on in a still shot, always flashing open its camera thing like the Dynames. And then the camera moves on to the less than well-drawn battle animation. Worse yet, the original Rebake never did much. They always let Akahiro do his thing off screen. I wanted to see more of the four-armed Gundam hack things with its axes. I'd give the poor Rebake a 6.5 out of 10. It tried, but it still had unusual aspects to its design that threw it. It will always look better from the rear than from the front.

The Full City is as bizarre and abnormal as its name. I genuinely don't like it. It's as if not a single part of this Gundam was created to fit symmetrically with any one other part. Even the matching pairs of armor plating don't seem to like sharing the same mecha body! The head design is also unmemorable, and it has yet to use its four arms for much more than hedge-clipper work. And hedge clippers. No, you don't put those on a Gundam, thank you, not outside of G Gundam, where they would be used ceaselessly as limb and torso trimmers of doom. The animation team seem to KNOW these things are a pathetic choice of armament, because they've only been used twice, and once gets a pass for being a cruel and befitting execution, not an actual fight, you know, between two melee weapons... Whoever put those things on there had better feel ashamed.

And... the Bael, which is just all kinds of wrong. Maybe it will look better in animation. But so far I've liked the gunpla more than the actual animated mecha so far, which leaves me skeptical of my future reception of a moving Bael Gundam. Oh well, perhaps Chocky will show it dancing in duel-wielding swordplay as he's shown before with his other suits. But it's probably a lost cause with this one, too.

But hey, 5/7 isn't so bad. At least we GOT a descent number of Gundam frames. And who knows, we might even get the Kujan's unfortunately owned Gundam before all's done.

[SonicSP]

Personally I think Bael would be better if it's color scheme was closer to 0 Gundam. The all white thing doesn't really work with those small touches of blue (would be fine if there was more blue but it's too little). Grey highlights instead of the blue would have been better and the yellow swords just feel out of place now visual wise. Absent grey highlights, just go with full white.

I don't have much problem with the actual design other that it might be too similar to Barbatos than I would have liked but maybe that makes sense given how it's supposed to be a brother machine to Barbatos. I guess it's the Exia/Reborns thing again.

Color scheme is more or less my biggest problem with it.

[E08]

Rouei manual: 1, 2.

While earlier magazine calls the short gun that Rouei used before the battle of edmonton as 'Short Rifle', here it is simply known as 'Handgun'.

Missing information in english text:
-The Rouei was deployed in live combat for the first time when Naze sent them out to assist the Tekkadan.

Better translation (In my opinion anyway…):
-Frame section: Uses the same frame structure as Hyakuren. Therefore, by changing the exterior, one can either use it as the Hyakuren which has excellent durability and endurance in prolonged battle, or the Rouei which excels in mobility

Edit: Almost forgot, what seems to be the feet for Reginlaze Julia in the lineart is actually a part of the side skirt armor. Here's the suit's real feet. Other images of the suit.

[E08]

Update for Reginlaze Julia: The tip of its Julian Swords confirmed to be made of the same rare metal as Grimgerde's Valkyrja Sword. The same metal is also used within the Julian Swords' wire, and the sword's tricky trajectory is via electrical signal.

Source: japanese wiki and Kanetake Ebikawa's twitter

Other info:
-Overall length of Saisei is around 7km. Its central portion contains the residential area and rotates to stimulate gravity. Its rear end contains a resource processing plant that manufacture various products.

Source: japanese wiki and Kenji Teraoka's twitter

-Not sure if this is posted before, Rustal's ship is a Skipjack class.

Source: japanese wiki and ippei gyoubu's twitter

[yazi88]

We see Jasley's ship in ep 42 today... its a custom Half Beak ship with a much larger cargo/fuselage for carrying more mobile suits... it's a carrier that holds many many suits... I think about 20 or 30.

[E08]

The untranslated japanese text during the close up of Jasley's ship at the start says 'Armored Cruiser, Golden Jasley'

[Deathzealot]

Really? He named the ship after himself. Scoffs. Well I am glad we finally get a name for Rustal's Flagship I was wondering if we if ever get a class name for it.

Also, the battle with Jasley was interesting since we see him having examples of almost every single regular mobile suit introduced. Only missing are Gjallrhorn Machines, the Shidens, the Spinner Rodi, and the other Rodi frame used by the Horizon Dawn Pirate Group at the start of the season. We got Hugos, Garm Rodis, Hyakurens, maybe a Rouei or two, and a pair of Hyakuri.

[yazi88]

Most of those units under Jasley were mercenaries, you can tell by the purple color scheme, he had a handful of Teiwaz units that were in the regular colors.

[E08]

Barbatos Lupus Rex manual:1, 2

The MS profile text is exactly the same as that from the gunpla expo a while ago. This link also contains the missing english text.

Other than some odd wording, the manual's english text is mostly fine, with the only major mistake being the last line of the Rex Nail's text, which should read as 'A sub-arm is stored inside, and 200 mm gun is built in.' That is the gun is not in the sub-arm.

Interestingly, no mention of the heel bunkers noted in the magazine promo for the 1/100 model.

Also image of the MS option set 8: 1

A better wording of the pickel's text would be 'Used by mobile suits for dismantling decrepit colonies.'

[Calubin_175]

Has anyone counted the number of MS that Horizon Dawn and JPT Trust had?

Tekkadan is probably <15-20 MS strong at the moment.

I think it would be great if the upcoming Great Mechanics book would touch on the faction numbers.

[yazi88]

From what I saw on screen and in previous eps, Tekkadan has around 7-9 Shidens, not including Ride's custom unit and Orga's white unit, 3 Landman Rodi's which I don't understand why they don't have the space configurations like the Man Rodi's when those are optimized for space but whatever, and now the Hekija as well as the 3 Gundams....

How the hell do they fit most of those units on the Hotarabi? I assume each of those hangers fits 1 MS, and maybe 3 in the middle. I think the Isarabi can hold 3 or 4 units.

[Deathzealot]

Honestly, I think each "hangar" can carry two mobile suits. So a total of sixteen machines. We see a few shots of the hangar of the Hotarubi which has those horizontal looking storage bays. We even see a Shiden being slid into one during one of these shots. Each of those bays are stacked two high, so I figure each of these stacks in one "hangar" of the eight hangars mentioned in the official data on the ship. Hence, sixteen Mobile Suits. The Isarabi we already know carries three machines plus a dozen or so Mobile Workers, though it wouldn't surprise me if it is now carrying four machines.

Though I wonder. We see the Barbatos and the Gusion get resupplied in the Hotarubi during the battle with the Horizon Dawn. They are basically standing up in an opened bay during this. But I wonder if the "bay" is in fact one of the doors along the top of the Hotarubi's side add-ons. Or those side doors are tall enough for a mobile suit to stand in front of them. /shrug/

As for Calubin's question.

We know that Horizon Dawn had what twenty-two ships, each one similar-looking to the Isarabi and the Brewer Ships, aka Armored Assault Ships, which means each one can most likely carry about four mobile suits. So around eighty or so mobile suits. The Flagship kind of looked modified with its deck mounted catapult therefore it may carry more machines then the other ships of the HD fleet. Compared this to the dozen machines of Tekkadan, and the dozen or so machines McGillis Faction brought to the fight makes it seem like a real furball in the sense. Of course. Then there was the ten or so mobile suits HD sent to Mars to attack the Admoss Half-Metal Plant.

The JPT Trust only had the one ship, the Golden Jasley, which like Yazi mentioned is a modified Halfbeak Class ship which by themselves seem to carry a dozen to sixteen machines. The modifications done to the Golden Jasley seem to expand its mobile capacity similar to that of the Hotarubi. Therefore I agree with Yazi in that it can most likely carry twenty to thirty machines.

EDIT: Opps. I miscounted on the Hotarubi's Mobile Suit Compliment. Should be Sixteen instead of Eighteen. Again Opps.

[yazi88]

I watched the battle with the Dawn Horizon Corps... when the Gusion Full City was getting resupplied you can see a Shiden coming out from one of 4 slot holds in 1 hanger area of the Hotarabi... so that means each hanger has 4 mobile suit holding areas in the Hotarabi... 4 times 8 is 32... 32 suits can be held in the Hotarabi... but that's for carrying the suits... repairing and launching them is one at a time I think..

32 suits for a single ship is a lot... it might be the same for Jasley's custom Half Beak ship.... given the size it can carry a good number more suits than the Hotarabi... but it only has one launch deck while the Hotarabi can launch from each hanger.

I also noticed one more thing, Jasley's ship doesn't have any main battery guns, just secondary ones, it relies solely on its mobile suits to protect it. The main guns that the half beak class usually has are removed for the extra cargo hold... but you can still supposedly place those guns on top... I don't know why...