Analog games
As with most Votoms merch, you have no idea how much of it there is until you seriously start digging, and before you know it your hands are full of gold. This is certainly true of the games, which break about evenly into analog and digital. Here’s everything I’ve found in the first category.
Playing cards
Yamakatsu, 1983
We start out with a lightweight, just a collection of playing cards with Votoms art on the backs, but the thing that makes early products like this so interesting is the package art that never appeared again.
There’s a nice big look at it, so now we can move on to the real stuff.
Dual Magazine games
This was the quarterly hobby publication from Takara that gave the series its first opportunity for expansion. Five consecutive issues (No. 6 through 10, published from September 1983 through September ’84) each included a Votoms game with a few pages of rules, a foldout hex map, and pieces to cut out and move around. There was one game for each of the four story arcs and then a generic one to finish out the run. Dual took the opportunity to publish one-of-a-kind A.T. schematics on the opposite side of the maps. They were never reprinted.
See all five games here
Find translated versions here
Plotter’s City Woodo
Takara, November 1983
This was the first and most elaborate of four strategy games, and the only one from Takara. Set within the viper’s nest of Woodo City, it came with multiple maps, metal figures, and even periscopes for gaining sight lines over obstacles; players use them to look “down” into a ground-level POV to see what their game piece can see.
See a photo gallery here
Red Shoulder
Tsukuda Hobby, March 1986
Tsukuda was well-known for anime-based strategy games, rolling one out for almost every “real robot” mecha series of the early and mid 80s. Red Shoulder gave players the option to drive any A.T. of their choosing and action could take place in either city or jungle environments. Takara reserved all rights to make miniatures, so the game pieces were cardboard instead.
See a photo gallery here
Civil War
Tsukuda Hobby, June 1986
This seems to be the rarest of the three Tsukuda games, based on the simple evidence that it took me forever to find one.
See a photo gallery here
Battling
Tsukuda Hobby, June 1992
The last of the Tsukuda games offered straight-up AT vs AT combat either in the arena or the mean streets of Woodo City using all of the robots and weapons seen up to this point in the anime.
See a photo gallery here
Planet of Vengeance Shido
Keibunsha, September 1987
This “choose your own path” game book was written by Hiroshi Yamaguchi, who would go on to write scripts for Armor Hunter Merowlink. It was heavily illustrated by Takuhito Kusanagi; see the art here.
Cover text: An endless war has been raging for a hundred years, dividing the Astragius galaxy in two. On the tiny planet Shido, a man sets out on a journey of revenge! Jake Jaymitt, Chief of the Death Dragoon, a special forces unit of the Gilgameth Army! A man whose friends were killed and himself abandoned! But before him is the Balarant army! The wicked wanderers, the highlanders! The knight of Quent, Berserga! And a mysterious clone warrior stands in his way. What will be his fate?
Armored Trooper Votoms
The role-playing game
R. Talsorian Games, 1997
This one was pretty special to me, since I was hired to help create it. At a whopping 176 pages, it became an upgraded version of my Votoms Viewer’s Guide, transformed and augmented with all the new info I’d collected since I finished the original. It also contains everything you need to run a Votoms RPG using R. Talsorian’s multi-genre Fuzion system, but also functions as a comprehensive sourcebook for the anime series if (like me) you’re not a gamer. (Side trivia: the cover image is a montage of two cells from my collection.)
It’s long out of print, but you can find a complete PDF of the book here.
Battling Card Game
Takara, 1997
Card games were on an upswing in the 90s when Takara brought this one out, sold in packs of 40. Cards are broken into several categories: ATs, pilots, combat, arms, effect, event, and stage. Most of the images are stills from anime productions, but other art can be found if you look hard enough.
See a photo gallery here
A.T. Votoms TRPG
Enterbrain, April 2001
I’m tempted to call this the Japanese version of the RPG I worked on, but it’s thicker (over 300 pages) and far more elaborate with prodigious illustrations, including a cover and some color interiors by Blue Knight Berserga‘s Hiroyuki Hataike. It also dives deep into Votoms lore with content from Dual Magazine, all the anime made up to this point, and even a few video games. (Incidently, the T in TRPG stands for “talk.”)
Sunrise Crusade
Bandai, October 2007
This was the card game equivalent of Super Robot Taisen video games, which throw together mecha from multiple anime shows into dream-team battle scenarios. Similar in concept to Magic The Gathering, cards are issued in character, command, and unit categories that can be mixed up in almost any conceivable combo to combat your opponent. Sets are organized by color in accordance with their specialty: defense, offense, destruction, and blocking. Votoms lands squarely in the “destruction” group. Anime stills are heavily used on the cards, but there is also a treasure trove of new and original mecha art to be enjoyed all on its own.
See various Votoms cards in three galleries here: Character | Command | Unit
Find more info on the game here
Votoms Tactics
K2, October 2018
The most recent item on this list is an echo of the classic strategy games from Tsukuda Hobby; an actual board game with combinations of markers, cards, charts, and game pieces on a hex map with multiple ATs and environments from the TV series. It also includes a “Trial Battling” mini-game, and an early limited edition came with four 3D-printed figures.
See photos at the official website here