Ace Pilot / Gundam

As expected of a Sci-Fi War Drama Real Robot franchise, the Gundam franchise has a plethora of Ace Pilots, enough to warrant its own page:

• The original Mobile Suit Gundam, of course, had Amuro Ray and Char Aznable, as well as a succession of other Zeon aces such as Ramba Ral and the Black Tri-Stars.
  • Amuro is almost too much of an Ace Pilot for his own good; his general skill, coupled with his experience and emerging Newtype abilities, basically means that the RX-78-2 actually starts limiting him after a while. Only after it is given an upgrade — in the form of magnetic coating for the suit's joints, increasing reaction speed — does the suit truly match its pilot.
  • For all his acrobatics, Char mostly sticks to steamroller and sniper tactics. He initially suffers the same limitations as Amuro, but we don't see it easily as not only does he get to change suits regularly, he also customizes them thoroughly (a freedom Amuro doesn't always have).
  • Amuro embodies traits from all four ace types in one way or another. When he first starts, he's mostly a Steamroller, relying on the Gundam's superior firepower and armor to overwhelm his enemies. However, as Zeon manages to close the technology gap, Amuro began evolving into more of a Sniper, and especially a Bushwacker. His gambit of sacrificing the Gundam in the final battle of the original series to get an opening to take out Char's Zeong is probably the ultimate example of the Bushwacker mindset.
  • The Nu Gundam, with its fin funnels and assortment of weaponry, gives Amuro even more ways to attack his enemies, meaning he can barely be touched, much less beaten, and even Char — piloting his final Ace Custom, the Sazabi — is no longer a proper match for him. This version of Amuro is considered by fans to be the greatest Gundam Ace in the franchise, bar none.
• Char's second coming, Full Frontal, is primarily also a steamroller who shows that his performance on the field isn't just because of the Sinanju, but he is also shown to be more adaptive, pulling Bushwhacker tricks with his utilization of the debris field and his own propellant tanks to throw off the Unicorn and the Londo Bell MS Team. However, in his final showing, his Sinanju dons the gigantic Neo Zeong Meta Mecha and abandons all piloting skill in favor of overwhelming firepower and various cheap tricks.
  • One minor character, Robin Diez, proves to be a bushwhacker, using his Byarlant Custom's mobility to quickly annihilate at least ten Zeon units invading Torrington base, at a point when Zeon's had already decimated the base's defenses.
• The side stories from the One Year War give us many more aces of the One Year War and beyond, with pilots like Shin Matsunaga, Johnny Ridden, Anavel Gato, Agar, Lydo Wolf and Ken Bederstadt who all get awesome names and back stories that tell of their skills. There are many more names, but props really just have to be given to the Zeon and EFSF's highest scoring aces, Breniff Oguz and Tenneth Jung, both of whom are snipers.
• The ordinary jet fighter pilots that are known to be not piloting mobile suits are no slouches either: Texan Demitory, for example, while flying the Fly Manta and the Tin Cod fighters, shot down at least 301 Zeon aircraft. The only known pilot to be have higher kills by him is a fellow Federation pilot named Samuela, nicknamed the Black Devil of Texas, but it is unknown how many aircraft that pilot shot down. When Demitory's aircraft kills are even higher than the top Federation and Zeon mobile suit aces like Oguz and Jung, both respectively with 193 and 149 mobile suit kills, it is obvious that in a world where mobile suits are king, jet pilots should never be ignored.
• It's mentioned in OVA like Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory that a good deal of mobile suit aces were also fighter pilots before getting their hands on a suit. As for the main villain and the lead, Gato is clearly a sneaky bastard Bushwacker - he uses spare weapons as decoys, and loves to somersault over his opponent to attack them from behind. For his part, Kou Uraki tends to stay on the defensive, making him a plugger. Kou's saving grace here is his superb reaction speed - every time Gato takes a swipe at him, he comes up with a last-minute defensive manuver, or sacrifices part of his Gundam to deflect the blow. This pretty much nullifies Gato's attempts to catch him off guard, since he can always save himself at the last split second.
• Zeta Gundam's main character Kamille is arguably not the best pilot, since he draws a lot of strength from his Newtype powers. Kamille is a textbook Sniper, and often has to be bailed out by his teammates when he gets stuck in a duel and can't get away to launch surprise sniper attacks. Char/Quattro might be number one here. Also of note is Yazan Gable, a near-inhumanly skilled Badass Normal of a Bushwhacker who makes up for his lack of Newtype powers through low cunning and sheer brutality.
• Gundam ZZ's main cast also relies on Newtype powers for the most part. It's hard to find a good pilot who isn't equipped with an overpowered suit or Newtype powers, but Elle Vianno, Judau's fourteen-year-old Unlucky Childhood Friend, manages to be an astonishingly capable Plugger despite piloting the oldest, clunkiest suits on the Argama. There's also villainous ace Rakan Dahkaran, who favours heavily armed and armoured Lightning Bruiser mobile suits for steamroller tactics. Judau Ashta, the protagonist, is also a steamroller whose tactics involve charging headlong into battle, trusting in his Psychic Powers, his piloting skills and his powerful suit (in that order) to carry the day.
• From both the above series: Haman Karn. Though she spends most of her time politicking rather than fighting, when she does get in a mobile suit, she is dangerous. At the climax of Zeta she defeats Char overwhelmingly (though, to be fair, she had a far more advanced mobile suit) and remains a serious threat throughout ZZ, and even in her final battle, she was holding back roughly half her firepower, and she was still kicking the ZZ Gundam around like a toy for most of it. As a pilot, she combines elements of all four styles due to her unique expertise with funnels, allowing her to employ whatever strategy works best in a particular situation. Despite that, she's clearly a "brain" pilot, which is contrasted against Judau, the most muscle-oriented Gundam pilot in the franchise.
• The 08th MS Team was something of a break from standard Gundam fare in this regard, as none of the protagonists were considered aces even if they were arguably skilled pilots (except for Terry Sanders Jr, who had exactly five kills), and the show goes out of its way to differentiate merely being good and being an actual ace. Though most of the eponymous team are experienced pilots by the end, Norris Packard, the only character to be termed an ace, is in a league of his own. Unfortunately, he’s an antagonist. A classic bushwhacker, he was able to take on the entire 08th MS team on his own and keep them on the ropes through creative use of equipment and terrain. While protagonist Shiro Amada takes him down in the end, he died with his objectives accomplished, and is implied to have let Shiro kill him (the reasons are complicated).
• MS IGLOO 2:
  • Herman Yandell displays Ace tank gunnery (and command), although his Ace status might be in question as he's mostly known around EFGF tank battalions as a Sole Survivor, but it counts as he's got the highest score amongst all of them and is the only one to ever return from fighting "The White Ogre" Elmer Snell, who's a Steamroller. Yandell's tactics put him as a Bushwhacker, as he's shown to take advantage of a previous battlefield's environment and its remains, make full use of the tank's extensive loadout and use his own allies to trick the enemy. Likely a necessary thing as pulling a Steamroller on a Zaku with a tank would get one killed.
  • Major Jean Luc Duvall from the first set of MS IGLOO movies was presented as Zimmad Corporation's ace who was sent to show the awesomeness of the Zudah. He certainly moves like an ace, of which kind I'm not sure, since he struck at the Ball and GM teams like a Steamroller, then ran and forced the GMs to chase him and burn out their own engines before blowing up himself.
• Umon of Crossbone Gundam is notable for two reasons - firstly, he made ace in a single battle during the OYW by destroying six Doms. Secondly, he pulled this feat off while piloting a Ball.
• Mobile Suit Victory Gundam: Uso Erwin, despite being 13 years old, favored bushwacking tactics because he primarily took part in guerrilla warfare, wishes to avoid killing if possible, and because by that point (UC 153), weapons are so powerful that a single hit from a beam rifle is enough to destroy a mobile suit (provided it hits the torso containing the nuclear reactor and the cockpit). Nevertheless, Uso cemented his ace pilot status by using all other styles at least once and regularly defeating superior numbers thanks to the sheer tactical adaptability and creativity that he displayed (with ideas such as creating a small tsunami to use as a decoy).
• Mobile Fighter G Gundam is filled with obvious elite pilots, though they are more Martial Artists from Hell than real pilots. (Still, most notable are probably Domon, Master Asia and Schwarz).
  • On the main G-Gundam cast, Domon Kasshu and Chibodee Crocket are Steamrollers, Sai Saici and Schwarz Bruder had some Bushwhacker tendencies, George De Sand is a mix of Bushwhacker and Sniper due to having long-range weapons, and Argo Gulskii is a Plugger, piloting a heavily armored Gundam that can tank lots of damage.
  • While many of the Gundam Fighters are usually Steamrollers, Gentle Chapman of Neo England stands out as a Sniper. There is a good reason he won the Gundam Fight three times, and lost only to Master Asia, a mix of Steamroller and a Bushwhacker, because of the latter's piloting skills.
• Gundam Wing:
  • The title probably has to be given to Rent-a-Char Zechs Merquise/Milliardo Peacecraft. He is able to pilot some of the most challenging mobile suits in the series and can stand toe-to-toe with Gundams in straight combat, being a powerful Steamroller. He is able to bring main character Heero to a draw in duels as often as he loses to him (and keep in mind, the Gundam pilots had standing orders to kill all witnesses). He earned his title of The Lightning Count after crushing a terrorist opposition force in under a minute.
  • Lucrezia Noin is also incredibly notable in this category. She's a Plugger, through and through, yet is often almost outright stated to have been holding back whenever Zechs is around. Combined with the fact that she's always a tech level or three below the enemy^note In an Aries when the enemies are Gundams, in a Taurus when everyone else around her are in Gundams or brand-new-generations-ahead-mobile-suits, and the fact that Noin always survives without being taken out of the fight^note Beyond her first appearance, anyhow, where she gets shot down by Chang Wufei... and you have a pilot who might as well be the most skilled character in the damned show.
  • There's also Treize Khushrenada, who goes into battle near the end of the series with a straight copy of the by then hopelessly obsolete Tallgeese. He duels Chang Wufei's upgraded Altron Gundam and more than holds his own, to the point that he only lost because he threw the fight. On the other hand, Wufei's Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy personality flat out prevented him from using his own Gundam to its full potential, acknowledging Treize's mech's limitations and refusing to use his Dragons. He insisted on fighting Treize on no less than equal ground.
  • From the five Gundam Pilots themselves, we can deduce that Duo Maxwell is a Bushwhacker (he relies on stealth attacks, ambushing his enemies with his Deathscythe whenever he can), Quatre Raberba Winner is a Plugger (pilots the heavily armored Sandrock Gundam that can take loads of punishment), Chang Wufei is a Steamroller (pilots the melee-oriented Shenlong Gundam that needs to get close to its enemies, dashing into his opponents head-on and overwhelming them with force), and Trowa Barton is a Sniper (a long-range oriented pilot, as his Heavyarms Gundam is loaded with heavy armaments). Heero Yuy freely mixed the four pilot archetypes but is mostly a Bushwhacker and a Sniper, moreso the latter considering that his Wing Gundam (and its following upgrades) almost always has a BFG.
• Gundam X's Big Bad duo, the Frost brothers (Shagia and Olba), often serve the role as Pluggers. Garrod Ran is mostly a steamroller with the titular Gundam X variants, albeit an incredibly adaptable one. Roabea Roy has the Leopard Gundam, which uses gatling guns and roller wheels that enable him to switch between steamroller and sniper at once. Witz Su is more of a classical steamroller with the transforming Airmaster Gundam, but when he loses to Gadeels and had to upgrade, he incorporates bushwhacking styles to keep himself alive. There's also Lancerow Dowell, the resident Char expy and is a Plugger and giving Garrod a run for his money.
• Loran Cehack of ∀ Gundam is either a Bushwhacker or a Plugger depending on the situation. It's actually his lack of kills that best mark his being an Ace—while there are plenty of pilots who fall into the Technical Pacifist category, Loran manages to defeat his opponents without killing any of them until the series is almost over. Even then, he racks up a grand total of two kills over fifty episodes. He manages this in spite of having fallen into the cockpit of the most powerful mobile suit that humanity ever built (and as we see from its brief capture and from the performance of its counterpart, the Turn X, it is terrifying in the hands of someone less scrupulous than him).
• Gundam SEED:
  • Kira Yamato is one of the best and most infamous pilots in the show and its sequel installments thanks to his in-universe creation as the Ultimate Coordinator. He is a One-Man Army, who is capable of fighting armies and who rarely — if ever — loses. There is a reason the opposing side is usually terrified of him, other than his best friend and one of the only other Aces who can stand a chance against him, Athrun Zala. Kira starts off being a Bushwhacker in the Strike Gundam and its variable backpacks, but transitions into a Sniper after acquiring the Freedom Gundam and its signature Full-Burst Mode. In Destiny, Kira reverts to Bushwhacker for a brief moment when piloting the Strike Rouge Ootori to reach the Eternal, but once he obtains the Strike Freedom, he becomes a Steamroller through and through, using the Strike Freedom's overwhelming firepower and advanced defensive systems to charge headlong into enemy forces and disable everything within effective range.
  • Mu La Flaga, who holds his own against genetically-engineered Coordinators in Bigger Stick mobile suits even though he himself is an unmodified Natural piloting either made-of-cardboard mobile armors and fighter jets or hand-me-down mecha, was introduced in the series as a Plugger, using the agility of his Moebius Zero to battle enemies to a stalemate, then became a Bushwhacker when he piloted the FX-550 Skygrasper, since he would usually equip it with the Launcher Striker to outmaneuver the enemy, before delivering a crippling blow using the Launcher Striker's Wave-Motion Gun. Post-Skygrasper, and even when he was Neo Roanoke, he remained a Bushwhacker regardless of what he is piloting, providing support to the Steamrollers and Snipers on his team.
  • The pilots of the Le Creuset team are also notable. Athrun as noted in Seed Destiny section, is a Plugger. Dearka Elsman with his Buster is a Sniper, providing his teammates with fire support and can switch to a sniper rifle if needed. Nicol Amalfi uses the Bushwhacker style of his Blitz to infiltrate enemy lines. Yzak Joule's Duel is somewhat more of a general-purpose Gundam, but it suits him fine for his Steamrolling tactics.
  • Mu's rival, Rau Le Creuset, is a Sniper who can take on more or less any member of the cast, including Kira. His final ride, the ZGMF-X13A Providence Gundam, plays directly to his strengths, allowing him to strike from a distance with his DRAGOONs.
• Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny:
  • Shinn Asuka seems to use Bushwhacker tactics when using Force or Blast Impulse, and switches to Steamroller ones when using Sword Impulse or the eponymous Destiny Gundam.
  • Athrun Zala is a Plugger, which causes people to doubt his skill compared to Kira or Shinn (despite him having defeated both of them at various points) because Athrun can spend an entire battle finding an enemy Gundam and dueling with it, while Kira and Shinn start tearing apart grunts left and right. This makes Shinn in particular think Athrun is far inferior to him because Shinn's personal kill count is quite higher, only for Athrun to soundly stomp him when they fight later on. Though in Destiny, Athrun's skills do take a nosedive when he's fighting someone he's doesn't want to, such as Orb forces or Kira.
  • Not to be outdone, the Cosmic Era has its own share of side stories with aces to show off, such as Stargazer's Sven Cal Bayan, who seems to share Char's indirect steamroller manoeuvres and Edward "the Ripper" Harrelson, who was a very close combat focused steamroller, even before the Earth Alliance got mobile suits. One character of note here is ZAFT's Shiho Hahnenfuss, the only MSV pilot to have had an appearance before the MSV were even made (first seen in Episode 48 of SEED). The few appearances of her indicate that she's a steamroller and she's crossed swords at least once with EAF ace Rena Imelia.
• Gundam 00:
  • The Four Gundam Meisters are actually neatly divided up into the four categories:
    • Setsuna F. Seiei is a decided Steamroller in the first season, what with even being willing to throw any of the seven blades of his Exia at the enemy to get a chance at them. He's arguably mixed with a Bushwhacker in the second season once he obtains the titular 00 Gundam, but still retains his "suicidal attack" method.
    • Allelujah Haptism is a Bushwacker, generally relying on the Kyrios/Arios' superior speed to run circles around his enemies.
    • Lockon Stratos, as his name implies, is a dedicated Sniper, with his Gundams being dedicated to ranged assault. Neil Dylandy is a pure Sniper, relying on precision and purely staying a long distance from his opponent with his Dynames. His brother Lyle, on the other hand, is more dedicated to barraging his opponents thanks to his Cherudim having many Shield Bits that double as makeshift barriers.
    • Tieria Erde is very much a Plugger, with his Virtue/Nadleeh and Seravee/Seraphim loaded with BFGs and heavy armor; he can take a considerable pounding and give it right back with interest.
  • Graham Aker is also an excellent example of a steamroller from the same show, as he is capable of taking one of the most screwed-over and patched-together units ever with only a single melee weapon, and wiping out a vastly superior opponent in his final fight of the season. Admittedly, he did this at the expense of his own unit, but hey. A win is a win.
  • Then there's the series' resident ax-crazy mercenary, Ali Al-Saachez, who manages to be much of a bushwacker with certain aspects of the steamroller in his combat style. In his fight against Exia with a near-Ace Custom Enact, he's basically a pure bushwacker. Once he hjiacked the Throne Zwei, he mixes a bit of the steamroller style using the suit's GN Fangs and Buster Sword to overwhelm his opponents in head-on combat; he carries this mix with his signature Arche Gundam in Season 2, as exemplified with his Curb-Stomp Battle of both 00 and Seravee.
• Gundam AGE:
  • Flit Asuno matures into one by the end of his arc, and he continues to be badass throughout the series, even as he ages. He is usually a bushwhacker who can adapt to a situation quickly.
  • We also have Woolf Enneacle in the first and second arcs, a Steamroller notable for making X-Rounders look like idiots despite not being one himself.
  • The preeminent example here is Asem "Super Pilot" Asuno, also a Steamroller. Like Woolf, he is not an X-Rounder, but by the end of his arc he is unquestionably the most skilled pilot in the series, only failing to beat his opponent when faced with a massive tech difference.
  • Kio Asuno was first a Steamroller, but gradually switched to a Plugger once he acquires the AGE-FX.
  • The antagonist side has the Galette brothers, Desil and Zeheart. Desil is more of an Ax-Crazy steamroller, while Zeheart is one of the few pilots in the series who can fight Asemu one-on-one as a Plugger and not expect to be toasted.
• Gundam: Reconguista in G:
  • Bellri Zenam is of the Bushwhacker type, using guile and capturing the G-Self with a worker mobile suit. Later, in the G-Self, he proves to be a cunning fighter, taking enemy mobile suits as hostages, taking cover behind objects his enemies don't want to hit, and sacrificing his equipment to distract his foes so he can get the drop on them.
  • The resident Char expy, Mask, is of the Steamroller variety, using his Mack Knife's firepower to overwhelm opponents.
  • Similarly, Klim is a Steamroller, but this tactic proved to be a problem when faced against...
  • Dellensen Samatar, another Bushwhacker who manages to outmaneuver Klim's flying Ace Custom in a suit incapable of flight by getting the drop on him from a higher altitude, and later on nearly kills him in his own Super Prototype by distracting him with homing lasers to get into melee range while his attention is focused on evading.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans:
  • Mikazuki Augus for the Tekkadan side. Surviving the Alaya-Vijnana implantation process three times will do that to you. He is usually a Steamroller in battle, never flinching back at attacking his enemy.
  • On the other side, McGillis Fareed is so far seen as a Plugger. He uses this tactic against his former teammate Gaelio Bauduin despite the fact that the latter's Gundam Kimaris has better weapons than his Grimgerde.
    • In his last ever sortie with Gundam Bael (the penultimate episode of Season 2), he switches to a Steamroller style, disabling enemy MS (and one Halfbeaks-class ship) left and right.
  • By the time season 2 comes around, Vidar who is actually Gaelio Bauduin under a mask is a Plugger, using his Gundam's increased mobility which, thanks to his newly installed AV Type E system, he can take full advantage of without any of the drawbacks (and sub-arm-mounted shields later on) to deflect and evade any and all enemy attacks. Hell, he gave Mikazuki a hard time while fighting him. When the boy who destroyed the mobile armor Hashmal singlehandedly can barely land a good hit on you, yep. You're pretty much an ace.
  • Amida Arca is an understated one. In her battle against Julieta Juris, she's able to fight evenly with her even though Julieta was piloting a customized Reginlaze and she herself was in a Hyakuren — a severely outdated Mobile Suit by this point. She may have even won the fight if Iok hadn't decided to play dirty.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt, the two protagonists exemplify the Steamroller and the Sniper, respectively. Io Flemming is an adrenaline junkie, Jazz-obsessed Blood Knight whose job is to charge headfirst into a Zeon occupied debris field. Meanwhile, Daryl Lorenz is an amputee who starts the story in an obsolete and barely mobile Zaku II manning a mounted cannon, and yet stays calm as a cucumber as he plays soothing pop music.
  • Then there's Bianca Carlyle who, upon her introduction via the Bandit Flower OVA, was already credited with 8 kills during the Battle of A Baoa Qu (having netted her most recent kill at the time by stabbing a Bigro in the eye with her GM's Beam Saber.) She's capable as either a Steamroller a Bushwacker, but is somehow relegated to the Plugger role due to her using mass-production GM Variants in most of her appearances.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury has several ace pilots:
  • Suletta Mercury primarily fit into the Plugger style during the first cour, making use of the Gundam Aerial's supreme defensive capabilities to weather out any enemy assault before firing back using the machine's Attack Drones. After she gets the Rebuild upgrade, she still carries over some of her previous Plugger style, but mostly now fights as a Steamroller by overwhelming her opponents with the Gundam's immense firepower and heightened agility. Late in the cour she loses the Aerial and gains the outdated Calibarn instead, which allows her to truly show off her skill as she can no longer use its systems as a crutch. Due to this new machines lack of defensive options, she is forced to adopt a Bushwacker/Sniper hybrid style to make use of its speed and powerful beam cannon to avoid fire and take enemies out at long range, and she uses this new style to impressive effect against Quiet Zero and its army of drones all by her lonesome.
  • Despite being a Hot-Blooded, punch-happy Action Girl outside of her Mobile Suit, Chuatury "Chuchu" Panlunch is a Sniper by necessity. Her Demi Barding is a refurbished, very obsolete trainer converted into a Fragile Speedster sniper to save on repair cost. In spite of the inferiority of the mech, she holds her own against much better equipped opponent, even facing down a Gundam.
  • Guel Jeturk is a Steamroller, specializing in close-quarters combat. He had 26 wins and no losses or ties as the school's top mobile suit duelist before Suletta and Aerial's arrival. He's only put into a tough spot when his opponents have a technological edge against him—in short, Guel is a very good pilot, just not the very best pilot. His later battles and brushes with death temper him as the show goes on, causing him to become more pragmatic and adapt a Bushwhacker style. This is shown in episode 20, when he fights both Shaddiq Zanelli and Sabina Farden despite his being hampered by school restrictions (preventing him from targeting cockpits and limiting his weapon output) while they have none and are aiming to kill him. He manages to take them on both at once, making extensive use of his drones, their assumption of him as little more than a hothead and even the Darilbalde itself to earn a clean victory.