Finally !! My first Master Grade kit ever !!
I bought this guy at Yodobashi-camera in Yokohama for 2940 Yen. Very cheap as the original price is 4200 Yen, and it could be more expensive in Indonesia. It has 15 runners, the greatest numbers I've ever built, and it took around 3 weeks to be completed (because I was occupied with my research works).
I picked this kit, originally because of the box art and it just blew me away.
See what i meant ? Even though the story of the series was suck, I could not deny that SEED has several best mecha designs in the Gundam history. Well ... let's not consider the SEED HG kits are put into account.
Duel is the first "remastered" of SEED MG kit. Story wise, It's the first GAT-X series built by Earth Alliance and used as the test bed for the other GAT-X mobile suit: Buster, Blitz, Aegis and Strike. It basically has striking similarities with Strike in term of design. As the Strike is the protagonist of Gundam SEED and Duel is one of the antagonist, so why did I picked Duel over Strike ? Well, I like the color scheme of Duel. It's just unorthodox color scheme compared the mainstream white, blue and red color of Strike. Furthermore, it's always fun to collect an antagonist kit. Oh, and don't forget the badass assault shroud armor. It just make Duel much more menacing than ever.
Duel is also the first kit which I top coated. I used Mr. Super Clear flat spray to top coat the main body. Unfortunately, I have not finished building the assault shroud during my stay in Japan, hence the assault shroud left uncoated. This kit has many accessories. Two beam sabers, one beam rifle, one shield, one rail gun rifle, and one bazooka. The assault shroud is really nice. It has so many panel lines and details. Some review said, that the front skirt of assault shroud has tendency to fall off. Well ... mine has no problem with it. It may because of the top coat I used for the main body which made the kit surface rougher hence made it snapped more tightly than the uncoated kit.
This kit comes with two sheets of decal: clear sticker and dry transfer. Honestly, the clear sticker is suck. The color is so dull, and it didn't stick easily on the curve surfaces (e.g on knees), hence I had to modify it slightly to prevent the air trapped beneath the sticker. The dry transfer on the other hand, is nice. I love some markers of the dry transfer on the Duel weapons and armors.
Articulation of this kit is amazing ! Duel could o so many poses without any problems. Sometimes .. just sometimes, there are some parts which getting loose during the process, but it's not a big issue in my case. However, the articulation is limited with assaultshroud equipped.
Overall, Duel is a wonderful kit. Clearly one of my favorite MS from SEED series :-)
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GAT-X102 Duel Gundam Assaultshroud
Pros :
- Amazing detail and cool assaultshroud armor
- Great articulation and stability
- Tons of accessories
Cons :
- Front skirt and some of assaultshroud armor tend to get loose easily
- The clear sticker is just ... too dull
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