Finally, Crossbone Gundam made its way to RG line! Bandai hailed this kit as the part of Gunpla Evolution Project for 'Extreme Details', and they certainly were not joking about it. This kit was officially released in Japan on May 25th 2019, even though some stores have actually put it on their shelves one or even two days before the release day. It was sold with 2700 Yen price tag and as you may have known, we could get it with cheaper retail price in Japan. With real-life head height of 15.9 meters, this should be one of the smallest mobile suits in RG line.
The box looked like a typical RG boxes, with totally 10 runners inside. Similar with RG Tallgeese and Sazabi, Crossbone Gundam adapted limited (partial) advanced MS joint system, this time with only body and core fighter frames are pre-assembled on the B-runner. This partial inner-frame has proven successful to give the latest RG kits much more stability than previous released ones with full advanced MS joint.
The constructions started with core fighter, which I mentioned before, has an inner-frame for the "X" shape thrusters. If you have built RG GP01 in the past, you will quite familiar with some parts of core fighter. The next are feet, legs and waist section. The construction of the waist was pretty interesting, because it has special gimmicks for the front skirts (scissor anchor). Furthermore, the crotch-legs joint was fixed into one position in contrary with movable (forward-backward) joint which was normally seen on previous RG kits.
Next, the body, which used the last inner-frame from B-runner. The construction was quite simple and specialized to host the core fighter. The arms unit of this kit were interesting because the upper wrists could be rotated 360 degree, probably to enable the arm guards (for beam shield) moved forward. The shoulders were built together as the parts of arms unit, and damn ... there were so many tiny parts on it.
The most difficult part to built of this kit was the head, mainly because everything was so damn tiny. I recommend you to prepare (at least) a tweezers to help the job, in particular for attaching the eye sticker to the clear plastic part. Initially, I only used my hand, and eventually messing up the eye. Fortunately, RG stickers have two eye options, thus I finally succeed on my second attempt, this time with the help of a tweezers. For the eye parts, you can choose for having normal two eyes, or one-eye with a patch. The mouth plate of this kit could be opened (which makes the gundam face look more scary lol). The scars on the each side of the head use stickers, but I decided to paint them later. Lastly, be careful with the skull emblem on the forehead, because it tends to fall off. Glue it if necessary.
After completing the head, we can dock the core fighter into the mobile suit. The docking was easy and solid. Finally, you can start construct and attach the best accessory provided for this kit: the anti-beam cloak. Now, he looks so badass!!
This kit comes with a lot of accessories. For weapons you got beam sabers (2x), beam zanber, buster gun, chains for anchor scissors (2x), heat knives which could be attached on the feet soles (2x). For beam parts, aside from beam sabers, you get effect parts for brand makers, beam shields and beam zanber. Beam zanber hilt and buster gun could be combined to make Zanbuster. A part for rifle grenade (attached on the tip of Zanbuster) is also available. There are 4 pairs of hands: static clenched, weapon holding hands 1 and 2, and finally, opened hands. Finally, the last but not the least, the anti-beam coating cloak.
 |
| Size comparison with RG Sazabi, Banshee and Tallgeese II |
Basically, there were not many parts to panel line on this kit, except the core fighter. For panel lining, I used gundam marker pen black (GM01) and grey (GM02). For the red scars, I used red paint gundam marker (GM07). Applying RG stickers on this kit was probably the most boring and hideous part of the build, and yes, the Crossbone Vanguard emblem on the chest is sticker, unfortunately. Due to curvy surface of the chest, there will be warps which are ugly to see. Hence, I trimmed the sticker as much as I could to minimize the warps on it. Damn it Bandai, I don't mind to pay more for the waterslide than these stickers.
Once it finished, let's make some cool poses!
The articulation of this kit was pretty good and the parts were solid for posing. The only parts which tends to fall off while posing were knee caps, but I think it's not a big issue because they move a lot. The four 'sheet' of cloak also articulated, you can make them swing to the left or right for the 'wind' impression. The thrusters also articulated really well, no problem whatsoever. Since the neck was fixed into the frame, there's no chicken-head articulation as normally seen on previous RG. Anyway, head-up and down articulation was still there. Overall, despite some missing features of previous RGs, this kit has great articulation.
Finally, the verdict. RG Crossbone Gundam X1, as the previous RGs, is a great kit and I really recommend it for everyone who loves gunpla. It's amazing Bandai still could manage to provide 'extreme level' of details into such tiny kit. It is solid, greatly articulated, and with a lot of accessories, options and gimmicks, 2700 Yen price tag looks nothing. The only issues I had were the stickers and its tiny parts. I say it again, make sure to prepare a tweezers before building this kit.
-----------------
XM-X1 Crossbone Gundam X-1
Pros:
- Extreme detail and lots of gimmicks
- Solid build and great articulation
- Tons of cool accessories
Cons:
- Super tiny parts, use of a tweezers is strongly recommended
- Suck stickers, especially the Crossbone Vanguard insignia
