Gundam Converge #29

So, we are finally getting around to Converge #29 just as volume 30 hit is about to hit shelves in Japan on the 19th. Volume 29 has been kicking around since mid-May and I was actually quite fast on the ball to acquire them, at least most of them. The lone holdout turned out be - somewhat surprisingly - the Reborns Gundam. The set has several high-profile machines, in fact the entire set is full of them, and so I would have expected other figures to be in higher demand. Yet for some reason, the Reborns kept selling out the minute it hit the Mandarake webshop, I think I missed out on it three or four times before I managed to poach one of them. Price-wise however, only one figure was selling at an inflated ¥1000 and that was the Messer, the others remained at a MSRP-adjacent price of ¥600.


Look at this beautiful line-up! I can't remember when last a set reveal impressed me this much, there are only bangers in here. As far as reissues go, there are also five fresh faces in here, and save for the GFreD which has been plastered everywhere lately the rest of the gang are quite rare sights in the figure world. I am really looking forward to dig deeper into this lot, let's dig in!


Here are the bags as they come out of the boxes and there is nothing particularly interesting about them. As usual, the cardboard sheets that are meant to protect fragile components like V-fins continue to do a poor job since they are much smaller than the pockets they are inserted into. Luckily, I had no damaged components and that is a very rare thing in my experience.



316 : GNT-0000 00 Qan[T]


There is only one recycled mobile suit in this set and of course it gets to lead this wave. Having said that it is a very pretty thing and I can well see why Bandai chooses to bring it forward again, maybe it scored well in the last survey that they did too. While it has a pretty colour scheme with different types of translucent and metallic greens applied someone really gave me a figure that shouldn't have passed through quality control. The paint applications are a little bit messy in the chest area and the machine someone forgot to paint one of the vents in yellow. I haven't yet decided if it bothers me enough that I should seek out a replacement figure or not.


The Qan[T] is one of those suit designs with tiny feet, hence Bandai did not want to drill a peg hole into one of its feet. Instead we get a translucent clip that supports the foot by wrapping around it. These work fine I guess but are also a bit annoying because you cannot pick up the figure without the base falling off. Luckily you don't really need to use the base and the large GN Sword can act as its third supporting leg if you need it to.


The original Qan[T] figure on the left there is already twelve years old at this point, released in Converge volume 14 in April 2014. The two look remarkably similar, at least when you compare to other #Sharp reissues where the figure is often taller and sports different bodily proportions. There is definitely no need to "upgrade" your original figure with the new sculpt. I also threw in the Qan[T] Full Saber there on the right, which is one of the early CORE figures from 2016.






317 : gMS-K GFreD


GQuuuuuuX is Mobile Suit Gundam in its Evangelion-era and the GFreD is probably the best example of this; the body shape, head design and colour scheme are all very reminiscent of the EVA-01. While I am not generally impressed by the concept behind GQuuuuuuX there is no denying that the figures all look great and I would put the GFreD on top of their internal ranking list. Unlike the Qan[T] above the paint apps are really crisp on this figure, down to the little red lines on the front skirt.


The GFreD comes with a classic armament set of rifle and shield. You also have a detachable mobility backpack which apparently also doubles as a core fighter. The oddly shaped feet have high heels and so you get a clear plastic support which doesn't clip around the entire foot but instead just the heel. This type of support can be a bit flimsy, again you can use the beam rifle as additional support if you keep the figure off the base.






318 : RX-124 Gundam TR-6 [Woundwort]


The Advance of Zeta project produced some of the most weird and alien-looking mobile suit designs in the entire Gundam franchise. While Mobile Suit Ensemble has been drinking heavily from the AOZ-fountain we have only seen a handful of appearances in Converge, the last of which was ten years ago! Here now at least comes the TR-6 in two different configurations and first up is the experimental Woundwort.

If this is your first encounter with AOZ you might wonder what the hell is going on. While much of the torso resembles your traditional mobile suit it has a completely different idea about what the body should look like. Those backward facing legs take a bit of getting used to for example, and much of its face is hidden underneath a huge brow. Notice how Bandai decided to give it expressive hands rather than your average closed fists, perhaps they wanted to make it seem more relatable?


While the Woundwort is not a strictly space-only machine this particular form presents some challenges to the figure sculptors. The team decided to stick with the tiny lower legs and feet and instead made a clear support that not only clips around the "foot" but also over it, so that the foot slots inside very tightly. This is a surprisingly sturdy fit but I think that a design utilizing a clear base inserted into the groin area might have been a more dependable solution (just like how Mobile Suit Ensemble does it). I also had a surprising amount of trouble getting that large back skirt in place. The huge peg hole was partially filled up with excess plastic that I had to carve out with a knife for it to finally fit. The blue figure exhibited no such issue.


For such an obscure unit, there is a surprisingly large amount of Woundwort figures out there. The tiniest figure here is from the failed FW SD Gundam Neo-line which showed up in 2017, one step up we have an entry from Gashapon Warrior NEXT 02 released in 2011 and to the right the large Woundwort from Mobile Suit Ensemble Part 04 originally released in 2017. Not included here is the fully translucent version of the NEXT 02 figure which was released in 2012 as part of one of the large premium boxset in the NEXT range.






319 : RX-124 Gundam TR-6 [Hazel II]


The Hazel II figure might at first be mistaken for a simple colour swap but there are a lot of tweaks to the design. Apart from the eye-catching Titans-blue colour scheme we can also spot several new features. The mobile suit/armor now sports the traditional beam rifle and shield combo and has doubled its amount of long range-beam rifle/sword thingies. Rather than being attached to the arm these now also sit on a rack attached to the rear booster. I'm not going to pretend that I know which components are unique to either mode or if they are simply chosen as different representatives of what a loadout could look like. The intimidating range of variations to the RX-124 can only be equalled by that of the F90/F91-family.


Notice how the rear booster section is completely redesigned compared to the component attached to the Woundwort figure. The two weapons are attached to round pegs which enables you to swivel them forward a bit but the proportions of the figure limits their movement a great deal.


Just like there is no attachment point for a shield on the Woundwort's left arm there is no way to hang one of the big rifles on the Hazel II's right arm. I like how this duo is represented but I would be even more curious to see what a figure would look like with its legs retracted and sitting on a clear base similar to how the Ensemble figure does it.


Mobile Suit Ensemble released the Woundwort in official Titans colours when they reissued Ensemble Part 04 as the Part 4.5 colour variation set in 2020, but only as a direct colour swap. Thus, it isn't really a counterpart to the Hazel II. Since I had a leftover figure I confiscated its long range-rifle and made my own mock-up above. The Ensemble figure unfortunately does not have a way to attach rifles to the back and so I made this abomination instead.






320 : Me-02R-F02 Messer Type F02


Out of all the cool figures in volume 29, none captured my interest as much as the Messer. Ever since I first saw it in SD figure form in 2017 (has it been that long already...) I kept hoping for an appearance in Converge or Ensemble. The new Hathaway's Flash movie helped push the suit to the forefront of Bandai's mind and it also enjoyed excellent representation in the Gundam Card Game last winter. Finally we have one of its versions hit Converge and I am drooling all over it.

The Messer has a bit of Dom- or Gelgoog-presence with massive extremities and a vibrant colour scheme. The mono-eye however is so tiny that it almost disappears, a result of the modernized design of the Messer compared to the older cartoonish style used for Zeon. The beam rifle (which looks remarkably similar to the one sported by the Hazel II, is there a canonical development heritage there?) has a slightly different colour to the beige used on the mobile suit which I do think is accurate but will no doubt bother some. All in all though, I think it looks tremendous.


Amusingly, the Messer is the outlier in Converge #29 being the only mobile suit that doesn't require any additional support to stand upright, the ratio is usually the other way around. Beyond that it is a bog-standard Converge figure with the traditional equipment loadout in place.


I mentioned a 2017 appearance earlier, the figure in question is the Me-02R Messer you see here, which hails from Gashapon Warrior Senshi Forte Part 02. That figure was also reissued as a "recolour version" in Part 2.5 in 2019 in a darker palette with the yellowy-beige sections more akin to chocolate milk. Even though the two figure families look very different you can recognize most of the features between them.






321 : CB-0000G/C Reborns Gundam


Last face on the line then, and I was really happy to see a rare glimpse of something from MSG00 that is not a Celestial Being mainstay. There are so many fascinating and unique looking suits from this era that I would really like to collect in Converge form. I imagine the spindly and sleek designs are difficult to transform into the Converge format but there are still many other candidates like the GN-X family for example. Still, for now I am pleased to see this very uniquely painted machine with its red framing of white and gold. The posture is a bit unusual in that the legs are spread very far apart - I'm not sure I like this but I grant that this is a common appearance of the machine itself. More troubling is the soft plastic in the fins which bend all over the place, perhaps these could have been manufactured in the same hard plastic as used for the beam rifle.


The Reborns is another high-heel adopter and as such gets one of those smaller supports that surround the heel itself, making the general stability a bit weaker. Especially as these friction-based joints tend to wear out over time.


Here is a close-up of the beam rifle assembly, the red handlebar is kept in place by two pegs on the sleeve and the rifle itself. I expected this to be really flimsy but so far it has held up well. I have considered gluing it in place for additional peace of mind as this is a typical candidate for a piece that you may find missing on second-hand purchases a couple of years down the line.


We actually have a prior release of the Reborns Gundam in the Gashapon Warrior NEXT line where it appeared in volume 14 in the summer of 2013. Interestingly, that set also featured the 00 Gundam and the RX-121 Gundam TR-1 Hazel Custom in two different colours, while not exactly the same line-up as Converge #29 it feels to be more than just a peculiar coincidence. Notice also the widely spread legs on the smaller figure, this is definitely a trait the designers had in mind when they sculpted it.






Conclusion

So, there you have it. Converge #29 is a fantastic entry into a figure line that sometimes feels like it is running out of steam - only to come back in and take my breath away with a release like this. Sadly, the upcoming Converge #30 will be almost the complete opposite; four of the six figures are Gundams you have seen before and two of them are "revive" reissues at that. Good job to kill the excitement there.

Gundam Card Game - Heavy Dominion (ST 14)

We've reached the fourth and last starter deck of the September wave and here Bandai puts the spotlight on some imposing damage dealers and bulked-up tanks. Whether that will really translate into the game itself proper I do not really know but the design language seems clear enough to me. Most of my comments regarding the product in general have been communicated already in the reviews for the three previous boxes and so rather than repeating myself unnecessarily here feel free to hit the previous entry button to check out the other sets.


"Heavy Dominion" leads with the Full Armor Unicorn on the front cover but if you look at the multiplayer illustration at the back ST14 is actually represented by the PMX-003 The-O instead. This is the same pattern that we saw for the Qubeley/Aerial pairing and so either the front cover had a late switcharoo or someone simply decided that the four-player duel looked better with the alternate illustrations. In my mind, a boring committee decided that the Aerial and FA Unicorn had more mainstream appeal than the Qubeley and the mighty The-O...


There are no surprises in this box, you get the pre-arranged 50-card deck together with 12 functional resource card, a punchboard of tokens, the double-sided rules sheet/playmat and the bespoke promo-card pack which is unique to ST 14.


The image of the updated rules here is recycled from ST 13 but only the card graphics are different between the different sets. Of interest here is the righthand column which now also explains how to run a multi-player free-for-all game with three or more players.


Our unit selection mainly resembles a pandemonium of heavy-hitters brought in from an absolute plethora of sources. We have mobile suits from Zeta, Unicorn, War in the Pocket, Char's Counterattack, After War Gundam X, Endless Waltz and SEED. The two signature suits are a really tanky The-O and a slightly more defensive Full Armor Unicorn; both cards have the discreet foil-treatment which is so typical for this game. I think the fact that the yellow hulk comes first in the sequence strengthens my belief that it was ditched from the front cover. One aggravating thing about this release is that every bloody mobile suit has been seen in the game before, there is not a single fresh face in here. The original starter sets had a bit of flair to them, this is just a lump of stuff with numbers on them.


There is nothing too exciting in the pilot and command cards section either, you know the drill by now - most of the units and crew have jumped from one deck colour to another. The illustration on the base card has to be the dumbest one so far; the Gryps 2 Colony Laser is a converted space colony, all the illustrators had to do was draw a cylinder but instead we get this abomination. Not impressed at all.


The promo-pack contains one of the cards from the starter deck with a foil treatment (in case of you scoring a version of the already foiled cards the foil effect will be slightly different). I must say I am pleased with the cards I have been finding in my packs, three out of four turned out to be unit cards which is usually what I prefer to receive. The foil effect doesn't show up that well in my photos but you can at least see how the text box has been removed to let the artwork display a bit better. I don't really have a whole lot to say about these starter sets in general. I think ST 11 was the most interesting of this lot due to its tighter focus around amphibious units and also introducing a new keyword "Marine". the other three packs mostly feel like filler or rather making mobile suits from the early sets available again but in completely different forms.

Gundam Card Game - Silent Barrage (ST 13)

Our march through the September starter decks continues and we're up to the third entry. Again, discourse will be kept to a minimum here, I simply don't have a whole lot to say beyond what I mentioned in the previous two entries. My barrage of words has grown silent it seems.


The third of the four starters is a green and red combo-deck centred around... uh, hold on a second, which mobile suit is that exactly? For some reason my brain kept drawing a blank for several seconds until the floating Gund-bits gave me a bit of a clue. I was trying to figure out which Celestial Being MSV-design this might be until it clicked that oh, this is probably the Aerial. Not the most successful illustration in my opinion. And look there on the back of the cover, ST 13 is not represented by the Aerial there but the Qubeley. Could it be that the Qubeley was originally planned for the cover and this was later replaced by the Aerial?


The box contains the standard loadout of a fixed 50-card deck with 12 additional resource cards. There is also a punch card with tokens, the double-sided playmat and rules sheet and a random promo-card which is exclusive to this particular starter deck.


The rules-sheet is updated to now also include instructions for setting up a multi-player Battle Royale of three or more players. Again, the graphics feature the Qubeley and Haman Karn rather than the Aerial and Suletta as examples of card types.


The unit composition of Silent Barrage is another eclectic bunch of mobile suits and armour from all over the place - Zeta, Witch, U.C.0079, X, 00 and GQuuuuuuX. The two totem-units are the Qubeley and the Aerial which are the only two foil cards in the deck. I know I keep droning on about it but the deck is fronted by the Qubeley, it simply must have been the originally intended face of the box. Neither illustration fails to grab me however, I think they completely miss the mark. Considering that this game might be some people's first real exposure to Mobile Suit Gundam I find it a bit unfortunate that most of the illustrations here are so bland. Just look at that Jagd Doga for example, it is a blur of yellows and turquoise, how do you even screw something up that badly?

I'm not seeing any particular pattern among the units selected for this starter, I imagine they are intended to offer some core options for your red or green deck building options. One thing that has always bothered me about the card design is the use of acronyms for the faction alignment traits. This set includes a fair bit of them. "CB", "UNE", "SRA" - how is this going to capture the interest of newcomers to the franchise?


All pilots in the box are returning faces. Suletta has been released in white and green before and here she is in red. Can she be the first pilot to make it to all five suites? Haman has done a mirror-action and switched from red to green. I was surprised to see Carris Nautilus get a second card, are we running out of pilots and mobile suits already? He of course switched from red to green as well, perhaps they are just all colour-blind.


The promo-card pack contains one of the sixteen different starter deck cards in a slightly revised foil-treatment. We pulled the Elmeth here which is a good candidate for this alteration. Removing the text box exposes more of the background art and gives it a nice floating in space effect. In summary, from an aesthetic perspective I find ST 13 to be the weakest entry of the gang so far. We still have one starter set to go, let's see if it can end the experience on a high.