Mobile Suit Ensemble EX 15 : LM314V23/24 V2 Assault-Buster Gundam & Wings of Light Set

Whenever Bandai finds itself with a successful design they sure aren't shy of milking it. We've seen it a couple of times in Mobile Suit Ensemble, most notably with the Hazel TR-1 and Nu Gundam families. First you release the figures in the retail line-up, add in a couple of parts variation possibilities and then do a "complete" EX figure. You can of course also revisit the popular figure with a 0.5 edition with a colour swap or the dubious "Special Markings ver." concept. Today's review focuses on one of these EX sets for a mobile suit that had already been out for a while.

The Assault-Buster Gundam set was released in February 2020 as a premium item with a price tag of ¥4400 which would place it somewhere in the medium to lower category as far as expensive EX-figures go. When you consider that most of the components in this box have been in the retail line before this of course makes the price point less impressive. The figure appears to have been very popular though and I had considerable difficulty finding one until late October at which point the price had risen to ¥6000. I imagine this kit would be quite popular with latecomers to Ensemble who may have missed out on it on its first time around in 2018.

The box is, as usual, crammed full of components and a decent enough instruction sheet going through the various Victory 2 variants you can build out of the box.

As you can see the focus with this box is the effects parts that take up a considerable amount of room in the box. In 2018 Bandai released a strict effects parts-set for the Ensemble Nu Gundam figure. At that time it was a simple option parts set but this time around they elected to include the mobile suit as well.


I recently covered both the Buster Gundam and the Assault Gundam variations of the Victory 2 Gundam in the reviews for the retail sets in which they first appeared. You can find parts to build the LM314V23 Victory 2 Buster Gundam in Ensemble Part 5 (see review here) and the LM314V24 Victory 2 Assault Gundam is covered in Ensemble Part 6 (review). If you gathered parts from both these sets you could assemble an LM314V23/24 V2 Assault-Buster Gundam figure very similar to the one in this box. Since I will not cover these various modes in this review I will put the assembly instructions up here so you can get an idea of the full features of the kit.

Here the EX 15 Assault-Buster poses with the Buster Gundam from Part 05 (left) and the Assault Gundam from Part 06 (right). Since I didn't have enough parts to build the original Assault-Buster figure without dismantling these I will not to a side by side comparison but will instead point out differences in the text part of the review. Considering how rare the original figures have become it might take quite some time to source the missing parts but if I do the review will be updated accordingly.

The Assault-Buster design is for those of us who don't like to choose option parts. Why build the Aile Strike Gundam or the Sword Strike when you can combine them with the Launcher Strike and create a Perfect Strike Gundam instead? The Assault-Buster follows this same philosophy marrying together parts from both the Assault and Buster modes of the Victory 2. This particular EX figure expands on the original figure in that it adds a lot of effect parts. The basic figure is unchanged but here you will find redesigned Minovsky Drive parts that now allow for Wings of Light effect parts supplied in both blue and red. You only get one set of drive components that you have to take apart every time you want to change type so I just decided to stick with red after photographing the blue ones although both are very nice.

Speaking of blue, you will notice that the EX figure has a deeper blue base colour on all its armor plating. A few parts are still modeled in the original brighter blue of the original retail figures, seen here for example on the Mega Beam Cannon. You can see further examples on the leg and skirt armor and I am not sure if this is actually by design or a cost cutting thing.

What a beautiful display piece this is. Next, we'll remove the blue effect parts and go red for the Wings of Light emissions. Notice the different blue colour used on the armor on the lower body of the figure.

Yeah, as nice as those blue effect parts are i would argue that it is the red wings that are not only iconic but also the most spectacular when paired with the blue and yellow armor. This just looks supercharged. You can also see that I have replaced the beam rifle in the left hand with a nice translucent red that beam saber that also comes with this figure. Nothing stops you from equipping either weapon in the right hand if you want to get rid of the iconic Mega Beam Rifle to create a rifle and saber combo for example.

This thing just looks so good. I wish that Bandai would have included coloured translucent beam sabers in their retail equipment sets. Had they done that we could have had a lot of red, blue, green or blue sabers to pick and choose from at this point instead of a lot of clear and rather useless ones.

We also get an optional Beam Saber mold which resembles a hand-held traditional fan. I am not sure if this is an alternate projection mode of the Beam Saber or if it is supposed to mimic a slashing action but they did the same with the base Victory Gundam figure in Converge so I wonder if this is in fact an alternate mode. Either way I am not a huge fan of it but it is there if you want to use it and it opens up the ability to wield dual red beam sabers which is also pretty wild.

Lastly we have the most obvious component from this entire box, that insanely large Beam Shield effect part. Notice how three projectors of sorts are removed from the shield and spread out in a triangle form which then emit a near indestructible energy wall of protection. I am not exactly sure how these emitters work. Do they float around in space like funnels or bits requiring some type of newtype ability to control or do they somehow ride atop the projected beam shield itself? No matter how you look at it, I think this effect part doesn't really work for the figure as it is just ridiculously large and looks incredibly non-energy. I guess Bandai wanted to throw n as many onus parts with this set as they could, in order to make it stand out enough from the retail version Assault-Buster figure.

We also have a large and sturdy display stand available for the figure. If you choose to project the beam shield it also has a little tripod of its own. I can't imagine that anyone would actually choose to display their figure in this form anyway but I guess at least Bandai has made it possible to do so.


Conclusion

Overall I have a bit of mixed feelins for the Assault-Buster Gundam figure. Basically I think that there is not enough new things in this box to entice someone who already built their own retail Assault-Buster combo, but it is very helpful for poeple who missed out on the figure the first time around. It could also be handy for completionist collectors who do not have enough sets of the original retail figures to build and display all the Victory 2 modes in parallel.

Mobile Suit Ensemble Part 06

We continue the deep dive in to the early Ensemble sets with a look on the successor to Part 05 since there is some build overlap in between them. These will then lead up to the Assault Buster EX figure review which triggered the whole thing. It also enable me to finally get a grip and complete building the remaining figures that had been sitting in their boxes for much too long because I was lazy to paint Jegan thrusters all over again.


Ensemble Part 06 is a typical early five-piece set with three mobile suits, a support vehicle (which happens to be a well-known mobile armor this time around) and a parts set with stuff to take the basic figures to the next level. The set was released in May 2018 and comes in both capsules and random boxes like the ones displayed above. I don't have a full set of capsule version figures but they are of the usual five colour-coded type, all Stark Jegans come in blue capsules and so on.



033 : LM314V24 Victory 2 Assault Gundam

While Ensemble Part 05 had the GNT-0000 Qan[T] on the cover the set also included a Victory 2 Gundam which could be transformed into a V2 Buster Gundam. Part 06 expands this concept but instead opens with the V2 Assault Gundam as the basis for further modification.


Looking really good there, son. The Assault Gundam has a number of gold-painted parts and a pair of 1980's style shoulder pads to level up its level of snobbery. The golden parts on the knees and skirt come on a sprue and so you will have terrible nub marks where the gold coating has not been applied but since these are on the backside of the knee armor and bottom tip of the skirt front they are thankfully not very obvious unless you go looking for them. The added guff on the skirt sides means you have to lift up the arms a bit which nearly squeezes the head, Ensemble figures sometimes remind us just how little articulation there is in practice.


There are, as you can see, no weapons or accessories with the basic figure, you will have to grab that equipment set to complete the build. We will return to the Assault Gundam when we look into the equipment pack.


A side by side with the base Victory 2 Gundam shows just how much has changed in between the two designs at least on the surface. Fundamentally, they are still very much alike.






034 : RGM-89S Stark Jegan

Next up we have this set's awesome army-builder suit. I think that each wave of figures should always include one of these since they really encourage people grabbing multiples. Ensemble has a really nice line-up of grunt type suits by now and they always come well engineered and equipped.


A little disclaimer is in place here; apart from the two yellow front vents on the torso all other thrusters are painted on. Even though the Stark Jegan figure comes nicely coloured out of the box (even with two types of green on its feet) the body is jammed full of thrusters that you really want to highlight. It is the Kämpfer situation all over again (and the reissue of the Kämpfer is holding back the Part 4.5 review still...).


The Stark Jegan is an anti-ship development of the base RGM-89 Jegan and has a whole suit of brutal long-range weapons suited to this purpose. This of course doesn't stop Bandai from shipping it with one of those toothpick beam sabers only since they really want you to buy those equipment sets...


When the Stark Jegan entered Ensemble service it was a welcome deviation from the many Unicorn Gundam iterations. Since then, the Unicorn-era has been fleshed out with more army-builders like the ReZEL and the Zeta Plus.






035 : RX-77-2 Guncannon

We continue to time travel backwards from Victory Gundam and Unicorn back to the U.C. 0079 era for some really well known profiles. We save the RX-78 back in Part 01 and now it is time to bring out its Operation V team mates.


I don't know... there is something off with this Guncannon design... I think it is primarily those big and staring eyes but the legs also seem very large in comparison to the upper body.


When Mobile Suit Ensemble was first revealed it basically looked like the Gundam Converge aesthetic was carried over into articulated Gashapon figures. Some of the figures look very similar, but the Guncannons are really like night and day.


Finally a figure in this set with a Beam Rifle included in the box. I am curious though why the rifle is hollowed out. We have seen this on a lot of the MicroWars figures as well and I wonder what is driving this process. Surely it cannot be a cost cutting thing as far as materials go. Does it have something to do with the manufacturing method where it becomes impractical to create massive components? Is there a limitation in some sort of stamping technique? If anyone knows I would be interested to learn more.






036 : RX-75 Guntank

Volume six is one of those sets where the support vehicle is actually a figure in its own right. I would like to see more vehicles like this in the fourth slot, Type 61 tanks, Core Boosters, Dopp Fighters, Zeon Helicopters, there is a lot to work with.


The Guntank figure is a really clean design and it looks great out of the box. The only real complaint I have is that the tracks are joined to the sprue from the topside which creates ugly and very visible marks. These could easily have been hidden if the tracks were joined from the underside instead.


Not a whole lot to say about the components shot. Let's take a look at the nice line-up of Ensemble Federation suits and mobile armors from the 0079 era instead. That Guncannon is really big compared to the other suits - someone had a bad hangover at the computer when designing that figure.






037 : Equipment Set for Wave 06

So, this is where all the magic happens. Part six has been graced with one of those option parts sets that offer something for everyone, or, if you prefer it that way, that takes away from each figure in order to lure you into purchasing an entire 10 piece-box. However, it needs to be mentioned from the start that you also need parts from volume five if you hope to build the most complex V2 design; the Assault Buster. For more details you can check out the official build instructions.


Most of the parts in this set are designated for use by the Stark Jegan figure. I do find it odd that the beam saber that is normally included with the parts set ended up with the Stark Jegan figure instead of its beam rifle but perhaps this capsule just didn't have enough room for it.



RX-77-2 Guncannon (Missile Launcher equipment)


The Guncannon figure gets a nice pair of optional missile launcher that swivel just like the cannon version. I half expected to find a pair of flat hands in this set to allow the figure to stand on all four but thankfully this was skipped and the Guncannon gets to keep its dignity intact.




LM314V24 Victory 2 Assault Gundam (equipment set)


There are two very vital components for the Assault Gundam in this box, its Mega Beam Rifle and Beam Shield. The rifle has attachment points for both the hand and the elbow joint so you have to apply a bit of force to squeeze it into place. The shield has a simple peg for joining via the elbow socket (a variation of this is found with the EX figure that also gets a handle allowing the shield to be handheld).


The extra gear really transforms the basic Assault Gundam figure into a behemoth. You can of course also consider giving it some of the gear used by the basic V2 figure, such as the regular sized beam rifle or pink beam shield.




LM314V23/24 V2 Assault-Buster Gundam


Ok, so here is where the review hits a bit of a snag. I figured I had everything I needed to build all the variations of the V2 without having to take apart and reassemble figures but it turned out I was short of one additional equipment set from wave 05. That is why you see an unarmed Assault Gundam bumbling around in some of the pictures - it was supposed to be the foundation of that Assault-Buster. Nowadays the figures from this era are quite difficult to find but if I do stumble on an extra parts set I will revisit this figure to complete it. For now I'll just point out some of the concepts on how the Assault-Buster is built.

- The foundation of the figure remains the Assault Gundam figure. However, the skirt is replaced with the one from the Buster figure.
- Next, the skirt mid-section is swapped out with the gold plated armor from the Assault figure and you also bring over the side panels onto the skirt.
- Attach the Buster's leg armor to the sides of the Assault Gundam's legs.
- The Buster's backpack is taken over by the Assault Gundam figure, which must first remove its own backmounted gear.
- The beam rifle with underslung launcher is taken over by the Assault Gundam and placed in its left hand.

Overall this is a fairly clean conversion but I just don't like taking apart the Ensemble figures unless I have to. Below you can see the EX Assault-Buster figure with Wings of Light lording over the V2 team. The EX-figure is 90% the same figure as what you get from the components in this set. We will look at it in its own review shortly.




RGM-89S Stark Jegan (equipment and prototype parts set)


We find no less than three useful weapons in the equipment set that really let your squad shine. We have a 380 mm Hyper Bazooka (which is next to impossible for the figure to actually wield, a short BOWA BR-S-85-C2 Beam Rifle (same type as carried by the RGM-86R GM III) and a pair of over-the-shoulder Triple Missile Pods. These pods can in turn be outfitted with a pair of stubby missiles attached to the outer sides. These large missiles have the capacity to carry nuclear warheads.


Spoiled for options as we are I still would have liked to see that old CCA-MSV Stark Jegan design equipped with the crazy large four-unit anti-ship missile rack that goes over the shoulders, I guess you can attempt to modify the figure if you know what you are doing.


The last components in the parts set transform the Stark Jegan into its Prototype Stark Jegan form. The head has a rather different shape and the cockpit section of the torso is much larger since it is meant to carry two crewmembers. Both the face and torso are accentuated in red. Bandai has done a really great job with this figure which must sit somewhere on the Ensemble top-ten.





Conclusion

While it feels good to finally go back and give the early Ensemble sets the recognition they deserve it also means glancing at the availability of these figures today. Part 06 is sadly among the more difficult sets to find nowadays and the prices on the secondhand market can often reflect this. However, if you are mainly interested in the Assault Gundam the EX figure is still somewhat available and last year Bandai re-released both the Guncannon and the Guntank into their Gundam Café exclusives that are currently also found on the secondhand market. As for the Stark Jegan though, you have to be a bit lucky.