Popy B-Club Lesseps-class Land Battleship

The second entry for our October One-Off Week is actuallynot a figure but a model kit. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and go down that route when it comes to rare birds like the Lesseps-class Land Battleship. This behemoth has as far as I know never been modelled in any other way than this particular cast suppied to us under the Popy and B-Club brands in 2006.

As a 1:3500 scale representation the mighty 250 meters have been converted down to a measly 7 centimeters but you are still paying a hefty price for the priviledge of adding it to your fleet. If I am reasing the packaging labelling right this baby sold for ¥5800 back in the day although I picked up my copy for ¥1800 a couple of years ago at Mandarake. Mind you, I have never seen it for sale since. In general, model kits of Mobile Suit Gundam spaceships and similar are notoriously hard to come by once you go beyond the couple of old UC0079 kits and the Bandai EX line. There are several small-quantity hard to find spaceship resin kits out there that appear to be very sought after because they always sell out instantly..

The Lesseps as it appears in Gundam SEED (above) and SEED Destiny (below).

The Lesseps is the lead ship in a class of at least two vessels (the Desmond makes a brief appearance in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny) and originally assigned to the colourful Z.A.F.T. personality Andrew Waltfeld (why Bandai never release figures of him or Mu La Flaga I will never know). The class belongs to a family of Z.A.F.T. Land Battleships which in spite of the name also can travel on water through use of its special Scale System technology. I haven't seen any exact number of its supposed mobile suit complement although it seems to carry about half a dozen BuCUE or so.

Z.A.F.T. Petrie-class Land Cruiser, Lesseps-class Land Battleship, Compton-class Ground Battleship and an Earth Alliance Hannibal-class Ground Battleship.

Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced the original photos of the components so we'll have to omit this rather important information from the review. Suffice it to say though, that there is a healthy number of parts ranging from small to very tiny and fragile. The build was a commission done by my friend Marcin for which I am very grateful as I kind of had enough of model kits in my teens...

Here's what the figure will look like once it is built and painted. There are also no stickers or decals with kits of this type and they would also be unnecessary since the Lesseps has very few if any markings on it anyway.

Apart from its mobile suit hangar the main weapon of the Lesseps is a trio of dual 40 cm cannons. It can add an extra punch with its battery of 32 missile launchers and ten torpedo launchers.

The Lesseps is a surprisingly nimble vessel thanks to its special Scale System propulsion technology which carries it forward through use of micro vibrations.

While the 250m long Lesseps is significantly smaller than the 420m Archangel it still makes for an appealing companion to the Cosmo Fleet version of the Archangel. It is too bad that these kits have to be as rare as they are, as I would have liked to get one or two extras.

Kira adapting to the shifting sands of the desert, here in the Launcher Strike Gundam from the Seika EX pencil sharpener range (1:280).

The Lesseps normally carries a squad of BuCUE mobile suits, well suited for desert combat. Here is one from the Gashapon HG MS selection.

The B-Club family of specialized kits contains many rare as hen's teeth-designs and these are typically priced thereafter, but are often the go to-point for odd birds such as the Lesseps. While a very spartan kit the model is one of my favourites and it blends very well with the vessels from the Cosmo Fleet Collection and also makes a perfect piece for a gaming board. I hope to be able to collect and review more spaceships on the blog although I am sure it will take a lot of time to get there.

MegaHouse Chess Piece Collection : Qubeley Mk-II Set (Bandai Museum Limited Edition)

Welcome to the October One-Off Week here on Gundanium Gateway. This is a little special where we will be looking at seven different products normally not featured on the blog. Some are really proper one-offs while others are coming from sets where it makes little sense to review them all in one go.

So... we're kicking off One-Off Week with a special set from the Bandai Museum shop. These two figures belong to the Megahouse Chess Piece Collection family. This is a line of... well, chess piece-style figurines mounted on tall plastic bases with felt underneath. Mobile Suit Gundam is only one of the various licenses which have been featured by MegaHouse in this series.

This particular item was a Tokyo Bandai Museum G-Base shop exclusive item. Released apparently in 2004 I don't know what the price would have been back then. I found mine at Mandarake for a mere ¥1000. The Chess Piece Collection figures aren't particularly valuable but can be very tricky to find. Used items sold on eBay are often damaged (missing limbs, broken off parts etc.) so it is a buyer beware situation not helped by the poor availability of information about these figures online. Hopefully in the future we can feature them more properly also on the Gundanium Gateway site because their style is quite unique.

While the regular Chess Piece Collection figures are sold in blind boxes this particular set is preloaded with the two Mk-II Qubeleys featured in the Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam television series. Each figure comes in a plastic bag of the same type that would be used in a regular single-figure blind box.

As you can see there is not a whole lot of assembly that needs to be undertaken. Chess Piece Collection figures are normally fully assembled, it is only figures that have difficulty fitting in the boxes that tend to be disassembled and then only slightly. The Qubeleys are manufactured from slightly soft plastic and the funnel bits of completely bendable material to allow them to wrap around the limbs of the mobile suits. The funnel bits are attached to the back skirt which is annoying since I don't really want to display them.

As you can see from these images the two Qubeleys are adorned with a black Queen symbol on the back side of their bases (the Neo Zeon logo sits on front). This arrangement wouldn't be very useful in an actual game of Chess now would it...

Chess Piece Collection bases ususally feature 3D artwork such as battlefield terrain or debris or even effect pieces like thruster jets. These two bases are completely flat because the figures are in space. You can see a couple of painted blotches on there, which is supposed to represent a starry sky. It feels a bit underwhelming.

The bases are made of harder plastic than the figures themselves and come with a nice felt piece underneath.  The height of each base is related to the chess piece rating of the figure, so that Kings have the tallest bases and Pawns the lowest. This can be annoying when you want to display different figures together. Getting the figures off the bases is also rather difficult and is probably best avoided.

Comparisons

The two Qubeley figures are simple colour variations of the standard retail Qubeley, which was released in the fourth Mobile Suit Z Gundam-themed Chess Piece Collection series in Spring of 2004.

While the MegaHouse Chess Piece Collection figures are not to scale, the overall size of these figures would fall somewhere in the 1:300 range. Large mobile suits such as the Qubeley, Messala and The-O are slightly smaller than that. Below you can see the Chess Piece Collection Qubeleys posing with figures from the Gashapon Mecha Selection (also non-scale but usually considered to be around 1:285), Seika Sharpener Collection (1:280) and Assault Kingdom (1:220).

Elpeo Ple's Qubeley Mk-II from Gundam Converge, MegaHouse Chess Piece Collection, Gashapon HG Mecha Selection 5 (ca 1:285) and Mini Figure Selection Plus vol. 2 (1:400).

Ple Two's Qubeley Mk-II posing with its namesake from Assault Kingdom (1:220) and Paptimus' The-O as a pencil sharpener from Seika (1:280).

The mobile suits available in the MegaHouse Chess Piece Collection line usually feature very expressive and dynamic poses and as so are not for everyone. If you are a fan of the style though it would make perfect sense to also pick these two candidates up if you can get them at a fair price. It should also be noted that the Qubeleys are the only two representatives from the ZZ Gundam show (unless you count the mobile suits carried over from Zeta).

The latest Gundam Converge news...

Bandai have unveiled a couple more Converge releases for Q1 2019. Volume 14 is scheduled for February and features the new RX-9 Narrative Gundam as its poster child. A mobile suit which is being pushed everywhere now it seems, it is also scheduled for a Shokugan release in Gframe and I would expect it to show up in the SD format some time next year as well. The same thing goes for the latest CORE reveal, the Unicorn 03 Phenex in its Narrative Version which will be a Premium Bandai release and sell for ¥2300.

Looking at the rest of the figures in Converge #14 it is interesting to note that both the Stark Jegan and the Gundam F90 have or will soon show up in Mobile Suit Ensemble. There is definitely a lot of consolidating going on between the different product brands which in itself is not a bad thing and probably helps to keep down development costs significantly. Yet somehow it feels a bit lackluster to be served pretty much the same menu in parallel in the various figure lines.

Anyway, the start of 2019 is looking good for Converge so far. It will be a super-expensive period to be a Converge collector as well, that is for sure...

The latest Gashapon news...

Bandai's Gashapon development team has slipped some more news on the Gashapon blog again and it is looking very tasty. First up we have a new set of planned figures for MS Ensemble Volume 09, drawing heavily from The 08th MS Team there.

Also over on the Senshi Forte side we have further reveals for volume 08. I do recall seeing line-art for the GuAIZ a couple of months ago but then they bait and switched it for the GINN (which is coming in volume 07) and I started to think I might have hallucinated the whole thing. I am super stoked at not getting just one GINN and one GuAIZ but alternate colour versions of each! I am still quite behind on my Senshi Forte collection though. I haven't even built my volume fives and am yet to find and purchase the figures from volume six.

The blog entry also contains a very important pieces of news tucked in at the end. I can't trust Google Translate to do it complete justice but hear is what Bandai's lead developer had to say:

さてさて、今月社内では来期の計画をまとめる会議などもあり、今後のアンサンブルやフォルテの進む方向を定めたりする大事な月だったりします。いずれのシリーズも継続展開予定ですので、引き続きガシャポンを回していただけると幸いです。

"By the way, inside the company this month there are meetings to summarize plans for the next term, and it is an important month that sets forth the future direction of the ensemble and forte. Since both series are going to be developed continuously, I am pleased to continue turning the Gashapon."

On the surface it does look like both series will be allowed to live on and I really do hope so.

Gundam Converge CORE 017 : RX-0 Full Armor Unicorn Gundam

Whatever happened to Converge CORE 016? I noticed during this review process that we have made a jump directly from CORE 015 (which was the God Gundam) to the brand new CORE 017 Full Armor Unicorn. Sure we've had the Psyco Gundam option set in between but those typically are not numbered, and the same goes for the 00 Gundam anniversary set. Perhaps it has been pushed back for a later release (the Neo Zeong reissue comes to mind) or maybe we'll just have to suffer an annoying hole in the line-up...

Any which way, today's focus is the Full Armor Unicorn. This is the latest CORE offering which shipped in August as a Premium Bandai item with a price of ¥2700. Released in parallel with the updated Sinanju (which was a retail figure) I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this figure. Were we looking at a mildly revised old Unicorn figure or something new?

As usual the box is stuffed really tight with two bags, one contains the mobile suit and the other a boatload of gear. This is the same set-up that we saw for the Sinanju and I am digging it a lot.

Although this isn't something we haven't seen before, all the vital Unicorn gear has now been upgraded to the reboot standard and crammed into a single box. I wish more mobile suits would be released with at least one or two weapons choices. When the Converge reboot took place, there were a couple of figures that did include gear choices but it came at the expense of other figures that received no gear at all.

Here is the basic reboot Unicorn Gundam figure with only its leg missiles attached (those annoying pieces tend to fall off, consider gluing them in place). This is the standard Destroy Mode Unicorn from Converge #08 in the green Awake Mode colour variation. My particular figure is a bit warped giving it some standing difficulties, forgivable for a ¥500 candy toy perhaps but not for an overpriced release such as this.

With all the armament options on offer we'll just quickly go through them one by one. First we have the classic beam rifle + shield configuration. Notice how long the shield peg is, this is due to it being intended for attaching a Beam Gatling gun underneath. The shield looks a bit odd without it.

Alright, with a Beam Gatling gun attached to the shield it looks tons better. Notice also the bent tip of the regular beam rifle. I am not amused.

The two Hyper Bazookas are my favourite accessories for the Unicorn. The add-on missile launchers swivel in their pegs and can be freely added or removed which brings some nice customizing options to the figure. Excellent!

Then there's the Hyper Beam Javelin thingy. Although I like translucent weapons as much as the next guy, I was never really a huge fan of this design. The weapon looks very delicate and clumsy to wield (that odd handle on the pole makes it look even less capable), surely a regular beam saber would do the job more efficiently? A nice accessory for sure but I would have really preferred the two beam tonfas that could be added to the forearms (and we already have peg holes available there).

The last gear choice is two additional shields. Unlike the standard "closed" shield, these two are opened up like the Destroy Mode shield and sporting nice shiny green sections. They also let you equip a pair of Beam Gatlings underneath each one. This is also a favourite configuration of mine since it is so unique to the FA Unicorn.

Unlike the standard Converge Destroy Mode Unicorn the FA Unicorn figure does not come with a black base plate. Instead it comes with its own Unicorn shaped transparent action base which plugs into the groin area and propels the figure nicely into the air. A pair of hanging feet are included to give the figure a nice floating look.

To convert the figure into true Full Armor mode we get an optional backpack which has five hard-points on it. The first two are reserved for the figure's booster jets which can be rotated up or down while connected so that you can keep the figure standing on the ground if you so wish.

The upper three pegs are intended for the two Hyper Bazookas and the default third shield which protects the back of the head in an elegant fashion.

Lastly we equip the two large shields and some handheld weapons of choice, in my case I simply added everything. I like that you are able to attach all weapons from the box, this leaves a minimum of leftover parts although the end result is perhaps a bit much. :)

Comparisons

The Unicorn Gundam is one of the most common figures in the Converge back catalogue. Here we can see the new Full Armor Unicorn Gundam next to some of its ancestors.

First up we have it next to the reboot Unicorn from Converge #08 and its pearl white colour variation which is a Gundam Café special release. As you can see the FA Unicorn is a slightly modified version of this figure.

We now have a total of four Awake Mode Unicorns available. The granddaddy is the Full Armor Unicorn from March 2014 (far left) released as EX 02. That figure can be displayed in a variety of modes which one ups the new FA Unicorn although the new figure is prettier and meatier. Second in line is a metallic painted Awake Mode Unicorn from a special twin pack labelled SP from August 2015 (center left). Next up we have the oddly coloured Awake Mode Unicorn from CORE 009 which was released in March 2017 (center right). That figure came with triple shields and the ability to form a single floating shield from them.

Here we see the old Full Armor Unicorn Gundam (EX 02) compared to the new version. I think the old version of the figure is still very much on point although it is clear that the new figure is a major cosmetic improvement over the old one.

Lastly, here the FA Unicorn hangs out with its rival Sinanju (Full Weapon Set) which was also released in August 2018. I really like how the two figures complement each other.

All in all, the updated Full Armor Unicorn is a phenomenal Converge figure, easily one of the best releases of 2018 (much like the Sinanju). I will admit to a certain Unicorn fatigue by now but I think this figure is pretty much the definitive RX-0 version out there at the moment. Can we please see something new now, Bandai?