Gunpla Review: 1/144 HGUC Full Armor Unicorn Gundam (Green Frame Version)

The 2 new RG Unicorns were just released and here I am looking at a 4 year old kit (older if you consider the OG HGUC Unicorn). Mind you I just finished building this last week. Well since I won't have anything new till I get my hands on the new Wing stuff, here's a look an the Full Armor Unicorn in HG guise. Is it worth buying in 2018?

Ooooo, 90s glow effect

We've seen the Unicorn milked to death. The HG alone has at least 5 regular retail release (Unicorn and Destroy Mode combined). That's not including the Banshee and the Phenex. The RG Bande Dessinee Unicorn and the RG Banshee Norn just got released last week. We have several MGs, a PG and a Megasize as well. But so far the RGs have not announced a green frame version of it so the HGUC currently is the only choice for a green framed unicorn that's available at retail.

Aesthetics

Back when the MG and the HG were the only Unicorn kits available, the HG was considered aesthetically superior due to it lacking the transformation. The face was proportioned correctly, the legs weren't too long and lanky. The recent RG of course blows both out the water. But for a 2009 kit, it still mostly holds up.

Ahh 2009... that was 9 years ago...

Compared to the OG red frame Unicorn, the grey frame is darker. The polycaps are also colored green. The green innerframe is actually very soothing to look at and prefer it to the pink frame.

Stickers on the main kit itself is minimal. Eyes, head cameras and the upper part of the shoulder machine guns are stickers. I painted the shoulder machine guns on mine but it's already fading a bit. Also the V-fin is molded in solid yellow rather than the RG/MG white. Only the PG came in the correct colors but that was a pre-painted piece.

The only thing that's a major issue color-wise are the hips. They're molded in white along with the rest of the upper thigh which you can see further when we go over articulation. That decision is quite baffling since the 00 HG already introduced the modern universal hip joint and that was in 2008.

he's baffled at everything... he needs to go out of the house more

The surface details are not lacking, but that's because of the nature of it's design. What's impressive though are the details on the lower legs. All the grey thrusters are molded separately. Makes the whole hips thing even more baffling.

One detail different from the OG Unicorn is that when you assemble the legs, you need to leave out the mini vernier and the "clip" detail on the outer side so you can plug in the grenades.

OG.... it really is a throwback to the 90s

There's some mold flash here and there and some of the nubs are thick and placed in annoying places so do be careful when cutting the parts. Not an issue of course if you plan to paint it.

He "plans" to paint it. The Jesta he "planned to paint" is still in the box...unpainted

Overall, it's still a decent representation of the Unicorn. The RG has trumped it of course, but until they release a green framed unicorn that's not P-Bandai, it'll be the only option you have. It's still serviceable in my opinion.

Articulation

It's a 2008 kit, so it doesn't have the suite of joints and range we currently have. But is 2008 articulation bad? Well...

The head is on a ball joint and the base of the neck is on a swivel. The range is actually good, but the connection on mine is rather loose. If you're leaving this as an OOB build, I recommend thickening the ball joint. Also the V-fin is super easy to knock-off so glue that as well.

The shoulders are decently articulate. Unlike the modern kits where shoulders are connected to the torso via ball joints, this one is a peg and works off a set of rather limited swivels. It's decent and not as limited as you may think. Moving it up also moves the machine gun so it doesn't get in the way. The RG lacks this since it needs to transform.

It can butterfly a little bit as well but it doesn't really pull out of the torso so range is limited. Still, much better than nothing right?

The shoulder armor can move a bit, the arms have the prerequisite joints but the elbow is limited to just over 90 degrees. The elbow also likes popping out, especially when trying to connect the accessories.

he's just ham fisted. literally as he found out that he's body fat is at 26%

Unlike modern HG, the waist is a single ball joint where the ball connects to the upper chest via an extended post.

Ball, Ball, Ball, Ball

This makes it a bit more stable, especially with the ginormous backpack attached. Still pretty articulate.

stable... for now

Coming down to the waist, the hips are connected via ball joints. And here you see the white hips. The front skirts are on a fused dumbell joint that you can clip, but it becomes super floppy if you do. The side skirts are lift up a little.

There are no hip swivels so you can't rotate it very far... perhaps this was again done for stability purposes.

There is a crotch swivel though. So it still has some modern engineering built onto it.

The knees can only bend a little over 90, which matches the MG Unicorn OVA, exceeds the MG ver Ka but gets trumped by the RG.

He owns non of those kits he compared this to

The ankle is decently articulated as well with swivels on the lower part of the leg and a ball at the base of the feet. The swivel on mine's a little loose, but can still stand... mostly

not till he adds the backpack

Overall it's decently articulated. It has all the joints most modern HGs have save for the hips. There are a few loose parts, no doubt with the amount of variation and releases this kit had. There are compromises on the kit since it'll eventually need to carry a large amount of weapons. Also the Unicorn by design isn't exactly the most dynamic suit out there.

Unless it needs to karate chop a moble armor... that was really stupid

Weapons and Extras

And now the pièces de résistance, the weapons. I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be called Fully Armed rather than full armor since it doesn't exactly gain additional armor, but rather it gained more armaments.

Anyway you get the base Unicorn weapons. A the beam rifle, the shield and 2 beam saber blades.

The shield comes with a piece you need to use so it can clip onto the slots on the forearms.

So with that, you have your standard Unicorn load out, in green.

There are beam saber handles mounted on the back, and 1 more for each forearm. You can swivel the forearms to create the beam tonfa. By swivel I mean it only frictions in via peg and slot and not through a dedicated joint.

Looks okay, but the kit isn't dynamic enough to pull off those crazy action scenes in the OVA when it used the tonfas.

The beam rifle is molded in a single color. No separating cartridges so you need to paint what's there blue. It also has a peg that allows you to mount it on the back for storage.

don't forget the fake spare ammo

For the new stuff, you get 2 hyper bazookas each with a missile and a grenade rack. You can leave it off when just posing with the bazookas, but there will be holes on the side where the missiles and the grenades peg onto.

Nice Photo... all we can see are red dots

You also get 3 shields on top of the one that came with the OG Unicorn and 3 dual gatling guns. There are stickers for the gatling gun scopes. The shield pegs onto the machine gun via a tiny peg on the shield and a slot on the gun. It's actually very secure except for the closed shield. So an almost total of 5 shields you get, but you can only build 4.

Here's a picture of 3 gatling guns as presented by Yoda

It comes with 3 mini stands since if you've seen the OVA, these shield guns are also remote bits... how it moves around with no thrusters I've no clue. space magic probably

He doesn't like deus ex machina plot stuff

To mount the shields on the stands, you're given 3 clips. Note that it's only a half circle, there's actually a good reason for this design.

That's more than half mr I graduated an engineer but can't name polygons

The clips slot into the bit where the shield pegs into the machine gun. It's very secure actually.

Below is what you get. I do which there where more variations to the height, but it's better than nothing. They could have totally sold a P-Bandai effect part set just for these *cough strike freedom

I still think that these shield funnels are absurd. At least the Nu Gundam's funnels have some thrusters at the back when deployed.

You also get a pizza saver... you know that tripod looking thing that prevents the box from hitting your pizza? 

when a joke doesn't take off

Actually that's the piece you need so you can form the snowflake shield formation. The half circle pegs mean that it'll always form the snowflake properly and stay there securely. It is pretty top heavy for the stand, but you can always use a sturdier tamashii base for display.

if you're wondering, yes he thinks he's a special snowflake

And now we build the Full Armor Unicorn. You have these 2 fuel tanks/thrusters which will peg into the back of the Unicorn.

But before that, there are some interesting design ideas here. Rather than make a sort of rack for these tanks to rest when connected to the suit, you can pull out the thruster tips and insert inside mini stands.

This give your Unicorn more stability when it's just standing on a flat surface. The base it a little small though but it has 2 more legs (i.e. the Uncorn's legs) to essentially make it a quadruped.

that confusing analogy...

To mount all of the weapons onto the backpack, you're given this extra piece.

I prefer removing the backpack 1st. Actually in the instructions, you're told to build and connect this to the backpack as you assemble the suit.

You simply slot it to the backpack. there are 2 tiny notches from behind the backpack that sort of prevents it from wobbling. I would have preferred having something more secure though since it still wobbles a little.

wobbly like his tummy

To secure it in place, the arm on the full armor piece pegs into where the Beam Magnum pegs in.

Now we're ready.

How many times did you say it's time to build the full armor?

1st, you remember the slots on the outer panel of the legs where you left some parts out? That where the grenade packs for the legs peg in. It's not the most secure but it's decent enough.

You're actually told to build these along with the legs, similar to the backpack.

You take the OG shield off and mount the gatling gun shields onto the each forearm. Note that this is rather difficult to do since the gatling guns barely have any give. It does make for a super secure connection once in.

mounting weapons on toys... that's his definition of difficult

You take the 2 bazookas and mount it onto the backpack. The base of the bazookas have slots and the connector has pegs. Looks shallow but is actually secure. The ammo on the bazookas though are super loose so they might fall out when posing.

Make sure that the grenade racks are on the inside and the missles are on the outside. Also did I mention that the bazookas have non-removable grenade launchers mounted on the muzzle?

Why are you posing the kit when it's still not finished?

You're given a closed shield, but you need to cannibalize the OG shield for this. You'll only need the grey part. Set aside the clip and swap it with a peg so the shield can mount onto the 3rd gatling gun. The gatling gun then pegs into slots on the connector piece. My advice would be to connect the gatling gun to the backpack piece prior to attaching it to the backpack and mounting more weapons.

Everything he mentions on the paragraph above obviously has no pictures.

Then it's just a matter of pegging the fuel tanks into the slots on either side of the backpack connector and voila! The Full Armor Unicorn Gundam.

You can pose it still, but the sheer weight of the backpack will make you Unicorn lean backwards. The shields also bang onto the bazookas and the shoulder armor so that limits the poses a bit. If you can use an extra arm to support the backpack when it's aerial then by all means do it.

He's just a lazy poser

So you get plenty of weapons and store them too. It's the ultimate armory... maybe that's why it's Full Armor(y)? You can mix and match weapons and you can give these weapons to other kits if you want. Now, what about the OG Bazooka and more closed shields? Well you need the Unicorn Mode Full Armor for that. What about the Hyper-javelyn? Well you need the Full Armor Destroy mode red frame version for that. Either way you're in no short supply of full arrmor choices.

Size Comparison and Other Comparison

It's a late UC suit so it will Generally tower over any standard 18 meter suit. The kit itself is massive for a Gundam, though not as massive as the Kshatriya. It can give the HG Psycho Zaku a run for it's money though...although the Unicorn is more expensive.

a wonderful comparison! I wonder how much longer the fuel tanks from the
Zaku is compared to the Unicorn

And here it is compared to the shiny, beautiful but utterly flawed RG Sinanju. I left the weapons off cause they're a PITA to put onto the kit.

Summary

The main question is "is it still worth buying the HG now that that RG is out?" Well given that there is still no green framed RG means it'll be your only option for said color scheme. But on it's own it's still a pretty good kit. It does cost quite a bit of money, but then you go get a crap ton of parts. The sheer amount of options you get is impressive. It falls a bit dynamically, but that just makes the full armor outfit a bit more stable. I doubt the RG can be this stable when you mount a full armor outfit to it. It's a nice centerpiece to your 1/144 collection. It's just a matter of deciding whether you like the full armor outfit, the green frame or the transformation Gimmick. The ultimate 1/144 will still be the RG, but the HG can  still make the grade.

Good:

- Variety

- Visually impressive even with minimal effort on detailing due to it's size.

- Minimal stickers. Parts separation is good (then again it's mostly white)

Bad:

- Expensive. No hyper Javelin but that costs an extra 200 yen.

- RG is out and looks better.

- The hips... but that is probably intentional given the design. Not forgivable for non-armored mode