Like most of the western Gunpla community I tend to dislike P-Bandai and only buy things from it I’m will to pay a premium for which usually doesn’t include entire kits, but this time I convinced myself to go and get the recently released MG Altron/Nataku Gundam. While it definitely wasn’t worth the amount I paid for it I finally was able to get a kit I have been waiting years for.

The RG GP01 on the other hand is the oldest kit in my backlog and considering it’s one of my favorite designs I felt it was more than due time to build it.

The GP01 was a pretty easy build with only one problem that was just user error on my part (can’t get through a single RG build without breaking something). But building both of these kits at the same time just further displayed how detail oriented the RG versions of older designs tend to be as the Altron was FAR less complex in comparison.

The Altron as with all of the other Wing kits is a really simple build and considering it’s price I felt like adding extra detail was somewhat necessary.

A lot of P-Bandai kits tend have parts that seem like they were grafted on from HG parts onto more complex kits which I thought was the case with this kit until this post. What I realized while looking up the old 1/100 HG Altron was that the dragon fangs of that kit are very different from the ones here not only visually but feature wise. Which makes the issues with them even more puzzling specifically the seams on the red coils and the way the fangs mount on the arm.

The red fang coils issue isn’t just the irritation of seam filling every one of the numerous coils it’s the fact that once you do that they become so tight they can’t connect and disconnect without having to shave down the connections carefully (enough so they can do what they were designed for but not too much that they lose the friction to actually hold the fangs). This allows for the kit to do something the HG could never do and that is extend the coils to a far greater length.

The other problem is that the mount is designed in a way where if you don’t clip very specific pegs before hand you will have a guaranteed extremely obvious case of paint scratching. I learned this the hard way and had to re-sand, mask, repaint, and re-decal it (the scratch isn’t shown above only the end of the repair work).