Spoiler Preface!!!

This post has screenshots from season one of Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans. While it doesn’t show anything I would consider a spoiler, I know that sometimes even a mere screenshot is too much for some, hence this warning just in case.

The Barbatos is complete, but its weapons are not.

With this being such a cheap High Grade, the weapons are one obvious area in which corners were cut. First, the kit doesn’t come with all of the Barbatos’ primary gear, as it is missing the Smooth Bore Gun¹. Second, the weapons it does include are as basic as you can get, both in form and in function.

Mace

The mace is made up of just two pieces, which is pretty typical for High Grade weapons:

Visually, it looks perfectly fine, though it clearly needs to be painted.

Functionally, the mace lacks the launchable spike rod gimmick. You can still see the tip of the spike at the very top, but it doesn’t do anything.

The mace is also supposed to have a telescoping handle, but that isn’t included either.

To be sure, neither of these missing gimmicks are deal breakers, but these kinds of omissions are always a bit of a downer. High Grades have made huge improvements in regards to detail, articulation, etc, but sometimes you encounter something like this that reminds you that you are working with the bottom rung of Gunpla quality.

I wanted the mace to be both black and shiny, but I didn’t want it to have the same finish as the inner frame. That meant using matte black paint, followed by a coat of Pledge. The final result is excellent:

The finish looks much more smooth and even than when I start with glossy black paint. I think I might have to stick to this approach from now on.

After that, I added a bit more color on the handle:

And on the tip of the spike rod:

And with that, the mace is complete:

Sword

The sword is made from a single piece:

It has quite a lot of detail molded into it, though one thing it doesn’t have is the hand guard. What gives?

Apparently it isn’t just the Barbatos, but also its weapons that change and evolve over the course of Iron Blooded Orphans. The very first time it uses the sword in combat, you can see that it does not yet have the guard equipped:

I don’t remember how long it remains like this in the show, but it doesn’t matter. Even the briefest appearance was enough to give Bandai the cover it needed to avoid having to make another piece.

I am quite pleased with all the detail etched into the sword, but I think it will look even better with some color. Here is what I came up with:

The blade itself is painted sterling silver, with a coat of Pledge to make it even shinier. The whole thing has so many layers and minor details, and the color really brings them all to life.

Smooth Bore Gun

It may not come with this kit, but I do have it. Might as well talk about it.

But first, let’s talk about some other Gunpla weapons. For example, rifles. Most rifles are designed so that the grip is placed near the back. This makes it easy to tuck the butt of the gun underneath the armpit of the mobile suit.

With this design, even the largest rifles can be held in one hand. For example:

For another example, let’s talk bazookas. They tend to be even bigger than rifles, yet typically they can still be held in one hand. They usually place the grip near the front, allowing them to be slung over the shoulder:

The moral of the story is that a mobile suit can hold even a rather large weapon in either one hand without much trouble, provided it is designed ergonomically.

And then there is the Smooth Bore Gun:

The Smooth Bore Gun is such an add shape. It is very long and very thick. The handle is on a swivel, so you cannot hold onto it without it flopping around. Wielding it with one hand is out of the question:

Even a two handed grip doesn’t work all too well, as it tends to fall out of place:

The only way to “comfortably” wield the weapon is to have something to help keep it in place. Thankfully the Barbatos has such a feature.

Unfortunately, few other mobile suits do. This means the Smooth Bore Gun smooth isn’t really useable by anything but the Barbatos. Considering how odd it looks, perhaps that is for the best.

In terms of detailing, the gun has scope, and a machine gun mounted on the bottom. A lot of the white sections are actually decals, which I should probably remove and paint one day.

Fun Fact: You can break the gun into two in order to mount it on the back of the model:

Mobile Worker

Not a weapon perse, but the accessory pack that the Smooth Bore Gun came in also included a mobile worker. This is perfect for placing alongside the Barbatos in photos.

Looking at it, I am shocked at how good a job I did at painting it. Remember, I had no idea what I was doing when I was practicing on this accessory pack. Somehow the stars aligned on this one.

Conclusion

All these weapons look great - provided that you put some work into them. They also lack gimmicks, and you don’t get them all out of the box. All in all, not the greatest situation.

And yet, it feels appropriate. In the next post, we will look at the finished model, and there you will see how the entire kit is a series of tradeoffs.