Okay, now that we’ve looked at the Crossbone Gundam’s mountain of accessories, let’s now take a look at the Crossbone itself, starting with the Core Fighter.
Prior to building this kit, I had no idea the Crossbone Gundam had a Core Fighter. I don’t think the F90 did, and the F91 certainly didn’t, but for some reason the Crossbone (née F97) does. Go figure.
This is one of two places on the model that uses one of the prebuilt “Advanced MS Joint” parts. Specifically, it uses this cross shaped part as a frame for the fighter’s long, bone-shaped thrusters:
This feels like a bit of a throwback. What I mean is that, back in the day, when Real Grades used Advanced MS Joint Parts to build up their entire inner frame, they were all big and intricate. Here’s a whole sheet of them from one of my unbuilt Real Grades (I won’t tell you which one though. Try and guess!):
But when they stopped using them for the inner frame - when they started including just a handful of parts for the sake of preserving the marketing gimmick - the parts themselves started getting smaller and less complicated, like these ones from another one of my unbuilt Real Grades:
What I’m trying to say here is that the X-shaped part we’re looking at here feels a lot more like the older Advanced MS Joints than the new ones.
Whether or not that’s a good thing is another question entirely. To be sure, there a a lot of tiny little joints built into this part. And they all feel extremely stiff, which is good for the long term health of this model. Hopefully that means the kit won’t suffer from “early Real Grade Syndrome”, where the joints here get all loose and noodly over time.
But that stiffness became a bit of a problem during assembly. You have to fold and twist this part in a whole bunch of different places in order to get it into its final configuration, and there were a lot of times where I’d apply pressure and the joint(s) wouldn’t budge. It made me very fearful that I was doing something wrong and was going to break a joint.
Eventually I just trusted the instruction manual and did what it said. Eventually the joints moved into place (albeit with quite a lot of resistance). The result is that the part is now folded down the center, resulting in a smaller, more symmetrical, more X-like construction:
Each of the thrusters is built off of one of the four prongs, while the front half of the Core Fighter is basically built around the folded section in the middle (if they didn’t do it this way, then the Advanced MS Joint wouldn’t stay closed and folded. Building around it forces it to stay shut)
As for the rest of the build, there’s a lot of parts, both tiny and not so tiny, including a miniscule grey part for the cockpit seat, an only slightly bigger clear cockpit hatch, and two microscopic orange caps that go on the ends of the beam guns. I think it’s a bit of a miracle that I didn’t lose any of these, not that I’m complaining.
Anyway, the other neat thing about the Core Fighter is that it comes with its own Action Base adapter, so you can display it all on its own. So let’s do that: here now is finished Core Fighter:
It’s quite an interesting design. With those long thrusters, it doesn’t look like a fighter as much as a freighter or transporter. In particular, it reminds me of an Eagle Transporter from Space: 1999.
In any case, I have no idea how this thing works. Does it ever open up the thrusters to change speed or direction?
That might be cool if true, but I just don’t know.
Now, since I haven’t read the Crossbone manga, I have no idea how this thing moves or performs. Thus I have no idea if the thrusters always stay in this position, or if they ever open up like so:
Now, in the last post, I said to “put a pin in it” regarding the beam sabers. Let’s pull it now and discuss. According to the Gundam Wiki, the Crossbone Gundam stores its beam sabers in its shoulders - specifically, it implies that the beam sabers are one and the same with the beam guns on the Core Fighter.
Now that might be 100% true, but if so then it appears the designers of this kit took some artistic license, as the beam sabers are not the same length, shape, or color:
It’s possible that the answer is simpler, that the engineers were simply lazy and reused an existing beam saber design, assuming (correctly) that most builders wouldn’t care too much about using the beam sabers when there are so many other, cooler accessories. Personally, I don’t really care; it’s just an interesting observation.
Until Next Time
I’m having a lot of fun with this build, and I’m not minding writing all these posts, so we’ll break here and leave the build of the mobile suit proper for another day.