HGUniversal Century

AMX-117R Gaz-R / AMX-117L Gaz-L

A twin-brother P-Bandai set that gets its whole identity from a clever paint job over an older mold.

MechaGrade Score

3.3/5

Gaz-R / AMX-117L Gaz-L · 1/144 · 2019

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2019

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is a solid but unglamorous kit, and I say that with real affection for it.

It is a Galbaldy Beta remold dressed up as Neo Zeon's Royal Guard, and once you know that going in, everything about the build experience clicks into place. You are not getting new engineering here, you are getting a sharp color story and a matched pair on a mold that was already reasonably competent. That is a fair trade for a P-Bandai exclusive, not a knockout one.

Best for: Universal Century completionists and ZZ background-suit fans who want the Royal Guard twins on the shelf and don't mind that the frame underneath is a decade-old design

The full review

What it is

The Gaz-R and Gaz-L are a matched two-pack, Nee Gylen's blue-trimmed Gaz-R and his twin brother Lance's counterpart, both built off the HGUC Galbaldy Beta tooling with new molded colors and water transfer decals standing in for the Royal Guard markings. Building two suits at once from a shared parts family is genuinely satisfying, there is a rhythm to it once you know the sequence, and seeing the pair stand side by side with their flared shoulder armor and naginata halves joined is the payoff moment the whole set is built around. It reads exactly like what it is: a background-cast pair given real attention.

The catch

The frame underneath is the Galbaldy Beta's, so you are working with an older HGUC-era engineering baseline rather than anything current. It shows in places, the hip and torso range doesn't have the freedom you'd expect from a newer tool, and the water transfer decals for the Royal Guard markings are fussier and less forgiving than a sticker sheet, they need a setting solution and patience to lay down clean. This was a Premium Bandai exclusive at 3,780 yen for two kits, which is fair for the pair but means it was never sold in shops and secondhand prices have crept up since. If you're chasing pristine panel lines out of the box, budget time for cleanup and decal work.

Who it's for

Buy this if you already love the Galbaldy Beta line, want the ZZ-era Royal Guard represented on your shelf, or specifically collect twin/paired mobile suit releases, the novelty of building matched brothers side by side is real and it lands. Skip it if you want cutting-edge HG articulation or are new to Gunpla and want stickers instead of water transfer decals for your first build. This is a kit for people who already know what a Galbaldy Beta feels like in the hand and are buying it for the paint job and the lore, not for a fresh engineering experience.

The build story

What the build is actually like, and the engineering worth knowing about.

Because this is a remold, the runner layout will feel instantly familiar if you've ever built a Galbaldy Beta, gate placement and cleanup are exactly what you'd expect from that generation of HGUC tooling, straightforward but not razor-sharp at the nub marks. Building two suits from largely shared parts trees means you fall into a rhythm fast, snap in one Gaz-R piece, snap in its Gaz-L twin, repeat, which makes this a quicker build per-kit than the part count on the box might suggest.

The standout engineering here isn't new, it's borrowed: the double-jointed elbows and knees from the Galbaldy Beta base still give more knee bend and elbow fold than a lot of same-era HG kits managed, and it's enough to hold a lunging naginata pose without looking stiff. The real design win is the accessory set, both suits carry a hyper beam saber that detaches from the backpack, and the two combine through an adapter into a shared beam naginata, which is a genuinely clever bit of parts engineering for a background-cast release, and the flared right-shoulder armor on the Gaz-R reads as a real design signature rather than filler bulk.

Lore & trivia

01The Gaz-R and Gaz-L are twin-piloted suits, Nee Gylen flies the Gaz-R and his brother Lance Gylen flies the Gaz-L, and the pair typically escorted Haman Karn's Qubeley or Royal Guard leader Chara Soon's Geymalk into battle.
02Both suits are Neo Zeon remodels of the Earth Federation's mass-produced RMS-117 Galbaldy Beta, repurposed as close-combat defense units with a higher-output reactor than the original.
03The HGUC set was a Premium Bandai online-exclusive release in January 2019, priced at 3,780 yen for the two-kit set and revealed publicly at the Char's Counterattack World event at Gundam Base Tokyo.
04The two suits appear in Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ as part of Haman Karn's Neo Zeon Royal Guard, distinct from the Universal Century timeline's earlier Gundam Sentinel side-story material despite sharing the same broader UC continuity.