HGPost Disaster

ASW-G-08-4X4 Gundam Barbataurus

Two Barbatos frames welded into a centaur, built purely to be weird and fun.

MechaGrade Score

3.6/5

Barbatos · 1/144 · 2022

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2022

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the kit I hand to someone who says HG Gunpla has gotten predictable.

Barbataurus takes the bones of Gundam Barbatos and doubles them into a four legged centaur build, and the novelty never wears off while you are assembling it. It is not trying to be a serious mainline release, it is a Gundam Breaker Battlogue crossover piece built for silly, satisfying combination play, and on that goal it delivers.

Best for: Barbatos fans and Gundam Breaker players who want a genuinely different silhouette on the shelf, not another bipedal HG

The full review

What it is

Barbataurus takes the familiar Barbatos upper body and grafts it onto a second frame acting as the hindquarters, so you end up building what is basically two mini mobile suits worth of legs and then locking them together into one four legged mecha. The twin curved blades that double as handguns and combine into a lightning strung bow are a genuinely clever accessory gimmick, and dry fitting the centaur torso together for the first time is a fun little payoff moment. It leans hard into the Gundam Breaker Battlogue idea of unified joints for kitbashing, so even holding the parts before assembly you can tell this thing was designed to be combined with other kits, not just posed on its own.

The catch

The retail price sits around 25 to 30 dollars, which is more than a standard HG for a kit that is mostly duplicated leg and hip runners, and several builders have flagged that as a rough value proposition next to a normal mainline release. Bandai leans on foil stickers for some of the color work rather than molded color throughout, so panel accents need careful application if you want a clean finish. The sheer bulk of the four legged frame also means the finished model takes up more shelf width than a typical HG, which is worth planning for before you buy.

Who it's for

Buy this if you already like Barbatos and want to see the frame reused in a genuinely different configuration, or if you are building toward a Gundam Breaker kitbash project and want the unified joint parts this line is built around. Skip it if you are hunting for the best dollar for part value in a standalone HG, or if display space is tight, since the centaur stance eats more room than the price tag suggests it should. As a novelty piece and conversation starter next to a normal Barbatos build, it earns its spot.

The build story

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

You are effectively building two connected leg and hip assemblies before the centaur body comes together, so gate cleanup is repetitive but not fiddly, the parts are chunky HG scale pieces with straightforward snap fit and no glue needed. Fit is tight and confident at the joints, nothing here felt loose or prone to popping apart during test posing.

The standout engineering is the unified joint design carried over from the Gundam Breaker Battlogue line, which is meant to let this frame combine or kitbash with other kits in the range, and it shows in how deliberately the hip and shoulder connectors are built. Articulation on all four legs, the swiveling front and rear ankles, and the pivoting skirt armor for leg clearance add up to a wider pose range than you would expect from a four legged HG, and the bow formed by combining both blades with its lightning effect string is the accessory highlight of the set.

Lore & trivia

01Barbataurus is part of the High Grade Gundam Breaker Battlogue (HGGBB) line, a kit series tied to the Gundam Breaker Mobile game rather than a mainline Gundam anime.
02The kit reuses the Gundam Barbatos silhouette for its forward frame, referencing the Iron Blooded Orphans mobile suit while reimagining it as a four legged centaur design.
03All HGGBB kits including Barbataurus share a unified joint system specifically so builders can mix and combine parts across the line, mirroring the customization gameplay of Gundam Breaker.