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ASW-G-08 Gundam Barbatos Complete Set

Two Barbatos bodies and every weapon Mikazuki ever swung, all in one Premium Bandai box.

MechaGrade Score

4.2/5

Barbatos · 1/144 · 2016

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2016

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the HG Barbatos done right, and then done twice.

I'll say it plainly, if you only build one Barbatos kit, this Complete Set makes the standalone releases feel incomplete by comparison. You get two full Barbatos frames, the entire weapons loadout across Forms 1 through 6, and new tooling like the second Long Sword and the Wire Hook that never shipped anywhere else. It costs more and takes longer to build, but the payoff is a display that actually tells Mikazuki's story instead of one frozen pose.

Best for: IBO fans who want the full Forms 1-6 Barbatos loadout and don't mind hunting down a Premium Bandai exclusive

The full review

What it is

The Complete Set is exactly what it sounds like, two copies of the base HG 1/144 Gundam Barbatos plus every piece of equipment needed to build out Forms 1 through 6 as they appeared across the first cour of Iron-Blooded Orphans. That means the mace, the smoothbore gun, both Long Swords (the second one is new tooling just for this set), the Schwalbe Graze hip thrusters, and the Wire Hook. Building it feels less like assembling one robot and more like assembling a small armory around a chassis you already know is good. The frame itself is the same thin, mean-looking Barbatos silhouette that made the line famous, and having a second copy means you can freeze one mid-battle-damage and keep the other clean.

The catch

This was a Premium Bandai webstore exclusive, so it was never cheap and it's genuinely hard to find now at anything close to retail. You're also building two full kits worth of parts, which roughly doubles the sprue-cleanup and sticker time of a normal HG. Speaking of stickers, Barbatos leans on a fair number of them for the pink energy highlights and color accents, and a few (the yellow claw pieces on the feet especially) are fiddly to seat cleanly. None of that is unique to the Complete Set, it's baked into the base HG Barbatos design, but you're doing it twice here.

Who it's for

This is for the builder who already loves the base HG Barbatos and wants to actually build out the Form progression instead of imagining it from box art. If you just want a good, cheap, poseable Barbatos to put on a shelf, the standalone HG release does that job for a fraction of the price and hassle. But if Iron-Blooded Orphans is your show and you want Mikazuki's whole arsenal in styrene, from the mace he first grabs to the twin Long Swords he ends up wielding, this is the version that was built for you. Track one down secondhand if the Premium Bandai listing is gone.

The build story

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

The build itself is standard HG Barbatos twice over, which is a compliment, the gates are placed sensibly and cleanup is manageable even with the thin, spindly frame parts that make up the suit's signature silhouette. The stickers are where most of the fuss lives. There are enough of them for the pink foil highlights and panel accents that you'll want good tweezers, and a handful, like the claw markings on the feet, are notorious for being awkward to align.

Where this set earns its keep is articulation and completeness. Barbatos already has a deep neck swivel, shoulders that lift and rotate, elbows that bend past 90 degrees, a 360-degree waist, and double-jointed knees, so it holds dynamic combat poses better than most HGs its price point. The Complete Set stacks the entire IBO Season 1 arsenal on top of that frame twice over, mace, smoothbore gun, twin Long Swords, Schwalbe Graze thrusters, and the Wire Hook, so the part-count and accessory value per suit is far beyond what you get from any single standalone Barbatos release.

Lore & trivia

01Barbatos was piloted by Mikazuki Augus, nicknamed 'the Devil of Tekkadan,' who used three Alaya-Vijnana neural implants to push the suit past what its design was meant to handle.
02The Complete Set's second Long Sword and Wire Hook parts were tooled specifically for this release and did not appear in the standalone HG Barbatos kits.
03The kit lets builders recreate Barbatos's Forms 1 through 6 as it evolved across the first cour of Iron-Blooded Orphans, swapping weapon loadouts rather than needing separate kits for each form.
04The original 2016 Premium Bandai release and its 2017 reissue were both priced at 3,240 yen, reflecting the doubled parts count of two full Barbatos kits in one box.