HGPost Disaster

ASW-G-08 Gundam Barbatos Gold Plated Ver.

The scrappiest Gundam of the modern era, cast in gold for a contest nobody could actually enter to win.

MechaGrade Score

3.9/5

Barbatos · 1/144 · 2016

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2016

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the standard HG Barbatos underneath, and the standard HG Barbatos is one of the best HG kits of its era, so the bones here are genuinely excellent.

What makes this particular release strange is that it was never a retail product at all, it was a prize kit handed out through Bandai's 2016 Blood and Iron building contest in a run reported at only a couple hundred pieces, so most people reading this will only ever see it in photos or secondhand at collector prices. Judge the gold plating as a novelty finish over a rock solid frame, not as a reason to chase it down.

Best for: Iron-Blooded Orphans fans and Barbatos completionists who already love the base kit and want the rare finish as a collector's grail

The full review

What it is

Strip away the gold and this is the HG 1/144 Gundam Barbatos that got IBO fans excited back in 2015, now dipped in a bright metallic plating for a run of contest prize kits tied to Bandai's Blood and Iron building competition in early 2016. What struck me building the standard version, and what carries over here, is how much visible inner frame Bandai packed into an HG price point. Barbatos shows its skeleton more than almost any other HG before it, with armor panels that look deliberately sparse so the frame underneath does the visual heavy lifting. The gold plate turns that frame into something closer to a trophy piece, catching light in a way the matte grey release never could.

The catch

The plating is cosmetic, so every build quirk of the base kit is still here. A meaningful amount of the color detail relies on stickers rather than molded plastic, which is a real ding for an inner-frame kit this proud of showing its guts. The side skirt armor is oversized and pops off if you handle the kit much, and its rotation range is more theoretical than useful in practice. And then there is the elephant in the room: this was never sold retail. It was a sweepstakes prize with a tiny production run, so realistically you are looking at secondary market prices far above what the plastic underneath would normally justify.

Who it's for

If you already own or have built the standard HG Barbatos and loved it, and you happen across this gold variant at a price you are comfortable with as a display piece, it is a fun way to own the same great kit twice with a genuinely different look on the shelf. If you are gunpla-curious and just want a great entry into Iron-Blooded Orphans mechs, buy the regular HG Barbatos instead and save your money, it builds identically and poses just as well for a fraction of the cost. This one is a collector's item first and a build experience second, and it should be evaluated as such.

What works

Same double-jointed arm and leg articulation as the standard HG Barbatos, giving roughly 180 degrees of bend for genuinely dynamic poses
Unusually exposed inner frame for an HG kit, so the gold plating actually has real mechanical detail to reflect off of rather than flat armor slabs
Comes loaded with Barbatos's signature scrap weapons, including the oversized mace, giving the finished figure real shelf presence

Worth knowing

Heavy sticker reliance for color separation that a frame-forward kit like this deserves better than
Oversized side skirt armor that pops off during handling and has articulation that is functionally useless
Not a retail release, so secondary market pricing has almost nothing to do with what you're actually getting in the box

Sold? Grab it.

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The build story

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

The build itself is quick and satisfying in the way good HG kits usually are, snapping together into a frame first and armor second sequence that rewards you with visible mechanical detail at every stage. Nub placement is typical HG fare, nothing that demands more than a basic side cutter and a little patience, and the plating adds no extra build complexity since it's applied at the factory rather than something you handle during assembly.

Where this kit earns its reputation is articulation. The double-jointed limbs let Barbatos hit deep lunges and dynamic combat poses that a lot of same-era HG kits simply can't match, and the joints hold tension well enough to stay put. Weapon loadout is generous for the price point, headlined by the mace that became this suit's visual signature, and the part count goes further than you'd expect toward making the finished kit look like a suit that's been welded together from scavenged parts, which is exactly the story Iron-Blooded Orphans is telling.

Lore & trivia

01The Gold Plated Ver. was distributed as a prize kit through Bandai's Blood and Iron Gundam building contest, which ran from February 27 to April 23, 2016, with the kit itself dated to a June 2016 release and never sold at retail.
02In the show, Barbatos is one of 72 Gundam-frame mobile suits built during the Calamity War roughly 300 years before the story begins, and it was recovered from the Martian desert missing its cockpit before Tekkadan restored it to fighting condition.
03Barbatos is piloted by Mikazuki Augus and is compatible with the Alaya-Vijnana neural interface system, a defining piece of Iron-Blooded Orphans lore that ties pilot and machine together at a physical cost.
04The suit was repeatedly rebuilt across the series using salvaged Gjallarhorn parts, eventually becoming Barbatos Lupus and then Barbatos Lupus Rex, each upgrade trading pilot safety for more raw combat power.