HGPost Disaster

ASW-G-29 Gundam Astaroth

A parts-bin brawler with a personality bigger than its price tag.

MechaGrade Score

3.8/5

Gundam Astaroth · 1/144 · 2016

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2016

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is one of the more character-rich cheap HGs in the Iron-Blooded Orphans lineup, and I came away liking it more than I expected to.

The mismatched armor scheme (that borrowed Spinner Rodi arm is the whole point) reads as a genuinely lived-in machine rather than a gimmick, and the articulation is some of the best in the whole HG IBO run. It is not a refined kit, and a couple of joints will remind you it is a budget release, but the character it delivers per dollar is hard to beat.

Best for: IBO fans who want the Astaroth's scavenged, patched-together look and don't mind a little looseness for the price

The full review

What it is

The Astaroth is basically two mobile suits stitched into one, the standard Gundam Frame under a mix of its own armor and salvaged Spinner Rodi parts on the left arm, and Bandai leaned into that in the kit design instead of hiding it. Building it feels like assembling a machine with history, not a clean factory unit. The Gundam Frame's double-jointed knees and swiveling thighs carry over from the rest of the HG IBO line, and on the Astaroth they translate into a genuinely wide pose range, full leg splits, deep knee bends, and a sub-arm on the mismatched shoulder that folds up into an improvised shield or swings out to grip the Demolition Knife. It builds fast, looks distinct on a shelf next to the more symmetrical IBO kits, and never feels like a reskin.

The catch

The plastic and gate quality are solid for the price band, cleaner than some other HG IBO releases, but this is still a budget kit and it shows in the small connections. The waist and thigh armor plates are loose enough on some copies to slip or pop off during posing, so you learn to handle it gently around the hips. Color separation leans on stickers more than I'd like, the side skirts have no molded color at all, and the black on the feet and right calf are stickers rather than plastic, so panel lines in those spots read a little flat once the foil starts to peel. The front skirt also gets in the way of a deep squat, so the otherwise excellent leg articulation has one real blind spot.

Who it's for

Grab this one if you are building out the Iron-Blooded Orphans HG lineup and want a kit that looks and feels different from the rest of the shelf, or if you just like mobile suits with an in-universe reason to look asymmetrical. The Demolition Knife alone makes it worth a look for anyone who likes an oversized signature weapon. Skip it if sticker-reliant color separation is a dealbreaker for you or you're picky about tight, rattle-free joints, since the hip and waist connections need a gentle hand. For the price, it is an easy recommend to anyone who wants character over polish.

The build story

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

Assembly moves quickly since this shares the standard Gundam Frame skeleton used across the HG IBO wave, so if you've built any other kit in the line the runners feel familiar. Gate placement is tidy and the plastic trims cleanly, a step up from some of the rougher HG IBO releases. The one thing to watch is test-fitting the waist and thigh armor as you go, those connection points are the loosest on the kit and benefit from being seated carefully rather than forced.

The standout engineering is the sub-arm, an articulated shoulder-mounted limb with its own joints that can fold into a shield or extend to grip the Demolition Knife one-handed or two-handed. Combined with the swiveling hip boosters and double-jointed knees, the Astaroth holds dynamic combat poses better than its price band would suggest. Color separation is the weak point, molded plastic covers the main colorway but stickers carry several black accent panels that would have looked better in plastic.

Lore & trivia

01The Astaroth's mismatched left arm and shoulder armor are explicitly salvaged from a UGY-R38 Spinner Rodi within the story, a detail Bandai carried straight into the kit's molded parts.
02It is one of the 72 Gundam Frames built for the Calamity War roughly 300 years before the series and one of the 26 known to survive into the present day.
03The suit and kit originate from the manga side story Mobile Suit Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Gekko rather than the main TV series, piloted by the character Argi Mirage.
04Its signature weapon, the Demolition Knife, is a large folding sword built for hacking apart enemy mobile suits at close range.