HGGundam Build Fighters Try (Island Wars special)

Lightning Back Weapon System Mk-III

A cheap backpack that turns into three different weapons and quietly becomes the most-used part in your spares box.

MechaGrade Score

3.6/5

Lightning Back Weapon System Mk-III · 1/144 · 2016

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2016

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is not a mobile suit, it is a weapon system expansion pack, and judged as exactly that it is a small triumph.

For under fifteen dollars you get a backpack unit that splits into a rifle, a pair of hand-held fin blades, and a set of wing binders, all built around simple pegs so you can mix and match across your HG shelf. It will never be anyone's centerpiece kit, but it earns its keep in a way most single-suit kits cannot.

Best for: HG builders who already have a shelf of Gunpla and want a cheap way to give one of them a new silhouette and a new loadout

The full review

What it is

The Lightning Back Weapon System Mk-III started life as the replacement backpack that turns Yuuma Kousaka's Lightning Gundam into the Lightning Gundam Strider in Gundam Build Fighters Try: Island Wars, and Bandai released it standalone in the HGBC accessory line in September 2016. Out of the box it is four small runners, one sticker sheet, and a set of assembly instructions, and building it takes maybe twenty minutes. What you get for that effort is a backpack that plugs onto a peg, two fin units that pop off the shoulders to become hand-held blades, and a front section of the pack that detaches into a rifle. I like it more each time I reconfigure it, because it never poses the same way twice.

The catch

This is a parts pack, not a display piece on its own, and it needs a host kit to look like anything at all. Compatibility is the real sticking point: it is built around Bandai's standard single-stage backpack peg, and several builders (myself included, trying it on an HG Gundam Astray Red Frame) have found kits that use a two-stage or nonstandard peg simply will not accept it without light modification. The sticker sheet is there because there is barely any plastic to separate colors on in the first place, so do not expect molded color nuance. At 864 yen list it is cheap, but shipping and import markup on niche accessory kits can make the final price feel steep for four runners.

Who it's for

Grab this if you already own a couple of HG 1/144 kits and want an inexpensive way to reload one of them with a new backpack, a rifle, and a pair of blades without buying an entire second kit. It is a natural pickup for anyone building an original Build Fighters style custom, or for Lightning Gundam owners who want the actual Strider loadout from the show. Skip it if you only want stand-alone display pieces or if your current kits use nonstandard backpack pegs, since you will be doing sprue surgery just to get it to sit right.

The build story

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

There is not much of a build here, four runners snap together in well under half an hour with straightforward gate placement and no glue required. The backpack halves close around a simple frame, the fin units are single-piece pulls that peg onto the shoulders, and the front rifle section separates with a satisfying click rather than feeling like it will snap off by accident.

The clever part is the engineering logic, not the part count: every major section is built to detach and reattach on its own peg, so the same four runners give you a backpack-only look, a rifle-in-hand look, and a dual-blade look depending on how you break it apart. Articulation is limited to the fins swiveling on their mounts, which is enough to angle them for flight poses or splay them out like wings, and that alone does more for a finished pose than most accessory packs this size manage.

Lore & trivia

01The Lightning Back Weapon System Mk-III is the equipment that turns Yuuma Kousaka's LGZ-91 Lightning Gundam into the LGZ-91St Lightning Gundam Strider in the Gundam Build Fighters Try special Island Wars
02Yuuma Kousaka piloted the Lightning Gundam Strider during the 14th Gunpla Championship and later in the Nielsen Labs incident, where it needed to combine through the Plavsky Power Gate with the Kamiki Burning Gundam to stand a chance against the Scramble Gundam
03It released in September 2016 as part of Bandai's HGBC (High Grade Build Custom) accessory sub-line, priced at 864 yen, alongside the earlier Mk-II version of the same back weapon concept