HGRegild Century

VGMM-La01b Dahack

The mecha monkey that climbs out of its own re-entry shell and somehow still holds a pose.

MechaGrade Score

3.7/5

Dahack · 1/144 · 2015

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2015

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

The Dahack is one of the weirdest, most rewarding HG kits Bandai has put out, and I mean that as a compliment.

It skips the usual rifle-and-shield loadout entirely for four folding beam cannon arms on its back, and building that mechanism is the whole reason to own this kit. It will never be anyone's idea of a poseable action figure, but as a piece of design curiosity it earns its spot on the shelf.

Best for: G-Reco fans and gimmick collectors who want a genuinely different HG build, not another humanoid soldier suit

The full review

What it is

This is the Dahack, the primate-shaped mobile suit that lives folded up inside the Dharma re-entry shell and unfurls to fight. Instead of a rifle it carries four articulated beam cannon arms mounted on its back, each one doubling as a beam saber, plus a pair of beam barrier shields built into its hands. Building it feels less like assembling a soldier and more like assembling a piece of insect machinery. Getting all four back arms to fold, extend, and lock into a believable firing pose is genuinely satisfying, and the clear beam barrier parts read well without paint. For an HG in this price range, it delivers a lot of personality per sprue.

The catch

The back arms are the star of the show and also the weak point. Reviewers who built it noted the shoulder swing on those cannon arms is limited to well under 45 degrees of lateral movement, which caps how dynamic you can actually pose the signature four-arm spread. The flat, glowing hand effect is done with foil stickers rather than molded clear parts or paint, so if you want that lit-up look to survive years on a shelf you will want to handle it carefully or replace the stickers. It is also a solo release, the Dharma outer shell it launches from was never kitted separately, so you get the fighter but not the capsule it rides in.

Who it's for

Buy this if you are working through the Reconguista in G lineup, if you like HG kits that do something structurally different from a standard humanoid frame, or if the idea of four independently posable beam cannon arms sounds more interesting to you than another beam rifle. Skip it if you want strong shoulder and arm articulation for dynamic action shots, the back-arm range will frustrate you there, or if you are chasing G-Reco completeness and were hoping for the full Dharma capsule experience in kit form, that piece never got made.

The build story

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

This is not a rifle-and-shield build, so expect a different rhythm on the runners. Most of your time goes into the four back-mounted cannon arm assemblies, each with its own small joints for the fold-out saber tips and cannon heads. Gate placement is standard HG fare and cleanup is easy, but test-fit the cannon arm joints before final assembly since they are doing double duty as both weapon mounts and the kit's main pose mechanism.

The wrist and hand articulation is actually the pleasant surprise here, the beam barrier hands rotate and angle well even though the shoulders on the cannon arms do not. Color separation is solid for an HG, with the clear beam barrier parts needing zero paint to look finished, and the sticker sheet is limited mostly to the glowing hand effect rather than covering panel details. For the part count and price band, it punches above its grade line thanks to that unconventional four-arm engineering.

Lore & trivia

01The Dahack is normally stowed folded inside the Dharma, a large humanoid mobile armor that functions as its atmospheric re-entry capsule, and only emerges from it to fight.
02It is piloted by Klim Nick, an Amerian Army lieutenant in Gundam Reconguista in G who also pilots the Montero and the Space Jahannam earlier in the series.
03Instead of a beam rifle, the Dahack fights with four back-mounted beam cannons that convert into beam sabers, paired with beam barrier energy shields built into its hands.
04The kit released in May 2015 as part of Bandai's HGRC (High Grade Reconguista) line, numbered HGRC 014.