Real Grade 1/144 Aile Strike Gundam - Review Part 1 of 2 (Assembly)

RG Strike Gundam

Real Grade 1/144 Aile Strike Gundam. What I can say that it is the best gunpla in my collection. Having build many HGs before, I feel like building a Master Grade at a smaller scale. Compared to the HG version, the RG version looks sharper with lots of fine detail - the Aile Striker clearly have a wider wingspan.

RG Aile Striker - note the wide wingspan

I'm amazed with the excellent Advanced Frame Joint - just need to cut it out and then attaching the armors  to it. What's more, the articulation is above expectation especially the leg frame. Meanwhile, the arm frame  is quite flimsy and fragile.

Advanced Frame Joint - with some parts attached including cockpit and head armors

Excellent articulation for 1/144 scale

For the head sensor, I m using turquoise permanent marker, applied to all sides of the transparent sensor part except the front and back section (the only visible areas once the armor have been attached) - I want to retain the shiny transparent surface. The result is a blue-ish transparent sensors. For the eyes, I omit the sticker given and painted gold on the back/inner-side of the transparent part, so that the shiny transparent surface is retained. Then I painted black for the area surrounding the eyes. It looks good when the golden colour can be seen through the transparent part.  The CIWS machine guns are painted with silver paint marker.

Head unit: note the blue colored sensor and silver painted CIWS machine guns

Head unit: note the gold colored eyes

The main body/torso part is pretty straighforward. Good articulation especially near the waist part. The cockpit part is a bonus - with opening hatch. I painted the cockpit seat in orange to match the real cockpit colour of Strike Gundam. Also, a bit of red on the left & right of the headreast - to indicate the blindspot warning lights (even though they are never shown in the anime or actual unit). I applied some shiny stickers too on the inner-side wall of the cockpit, to indicate screen monitors. On the back, the slot for the striker pack is different than HG's, so some modification need to be used if other HG striker packs to be used e.g. Launcher, Noir or IWSP - a bit of dissapointment here.

Main body/torso with cockpit hatch open

Cockpit seat

Note the Striker Pack slot - other HG or 1/144 packs need modification to fit in

The arm part looks flimsy and fragile without the armor. Attaching the armor to the arm frame is easy, but the forearm part can get loose a bit when bending the arm. Articulation is impressive, which can be fully bent. The shoulder section is excellent with opening mounting rack (for attaching striker pack component e.g. shoulder component for Launcher/Sword pack). two set of manipulators/hands are given: one set of closed-palm and one set with articulated fingers. There is a slot in each hand to attach the beam rifle or beam saber peg. I found that the beam rifle's peg need some effort to get into the slot and it dropped out a few times from the beam rifle's handle - the worst thing is that the peg is very very small! I prefer the not-realistic-but-effective HGUC Sinanju's beam rifle peg. 

Arm section 

The waist part is simple with moveable front and rear skirt armor - easy to attach. The side hip armor have opening hatch to store the Combat Knives. The side hip armor may hinder some leg movement, but it is tolerable.

Side hip armor storing the Armor Schneider Combat Knife 

The leg part is superb, with many points of articulation. Attaching the armor section is easy. 

Superb leg part - excellent articulation

The Aile Striker pack features wide wingspan and impressive details, even though there is no dedicated internal frame as the Strike Gundam. The wing can be folded down but only half way, which may disappoint some. The thruster section is highly detailed for this scale, and I have used gold and silver paint to bring out the details - the gold paint is lightly brushed on the surface using cotton bud, with the help of gundam marker remover, and silver paint for the outer rim of the nozzles and also for the smaller thruster's nozzles.  

Aile Striker - rear view

Gold and silver paint used to bring out the detail of the thruster section

The weapons supplied is 2 x beam sabers (two hilt grip set: normal and with-peg, 2 x combat knives (foldable, to be stored in hip armor), a beam rifle and a shield - all with good details especially the shield. The Beam rifle has transparent sensor section, which I apply the same technique as for the head sensor. The combat knive's blade is painted with silver paint marker, then immediately brushed with a cotton bud to get a better looking finish.

Weapons and accessories, clockwise: beam sabers, extra beam saber hilts with peg, shield, beam rifle, combat knives, adapter for stand, and extra set of hand

Below are some points to summarize it:

Good:

> Master Grade experience at smaller scale

> Excellent articulation, especially the leg part

> Highly detailed parts

> Easy to assemble

Less Good:

> Overall quite fragile - need care

> Unable to fit in HG striker packs - need some modification or adapter

> Quite back-heavy with Aile pack - best to use a stand

> Some stickers not practical e.g. the silver dots for the back of the feet

> The hand set may have good articulation i.e. movable fingers but quite weak when handling weapon - I prefer to have a HGUC-style hand (like Sinanju's)

> Beam rifle peg - very small and I found it a problem when attaching it to the hand palm slot. Also, I prefer the peg design on HGUC Sinanju's hand

> No extra top parts (guard) of the beam saber hilt - need to be shared by both hilt with & without peg

Need attention:

> Very small parts - careful not to lose them
> Careful when playing with the articulated hand - they are delicate

> Moveable frame may need some play to loosen it - to avoid breaking
> Some parts is left/right specific, so following the manual is a must - usually if certain part is not fitting well, then just swap it with another.

What's the next RG for SEED series? Hmmmmm... Freedom Gundam! Yeay!

Highly recommended gunpla. The final part of the review (Part 2 of 2) will consist of various pose of RG Aile Strike Gundam with full armor attached.