MG Tallgeese EW Review

 

For my first kit review, the MG Tallgeese EW. Gundam Wing was probably my first exposure to the Gundam world, and as such I've always had a certain fondness towards the Wing Gundam and the Tallgeese. When this kit was first released I was working on a few other things and decided to pass, but I had some free time this week so I ordered it and got down to business. Click the bump for the full review.

When I review kits on this blog, I'm going to be judging the kit in question using three criteria:

• The quality of the overall build; the level of difficulty and how enjoyable it was
• Aesthetics and color separation; how good does the kit look straight-built
• Pose-ability and range of motion; is this a Gundam or a brick?

Each of these three categories will be scored on a 1-10 scale, which will obviously add up to a total score out of 30. Scoring each kit like this will make it easy to compare them to one another. It's unlikely that I will ever give a score lower than 5 unless I happen upon a large cache of no-grade Gundams. If the kit recieves a 10 in any of the three categories then it is, within my knowledge, perfect in that particular way. I'll also start every review with an exploded view of the body parts, that way you can get an idea of how each limb goes together, and it looks really cool. So let's get started!

Torso

Head

Arms 

Legs

Waist

Backpack

 Accessories

Build Quality: 8/10

The first thing you'll notice about this kit is how solid it looks. I love kits that feel sturdy and strong as you snap them together. The newer MG Age kits comes to mind; any of the MG Unicorn variants however, do not. The pieces are big and everything fits together in a satisfying manner. the build itself is not overly difficult, although it has its quirks, particularly when it comes to the accessories.

 

The dober gun has a built in spring mechanism that allows you to pull the barrel back and watch it pop forward. While cool in theory, its not something that you'll toy with very often, and trying to get the spring to fit where its supposed to gave me a little bit of a hard time. Here you can see how long the rifle is. It's basically the size of the Tallgeese itself. It provides a nice counterweight to balance the size of the thrusters.

As far as an inner-frame this kit actually has less of one than the Gundams in the EW line. The legs have somewhat of an internal working with some sliding parts, but nothing very detailed. Definitely not an inner frame detailing project. A good portion of what would have been inner frame actually seems to be sacrificed to aid color separation, but I'll cover that later.

The thruster backpack was one of the highlights of this build for me. When you pull down on the pod itself, the side fins pop out and the thrusters are exposed. It's a nice added detail, and building parts that function like a real machine is one of my favorite parts of Gunpla.

Aesthetics: 8/10

There's no doubt about it, the Tallgeese is a nice looking kit. Out of the box, this kit is cast in six different colors. Dark gray for the inner frame and dober gun, and light gray for details like the chest handle (for lack of a better word). The tallgeese uses an even lighter gray to blend with the white armor pieces, and even has a few dark blue sections such as the feet and shoulder joints. Bandai took the time to engineer each body part with yellow internals to create added color separation. They easily could have left out the yellow on the shield and shoulders in favor of a single piece, similar to the Sinanju's crest. Luckily, they did not and this kit looks great out of the box; perfect for people who like to straight build.

Poseability: 6/10

Although this kit can hold some cool poses, this is probably the Tallgeese's weak point. The first problem comes from the shoulder armor and shoulder joints. These things are big, and they get in the way any time you try to move the arms. The legs are quite bulky as well and they only bend a little bit past 90 degrees.

 Another problem I encountered is that the entire model is quite back-heavy when standing. The thrusters are much heavier than they look and the torso tends to bend at the waist while standing straight up. This can however be countered by positioning the dober gun well.

The gun and shield both hang freely from the shoulders of the Tallgeese through a sort of lever system, and can be displayed with the Mobile Suit even if it is not holding them. I would advise, however, to pose your Tallgeese holding the dober gun and shield. Both are easily positioned into the hand through a small slot in the handle, and with a little bit of tweaking, the gun can be positioned in a variety of ways. It's all about manipulating the lever arm that holds the gun.

Total Score: 22/30

The Tallgeese is a great kit for those not planning to paint, or anyone in the mood to expand their Endless Waltz Lineup. It's a fun build that yields great results, while revamping the Gundam Wing design we know and love. It suffers from a moderate range of motion, but it's hard to find a kit that looks more intimidating then the classic Tallgeese holding the massive dober gun.

 Runners