rico soul: Hemoxian released another expo photo of the Thor with everything equipped.
Looks good all built up and out in the wild. That big hammer and cape really does give him a bit of a regal look lol.

rico soul: This is an interesting product but it's not without it's faults. These type of custom weapons are always better suited for people that have a bit more custom building and kit-bashing skills but this one may be a bit more so than usual.

If it's not obvious from the promo photos with the MG Sazabi Ver Ka, these gatlings are massive. It's about double the length of an typical HG gundam and longer than most MGs are tall. The assembly issues are minor but the biggest problem here is how to actually hold the gatlings.

It's so massive and unwieldy and without any actual connection peg for and just a smooth handle, these things are pretty much impossible to hold. That's why I say it's gonna take some customization skills.

The blurred image there shows it has backpack adaptors to fit the:
- MG Unicorn, Banshee, Phenex
- MG Deathscythe, Heavyarms
- MG Sazabi Ver Ka
- MG Nu, Hi-Nu Ver ka
- MG Buster, Freedom 2.0

But with how heavy these things are, most of these models are going to have a hard time free standing with this. It's an awesome looking set of weapons but will need to work to properly display.

rico soul: IN ERA+ choose April 1st to release more photos but this does all look legit.
I've rescaled and combined some ones I picked out here. I'm sure Gundamit will have it all up when they have a chance.

It seems like the English name has been re-translated to Trailblazer instead of Vanguard but it's still the same Chinese name.

This is apparently a different product line than the Ruling or Genesis. IN ERA+ is calling it [UMD -- Ultimate Minutia Design] and this will be the first product. The idea of this line is that it will reduce and simplify internal frame parts and instead put most of the focus on outer details. So it's going to be kind of like Bandai's Full Mechanics line probably.

This should mean there's no metal inner frame like the Ruling and the price tag will likely be lower. No price or additional details has been released at this time. But it seems likely they will release more info very soon

rico soul: Ok, so here we go, some early reviews are in from China and this seems like a solid kit as expected from IN ERA+

As we know, the inner frame is reduced here. For the most part, it's just basic pieces snapped together and only a partial frame for the calves and arms, pretty similar to HG Witch from Mercury designs and current FM designs. However, once everything is snapped up, the final product is still highly detailed and articulation on the all the weapons and thrusters are still very good.

In total, there's only 22x runners this time, including the display base runners. There is also the sheet of waterslides and the small poster which is pretty much the box art.

Size wise, this is still a fairly imposing unit when standing next to an 1/144 scale EG RX-78-2, and the display base comes with arms to display the dragoons in flight. Looks like we won't get the fancy action base 3 style base from the Genesis and Ruling though.

If you were like me and wondering how the suit will look like with those massive shoulder thruster units removed, well, apparently the shoulder armor pegs into the thrusters, not the other way around. So you are left with a big exposed peg.

One final gimmick is the head customization. There's two antenna colors, blue and yellow, two faces, and a blue chin cover that you can all swap and combine in whatever way you want.

Overall, aesthetics aside, this seems like a pretty solid stab at an FM style kit that should be quick and easy to snap up while still producing an incredibly detailed model.

rico soul: More information with more angles of the Asgard 3D printed prototype.
This should be the same prototype from previous pictures so the antenna spikes and whatnot are still the same.

Currently, the development is about 30% complete so it's likely still a ways off before the final release.
But the good news is that it's still early enough that they are very much listening to community feedback to make any adjustments

The backpack can be separated as a standalone support fighter, which further makes me think of AoZ designs with things like the Hrududu.

rico soul: It seems like the general feedback for this suit has been lukewarm about the clear parts. So ZA Model actually just released another update phone clip showing solid white parts and some color changes instead, stating this was in response to the feedback they've received so far.

Along with this, they also mentioned that the initial batch bonus will be the twin metal handle swords, shown in the clip.

This time we get to see some sort of backpack. Kind of reminds me of the 00 Raiser backpack but we don't get a good view of it. People are also theorizing that this model will have an alloy inner frame. We can see some metallic sheen from the elbow joints in this latest clip that seems to confirm this but there's nothing official announced yet.

rico soul: Interesting, we're getting more details revealed on this third party God Gundam redesign but it looks like they're going to tweak the colors as well in additional to the general redesigns. Maybe it's to make it less resemble the God Gundam.

Gold parts are pre-painted

rico soul: This is pretty interesting. This is pretty much the same as the old Dragon Momoko Sword Strike kit. However, the runners come pre-painted with a matte finish, and both the paint quality and the build quality are reviewed to be better than Daban. The paint finish is apparently very consistent. Since it is a matte finish, it would make panel lining cleanup and bit more of a pain but the snap build quality is apparently really good.

There's rumors that Wuji could be just dragon momoko rebranded after they got shut down but Bandai but there's no one to confirm that and Wuji certainly wouldn't admit it even if it was true. Since the Dragon Momoko sword strike was based on an old resin kit, Wuji can simply claim the same so no one really knows.

A youtube vid of this is available at: youtu.be/d4zYCkqxG1U

What I'm personally interested in is whether Wuji is going stay around and whether they will be printing other MG Strike RM based dragon momoko kits. Most specifically, me and many others are interested in whether we'll finally see a reprint of the legendary Dragon Momoko Akatsuki kit. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

rico soul: This is really quite an excellent product and it's good to see it finally coming on Gundamit.

It pretty much hit a lot of the popular model kit design.
- 22cm head height
- large sheet of water slides
- photo etch detail parts (similar to MGEX or PGU)
- UV reactive stickers for highlights
- magnetic switch LED for the head
- soft plastic for hands with sharp molding
- mostly undergated outer armor for easy painting on the runners

The build is a bit more on the simpler side so it's more like Bandai's Full Mechanics than Master Grade but the kit as a whole is solid with great plastic quality. If there is one criticism on this kit, it's that some parts lack surface detail. But really that's a subjective take. It's a great product overall for mecha model kit lovers.

rico soul: Zao workshop just released a final product photo and I have to say it looks a lot better than the CG renders to me.
We also see a potential box art for this.

Note we see red effect parts on this photo, which is a preorder bonus, rather than the yellow orange effect parts normally. On that topic, the other preorder bonus is UV/blacklight reactive waterslide decals,

I'm still not fully sold on this design but the latest photos is swaying me more in the favorable direction.