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MG FA-010-A FAZZ REVIEW
by Vincent   2005-01-23 14:49:07.0

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See Also Related Reviews: .|. MG FA-010-A Fazz by Nima .|. MG RX-93 v Gundam by Nima .|. MG FA-010S Full Armor ZZ Gundam by RedRacer .|. MG MSZ-010 ZZ Gundam by James E Doyle .|. Non Graded S-Gundam 1/144 MSA-0011 by vincent

Click to enlarge


INTRODUCTION

The FAZZ (Full Armor ZZ) FA-010A was a slow and energy consuming monster but he boasted the fire power of a battle ship with its Hyper Mega Cannon.

This led me to always imagined the beast as a sniper from afar, giving artillery support to his faster moving mates fighting in the front lines.

Kit specs: over 500 pieces, only the MG EX-S can claim to consume more life force then this kit. Cost:115$ Canadian after tax and is worth every penny.


HEAD UNIT

The head unit is thick and short and accentuated by the protruding chess armor giving it an intimidating look. I also prefer the sentinel version of the FAZZ head then the ZZ version because it a little bit squarer around the cheeks and temple. The head is constructed with a total of 11 pieces including one polycap and one transparent piece for the visor.

I outlined the panel lines with a Gundam marker then wiped away the lines until only the crevasse of the panel lines were slightly highlighted. To further weather the head unit, I painted the edges of the head with dark blue to simulate stripped paint and torch burns.


BODY UNIT

The body unit of the FAZZ is truly beautiful with its high stuck out chest and Hyper Mega Cannon magazine chain. The body unit also has a few gimmicks to boot. The chess plates pop off revealing a healthy 10 set of missiles ready to overwhelm any close encounters. Of course under that armor lies the ZZ body unit which has a hatch that opens up into the cockpit door of the core block unit revealing your tiny pilot. This kit does give you two core blocks, one that transforms into a core fighter and one that displays the Gundam pilot sitting upright as it should be. I decided to go with the upright none transformable core block for the body unit of the FAZZ because the Gundam pilot looked better sitting upright when all latches were open.

The body unit has a lot of meat and is quite interesting to think all the internals have a reason to their existence as each part aids in the process of transforming the ZZ into a G-Fortress. (The FAZZ does not come with all the pieces needed to complete the G-Fortress transformation)

To construct the body unit you will have to construct the pelvic, core block, chest, pelvic armor, and chest armor. The fitting is quite solid and the top half of the body even does a nice click sound like a gun clip locking into position(I only know of toy guns by the way ), when pushed down onto the core block.


ARM UNIT

The arms are in two layers, the normal ZZ arms and the armor on top. The only concept I didn't like was that these arms didn't have a skeleton to frame on, but it still satisfied me for internals because it had hidden thrusters inside which were originally for the ZZ transformation and a dual solid poly cap for the elbow limb which acted like a skeleton.
The FAZZ is full of neat gimmicks and one of them would be on the left arm which incases a hidden latch that holds 3 missiles. (You never know what the FAZZ has up its sleeve)

The construction and painting of the arms took me quite some time because even though I knew that the ZZ would eventually be covered by the Full armor, I still decided to weather all the pieces for the ZZ by painting all the edges with a darker tan gray then the piece itself.

The truth is I actually built the ZZ first before building the armor to put over the ZZ. To fast forward in the time table, painting the white armor took some time and lining the panels lines were a pain as I first painted over the panel lines with a dark grey then painted over the entire piece with white until you basically could only see white with only a tiny hint of grey. Then after that dried, I took a needle and scribed the panel lines which would then reveal the dark lining underneath giving thin beautiful panel lines a marker could not replicate. ( There are probably better techniques out there, but this one gave me the best results)

Overall the arms are beautiful with great articulation for all poses.


LEG UNIT

The leg unit is quite intricate since the ZZ was created with the ability to transform into the G-Fortress. This is the only part in the kit where you need screws to support the punishment from transforming the ZZ. Inside the shin you will find yet another booster for the transformation of the ZZ. There is something about the sea shell shape legs of the ZZ, when completed, it is almost sad to have to cover it up with extra armor.

I do have one disappointment in the legs though, the armor itself really doesn't have that much internal detail. It looks pretty from the front but when you take it off the ZZ, you will notice it is pretty hollow and that the thrusters don't seem to link up with any particular part of the ZZ. There just doesn't seem to be any logic to how it connects with the ZZ's legs.

Now the feet of the FAZZ has no disappointment. Shaped sort of the like a dinosaurs foot, it can pivot in the middle and has a back toe to balance the load of any weight on its back. I also personally prefer the Sentinel version of the feet when compared with the ZZ version because the feet are much longer giving a sort of Five Stars Story look.

Overall visually its stunning.


WEAPONS/BOOSTER/EXTRAS & FINAL VERDICT

The Hyper Mega Cannon is the glory of this kit but there is one problem. The goal for me was to make the FAZZ look as close to the box pictures as possible but I could not find a way to aim the cannon low like it showed in the picture. The bottom of the canon would always hit the shoulder and at max aim the barrel of the cannon would be horizontal to the stomach which did not look that pleasing and intimidating. For this reason I now display the FAZZ without the cannon and without the double beam rifle to give a nice symmetry.

The booster pack looks like it packs enough to put the FAZZ in flight and also packs two long tubes of missiles pods for added fire power. What is surprising is that the boosters actually have internals. The boosters are connected to what looks like an engine which is then fitted into the general backpack molding.

I am a bit disappointed at the barrel height of the Hyper Mega Cannon but its something I am probably just being too picky about as it still looks decent.



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See Also Related Reviews: .|. MG FA-010-A Fazz by Nima .|. MG RX-93 v Gundam by Nima .|. MG FA-010S Full Armor ZZ Gundam by RedRacer .|. MG MSZ-010 ZZ Gundam by James E Doyle .|. Non Graded S-Gundam 1/144 MSA-0011 by vincent


Comments(11)
Posted by: Nima on Monday, April 7, 2008 8:32:28 PM PDT
Great review of a great kit. The Sentinel version FAZZ is my all-time favorite Gundam (even more than the Nu). Bandai pulled out all the stops with this one, even with extra pieces carried over from the TV version of FAZZ which allow you to do tons of crazy conversions if you like. Colors are bang-on. Seams are not too bad. And lots of detail despite the large size of this kit.

Only three real flaws in this kit

1. Poseability is hard due to the big cannon and the losse joints - this is essentially a gray Gundam ZZ with extra armor and weapons on it, so the same frame has to bear much more weight. The feet and shoulders are the loosest parts, and are very hard to take apart and modify, so don't over-pose them! Also due to this, balancing with the heavy Mega Cannon is a bit tricky. The cannon itself makes it hard to pose the head. The long antenna can get in the way unless you slide it CAREFULLY into the slit in the side of the Cannon's armor. Plus the way the cannon rests in the chest armor depends on how deeply it's attached to the backpack!

2. That awful chest armor! It's only attached with tabs at the BOTTOM, and often comes loose under all the weight. Some internal modding on the armor can help fix this, but is very hard.

Other than that, it's the best MG Gundam out there IMO - it's got tons of goodies, with opening hatches, tons of thrusters, beam cannons and missiles all over, the only thing this kit lacks is beam sabers and a shield, though it wasn't supposed to have them anyway in Gundam Sentinel (plus, who needs a shield with all that armor?!)

This kit is hard to take apart for maintenance, but an excellent display piece once completed. And yes, it looks WAY better than the TV version. It deserves nothing less than an 8 out of 10.
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Posted by: Nima on Monday, April 7, 2008 11:51:52 PM PDT
oops, I mean TWO real flaws... (though if you count the cannon angle/backpack/chest-rest bug, it would be three)
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Posted by: Vincent on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 11:00:57 AM PDT
Welcome to GundamHotel Nima, I am in total agreement with you, I completely love this kit regardless of the flaws.
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Posted by: Nima on Thursday, April 24, 2008 6:09:15 PM PDT
yeah, nothing that can't be solved! Since my last post I've fixed the chest armor issues with plastic-coated packaging wire (now it HOOKS IN to the little spaces on the ZZ frame just below the square thrusters on top of the chest), and tightened the loose shoulder joints with...of all things... dental floss! Now the shoulder connections ride smooth and steady against the torso edges. No more wobbling around - now it has no trouble holding that badass "splayed-out shoulders" pose that I always wanted.

The best thins about this kit, IMO, is that there are a bazillion wacky and wonderful ways to modify and enhance it.
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Posted by: Vincent on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 7:52:57 AM PDT
Hey Nima maybe you should post your own review of the Fazz :-), and make this the site with the most Fazz appreciation FTW. This kit was seriously love at first sight, and if you ever read my "Webmaster Info", you'll know I'm not exaggerating lol
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Posted by: Nima on Saturday, May 3, 2008 9:48:34 AM PDT
Cool idea. Is it possible to have more than 1 review per kit on this site? (I think somebody did it with Char's Zaku, if I remember...) If so, I'll post one though it may take a while (it will be very detailed as that is my style and also because I love this kit)
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Posted by: Vincent on Monday, May 5, 2008 11:38:23 PM PDT
Yeah this site can have duplicate reviews of the same model as I hope it gives experience modelers, beginners, painters and non painters a chance to express their unique opinions on the particular models.
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Posted by: Nima on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 12:45:19 PM PDT
cool, mine should be up later this week. I got some nice pics too, so do I just upload them on my review or do I have to email them?
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Posted by: Vincent on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 3:12:13 PM PDT
Thanks Nima!
When you submit a review, you should be given an option to upload images, if for some reason it does not upload properly, just email the images to me.... gundamhotel AT hotmail DOT com
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Posted by: Nima on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 10:34:14 PM PDT
I added my review, but the pictures are all messed up. The thumbnails link to the wrong pictures, and some of them ask if you want to download it. How can I solve this? And why can't I remove any of my pics?
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Posted by: Vincent on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 11:38:58 PM PDT
Hey Thanks Nima, I've resized the images and change them so their extensions are .jpg instead of JPG.
If you have more images please email them to me or try uploading again.
I plan to change the site one day so it will convert what you upload into the correct size like how it generates the thumbnails, but I just haven't gotten around to it.
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9

HEAD UNIT

COMM UNIT

9

BODY UNIT

CORE UNIT

8

ARM UNIT

UNIVERSAL

8

LEG UNIT

TRANSPORT

7

WEAPONS

& BOOSTER

9

VALUE FOR

PRICE

8.3

OVERALL

SCORE

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