The universal standard for size comparison — the cigarette box. As expected, it's a bit on the small side for a 1/100 scale kit.

The backpack connection.

Upper body front shot. Very much Ver.Ka in terms of the decal work..;

The back is also covered in a ton of stickers.

Smooth legs with simple detailing. There are actually fewer stickers on the legs than you'd expect.

The color separation on the sides and forearms is pretty impressive...
But there are quite a few spots on the shoulders and the cross-bar on the back that need partial painting.

Shoulder partial painting points. The top is the straight build, the middle has stickers applied, and the bottom is the partially painted version.
Stickers aren't too bad either, but the mold ends up looking flat so it looks a bit off...
The beam saber tip on the side of the head also needs to be partially painted yellow.

The small yellow circles on the back of the shoulders are also meant to be handled with stickers, but I went ahead and partially painted them while I was at it.

The verniers at the tips of the cross-bar on the back are also meant to be done with stickers,
but again the three-dimensional mold just ends up looking flat.

Here's how it looks after partial painting. Besides the verniers, there are 4 other small spots that need yellow.
Even on those tiny tips, about 10 stickers and decals get applied. Very Ver.Ka.

The face has a partial painting point for the red stripe.
Like the F91, the upper part of the mask is movable, so you can lift it slightly to reveal the "rotten teeth." ;;;;;

The biggest issue is the rifle known as the 'Zanbuster'...
The color scheme is pretty complex, but it comes out just plain white.

I went ahead and painted parts of it dark gray to match the design specs... Much better.

The Zanbuster can be separated into the Beam Zanber at the rear and the Buster Gun at the front.

With a few adjustments to each gimmick, they split into a sword and a gun~
The Buster Gun at the front especially looks a lot like a pistol from the old Age of Sail era.
Fun weapons! :-)

It's well known that one of the hallmarks of Ver.Ka kits is the sheer number of decals and stickers.
But the areas where stickers need to go are often quite small,
so if you don't trim the borders off the stickers like in the photo above, things can get messy pretty quickly.
It only takes about 15 minutes to trim all the borders off,
so if you cut around them with a sharp knife beforehand and then apply them, it looks a lot cleaner.
(For reference, all the stickers on every kit reviewed on Dalong.net have been trimmed this way. Just my style..)

Cockpit hatch open.
The canopy of the Core Fighter stored inside can be opened at the same time.

A variety of weapons... There are a lot of unusual weapons you don't see in other kits ^^

The weapons all have holes so they can be secured onto the pegs in the palms...
But for some reason the large Beam Zanber has a noticeably shallower hole than the rest. -_-;;
So unlike the other weapons, it's really hard to get a grip on, and you basically have to drill the hole deeper yourself.
It's the hardest weapon to hold, so it's hard to understand why they made the hole so shallow in the first place. -_-+

When gripping the Zanbuster, the structure at the rear catches on the forearm, making it tricky to get the angle right.

So as shown in the photo, you have to bend the wrist joint inward to get it to work, otherwise it's really hard to hold.

The weapons can be freely mounted on the sides.

There's also a hole on the rear skirt so you can store weapons there too.

Here's the Zanbuster stored on the rear skirt fully combined. Looks pretty cool actually.

The Hit Dagger, a type of short blade weapon, is uniquely stored on the back of the lower leg.

There's an opening gimmick on the shoulder armor... though I'm not sure what it's for~?

The shoulder armor gimmick is unique, allowing it to deploy into that unusual shape.

The cross structure on the back can be adjusted to more angles than it looks.

Separating the Core Fighter.

Once you pull out the core block, the back looks pretty bare~

The process of transforming the stored Core Fighter into flight mode. The gimmick feels pretty solid when you handle it.

The Crossbone Core Fighter has a pretty unique look.

It kind of looks like a space shuttle.

In terms of length, it's probably the longest Core Fighter out there...

The Crossbone Gundam X1 can be built in three slightly different versions: the normal type, X1 Kai, and X1 Kai Kai.
For the X1 Kai Kai, the chest armor is swapped out for a skull armor, which looks way cooler @o@ ~
And before release there was a lot of speculation that it would just be handled with stickers,
but they actually gave it proper three-dimensional depth as a separate part. (Thanks, Bandai!)

The rear skirt also differs depending on the version.

The rear skirt of the X1 Kai/Kai Kai stores a weapon called the Screw Whip.
It can be recreated by attaching insulated wire.
The screw tip at the end comes molded in plain white, so I went ahead and partially painted it dark gray.

Outer armor removed

The inner frame. The basic frame structure is largely reused from the MG F91.

The arm frame is similar to the F91, but differs slightly due to the additional structure added to the forearm.

Because of the space needed to store the large Core Fighter, there's no inner frame in the upper body.

The head also has a bit of a skeleton-like frame structure...

The leg frame is the same as the F91's, except for the knee cover and ankle section.

And the tight knee cover issue that was a problem with the MG F91 has been cleanly resolved.
It slides in nice and smooth ^_^

Inner frame action shot. (Bodybuilding pose?)

The highlight of the Crossbone Gundam is definitely the ABC (Anti Beam Coating) mantle!

To attach the mantle, you first need to fold the cross structure on the back like this.

The material is apparently a type of ultra-thin nylon, and the front and back sides feel different.
One side has a matte fabric feel, while the other is slightly shiny.
The matte side is meant to face outward.

But... maybe because it's a type of nylon, it doesn't crease very easily.
So it's hard to get natural-looking folds... it's just too smooth.

To attach it, the instructions say to first cut off the rounded ends with scissors...
But if you're just going to cut them off, I'm not sure why they bothered making them so nicely rounded in the first place. -.-;

The back of the mantle's neckline requires making a unique reinforcement piece to wrap around the neck.
First, you attach the included double-sided tape and insulated wire like this...

Then you roll it up tightly inward and bend it to fit the shape of the neck so it stays in place.
The adhesion on the double-sided tape is a bit underwhelming though ;; It's worse than your average store-bought double-sided tape.
Once you bend the insulated wire firmly into shape, the tape doesn't come loose. Just be careful while you're rolling it up.

There are 4 mantle attachment gimmicks in total, on the chest and shoulders.
First, open up the gimmicks to attach the mantle.

Starting from the left shoulder, align each hole one by one to position the mantle,
then press the locking pin back toward the body to secure it in place.

Next, insert the mantle's holes into the right-side gimmick and close the locking pin — mantle attachment complete.
However, the locking pins don't hold super tight... so be careful, as the mantle can come loose if you pull on it.

Here it is with the mantle draped on. The material doesn't fold easily, so the overall look is a bit...

This is giving me total poncho vibes ;;
It seems like you'll need to figure out some technique to get natural-looking folds like in the manual photos.

The articulation is similar to the F91. However, compared to the F91, the skirt armor is a bit more restrictive,
and the ankle range of motion feels more limited.

The shoulders move forward quite a bit, but don't raise up very high.

Kneeling poses come naturally enough...

Action po~se

Separating the Zanbuster.

The Beam Zanber and Buster Gun.

The Beam Zanber looks pretty awesome. The grip section really does look like a pirate's sword.

Hit Dagger action.

The front skirt armor can be used as a pincer weapon called the Scissor Anchor.

Connect the separate chain parts to complete the scissor anchor action pose!

Screw whip action pose

Interestingly, the beam saber is inserted horizontally into the shoulder.

Beam saber action pose

Since it uses the F91's frame, the F91's stand mount point is still there. So..

Borrowed the F91 stand for a bit. :-)

Stand action~ Yeah, more natural poses are possible..

Flight pose with the stand angle adjusted

Flying kick pose. It's a bit less natural compared to the F91.

You can also plug the heat dagger into the sole of the foot.
By nature, pulling off action poses without a stand is kind of..

ABC cloak pose. The cloak really does look like it's been ironed a bit too well;;

Poncho Gundam : "I can fight even in the rain!" ;;;

Since it only uses about 70% of the F91's internal frame, the rest ends up as leftover parts like that.

Comparison with its predecessor, the MG F91. Same frame, same height.

Calling it a color variant would be a stretch — it's basically a completely different kit.

Together with the Wing Early Ver.Ka. All roughly the same height.. the smallest MS of the bunch.

Together with the MG First Katoki Hajime version, the standard 18cm size. It's definitely on the small side compared to a standard MS.

Ver.Ka set of 4.

Our Crossbone with its unique style and charisma~