Mini Review (Ha, get it?): Action Base Mini

Hey Builders, 

Instead of a new build for you today, I have something else that I thought would be interesting to you, my faithful readers. 

I don't know about you, but I found myself at a point where I was buying a lot of kits, and I ended up having to decide which kits got action bases, and which would look OK in a standing pose. Buying the Action Bases from Bandai were just too costly, for something like that, but also too much of a hassle to put together each and every time. I still have 2 or 3 action bases sitting in my backlog that I haven't built. While they are still pretty nice, I can be lazy at times, and I just wanted a decent stand to prop my gunpla up on my shelf; think back to the Gundam SEED HG kits from the 2000s that came with those black action bases for example, or more recently, the AGE-2 and 3 kits. 

I happened to stumble upon something that I thought was interesting while perusing GundamPlanet for some "revenge gifts"* for my friends. 

*revenge gifts are defined as gifts you buy for your friends because they blindsided you and bought you an unwarranted gift for whatever reason, and in order to get back to equilibrium, you must buy them a gift, so as to not feel guilty. 

Anyways, the new "Action Base Mini" completely went past my radar, have you guys heard of these? I haven't heard any news of them until I saw them. 

They seem to be marketed more towards SD kits, and lighter HG kits. They have a very simple design, and are also fairly cheap. My friend picked me up a pack for just under $5 USD. They come in packs of two as well, so if you can imagine, thats about $2.50 each! Not bad. 

Let's take a look!

Upon opening the plastic bag (just like the other action bases) you are met with two identical runners, with 3 pieces each. You have one V shaped base, with two parts for the actual stand that plug into each other. 

Takes about a minute to cut them all out, and put them all together. No hassle cutting out multiple pieces, screwing them together, etc. Very simple!

When you put them together, you have a few options. Refer to the image above this one, and you can see that the piece that connects to the base has three holes, which corresponds to the two holes on the top piece, which holds your gunpla. You can do a straight up pose, up to three levels high. What is pictured is the highest point. You can also do a forward tilt, similar to the action base #2, but without the second joint to tilt it even further, or compensate. For this tilt, you can only put the pegs into the top hole. You adjust the height by choosing the top or bottom peg on the top piece. 

The reason this kit reminded me of an SD stand, is because of this. Very similar in shape and size, very simple. The action base here comes from the SD Sinanju. 

As you can see, the stand holds the Sinanju without a problem. 

You can also tilt it forward. 

The stand still holds a heavier, larger HG kit like the ReZEL Defenser without too much of an issue. I would be more hesitant to do this though, especially if you lean it too much to one side, I'm sure it could pop out. 

It can definitely lean forward, but at the highest point, even though I could get it to stay, it kept wanting to fall forward. Definitely not recommended. 

I would keep it at the lower peg, to keep a lower center of gravity. This didn't give me any issues. However, I would be wary of the lean to the side where it could fall off again. 

I actually liked this stand for the Barbatos. It is a lighter kit, and you can get some good poses out of it. I think I like seeing the Barbatos come swooping down from the sky with its melee weapons. 

Here's another look. These stands are probably best reserved for lighter HG kits. 

They also can connect, so that you can pose multiple kits together. This will definitely prove useful, as you can probably counter balance kits using this method. Keep in mind, each pack comes with 2, so you can build up your collection fairly quickly!

They aren't, however, compatible with the action base #2, which is disappointing. I was hoping that they would fit inside the new action base mini, similar to the 00 Raiser base. 

I personally think this stand is right up my alley, as it is very simple to build, and fulfills most of my needs. I have a lot of HG kits, and now I can put most of them, if not all of them on action bases. Its cheap enough that you won't break the bank getting a large amount. 

However, I don't trust its structural integrity for larger HG kits, but you may find a way to make it work. It also only has the peg insert for kits, and probably will not work with older kits that do not have the hole in the crotch. (teehee). One good thing about the Action Base 2, was that it had multiple adapters. 

 Definitely something to at least look into for your kits!

Until next time!