Thursday, April 7, 2011

Preparing for 2nd Geonosis - Part 2

Hello again!

With my new "minimally employed" status, I've had more opportunity to work on my hobbies and get chores done around the homestead. Yesterday I spent most of the day painting the terrain for my Kublacon '11 event, The Second Battle of Geonosis. I had sculpted the terrain last weekend (thanks to the folks at Hot Wire Foam Factory!), and yesterday I got the base colors down. Tomorrow I'll do the dry brushing (Hello Unbleached Titanium - right Jochen? :) ) and that task will be done. That will leave me to polish the rules and figure stats after Saturday's playtest.

Here are some more comparison snaps of other products versus the WoTC Star Wars figures. First is the new Revell Republic Gunship.



As you can see, the model scales well enough next to the WoTC figure to make it a very usable option. The figures in the cockpit (and a few more come with it to stand inside the ship) are somewhere between 15mm and 20mm, however, the model is large enough that it can easily scale as a transport for 10-15 troopers, no worries. The flight stand is well done and I may actually use it in play (I was originally considering going to the BattlePole, and I still might).

I also want to say that this model is a bitch to put together. It has a lot fewer pieces than the AT-TE model I reviewed last, but so many of the parts are designed to be mobile that it makes the thing very difficult to assemble without parts falling everywhere. In fact, there are many doors that are supposed to fold or slide open, but they just kept falling out for me so I ended up gluing them all in place. No loss as far as I'm concerned. I have one more kit and I will pre-glue them which will save time on assembly. My attempt to assemble it as instructed (i.e. with opening doors) took over an hour. I'm betting I can put one together in 45 minutes if I don't bother with opening doors.

Next is the Micromachine MTT playset. I found this one on eBay for around $40 plus shipping. I don't know if that's a fair price or not, but for me, that's awesome considering I don't have to paint it and it took about 2 minutes to assemble.



Now this toy scales GREAT with the WoTC figures! I can easily imagine it carrying 40+ droids into battle. I'm going to get one more so I can have two thunder across the plains to terrify the foe... until they remember just how crappy the B1 battledroids are. :)

I have two of the Revell ATT tanks coming. They will be next on my comparison list, along with one of the 3" action figure ATT toy tanks. I'm betting the Revell kits will be the better choice.

I'll post some more snaps after Saturday's playtest. Cheers!

- Rod

No comments:

Post a Comment