)This kit was made in 2013 by Meng to go with one of their Merkava kits. It depicts an IDF tank crew at rest. I bought it from Mako Modellbau for €11,50 but it can be found cheaper.
Let's start with some lovely cover art of the four included figures:
CONTENTS OVERVIEW
But of course it's what's IN the box that counts. You get two sprues, one containing the figures and a second, clear sprue containing four different types of water bottles, two of each type.
Both sprues were individually bagged and the clear sprue has an extra plastic foil wrapper around it to protect the plastic, very nice!
I would have liked to have seen a small sheet of decals with labels for the water bottles, but alas.
INSTRUCTIONS
No instruction sheet included, as with most figure kits what you need is on the box.
The side shows the colors you need, only Vallejo Model Color, unfortunately.
At the back is the assembly guide and painting instructions, all of it seems pretty straightforward.
QUALITY & DETAIL
I haven't done a lot of figures but I'd say the molding quality is what you'd expect from your average injection molded figures.
Ejector pin marks are all on the sprue and the runners, nothing on the parts.
There are some mold lines on the parts but nothing huge.
Only bit of flash I could find was on the commander's helmet
Sprue gates are mostly put at the mating surfaces
undergating is used where needed.
Only exception are the pouches for the tank commander
So far it looks like not much cleanup will be required and the molding quality seems nice.
CONSTRUCTION AND FIT
My biggest problem with most inbox reviews is that even the nicest looking kit can have horrible fit issues. So, for the sake of completeness I will do some test fitting on one of the figures and I might add a full build report later on.
I'll be building the guy with the hat. As expected not much cleanup was needed on the parts. The most visible mold line was on the left leg and I managed to scrape that off with a hobby knife. An overview of the parts:
The Bangles would be proud.
Here's the torso halves glued together. There was a tiny gap on the right shoulder but when you use TET and press the halves together most of it disappears. Yes, my nails are dirty.
There's still a visible line but no real gaps to speak of. A minimal amount of filler and a bit of scraping should do the trick.
The legs also go together nicely butt this crack may need to be filled.
I attached the legs and the arms to the torso. I did these at the same time because they all interconnect and I wanted to be able to move things around a bit where necessary. I'm happy to say that I had no trouble getting them in position, everything fit very snugly.The hands both fit neatly on top of the leg.
Tiny hole here, not very noticeable.
I like how they created a clear distinction between the shirt and the pants. There's also a slight curve in both mating surfaces to help you position the part correctly.
The feet also fit nicely, note the detail on the soles.
I don't want to glue on the head yet because I want to adjust its position according to the diorama it's meant to go in. I also left off the hat to make painting easier but as you can see below it will have no problem fitting on the head.
Bit of a stereotypical face, eh, Meng?
CONCLUSION
I have to admit, my initial reaction was, "average, but they'll do". After putting one together I must say I'm rather impressed. They actually put some thought into the way these are constructed and the fit is very good. Detail-wise, they don't hold a candle to what you can get with resin but for plastic figures I'd say these are very nice. Recommended!
