Monday, November 11, 2013

Smartmax Mauser Earth Unboxing


So, eventually I'll have to stop unboxing stuff and actually work on something. But not yet...

Today I'm sharing the goodies I got from SmartMax. I saw their photos of the 1/35 scale Mauser Earth Tacbots some time ago on their Facebook page. I really liked the retro steambot sort of aesthetic so when I found myself with a bit of money in the Paypal account, I decided to grab them.

While on the site to grab the Tacbots, I stumbled on another robot along the same lines. "Streetbot Willy"... just the name is cool, but the mini is pretty cool looking too! So, he had to come home with the others. I keep thinking there is an awesome Weird War I diorama in this bunch somewhere.

What's an unboxing without a box...
Turns out I live in Etats Unis and Tacbots are born in France...




In the top of the box is a card which touts their 5eu worldwide shipping. Of course, if you have the card, you probably already know about the shipping...

First up is "Buster". He's from Canada, eh!
My Canada assumption is based on the maple leaf...
 

The cast looks really clean and there are no defects that I can find. Mold lines are so hard to find I'm wondering how much of this might be cast in a single part mold then pulled out complete. Whatever they are doing, it works.

The other two Tacbots share a common physiology with only the weapons being different. For the next two Tacbots I'll just show the items unique to the bot... and the base. They also share a common base, but it is a nice base. In fact, the high quality overall remains throughout all the kits.

"Harpo" is next with a shotgun type weapon...

Then we have "Chuck" with dual pistols completing the Tacbot triad...

The Tacbots are part of the Mauser Earth "Atlantic Union" so I think continuing off the maple leaf motif of buster and making the other two bots from the US and UK might be a nice running theme. As you can see from the pictures of the part above, there is a lot of freedom for posing as the arms and legs are basically just ball joints throughout.

The last item in the box is Streetbot Willy! It's fun just saying his name. I imagine him to be the civilian bot refitted for violent shenanigans. While he is all different parts from the Tacbots, he still manages to maintain the same retro vibe.
The Willy-bits, including the one damaged bit in the whole box.
Willy's parts are all excellently cast, like the Tacbots. Willy does have the one damaged part in the whole shipment. You can see where I've drawn a black arrow between the two parts of the arm that are no longer connected. Since this is obviously a weak point, I'll reinforce it with a pin.

Overall I'm pretty happy with these guys. As I mentioned, I think they'd make a great diorama... maybe striking heroic poses while some soldiers are taking cover behind them? I can't imagine 1/35 scale soldiers will be hard to find... I'm looking at you Tamyia.

Thanks for stopping by, if you have any questions or comments... well, leave a comment.

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