Opening the box: Votoms 1/48 AG-VTM03 Chaos Space

As much as I've been working on hacking away at the queue (or more honestly, thinking about doing so), I'm far more successful at adding things to it. On the plus side, of late I've been pretty good at minimizing the genres I'm working on. As noted previously, I'm working on a VASA force with thoughts of using it as an Imperial Guard proxy (when I'm not simply using it as itself in more reasonable game systems). The other force I've been working on is another Imperial Guard type force inspired more by Kevin Dallimore's work for the Hammer's Slammers game. Today's piece had this force in mind.

With HobbyLink Japan running a phenomenal discount on shipping recently, I broke down and ordered a few items I've had my eye on for a while: 1/48 Votoms kits at 70% off. I ordered them on Sunday and promptly got an email telling me they were closed for the weekend, but they would process my order as soon as they opened on Monday. Monday they told me my order had shipped, and that Friday everything arrived. That's better than some stuff I order in country!

On my way out the door to work, the mail truck showed up with my package. I even managed to resist opening it until I got home so that I could finally try documenting one of these. So I present: the box.

From Votoms

They even have their own company boxes, so you can show off to all the other geeks who will lust after your toys!

Opening it up reveals...

From Votoms

Swag!

From Votoms

That they carefully shrink wrapped! My first order from these guys, and I'm definitely pleased.

I picked up the Saint Seiya kits because they were on massive markdown ($4 apiece, or so) and because they'll give me a little practice working with chromed plastic that I need to do before another working on another kit I have. The relevant kits for today are:

From Votoms

I'm very pleased with the production values on these. Nice, matte boxes with great photography to give to an idea of what's in the box and what the model is capable of. Today's kit: Chaos Space!

From Votoms

If only I could actually read Japanese.

Popping open the box reveals...

From Votoms

Not very much on the tray, but underneath we have

From Votoms

Bags upon bags of stuff! And the full package deal:

From Votoms

Before we get to the suit itself, let's take a look inside the baggies. The first one is the display base.

From Votoms

The pegs on the pieces and the holes on the base might lead you to think that there's this wonderful Lego-like free construction ability. Unfortunately, it's pretty much exactly the opposite situation: pegs are set at spaces to precisely fit into a couple of places. Most of the holes are more to hold things like flexible rubber smoke markers and the like.

Ripping into bag number two reveals...

From Votoms

These sprues are of a softer plastic than in the other two bags. I'm not sure how it will take most paint either, though they managed to make *some* kind of paint stick to the smoke and missile effects.

The figures are...

From Votoms

Yeah. Posing and proportions are good, but I wonder whether it was a lack of effort or limitations of the casting material that made for all of the soft detail. I still plan on trying to base and paint them, as they look like they'll be decent unarmed science fiction civilians. However, I'm not expecting to put too much effort into them.

Finally, opening bag #3, we have...

From Votoms

Everything else. All of the armor bits, additional hands, weapons, the pilot, and so on. Paper inserts include...

a datacard, pre-punched for your favorite toy collection binder:

From Votoms

a nameplate standee:

From Votoms

a catalog of other toys:

From Votoms

and the requisite instructions:

From Votoms

The sprues in this set vary in hardness of material, with some of them in styrene and others in the rubbery material shown above. Again, bits of the sprues are pre-painted:

From Votoms

The pilot figure is tucked away on one of the sprues, but it looks a bit small to me. Even comparing it to the smallest of the figures provided, it looks diminutive (though this could be an illusion):

From Votoms

But what about the Votoms itself?

From Votoms

Pretty danged cool! As you can tell, there are very few visible screws holding the thing together, and the paint is subtle, but reasonable enough that it can be left as is. I suspect that if you want to touch up the edges and corners to look a little more abused, the kit would hold it just fine as the bulk of the model is styrene. Articulation abounds, and it's designed to be able to fold forward and pop open to allow for a convenient escape. The head rotates, the lens assembly slides and rotates, elbows, shoulders, ankles, and so on all move quite acceptably.

What does it look like with everything in place?

From Votoms

As an idea, check out the feet here:

From Votoms

The spikes are retractable, for when the unit is firing its cannon. In the words of Eric Cartman, "Sweeet."

Odd details include the slots in the back for the backpack mounting brackets:

From Votoms

This is a small detail on this particular version that you might need to fill in if you want to use it without the massive backpack. (I confess, I'm not familiar with the series or any of the differences between the units.)

Lining everything up, you get

From Votoms

The model is about 3.5" high, so a little shorter than the average Star Wars figure. Unfortunately, the spokesminis seem to be on a little vacation, so comparison photos will need to wait. In the meantime, I can say that eyeballing the Votoms figures vs. an Infinity mini (the Aleph Naga, to be specific) shows them to be right on the money.

Pluses: from what I can tell, it's a spot on sculpt. Scale is quite good, even if I need to compare the pilot vs. some other 1/48 pilot models. And there's nothing saying you can't just mandate that pilots be smaller... I seem to remember the Air Force having height caps. Articulation is sufficient, and the paint is decent. At the discounted price, it's an excellent value.

Minuses: I'm not sure why they chose to model the figures with so little detail, for all of the detail they put into the rest of the set. Some of the detail bits are very fragile: note the left knee in the pics. There's supposed to be a plastic rail there that I managed to snap while getting it in place. I'm planning on replacing it (and a few other bits) with brass rod for added survivability. Finally, there's a lot of parts that are just pressed into place, like the elbow guard extensions and the bum plate. I'm planning on supergluing them in place, but I'd like to make sure that they're all secured before I use this in a game. The clips for the backpack suffer from this fate as well, and I'm not sure if I'd rather have this unit with the pack or not. If I want the pack, the clips need affixing, and if not, the slots will need filling and paint matching. Finally, since it's a pre-assembled toy, there isn't much room for customizing things like limb length (sorry, Inso)

All in all, I'm very happy with the purchase, both from the product point of view and the seller's service. I'm definitely going to have to order more of these... preferably before folks like Frothers swoop in and grab the rest :)

Next up... the Assemble Troopers Marshydog!