As a mecha fan I was pretty stoked for the Robotech Tactics game when it was announced on Kickstarter. I put my money down, then tried to ignore all the gloom, doom, and hysteria among my fellow supporters when the first delay was announced. HG (Holy shit) Palladium and Ninja put out like 160 email updates over the following year, so I was OK with what was going on; I never once believed I wouldn’t get what I paid for.
Turns out that I was just over the 300th person to get shipped, and today I got my game in the mail. Still no Roy Fokker, but someone told me that’s a later wave.
Anyway, let’s get this unboxing started.
First, the box:
Some of these photos are going to be on top my dusty used piano in front of my “charming” wallpaper, so just go ahead and get used to it. This is a big box. Even bigger than the Battletech Anniversary game box. Again, here is a GW Space Marine for comparison.
And I’ve fiddled with the contrast and brightness of the individual pictures to try and get the best out of my non-professional camera and improvised photo stage. But yeah, there is the front of the box. When I got the box from the UPS man (who I waited for all day like a sniper) there was a lot of rattling around. I expected some of that, but I had hear that the frames would be in bags. I was afraid I would open the box and there would be a thousand little parts falling off their runners, but there wasn’t:
The piano is a recent addition, and I haven’t dusted it off since I moved it into my house all by myself. While the neighbors stood there drinking beer and watching me do it. Not once offering to help. But whatever, here’s the pile of sprues on top of my dusty piano:
Gaming accessories. Honestly I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at them. Just, “Yep, they look OK.” I am pretty happy I got the faction dice, though. I don’t remember if that’s a standard part of the game or was just for the Kickstarter supporters.
The book was pretty hefty, too. I remember the old 2nd Ed Battletech rulebooks which were pretty slim and just stapled together, and I guess I was expecting something more or less like that. Did they talk about the book size in the KS? I don’t remember:
I flipped through the book trying to figure out which pages to show as examples, then settled on Skull Leader and the “Jotun”. I really wanted to get the Jotun with the KS, because I really enjoyed the Orguss anime. Except for the last five minutes, because I STILL don’t know exactly what the hell happened. But man, that OP is fun. Anyway, I eventually want to get a set of Jotuns and modify one back to the original design and paint scheme, just because.
I haven’t opened the card packs yet, but here they are. They are packed so that you can see all the Defender related cards. The mid sized one is a regular poker card size, the small one is the same size as the X-Wing Minis game cards, and the large one is roughly the size of an index card. I assume these are standard industry sizes. They look good in person.
Examples of the UEDF sprues:
I have no idea why only one was in a package and the others were not.
A couple of them were twice the size of the others.
And then you get these two Destroid sprues. I will probably put these together first. UNSEEN, BITCHES!
Moving on to the Zentraedi forces:
And the cool one:
I happen to have a scale model of the Glaug, still on the sprues, so I thought I would do a size comparison for anybody who might find that interesting.
Had to switch to a green background so the white plastic would actually show up in the picture.
And also just because, a comparison between the Robotech Tactics assembly instructions versus the scale model assembly instructions:
I have no comments on this subject; go to the KS comments page for that mess. I’m just putting up things I find interesting.
And while I’m at it, the UEDF assembly instructions on the flip-side:
A bad picture of the transfers, included for completion’s sake:
Along with the inserts about the release waves:
There was a couple of other things about other games of Ninja Division like Tentacle Bento, and Rifts or whatever, but I didn’t feel like taking pictures of that stuff.
So, there is all that. Someday when I least expect it I will get an email about my Roy Fokker model coming in the mail, and I’ll maybe do something about that, too. I don’t know. I have so many models to assemble and paint. I’ve got a backlog like you wouldn’t believe, and that was before even all this arrived…
Whatever. If I ever got finished then it wouldn’t be a hobby.
Reviresco!
Romantic Antihero™ 