Toys: Destroid Tomahawk
Posted on : 03-08-2011 | By : Cacophanus | In : Toys/Kits
Hardware: PlayStation Portable
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Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent the 1/60 Destroid Tomahawk (Weathered Version) toy from Super Dimension Fortress Macross that’s on sale. This particular design is a unique one though as it has had some quite massive ramifications on mecha gaming over the years.
The original MBR-04-Mk.VI Destroid Tomahawk was a stopgap of sorts to deal with the new potential threat of giant aliens arriving on our doorstep. It was also one of the most heavily armed of all the Destroids in Macross, brimming with a large array of weapons as well as the ability to swap out some of them on hardpoints.
Designed by the often overlooked Kazutaka Miyatake, it shares many design similarities to his take on the powered armor from the Starship Troopers anime (though obviously much larger). But the Tomahawk’s legacy is a far broader one to just Macross and anime as whole.
The Tomahawk’s main impact was as one of several designs from the early 80’s that made their way into BattleTech (and by extension MechWarrior as well). In many ways, the Tomahawk went further too as it almost implicitly created the rulesets that ultimately defined how the BattleMechs in BattleTech work. Dubbed the Warhammer, the Tomahawk eventually became part of the Unseen when several rights holders took BattleTech’s owners to the cleaners for using their designs without permission. Whilst these designs were no longer usable in their original form, their effect is one that’s still very apparent.
In addition, the legal issues are still very much with us. With the Tomahawk/Warhammer especially being the cornerstone of many of the same rights issues again.
Either way, the Tomahawk has become an incredibly important design. Not only did it look very cool in Macross but inadvertently acted as the springboard for a whole branch of Western mechanical design (especially for games). To say that BattleTech wouldn’t be what it is without the original Unseen mecha, including the Tomahawk, would be a pretty fair appraisal. This toy from Yamato then has a lot of heritage attached to it
Toy: 1/60 Destroid Tomahawk Olive-Drab Weathering Special Version
Price: 7,800 yen yen
Size/Weight: 27.0 x 25.5 x 14.0 cm / 880g
The sculpt, as you can see, is very accurate and the weathering on this version is also very nicely done too. In terms of articulation it’s not bad but the host design was meant to be quite rigid. The only issue we found on this front was around the hip as the joint there made it tip back a bit.
In terms of gimmicks all the missile covers open, as does the cockpit. The toy can also be disassembled from the torso and chest areas. The toy even comes with two little figures of human technicians, to help emphasise the scale no doubt.
In addition to all this, the figure also has a sheet of transfers to add a variety of markings. We didn’t apply these for this review however as we wanted to show the toy in its out of the box condition.
Considering the reduced price, it’s an excellent figure and one with a broader history to boot.
I wonder what happened to MW5?
Still in development. The legal issues were settled a bit ago, though the main dev has been pretty quiet on what’s going on with it due to being under an NDA.
LoL,it should be done by the time we here about it.Hope they make it feel like MW2 instead of MW4.
I reckon it will be. Pirahanna Games was sub-contracted to work on console-side stuff for Duke Nukem Forever, so they’re likely back on 3015.
As for how the game turns out, well, I’d love it to be a bit like MW3 but with MW4’s hard points for limiting the gun-bagginess of ‘mechs.
Cest la vie, couldn’t turn out worse than MechAssault (a competent game that pretty much raped an entire franchise, GG Microsoft).
I just want a game that is a good representation of Battletech as a whole.Mechs are only the tip of the spear but I rarely felt threatened by anything that didn’t have legs is MW4.
It’d be nice, but it’s called “MechWarrior” for a reason, after all.
I gotta say the Yamato Tomahawk and the Defender I own look really nice together on a shelf with a few 1/60 VFs and the 1/24 Labors that they made as well.
I just hope Yamato makes a 1/6 Scale Maruader from the 1989 OVA that I believe is the closest we are going to see to the concept of Mobile Infantry I’ve seen thus far
I was exiting an internet shop one day when i saw one of these tromping down the inclined street outside. It was massive and noisy and it tore through telephone and power lines. It had a blunt looking color like a tank and was pretty muddy around its legs. It’s gait was nothing like the humanoid robots from the car companies and that robot olympics. This one had flexing toes that gave it a spring in its step. Every time it landed a foot the ground trembled slightly and the seemingly settled dust would rise abruptly causing a low fog. There would be cracks and depressions in the pavement where its feet landed possibly due to its immense weight and the lack of padding in its soles. It moved quite nimbly for a gargantuan and yet you could see a natural sluggishness upon its deliberate movements. It covered nearly a dozen blocks in mere seconds when it strode away into the distance.
At least that’s how i imagined it would be. And it remains awe-inspiring within to this very day.
I had a cheap plastic Mechwarrior toy version of this ages ago. It was pretty cool but obviously this is much more impressive.
Wish I still had it.