OK, first things first. It comes in a cardboard box. Slash that open with your aggressive knife. Um, carefully. Don't lose fingers. Red is a Christmas colour, but let's be sensible. Then the main elements are held in a plastic bag. A piece of paper dishonestly informs you how to assemble the kit. I had reason to peer at this paper as I attempted an honest construction, and came to discover how this small image was supposed to resemble that tiny part. Rely on it when it bids you join this large piece to that, and cast it into the outer darkness when it enjoins you to glue this radio to that turret. In short, joining big bits to large bits is fine, but uniting small ones with large ones is tricky, if using this corporate map thingy.
The kit is a bit odd. It comes with a turret, but if you attach the turret in the advised way it's but a static mount. It will not rotate. The gun is inarguably ugly, and - to an erstwhile 40k-player - somewhat ugly. So I trimmed off the end of the gun, and all the doodahs on the hull which could have negatively impacted it. I decorated the hull a bit, and with some plasticard sealed off the underside of the hull, hoping to make it seem reasonable. Fans of plausibility should probably try a bit harder, making the body of the beast somewhat deeper. Not such a problem for me. Notes: polystyrene cement is useless here. Use superglue. The tracks have no detail. There are multiple tanks available - I saw an M1A1 kit, but didn't buy it. I have added more detail to the vehicle, but we'll visit that in Part II.
