AMT/ERTL Star Wars Corporate Alliance Droid Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (it seems like last year in my local theater), George Lucas completed his final installment to the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy depicting the rise of Darth Vader. In this episode, we're also introduced to one of many combat droids (robots) used in the epic battles that led to the fall of the Republic.

AMT/ERTL has released this all-terrain attack droid in styrene and has made a rather simple build of it to boot. Molded in light gray styrene, this is guaranteed to be a quick build straight out of the box. What will take a little time is deciding how to finish the model.

From the stunning box art, you can see that this droid is essentially gray and yellow, with the tank tracks black or a dark gray. The problem here is that while the instructions show a nice listing of colors used in the kit, there are no indicators showing which color goes where on the model. Bummer. At least this project isn't rocket science.

I really like the massive pre-molded track. There will be no time spent trying to get track links or sections of track to match that shape!

The rest of the hull comes together around this track loop, with the outrigger tracks going on either side of the main section. The main blasters and sensors go on last, and you have yourself a droid.

In the unlikely event that you want a factory-fresh droid on your self, you'll have to pay close attention to the colors used in the box art. If you're going to do a combat veteran like I am, then painting will only serve as the foundation for some serious weathering!

This is a cool little kit. I hope they'll fix the painting instructions in the next release of this kit, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out - I mean it isn't like this droid will ever physically exist now, right? This kit is definitely recommended.

My sincere thanks to RC2 for this review sample!