The sci-fi series Maschinen Krieger was created by artist Kow Yokoyama in the early 1980s, first appearing in the popular magazine Hobby Japan. The series was inspired by armor and aircraft from both World Wars, as well as several iconic science fiction films. Today, Maschinen Krieger continues to have a devoted cult following, thanks to its celebrated return to Hobby Japan magazine in 2009. The franchise originally began as the science fiction series SF3D which ran as monthly installments in the Japanese hobby magazine Hobby Japan from 1982 to 1985.
To develop the storyline, Kow Yokoyama collaborated with Hiroshi Ichimura as story editor and Kunitaka Imai as a graphic designer. The three creators drew visual inspiration from their combined interest in World War I and World War II armor and aircraft, the American space program, and films such as Star Wars, Blade Runner, and The Road Warrior.
At the 2008 Nuremberg Toy Fair in Germany, the Hasegawa company – known mostly for its line of military and civilian vehicles — announced plans to carry the Ma.K license, having successfully branched into pop culture franchises such as Macross. Hasegawa’s venture into the franchise came with the release of the Pkf 85 Falke attack craft in March 2009. The company’s Ma.K line has since expanded to at least ten kits either 1/35 or 1/20 scale, including a 1/35 Scale Nutrocker tank and the Mk44 humanoid mecha suit from Robot Battle V, a side story to the franchise.
- Highly detailed plastic pieces
- Limited edition
- Waterslide decals
- Illustrated instructions
- Scale: 1/35
- Length: 12.12″ (308mm)
- Kit Number 64111
- Width: 7″ (178mm)
- Skill level: 3
- Parts: 217
- MSRP: $109.99
- Street Price: $96.99
Ready to be added next to our built 1/20 Maschinen Krieguer TYPE 44 Robot. is this recently finished 1/35 P.K.H. 103 Nutcraker ”Kampfgruppe BALCK” from Hasegawa. As I previously mentioned on our Facebook page, this model lends itself to artistic license. If you build armor, you’ll see familiar parts ”bashed” and used on this model. Matilda, Panther, and Tiger parts are visible.  I went on to add a few more parts at random. In fact, I lost one part from this model to the dreaded carpet monster and this wasn’t a big deal. If you have experience with modern armor kits, you can spot the part 😉
The bottom side of this kit has a very nicely represented fictional ”propulsion” system. This area is very good to add more ‘greeblies’. I plan to display this one on a diorama later on. I didn’t want to waste the chance to illuminate the search lamp so I added a 12v microlitz LED. Besides that, 3 more LEDs (blinking RGB, Green, and Orange) Â were added to add some operational lighting inside the vehicle guts. This side was not open originally; so it was opened using a scribbling tool.
Random greeblies from a 1/48 Academy F-86F turnine and other 1/35 random parts were also added. The small box in which the parts are in was made with .040 styrene sheet.
This model kit includes a very good quality decal sheet.
It does come with camouflage pattern suggestions. I decided to choose Model Master Acryl Sand 4720 as the base color with Tamiya Gray Green XF-76 for the pattern. After airbrushing the green parts and a fine mist of the base color was added to fade the green a little bit. After a coat of Glosscote, decals came on and were further sealed with an extra coat of Testors Glosscote to protect them from the upcoming weathering. For the initial wash, I used Ammo by Mig A.MIG 1007 brown from their U.S. Modern vehicles set A.MIG 7410. Other washes in selective areas were also used along with streaking effects.
All in all, to me this is a great model kit for a non-too-common subject. The diorama possibilities with this kit are endless with many add-on accessories already available from military scale 1/35 miniatures either styrene or resin. For example, the jerry cans used on this one came from Tamiya’s set 35026.
If you have an affinity for sci-fi and mecha look no further. If you want to get your modeling skills on something different for a change, say no more. The Hasegawa Nutcracker is for you.
Highly Recommended!
My sincere thanks to Hasegawa USA for the review sample and our good friends from Ammo by Mig Jimenez for providing their weathering products used on this model.
