Revell sucks at launching new kits. While other brands have started figuring out how to market new kits on this crazy thing called the internet and others have found proxies to get the word out for them, Revell persists in being terrible at the whole game. Literally up to the day the first boxes started landing with various retailers in Europe, nobody knew for sure when the kit was shipping. There was nothing to build any kind of buzz around. And now that the kit is out in Europe, there’s no word of when it’ll make its way stateside.

It’s sloppy in the extreme. But it doesn’t change the fact that a new-tool Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6 is kind of a big deal. For all the moaning out there about “great, another 109…”, there are really only two players when it comes to a 1/32 Gustav – Hasegawa and Trumpeter. Both have their strengths, but both also have very real weaknesses. Revell – particularly with its ability to push competitive kits at better-than-competitive pricepoints – has one hell of an opening.

Scale Plastic and Rail recently threw down what has to be the definitive in-box review of Revell’s new kit, but those of us on staff have decided to go one better, and do a group build review. It’s been a fun, enlightening journey, and I can’t wait until we push Part I live any day now. In the meantime, here’s a quick tease of where my G-6 is at, and a few brief thoughts about the kit.

Overall, Revell’s put together a very commendable effort here. Their 109 packs some fantastic and creative engineering, and in many ways it absolutely blows Hasegawa’s Messerschmitt out of the water. In other ways, however, it seems to backslide with clunky execution or some overly ambitious ideas that just don’t work out all that well. At this stage in the build, I honestly have to call it a wash between the Revell and the Hasegawa. Each is better at some things, and less so at others.

More to come once the group build review starts rolling out – stay tuned!