Review: Hitech Miniatures Giant Panzer Wolf "Vilk"

The Blood Angel is for size comparison. 

First reaction upon laying eyes on the package and realising the size of that thing is best described with a "WHOA!". It is quite impressive. Now if you really want to talk about the elephant in the room then yes, giant bionic wolves in space are beyond b-grade hilarious. Sweeping the elephant elegantly under the rug to make room for the giant bionic wolf in space, I'll be taking a closer look at it after the break. Hit "read more/läs mer" to get the full review.

Yup - HUUUUUGE

So the initial reaction is mostly directed at it's size. It's a huge sucker at 130mm long and 55mm high. It seriously dwarfs everything that is supposed to be riding it and the sculpted in space marine legs are uncomfortably wide apart to accommodate the girth of the space wolf. Practical? Hell no! Comfortable? Guess! Scary? Bwahahaha...
I apologise to anyone not approving of me calling it a space wolf because it's a "NOT-space wolves wolf". It is a space wolf quite noisily riding on the coattails of GW intellectual property. It's as discreet as the Hulk making a statement about how he has every right to be in a China shop, wildly gesticulating his point while in the actual shop. Sure, yes we get it, but putting the Hulk in any other context than destroying stuff alongside other superheroes just isn't convincing. That is a completely different subject that I will be writing (ranting about) at a later date. I just find it very entertaining.

Original pics from GW.

Here is a bit of an overview of the contents

All three pieces accounted for...

And on that note I just have to address the whole bionic/cyborg wolf thing. If you can get past the whole space wolf thing to begin with, the bionic part is a whole other potato. I mean why? Why would you need a living thing to add a mechanical leg to it? Was it hurt? Do they in the future not put down hurt animals, but instead make super expensive robowolfs? I am not blaming Hi-Tech specifically since everyone that produces NOT-Space Wolves makes them cyborgy - even the actual proper GW Space Wolves are cyborgy. I mean since there are hovercrafts and other type of standard and cost effective vehicles or even normal space wolves, why would you need a bionic one? I can however blame Hi-Tech for the lack of original approach since this one looks like a version of the BORG from Star-Trek with half it's face consisting of a halloween mask grade sculpt of a mechanical wolf face and the rest being like it's actual name suggests a Panzer Wolf. It's sporting plated armour in a fashion that is reminiscent of the bear in the flop movie "The Golden Compass" (which is based on some really good books). Furthermore it has an eye sculpt that begs to be painted red just because the image of Arnold's messed up Terminator face is etched into our brains... It's hilarious how every photo of a painted up cyber-anything confirms how unoriginal we all are because they all suffer the same digital pinkey syndrome. The sculpted in legs of the NOT-Space Marine look very much like a Scibor NOT-Space Marine but Celtic Marine legs.

I was bored, but it does serve to prove a point!

Resistance is futile... I will catch you with my...

...bionic butt and give you digital pinkeye!

Golden Compass Panzer Bear?

Yes, I think it's silly as hell, but I still like it because it's so alien in that it's just so far removed from anything remotely trying to be taken seriously. It is essentially a b-grade movie of a sculpt based on a b-grade element of a Hollywood production (GW). It's a cheap cliché monster in my eyes and as such it is great fun. I don't ever intend to play games with my figures so I am not really interested in the aspect of how useful it is on a gaming table. I just like it for it's sillyness.

Moving on to the quality I'm sad to say I'm quite disappointed. While the resin seems like good quality, the casting is shit. I've seen much worse, but that includes Garage Kits from way back when they justified crap because most westerners had not laid eyes upon japanese kits and the jawdropping quality that was possible. In todays terms - this should never have passed the quality control. I don't own any other Hi-Tech miniatures so I can't really say if this was a fluke or not, but there is just too much misalignment going on and some very annoying airbubbles that makes this seem bad. I have yet to contact Hi-Tech for the possibility of a replacement wolf, but if they do replace it I will update this review accordingly.

A breakdown of the major flaws...

Lots of mold alignment problems, some air bubbles

It seems to me the casting process needs some refinement

I am not sure of what quality the actual sculpt has, but looking at it up close it just has that toy feel to it. It's not detailed or well crafted enough to really pass as a detailed model, yet it holds more details than a toy. Definitely too expensive if this is the overall quality on all Hi-Tech Space Wolves and only recommended to the people that want them for the novelty of having a Giant Borg Not Space Wolves Wolf in Golden Compass Armour.