E-2046 1/24 Darth Vader vs Alien Queen, previewed by Donald Zhou

KIT #:	RT 3401
PRICE:	$130 plus shipping
DECALS:	None required
REVIEWER:	Donald Zhou
NOTES:	Advantages: Extremely detailed, Excellent resin casting, Very detailed with 9 Alien Warriors, the Queen and Vader. Disadvantages Some parts are small, Flash everywhere, seams, and DV’s saber is not clear.

Buzz….Hiss….Lance Jackson, the head of Weyland Yutani’s alien bioweapon research and development department listened to the speakers, sighing with rising angry frustration. The last transmission from the cargo ship Argent Moon is bad to say the least, breaking up constantly and heavily distorted due to the massive anomaly that the stupid captain had just put the ship heading into. Some of it is getting through, but badly garbled.

…Hiss….This…buzz…cap** John—the…Moon---All of my crew---eliminated----creature---- --- bizz….snap….buzz…first mate Claude was---victim…There was a huge long pause where nothing but static came through.

“Sorry sir,” communication expert Janet said, nudging her “eyeglasses” up her nose. The eyeglasses of course, are just for show. She thinks she just look prettier that way. These days, eye problems are a thing of long past since one, if rich enough, can easily get another set cloned without any trouble. Lance looked at her, feeling slightly better cause she’s also wonderful in the bedroom and he consider her one of the best he had ever taken. “The middle part is simply unrecoverable. We do have the ending though, and I was able to cut through some of the interference and piece it together to 85% complete.” “Well, let’s hear it”. The pretty lady in the red miniskirt flipped a few button, and a voice come, at least somewhat clear over the speakers.

“The creature ha- eliminated all of us except me. My weapon has long since gone. I have one round left. We was able to wound the crea--.Unfortunately, whatever acid it has for bloo- ruined the engine room. We are adrift. I have discovered a certain anomaly nearby and used the last bit in our control thrusters to put the Arge—Moon into it. Hopefully, the anomaly will tear this doomed shi- to pieces and kill whatever hell forsaken creature that ki—ed us all. I of cour--, have no ability to kill anything now. This last bullet…Well, you can guess who that’s for. I’m not gonna die in the vaccum – space. So long and I hope if any human ears hear th—message, to sta- away from this part of spa--.” Static came over the speakers.

“That’s it?” Lance was hoping. “That’s it sir. Video feed shows the ship then entering the anomaly, then disappearing without a trace.” “Let me see it, again. “ On the screen, the ship’s forward camera recorded a massive red, blue, purple swirling mass of energy, glowing more and more massive and bright until it swallowed the camera whole. Then everything disappeared into black and white hissy static. Sighing again, “is there anyone, or anything else we can do to recover the specimen from LV-426?” Janet started to type on her keyboard. After a few moment, “All hope is not lost sir. There is a ship, Nostromo, less than week from LV-426. If we send a course—“ Lance cut her off, “Do it!” He ordered, “Yes sir! Right away sir!” Lance sighed, this time happily. Indeed! All hope is not lost and after an unexpected delay, it seems he’s well on track again. He looked at Janet back end. He knows exactly how to celebrate tonight!

Yeah, this kit was available for preorder on E2046 since last year. E2046 says it’s their exclusive. Don’t know if that’s true but I haven’t seen this kit anywhere else. Anyways, the moment I saw it, I want it! It stars one of my two favorite Sci-Fi franchises of all time and the two main baddies of those franchises too! But yeah…We can all guess why I didn’t buy it last year…What with this stupid virus killing my bank account to no end!

Warp a year later, with everything returning to normal, and preorders piling up (E2046 kits, you need to preorder them first. E2046 must reach a certain quota for the kits to reach production), the kit entered into production and the first run was gone in a flash. The second run quickly entered into production and was down to one last kit. I finally got enough money to buy the last one! It was a bit more than preorder. At E2046 website, if you preorder a kit, it’s around $20-$30 cheaper than if they have it in stock. Normal preorder price for this kit is $86. I bought mine at $130 cause it was the last in stock one. Well worth it though. I say it again, WELL WORTH IT!!!!!.................…………………..…………………

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It was the dead of night. Down on the planet, some of the creatures are asleep, deep in well-hidden burrows, away from the nasty, mean predators that hunts this planet for food. Some are foraging and feeding, ears and eyes and nose well-tuned at the slightest noise, smell and movement. All of a sudden, everything seemed to stop and predator and prey alike stopped in their tracks and looked up. Something was amiss and is now badly shaking every living thing on the planet to their last bit of nerves. Without warning, everything scattered as high above the sky, a massive ball of angry red, white, purple and blue energy opened up, as if threatening to swallow the planet whole. The massive angry ball swirled and waved as if wanting to disgorge the devil himself but then as sudden as it appeared, in a flash, it was gone into the blackness of space as two massive pillar of flames lit up the atmosphere like two shooting stars, one following the other to crash close to each other on the planet’s surface. After the rubble cooled down, several words can be clearly seen.

The kit arrived a day ago and I already started on it! To say it is nice is to say the least! Even at 1/24 scale it needs to be seen to believed. It’s also very heavy at almost 4 lbs, 3 of that is the display base in the shape of the Alien nest. It have to be heavy since it’s also rather large to contain not only the angry pissed off Queen, but nine of her broods, 4 of which are complete full bodied alien “warriors” and 4 half bodied ones emerging out of various holes in the base and one dead, cut up lying at Darth Vader’s feet. The casting is tremendous, offering all the details, especially on the queen and Vader. All the Alien “Warriors” are complete casts, nothing to superglue on and they are in various poses. Judging by the warriors, all of these “Xenomorphs” are from the movie “Aliens”, the sequel. Not a surprise since the Queen was not introduced till that movie. Little facto: In the original Ridley Scott’s Alien, in a deleted scene, Ripley would encounter a cocooned and dead Kane being slowly turned into a new Alien egg. If that scene had made it into film, it would’ve changed everything and the Queen would not have existed! But anyway. The fit is very nice. However, as with any medium, despite the good fit, seams will show. This is very evident in the display base top and the Queen, where the head frill “crown” is joined against head itself. Other than that, the other major annoyance are all the flash. This is especially evident along all the Warriors “Breath Tubes”. Where pour studs and flash are everywhere. They are thin and minor but there are a lot of them so break out the hobby knife! Finally, one last quibble. It concerns Darth Vader’s saber. The blade is not clear, it’s solid resin. The picture shows the blade as glowing. There are already people planning to sneak a tiny LED bulb into DV’s arm to light up the saber. Me? I won’t even attempt it. I do not want to destroy Vader here so that’s that. Still, a clear blade piece for the saber would be most welcome. This is minor as I have plenty of clear sprues to stretch and will probably do that.

Construction should be a simple affair. Again, all the Warriors are in a single casting except flash removal. The vast majority of parts belongs to the Queen herself with her head in two pieces, mouth in three (inner “tongue”, lower teeth, lower jaw) pieces, main front arms, secondary small chest arms, the six waist spikes, main body, two back legs, and two tail sections. Darth Vader is next with head, lower helmet, cape, inner cape with upper legs, two lower legs, chest piece, and arms. The rest are just filling and sanding then painting! After an hour, I already got DV and the Queen up…….YISH! The Queen is MASSIVE to say the least (and yes, have to mention this…Why ohh WHY MOEBIUS DID YOU CANCELED THAT 1/6th SCALE ALIEN QUEEN? WHY? Even if costs $200, I would’ve jumped and got one!). I finally got some sort of Alien Queen now since finding the ancient Halcyon vinyl kit is hard these days! Ahh well….

Captain Nostra Dorinn look exasperatedly out the bridge viewing windows and sighed for the umpteenth time. He hated this. Yes, he knows this is critical etc etc etc and all that Nortillian jazz and all that, but this is not helping his career or patience any. Yes, he heard all the reports. Yes, he heard the propaganda. Yes, his superior officers all said that and this and that. Yes. YES. YESSS and more YESSSSS!!!! He wanted to throw his hands in the air, ohh yes he knows there are pirates hiding out here, ready to raid a hapless imperial convoy. Yes, he absolutely knows more and more, the ever bourgeoning rebellion is hiding out here somewhere, seemingly striking out of the blackness of space at an Imperial ship or suddenly attacking a tow ship, and stealing it’s cargo of precious parts and then disappears into these “badlands” again. But why him? He was enjoying a cushy office job out in Coruscant. Why? Cause your family said some action will do you good, some ship faring adventure will get you the fast track to admiralty! Cause Cause CAUSE CAUSE!!!! He wanted to scream! This was not the job he asked for. Then all of a sudden, something caught his attention.

Deeple…Deeple…Deeple….A console beeped. “What’s that”, Nostra’s attention peeked. His communications officer walked to the console. Took a look, and draw his eyebrow up. “Sir, we seemingly have a message on repeat. It’s kinda garbled.”

What he heard was a bunch of static, intermittent with something approaching to a language, but nothing he could understand. “What the hell is that?” He asked. “I’ve poured it into our language database. It seems to match nothing we’ve ever known. Looks like I have to break this down to its roots and then translate it into Basic”. “Do it!” Ordered Nostra.

It took several hours, and the communications officer was kind enough to magnify and reduce the static and piece together enough for them to understand and for once, Nostra was genuinely excited. This could be the career making luck he’s been looking for! After a while, he received permission to proceed and search where the message came from.

So yeah, I’ve dropped everything to work on this. Again, two of my favorite Sci-Fi franchises containing the two main biggest baddies will do that! So far, gonna take it and give the Queen, DV and the brood along with the base another bath before puttying and sanding session can begin. Then it’s the matter of painting although I may have to hold off a bit. I know the colors…That’s nearly all the problem….Yep! It’s all black and black and more black. It’s like the original Model T Ford and what Henry said, “You can have any color as long as it is black”. But a single shade of black gonna be real boring as I found out with the white on the resin since it just plain wash out the details because it is so monotone! E2046 have all the Xenomorphs in a very dark shade of grey but that is not correct…..Think I may use black and then haze grey and other dark grey on the base. Flat to gloss black on DV and the Aliens with very dark pewter grey to tone them down and also maybe some E6000 glue for the drool…One thing missing entirely from the E2046 pics are all the drools the Xenomorph love to leave behind! So yeah, that will be my plan of attack! Stay tuned…………..

It took two days of tracking, but finally, the Dictator tracked the signal to an unknown planet within the star system 43097…Typical thought Nostra. The system was just recently charted by a probe and so out of the way, it doesn’t even have a name yet! No wonder the signal was even on everyone’s scanners until they stumbled all over it. But he glad he was the one who did it. Now, he can get a chance to capture a new deadly creature for Imperial science and weapons division.

Aboard the Hammerhead class landing craft, Biggler Tuggaria, aka, NCC-1701 look up, proud in his new Stormtrooper outfit. “This was captured two days ago. It took our communications officer 8 hours to break it down and reconstructed it into something at least understandable. Listen to it carefully!” His captain ordered.

On the radio, a disheartened and resigned voice spoke out, “This is Captain John Carpenter speaking. This is my last message. The creature turned out to be devil incarnate. All of my crew have been eliminated. First Mate Claude was the first victim. He examined a derelict ship of unknown origin on the exo-moon LV-426. He came back with First Mate Carl “CJ” Johnson and Lieut. Ryder. Something was wrapped around his face. Two days later, it fell. What we didn’t know, is that this “facehugger” implanted something deep within Claude. Several hours later, the newborn…thing exploded out of his chest and killed him and the creature quickly grown into a full adult and started to kill us one by one.

We had a huge gun fight in the engine section. But the creature still lives. CJ, Ryder, Niko Bellec, Michael DeSanta, Franklin Clinton and Treavor Phillip were all lost in that fight. We are adrift through space now, all hope for help now lost.

“The creature has eliminated all of us except me. My weapon has long since gone. I have one round left. We was able to wound the creature. Unfortunately, whatever acid it has for bloo- ruined the engine room. We are adrift. I have discovered a certain anomaly nearby and used the last bit in our control thrusters to put the Argent Moon into it. Hopefully, the anomaly will tear this doomed ship to pieces and kill whatever hell forsaken creature that killed us all. I of course, have no ability to kill anything now. This last bullet…Well, you can guess who that’s for. I’m not gonna die in the vaccum of space. So long and I hope if any human ears hear this message, to stay away from this part of space.”

“That was the last message”. We think the ship entered into a wormhole of some sort and deposited here from whatever galaxy it came from. The wormhole appeared over this planet some 50,000 years ago, judging from the sensor readings. It heavily irradiated the planet so you’ll have to wear energy shields.” He paused as the lieutenants passed out the energy shields to everyone. Our orders are to capture this creature or its body for study. Biggler raised his hand, “Yes, NCC-1701?” “Do you think we will find anything down there?” “Good question! Even if don’t we must find the carcass of this creature for study and perhaps cloning. By all accounts, this thing is deadly and its acid blood is very virulent. Perfect for weapons”. Biggler swallowed hard. Bioweapons simply is not his cup of Corrilian tea. “And Captain”, a voice perked up, “What’s with these names? They all sound like these guys committed Grand Larceny of Aero-cars!” There was a burst of laughter everywhere. “Shut it!” The captain ordered. “Funny names or no funny names, our orders are clear!” Just then, there was a thump. The craft landed. “Everyone up!” As one, everybody put on their helmets and then the landing door opened, “GO GO GO!!!! The Empire aint paying us by the hour!!!” The captain screamed as everyone filed out of the craft and headed towards the large shape 200 meters in the distance, a blown out opening beckoned. Biggler was confident. There are over 40 of his brothers in arms on this craft alone and three others are also landing, enfile in the distance so nothing can go wrong here.

Indeed nothing will go wrong! Thought Nostra. He specifically ordered a reinforced company to land and explore and secure the derelict ship in the distance, now that his communications officer have mostly broken down the alien language, the video sensor display automatically translated the words on the ship to him, “Argent” Moon. Argent is something that the program still have trouble with. The communications officer thinks it means orange, which surprised him. His officer surmise perhaps this planet have more than one language, which make Nostra shakes his head. What kind of backwards planet is this that have more than one spoken language? It’s like the people are all separate entities! He shook out of his revere. This is too important to daydream, Nostra chided himself. His attention glued back to the screen. NCC-2020, form up, 2304, watch your left! The screen audio barked. This gone on for quite a few minutes until the troops entered into a dark corridor. “HEY! What is that?” NCC-2000 suddenly sparked….Waving his blaster rifle all over. “Huh?” NCC-1701 looked around. There wasn’t anything. “BAH! Are you seeing ghosts again?....Or did you see some rebels?” one of the trooper asked, leading to the entire section to explode in laughter, even Nostra cracked a smile and that timely joke….

…But out in the shadows, down in one corner of the screen….A shadow did indeed move, ever so quietly…Ever…So…Stealthily….