Plamo: 30 Minute Missions Alto (Dark Grey) & Long Range Sniper (Dark Gray) Armor Set

Yes, yes, I know. 30 Minute Missions is not gunpla. Its Plamo. I am already going off topic. But its a Bandai robot kit of comparable size and complexity to a High Grade, so sue me.

Anyways. 30 Minute Missions has been on my radar for a while, as I became aware of it while looking into gunpla. The concept is one of a fast build robot kit, one achievable in 30 minutes, and a highly customisable one. There are at time of writing only 2 main robot types, but many colours, upgrade sprues, variants, and all have compatibility with similarly modular Gundam kits. There is no supporting fiction that I can determine, which depending on where you stand, can be a good thing or bad thing. These guys seem to be grunts, with the focus of this review resembling a night combat GM series mobile Suit. Personally, I like that you can make your own story, and there isn't any baggage. So, one Sunday, I chanced on these in a local nerd shop, got home, did my chores, and finally got out my clippers and went to work.

My time: 1 hour 21 minutes.

<sigh>

This is probably not a reflection on the kit. I never consciously rush anything, and I was taking the time to cut cleanly as I went. A "practised" build time would logically be much faster, if only for how the plastic runners are laid out. Components are grouped together and numbered in such a way that each bodypart can be assembled quickly. It's the elegant sort of simple, offering few surprises but no annoyance. There's even a precut sheet of transparent stickers for squadron numbers, happily more than even I would need in my acts of clumsiness. The only change I would make would be to the lower legs, which ended up suffering the only obvious cutmarks, but your mileage may vary on that one. Regardless of how long it takes you to complete though, the Alto is something special. Articulation is largely ideal, as well as it being a looker as far as generic mecha plebs go. The 3mm expansion ports can be a downer, but posability is at that point where asking for more seems honestly unreasonable. I'm just gonna let the pictures speak for me now. 

The one weakness of this kit is in the area of accessories. You get a submachine gun looking blaster, plus a "Roy Roy", a tiny spider drone that stores on the butt. These are perfectly serviceable-to-good in the Alto's mitts. The sword-hilt/knuckleduster is not. Its a round peg in a square hole, and sits quite loosely. It also looks odd by itself, and so, without realising you could add a blade from another kit later, I added a spare beam effect with a dab of glue, and 'Ard Coat to thicken the handle. My Alto now has increased resemblance to a GM, although possibly one that has seen the knife from Cobra. This leads us to the matter of customising.

I chose the Dark Grey Alto purely on its colours, but like I said, there are others and expansion kits. I also picked up the Sniper Armour kit at the same time, for much the same reason. This featured mainly an alternative face, shield, and armour. I quickly realised this was too much grey, but common paints like Citadel Chaos Black spraypaint sorted that right out. I'd recommend that you pick a sprue with a colour that contrasts well with the two main colours of the kit, if you don't wish to mess with paint. The additional parts do however change the character of the kit, without hampering it's advantages, which is nice. Additional paints used include Citadel Macragge Blue and Soulstone Blue for lenses/sensors, and Vallejo Game Ink Black for the head. I ended up using Nuln Oil rather than Gundam Marker to detail things, partially as an experiment, but also because I didn't think going for an anime look would necessarily work on plastic this dark. The effect varies from subtle to dirty.

In brief: I've had to stop myself on three separate occasions from buying more.