Monday, March 13, 2023

Model Kits from Special Armored Battalion Dorvack

 These kits are still works in progress.

I finally have THREE of the Dorvack Power Armor kits from 1983 classic mecha anime "Special Armored Battalion Dorvack". I have finally seen the show, and I was less than thrilled to find out these are basically all grunt suits and get blowed up real easily. So I'm not making them anime accurate at all.



You see a LONG time ago in a galaxy far far away I used to buy a lot of Japanese model kits that were being imported by the metric ton back in the 80s. You could get them at Toys R Us or Karls Toys or even Kay Bee some times. Testors just brought them over with no english translations. At least Revell made "Robotech". It was a great time. I built kits from dozens of shows I've still never seen, just because they look cool.

That's what happened with my first Dorvack kit - the PA36HD Nove Laser power armor. It just looked bad-ass, and when it was finished it was virtually the same scale as a 3 3/4" GI Joe, Star Wars or Micronauts, which is still what I was into at the time (who am I kidding still am). So I built him up, didn't bother to paint him, and he became a staple of my GI Joe Forces, he often fought my SNAKE Armor....which I'll come back to.


Anyway, poor old Nove Laser got lost to the sands of time or moves, and I've always wanted to replace him and get more Dorvack kits. So for the past decade I've had a search alert on Ebay for when Dorvack kits go on sale. There's still a TON of them out there, but they're getting more and more expensive, which is kind of sad. They're not great kits, but I love them.

PAC-48G Doldian (Kit #25)
The first one I managed to find was the PAC-48G Doldian.  This is a monster of a suit, larger than the other two.  And it has that big old triple barrel cannon for an arm.  I like him.  I got him in the early 2010s from ebay for under $20.  Brand new with all the paperwork.











More recently I found a PA-58N Halk, which is one of the more basic suits.  Also picked up from eBay for less than $20.  Kit was brand new with all the paperwork and the dried up thing of glue.  I built him up and started to paint pen him today.  He's so cute.
PA-58N - HALK



A couple of months ago we attended the monthly MINT ON CARD Stand Up Comedy Show in Burbank and I won the grand giveaway prize (it was their 7th Anniversary! I attended their FIRST) of a $25 gift certificate for the store.  I decided on this beat up PA-58N Halk-Sovat kit, which when I got home I discovered a) had already been semi-built and b) also contained a partially built Space Runaway Ideon alien mech kit.  

Oh and there was a bunch of extra parts in the box too, looks like some pieces from a car model kit, and some pieces from an old Return of the Jedi Speeder Bike kit.  The person who previously owned this kit had modified it to have a rear engine and a cover, which is kind of cool.  Anyway, I finished him up today and started to fix up the deco.  I need some new paint pens.  
PA-58N - HALK SOVAT
It also had a partial sprue of the GI Joe SNAKE Weapons, including the Gun hand, the missile hand and the Stand.  I mean I really do want to get a replacement SNAKE armor.  At least I have some of the harder to find parts now.  


So if you see any of these kits on your journeys and they're under $20, hit me up!  
I love the wire frame box art, not as much a fan of the other art, but it's OK.

















Special Bonus - Both sides of the catalog insert


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