After reviewing the Moebius Models Iron Man Mk.II and Mk.III, it probably comes as no surprise that I am an Iron Man fan. More so, I am a huge War Machine fan. So when Moebius came out with the War Machine kit, I pre-emptively requested the review (I also pre-ordered one just to be sure). I was beyond happy when I received the review kit.

Now, a bit of history for you. The War Machine is officially the US Air Force Variable Threat Response Battle Suit. The suit is piloted by Col. James Rhodes, who “borrowed” the suit from Tony Stark. The suit started life as the Iron Man Mk.II suit. It was then upgraded with additional armor and weaponry to become the War Machine. Later, it was redesigned, stripped of a lot of the armor and weapons, and re-designated the Iron Patriot (per the movies).

The kit itself is very well done. Moebius manages to capture most all of the War Machine detail. I had plans to wire and light the kit, so I built everything in sub-assemblies and wired them as I went. This kit, unlike the previous Moebius Iron Man kits, had the eyes, arc reactor, and hand repulsers molded as a separate white pieces. This worked great since you don’t have to open those areas. I used clear sprue, heated and pressed into place, for the eyes. The arc reactor and repulsers were made from clear lenses that were taken from various sources, including an old DVD drive. Lighting was done with 2mm Nano LEDs in the hands and eyes, and a 5mm White LED for the arc. The eyes were tinted red, and the chest was lightly tinted red, but when lit appears white (per movie).

NOTE: Make sure to use resistors on your LEDs, I ended up burning out the left hand AFTER it was assembled and painted. I had also decided early on that I wanted the minigun to spin. So, after some cutting and hogging out, I put in a small motor and managed to get it to work. It runs on a separate power source, as it needs about 1.25v, and the LEDs run on 6v. The gun itself is NOT a kit part. I found the kit part just too crude, so I created one in 3D and had it printed by Shapeways. After painting, I was very pleased with how it turned out.

For painting, I was a little miffed. The instructions don’t include a good paint guide, and after pouring through pictures and pausing the DVD, it was still difficult to figure out the color. I was able to determine it’s a metallic grey. So I mixed Tamiya German Grey and Metallic Grey to create “War Machine Grey”. The minigun and gauntlet guns are painted with “blued steel” which I mixed from Tamiya Dark Blue, Gunmetal, and Nato Black. The silver was Alclad Aluminum painted right over the slightly rough “War Machine grey”. Various other metallics were used on some of the details. The shading was done with Tamiya Smoke (with a little flat black) and then the model was washed with The Detailer Black.

I was a bit disappointed that Moebius did not include any decals for the markings, even though the box art shows them. JT Graphics makes a great set of markings, which went on nicely and even have the red helmet lines. They are available from https://culttvman.com/main/. The base was painted with about every Tamiya grey I have, a little earth brown, and then oil washes of various colors.

Overall, I am thoroughly pleased with the kit. I could not be more pleased with how it turned out, and I can’t wait to see what Moebius comes out with next, since there is a whole new movie to work from. My thanks to Moebius Models for providing the review sample and to IPMS USA for allowing me to review it.