Dan K wrote:
I'm aware of it, but I've no clue how good it is. For the moment, I only have their new 1/700 NEXT Yugumo/Kazagumo enroute to me. I was planning to report on that in terms of the very things you seek. I would think them comparable.
If anyone get this new kit, we'd love to hear your impressions of it.
Hi Dan, I happened to have a copy of the 1/700 NEXT Yugumo/Kazagumo at hand. And as it turned out, one of the hulls in the Yugumo kit is a kagero early class hull. And the parts for the early version of kagero (early mast, paravane studd) is also included in the yugumo kit except the bridge. So the two kit shares a lot of common part. In general I think the NEXT kit is better than their regular kits both in terms of detail and molding. More details are included in the NEXT kit that were omitted in the regular kit, for example the underwater sonar ports and the kingston valves on the bottom of the hull. The molding is also much sharper and crisp than the regular kit. The anchor deck is simply the best deck I have seen for a destroyer in this scale so far.
In terms of accuracy, Kagero wise it is good and minimal modifications are needed to build an accurate Kagero in either early or late configuration.
Yugumo wise, it is not so optimistic. Since the hulls are directly from the Kagero kit, it lacks the characteristic slope at the stern for a yugumo. The bridge is also a late war bridge with the enlarged aft region eventhough the kit is advertised as an early/mid war configuration. So it can be built in a late war yugumo without problem but would need some surgery to reduce the width of the bridg aft to do an early/mid war Yugumo. But again, despite the minor accuracy issue the molding and detailing is top notch. So with some minor modification it can still be built into an outstanding Yugumo. I would recommend this kit.
In general I personal feel the NEXT kit is a higher and better starting point for a detailing project than the regular kit.