Plastic Model and Miniature Kits

Transcript*

Intro

Paul here from Loisirs vers le soleil and I’m holding a pretty massive pile of model kits. Why is that? Well, I figured, you know, it’s January 20 2026 and it’s a fun time to look back in the year of our Lord 2025 and discuss the five best model kits to come out from 2025. And uh the only stipulation is that they release in 2025. That’s it. So, we’re going to be discussing the top five. And there’s a lot of releases in 2025. Some may make it here, some may not.

And uh this is just my personal opinion. Though I am basing my opinion partly on the feedback from the reviews of regular customers because I am in a unique position to personally hear a lot of reviews from our customers regarding these model kits specifically because I hear them talking in person and then I hear them talking online and then I hear management talking about complaint emails. There’s a bunch of kits released this year that weren’t that good, but there’s a lot that were released that were incredible.

So, with that being said, here’s top five, but we’re going to start it off with an honourable mention. Hold up. But before we get started, I just like to say that everything shown in this video from the kits to maybe potential items will be available on our website, our real time inventory.

So, down below, links below, sunwardhobies.ca. Also down below would be our social media. Incredibly active on all of them. We make daily posts essentially except Sunday. We run Chick-fil-A hours here. But otherwise, yeah, we make daily posts and we’re incredibly active. Follow us on your preferred accounts and social media platforms. Thank you.

Tamiya Leopard 2 A7V German Main Battle Tank 1/48 Scale 32607

Honorable mention goes to Tamiya’s Leopard 2 A7V 1/48 scale kit. This is probably the newest kit in this pile and it was just basically released this month. Now that means that this is technically speaking a 2026 kit. It wasn’t really announced truly uh till I believe early to mid November of 2025 and u most retailers including us didn’t receive it till two weeks ago which is 1 of January. So, um, yeah. Uh, so technically speaking, really, this is a 2026 kit.

That’s what partially the reason why it’s honourable mention. But the other reason why even if it was released in 2025, figured this is where it belongs, just because it’s just a nice, good, and simple, clean kit. This is actually very beginner friendly. This could be your very first tank. Um, we’ve done an unboxing of this on our social media pages. Uh yeah, and honestly good simple clean panel lines. Nothing too hard, nothing inoffensive. This would give Tamiya or strengthen the reputation of Tamiya being a shake and bake company, which is by the way all well and good to me as so reliable. But yeah, the plastic very good panel lines very good. The tracks, they’re not rubber.

They’re not also the segmented tiny pieces you’ll find in Meng or even sometimes Atelier Jeux. It’s I believe two to four pieces of long plastic tracks that you glue together. So sometimes people hate that, sometimes people love it. Eh, depends on who you are. Still better than rubber tracks though. Uh but in any case, just a good simple clean kit. Tamiya’s reliable.

Kinetic RCAF CF-18 Centennial Demo Team 2024 1/48 K48150

Number five, Kinetics CF-18 demonstrator aircraft release released in summer or fall of 2025. Uh, one of those slightly late but otherwise on time releases by Kinetics. Sold like hotcakes. It sold a lot, but despite selling a lot, we didn’t hear any negative thing regarding this to my knowledge anyway and I hear quite a bit.

So, that should be telling of the quality. Engineering is off the chain. This thing is 1/48 scale. Yet, despite that, it is enormous. The fuselage alone, the body uh is like 13 inches long, it is big. Also, there is uh I’m a little biased, but there’s Canadian decals on it. After all, it is a Royal Canadian Air Force CF18. The the Hornets we have here in spades that we’re trying to replace. Depends on whether we get the 35s or some the Gripins maybe. Who knows?

Anyways, yeah. So, it’s celebrating 100 years of the Canadian Air Force. Uh, yeah, it’s pretty good. And you know what? The only reason why it is this low, number five, is because not uh truly at a fault of this kit. It’s just a very good, clean, pretty big kit, but the fact that every other kit on top of this does something more uh relative to what they provide. You know what I’m saying? Um, and this kit is on a pricier thing. It’s probably the only negative to it. Otherwise, incredible kit.

Meng Boeing EA-18G Growler Yellow Jacket 1/48 Scale LS-019

Number four belongs to Meng’s EA-18G Growler, which is a variant of the Super Hornet. Uh, and this is the electronic attack aircraft variant of it, meaning they locate, they go out in front of the actual jets. They go out and hunt down enemy SAM sites, surface-to-air missile sites. They detect them. They launch missiles at them. And then they also interfere with missile locks for potential enemy aircraft and whatnot. So electronic warfare, that’s what it specializes for.

And the reason why this is a step up uh to the previous Kinetic CF-18 kit is because basically if you take out the included pods here that which is what they use for their electronic attack countermeasures and just take it out and just attach missiles, you genuinely just get an incredible super hornet kit. This is essentially two kits in one. You get a 1/48 scale Super Hornet that it looks unassumingly just like any other Super Hornet on the market, but then you attach the pods and then you put on the appropriate decals and you’re like, “Oh yeah, this is a Growler.”

Um, so it’s a two for one essentially. It’s incredible. Um, and yeah, it comes loaded and standard with Meng’s signature engineering. A bit on the pricier side of things, but otherwise Meng is renowned for the detail. You know this, I know this. And the only thing to keep an eye out, granted before I, you know, say it, preface this by saying I personally haven’t heard any of this in person, so take it with a grain of salt, but basically I was perusing and researching online and I saw one or two posts regarding slight fitting issues with the canopy.

Again, I can’t quantify any of that. I didn’t hear any single person uh in person uh saying that this had fitting issues. So, take that with a grain of salt. though it is important to say out loud just in case you do encounter it. But otherwise, incredible kit. A little pricier, may have issues, but otherwise, shout out to Meng. This is beautiful.

Emperors Children Tormentors & Infractors 37-11 Warhammer 40000

Number three belongs to the Tormentors Infractors box. And you’re like, Paul, what the hell? It’s a Games Workshop kit. They should be nowhere close to the top five, but it’s a little ignorant. And I’ll tell you why. Basically, prior to 2025, if you want to start an Emperor’s Children Army, you only really had two plastic choices. The rest of the faction is stuck in Forge World resin hell. It was rough. And again, you only had two characters.

One was released in the 2010s. The other one was even further back in the late 2000s. It was rough. You had to clip bash everything, which was terrible. and Games Workshop every edition release just gave you little crumbs of rules like here you go little doggy crumbs off the table here are your pity rules it was terrible uh if you were an Emperor’s Children fan but 2025 rectify that about 18 to 25 kits were released uh for Emperor’s Children I think it was closer to 18 actually anyways this is your cornerstone kit this is your standard bog standard Space Marine troop army the Tormentors and it comes with Space Marines here the Tormentors and they are medium to long range specialists carrying wielding bolt guns or plasma rifles.

But you’re like, “That’s it. 10 Space Marines. That’s why it’s number three.” No, because the reason why it’s number three is modularity and variability. Because instead of Tormentors, you can flip them around uh and use the options available to make them Infractors instead. Basically, instead of medium to long range specialists as Tormentors, Infractors are close range specialists. They wield dinky little bolt pistols or plasma pistols, but in exchange, they get massive, massive swords. We can see it here. The options for sword combat, right? Look at that.

Oh, man. So, this all comes from this one tiny little rinky dink kit. And the options are loaded. There’s so many from uh a lot of swords that are various different kinds to the the shoulders to the helmet and unhelmeted options. Uh some of the armor have flayed skin on them, some don’t. Some have skulls, some are clean. And the guns galore order. Whips, chains, maces. Guys, this kit is basically the perfect Chaos Space Marine kit. The best kit, or at least the most modular kit they’ve released in the past 10 years. Well done, Games Workshop.

Emperors Children Fulgrim Daemon Primarch of Slaanesh 37-06

But for number two, there’s an even better kit released by Games Workshop, and that is number two is Daemon Primarch Fulgrim, the flagship release kit for uh the Emperor’s Children release in 2025. He is their progenitor, essentially their daddy. Uh and that’s kind of literal. He’s their Gene Sire. And he is an demon ascended man, snake, bat thing. and he looks quite grotesque, but if you look at the detailing, guys, this is a gorgeous kit and that’s the reason primarily why he’s here.

Games Workshop always always knocks it out of the park with their massive kits and this is no exception. And the best part about their massive kits, at least in the plastic form, little to no quality uh assurance mistakes. There was no uh gaps when I built them. Personally, I’ve not heard of a single build issue. And this sold like hotcakes. Though it kind of stopped because he kind of came out with terrible rules for the game itself, though. I heard it got buffed recently for the game. So, it’s been selling better as of late, but 90% of them sold out in 5 minutes. And the 5% is the meta gamers didn’t sell anyway.

Anyway, uh basically if you didn’t know, Fulgrim used to be a man, a 12- foot tall man, superhuman man, but he was still just a man leading armies, the Emperor’s Children, uh his boys, his Space Marines. But one day, he just picked up a random sword and turned out that sword that was he thought was beautiful was demon infested and it corrupted his mind. He betrayed his brothers and then he became this demon man, bat snake hybrid thing. and a genuinely tragic character. And this kit when it was announced, people were like, “Yes.” But then they looked at the options.

He only had four head options, which was a bummer. The only negative of this kit is that it has zero options. What you see here is what you get uh despite the detail. But he got made fun of, not even for that, cuz people were like, “That’s gorgeous. Probably kid of the year.” He got made fun of for being ugly. Guys, if you look at pre-ascended Fulgrim, he looked like Ryan Gosling with long hair.

He was beautiful, perfect. Uh, but I always thought it made sense. He’s Mr. Perfection. That’s literally the shtick of the Emperor’s Children. So, I thought, you know, he’s the celebrity who got one too many plastic surgeries. Uh, too much Botox, so he looks unrecognizable. Uh, again, he chases perfection to an extreme fault. That’s why he fell and the rest of his boys fell. Uh, pride. And yeah, it makes sense. So this is number two mainly because the sculpt and it’s beautiful. Absolute beauty could kill. He would be number one.

Tamiya Grumman F-14D Tomcat 1/72 Scale 60795

But there’s only really one true number one and that’s that is Tamiyas 1/72nd scale Tomcat. This is number one and deservedly so. This came out late in the year and to this day is still selling out like hotcakes. Um, this might be the fourth wave of this dam kit as I’m filming this video. It’s selling that much and it is a fan favorite for a very good reason and I’ll explain why.

In saying that we’ve sold a lot of this kit, guys, we have not received a single complaint. None. Silt zero. This kit, you know what that means, right? This kit is perfect. That might not even be an exaggeration to say because number two, that was number one. Number two is that the panel lines on this thing, guys. It’s the crispiest panel lines I may have ever seen. Um, the only thing that would probably beat this panel line would be a perfect grade Gundam.

That’s how insane the panel lines are on this kit. And there are no uh like raised details that are too raised, so you may have to sand them. None of that. Crispy. Especially on a plane, it’s beautiful. Not to mention the massive decal options. Oh. Oh, chef’s kiss, eh? It also comes with a lot of missile options from the Phoenix. The massive missile that’s meant to fit in the middle. Uh the Paveway bomb, the guided bomb, the Sparrow, and the Sidewinder, guys. And the pod, of course. You can’t forget the pod.

This kit. Um, and finally, the biggest kind of feature that they are bragging about, and rightfully so, the swept wing. Now, a lot of swept wing designs or just movable parts in general from other brands, they typically just kind of you sweep them up like you open them up, but then they kind of just wiggle. They’re like not stable and then you can just one swing them around and it’s you kind of are forced to uh glue them tight in one position or another because they’re so terribly implemented. Not the case here. It is guys, this kit is perfect. I’m telling you, this kit’s perfect.

The only possible point of failure, it’s not even failure at this point. It’s literally just because you may not like 1/72nd scale. That’s it. You may not like 1/72nd scale. And that’s the only reason I can think of why you wouldn’t pick this kit up. Otherwise, if you’re a fan of high detail Hasegawa, high detail Meng, and you’re looking for the next fix, the next hit, pick up this beauty. Oh. Oh my goodness.

In fact, uh beauty is no exaggeration, by the way. This thing is so crispy. It might genuinely be more beautiful than Mr. Beautiful himself, Fulgrim, whose only uh job is to be perfect and beautiful, and that’s why he’s number two. This thing might be more beautiful and aesthetic pleasing than a full room despite all the detail he has. Uh so that is saying a lot. Uh and that’s our list of the top five technically top six kits of all time.

Oh, not all time. I’m getting ahead of myself. Top five kits of 2025, but if we had top five tom cats of all time, this will probably be number three or something. Uh yeah. Uh get yours now. Get yours now. I’m being serious. We are on the fourth wave of this thing essentially and it’s going to continue to sell out. Get yours now.

Paul’s Conclusion

That’s it for me today. Uh hopefully you enjoy that top five. This is just my personal opinion though it is sprinkled with quite a bit of uh the reception behind the scenes because I am in a very unique position to know exactly what people have in mind when this kit sells or the kits themselves sell. I am in that unique position.

So, I know exactly what I’m talking about here. Uh, but at the same time, it is uh sprinkled with a lot of my opinion, my personal biases. Uh, and I gushed over the top three because of that bias. But again, it’s based on I won’t say empirical evidence, but there is some truth to the feedback and whatnot by our regular customers. Not to mention the modularity and details of these kits, the top three specifically. Though the gap between Fulgrim at number two and the Tomcat is enormous by far and away that Tom Cat uh thank you to Tamiya. That kit is gorgeous.

You should get yours and the other kits on this list right now on our website sunwardhobbies.ca. Links down below. We ship Canada wide and the Tomcat primarily is important because you might get go there one day and it’s sold out uh because it’s selling out a lot. But that being said, we’re on our fourth restock. We’re about to hit our fifth wave of this king.

So yeah, uh you might not need to rush at all, but I would rush now just because the kit’s enormous and beautiful and gorgeous. Uh so yeah, thank you guys. That’s it. Bye-bye.

About the Author:

Paul Catindig As someone who’s been building model kits since he was 8 years old, Paul is very knowledgeable and adept at model kit building! When he’s not building or painting kits, he spends his free time cooking, playing video games with friends, or at a restaurant patio somewhere. Hopes to make his very own movie one day.

*Video by Paul Catindig
Video Edited by Daniela Castellano
Transcript generated by youtube
Edited by Angelo Castellano