Taurox/ Taurox Prime Review & Unboxing

When the Taurox/ Taurox Prime was first seen in semi-blurry shots smuggled out of some clandestine Games Workshop den somewhere, more than a few of us thought it was (A) a joke, (B) a mistake or (C) ... well I think we were all stuck for words.
The use of heavily armoured transports on the battlefield since the disasters of the Humvee in Iraq and Afghanistan has seen more armoured cars in combat than almost any time in history, so an armoured car in WH40K? Why not!
More after the jump...

~ WARNING - 
I am not a photographer, so expect dodgy pictures below 

The first thing you notice about the Taurox kit is how small it is.
The kit is made up of two sprues with more parts than I've seen in a Games Workshop kit for a while

As you can see, it's packed in with lots of weapons options and a lot of detail.

The sides of the Taurox have superb detail including fine interior detail that will be really fun to paint... definitely a job to do before sticking the sides on though!

The driver's console is nicely detailed and again something to paint before assembly.

The floor for the transport section and the driver's floor are the same piece. Reminds me a bit of the original Land Raider floor. 

The floor of the interior slots into the base of the vehicle, which has detail on the top and the bottom which is a good touch.

The embossed detail for the Scions armour plates is crisp and deep - a touch Games Workshop also carried through on the new banners for the Militarum Tempestus.

The roof sections also show even more detail. Having so much internal detail is fantastic!

Just some of the weapons for the Taurox/ Taurox Prime.
The steampunk is certainly coming out in the new designs!

The crew include a number of heads, both Scions and Astra Militarum and have a look at the cute detail on the back of the chair! Cool.

The transfers included, interestingly, are just Imperial Guard Tank Transfers (yes, they wrote Imperial Guard on the top not Astra Militarum... I feel a sense of happiness at that!).

Verdict

There's no arguing that this kit is ugly - it just is - but the Chimera isn't exactly Jessica Biel either!
Personally I'm not a fan of the look of the Taurox/ Taurox Prime. It's very square, it's bulky and the tracks look terrible, so much so that I'm using Ork wheels to replace them with.
But, this is a very nice little kit.
There are lots of details, lots to paint and places to customise a vehicle that really does look like it's been mass produced and rolled out in it's millions.

If you don't like the look of it, don't buy it, but if you're hedging your bets and you play Astra Militarum (it actually does get easier to say!) then get one and see how you go - even if it's just your command vehicle.

I won't say the model is great, because if the first thing people are talking about when you walk into your local GW store is "how to fix the Taurox", then you know it's flawed.
BUT, the quality of the moulding and the thought that went into small details is beyond questioning - pity they just didn't give us a wheels option!

So what do you think of it?
Did you buy one? Will you buy one?
What do you think the good and bad bits are?

I wonder if the Bushmaster was any sort of inspiration? It does have wheels though :)