The Saraf is my favourite Attack Helicopter so I instantly bought the Takom one, when it came out. In hindsight I should have waited for the Meng one. I like the Meng instructions way better, and can´t stand the fact that there is not colour info in the Takom one. Don´t know why Takom started doing this. The good thing is I can look around in the AH64D Block2 Cockpit in DCS, which is pretty similar, and use pictures as a reference. The included masking sheet is a huge plus aswell in the Meng Kit. Additionaly the Takom Kit is missing the Spike Missles and Wing Tip pod for them, which is another 30 Bucks more in after market parts. The last thing that bugs me, is that the Takom kit is missing the M4s for the Crew, that are stored on the right side of the cockpit. All my Takom tanks I´ve built in the last couple of years have been great (and had colour info in the manual), don´t know what happend with their newer kits. Hopefully they can come back to their old standard, but from now on I will wait if someone else releases the same type of vehicle and compare the kits, before I buy one.

Hi Richie. Nice comparison. I think the trouble Nigel had with his Takom decals was 2 problems. First was the difficulty in seeing the Black decals against the Olive Drab base colour on his US Apache. The other was heavy carrier film that just wouldn't hide away under a gloss coat etc. This was with one of the first E Guardian Takom kits, so they may have been fixed with later releases.

I'm in the less PE the better, it drove me nuts doing all the PE on my CAF LAV. But I'll admit Nigel's Apache is looking good.

Have a great build.

Hi Richie, thanks for the informative review, really interesting to see both versions. I have the Takom kit and as you know the paint instructions are non existent, Question for you, what MRP paints would I need for this kit, can’t find anything on this. Thanks for any help. Steve

I just finished the D's of the World by Takom. I love Takom models, but this one was awful. The instructions and worse than everyone says, the decals were very brittle and fell apart and the canopy fit was pretty bad as well. The details on it are great, and most of the fitment is excellent like other Takom stuff, but they really failed on this one. Its sucks as i was excited to build it. I just ordered the Meng version, i'm looking forward to that.