Kit Review

Straight build

Tomy EMZ-26 Hammer Rock - Size comparison with a cigarette pack. It's tiny enough to sit neatly on top of one. (1/2)

Tomy EMZ-26 Hammer Rock - Size comparison with a cigarette pack. It's tiny enough to sit neatly on top of one. (2/2)

Size comparison with a cigarette pack
It's tiny enough to sit neatly on top of a cigarette pack.

A photo of it sitting in my hand. Gets the scale across pretty well, right?

Underside

Tomy EMZ-26 Hammer Rock - Pre-painted parts are used throughout the body, though they're less noticeable than on the Shield L

Pre-painted parts are used throughout the body,
though they're less noticeable than on the Shield Liger.

Opening the head gear and cockpit cover.
Small, but packed with detail.

The shell armor open gimmick.

The arm and leg articulation range isn't bad at all.

The waist has a decent range of movement too.

The shoulders slide out to the sides and can swing forward.

Full open shot

Tomy EMZ-26 Hammer Rock - Placed on the included diorama base. (1/4)

Tomy EMZ-26 Hammer Rock - Placed on the included diorama base. (2/4)

Placed on the included diorama base.

Tomy EMZ-26 Hammer Rock - Rawr~~ Pull the shoulder joints out just right and you can recreate a chest-beating pose. (1/3)

Rawr~~
Pull the shoulder joints out just right and you can recreate a chest-beating pose.

Punch~

Tomy EMZ-26 Hammer Rock - Together with the Shield Liger released at the same time. The Shield Liger was already small, but t

Together with the Shield Liger released at the same time.
The Shield Liger was already small, but the Hammer Rock is even smaller.

Tomy EMZ-26 Hammer Rock - A joint action shot with both diorama bases brought in." The base designs are completely different

A joint action shot with both diorama bases brought in."
The base designs are completely different so they don't really go together ^^;

The second entry in Tomy Tec's ambitious 1/144 Zoids MSS lineup is the Hammer Rock — often called a mini Iron Kong. It definitely looks like an Iron Kong at first glance, but lore-wise it's much smaller than the Iron Kong, so when you actually finish building it, the thing is shockingly tiny ^^; As you can see in the photos, it's smaller than most SD kits and fits right in the palm of your hand.

The basic concept is similar to the MSS Shield Liger, but one difference is that there are a lot of parts where the entire runner has been pre-painted. At first you might wonder why they didn't just adjust the molded color instead, but I guess they figured the paint quality comes out better for metallic colors. That said, all those pre-painted parts do feel a bit less obvious here compared to the Shield Liger.

Gimmick-wise, the chest cover and cockpit hatch opening are pretty impressive. The fact that they managed to fit a two-stage opening cockpit into such a tiny head is honestly quite impressive. Open up the chest cover and the mechanical frame is exposed — small, but it has a cute, intricate feel to it.

In terms of articulation, the shoulder joints are pretty wild — the shoulders pull all the way out to the sides and can swing sharply forward, letting you recreate poses like a gorilla beating its chest. Just be careful though, as the polycap connection on the shoulder joints can pop out easily, so you'll want to handle them with care.

Like the Shield Liger, the Hammer Rock also comes with a dedicated diorama base. Maybe because the kit itself is so small, the base is about half the size of the Shield Liger's, and the color scheme is a deep grassland feel rather than the desert tone of the Shield Liger's base. The texture and paint quality are still pretty nice though ^^

Overall, the quality has that RG-like Zoids feel — a little rougher around the edges compared to Bandai, but it's definitely a fun kit to build. That said, the price-to-size ratio isn't great, so it's very much a kit aimed at dedicated fans. Either way, high-quality mecha model kits like this are always welcome! :-)

EMZ-26 Hammer Rock | 2013. 1 | ¥2,200

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.