Actually on the Tamiya website, it states the figures are Master Box.

Thanks, Kevin. Is anything here really new?

I think other then the TUSK II addon for the M1A2, not really. It is unfortunate for Tamiya, they were the go to kit when I was younger, but they have done nothing new and exciting for some time. Maybe, hopefully soon.

Tamiya will always be my go to kit first before any other. The Abrams. Will be a very welcome addition ( every dragon Abrams I bought has had a bowed deck poorly cast ) guess there's always the resin tusk conversion offering for those who avoid Tamiya ( probably a few cheap ones soon on eBay ) Adam

Nothing really new here. The M109A6 Paladin is a rebox of the Italeri kit with no improvements and just the addition of the extra equipment and figure sprue from the Tamiya's M2A2 ODS kit. The basic Paladin kit is so-so, but not great, and it has crappy tracks. It is missing anti-slip coating, the top and side turret hatches are molded closed, and the hull is out of date with the flotation system cover and other flotation system parts that have not been on M109s since the A2 version. I'll wait for the Riich model M109A6 Paladin kit to come out, which look like it will be awesome. The M1A2 SEP w/TUSK 2 kit is the same basic Tamiya M1A1/A2 kit as their earlier release with a bit of updating on the upper hull (left rear of hull for Hawker Battery) and a couple new sprues for the TUSK 2 parts. It is still lacking the anti-slip coating, has older T158 tracks, and is lacking other details for an M1A2 SEP tank. Again, I'll stick to the Dragon M1A1 AIM and M1A2 SEP kits. They are light years ahead of Tamiya on details. I might get this one for just the TUSK parts, probably not though.

The Italeri Paladin shouldn't be much of a surprise. Tamiya is the import distributor for Italeri kits in Japan. Their boxes used to have both logos on them. Hasegawa did the same thing for Dragon when I was in Japan last. Cheers! -HK sends

The Paladin isn't entirely the same old kit. Tamiya had Italeri do new tooling on the tracks and roadwheels. This was annouced at the Shizuoka show in Japan. At least that'll "somewhat" bring it up to par....

I would like to see what the "retool" looks like. All the sprue shots I have seen look the same as the original Italeri M109A6 kit. I'll still wait for the Riich Model kit.

I would like to see what the "retool" looks like. All the sprue shots I have seen look the same as the original Italeri M109A6 kit. I'll still wait for the Riich Model kit.[/quote] Don't know much about the M109 in kit form, but here's AFV Club's release and test shots for their new kit of it: PMMS New Kit News::AFV Club Looks pretty darned nice. I'd guess Tamiya's "new" release is an attempt to steal the march on AFV Club.