Review Summary: A small dice tower for sci-fi, mech-related settings, that punches way above its size.
Blurb from the publisher: 'The MFF Mech Dice Tower is made of high quality Plexiglas with beautiful, improved overprint.
It's available in 4 different colours.The overprint is way better than anything we have printed on this material before. When assembling the Tower, you can choose if you want to have the smooth surface on the outside or do you prefer the one with overprint. Every tower is easy to assemble and can be assembled without glue.'
What you get: Your EUR 10 or equivalent will buy you the e-Raptor Dice Tower MFF Mech (blue, green, red, yellow), a dice tower for use with any game that uses dice and revolve around transforming vehicles or walking-like machines. The tower is comprised of six pieces. The side panels portray a mech in humanoid form, ready to start shooting. The diacritics MFF-1351 AX are written under the design. The plastic of every colour except from the yellow are crystal clear and transparent, while the one in the yellow iteration of the tower is glazed. When assembled the tower has a height of 11 cm, a width of almost 8 cm and a length of 11 cm. From the moment one throws a die to the moment it hits the ground and rests, it will have touched three different angled platforms.
As usual, there is no shadow reviewing. E-Raptor has graciously provided all four colour iterations for the present review.
The strong points: Niche as the mech market might be, not having a proper tower for it was outright unacceptable. The injustice is finally addressed, with four differently coloured mechs ready to take their place into their battlefield. The tower is compact: its footprint on the table is less than 88 cm2. It is also extremely friendly to your wallet, probably one of the most friendly themed dice towers out there (as opposed to generic). What the tower lacks in size however, it has in character. The mech looks extremely confident, ready to obliterate anybody on the battlefield. Even though Dust 1947 is more about walkers and WWII than mechs and sci-fi, this is a well-fitting tower for that game and has been used there with very good results.
The tower is very easy to assemble within less than 30 seconds. The pieces are sturdy and without small or flimsy-looking hooking extremities, which allows for a better use of force while assembling. The pieces are interlocking through movable yet practically unbreakable parts. If you make a mistake or two, you will be able to backtrack. You will be even able to fully disassemble the device for storage or transport, even though I wouldn't recommend making a habit out of it.
Once built the tower is sturdy. I experimented by throwing it on the table from a resting position; the tower stayed intact. I did not dare throwing it from the table to the ground however.
The weak points: The blurb is not factually correct when it states that you can choose the sides' texture. These pieces can only be placed one way, if you want the inscription underneath the mech to be read properly. To be totally frank, if it were up to me the inscription would have been omitted. It doesn't necessarily reduce visibility, but it gives the impression of reducing visibility.
Small towers by definition imply a certain hindrance in observing the result, with the design of the tower interfering with your field of vision towards its base. The effect is not that pronounced on this tower, thanks to the mech's optimal placement. As expected, the tower's size limits the amount of dice one can roll in one go, meaning that buckets of dice are a no go. A certain stooping around is to be expected, even though it is of a very limited nature.
As much as the yellow coloured mech is my favourite, its glazed surfaces do not help the reading of the dice once they have rested. I seriously hope that e-Raptor starts using exclusively the crystal clear plastic in all the towers' colours. Seeing how the resting area for the dice is extremely small and the mech is right on top of it, the glazed aspect is an engineering decision in the wrong direction, reducing the tower's overall usability.
One can always allege that dice towers distract from the game if their theme is not relevant. I do not feel that way; they are tools to use on the gaming table. If one however is a purist and does not wish this tower in his medieval game, then one might have less use for the this tower than I do. Speaking of tools, like with any dice tower, wooden or plastic, rolling the dice on one is more noisy than rolling on the tablecloth or inside a game box.
Conclusion: I really like the e-Raptor Dice Tower MFF Mech. Taking its size and price into account, and provided that you have the games to use it with, I do recommend buying more than one. Fielding all four colours at the same time, and even more so, having a dedicated tower per player takes your game to another level.
To find out more about e-Raptor and its MFF Mech range of dice towers, take a look at http://e-raptor.pl.
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