newbie -what to start with

[Jim LaCrone]

I am interested in getting started with realistic scale rc crawler and don't know where to begin. Had a clod buster years ago, fun but not realistic. Im interested in bruiser trucks for the realism but don't seem to see a lot of them running, are they limited in function? What is the best platform to begin with? Axial wraith seems ok and inexpensive, what about them.

[Natedog]

Pass on any Wraith or wide axled Wraith-like truck, I had one for couple years and sold the axles, wheels and tires, just makes crawling too easy and boring. Might do a 1.9 Wraith with the chassis and Ascender axles when I have time.

For you I'd go with Vaterra Ascender Blazer or Bronco (bodies are easy to swap), could also use RC4WD or other hardbody on this chassis. Scale realism of the RC4WD TF2, Land Cruiser, Land Rover D90, D110 are hard to beat, personally I'd go with leaf sprung TF2.

[TraumaChaser]

Just get what you like man. There are hundreds of posts on here about what to buy first. You can sink hundreds and even thousands making something scale and realistic. It takes a lot of long hours, craftsmanship, and innovation to put something spectacular together. Start with something easy you can learn and grow from and work on customizing it. The more you do the better you get and the more you learn. The more you build the better your stuff comes out. It takes a lot of screw ups to learn from but if you just read through some build posts and paint body posts you can skip some of them but there is no getting around screwing something up and making something stupid and then realizing what you did wrong. Axial scx10 have the most bang for your buck out of the box IMO but ask 100 different people and you will get 90 different answers. I don't recommend starting from scratch on your first crawler. I learned buying a rtr scx10 jeep rubicon and upgrading it then building from ground up exactly what I wanted. I was pretty overwhelmed with my first crawler but after tearing it apart a few times it becomes super easy to understand how they work. You can read everything on here but the best way to start is to dive in head first and hope you don't hit the bottom. Good luck.

[CODYBOY]

Best buy for your money is the Ascender.

[Jim LaCrone]

Thanks a lot for the feed back. I'm really liking the Ascender. I definitely know what you are talking about with the learning curve. I've been an industrial mechanic for 37 years, it all takes time. I'm still curious about the Bruiser. Any feed back concerning them would be welcomed. Is it price?

[Natedog]

You're welcome, not sure what you mean about price...you mean price of Bruiser? If you're interesting in Bruiser, I'd check out RC4WD TF2.