Today , you really can't use the excuse that a Tamiya tank is too expensive. By the time you buy one of the better brands like Taigen over an HL and you do all the mods and upgrades and electronics packages and what ever else you can easily pay more than if you bought a Tamiya in the first place. So this argument no longer even matters. It boils down to what you want to spend in an initial purchase. All up front or a little at a time. Me, I still prefer to build a Tamiya kit just because they are so much fun to build but modding others is fun too but actually more work. Again that route can actually cost more than a Tamiya kit.