Fort Max

Just suddenly remembered that this was coming, bank account ready for a savaging.

Is the vf-11 still available at all?

Phew, thanks for that, I was afraid I'd missed it. Already threw down an order at HLJ just to be on the safe side as well, will have to make sure I cancel that one now.

Cheers fellas. I'm in for less then two hundred quid pre shipping. Should I get it EMS or FedEx from NY?

The price isn't too bad, I've been wanting a yf-19 for years so £207 pre postage is doable. I just need to find somewhere to order from that won't mind marking it down a bit so poxy customs doesn't bum me into the next year.

I haven't posted here in some time but when I saw there was a new YF-19 in the works I had to come back to the font of all Macross knowledge! Very excited for this, I've never been a big enough Macross fan to buy them all but Macross Plus has always stuck in my memories from my early days of watching anime and this design in particular has always been conspicuous in it's absence from my mecha collection. I was out of work when the last version was released but this time I'll be waiting. I only pray that I can accept the price!

Yamato seem to be getting more ambitious, I look forward to seeing the end result.

Very cool, was hoping for a more affordable mass produced toy version.

I spy my first Hi-Metal. The monster seems to be a material's breakdown shot, i.e. highlighting what's metal and what's plastic.

Sold out now, lol.

They're going to be tamashi exclusives, aren't they...

Really, really digging this now, those extra little features just make it all the cooler. I was just made redundant though, I shouldn't really be buying toys but I am getting a good few grand in redundancy payouts. It's £100 on ami ami for the standard version and I want it, I really do at this point but I'm going to have to think about it. It's Bandai so it's not going to dissapear after a month and never be seen again. I think it'll depend on how much it costs to ship it too, lots of diecast doesn't sound so great in that respect!

June I think.

What a load of tat (excluding the base), if I get one it'll be the regular version.

For a 4k price difference the special verison had better be very special indeed.

Bandai did a fantastic job with this, hope it's every bit as good as it looks. Shizouka hobby show is coming up in about a fortnight, hope to see them announce a Focker version with cannon.

Noice! Was there a price anywhere in that wall of incomprehensible squiggles?

Squinting time!

The Excalibur looks slick, is it defintely pop out misisles or maybe the dreaded swap parts!

Looking good, only one on display though so probably not quite finished yet.

Lol, I was using that, the pin it connects to at that bottom doesn't have enough friction to keep it on. Well I don't know for certain but given how quickly Bandai churns things out I'd say if they were going to make more they'd have done so by now. It's just an educated assumption though.

Doesn't look like anyone's still talking about this but whatever. Got mine today and I love it, at first I found it a bit fiddly and was surprised that none of the reviews I'd seen had touched on this but once you've done it it becomes much easier from the second go and onwards. Everything (bar the sodding crotch armour) locks nicely into place and the quality is evident throughout. Even the cockpit mode was both easier to achieve and sturdier then I was expecting. You get a ton of bits and a bajillion hands for your money as well as a nice stand so it's a great value piece of toy. The only quibbles I have are the aforementioned crotch armour which pops off at the slightest provocation and is so badly designed that it doesn't even feel like it was made by the same people. Also the armours feet have rollers in them which don't roll, be nice if they did. There was something else but I've forgotten it in the time it took to gripe about the stupid crotch armour. It's just a shame they aren't going to do any more.

Bandai's prices are all over the shop, they always have been. Master grades etc are great value for what you get and the hours you get out of them, robot damashi's are horribly overpriced for just basic action figures and soc's are really expensive but worth every penny and so on and so forth. I gotta say I think the Hi-metal VF-1 isn't badly priced for them and could certainly be worse.

I'll wait until there's good pictures of a fully finished sample but it's definitely something I'd like to get a hold of.

An earlier prototype had moulded cockpit detail with the pilot, seat, control panel's etc. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2697/440268..._044b3d8500.jpg