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  2. VF-1A Grunt
    I'm sure like most of you, I received an email from HLJ this morning warning about the impact of the impending tariff on Japan that goes into effect at the end of August. In case you didn't get it, the email states, "The recent announcement implies that a flat-rate fee will be added to shipments valued at under $800, based on the effective IEEPA Tariff rate decided by the US government. These charges begin at $80 dollars and increase depending on the tariff rate of the country of origin." And, "Therefore, we would like to advise customers in the US to prepare for the possibility of tariffs also being applied to JP post methods following August 29th." I decided it was time to ship the items in my Private Warehouse in the hopes that they'll ship / arrive before the deadline. I had two Hasegawa models, the 1/72 VF-1J Armored Valkyrie Operation Bullseye Part 2 and the Queadluun-Rau "General Machine," plus the PLAMAX "Max" VF-1A Battroid. I decided to add a Hasegawa 1/48 VF-1J/A Vermilion Squadron as well. The point of this post is to note something odd with the HLJ pricing that I haven't seen before (maybe others have). HLJ lists the 1/48 VF-1J/A as $26.10 USD, but when the purchase went through, the price was ¥3,230 = $21.89. The EMS shipping option was showing as about $96 for the four models (ouch), but when I actually shipped the order, it came out to "only" ¥11,890 = $80.44. The shipping transaction is still pending with my credit card, but that's what the email receipt says. That was a pleasant surprise that everything didn't cost quite as much as I was expecting, so I wanted to pass that along. I'm probably going to hold off on shipping anything else for a while, since HLJ is being generous with their extended hold time in the Private Warehouse. We're planning another trip to Japan next summer, so I may need to take a second extra suitcase to bring more things back than I normally do.
  3. Urashiman
    yeah, it's just odd ... :S
  4. Papa Rat
    Nice work 👍
  5. pengbuzz
    No, they're saving him for Duncan. And for Ramirez, they'll probably cast: Frankly, they need to cancel this while they're ahead...
  6. sh9000
  7. pengbuzz
    It's accurate for the vehicles: Octane may have a plane mode as a triple changer, but the truck mode is not going to be longer than a shuttle.
  8. sh9000
    Excellent review @mikeszekely and agreed that they both look good together. Can't wait to get mine. I can see DNA for sure making a new fusion cannon and maybe doing something for the backs of Megatron's lower legs.
  9. pengbuzz
    Still working on this; paint job needs refinement and whatnot. Decals are "whatever I think looks legit" and would make sense (for what that's worth): Used some "artistic license" in a few places: Stay tuned.
  10. sh9000
    I still love my custom HMR and I'd buy a DX set and also a standalone DX CF VF-1A.
  11. Scyla
    Maybe @M'Kyuun is right and it is the gray color that brings out the greeble much more, or it’s because my mind associates Studio Series 86 Prime with MP-44 (which is super smooth), but in my minds eye 86 Megatron is a greebly mess, whereas 86 Prime is G1 cartoon smoothness; odd. Thank you for the comparison picture.
  12. Today
  13. Tking22
    Yeah even TWE at this point I'd be fine, I just want to finish the squad in DX form. I've had four sets of missiles since the first wave went on order, and yet I only have three valks for them, bummer.
  14. mikeszekely
    It's a little over your budget and not the most cutting edge hardware, but this is about as low as I'd go on the CPU for Tarkov, and the GPU should still cut it for your desired settings. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/thermaltake-graphite-360-gaming-desktop-amd-ryzen-5-5600x-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-1tb-nvme-m-2-black/6488518.p?skuId=6488518 Anything newer/faster is gonna cost you these days. To put it in perspective, I spent about $1200 on my desktop five and a half years ago. I upgraded last fall and spent double that.
  15. Mog
    @lordmasterprince did a custom of that color scheme years ago:
  16. mikeszekely
    Respecftully, I disagree. I mean, yes, Megatron does have a lot more greebles than a modern Fans Toys version would, absolutely. But Prime's far from Sunbow sleek, with thicker proportions and plenty of greebles of his own, especially on the sides of his arms, the backs of his shoulders, and the sides and backs of his legs. Personally, I think they look quite good together.😁 To force you to start over with an ever-so-slightly larger scale, of course. In all seriousness, it was my understanding that they felt that ER Prime was a little too short compared to the rest of the Autobots, and that 86 was something of a course correction. The problem is that Siege/ER Megatron actually did scale pretty well the with other Decepticons, though, so Soundwave, Shockwave, and the Seekers pretty much have to be redone to scale with 86 Megatron. There have been hints of these adjustments for awhile. Galvatron is basically the size they scaled Prime and Megatron up to, Blaster's a little taller than Soundwave, and even though they kinda hyped Motormaster being the same height as Prime, well, none of the Decepticons were as tall as Megatron so Motormaster was always properly shorter than Prime and Megs. I do think, in a way, it's a shame that Romulus wound up not scaling with 86 Prime for those people who really do insist on Megatron having a gun mode, but I'm personally too bent out of shape about it because the Studio Series versions of Prime, Megatron, Ironhide/Ratchet, arguably Bumblebee, and apparently the new Seekers have been such improvements over the WfC versions that I would have double-dipped even if they didn't adjust the scale.
  17. derex3592
    Maaaan, I would buy the crap out of that scheme! In any scale!
  18. sh9000
    TV Kakizaki is also one of my main wants. Since Vermillion Squadron was completed with HMR then maybe just maybe Bandai will someday get to it. I have a feeling it will be a TWE but I'd be ok with that.
  19. sh9000
    Yeah the set was available to preorder from Yoyakunow and Big in Japan yesterday.
  20. grogall
    I can second that! Not a company with good customer service! 🤮
  21. bleecher
    Thanks for the update, looks like both sold out fast.
  22. Old_Nash_II
    Great Simon Furman's Ghost!
  23. M'Kyuun
    I'm firmly not in the cartoon "accuracy" camp, so I'm all for mechanical details, but of course, mileage varies. And SS86 Prime does have a fair bit of surface detail: rivets and panel lines all over his arms, panel details all over the insides and outsides of his legs, vent details on his midsection, windshield wipers, brace detail on his fuel tanks- lots of surface detail. a lot of it just kinda gets washed away from a distance in the seas of red and blue, but they're there upon close inspection, and that's well within what we've seen in both the main line and SS86 throughout. I'm a fan. If you really want plain figs, go with MP or legends, as both seem to hew closer to the plain low-detail toon aesthetic than either of Hasbro's lines. On one hand, Romulus' scale is a shame, but on the other, he pairs nicely with Earthrise Prime, which, until SS86 came along, was undoubtedly the best official G1 Prime toy in the main line. I still hold it in high regard, as it's a fine figure, and there are some things I like better on it than the SS86, like the 3D molded shin vents. With both toys, we're doubly blessed with G1 OP goodness after decades of waiting. Honestly, I'm not sure why they felt they had to upscale SS86 Prime from his usual large voyager stature, as the ER was already taller than the rest of the Autobots, which scaled perfectly, IMHO.
  24. Pontus started following The computer and electronics super geek thread
  25. Pontus
    @Sildani, I'll bite on that one. For such a low budget, you might be better off going with one of the windows based gaming handhelds. I recently went with a Steamdeck because it's purpose built with a dedicated linux gaming OS that's easier on power than Windows, but there's no support for Tarkov, so that wouldn't work for you. But there's plenty of great options out there like the MSI Claw, Asus Rogue, Lenovo Legion (which actually has both SteamOS dedicated support and Windows, so you could dual boot), etc. These are all within your budget iirc. Old school/serious PC gamers may write these off, but the tech is seriously capable now (other than battery life, get an external one), and they all have docking options, bluetooth controllers, and double as a standard PC. Will they do 4k with ray tracing at 120hz? Not even close, but I think most of the latest models can meet your stated expectations not to mention being portable. Some can even connect to external GPUs, although that's not really all that practical... yet. Asus makes a good go of that but it's expensive. USB C vsn5 works but isn't quite up to the task, and the only one that has a PCI connection is the older Asus model. Just my 2¢.
  26. azrael
    A GPU will eat up anywhere between half to all of that $900 budget. Ryzen 5 9600X or 7600X B850 or B650 motherboard 16 GB RAM 1TB SSD (maybe can fit in a 2TB if $$$ allows) 750W-850W PSU RTX 5060 or RX 9060XT
  27. jenius
    Woof, that's a crazy price!
  28. betocc
    And of course LunaPark, which I don't recommend at all https://www.lunapark.store/product-page/dx-chogokin-vf-1s-armored-valkyrie-roy-focker-special-japan-version
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