MacrossJunkie

Alternatively, I would have used the heat gun (or a hair dryer if no heat gun is available) first on the bent part of the plastic to soften it up some, then applied the clamp to keep it straight and submerged in icy cold water for like a minute. From past experience, I find that is usually enough to straighten out plastic. Less items needed and a much shorter time. I'll probably be doing that if mine comes with a bent laser.

Sounds plausible to me. In reality, it could be that and other reasons, none of which are exclusive. Whether it's getting bumped around, shipped upside down, box getting squished, etc, it still comes down to the poor packaging design that leaves the head laser susceptible to damage. and compounded by Bandai not owning up to their screw up and calling it a "quality variance".

They can't be serious! This isn't just some quality variation where tampo is misprinted or joints are loose. This is damage due to poor packaging design on a $300+ product. So basically Bandai is saying "Meh, it's fine. Deal with it" So HLJ can't/won't help? I'm seriously considering cancelling my order now since if I get one with a damaged head laser, it sounds like I might not have any recourse for a fix from the manufacturer.

Painted up the nids I got recently to be more like Leviathan colors. Also took some inspiration from the SM2 teaser.

Some weathering, inking and highlights added to Abaddon and a couple Justaerin terminators

I have mine through Kappa Hobby so I won't be getting mine until August either, but I doubt we'd see any fixes if they were even inclined to make any. I believe that time gap is mostly shipping by cargo ships across the ocean as it's far cheaper than by air. So unfortunately, what we'll be getting will likely be the batches already made and to be distributed throughout NA.

At the very least, the way they connected wouldn't have been so janky.

Battroid mode definitely needs the FP attached to the belly plates to make them look right. They're so short that even the gunpods are sticking out past them when attached... That said, I have to wait until August to get mine. I couldn't get any from overseas vendors. Dreading whether I'll find a broken head laser or not. I really hope Mr. K's desire to have another go at the YF-21 at Arcadia actually comes to fruition. It feels like Bandai didn't even put in half the effort they expended on the YF-19. They even went so far as to integrate the neck cover for fighter mode right into the shield so you wouldn't have extra parts laying around and making it actual perfect transformation and not having large divots in the back of the thighs that require extra parts to cover up. Then here with the 21, we have "auxiliary parts" unnecessarily and a number of questionable design and packaging choices.

By itself, the DX doesn't look too bad, but when placed next to the old Yamato, the Yamato's proportions in fighter mode still blows the DX away.

Wow, that's crazy they packaged it like that. A thin rigid plastic piece at the highest point in the package, protected by a flexible plastic bubble. Gee, who could have predicted that this could happen if anything should get placed on top of the box? Should have just kept the head laser detachable and separate in the package. Also, I still think those arms are too small and scrawny. While the Yamato version needed Omega Pants, Bandai's needs Omega... sleeves?

Got the last of my 10th Edition terminators today, the chaplain. They all look really good, especially with a bit of extra work done to them. Now I just need the apothecary and a bunch of 'nids.

Yeah, seriously. I hope they can rotate outwards.

Wait... so that clip is not something that is flip out and is actually a separate piece? wtf... I hope it's not actually necessary. As far as the YF-30 goes, that brace at least seemed to be optional. I never needed it for my YF-30.

Joytoy TMNT figures are up for pre-orders now on the JoyToy site but apparently they're only available exclusively for mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. So I guess if you want one, you'll need to get them off of 3rd party sellers.

I really wish they would fix the custodes figures. Both the regular ones and the allarus terminators. The regular ones look more like they are squats in proportions and the allarus also have legs that are far too short compared to the upper body. Until then, I'm not getting any more custodes. Also, it's annoying how they designed the apothecary. The canister is permanently attached to the figure via the cable, unless you cut it off or manage to break the glue. Glad that it seems to be as big as the primaris captain in gravis armor though. Not Voltian, but the newer one. Seems to me to be about the right height of what a primaris should be. The 3.0 primaris marines like the sternguard and recent rereleases like Lt Agaranthe, Castor, and Wolf pack are still barely over 7 feet tall if you multiply the height of the figures by 18. That's like the low end of firstborns and not what you'd expect of primaris.