Boobytrap

I'm loving this monster way too much. No picture can do justice to how awesome it is in hand. I got into this line for the regult. Told myself that it would be nice to have one on my desk. Of course I had to add a glaug because the regult had to have a commander, right? But what good is a commander if he only has one trooper to command? So, added another regult. After getting a small squad ready for battle I then realized they needed someone to do battle with. VF added. One lonely VF against a Zentradi squad? That may work in the fantasy world of a tv show but not in real life, he needs back up. Enter the monster. So here I sit, having gone from a nice item to display on my desk to a desk covered more with Macross than with work. I don't regret it one bit. I just need a bigger desk.

Agree wholeheartedly. Eliminating that connection altogether with the SAP was a horrible choice. I'm also not a fan of how the top part of the SAP attaches. It's secure enough but I have a hard time getting the engines to fit in it right.

I feel you. I'm sure that not everyone was as fortunate as I. I was also lucky enough to get a perfectly functional VF-0D (fingers crossed my luck keeps holding out). It's the pride of my collection. And for the record, anime accurate or not, I love the shade of blue. As for the Nexx and fairy I can at least give some kudos to ET for attempting to correct some of the flaws, although I'm sure we wish that they weren't (and shouldn't have been) there to begin with.

One other difference I just noticed is that they fixed the angle of the legs in fighter mode. It always bugged me how they sloped downward on Sylvie and nothing I could do seemed to correct the issue. But both Nexx and fairy have legs that extend straight back in fighter mode. This fix helps to give the fighter mode profile a slimmer appearance. If I had any abilities with a camera I would show pictures but alas I don't. Hopefully someone more skilled than I can show what I am talking about.

Thanks for the kind welcome I opened up Nexx and it also has the same improvements listed above. As far as the SAP packs I would HIGHLY recommend not trying to open the missile doors as another poster alluded to. The connection points are very thin and you are just asking for trouble messing with them. ET also made a curious decision. For the fairy and the stand alone SAP they included a second set of arm armors (see pics from poster above). Nexx did not have these. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why. After lots of examination i saw why, they changed the tabs that hold the flip up door closed. The new tabs are a definite improvement and I'm glad they did it but why they would have given us both makes no sense considering they obviously made a package change for Nexx.

So here goes for my first post. I had been out of Macross collecting for about 10 years spending most of that time on models as they were cheaper and easier to obtain. I was to the point of breaking down and buying the VF-2SS Bandai model as it is my favorite valk design and i really wanted it in my collection, even if it didn't look the best. During my search for the model I ran across this site as well as the fact that ET was going to be producing a toy version. My eyes lit up! It was fate I tell ya that one was in the process of being released at the very time that I was looking to add one to my collection. I pre-ordered one right away. In the meantime I added around 20 valks to fill in the holes that I had missed over the years (such a slippery slippery slope). Fast forward to the Sylvie release... I had already read the reviews and pretty much knew what to expect. A none too solid fit. A different type of plastic... etc, etc, etc. I have, however, come away feeling that this is a much better toy than most people make it out to be. Is it as good as a Bandai or Yamacadia? No. Should it cost as much as it does? No. Have i enjoyed the heck out of it? Yes. Now I realize that this may be due to my heavy bias for the VF-2SS and it may just be a 'mileage may vary' sort of thing, but I have had very few issues. The only two things I had to do was add some future to one of the rear thrusters as it was a little too loose and add some to the holes where the arms peg into the leg. After that it was very 'swooshable'. It seems to me in looking at other peoples pictures and complaints that the legs are not being locked into place correctly. The instructions show that once the leg is pushed onto the tab that you need to slide it back. When you do that you should feel a very slight lock. Once that is done i have no fear of the legs falling out of place during normal use. The arms may still come untabbed but overall it feels sturdy enough. Moving on to the fairy squadron, which i just got today, I do feel that there have been improvements. The first thing I noticed immediately was the plastic. While Sylvie was glossy this has a matte finish. In addition the plastic itself has changed and is much more rigid. Sylvie's is a softer more flexible plastic. When i squeeze on Sylvie's chest piece (LOL) from the sides it flexes, fairy squad does not. In the end this has given the valk a much more sturdy feel. The matte finish also means that there is more friction between pieces. I find that even though they did not improve the arm/leg connection the added friction alone provides an improvement there. They also modified the connection of the metal swing bar to the underside. It now has a slot allowing it to slide back a little. This small movement makes the leg locking I mentioned above even easier. I can now hold it by the nose cone and shake it and the legs stay in place. I could not do that with Sylvie. There is also a new small swing peg added near the leg connection. While not much of an improvement I would assume that it is there to further assist the leg from sliding forward and unlocking. While not perfect I do prefer the addition of the tabs to the tail fins over what they had before. They have introduced a new problem though. They switched to a thicker clear spacer between the tail fin and its mounts instead of the thinner white one they had before. Not only is it more unsightly (at first i though that it was a dab of glue) but it has reduced the amount of screw that can fit into the fin. I believe that this reduced connection is what is causing the detached fins right out of the box. That's as far as I have gotten so far as I have yet to transform it or add the SAP pack. I also received Nexx today but haven't opened it yet to see if it includes the same or even further enhancements (not likely I know). I'll be sure to comment further if I find anything else. So overall I am happy to have this in my collection and that they have improved on a flawed but decent product. P.S. sorry for the long winded post (it's my first after all)