HardlyNever

I've been considering whether or not I should open mine based on this question. To answer your question directly: I think Mandarake will probably have something cheaper than that in the next few months, if you're ok with gently used, and maybe taking a minor hit on box condition. So you might want to hold out for that, if you're ok waiting a while. Remember, you're going to have to pay a proxy fee of some sort going through YJA (unless you have a friend or something in Japan). But then there is this whole situation with the messed up tampo on the rear stabilizer. Personally, it barely bothers me, but it could maybe, possibly (but probably not) open the door for Bandai to do some kind of reissue, with the correct tampo printing. If that does happen (again, unlikely), then another release could bring the price down further. It could also make the "error" version more valuable. But I think that scenario is unlikely.

Also got shipping notice from HLJ. Seems like they are delivering on every 1S order they made on PO night. I might not even open it until the Strike parts arrive. We'll see how long NY takes on those.

FedEX was cheaper than EMS for me, so I went with that. FedEX was faster, too.

Looks like HLJ has fixed their private warehouse issue, for those that have orders with them. I was able to complete my shipping on the order. The slowest shipping option was also the most expensive so... I should be seeing it in a week or so (depending on what Thanksgiving does to shipping locally).

Also got the notice from HLJ. But their website is crapping out (surprise), and I can't view my private warehouse at the moment. I'll keep trying.

That VF-1J Armored really caught my eye. That's a good price; I almost grabbed it, even though I have one sitting on my shelf already. Back on topic, I still haven't heard anything from HLJ regarding my DX 1/48 Hikaru 1S. The order still shows up, and I know it's technically not the release date yet, so I'm not too worried. I know HLJ is not the fastest to release product, out of the big retailers, either. But.. ya know... I want my toy

No, you can't. The gunpod is one of the most disappointing things in this otherwise pretty great package, imo. You can kinda-sorta simulate storing the gun behind the shield by putting the gunpod on that arm slot. But it only looks ok-ish at certain angles.

This is kind of my point. If someone is going to act in bad faith, they aren't going to care about rules. And they are going to play "nice" until they get what they really want. This is will net only the most marginal "advantage," unless you're using a really slow internet connection. Disabling images is pretty trivial to do in most browsers; I don't even bother to do it because my internet connection is pretty good. Loading the images doesn't take much time, compared to human reaction speed, in most situations. However when servers are bogged down, it might help a little bit. Doing it in Chrome is very easy. Doing it Firefox is also pretty simple. You can also load a page in HTML only (all the styling stripped out), and improve your load time speed. I do none of these things during pre-order madness, because page load speed generally isn't the true bottle-neck. Others are welcome to give it a shot, of course. I understand the frustration of the situation, but personally, I don't think us botting is going to solve much of anything. The only reason I'm considering developing one personally, is so that I don't have to get up at 3AM (my time) to do this crap manually. That's my real incentive there. I don't think it would improve my odds of success that much. But I'm not trying to derail this effort, per se. Just giving my two cents. In my opinion, if we were going to act collectively in some fashion, trying to change the behavior of one or more of the big retailers would be our best bet. We have some people here that drop some pretty serious cash at some of these vendors. Collectively, we might represent enough buying power to influence something like AmiAmi, HLJ, etc. to change their pre-order practice, at least when it comes to Bandai DX Macross products. But that would require us acting collectively, not individually (and selfishly) to get preferential treatment for ourselves.

I've already weighed in on this is situation in other threads, so I won't repeat myself here. As a web developer, there does seem to be some misinformation floating around about what a bot can/does and doesn't do, but (again) I've already commented on that; if you want to dig through my comment history feel free. All I'll add is: 1. There is no one bot that will work on all the major sites (as they have bot-resistant architecture). So you'll have to either pick a bot for a specific site, or make a bot that targets the weaker, less bot-resistant sites. Whoever you find to do this needs to be aware of that going into it. And if they are decent, they should be able to recognize that pretty early on. 2. Be careful with who you are dealing with, and don't get your hopes up too high. Putting in $5-10 for having at chance at a bot that will have a chance at increasing your pre-order success is one thing, if you're ok with understanding that you are throwing money at a gamble. And you're ok with the possibility of having 0 ROI on that gamble. Having a group of internet strangers pool money together to give to yet another internet stranger, hoping that everyone will act in good faith, seems pretty naive to me. And some of the comments in this thread and about this topic general kind give me kind of a "I'm new at internet" vibe. But that's me. If you do get a functioning bot that does work on one of the major sites, there is nothing stopping just one person out of the many who have the bot from becoming the next big scalper. Yes, the sites have customer limits, but of course there are ways to circumvent those, if you are willing. With great power comes great responsibility, or something like that . So good luck, I hope it works out the way you all are hoping. Just be careful and manage your expectations accordingly.

I'd still buy it. I think Bandai is prioritizing battroid mode with this particular design. I think the Yamato's feet and legs are ridiculously tiny, so I'd be happy to see Bandai improve that, and it looks like they have. The line-art and what we see in animation for the yf-21 are impossible to create in a 3D (near) perfect transformation toy, and we just have to accept that. I'm not saying Bandai can't do better than what we are seeing right now, but compromises will be made, usually at the cost of a specific mode. This is true (to some degree or another) of all the pre-CAD valks. I do think that they intakes are a bit too far forward in fighter mode, even when accounting for anime magic, so I'd like them to try to push them back a little bit, even if they can't get it line-art accurate. But I think what we're seeing now is not far off from what we'll end up getting, otherwise they wouldn't have revealed it.

At this point, I'd contact the individual retailer before making a purchase. We can't really know the state of every item at every retailer.

Mandarake is like the most anal-retentive otaku out there about boxes, in a good way (for us). A smudge and a little dent and it's like a C- to them. I'm glad you're liking the Spartan. It just adds to the credo that the non-transforming mechs really are the stars of this line.

It's really up to you. The VF-4 kind of stands alone thematically; it only appears briefly in an animation that is essentially an epilogue to DYRL, and looks fairly unique compared to most every other valk. I have mine with a YF-19 and VF-2SS as sort of the "next chapter" shelf, under a DYLR shelf. But it could thematically fit with the DYRL stuff, imo. Or just put it wherever it looks good to you.

The majority of people seem to not want it, at least on these forums. I'm in that camp as well. Unfortunately, I think we're going to end up with it. There seems to be a precedent that once a company incorporates a gimmick fairly successfully, most of the following releases have to try to replicate that gimmick, even if no one really wanted it. The face plate coming off the yf-19 comes to mind (who really cares about that?). Interior detail on VF-1 super parts seems similar (although it looks like Bandai might be finally getting rid of that, or at least greatly reducing it). But I kind of like that one Anyhow, I hope they don't, but I think they will. But even with the gimmick, I think it will still be a good toy that is worth the purchase. So I'm still excited.

Mine has also been in battroid mode for about a month (I haven't even tried the other modes with the armor). It seems fine, but I don't really handle it. Maybe I'll check it this weekend. I do have it on the reinforced display stand, with the support arms attached. I even added another set of support arms (from a different display stand) to hold up the boosters.

Good Ol' MMM says it has 4 micro missile launchers standard, where @Shizuka the Cat highlighted. The stuff about the FAST packs is a little hard to parse, but what I'm understanding is that they are saying there are 4 hardpoints to mount the four fast packs. which have more missiles, but doesn't say exactly how many ports: "all-environment FAST Pack weapon packs with micro-missiles (mounted on arm/tail and hip/underside panels) each capable of equipping 4,000 kg."

The quote I copied is in purple, which means it's from the Macross Chronicle (or at least is supposed to be). Haven't read any of them myself, so I can't vouch for the authenticity personally. It could be a loose translation; I guess you'd have to track down that particular issue and see for yourself. I doubt they would put it in the MMM if they weren't too sure about it, though. Like I said, I'm no expert, so you'd have to take it up with the MMM and/or the Macross Chronicle, I suppose.

I'm not enough of a YF-21 (or Macross) buff to know the correct answer, but I can see the confusion if in fact delimiter mode != ejecting the arms and legs, since I believe it is mentioned only once (from what I recall), and it is around the same time he ejects the arms and legs. Either way, I don't know of any other valk, at least that has been animated, that has the ability to jettison the arms and legs, for whatever reason. You see lots of armor popping off, but I can't recall any other valk being able to deliberately remove parts from itself (voluntarily) in case they are damaged. Regardless, I'm kind of hoping Bandai doesn't bother with the gimmick, as I think it will be detrimental to the structural integrity as a whole. Oh, and then there is this from the Macross Mecha Manual: While most VFs have traditionally situated the main engines within the legs of the Battroid, the YF-21 arranged the engine block in the main body with independent legs. By discarding the mostly dead weight of the arms and legs, the limiter-release mode can attain performance reaching the fuselage design limits and attain high manueverability combat performance exceeding other VFs. However, the pilot operating the limit-release mode bears the effect of dangerous G-forces which exceed the limits of the human body.

This is where I'm at. I don't want a gimmick I'll basically never use to compromise the toy's integrity in the standard modes. If they can get it to work without any other issues, great, but I don't want them to try to force it just because it's been done before.

Yeah, that's why I said rarely. There are always exceptions. Even the regular regult took a while to catch on, though; it wasn't a top seller immediately. I know I got mine below MSRP several months after release. Seems like it took almost two years for it to really become a hot item.

That would be a great thematic pack. I wonder if they consider the TV Max 1A to be desirable enough to be the seller in a double pack. But maybe the theme alone would carry it. I'd definitely be in for one, maybe more, and just customize the extra 1As to be cannon fodder.

If the Scout and Roy VF-1S do in fact end up being sold exclusively as a double pack, it will basically confirm what we've been realizing for the past few years: non-valks rarely sell well on their own. It could be the new reality that in order to get a non-valk release, we're going to have to buy it bundled with a popular valk (either as a re-issue, or something they haven't made, but think will sell well). The GBP set is a prime candidate for something like this. Probably the Hikaru VF-1S DYRL. The Max VF-1J sold well enough, but maybe not well enough to serve as a bundle seller. I would think the TV VF-1S would be a good match as well, but maybe we'll get that later? Or we could be jumping way ahead of ourselves and this won't be a bundle at all. It's fun to speculate, though.

The box confuses me. It says battroid, but also "kanzen henkei." Which is it? Cool box, either way.

When they get to that DYRL section... すごい indeed. Would have loved to see that in person. The Macross Plus section was nice too

We're all caught up in the Tamashii Nations event news, and this guy necros a thread and drops the hottest release of 2019 on us. Never saw it coming.