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lechuck

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  1. lechuck
    Your call has been heard, Bandai is relentless 😄
  2. lechuck
    When the Ent-D fired its phasers taking out a big chunk of Borg cube after initially being held by their tractor beam. Or when the stardrive and saucer section provided enough resistance to rescue Picard. I never said that the Galaxy-class could outright beat the Borg, but it was/is able to hold on to a certain point and not immediately fall over like you make it out to be. I wonder if the Defiant was rated as threat by the Borg cube during First Contact, probably more like an irritating fly to them. Having familiarity with something IS practical. The finer detail to this is that the Lakota was actually also holding back, it wasn't until Admiral Leyton ordered Captain Benteen to go all out with their weapons that the Lakota stood down.
  3. lechuck
    Not sure what you are trying to tell me here? The Enterprise-D had to deal with a Borg cube twice on its own and held on damn well admirably. A starship design not intended for battle, no ablative armour, no pulse phasers and no quantum torpedoes to the rescue. It too was deemed spaceworthy and repairable by Starfleet after its battle. And as I mentioned above, if it were not for the suicide attack, we basically saw again how an unprepared Galaxy class would soak up a heck of beating to survive and still keep as much of the crew alive on that initial Dominion encounter and would later become Starfleet's most veritable and valuable asset in the Dominion war. I am not really questioning the Defiant's qualities, it has its place. I just don't subscribe to the dogma that only that ship is good enough for battle because "built for Borg". The Defiant is an option, but not necessarily THE option. Besides, why would a command crew not take the ship they know the ins and outs of best over a ship they've never set foot on (except Worf) - that makes no sense. I would think humans would function better in an environment that is more familiar to them. Drama effect? Defiant and Voyager weren't exactly immune to that either. And I never claimed that the Galaxy-class is unbeatable or could not be surpassed. Of course the Enterprise-D (or Galaxy class) without any current Starfleet tech. upgrades is going to have a tough time, but that basically applies to the museum piece Defiant as well. Pretty absurd musing if you ask me, not once did I get any type of inclination like this from Geordi these past couple of episodes. Broken? He has had a good Starfleet career, has a family, brought up and shaped his daughters as decent people. Sure there was that disagreement with career path of one of the daughters, but that's already been resolved and it wasn't a catastrophic breakdown in relationship. As for his Enterprise-D project – it's just a pastime that gave him fulfilment, pride and joy, nothing more and nothing less. Maybe it took the twenty years because he wasn't constantly at it and spending time with his family? Or it took time to source a star drive section... or the right computer core... or warp core...? And flying into battle with a ship that has been rebuilt with the heart and soul of its former main engineer can not really be a bad thing. I remember the Defiant having a lot of trouble getting past a heavily upgraded Excelsior-class U.S.S. Lakota and only gaining the upper hand after some creative thinking. Now imagine the Defiant going up against a "fit for Dominion war" Galaxy-class of that time.
  4. lechuck
    ...On the Federation's first Dominion encounter with a ship not purposely built for attack or defence against a certain species, not having enough time for a counter measure against phased polaron beams that broke down their shields and most of all not expecting the Jem'Hadar going full suicide attack on their retreat. If it wasn't for that last bit the Odyssey would have actually survived - the Galaxy class swallowed all that prior beating despite not having any fancy ablative armour or adequate fire power. And let's not forget that the same Galaxy class became Starfleet's backbone in the Dominion war tasked with providing firepower against Cardassian, Breen and Dominion battleships.
  5. lechuck
    I see this sort of defacto argument so often for the Defiant to be THE Wunderwaffe against the Borg. It might have been designed for that intent, but its ineffectiveness was pretty much proven in First Contact. This so called Borg busting starship was actually being busted up by the Borg, heck even in DS9 the Defiant often times was struggling against Jem'Hadar attack fighters for all its supposedly superior firepower and defensive capabilities.
  6. lechuck
    Hah... the coincidence, just recently acquired one for myself too. So many accessories, I feel like Bandai should have added a second X0 Gundam in the package so I can put it all to use.
  7. lechuck
    Sentinel being going Brave – Metamor Force Dagwon
  8. lechuck
    It is a damn fine time to be Mazinger/Mazinkaiser fan, more of Blitzway's Mazinkaiser.
  9. lechuck
    MG Zeta Ver.Ka is imminent, came across this first look on my YT feeds. Looks fantastic as ever when you tackle Gunpla @anubis20! You mentioned your Metal Build can be retired, is it that much better – where does the MGEX excel in your opinion?
  10. lechuck
    So any (updated) Legioss in this Genesis Breaker story or why is it getting the shaft?
  11. lechuck
    Just watched ep. 9 last night and what can I say... YES, YES and YEEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!! (with double fists!) – Starfleet's finest and best starship is back, Galaxy class forever! Now if the wormhole beings are with me, there will be a saucer separation and we finally get to see the stardrive section in full glorious battle action. Also it is interesting that Geordi/producers didn't go with the updated bridge layout from Generations, personally I kind of liked the additional consoles along the side pathways.
  12. lechuck
    Just watched Ep. 6 and... again with the Section 31 nonsense. I'm not even sure where we stand with this group - are they now officially part of Starfleet? I swear... I despise DS9 for ever introducing this diametrically opposed crap into the Star Trek universe - it's a concept that should have no place there! For three decades Star Trek told us that humans and human society has evolved - dropped our ego, not selfish, become an open, equal and transparent society. But... oh wait... because the people behind DS9 thought ST needed be more edgier ("because TNG was so unsuccessful with its approach") we get Section 31, a secret group bereft of any moral and ethical conscience, scheming and plotting for maintaining or gaining power over other species or galactic unions. Surprise... humans aren't that cool and evolved after all. Ugh... And here we are three decades later, still dealing with this stupidity DS9 introduced with almost every new ST series we get. We can be mad for Kurtzman and cohorts continuing to run with the idea, but the real blame goes to those people in charge of DS9 back in the day.
  13. lechuck
    More SRW - Compatible Kaiser https://www.taghobby.com/archives/698140
  14. lechuck
    Personally I find the DX to be the better toy, but I mainly look at this from a Battroid perspective. - Proper deep bending elbow joint, with Arcadia's you have fake it by shifting the bicep cover and using the upper transformation hinge - Thigh swivel and waist swivel - More independent articulation points around the shoulder for better range of motion - Head can be angled in any direction - Shield doesn't fall off so easily from the arm - Nose cone integrates better into the torso area - No filler parts required for the rear upper legs, looks very unsightly on the Arcadia one if you don't use it - Pinpoint barrier punch effect and arm cannon accessories Specifically for fighter mode I like that Bandai didn't sculpt the nose cone/fuselage area to droop as much, it has that arching thing but sort of keeps a straight line from a side profile view. Also there are no ugly gaps at the knees from the underside. Generally, Arcadia's take on the YF-19 is a bit lifeless to me vs. the Bandai DX.
  15. lechuck
  16. lechuck
    Review of a prototype Hagane Works Dancouga. It's big and looks to have a good amount of heft, but articulation seems a bit on the basic side.
  17. lechuck
    Devine Striker (PB item) https://hobby.dengeki.com/news/1879183/
  18. lechuck
    So I have had the MP Trailbreaker for a couple of weeks now, thought I'd share my impressions. Trailbreakers alt-mode looks very nice, the embossed "Toyota" at the back is great touch of realism. Features include opening doors and bonnet with engine bay details. Pay attention when closing the bonnet again, it's a bit tricky to do, but it should sit absolutely flush - you will know when it's wrong when the plastic tab on the bonnet piece is still visible when closed. There are also a couple of accessories for car mode, one is the radar dish from the episode "More than Meets the Eye, Part 2" and an alternate cartoon grill that can be swapped in for a more cohesive animation look in ones collection. If I had to be critical here, then I don't like how the open door has part of the b-pillar and sill attached to it. Transformation is straight forward, nothing complicated, a little bit of origami with the how the doors fold and rotate. All of the parts have a set position to lock into, so no eye balling or just "floating" into place. I find going back to alt-mode is a bit fiddly with tucking in the rear mounted weapons and arms within the camper parts. Generally for my tastes the transformation complexity could be higher for more engagement and sense of accomplishment, but I think Takara has done a good job on finding a middle ground here. There is some paint on the figure, the outer car shell parts and the red bits on his legs for example, but I would say a higher percentage is just bare plastic. That's not really a negative, because nothing really looks out of place or cheap. Robot mode is of course heavily cartoon inspired and I think Takara has done a great job translating that into toy form. With that context in mind, the silhouette works and his proportions are not really wonky to me - limbs/extremities all have the right length and ratios. People are complaining about how thin the lower half of the robot is, but that is just really due to the fact that the whole car bonnet section is pretty big and is obscuring his "abdomen" piece at the waist from clear line of sight, creating this illusion of disproportion. The visible door windows from the side don't really bug me as others. Takara provides optional stickers to conceal some of it (like in the cartoon), which I won't be using as I generally don't like the idea of using stickers for higher-end toys or model kits. Maybe Takara should have gone the extra mile and engineered swappable clip-on windows for clear and opaque plastic. In alt-mode MP-56 is very dense and a light weight when in robot form. I don't really have an issue with it, but take note that the inside of his upper robot body ends up being mainly hollow as there isn't enough material to go around. Maybe positioning the doors differently or folding up the camper section more to fill out stuff might have been a solution, but then I'm sure another section of fans would then start complaining of transformation being a panel-former or too complicated and complex etc.. There is also a little bit of gap between windscreen-chest and shoulders. I'm critical of visible hollow spaces, but in this instance it gets a pass as it allows for improved articulation – and on that point, Trailbreaker doesn't disappoint. The head is probably the only weaker point, it's on a ball joint but the degree of movement is a bit shallow, but critical stuff like deep bending elbows and knees, ab-crunch or forward pivoting shoulders are all here for expressive posing. High up lateral arm movement is also possible, but initially requires one to clear out some plastic that is blocking the secondary shoulder joint. Two approaches to this, either take apart the shoulders and sand it down/carve it out with a hobby knife or just carefully force it by hand and then remove some of the warped plastic afterwards (which is how I did it). There is an additional smiling and shouting face, an optional multi-nozzle weapon or left hand and a blast effect for TB. If you desire, then it is possible to replace the right hand with the weapons for even more Sunbow animation errors. Final thoughts... If there were negatives to mention, then it is that there is no force field effect included in his accessories and maybe the reliance on stickers instead of better engineering around the doors. Otherwise it's all positive, I think Takara has done a very good job with MP-56 – just a fun MP to look at and mess around with.
  19. lechuck
    An interesting read. When it takes about 3 years for a new MB, it explains why there are so many rehashes of Strike, Exia, Astray etc. in the intervening years. If MB is the equivalent to MG, then where does Metal Composite fit in? Would have been nice to know what they feel the difference is between MB and MC.
  20. lechuck
    With English captions
  21. lechuck
    New promo vid for MPG Seizan. A bit weird that they are only showing off basic articulation, I think Seizan has more to offer. Maybe because they are handling the prototype? Also nice touch with how they detailed the sword hilt.
  22. lechuck
    Review is up by schizophonic. Battroid and Gerwalk and fighter
  23. lechuck
    So badass!! Pre-orders are 2 Feb. right? Still want Sentinel's Riobot Shin Getter 1, but that is unobtanium at the moment.
  24. lechuck
    MP-57 looking impressive, crucially he has good articulation and is not just an expensive big toy brick – can't wait for mine to arrive.
  25. lechuck
    It was officially moved from Feb. to April. https://www.gundamkitscollection.com/2022/09/mg-1100-msz-006-zeta-gundam-ver-ka.html
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