Skull Leader

working on an entry even as we speak... what's the deadline??

I don't understand why people put it up to everyone else to figure out what valkyrie they should get.... pick your favorite DYRL type and get that one (or get the Hikaru 1J, or wait a bit and get the Max or Milia), none of us can help you with that decision.

#2

I got this WAY back in the mid-late 80's when my grandparents still lived on the Little Rock Airforce Base (home of the hercules, yeah!) Although it was a 1D kit, it came with a strike cannon, and it also had a 1A head in the box... strange. I still have it, and I still have the unused decal sheet from it, crazy huh?

Note that the head unit and the canopies are different on the 22-production variant than they were on the YF-21. Hasegawa makes a VF-22 kit, doesn't it? or was that one a YF-kit also? (although fighter mode would be easier to convert anyway)

These little 1/144 Bandai kits are fun to build. They require very little effort to assemble and offer about the same level of posability as some Gundam HGUC kits. Like the rest of the Macross7 kit lineup, the VF-11MAXL kit is actually 2 kits in one. It contains parts to build one battroid mode and one fighter mode. Both kits are snap-together, using polyjoints to preserve posability with the arms, legs, and head (in the battroid). I believe it was Tect that put out several custom kits, providing parts for Gerwalk mode, or soundbooster kits for all the 1/144 lineup, but here I only have the basic kit. Assembly: This kit came together pretty fast. It's a snap-together job, but obviously you may want to glue at least some pieces (the antennae around the head of the battroid and the thruster nozzles of the fighter come to mind) for stability. The kit is far from complex and a competent 7yr old could assemble this I think. The Battroid has the option of having the chest speakers (okay, OKAY... they're boobs...) being built open or closed.. it's a matter of selecting which one you want to use. My only regret about the fighter mode is that you have to build it with the landing gears down unless you wanna do some cutting/customizing. There IS a pilot for the cockpit though! Score: 8/10 for it's straightforwardness.... it loses points for not being a challenge though. Painting: Most of the kit comes casted in the correct colors... although to be accurate to the show, some pieces have to be painted. The chestpiece (both of them) came casted in pink, when the majority of it is supposed to be white. It comes with decals to deal with this, but it's a poor alternative at best (the decals were shiny!?). Again.. true modellers will want to paint the whole thing, but a weekend builder could paint select areas and be done with it, and it will be fine (which is what I did). Score: 8/10 Very little of this kit is hard to access, so painting is pretty easy. With only select portions of the kit "Needing" to be painted, it gets points for the quick fix. Posability: The Battroid has a surprising amount of posability to it. Ball joint wrists, hips and ankles always make for better action poses, and this kit provides. The head rests on a ball joint also, but the antennae limit forward movement a little. The fighter, of course, is little more than a static model, but what do you expect? Score: 9/10 It offers a wide degree of movement possibilities for a 1/144 kit. Older models in this scale might offer less. The lack of open hands limits gun poses, but that's to be expected. Overall: These kits are a good way to thoroughly kill an evening or two. Given the size, I'm very happy with what the Bandai 1/144 VF-11Kai MAXL kit offers. Detail is kept to a minimum, but I feel with a stylized valkyrie such as this, that might not be such a bad thing. On the downside, the kits are NOT proportioned to one another. While the fighter mode looks pretty good, I think the arms on the battroid might be a little large. I'll leave that for others to draw their conclusions on though. Score (Overall) 8.5/10 An excellent kit for the average price, since you essentially get two kits in one. It loses points for questionable proportions and a forced grounded pose for the fighter, but those can be overlooked (especially since it's the only VF-11MAXL kit there is commonly available!) Pics:

last one! I didn't spend much time on the kit, but input is always accepted.

number 4

number 3

number 2

I put this kit together a while back.. I was bored so I figured I'd throw a couple of pics up. I'll be adding this to the model-review section with a review added to it (waits for Vostok to add his own personal touch to this thread... and he KNOWS what I'm talking about....)

that video kicks ass! I thought it was such an excellent blend of two different animations together (there are points when it is easy to think that Spike starred in an episode of Trigun or Vash in an episode of Cowboy Bebop!) Others not so good, but still fun to watch nonetheless. I have this on my computer, and the resolution at full-screen is pretty good, but I'm not sure how good.

Bravestarr kicked ass pretty hard (I always wanted to see the movie, but I never was able to) What you may NOT know is that Bravestarr is what filmation ORIGINALLY wanted He-Man to be. Evidently they thought the concept wouldn't fly at the time and it got shelved until a few years later. Thirty-Thirty (the horse/humanoid) had that sweet-ass shotgun called "Sarah-Jane" that could shoot through just about anything... I remember that bionic-demon bull named "Stampede" scaring the living hell out of me when I was a little kid. They were short on voice actors for that one, I remember the guy that did Marshall Bravestarr's voice also doing a couple of other characters... (he also did "thunderstick" and I think one other). They had one female voice actor for all the female parts (not just the Judge), but it was surprisingly well done. I always loved the bgm... and if I ever find it(the background music), I'll download the hell out of it! C.O.P.S. also kicked ass... I always wanted that bazooka that Mace carried. Those toys kicked ass, but the figures had some messed up proportions... and the cap-guns that came with them looked all F-ed up. Oh well, the show rocked.

many here seem to forget that more than one member on this board runs a shop or small business out of the Hong Kong area..... if you're still looking for one of the older runs, put it up in the "wanted" section.. you might find someone still packing (although, the low-viz seems like a pretty dried up well at the moment)

I remember the Gobots/Rocklords movie.... I actually had some of those after the movie came out..... ... who woulda thought kids would buy toys that turn from robots..... INTO ROCKS!?!?!?

I've been here since late 1998 or early 1999 when the website forums were only once page and really consisted of nothing more than people looking for old Bandais and Takatokus (or wondering if Kevin still had any Joon's valkyries for sale). I lurked at Alt.fan.macross, but I never posted there. There was one guy on there for the longest time who was having his name abused by someone else (you had to input your name manually every time you posted), and no one ended up believing him over anything anymore... my god that was a long time ago..... once we switched to the first "real" board, I was one of the first dozen or so registered members... (I remember Apollo Leader and myself musing how we needed an "Angel Leader" to complete our triumvirate!) Hey Shawn, I know you're busy, but do you still have any screengrabs of the site from it's earlier days? I know you used to, 'cause you'd put one up every once in a great while..... it would be neat to see those again.

The firestorm of speculation comes because no one was for certain (and many hoped it did not) if HG's license extended to DYRL or not. Plus, when HG released the original Macross superposables, other than the box they were shipped in, there was no difference at all, yet they were sold at something like four times the cost of the R-tech superposables when they first came out.

Ahh, it was "Thunderhawk" I believe.... I had that one, the orange GTO that turned into a tank and the purple 300ZX that also turned into a jet (far cooler looking than the IROC Z-28 looked) I actually saw someone's IROC T-top that they painted to look like that one, it was pretty cool.

"out of production" is a term a lot of distribution companies use when they can't forsee getting any new product for a long time. It's a known fact that the VF-1J Max and Milia sets will be coming along soon though. As for others, I assumed the Hikaru VF-1J set might still be in production, but I could be wrong. Any 1/48 older than that is pretty much a done deal.

I still have two of my gobots... one turns into an AV-8B Harrier (his name is "Royal One" I think) The other one is larger and turns into a Toyota Celica Police Car, but I can't remember his name. I had a load of these when I was younger.... they had a version of "hot rod" to I think... it was a little red guy that turned into a car if I remember correctly (I could have his name all wrong though) that was my first and favoirte gobot, and I'd love to have him again.

I'm definately up for a recasted gun hand when these become available man! (if it would look completely unbalanced with just one custom hand, I can wait for a set though)

Holy F-in crap... what do you do????? Run guns to Nicaragua or sell drugs in columbia!??!?! 20G in 2 years.... holy crap... most people would buy a car with that kind of fundage, but that's just insane....

You're not making any sense. DYRL had a soundtrack all it's own, but it also featured music from the TV series, is that what you're wanting to know? The 3 disc set (Macross: The Complete) is currently thought to possess all music from the movie and series minus 2 tracks. (1) the guitar-theme version often played at the end of episodes, and (2) the full FB2012 version of "Love Floats Away"

I've only had the chance to play through the first two chapters, but I can honestly say that it is the storyline that keeps this from being a mediocre game. Gameplay is pretty straightforward, and the graphics are decent (not groundbreaking), so it is definately the story that makes these stand out.

LOL, and then Arihiro Hase says "Thank you!" in english and it sounds like he sneezed The girl that announced the red alert (with all the pilots rushing out of the barracks, one with a sandwich in his mouth) obviously spoke english as a second language, but others sounded pretty natural. It really lended an international air to Macross I think.