Knightdramon

My YF19 has been in fighter mode ever since the first transformation cycle when I first got it....today I tried transforming it over to battroid again.

Got to say, once you know what you are doing, it takes 2-3 minutes. The legs did not want to fight me this time, the upper torso was simpler than I remembered...but yeah getting it all back together to line up for fighter is not going to be pleasant.

One ankle joint was looser than the other. On hard friction surfaces like a wooden table it stands just fine, but if not careful on a glass display shelf it does the splits.

Luckily the iconic modes for the YF19 are fighter and battroid, so poor gerwalk [which had the balancing issue] is the odd one out...

Received mine. As with all other 1st handing DXs, this'll be at least a 3 day walkthrough for me, one for each mode.

Got to say, liking this less than the DX VF31 for sure. Fitting the gunpod on fighter was messy as I had to undo one side of the plane/leg to allow clearance, and getting that to snap back was not the easier thing ever.

Leg missile launcher is nifty but the double-hinged joint is a bit troublesome to close back up. 

Why are the missiles so complex to tab on? You need to fit the extra piece [why an extra piece] on just right, and then attach it to the wing. Not sure if it's my eyes playing tricks and the light or not, but I think I already got a minor stress mark on one attachment bit by taking it off!

Getting the front landing gear out was a chore too.

So far, 6/10. Good sculpt. Not very stable, too fiddly and it's got gaps out of the box around the neck area of fighter.  Impossible to take the front landing gears out without a prying tool. 

Mine shipped from NY this morning. 

Add me to the list of people emailed by NY for a change of date and payment request.

Worked out to quite a reasonable price in GBP, all paid up now. Fingers crossed this won't be a VF31A scenario [which worked out great for me but not well for others!]

1 hour ago, rdrunner said:

It was a fun party for those us who stayed up for what we initially thought was the 3am (4pm JPT) opening. I think that most of us who wanted one did manage to get one or more in the end from multiple vendors. Glad to hear you got yours from NY at a great price as well.

I was up and ready for the initial 4pm time too; in the UK it was 8 in the morning and I was up for work anyway so I thought I'd go through with it. Then nothing happened and I left for work anyway, and randomly checked at the right time. All's good! 

Lucked out and got one through Nippon Yassan. It was insane; I was refreshing at -just- the right time to see them creating the product page; a placeholder page with an error message if you clicked on it. Eventually managed to load it, PO it, get it through the cart process [which took ages due to slow loading] and get the confirmation and see it on my orders.

Can now sigh happily. Happy hunting to the rest of you. If you didn't get it, that should be OK. The rest of the recent DX valks [with the exception of the 31A] are still easy to find for regular-ish prices after they've been out for months.

14 minutes ago, rdrunner said:

congrats!  When I lived in the UK, I ordered stuff from HLJ but was lucky enough to have never been charged any custom fees.  Seems like they are much stricter these days.

I guess it depends; very hit and miss. I have had one parcel from HLJ [MP Wheeljack shipped SAL] fly by. Other EMS parcels were held up. From NY I only had one parcel stopped and the customs charge ensured that it would have been cheaper to buy it from the UK!

Transformed the 31A to battroid. An absolute beauty, reminds me of an armored core mecha in these colours with the gun placed like a railgun on the backpack. Quite a contrast from Messer's more colourful, but still subdued, valk.

My NY order actually came in today. No customs fees [in the UK] for the 31A too. Bought on the 6th of October if it helps.

The actual valk is very tight, some panel misalignment here and there and the gap behind the cockpit is very noticeable. Having difficulties unplugging the gun from the pod. 

So with me not willing to venture back to the VF27 and 25/9 releases [especially with those loose joints. damn pity as I love the 27] this is a contender for the next mecha to get.

Only macross figures I have atm are two Yamato VF19 [which I adore], the black VF31 and a mass production VF31 coming in. I might grab Arad's VF31 as a last VF31.

With these in mind, try to talk me into or out of this mecha. It's discounted frequently so I need good reasons for not indulging. For reference, I have handled or owned at one point pretty much all Yamato and Bandai valks and am one of the few people that genuinely enjoys MP Megatron V2.0's transformation. 

It's only natural to get in this state from time to time, especially between releases. If any negativity on this thread upsets you, just ignore it

I find Macross a very niche market when it comes to transforming robots, as the series and high-end merch are almost never synchronised. And even so, it's usually in the flavour of 2-3 mecha and many colour variations between them. 

I've amassed and sold a Macross collection...3 times now? I started with some 1/48s, got some 0s [way back], the black yf19...sold all that, then got into it again with more 0s, v2 1:60ies, vf19s, multiple sv51s, a vf17, macross quarter and more bandai that I can't remember. 

I only have 3 VF figures now, with a 4th one coming in at the end of the month. I enjoy it as it is...it's not one of those series where you will have a ton of options, but you can have enough to keep you entertained and build an awesome living room collection. 

My transformers collection is multiple times larger but I question the need for so many figures and frequently have clear outs to reduce the size.

Re-thinks and re-purposes are only natural. In an ideal world, I'd have about 10 figures all in and that would be all. If you need to take a step back and re-think, that is a natural progression in the life of a collector. 

Hello all

Selling the following. Adult collector so none have really been "played" with. Any imperfections noted. Not looking for trades at the moment.

Shipping not included unless noted. Payment by paypal. Items are in the UK, set prices make them a bargain in the UK but willing to ship abroad as long as you're willing to pay.

Transformers

The following are loose and generally in great condition

Prime FE Takara Bulkhead---mint, complete, 30 GBP
Transformers ROTF Human Alliance Jazz---mint, complete, loose. No instructions. ---30 GBP
Binaltech BT20 Argent Meister---This one is MIB, 35 GBP

Masterpiece MP23 Exhaust [very first Takara release]----45 GBP

Hot Toys

Movie Masterpiece Die-cast War Machine MK II [AOU Sideshow exclusive version].-----Mint, complete, batteries installed. All lights work. GBP 270 plus shipping. Will ship in brown sideshow shipper box.

I have extensive feedback both on this site and on tfw2005

Let me know if you have any queries.

Kind regards, thanks for looking.

No worries, if this deal falls through and I am next in line let me know. Thanks!

Mine brother, all mine!

Also pm'ed you.

Just to chime in...

Most Macross modern releases carry a relatively high price point anyway. There are a few that were overproduced and even 3 years later can be found at great, discounted prices [looking at you, Yamato VF19S, VF19Kai and VF17S]. There are some relatively obscure repaints/retools that came out in fewer numbers and are harder to get.

And there was a specific period, circa 2010-2012 or so [might be off a year or so either way] where Yamato produced too much of almost everything, general stock went on clearance multiple times, Pretty much every release I got at that point was at least 20-30% clearanced. I got two FP/Strike packs for the price of one, a VF1 Kakizaki, a VT Ostrich and more at around 50%.

Bandai used to underproduce most of their releases to a ridiculous amount until relatively recently, so that drove up their prices as well. Preorders closed within minutes.

Onto getting "newbies" into Macross, yeah, go for Plus, but that is actually the least Macross-like series of them all. It is very good but not as great as everybody is making it out to be. All Macross series besides that one are of a love triangle, pop music stopping evil aliens, yada yada...Plus is a bit more mature in comparison, but still drags.

Just an FYI moment:

I have only ever ordered 2 or 3 times from AmiAmi, so I have never dealt with customer service. I placed an order for the VF-19 when the second batch hit their store. Now I'm a LONG TIME HLJ customer, so if I order something and decide to cancel, all it takes is an email to them and they cancel it no muss, no fuss (assuming I haven't paid for it yet, never paid for an item then asked to have my money back haha). AmiAmi is more expensive than MSRP on the item (MSRP is 23000Yen, AmiAmi is 24840Yen). They replied back that they do not honor any sort of price matching (which I guess is fine albeit bad customer service and customer retention). But they also said that they don't do cancellations and if I "badly" wanted one, they would leave a note on my account about it. So, in conclusion, I think AmiAmi's customer service is pretty bad. I doubt I'll ever order from them again considering they are price gouging and have bad customer service compared to HLJ.

I stopped ordering from amiami many years ago, but just because I found it easier to cancel elsewhere.

On the price matching---do you know of any other Japanese online retailer that does it? Nippon Yassan has the VF19 for 29.000 yen, I sincerely doubt that anybody that requests a price match will get it. While I do not agree on price gouging on preorders, it can be standard practice on released items. Once your supplier runs out, you need to find another one which might be price-gouging anyway...and so on.

Amiami, NY and probably other japanese websites do not let you cancel orders, even unpaid ones, without any sort of reprimand. Fair play to them, because different countries/businesses might have different systems.

Amiami's customer service used to be great but I think they got too big for their own good once they opened up to overseas sales in the past 6 or so years.

I think that Arcadia is more or less limited at this time.

Bandai has the capital and probably connections to secure licenses for the newer or upcoming shows, so naturally they get first dibs on all the figures that are currently promoted, be it by videogames or a TV show/movies.

Arcadia, on the other hand, appears to be limited to past shows. As Macross is a niche market anyway, they have covered all the A-listers and some B-listers already.

VF1---Done, in most variations

YF19--Done and re-done

VF19Kai---done

YF21---Already done

VF17--Done

VF4---Done

SV51--Done

VF0--Done and re-done

VF22--Done

So really, what is next, besides going back and re-doing some figures? Sure they can re-do a very expensive YF21 and SV51, but then they will be at the same spot again. What other fighter can generate decent sales?

I find it funny how people state a price [or a ballpark] and then just go on to rationalize it [eg selling them all profit, how much you'd spend on other things etc]...

I'm estimating somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000-2500 USD? Realistically closer to 2000 I think. That includes shipping costs and [thankfully not that much] customs charges.

Then again, I had about 10-12 macross toys in total, never more than 7 at any given point, have since sold them all either for profit or for the same price.

Only ones I still have are a VF19Kai and a VF19S from Yamato.

I personally find it among the cheapest hobbies, even though I'm not actively collecting anymore.

...and before you start throwing stuff at me, hear me out.

The 2 big moulds of M7 can be found for cheap nowadays---for around USD 300 you can get both a VF19 and a VF17S.

If you just follow Arcadia, you have approximately one new mould per year. With minimal budgeting, that's very doable.

I stopped caring for Bandai releases seeing as it was a nightmare to order one and the end result did not justify the extreme means. If I was not going for MP transformers and third party figures, I'd be going for just Arcadia new moulds and calling it a day.

Got myself VF-25S Ozma Lee from Knightdramon on here, fantastic person to deal with :-)

Back to back with Alto

20150324_154559.jpg

Brilliant, glad you're enjoying the figure!! Now save up for their super/armour parts!!!

BUMP again, some pictures of the imperfection added--pretty minor.

How is the swoop?

I can attest to what the other poster said--Swoop/Soar is very impressive and solid. It has some issues though---after the feedback from Scoria, FT over-tightened all of the joints to the point where you need to have a screwdriver around on the first transformation to ease some joints out. The gold/red [depending on your version] tabs on his upper thighs are very easy to break with slight mishandling so be careful.

BUMP up folks, still available

Hello all

Up for sale is a DX V 2.0 Renewal VF25S Ozma type. This is the more recent reissue [November 2014].

Item is MIB, some parts never taken out of their bags. I have changed the antennae already to the more robust ABS type.

One leg is slightly looser than the other, but can be tightened up. One small paint chip on the yellow paint of one of his rear leg fins. Transformed three times altogether.

Item is in the UK. Only accept paypal as a forms of payment.

Asking for 107 GBP [this rounds up to 161 USD] plus whatever shipping will end up being. As this is of similar size and weight to a V2 VF1, shipping will most likely end up being around 48 USD to worldwide with tracking and insurance. Of course if you are in the UK this will be much cheaper.

PM me for any additional details/interest.

EDIT: Some images of the paint flaw uploaded. If you can't make much out...it's because partly of the image quality, and partly because the flaw is much smaller than I remembered!

SOLD and awaiting shipment on Saturday!

Many thanks, kind regards

Yes, but you can't do that on the v2 vf-1s' because the wings, once folded for battroid, gets in the way of the legs when bended forward. You get like 20 degrees, then you have to use the gerwalk joint. I thought this was going to be the same.

Well the wings on the specific picture are unfolded on the VF0D as well...

I kind of hope they trolled everybody and did different colors by batches.

Seeing that this was "supposedly" a very sought after variant for years, and with people's reception and "complaints" in the forums, I sure as hell hope every other copy has a different colour scheme painted using paint that changes shade depending on the lighting used in the room.