Lolicon

Yeah it's a shame that Bandai botched the CF 171 toy so badly.

That almost looks intentional. Did you piss off your DHL/Fedex/USPS guy?

Which is your favorite Nightmare?

The VF-171 Nightmare Plus lived up to its name because fixing this thing up was a plus-sized nightmare. As mentioned in earlier posts, I had two units that has breakages at various points and I decided to disassemble both and Frankenstein the salvageable parts into one working unit. Still, cracks started appearing in the shoulder triangle parts during the reassembly, so this thing is staying in fighter mode forever, as it's almost certain to break if a transformation is attempted. It is hands down the most shoddily constructed valk I own. Still, I did what I could to pretty her up, though between the topcoat and bright lights, a lot of the surface detail is lost. Here she is before her makeover: And after: Bandai's DX VF-1 doesn't have warped wings, but all their Frontier valks do. Even the Revival version has warped wings.

Looks good. The small hangar looks more like an elevator bringing her up to the flight deck.

I will buy every kit in this line if they actually did that.

So sifting through the pile of parts that used to be my two CF 171s, I pulled out the black shoulder triangles to see which ones were usable. Out of the four, one was outright broken apart and the other three were cracked. The cracks seemed to follow the swirls in the plastic, so I'm thinking Bandai cheaped out somewhere along the production line, since this was just a "reissue" of an already proven toy (Alto's 171 had already come out). So yeah I wouldn't be surprised if Bandai hired T-REX and received a fantastic design from them, only to bork it up somewhere along in production.

Indeed I did. HLJ was way more generous with their discounts back then. However, the yen is much weaker now than it was back then. The average yen to dollar ratio in 2017 was 112 to 1, making my PF SDF-1 about $435 back then. 49200 yen as of today is only $326.

I didn't expect Bandai to fix the arm attachments. That leg armor gap is pretty unsightly. Was it always there or is that display just badly put together?

That's a pretty good haul!

49280 yen is more than I paid for my PF edition.

That's pretty badass. Might do that with my second Hikaru 1S I have sitting around...

Thanks @no3Ljm! Though if you happen to find a genie and can make that wish, might I suggest wishing for the talents of more skilled members, like @wm cheng, @MacrossJunkie, or @Angesdad?

Sweet shots! Especially since they hide the unpainted landing gear. 😀

Thanks @Angesdad! I started looking into fixing up the CF 171. I took my main 171 out of the display case and started taking it apart, being very careful with the shoulder triangles. When I tried to open the canopy, it snapped off at the hinge. Wonderful. So I pulled out my second MISB copy. The first time I tried to transform it and the leg completely snapped off at the knee. Goddammit. F U Bandai. How the hell do you screw up the second release when the first release (Alto) had none of these problems? All I can do now is hope I can frankenstein together a single working CF 171 using parts from these two broken toys.

Still the same hassle as before. I was happy to get her back into fighter mode and don't plan on ever transforming her again. At least the wings can't pop off this time around. MDEs started being used only after the EX upgrade so it really should have been included with this set. Bandai just stuck it in the teal 171 armor set along with the reaction warheads as a cynical ploy to get people to buy another armor set. Because the stupid wing swap gimmick wasn't enough, apparently.

Where's the plain metallic unpainted landing gear? Those are the wrong color according to Bandai.

171 with its older brother.

You should do a shot with a bunch of Photoshopped Ghosts like @treatment suggested.

Yep that's the plan for a number of people, it seems.

I would love a 0D PF reissue in addition to a 0A PF version.

Thanks! It's a damn shame that if you want the MDEs you have to have the old 171 armor set as Bandai opted not to include them in the revival version. Classic Bandai.

Just about everything is more expensive in our post-covid world. But with the yen at it's lowest point in decades vs the dollar, even if Arcadia increased the price to about 40000 yen it would still end up being a good deal cheaper than it was in 2017.

Thanks @no3Ljm! Here's the remaining pics. The 171 has a lot of markings already printed but I did add a few just to bring it more in line with what real world aircraft should have. Sorry for the poor quality as I'm using a makeshift photo setup for the time being. Wish Bandai and Arcadia would actually print us an instrument panel.

VF-171EX Saotome Alto machine battroid mode I'll get some pics of the other modes once I work up the wherewithal to deal with the 171 transformation.