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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    Oho, I expected it to be more than that, but HLJ's price sold me for a pair. Hopefully the kit sticks around for a long while, because I can see myself making a whole series of these in assorted F-14 squadron markings.
  2. Chronocidal
    I think the only differences will be the pilot figure having the DYRL uniform, and the arrows printed on the head being yellow instead of black. There may also be a difference in the cockpit screen design, but I can't say for sure which style the Arcadia releases have used. Over the years though, I've also noticed that there are a few different shades of plastic used for the dark colored portions of the VF-1, especially the feet, gunpod, and boxy missile launchers. Some of my early Yamatos have feet and gunpods that are almost black, while later ones use a dark gray color.
  3. Chronocidal
    Actually... so, judging by the poses, I think the entire scene is a copy of three people holding handguns. Why would you hold a rifle with both hands on the grip?
  4. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    I don't think anything's going to ever pass up the VF-1 and VF-19 for me.. I've got a fair stack of VF-1s (something like 30, if you count the kit versions), but I think I have something like 18 assorted VF-19 derivatives. It's going to take a really impressive design to pass that up for me. That being said, the 31 is all geared up to pass up my VF-25s, just by sheer numbers of variants.
  5. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Edit: Thanks for the clarification, I misread their site then. I was wrongly associating the proxy service, and didn't realize they offer exclusives now. That's actually pretty encouraging, having an alternative to NY, then.
  6. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Well, keep in mind the system CDJapan uses for exclusives. I don't believe they are sent directly to CDJapan, but acquired from other shops and delivered like a proxy service. Their supply may be entirely dependent on how fast they receive their orders from a variety of local vendors.
  7. Chronocidal
    I think there's been some nastiness on the video game side of things, but that might be more attributable to EA than Lucasfilm itself. The tradition of fan-made Star Wars stuff is so well-established at this point, Disney would be committing franchise suicide to attempt to stop it, I think. It's far too prolific and widespread, as well, because there was such a vacuum of official content for so long. Besides that, I think they're at least savvy enough to recognize free advertising when they see it.
  8. Chronocidal
    Oy.. I remember Children's Palace from when I was little, and Kaybee from much later on. Kaybee was always the little hole-in-the-wall shop by comparison, but I managed to grab a few fun things there over the years. Think it's where I picked up one of those old 1/200 Testors VF-1 repops of the Nichimo kits. TRU Will always have a special spot due to the times I spent there with family. Went to the grand opening of the Colorado Springs one, and at various points came back with a bicycle for my birthday, some old MegaForce toys and the GI Joe Crusader shuttle bought by my grandparents, and all manner of little LEGO sets and games over the years. Also where I picked up several of the nicer Star Wars pieces I've gotten over the years, like the giant FX X-Wing, and more recent B-Wing. I think as this generation comes to miss that experience, the demand will be ripe for a comeback. Online shopping is great for getting exactly what you want, but it's nothing like watching little kids run from aisle to aisle, trying to choose something they like.
  9. Chronocidal
    Only holds one position, but lots of people display groups of aircraft in similar poses like that, as if they're flying together. I think there's a certain appeal to having a massive uniform display like that, with all the valks lined up in review.
  10. Chronocidal
    Oof.. that prototype actually looks like a mess.. Also, the little thruster/sensor pods on the thighs are attached to the wrong half of the thigh bend.
  11. Chronocidal
    If we ever see the SV-154 in action, that might be even a further variation, since it's based on the F-104. It might very well split just like the 262 though. Even in real world aircraft though, you generally get either equal or greater intakes to the number of exhausts. The only couple I can think of off the top of my head are the English Electric Lightning, and the XB-70 Valkyrie. Also the Harrier, but that's a bit of a special case. I'm certain there are others, but those are the most clear cases. All the others that come to mind tend to be pods containing multiple engines like the B-1 or B-2.
  12. Chronocidal
    Bandai and Arcadia both could learn a lot from them about designing effective, elegant display stands. Hidden mounting points, folks, they're amazing.
  13. Chronocidal
    So, I'm actually still sad we didn't get an outtake of Thor singing this while sitting in his cell.
  14. Chronocidal
    So, I can appreciate that would have tried to address that mess of a scene in TFA, and it does make for a more satisfying end for her, but it comes off as too little, too late to me. If they wanted to play her off as that sort of self-serving character, they had ample opportunity to do it elsewhere. She didn't get enough development in the first place to start giving the character flaws of that nature. The whole mess of chaos that happened after the hyperspace torpedo kind of wrecked that sequence to begin with though, since it seemed like a very uneven cut. It's like everyone in the hangar blacked out for a few minutes, and then suddenly Finn and Rose wake up somehow still alive, everything's on fire, and for some reason Phasma has decided to line up all her troops at the other end of the flaming hangar, and march menacingly toward them. They had blades across the undersides of their throats. Any sudden motion that would have resulted in Finn and Rose being thrown that distance from them should have sliced their heads clean off.
  15. Chronocidal
    The QA is really only part of the weirdness, sadly. Some releases have been very nice, like the Excelsior and ST VI Klingon BoP, but the design, assembly, and painting have been all over the map on some others. I only display the TOS 1701 facing one way because the screw plugs on the right side are so ugly and huge, and the materials and lighting used on the TWOK 1701 are massively problematic, because the whole hull of the ship lights up from the plastic being so transparent, and the lights being obnoxiously bright... except for the deflector array and impulse engines, because those were painted black.
  16. Chronocidal
    I've considered this as well, really. But I don't question why Bandai doesn't do it, because let's face it, they've been bankrolling the franchise since Frontier. Far as competition from Bandai contributing to Yamato folding though, I don't buy it. Frankly, they weren't competing directly with Yamato at any step of the way.* The closest they came was when they tried to break into the VF-1 market with the original Hi-Metal, and it fell flat, because they cost more than the Yamato VF-1s were going for, and were significantly harder to get. The HMR line still costs more than I paid for most of my original Yamato VF-1s. The market has just adjusted to the point where the Arcadia releases are probably closer to what they should cost now. Yamato was pumping the market full of transformable jets long before Bandai released a product that could even be remotely considered competition, though. The difference is that Yamato was producing niche collectibles for a specific market, while Bandai was making toys for a current generation anime. There's no way to properly gauge the popularity of any Bandai product, because all of their products wind up on scalpers' radar as a potential investment. Once Bandai got over the bumps from the first DX VF-25 and proved they could make a quality Macross product, they popped up on scalper lists everywhere, and artificial scarcity took over. The seconds-long pre-order scramble we have today didn't really even exist for Macross items until the Michael VF-25G orders popped up, because up to that point, no one actually had any proof in-hand that Bandai could make something worth buying. * The only design they've come close to duplicating was the VF-19 Advance, and that was long after Yamato was gone.
  17. Chronocidal
    I'm still half convinced that they either can't figure out how to make the Ba head sturdy enough to release that version, or they are sitting there with a field of daisies and going "Tampo them all.. sticker them all.. tampo... sticker.." for days on end. They really set themselves up for failure there, because, between the individual markings being so completely indistinguishable on screen, and the pilots being just as indistinguishable in the plot, I don't think anyone actually cares enough to bother with the entire set. I don't care one way or the other, I really just want Bandai to release a matching pearly Ba 1/72 version so I can mix and match the parts on the models. If we get DXs in those schemes, great! But I'm thinking they may be feeling the burn from the "enemy mechs don't sell well" problem. Whatever the reason, I'm pretty sure anyone not Keith is even father back in the queue than Chuck.
  18. Chronocidal
    This is why the anniversary releases are so utterly baffling. I know they don't sell. You know they don't sell. Arcadia has to know they don't sell. And yet, they're sitting there lighting stacks of money on fire to setup the production line to produce them. They have nowhere to go but the bargain bin. I do think part of what damaged Yamato though was that their standards of production actually got too high to be sustainable. Their designs got fancier, the molding had to be higher precision and in higher quantity for more parts, and they started making designs with far less potential for official repaints. I love my VF-19s to death, and I would have bought a ton of unassembled VF-19 kits, but we never got those for the same reason that the VF-19s were a strain on Yamato's production: way too many pieces, and way too complicated for the average person to assemble. I've tried taking them apart, and it would not surprise me at all if part of the VF-19 assembly line costs included custom tooling and jigs just to put the things together properly.
  19. Chronocidal
    That's the funny part.. there's nothing incorrectly glued at all. Here's a pic of the hardpoints on a disassembled/modded wing, taken from kyekye's thread about customizing the wings. The hardpoint mounts are a single piece with the wing, and a panel glues over the top of them. The fact that stress marks are appearing in the supports that connect the shaft to the wing tells me that the pieces are being ejected from the molds improperly, or sloppily, and at an angle, and that is putting a shearing or twisting stress as the hardpoints. The fact that the hardpoints are also appearing to have a thicker lip could indicate several things, including both mold degradation, and improper closure of the molds.
  20. Chronocidal
    I'm trying to recall exactly which part on the backpack broke for you, and I think I remember discussing it. Was yours the one that had a mis-molded flap peg that broke the hinge casing when you rotated the flap? If so, I think part of the problem there is that you did have a very rare case that hadn't been seen before, but looks like a very common user error, where the backpack gets caught on the backplate, and breaks when folding it. I think yours is literally the only case I've ever heard of that being due to a mis-molded peg, and sounds like it should have prevented the parts from even being assembled correctly. The fact that it hasn't been more common makes it sound like it's absolutely a fluke molding flaw. The strange part of the hardpoint issue is that there should be absolutely no stress on those the way there is. The wing and hardpoints are molded in a single piece, with no moving parts. Those stress marks mean that either someone in the QC process is being rough with the wings when testing if the missiles fit, or there is something wrong with the molding process that is happening when the parts are ejected.
  21. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    We've actually been given several examples of particular clone variations as well. I don't recall their names, but the Zentraedi fleet shown in Frontier had rough copies of both Breetai and Kamjin with suspiciously similar names, and possibly others like Exedore. I also always had the impression that Chlore, Milia's rival from the "Fleet of the Strongest Women" episode of Mac7, was intended to be a variation of the same base clone pattern that Milia came from.
  22. Chronocidal
    They tried to help it look higher quality by covering some of the screws, but the stickers looked terrible. Also, just inspected my Max yesterday, and the same stress marks are visible on the same wing. I tested them with the TV triple missile clusters, and those attached easily with no stress from twisting, but I think I'm just going to permanently assign my Arcadia releases to battroid duty once I get them displayed, and save myself the trouble. If Arcadia has been making an announcement about the problems, is there any chance they might issue replacement wings for Max, and maybe Milia?
  23. Chronocidal
    This is just such a gorgeous paint scheme on this plane. Agreed on the 1/100 kits too, I bought a ton of them to customize, and they're a joy to put together. I'm planning a few custom schemes, and I might actually make a variant of this one in the original real world colors.
  24. Chronocidal
    I definitely am debating cancelling my M&M premiums, since I'd like to get a premium Roy above the rest, if any.. but I think the base SDF-1 is just too plain, and I'm not going to be getting more than one of them. If I'm getting something that's really mostly good for a centerpiece, I'm going to splurge, and make it the fanciest version I can get. Basically at this point, any premium release that becomes available will probably be of something I already have a copy of in the normal release flavor. Then they just become duplicates that don't match.
  25. Chronocidal
    I only remember two things about it: 1: Wondering how a high school managed to get away with hosting a black ops training club 2: The Miyagi nose-honk The rest is a blur of 80s music and karate tournaments that could have been from pretty much any martial arts movie from that era.
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