Chronocidal

Check that those studs aren't misshapen, or warped at all. If they're too big, and pushing the nose away, you might need to sand them a bit to make them fit better. Don't do that until you check every possibility though.. can you post a pic showing the inside surfaces of the nose that won't meet properly? Maybe there's just a random mold flaw pushing them apart. I had that happen on a VF-19F.. there was a tiny bit of plastic that was keeping one of the legs from seating correctly against the wing glove, and it actually made the entire plane lopsided.

It's actually pretty easy to misalign bits in the nose and canopy on the VF-19 series, but given the different location of the canopy hinge, I'd think that's the main culprit here. If it's like the VF-19 otherwise, there are two large tabs under the front edge of the cockpit that lock into the lower nose portion. From previous pics, I'm pretty sure the YF-19 has them too. Check those to make sure they're free of excess plastic from the mold. Also, if the black anti-glare panel in the nose cone is designed the same way, if that's pushed down at all, you might be getting resistance from the tab that pops up on the inside wall of the nosecone when it's rotated down. Other than that, I'd check the alignment of the canopy, and how it's installed, and make sure the gullet panel is locked in correctly. All those pieces have really tight tolerances, and anything being out of alignment can cause fit issues. As for the supernovas.. YES. If those schemes had existed for the v.1 YF-19, they would have convinced me to buy more of that mold, but now I'm glad they never happened on that version. The Double Nuts and BoP were really just a cheap palette swap meant to mimic them, and I never appreciated how they just did a pure color replacement, dumping nonsense colors all over the thrusters and vents. If Arcadia makes the actual schemes this time around, that's another two I will absolutely find the funds for.

Yep, sorry, that one. A few people actually broke a little tab out of the upper hip because they tried to drop the gerwalk hinge lower than it's designed to go. It only bends about 45 degrees down.

Actually, from looking at a few pics, does this one have a larger range of motion for the thigh joint? That was always one of the more annoying parts of how the VF-19 works.

I still believe to this day that someone just completely screwed up, and rotated the drawings for that part 90 degrees. The side-to-side motion is helpful, but nowhere near as useful as it would have been front-to-back.

Due to the fact that they fit on those ridges at all would mead me to say it's not a coincidence. There's no other reason for those little mounting points to exist otherwise. I think there are probably a few changes to the design in the movie that lets them fit around the normal wings. You'd probably have to lengthen the wing recess on the outside face of the boosters. Ok.. now I'm even more curious.. I know people have mounted the v.1 VF-25 packs on the renewals, and they fit kinda okay, if not securely.. I wonder how hard it would be to modify a set of the older packs to fit the YF-19 properly? I don't feel like hacking into a renewal set to modify them, but if the old versions work nearly as well...

Drat.. that might convince me to get a set of the VF-25A packs when they hit. I picked up a spare set of RVF packs with the intention of repainting/re-engineering the ghosts into Galaxy style ones, and a Ghost X-9, but the tan might be a nice match for the Isamu version. Are they actually solidly attached, or just kind of sitting in place while the plane is level?

Now, that is an awesome stand. In for.. 20. Or so.

Only problem with that is that the side that got scratched is the same as the one that looks beveled. I'm guessing the piece is the same on both sides, so it might take a little bit of filing to fix. The annoying thing about that.. if it's the same as the VF-19s, that entire backplate should be metal. It might not show much if you file it down because of how internal the edges are, but only time and experience will tell if that's necessary.

Don't think they reversed the angle, I think the opposite side is just hidden behind the edge of the cockpit, since that's the side that's scraped in the photo.

Curious of it's because of the angle, or if one side of that backplate is mismolded, and should be angled inward? Either way, even if that's a die-cast piece, that should be easy to fix by filing down that corner. Since it's buried inside, I don't think it'll actually show in any mode, though you might see the filed edge in gerwalk.

It wouldn't surprise me if they leave out Yang and the extra seat for later releases, but depending on the version they do, it wouldn't surprise me if they stripped some of the extras out, like the fast packs or missiles, especially if that cut the cost by a few hundred yen. I'm still personally begging for a full Supernova scheme, both orange and blue, and you could actually do some test-specific add-ons, like the spin chute pack mounted on the shield for the orange scheme, or maybe some camera/sensor pods for under the wings.

I think my one gripe about this design is that I think they could have sacrificed a bit of the battroid stubbyness, and made the lower legs longer to cover more of the knee joint in fighter. The covers don't look terrible from the bottom, but the knee joint stands out pretty strongly from the side. Not bad by any means, but since the design of the knee is a little different than the VF-19's, the joint isn't hidden as well. I actually think the old Yamato holds up better in fighter than in battroid, compared with the new one. The only thing really different about the side profile is the dropped nose (which was most of the problem to begin with), and the top profile hasn't changed much at all. The lower legs do look a good deal shorter though, which really helps the battroid.

Oh, I'm referring more to the type of wheels that used technics axles, not the original metal ones. I don't think I own any from the period before they became the common treaded tire you see today. Anyway, given the quality of the past few releases, I seriously doubt they'll have these sort of issues again.

Actually, I never had the tires dissolve things, but over time I definitely had a few hubs that were cracked from the stress of being pushed on and off of axles, and the tires were actually holding them together.

I'd love to get about a dozen of those, but with round bases I could paint the kite emblem onto.

Actually, that makes sense, I seriously doubt Bandai's going to let anyone in on their cash cow yet. I'm sure they're well aware of the resourcefulness of their customer base though, both in terms of molding and casting, and in terms of 3d printing. I probably wouldn't even use the shoulder packs myself, since they wouldn't work well in battroid (technically neither would the boosters), but I'm hoping they sized those notches to let you stick the existing VF-25 packs on it.

That plastic in particular was bad all around. It wasn't even limited to the VF-0s, my old YF-19 has some of the same types of cracking on certain parts. On my VF-0s, it wasn't just the shoulders either.. every part made made of that same texured plastic has developed spiderweb-style crazes and cracks all over them. I took apart the knee joints on one of mine, and the insides of them looked like shattered glass from all the cracking. They were just thick enough not to fail catastrophically like the shoulders tended to. I soaked them in superglue from the inside, and they've held up ok since then. If I do wind up buying a v.2 VF-0S/A, I'll probably find some crazy way to customize the ones I already have.

Probably an easy enough repaint really, and no need to paint the handle, so it won't scratch off. I'm eagerly awaiting the pics to start rolling out when people realize the ridges in the wing roots are for attaching Bandai's VF-25 booster packs.

Given the title, I think that's more a case of unholy moly. But.. agreed.

I'll know soon, FedEx is usually around $40 for me for a box that size (shipping two that is, one would be quite a bit less), but I like their service in my town better than the post office.

Ditto, though I'm not going to tell them to ship til I pack a few extras with it... I might need some more modeling supplies.

So.. funny question.. what happened to the tan gunpod?

Considering how development for games has been fairly open-source, I doubt they're going to stop people from adapting games to use it. Killing that kind of innovation would destroy the entire market they're hoping to cash in on. And either way, OR is just the first. Sony's already making one to compete, and there will be others. I did find this image incredibly amusing though.

Meheheh.. me likey.. I can stick one of the spare Isamus in my old YF-19 too... wait, why would I do that? *chucks it against the wall* GOOD RIDDANCE! I'll just put him in my YF-29 where he belongs, and chuck the Bandai figure too.