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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    YF-19 by far, I think.. Fix the material problems with the VF-0, and it really doesn't have any issues compared with the 19. Even if it's an older design, they nailed it the first time around because the entire thing was computer generated to begin with. The YF-19 really looks pitiful next to the newer VF-19 mold, and doesn't hold up nearly as well.
  2. Chronocidal
    Well then, guess I can deal with having an old and a new one of these. I've gotten enough VF-25s, I need something to balance them out. Probably stuck with NY's day-after markup rates, but with the Yamato releases tapering off, I've got less to save up for.
  3. Chronocidal
    Sadly, I'm pretty sure a shapeways replacement is your only hope there, unless you want to ship the whole thing back to Japan for a replacement. For whatever reason, Bandai doesn't do replacement parts, or at least has refused to up to this point. Transformation-wise though, I'm not sure that part is necessary. Despite the fact that it's there to hold up the cockpit, it never actually does that anyway, so you may as well just wedge a piece of black plastic in there to fill the gap.
  4. Chronocidal
    Guess we'll find out how good they've gotten, since mine hit the LA sorting facility last night. The USPS tracking site has such terrible updates, you never know when you're going to get your package.
  5. Chronocidal
    I might have to pick up one just to get the armor pack. Don't know how that'll ever work with the existing figure, but I have to admit I liked the way the backpack looks in Macross 30.
  6. Chronocidal
    The problem with wanting them in 1/72 is that if people want them in scale with their models, they've already got a slew of 1/72 models available, both from Hasegawa and Bandai. Not saying people wouldn't want transforming toys in 1/72 too sometimes, but if you plan to display them, and you've got models already that you want them in scale with, a $20-$30 model kit is going to look a lot better than a $100+ toy. Bandai's kind of going that route now with their VF-1 kit, so we'll see how it goes, but I wonder how many different fighters they'll produce. Give me transformable YF/VF-19s and such, and I'll happily grab some. Coming from building models for years though, I personally really do appreciate the 1/60 scale. It's not huge like 1/48 kits tend to get, and kits that would be pretty tiny in 1/72 become fairly manageable sizes. It's an oddball scale no doubt, but it's a nice middle ground. I kind of wish I could get more models in 1/60 to go with my valks.
  7. Chronocidal
    Actually, I'm hoping NY will have stock on hand to sell once they come in. I might get a second set to customize. Considering how their 30th YF-29 sales have been going, they might have over-ordered them too.
  8. Chronocidal
    I can honestly say that all I really want at this point is a YF-19 that matches the quality and fit of the VF-19s. Re-releases of some of the rare ones would be nice, and I'd still grab a Virgin Road or VF-X, but I think the YF-19 is the single valk in the 1/60 line most in need of a complete redesign. A redesigned VF-0 would be nice I guess, but I don't think it needs it nearly as badly as the YF-19.
  9. Chronocidal
    BBTS kinda just completely stopped paying any attention to any Macross releases. I had a YF-29 Alto re-release on preorder with them from day one, and it went literally 6 months with no update. They kept pushing the "release" date back a month every month until I just gave up and cancelled. Never heard a word from them.
  10. Chronocidal
    Have to agree there, though it's never been that difficult to kitbash a gerwalk out of the combined parts of from Hasegawa fighter and battroid kits, so they never had much reason to make one. A resin conversion kit would probably do decently well, but I doubt Hasegawa would ever recoup the production expenses if they produced it themselves. The one thing I really don't quite understand about this kit though... They're making it capable of transforming, but they're doing it in such a way as to make it look like it uses the same systems as the actual VF-1 would use. That's great and all, but it seems like the only real use for such a mechanism if is you want to display the valk mid-transformation. You'll know it's there, so maybe that's the entire idea, but this isn't like a PG gundam kit, where you can remove the armor and look at the skeleton underneath to see how detailed it is. I guess they're trying to cover all the bases, and please everyone by letting the model do everything, but so far, even if it does accomplish that entire leg transformation, I don't personally think it's doing anything else better than any other existing VF-1 kit or toy. And.. yeah. I know I'm picky about shapes, but that entire nose section is just ugly to me. Looks nothing like the animation, line-art, or any other existing VF-1 that I can remember.
  11. Chronocidal
    I envy you folks who used FedEx, it's so much easier to pick those packages up for me than regular mail. I just can't bring myself to pay NY's insane rates for them when EMS gets here in the same amount of time.
  12. Chronocidal
    I've wanted a 1/48 YF-19 since the first 1/48 VF-1s came out. Problem is, that thing is huge. You'd probably be easily over $300 for a stand-alone release, maybe upwards of $350. What actually does surprise me is that while we've seen transforming Hasegawa kits in 1/72, no one seems to want to try it in 1/48. I'd love to see someone take a stab at it.
  13. Chronocidal
    I suppose this is going to just wind up like the Star Wars tweaks in terms of how it's received. People who don't care about the old movies aren't going to see it as that strange or dumb, while long-time fans will take it as a personal offense, as if JJ crapped in their cornflakes. For what it's worth though.. yeah, the entire plot sounds horribly contrived specifically as a way to reference old material in a new way, and twist it all over the place for no other reason than to be different while being the same. I dunno. I'm not going to say the movie won't be entertaining, but it feels like a massive rush to cram in plot points simply for the sake of using them in new and different ways.
  14. Chronocidal
    Yeah, this topic has swung all over the place (no help from me ). My main issue with the 171 vs the 17 is that I still can't comprehend the train of thought that would lead anyone to think the wing hinge design was a good idea. The 17 just had them screwed on, and everything was fine. I think given the option, I'd still love to find a VF-X and Virgin Road, but that's water under the bridge at this point. The ones everyone will want years from now will be all the single run/last minute releases, and all the limited ones. The VF-19P, VF-17D, and VF-4 all got released shortly before Yamato poofed, so they never had a chance to get a second run. Other single-run and limited releases are probably going to be decently sought-after too, but probably none as much as the VF-4. Actually.. no, I take that back. The ones everyone will want years from now will be the same ones they've always wanted... Hikaru's VF-1J, Roy's VF-1S, etc. They always produce the most of those, because the folks who can restrain themselves to one or two purchases would probably go for the iconic ones. The question is, how long will it be before interest in everything but the favorites disappears? The VF-4 though has a special status. It's a combination of a swan song for the company, a masterpiece of engineering, and the only mass produced transforming VF-4 in any scale ever to exist. In hindsight, I wish they had numbered them so people would know how many were made, but it's not a huge deal. It just feels like the VF-4 is the transforming toy equivalent of a John Lennon album that you got autographed at the last concert before his death.
  15. Chronocidal
    Same here, so should be arriving mid-week some time.
  16. Chronocidal
    I can see that, and I guess I'm not trying to bash anyone, but the flood of auctions that always appear right after the preorders close at all the various shops is always really irritating. The sales on those sites happen fast enough that I don't think there's any way it could happen unless people are using automated processes to log in and purchase them faster than humanly possible. The fact that people are somehow able to buy them while people here complain of the sites crashing out entirely gets old. Personally, I don't have a problem with NY, and I'm okay paying that markup so I can sleep easy, but the problem is they have to do what they do in the first place. They basically become a proxy seller for the other shops. And I'm not really thinking about recent times, I'm thinking about the first couple of Bandai releases after the VF-25S. At that point, no one really knew Nippon Yasan existed I think, and they only became a popular source because so many people were able to grab VF-171EXs from them at retail even after release. Now that that site is more well known, it doesn't happen anymore, and they tend to suffer from the same pre-order shenanigans as every other site. They just have the process in place to go out and find more, and then keep supplying them manually, whereas other shops just expend their allotment from Bandai, and pull them off sale. Anyway.. I dunno. This really isn't about shops, it's just that I really don't like the way Bandai does anything about Macross. They cut corners to save on production costs, they make sales, engineering, and design decisions that make my head hurt with their stupidity and greed, and they can't seem to take the time to actually put the effort into their products that Yamato ever did.
  17. Chronocidal
    Well, sadly the only info anyone really has is the rumored spoilers.
  18. Chronocidal
    Haha, very funny. You do realize that the scalpers are the ones picking up all the pre-orders right? It's why 5 min after those 30 second pre-order windows close, you see the auction sites flooded with sales for those items at twice the retail price. That's not "a little effort." Getting in on those preorders is somewhere between a freak lucky click at the perfect time, and an act of God. The only reason a lot of people here have gotten any pre-orders at all is because they're willing to choke down the markup from places like NY, who keep their prices higher so they don't sell out in a few seconds. Anyway.. yeah, the YF-29 is a perfect example of why I'm sick of Bandai's engineering. It wouldn't be such an issue if they didn't have this stupid fetish for die-cast in all those parts that are bound to scratch (or casting parts in the wrong color, then painting the entire part to cover it up). I transformed my YF-29 the first time last night. That's all it took to drag a trail of missing paint across the top edge of one of the shoulder blocks, because it rubs on the backplate when you press it back into place. As good as the designs themselves are, Bandai needs a good boot to the head about the entire concept of "TRANSFORMING TOY." Either beef up your freaking paint, or cast the parts in plastic for crying out loud. As nice as the designs look, they seem absolutely clueless about the mechanics of, "Oh, yeah, this part will actually rub on this other one when you transform it." I've said this before.. Bandai produces "transformable toys" that are neither toys, nor fun to transform. Yamatos were both, and it showed. But eh. Maybe someone else somewhere down the road will pick up the molds. I just hate the thought of Bandai having the sole power of everything Macross related, because they clearly have no interest in selling to any market but within Japan, nor any ear to the interests of foreign customers.
  19. Chronocidal
    Only on the first two releases. After that, it was what's become the classic standard sleepless night of F5 mashing, hoping to even get one at something close to retail price. Either by decision or contract, they're pretty much ignoring the fact that there's a decent sized international market for Macross products, but whatever the reason, it's screwed a good number of people here out of ever being able to get some releases at anything approaching a reasonable price.
  20. Chronocidal
    In a pinch, you can also find scans of the instructions for the Hasegawa kits online. You won't get front views, but you'll get top, bottom, and side. I usually use their instructions for 3D modeling projects, because their instructions seem to be generated directly off of the computer drawings from their molds, and always match up perfectly with each other.
  21. Chronocidal
  22. Chronocidal
    As decent as the renewals are, Bandai can't seem to find it in their hearts to give a crap about any market other than Japan, and the way they market things reminds me of DRM applied to toys. Not to mention their continuously questionable (if not outright pants on head stupid) design decisions about stuff that should not be at all hard to figure out. Bandai seems bound and determined to feed the scalper market at every turn with the way they run things.
  23. Chronocidal
    The simpler design of the VF-1 isn't going to help much in this case, because they're actually making it much more complicated than the VF-25 ever was. Most of it isn't bad, but the leg mechanism they're trying to implement is probably going to need to be made of metal to survive more than one transformation.
  24. Chronocidal
    Actually, no, given the situation Bandai has put everyone in already, the last thing I want to happen is for them to suck up all the licenses and sit on them for another couple of decades unused.
  25. Chronocidal
    Well, I guess that's my main complaint here.. It doesn't look as good (or accurate) to me as the Yamato 1/60 in several ways, it's significantly smaller, much more fragile, and it's not that much cheaper. A couple of the Yamato 1/60 kits I got for about $5 more than this kit will cost, and while I have serious doubts about the durability of this kit, I know for a fact that the Yamato design can handle dozens of transformations, because it was designed to be played with. I can appreciate that they're trying new things with the design, and I like the way they're trying to do the hips accurately, but at the same time I've got serious reservations about some of the changes they're making, because I really don't like how they look. Even if those ankle joints make more sense, and the knees can bend a lot further forward with those kneecaps, I really don't care for them, and they're nothing like the original animation to boot.
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