Chronocidal

Either that.. or they're inflatable pool toys.

I've really been enjoying these, and the VFG kits the past couple weeks. I could definitely finish them up nicely, paint them, decal them, and all.. but I just have fun snapping them together quickly. They come apart again easily enough to go back and finish, it's just satisfying to cut the parts loose and build something in an evening. I probably spent more time cutting and trimming the parts than I did actually building. Sadly though, the way the weapons mounts work on the CF is really just cheap looking. The pylons are simple tabs sticking out of the wing, and the weapons just slide onto them until they hit the wing. Even the DX versions were better than that. I wound up just using the plain wings. I'd really recommend just going through spare parts bins for some actual weapons pylons to use, or just cut something better out of sheet plastic.

I just discovered something kind of hilarious about these kits. In the process of putting together my 171 EX, I noticed that there was one spare piece that the instructions never used, and I couldn't tell if they ever mentioned it at all. It was just a U-shaped bar, that looked like a support for something. Not having a place to put it, I decided it would make a good set of armrests for the EX-gear seat, since it didn't have any, for some reason. Filed a slot in the center of the part and in the back of the seat to slot together, and bingo. Armrests. Imagine my surprise when I go to put together my teal 171 kit, and discover that's exactly what the part was for. Somewhere in production, they forgot to cut a slot in the back of the EX seat to let the armrests attach. The normal 171 used a different seat back design, which had the slot for them all along. Makes me wonder what was going on when they released these kits, since the EX version came out first, without weapons, but using a part meant for the CF.

I did grab a few of the 1/144 Delta fighter kits, they go really well with the Kotobukiya Ace Combat ones.

It's crazy to consider, but the vast majority of the A-Wing filming models came from 1/32 scale kitbashes, primarily F-14s, and F-16s. The main body is slapped together from four upper wing-glove halves, while the engines are actually taken from the old 1/32 Hasegawa F-16 mold (I recognize the parts, since I have that kit). It doesn't always get translated into toys, but the reason why the engine tubes taper inwards is because they're made out of the intake ducting. The vent structure in the middle is just two intakes slapped together top-to-top. You can tell the canopy is actually something mounted backwards as well, due to the curvature. I think it's been speculated to be from either a P-47 or P-51, maybe something like an F-86.

Yeah, but given Bandai's penchant for "creative" interpretations for how numbers are supposed to be printed, it's good to have the reassurance that they're not screwing up another release on purpose.

Judging by the other views of this thing.. I think the problem is actually the inverse. I think they were forced into that giant chonker of a backpack by their overall proportions, and decided to try and make it look not so stupid by having the wings not fold flush, just so there wasn't a massive void of nothing sitting behind the torso. Flat-folding wings is not a hard problem to solve. That's really the thing that bugs me the most. I really do not understand anything about the design strategy that went into this thing. It's not even about the transformation itself, it's just the pure aesthetics. It seems to me like there are just so many little things they could have done to improve the overall presentation, and they just chucked them all in the bin, and went "Nah, let's just leave it ugly."

I'm actually really hopeful they'll try and do few other series of these. Would love to see a full Fire Bomber set, and I think it's high time we had a YF-19 and YF-21 pair.

Really nice detail, on both the rocks and the ship. If you can get ahold of some of the 1/144 Ties Bandai makes, you could probably add a couple of them to the scene. They're a quick and easy build, and not so expensive you'd feel bad about melting one down to simulate it smashing face-first into one of the rocks.

I've got a good few of these now, and while I've built some of the figures, the primary reason was to get a few valks in HMR scale, since the sizes are just about perfect (I think something like 1/85 scale or so). I'm currently tackling a couple of the VF-31s and plan to consolidate boxes since they're so bulky, and all the parts come on tons of sprues. One thing that always strikes me about these kits is that the color breakdowns for various versions are so sloppy, for lack of a better term. They make all of these kits in so many colors, but when it comes time to release new ones, they only need one or two parts in a different color.. so they just say "sprue it" and throw an entire extra sprue in the box. Some of them come with so many extra parts, you can almost build a second fighter mode just from the spares. The orange and tan Kairos is probably the most excessive for this. I know it's not like they're wasting plastic (in theory), but it definitely inflates the costs of the kits when they have that many extra bits. Once I get the parts clipped off for the Monster kits, I'll probably be moving all of the actual kits and figures into one of those boxes for storage, and just fill the other with the spares.

I am glad I decided to splurge and only get the PF back in the day. I'd be kind of terrified to imagine the price increase for that one now.

Assuming you mean the upper triangles that sandwich the shoulder joint, and not the lower ones? The fact that there are two sets per valk has always been a small point of confusion. Judging by the way I saw my upper ones break, I'm not sure if it was related to bad plastic, bad assembly, or a combination of the two. What I think happened with the upper triangles is that the assembly line took a shortcut, and instead of screwing the shoulders together around the ball joints, they screwed them together, and then jammed them over the ball. The actual process of getting those parts together is a three-handed job, so I can understand why they would use the shortcut, but it caused a lot of the parts to crack. The lower triangles are just a nonsense design to begin with. Expecting something that fragile to survive shoving a metal spring pin into was too much to ask, especially if the plastic was already flawed. I did have some success repairing a broken pair of those though. It came down to extracting the spring pins, then carefully gluing and sanding the parts back into shape to slide on one another correctly. Afterward, I replaced the spring pins with a section of insulated wire the right thickness to fit. The rubber coating wound up providing a nice amount of friction in the rotation, without stressing the parts. All things considered though, those parts should be discarded entirely, and replaced with something that isn't so fragile. I came up with a rough design for a replacement that copies the design from the Yamato VF-17, but have never gotten around to making a set to test, since I didn't think my filament printer would be up to the task. After those VF-11 intake covers came out so well though, I might give it a shot. It might take some very fine drilling to get a sturdy hinge made. The tricky part is probably making a part precise enough to fit in the same slot as the existing green part. That's a really thin part, with a really small screw holding it on. Otherwise, I think that folding panel would accomplish the same thing as the stock parts. It might dangle down from the chest, but I think it might even fit rotating 180 degrees to fit under the chest panel. Of course the other option is to just yeet those lower triangles into the abyss, and deal with the slight lack of streamlining. They're small enough to kind of just overlook in the long run.

If they did, it has to come down to the different specifications that Bandai and Yamato had for their designs, because the two could not be any more different in execution. Yamato's VF-17 is very pointy, but it is an absolute unit of a chonky valk that is deceptively simple in its function, and feels rock solid in hand. Bandai's version is the most overcomplicated and overengineered pile of self-combusting explodium I've ever seen.

I think it should be obvious by this point that the people setting up Bandai's displays usually have no idea what they're doing.

Think that's just the parts being sloppily installed, the promo images have them in the right place. Course.. they've been known to photoshop things before. Still, even if the release version has that, it wouldn't be too difficult to fix, relatively speaking.

What, and admit they screwed it up?

Don't mind me, just geeking out over the classic space sets I see nestled between the transformers. I was always sad I never actually got any sets with the classic inverted Triforce logo.

Just being honest here, I don't want Bandai's fingers anywhere near any new VF-17-based release. I don't want any more valks exploding from their idiotic design logic, and I would not be even slightly surprised if any new VF-17 from them would have all of the same problems as the 171.

Once they've made this mold, there's really no reason not to make both. The major differences are all in the cockpit and chest transformation, so once that's figured out, everything else is just an add-on part.

I can't say it was just the CFs though, I know my Luca version had the same metallic sheen to it, and I didn't trust it. It's more than just the plastic though, I think the 171's leg design might possibly be the most incompetently designed product I've ever owned. The design as a whole has some serious issues, and at the very least it's the worst designed transforming toy I own. The entire hip/knee joint should be ripped out and rebuilt from scratch, and the stupid little collapsing triangles on the underside should have been replaced with the version Yamato used on their VF-17. "Bandai: Why use one part, when you can use five to do a worse job instead?"

Not really that odd, considering how rare and unpopular "enemy" units are with the anime fanbase in general. I'm just assuming Hasegawa decided not to make it based on sales figures for the 1/72 version.

Yeah, that right there is the CF-171 experience in condensed form. You don't buy one toy. You buy a bunch and hope you get one good one put together out of the pile of broken parts that come out of the boxes.

Oh, I know. I'm more commenting on the name as I always associated it with being used for the OT/PT-related releases, since a lot of the items released were retools of actual older toys. I guess they never really intended that.

Think that's jus a pure red, always see it specified as "insignia red" when instructions tell you what color to paint those. I'm not sure the T-45 trainer scheme even counts as orange anymore. Though, speaking of the YF-16, I wish they had stuck to the red for the YF-25. Would have looked amazing.

Considering how Bandai just completely abandoned the Sv-262, I don't think you have to worry. They really just don't want to invest in adversaries.