Chronocidal

The thing to remember about YF-19 paintschemes... it doesn't look very good with standard marking types used on round nosecones (at least to me). The sharp edge around the nose breaks up any smooth markings, and the only way I know that actually looks good is painting the entire nose a solid color, starting at the separation line ahead of the cockpit. Painting an anti-glare panel might work if done right, but because of the complex curve of the nose, it tends to look funny to me. I've seen people paint just the front half of the nose a different shade, and it looked completely out of place, since there's no existing dividing line there. Now... because that sharp edge on the nose makes a solid dividing line though, painting a variation of the 70's navy scheme might work. Just don't do the wavy white line, and use the existing fuselage edges as borders. Btw... don't go by that F-14 model photo for colors. That blue is ridiculously bright.

Awesome. I don't mind double dipping on Roy if I get a bright white one with a TV figure. Makes me glad I picked up that set of TV packs last HLJ sale, so I can just stick with the plain version, and use a spare Hikaru figure if I want. Now if I could just manage to get a second strike pack... but those seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth somehow.

I'm glad to see they're milking this mold, but I don't think the YF-19 has the greatest lines for using schemes like this one... the nose design just doesn't lend itself well to a darkened panel along the top. Plus, I don't quite care for how flashy this scheme is. I can see the cues from existing squadrons, but it's just a bit too much (mainly the wings are over the top to me). Now that they've begun the milking though, I want to see more like this, with more subtle sets. I still want my low-vis set, and the supernova schemes in this scale. Plus... while I don't think the YF-19 has the best form for adapting old style navy squadron styles, it's got the perfect layout for some Russian style schemes (clipped tails and everything). Heck, the thing is half Su-27 already. I want them to make some agressor sets, especially a Dobber-style one.

I dunno if that one was so bad, it was just blasted hard. Old fashioned pseudo-3D games always were when it came to any kind of precision flying (ie landing). I had that trouble sometimes with the original Wing Commander... you'd get right up next to the carrier, and suddenly the sprites would change, making you slam into the side of the durn thing. Course, funniest thing.. we had Top Gun for our NES, and the last time I had friends over, everyone was curious how hard it actually was (being familiar with the AVGN review). So I pull out the NES, and load it up, and in the process of ranting over how stupid nasty the landing sequence is... I land the thing perfectly, for the first and only time ever. The AC tunnel/trench/canyon levels are an oddball to be sure, and kind of a cop-out for added difficulty. But AC5's was very epic. I remember the relief from finally beating it, and it was worth it. Compared with AC5, all the other trench levels seem like a piece of cake. While on the subject of trench/tunnel levels though, the third Rogue Squadron game was.. well, I can't say it was horrible all the way through, but it had more than it's share of bad. The single player game was pretty dull, and the walking levels sucked utterly. But it seemed to redeem itself decently with what it did right (the actual Executor attack run, probably one of the best speeder bike levels ever made, plus the only game I can remember where you get to drive an AT-AT). The thing that really saved it for me was the co-op version of Rogue Leader though. Running the two Death Star runs, Hoth, or Endor with a competent wingman (instead of idiot AI) is just epic. Plus having a wingman made it possible to beat Razor Rendezvous with a gold medal in about 15 seconds.

Even if it might be possible to rotate the nose there, I'm not sure how you could ever use that joint while keeping the transformation intact, since this version doesn't have the slight side-to-side swivel in the swingbar that the 1/48 did. On the other hand... I wonder what would happen if you removed the swingbar from the hip bar entirely, and just left the legs detachable. Kinda kills the whole "perfect transformation" bit, but it could be interesting to see what could be done with that bar out of the way. I don't think it would have any great effect on how the legs attach in fighter/gerwalk modes since they clip in by the hip bar, but I don't know if the nose hatch and attachment point there would be enough to hold the legs in in battroid. Also, the swingbar clips into the backplate pretty firmly in battroid, so you'd lose that sturdyness as well. But it could be interesting to try.

Best one I know of: Aerofighters Assault for the N64. Yes, it was a 3D adaptation of those old top-scrolling shooters with crazy weapons and flying turret-platform bosses, the plot was entirely nonsensical, and you could use an F-15 with a crazy superlaser weapon to shoot down a flying saucer flying over the moon. But none of that mattered, because the flight mechanics were great, and the head-to-head dogfighting mode was awesome. HAWX on the other hand I never could stomach enough to play more than the demo. My brother gave me the PC version to try after he got sick of it, but I got so frustrated trying to configure the controls (until I found out YOU CAN'T), I gave up and went back to AC6. It was all I could do not to snap the disc in half, frankly. I wanted so bad for it to be decent, but after I found out you need a gamepad to play it decently, I lost all interest.

It is rather sparkly, but they didn't fix the different shades of red (depending on lighting conditions I would assume). I dunno what their obsession is with using wrong colored plastic and painting it to match, but there are many sections of the plane that are made from different plastics using different colors (mostly a dark gray, like the flap under the cockpit). The painted parts are clearly a lighter shade of red on mine, more of a tomato red, and very stark against the rest of the plane. Why they couldn't just mold these in color is a question for the ages (probably due to shared part molds), same as the landing gear doors on the VF-25 DX (Michael's rear doors are molded in blue, and painted white, meaning the paint chips like crazy if you open or close them).

My main problem is that, even ignoring the issues the VF-25 DX has in it's stand-alone version, the armor and super packs were not designed in such a way that you can use them without putting the toy in a stressed situation. If the armor pack was designed properly from the start to integrate correctly, the backplate would not be cracking. It's cracking because they did a lousy job designing the connection points, and nothing lines up the way it should. If the packs and plane were designed correctly from the start, everything would snap together solidly, without you having to bend the plane in ways it wasn't meant to move. I mean, the cracks are happening in fighter mode for goodness sake. That's the only mode where the wings have any kind of built in support at all, and it decides to crack then? That just reeks of undue stress on the back plate due to poorly designed connection points for the armor. I was actually considering buying an armored DX until these cracks started happening. Honestly.. the fit of some of the parts is so sloppy, I wonder if they even used CAD at all. *sigh* I do appreciate the fact that we have a transforming VF-25, and I enjoy the two I have (Michael and movie Alto)... but the VF-27 blows them so far out of the water, it's not even funny. I do want an Armored Ozma, but I'm not buying this iteration of it. If they get their act together and release a better VF-25 later on, I'll gladly rebuy the two I have, and just save the V.1s for posterity.. or children to play with.

The only problem with that... yes, Bandai has a significant amount of experience in all sorts of things. But for them to make such stupid mistakes with the VF-25, even with the benefit of that experience, makes those problems all the more egregious. The VF-27 is in a different league entirely (excluding the paint problems), but the one main thought in my mind with the VF-25 is, "Really? Come on Bandai, you should know better than this by now." I'm not going to defend Yamato for making rookie mistakes. On the other hand, I have no problem bashing Bandai for doing the same. I've seen what Bandai has done before. The quality of what came before the VF-25, and the quality of the VF-27 after it point to the only reason I can see for the problems it has: they just didn't care enough to try. It was designed sloppily and inaccurately, and gives me the impression that nothing was thought out to any decent extent beforehand (with regards to paint/material problems, accessories, etc). The stress problems the armor pack is giving it just puts a nice neon highlight on the fact that they didn't think things through. I'm sorry, you do not design a $100+ toy that requires you to place the structure under direct stress in order to display it in its intended manner. Whoever designed the VF-25 either had no education in terms of material stress/strain properties, or they just didn't give half a flying rat's ass. The super packs are the same way. In order to attach them, you have to bend the parts of the VF-25 around and snap them together in a way that they were obviously not meant to stay in. They don't fit well that way. The hip joints were not meant to sit at the angles necessary to attach the leg armor. The only reason it's possible is because there is a lot of slop built into those attachment points, and nothing was built with any kind of precision in mind. Building things sloppy to start with and using it to cover your lack of foresight is a freaking lousy way to engineer something.

Two things. 1. Stripes and markings still aren't there (really? this looks like a production picture and it's still missing that much?) 2. They flat out forgot the upper intake on top of the hip plate. The Fire Valk doesn't have this, it's got the weird strip-like indentation shown.. but the normal VF-19s all had a noticeable intake cut into that panel.

I've been trying to limit myself to one per month, but I overflowed around Christmas time. Since September, I've bought 22 valks of various types. I've stopped now for a bit, since my job may change location, but I plan to pick up a few more things later on, mostly the VF-1 kit version, and a VF-0S.

I think it has to do with some of the concept art for the series. There was a pic of a super Hikaru 1J in gerwalk on the main page for a while... where it came from I don't know, but depending on how it got published, it might have been what popularized the pairing. On the other hand.. the pairing makes sense market-wise. Hikaru's 1J was the only hero valk that didn't get to use the boosters in the TV series (well, if you don't count Max's 1A, but he got his 1J later too), so this is a way to give him some boosters, even if it wasn't canon. Plus, it makes for a nice trio of super 1Js, once you add in M&Ms. And while a TV Skull1 would be fun for collectors, it doesn't make much sense to make a separate packaging for it, since it would just be a repackaged DYRL Skull1 with TV packs and a Hikaru pilot figure. Given the choice of a Skull1 with TV packs, or a Skull1 with DYRL strike packs, which would you choose? That cannon is cool. Fortunately, Yamato had the guts to sell a separate TV fast pack set for the v2 1/60, so it's easy for us to make our TV Skull1. Whether this was a good idea financially though, I don't know. The strike packs tend to sell out fast it seems, while the TV packs seem to linger, and get marked down.

Glad to know that tab is fixable, that's been my one major concern with the VF-11. That tab holds literally everything together, both in battroid and fighter, and losing that means the whole thing would be a froppy mess. Every time I lock the back in battroid or pull the nose down, I worry this tab is just gonna snap.

I'm assuming it comes with a free can of prince albert?

Much as I'd like to think they're possible, remember folks... the thing that eventually killed the F-14 was the swing wing design, and the heavy maintenance that required. Comparing an F-14 to a VF-1 in terms of moving parts is like comparing a mechanical pencil to an automotive assembly line. The problem in any moving part is the stress involved. The only reason the JSF's VTOL engine works is because you're not moving the entire engine. It's just bending the thrust. Now, if you could find a way to duct a twin engine fighter so that it could achieve a gerwalk-like functionality, sure. I can see that happening. It's essentially what the Harrier did, ducting thrust through multiple nozzles to gain stability. They just weren't independently controlled, which could be very useful in real life, and could probably be done now with computers. The only Valk that doesn't contain the engines within the legs is the YF-21/VF-22. That means that in gerwalk, you have to support that entire leg structure with a mechanism that fits around the engine itself. Without some crazy over technology, that ain't happening. Just for a comparison once, I calculated out the stress on a normal human arm for lifting, oh, say 50 lbs. Your arm's weight is roughly negligible, but lifting 50 lbs on a rough lever arm of 18 inches puts 75 ft-lbs of torque on your elbow. Now.. consider that the lever arm your biceps use is on the order of an inch or so. Your biceps are pulling with a force of roughly 900 lbs. Now try adapting such a structure to something the size of an aircraft, and add the weight of an engine. The wing system of the F-14 wasn't even fighting the weight of the wing directly (the pivot being perpendicular to the main force on the wing, lift), and it STILL required gobs of maintenance. You know how ants can lift so much more than their own weight? What that boils down to is that their structure is small enough, light enough, and strong enough that the stresses are miniscule. The scale works in reverse as you get bigger, and as you start incurring weight penalties from your own mass. Until we discover some ridiculously strong materials, invent structural integrity fields, or gain overtechnology, I don't think anything resembling a valk is happening. The closest you'll probably get is something like the JSF. -------------------------------- However, on the other side of things... you all seem to be forgetting one very important reason that they needed battroid mode in the first place. Sure, you can kind of wave off hand-to-hand combat, since it's not really necessary. But remember Max parading around in the zentraedi costume? Let's face it.. if you ever wanted any miniscule chance of fighting them on their own ships/territory, you would need someone or something that would be able to interact with their technology, on their level. Unless of course, you wanted to have to report to your commanding officer, "I'm sorry sir.. the mission was a complete failure because we couldn't reach the doorknob."

This photo montage is by far the most irrefutable example of the importance of the phrase "REPEAT FOR OTHER SIDE" I have ever seen. It's definitely awesome to look at, but it also shows why I miss old fashioned film cameras at times.. you don't wind up with 20+ pictures of the box. The cost to develop that much film would have rivaled the cost of the subject of those photos.

Personally, I've always been suspicious of the way Bandai designed these things, especially with regards to any armor add-ons to the legs. I mean, think about it.. everything snaps into fighter mode exactly the same way whether you have armor attached or not. I was expecting to have to drop the legs like a VF-1 to allow room for the leg armor... but you don't. Adding the armor just means you use the same attachment points, at a different angle. The legs do get lowered, but there's no real change in the angle of the leg joints, and the hip joints seem like they're attaching at the wrong angle to me. It makes me think two things: 1: By putting the thing in fighter mode with the armor/super packs, you are putting a ton of stress on all the attachment points because they weren't designed correctly to attach at the different angles required by the packs 2: Bandai did a half-assed job designing the way things lock together so there would be some amount of sloppyness in the joints. People have said before that the super and armor packs feel like afterthoughts to the VF-25, and I have to agree. It looks like they decided to slap the leg armors on without any thought at all as to what stresses the new leg position might put on the existing pegs. I don't mean to rant, so my apologies if this comes off as one. I'd thought about getting an armored Ozma as my last DX, but these cracks really confirm my fears about how Bandai handled the armor. The VF-25 already barely fits together unarmored in fighter mode, and the armor makes me think they just hoped the pegs would line up well enough to hold it together, with no regard for the stress on the plastic. Sadly, cramming an armor as complex as this onto the plane and making it all fit correctly might require a level of forethought and precision beyond what the current VF-25 has.

Quoted for out of place truth. Although, personally, I think I'd rather keep my arms intact, and adopt.

Yeah, they can keep those shoulder... things. Seriously, it looks like they said, "What haven't we mounted on a valk yet?... OH! I know! JETSKIS!"

Not gonna bet on it holding the gunpod in fighter, since the arm design doesn't look changed at all from what is seen (hopefully I'm wrong). They did change the shield design, and the surrounding area to work with the head lasers though. Agree about the yellow stripes and the shade of blue though, if they don't fix that it'll be rather disappointing. I got the Fire Valk because I saw it on sale.. if that happens again, I might spring for one of these as well, but I'm probably going to hold out for a Yamato one. Also.. I didn't notice this before, but what's with the screwballed upper intakes above the hips? They look like they stretch the full length of the hip plate, rather than just the small triangle-ended strip on the lineart. Seems the Kai has this too, but I never noticed it till now.

Actually the Jolly Roger markings go clear back to WWII, and possibly before. I've got an F4U Corsair kit or two with the skull and crossbones flag pasted on it's nose.

I hope they aren't seriously removing the guns. I mean, even the VF-22s had those, even though they don't have a place to mount in fighter mode. Considering that rear picture still shows the guns mounted, I would assume they're just removing the fast packs and stand.

Actually, for the SDFM style Valks, their normal deck crew set would probably work just fine. We didn't see too much of it in the show (due to the whole space thing and all) but I don't see any reason the standard (atmospheric) Prometheus deck crew would have to be any different from a modern carrier deck crew. A DYRL set on the other hand... well, as cool as it was to have "AIRCRAFT CARRIERS - IN SPACE!", the launch arms in DYRL made infinitely more sense (steam catapults in zero-g? I lol'd), and there wasn't really any flight deck to populate with crew. I LOVE these kits though... and I'm terribly torn. I really don't want to drop a load of cash to get as many of these as I'd want to make versions of, but that means I have to decide very carefully how to paint up the two I have. I'm fairly certain I'm doing one old-school VF-84 (or possibly VF-142, I love those markings too), but I also want to do a VF-1 Wolfpack... not to mention one standard Hikaru 1J scheme. *sigh* Maybe I'll get two more in a couple months... two just isn't enough.

*gasps* In all my time here... in all the RT vs Macross threads.. in all the canon detail arguments...I don't think I've ever heard such blasphemy!

Mine arrived today as well. Thanks again Graham!