Chronocidal

To be fair, I don't think most of the Robotech writers or fanbase do either.

Ok, the fact that they were able to actually make something at that level before any toy exists is impressive. Maybe the transformation sequence was detailed more in some publication?

Frankly, if they're serious about down-scaling the Yamato and Arcadia designs to HMR, I would much rather have those than these parts-swappers. They aren't bad little projects, but if Bandai is capable of shrinking the 1/60 Fire Valk to HMR scale, that makes the compromises in the YF-19 kit just that much more disappointing. I'll still be curious how this turns out, and happily build a couple, but my expectations aren't too high.

Will happily buy a couple of these. Maybe I'll have the YF-19 I ordered by the time it comes out.

So I popped open the new X-Wing today after it got delivered yesterday.. and eh, it has some very good things going for it, but I will never understand their stupid obsession with using elastic-powered mechanisms for the wings, when they have perfectly good ratcheting mechanisms that would work much better in pretty much every way. Will be redesigning the wings from scratch probably, and hopefully getting them to sit against each other instead of the brick-thick gap between them. I'm actually thinking this might look better with a full 3-plate thickness for the wings, which would allow for a much fancier panel arrangement to get the details on the inner surface. Apart from the derpy wing mechanism and chonky nosecone though, the design has a lot going for it. Proportions look better overall than my first impression, and the angled plate construction on the fuselage is a huge step up from previous brick-built designs. I think what would actually really help it is to beef up the fuselage. The engines actually look close to the right size for the length of the ship, but the fuselage looks too short (as in top-to-bottom height), probably from the lack of tapering toward the nosecone. Making the whole thing taller might really help. Now.. one other thing I am looking at is the overall proportions, in terms of ratios between components, and there are a few obvious things that need fixing. I don't have much trouble using the Bandai 1/48 X-Wing kit as a baseline, since I don't think anyone else has managed such an accurate model, short of sourcing the actual model parts that were kitbashed into the original filming models. The Bandai kit's engines and guns are nice round measurements, which makes it easy. The intakes are 3/4", the rear nozzles are 1/2", and the fronts of the gun barrels are 3/8", so with a 6-stud intake, the rear engine sections should be 4 studs, and the fronts of the guns should be 3 (though the main gun body is slightly smaller). I think as long as the very fronts of the guns are 3-studs wide, the rest of the gun can be 2 with some greeblies on the side to bulk them up. By that same measure though.. yeah, R2 should be 3 studs wide.

I really want to see that one released, I'll probably grab two. I don't think I've ever seen a transforming kit of that, and it looks just about as good as the Bandai toy.

New UCS X-Wing arrived today, but I got home too late to open it up. Will probably give it a once-over later this week, and start brainstorming how to improve it.

Any idea of whether the kit comes with the original wings and tails as well? Don't think I would use the fish for anything, and they just ruin the clean lines of the Kairos.

Eh.. not bad, but glad I'm not worried about this one. Too many other things coming. Really do wish they had painted the missiles though.

I remember your breakage too, but I think that was a very different case. If I'm remembering correctly, yours sheared off at the actual hip splay pivot, which is absolutely a joint that takes direct stress when posing the legs. The entire leg is supported by that one shaft. This one isn't even a part that moves, it's just the screw holding the thigh together, and you can see where other supporting pegs were sheared off.

Back in ye good old days before digital distribution, it was very possible to miss boxed releases if you weren't quick, or knew where to get them. Most of the time it wasn't an issue, but there was always the potential for under-the-radar releases to get shuffled to the back of the bin and forgotten, until production ended early due to lack of interest, only for the prices to skyrocket on ebay when people discovered how good they were. The Win95 upgraded box set of the original Wing Commander games is my primary reference for that, and until people started circulating ISOs on abandonware sites, that game was commonly one of the most expensive in existence. On the other end of that spectrum though, you can also have a game become unobtainable just from sucking, and then become a hot item when it gets fixed up. I experienced this firsthand with Final Fantasy XIV. Someone in my gaming group saw that the game was free to play due its flop status, and we decided to give it a shot.. only to find out that it was so hated, it had been pulled from the shelves of every US store. The only way to get a license was through a UK shop selling digital copies.. and in hindsight, it was a really good way to get a Legacy account for about $10, but it has caused numerous account management issues for my friends (who still all play it), because SE straight up lied to the game's community, and reneged on their promise to allow region transfers (probably due to ESRB/PEGI shenanigans there). We still to this day have to use the UK account site, pay our subscriptions in GBP, and cannot participate in promotional deals from other regions.

Put in an order for two, but sheesh, release in October feels really far off.

Honestly, I have the earlier release of the Falcon, and I can't even say it's that bad. Not as accurate as a kit, but it's roughly the same size as the Bandai 1/144, and a really good swooshable toy. I wouldn't pay full price, but Amazon has it for $25, and I bit at that price. I will absolutely grab at least two or three copies of that shuttle though. Cannot wait for that one. Any release dates mentioned?

Appreciate the photos, thanks! Yeah, that's a strange place for it to just shear off.

I was wondering if they might have used too short a screw, but that should have been a long sturdy plastic shaft, and it's not a rotation point, so I don't know what stress was even on that part to make it fail. Maybe the shaft had a flaw that failed when the ratchet tooth pressed on it? I don't know. Unless the ratchet tooth was actually part of that shaft that broke? That would be concerning, since it just feels like a weird design choice, when it looks like that tooth is a separate insert piece, so it can be made of a different material. Apologies for the 20 questions about it, I'm actually curious what the full assembly is now, since I never wanted to pry out the screw covers to examine these, and every bit of information about the construction is helpful for avoiding or fixing these kinds of breaks in the future.

Youch, that's an insane place for it to just break apart. I wonder if you could actually contact Arcadia for a spare leg? It doesn't look like a hard repair to make given the right pieces, at least at first glance. Looks like the shaft it was screwed together by just sheared off entirely.

I want to say fixing the nose should just be a matter of replacing all of the 2-wide elements in the cone with 1-wide elements, so it goes from 4 to 3 total, and then replacing those giant slopes on the sides with more subtle tiles and curves. The whole fuselage really needs to taper down more though, which means angling in the side panels more, which is going to be a trick to achieve. That canopy really has got to go though. The inverse slope just destroys the natural contour of the cockpit. It needs to start at 5-6 studs wide, and taper to about 4 for a natural blending into the upper fuselage.. which also needs to be higher at that point, since the bottom of the canopy should angle upwards. Bottom line, it really just needs a canopy built from plates and hinges. The one-piece elements are nifty, but nothing they ever make approaches the right shape. The closest I ever got was leaving a canopy half-closed, and making my own frame out of cut-up mailing labels. I do have to give them a little credit though.. It's almost invisible because of how thick the layering is, but they did use pale blue plates all around the canopy frame. They just needed to use jumper tiles on that white panel below the canopy to reduce that panel to 2.5 studs tall, and let some of it show through.

Looking at the site photos, I may have been a little unfair to the X-Wing based on the initial shot. I think there are still some oddball proportions going on, but this one does look like it tries to duplicate some of the details that none of the other versions have tried so far, especially on the greeblie panels. The proportions here don't look bad as a base to work with. I think we really just need a 5-stud diameter engine. The canopy needs a replacement though, and I think the nose would be helped a lot if it tapered more, probably down to a 3-stud width nosecone, which I think would be entirely possible with those curved bricks they used. It's just too flat and wide. I'm also hoping the wing mechanism isn't too insanely over-engineered so I can reduce the gap between the wings. I do love the fact that they replicated so many of the markings with colored plates though, instead of printed panels.

EMS does tend to be one of the most expensive methods lately, and DHL will probably save you a bit. I generally avoid them because of the insane third-party shipper shenanigans involved in them getting things to where I am, but they might be just fine for you.

Well that was about as painless as I could have hoped for, was able to login, grab the new X-Wing and logout in about 10 minutes. Been a long time since I saw the LEGO Shop site working that smoothly. Would have actually kind of liked to get two of them honestly, just for the selection of parts, but maybe I can do that later.

Cool display.. but what are all the missiles for? Would be a whole lot cooler if there was a little Sv-51 chasing him..

One would hope Bandai would eventually discover that they need to change something about the formulation of their plastic to prevent that.. but they seem remarkably resistant to making obvious improvements.

I need to make some custom pylons to just stick the Hasegawa 1/48 missiles on the Bandai DX. Still can't believe how bad those pylons are.

I grew up always packing models in foam peanuts, in boxes much larger than the model.. usually things like old CRT monitor boxes and Home Depot shippers. You can cram a lot into a big box as long as you leave wiggle room.. I probably have a couple dozen 1/48 kits packed that way, though very few of them are very fragile to begin with, since I never tended to glue antennas and landing gear on them.

It's not a cheap thing to do, but if there's anything to get multiples of, it's the YF-19 full set, because that's pretty much the only good source of weapons for.. well, everything else, unless you're very handy with prepping and painting 3D prints. The long AMRAAM-looking ones and the HMMs look great on all of the VF-31s. Really wish they would just release an exclusive weapons pack full of things to put on all of their valks... or, you know, maybe include something in the base package. Heck, I don't even care if they're painted or assembled, just give me good molded plastic kit of armaments for all of your valks, Bandai.