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I still think some of the cheapest and best stands are the Flexidisplays at LAFtoys. Especially their V2s which come out soon.

Count me in for the buyers list too. There's no difference if you do it on a CF or an Ivanov/Nora right? Other than that Ivanovs tend to have more mechanical issues? XD

- Holy crap, you're right. The SV-51s are 40% off o_o.

Whoa thats awesome. But wouldnt you save some money buying the CF version to paint it?

I like this paint scheme better than any of the official SV-51 schemes, which is probably the main reason why I've held back from buying it. If they sold this, I'd gladly pay.

Btw, doesnt this belong in the Modification forums?

Econ 101 brought to you by VFTF, lol

The only way it'd be cheaper would be to get it yourself (thus incurring no shipping/retailing/management cost on their part) straight from manufacturing. Except that's not feasible, as informal inventory behavior starts to occur, and you accrue extensive inefficient costs for each person who is doing that as nothing is being subjected to economies of scale.

Just wait till you pay for a 1/60 Konig Monster. You're gonna need to take out a mortgage for that.

Fair enough, anime52. If having similar toys of the same scale don't bother you or your wallet then that's fine too. I personally love the 1/72 Hase YF-19, despite all its non-cannon exaggerated glory. I think I'd feel the same way about a pre-assembled model too, but frankly at this point I'd rather save the $50 or so for the next staggeringly-expensive Yamato valk. Its kind of one thing that trumps the other. If I didn't start out collecting transforming Valks though, I might have just taken the cheaper route and gotten non-TF 1/72 replicas... But its too late for that

Also, 2,000 Yen for GNU Fast Packs? Wow. 20 bucks... for a few pieces of non-articulated plastic (I don' count a silly twist of the connection joint)... When the GNU itself was 30. Who is pricing these things?!? Just imagine if the 1/60 FP expansions costed 2/3rds the value of the plane. Thats too bad, cause I like my GNUs, but when I start paying 45-50 for each one, I mind as well start throwing money into a fire. Even for a GNU fan, thats too much for me.

I would appreciate the increase in detail and sculpting accuracy like you say, since I'm a fighter fan too, but I think this would just limit me severely to only buying fighters for the transforming Valks that I would have refused to buy due to their fighter-mode compromises (VF-11, VF-25). Otherwise, the current fighter modes of most of the valks are really still pretty good, and I wouldn't plunk down another 50 for a plane of which I already have. Even if it was superior, it'd be obsoleting the $200 valks =/.

What's going to end up happening with 1/60 or 1/72 replicas is that the demand would be lower than if they were of a smaller scale, due to their higher price, and that collectors technically already possess a 1/60 model. I don't know about you, but I don't intend to buy Hasegawa kits of fighters I already own (even if they were pre-completed). Cost would be an issue, but so would storage and collectibility.

That aside though, I think it's a shame to neglect Gerwalk modes as it most easily distinguishes Macross from other toys. Its not quite like collecting plane replicas, or Gundam kits, or transformers figures. Sure, there's no way it could work without being a floppy mess that would disintegrate mid-flight, but it was sure as hell a lot more interesting than repeated mecha-dueling ala GW. If Macross had just Fighter and Battroid modes, I think I'd be disenchanted with it pretty quickly. And something about rearward-bent legs just makes their ground movement awesome. Probably from a childhood of Mechwarrior though.

I have 1/72 scale diecast fighter planes that are absolutely superb in detail and still cost less than $60. For a high quality high detail diecast, $70 is about the max one would probably pay. Interestingly the best F-14 Tomcat diecast model costs $70 and just about every diecast airplane collector raves about it.

It'll be unnecessary to have it diecast, but I would have thought that it would cost more for 1/72 fighters. Maybe I should switch to collecting real planes instead of Macross; it'd be a lot cheaper. XD

With Yamato behind the wheel though, I still wouldn't be surprised at the $70 minimum price tag. =/.

Hm. Is there a physical difference between Luca's 3 UCAV Ghosts and the Ghost X9/V9s? Aside from the color scheme? Been waiting for ghost fighters forever, but I don't know if I can justify getting the RVF-25 for that. Luca wasn't exactly an inspiring character, and neither was his piloting.

I think he's talking about the 1/72 YF-21. Which was less than 7,000 yen if I remember. The 1/60 is around 22,000 yen like you say, matching the price of the SV-51s. Exchange rates, shipping and all, that's about 270 Canadian Retail around here.... Nothing less of staggering.

The VF-11 seems to be matching the 1/60 YF-19's price, which is a bit more reasonable.

Essentially, you're waiting for a VF-11B V2. Lol. That may be a while. I'd think the YF-21 V2 would come first =P. Or if you want something now (for Christmas, perhaps) then something already in its second iteration.

Nope, so far no 2nd issued YF-21. Play it safe.. get the VF-11B 1st issue!

How is that safe? We dont even know its initial release quality yet! If anything, its a bigger gamble than the 21.

the problem with a GN-U fighter is that I see it being in the same scale with the same detail as the GN-U batroids. I just think it would be too small and too plain. what would be really nice, would be a 1/72 size fighter with similar level of crispness and detail equal to a hase kit, or at least a yamato transforming figure.

A fighter only or Gerwalk only mode with less articulation than the battroids, but cheaper is great, but I think the size should be smaller. If the size is going to be 1/72 or 1/60, won't it be pretty redundant amongst your transforming 1/60s? And something of that size, but retaining that level of detail is going to inflate the price to $60-70 and an additional 15 for Gerwalks. Poor paint and panel line detail becomes far more noticeable amongst larger figures.

I think its a safer bet to have smaller figures to pair with the current GNU sizes, and keep the costs $20-25 or less.

I want Guld and Isamu figs so they can throw down just like on Eden.

Actually that'd be pretty awesome. You could have their respective battroids duking it out behind them. Thats a fantastic idea XD PINPOINT BARRIER FISTTTTTTTTT

I would have liked Grace more, if she wasn't so diabolical. But in the most blatant way possible.

Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed with the characters in Frontier, all the male pilots were more feminine than the women (yes even Ozma with his stray lock of hair which must take him hours to get right), and amongst the women, only Klan and Ram were cute. I have a hard time convincing myself to buy figures of them though.

Would appreciate a good Isamu or Zero Focker figure though. Between Figma and Revoltech, ehhh.... I think I'd rather have it figma. Revoltech has trouble doing normal standing poses, and I'd prefer they weren't so gummy-feeling. Not really a fan of ball joints though. Solid PVCs forever!

Yea, except that the canards on the 19 had nothing to do with perfect trans, or proportional accuracy in each mode. But if you're saying that there is a possibility of Yamato being super-nice and giving us fan-pleasing extras... Maybe, but I am doubtful.

Anyways, Im a fighter person, so the tiny tail fins arent going to cut it. But I did like the long gunpod, and the wicked bayonet. =/ so many trade offs.

Hah. I'd love to see a 27 pilot forget that he has his landing gear deployed and fire the cannon while in combat. Oops. XD

I dont see the 27 being all that chunky, because its design is so similar to the SV-51. If Yamato could do the transformation and retain reasonable proportions for the 51, I would hope that Bandai could as well. Also, just by the lineart, the 27's wings are much thicker and less prone to the problems that are inherent with the 51.

Unfortunately though, I dislike the fat droopy nosecone with 27... And whats up with its tiny forward canards in that picture?

Are you kidding?? The rectangular FAST (Fuel And Sensor Tactical) packs used on the VF-11 are my favourites of all!! They look great, and I just love the part that they have two exhaust nozzles per Pack.

Doesnt the VF-25 also have a 2 nozzle FP? I never cared much for either.

Hopefully a VF-27 "Lucifer" will also be released in the future. Love that big gun, reminds me of a real world German Henschel Hs 129B-3 from WWII.

The giant gun on the VF-27 keeps reminding me of Cowboy Bebop's Swordfish. Anyone else get that feeling?

http://www.genghiskwan.com/gallery/3d/swordfish0270.jpg

(The forward landing gears splay to both sides of the gun though.)

GNU 21's anyone?

I have a bigger problem with the snub nose than anything else, but there's not really a lot that can be done about it. Is it better than the 1/72, yea. But is it good enough to warrant buying and displaying it in fighter? No.

NOOOO!!!!.....just push it to the outside to it's position and the plastic around it will bend slightly and allow the landing gear to be in place

Uhh... I read that someone said that in the 19 thread, but I tried it, but it wont budge and I don't see that happening naturally. At all. I can only forsee terrible splits in the landing gear casing.

One thing about Yamato standard box packaging is that its got lots of extra space inside. It could compress to 50% of its current thickness and the fighter would still be fine. However, it is just thin cardboard and then a plastic tray, so there's not a lot of resistance it provides. Build a thicker cardboard box that wraps around the Yamato packaging (by taking thicker corrugated cardboard, some glue and lots of packing tape) to form a shell. That should give it some resistance. I shipped my fighters like that internationally, and they came out just fine, with only a slight ding on the corner of the Yamato box.

Is your's a fast pack version or the standard one?

standard. The landing gear issue is present. Too lazy to fix it right now, but will get a small drill to open the hole a bit. Thats all I can find though.

My 1/60 YF-19 disagrees with you on the "no gaps" point, but ah well.

Not sure, but I looked at my 19, and took some pics of the usual gap issues I hear about here. Doesnt seem to be an issue? Or is it something else Ive missed? My cell camera sucks though. The shoulders pop up only slightly but not really a huge issue. And there is that modification to fix that one pretty easily.

the specialty of Macross is in it's transforming fighters, after all, otherwise it'd just be Gundam.

Yea, the additional quality of a perfect transformer is a huge plus but for the most part, I'm more a fan of planes than mecha (although its still good). I don't plan on getting any more GNUs (or Revols or any of the non-transformers, really) unless they release plane/gerwalk only models of the same caliber... And hopefully a cheaper price (since fewer joints and so forth.)