Bandai 1/60 DX Chogokin Macross 7 Fire Valkyrie

[treatment]

39 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

So.. the I finally got my copy delivered from AE.. yeah.. that's the absolute last time I deal with DHL.  Period.  Long, epic, and ridiculous tale there, but that's for another thread.

Anyhow... I dunno what's wrong with all y'all's gunpods.  

 

nice, uhh, door orientation and stuff...

 

 

 

 

[Chronocidal]

3 hours ago, treatment said:

nice, uhh, door orientation and stuff...

Hey, I'm just happy I can pose this one on the feet that way.  The stupid mechanism in the YF-19's leg meant the feet can't be pulled out in fighter.  In this case though, I figured the door made a nice reference line to show how everything was lined up vertically, even if the angle of the pic showed the door slightly tilted.

A few notes on this one though.. This is absolutely a Bandai design, through and through.  All kinds of little considerations to make fit together more tightly or align better.. all of which are unnecessary, and make transformation more difficult than if they'd just left well enough alone. 

Yeah, carving a slot for the shield to fit against the legs tightly sounds like a good idea.. Until you go to mount the gunpod.  So you stick it between the arms, and press the legs together to hold them together to hold it there... and now the shield won't fit because you have to spread the legs to fit it into the slot, which lets the arms pop apart, which leaves the gunpod falling out.  

I'm also fairly certain that nifty mechanism to retract the purple lenses in the shoulders will be the first thing to break when people stress the shoulders from posing.

And as innovative as that folding neck cover is, holy cow would I just prefer a removable one.  That thing added so many extra layers of complication.  You can't open the hinged panels to manipulate the cover panels unless the arms are rotated back.. which means you can't lift the panels out of the battroid position until you fold the arms back, which won't work when the spine is in the way from still being in battroid mode.  Then in the reverse direction, you can't pull the head out until the panels are raised, which means the arms can't fold forward while you can raise the head, which means the arms being folded backward gets in the way of raising the head.

Seriously.  Those panels get my vote for most astoundingly irritating feature on a valk in the past year.

Edited yesterday at 02:10 AM by Chronocidal

[PointBlankSniper]

5 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Seriously.  Those panels get my vote for most astoundingly irritating feature on a valk in the past year.

Booger's Draken though.

Also, now I can sleep knowing I'm not crazy for believing the gunpod mechanisms do their job

[Chronocidal]

3 hours ago, PointBlankSniper said:

Booger's Draken though.

Also, now I can sleep knowing I'm not crazy for believing the gunpod mechanisms do their job

Yeah, they work, but what's really missing is a notch to keep the barrel aligned.  Wouldn't have been hard either, all they needed to do was add a stud to the underside of the barrel that would lock into the recess in the center of the backplate.

The gun stays mostly level.. it just doesn't get held in place by anything.

Edited yesterday at 08:50 AM by Chronocidal

[Actar]

8 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Hey, I'm just happy I can pose this one on the feet that way.  The stupid mechanism in the YF-19's leg meant the feet can't be pulled out in fighter.  In this case though, I figured the door made a nice reference line to show how everything was lined up vertically, even if the angle of the pic showed the door slightly tilted.

A few notes on this one though.. This is absolutely a Bandai design, through and through.  All kinds of little considerations to make fit together more tightly or align better.. all of which are unnecessary, and make transformation more difficult than if they'd just left well enough alone. 

Yeah, carving a slot for the shield to fit against the legs tightly sounds like a good idea.. Until you go to mount the gunpod.  So you stick it between the arms, and press the legs together to hold them together to hold it there... and now the shield won't fit because you have to spread the legs to fit it into the slot, which lets the arms pop apart, which leaves the gunpod falling out.  

I'm also fairly certain that nifty mechanism to retract the purple lenses in the shoulders will be the first thing to break when people stress the shoulders from posing.

And as innovative as that folding neck cover is, holy cow would I just prefer a removable one.  That thing added so many extra layers of complication.  You can't open the hinged panels to manipulate the cover panels unless the arms are rotated back.. which means you can't lift the panels out of the battroid position until you fold the arms back, which won't work when the spine is in the way from still being in battroid mode.  Then in the reverse direction, you can't pull the head out until the panels are raised, which means the arms can't fold forward while you can raise the head, which means the arms being folded backward gets in the way of raising the head.

Seriously.  Those panels get my vote for most astoundingly irritating feature on a valk in the past year.

Yeah, the order of operations is much more complex. I like to fold out the arms, fold down those panels behind the shoulders, fold the arms back, and then flip up the neck cover.

Were you able to see what I was talking about regarding how the head rests in a cavity in the back?

Edited yesterday at 08:48 AM by Actar

[Chronocidal]

2 minutes ago, Actar said:

Yeah, the order of operations is much more complex. I like to fold out the arms, fold down those panels behind the shoulders, fold the arms back, and then flip up the neck cover.

Were you able to see what I was talking about regarding how the head rests in a cavity in the back?

Yeah, the face settles directly into those angled notches.  Really easy to scrape up the face if you even slightly try to move the torso around before raising the head out of the way.

[ArchieNov]

6 minutes ago, Actar said:

Were you able to see what I was talking about regarding how the head rests in a cavity in the back?

Yes I saw that. Thanks for pointing it out so I was very careful with mine.

My only real issue is the head fin in battroid mode. I'm not sure if I have to fold it all the way back to the end of the slot before pushing it back in. Mine seems to stop leaving about 2 cm before the end of the track. I tried applying more force but seeing how small the connecting piece of plastic was, I don't want to force it any further and break it.

Edited yesterday at 08:54 AM by ArchieNov

[Actar]

17 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

Yeah, the face settles directly into those angled notches.  Really easy to scrape up the face if you even slightly try to move the torso around before raising the head out of the way.

 

14 minutes ago, ArchieNov said:

Yes I saw that. Thanks for pointing it out so I was very careful with mine.

My only real issue is the head fin in battroid mode. I'm not sure if I have to fold it all the way back to the end of the slot before pushing it back in. Mine seems to stop leaving about 2 cm before the end of the track. I tried applying more force but seeing how small the connecting piece of plastic was, I don't want to force it any further and break it.

I have no idea why Bandai decided to do that. Because of the cavity, there's a really annoying split in the neck cover in Gerwalk mode. This is definitely one of those bizarre Bandai engineering oversights that really should have been caught during the design process.

[M'Kyuun]

Reading all these concerns, I'm kinda glad I opted for the HMR Fire Valkyrie. Granted, there's more partsforming, but the engineering you do have to deal with is fairly straightforward if you've handled a Yamato/Arcadia YF-19/VF-19 over the past two decades. Seems, with this design at least, Bandai took a good hard look at Yamato's solutions to overcoming animation magic with creative engineering and applied them, for the most part, to their own takes. Shame the same couldn't be said for their YF-21. 😒 Anyway, while I used to collect 1/60 exclusively and all but ignored HMR, with prices ever soaring and my display space in the negative, I took a dip into HMR early this year with the VF-4 and now I have four of them: (VF-2SS - probably the best executed toy of this design ever. It's not perfect, but what is? It's still a gorgeous toy); the VF-0D, the aforementioned VF-4 (They followed the Yamato design to the letter, which isn't a bad thing per se; however, I would've been over the moon had they gone the extra mile and figured out how to articulate its shoulder pods, giving it both an edge over its parent design and far more utility as a combat machine.); and finally Basara's ride, a design I've avoided until now, but the HMR was done so well I felt the opportunity to add a small but well done version to my collection had arrived. No regrets on that front.

Anyway, regarding Bandai's approach to Macross, it's no secret that Gundam is foremost in their priorities and Macross is, well, not. That said, I've been mostly happy with their DX line from the VF-25 Renewal onwards, but I've only picked up a handful of them to be fair, so I can't judge the line as a whole. My foray into HMR has been one of surprise and delight. However, the long-anticipated DX YF-21 leaves somewhat to be desired, even if I love how the thing looks, unnecessarily HUGE backpack notwithstanding. For me, it's the epitome of Bandai's lack of care when dealing with Macross, but it wasn't the first Macross release with warts (the OG DX VF-25 with its chunky proportions and improper hip position haunts the line) and certainly other releases have had their foibles. All this is to say, I empathize with you guys dealing with your DX VF-19s and hope you can find workarounds to the issues as well as finding some modicum of joy in your shiny new valkyrie toy.

[ArchieNov]

Personally I really like my DX VF-19. It's probably my favorite 1/60 DX at the moment (it used to be the YF-19). Sure it has its flaws but nothing is perfect. Is it their best engineered valk? Most likely not. But I really like the look in both modes. Sleek fighter and beefy battroid (I don't count gerwalk since that will always be an ugly mode for the 19)

Now if they release a VF-19S, that will probably take the crown assuming no new issues.

[Chronocidal]

Yeah, overall I would still call all of the mentioned issues just standard quibbles with Bandai being Bandai, and they don't detract much from the valk itself.

I do really like this one, since they did improve on a couple aspects of the YF-19 (the feet are so much better shaped it's tempting me to attempt to swap them out).  The tampo is much less obnoxious, the general alignment is a bit easier to manage, and there's no stupid high speed hinge on the wing to leave it flopping around.

All things considered, I actually even prefer this one very slightly over the Yamato in fighter mode.

My biggest gripe about the Yamato Fire Valk has always been how far forward the LEX reaches, making the nose look too stubby (yes, this even bugs me more than the feet ).  Bandai chose to make the LEX slightly curved from the wingroot toward the nose, which gives the nose section a slimmer and longer look.  The downside is that this prevents it from converting that LEX tip into a side cover under the chest.

I think Bandai also managed a better intake profile than Yamato (with covers even), though the improvement is less substantial than on the YF-19.  I admit I was a little sad they removed the secondary twist joint in the gerwalk joint, and the range of that joint is disappointing, but it's no worse than the Yamato.

Overall?  Setting aside the YF and focusing on the VF, I think Bandai pulled off a slightly better fighter, but Yamato still managed a better battroid, and the Yamato versions will always be more fun to transform.

That being said, I am in for the long (and expensive) haul toward the rest of the VF-19 line, and I'm hoping against hope that Bandai actually goes beyond the canon schemes to give us some variety, even if it's just something from Macross 30.  I really hope we get the F/S/P, but my personal holy grail would be the white VF-19F with black stripes from the Master File.  Do it Bandai, I will buy four.   I'll still buy several P-models too, and probably do the same repaint I'm planning for an HMR version, but boy it would be nice to get some alternate schemes.  Come on Bandai, make it happen!

[Actar]

Posed together with the OG Bandai VF-17S!

[Mommar]

6 hours ago, ArchieNov said:

 (I don't count gerwalk since that will always be an ugly mode 

Wrong.

[jenius]

I like the step in transformation where it's GERWALK with the torso of battroid... Looks a little like a riding the horse Halloween costume.

[Graham]

I really like the Bandai DX VF-19 kai in fighter mode.

That being said, I still haven't transformed it yet, so can't coment on the other modes or transformation process. 😅

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, Graham said:

I really like the Bandai DX VF-19 kai in fighter mode.

That being said, I still haven't transformed it yet, so can't coment on the other modes or transformation process. 😅

It's not bad.  I had a couple issues with the neck cover, but I still managed it without looking at the instructions (and keeping in mind the warning to raise the head before pulling the torso to extend the spine). 

It's functionally the same process as the DX YF-19, but mostly much simpler, since it doesn't use all of the tiny folding panels in the upper body, there is no crazy folding panel puzzle in the legs, and there are no barrel things to get in the way.

The Yamato version is still the king of enjoyable transformation where the 19 is concerned, but this is getting closer to that, and I didn't need to find a spoon to pry the shoulders away from the legs.

Edited 13 hours ago by Chronocidal

[MacrossJunkie]

Has anyone that ordered from HLJ have theirs shipped yet? I paid their ridiculous fees for shipping and it's been sitting for nearly 2 weeks still "processing".

[ArchieNov]

Question, what screws should I tighten in order to make the hip ball joints tighter? One of my hips is a little loose. I see 2 screws, one in the front after swinging the leg outwards, and another one at the back of the hip. I've tried tightening both screws but it doesn't seem to help. Is there another hidden screw somewhere?

[treatment]

 

[Arthurius]

That DX looks soooooo good in all 3 modes.