Anasazi37

It due to your experience and that of several members that I was *very* worried about the Roy PO I had with NNG. I was in the very first round, where I received a 10% discount on MSRP. I started taking snapshots of the listing for Roy on NNG's site on a regular basis, to show that they were continuing to sell it at a steep markup, so I could more solidly make my case to PayPal for a refund on the grounds of false advertising, on top of non-delivery of goods, if they canceled my order and tried to offer me store credit. As release day approached, I took snapshots daily. I then held my breath after release day and the first shipping notices started to go out. I received my shipping notice about 24 hours after release and Roy arrived here four days later. Several others in the first round received their notices as well. Sadly, it looks like there are some in that group who are still waiting. There might not be any kind of logic to how NNG is shipping out orders, and when. Several pages back in this thread, there was a comment about Roy being available enough that stores like NNG, which might have sold units they didn't have, should be able to fill all of their orders by securing stock from other sources. On the bright side, no one has received order cancellation notices. Here's hoping that shipping notices show up soon.

Sorry guys, couldn't resist. This ornament is just too perfect.

Several members received that message. Best guess is that they've exhausted the stock that Bandai sent them and have moved on to stock from other stores that they secured, which is taking a bit longer to show up. I was in the first round as well, but ordered only one. Received a FedEx shipping notice within 24 hours of release.

Happy to help. Worst case, the proxies might say they are maxed out, but at least you'll have a much better idea about what your options are.

It might be a gamble if you decide to pass on the second run in favor of trying to snag one from the first run. By the time the first run sets start to show up for sale in the secondary market, your order window for the second run will have closed. With rare exception, TWE (Tamashii Web Exclusive) items like the TV Super Parts become a lot more expensive and hard to obtain after they are released--even with a second run looming. That happened with the Super Strike Parts set. Even after the second run of that set, it's still expensive and hard to obtain. Granted, that set might be more popular than the TV Super Parts set because people are anticipating additional DYRL Skull Squadron releases and bought multiple copies. We don't know how many TV Super Parts sets were made in the first run and since there are probably a lot of people itching to get the set for their Roy and regretting that they didn't place an order during the first run, hence the second run, you might be up against some competition and fairly high prices. Odds are good that you'll pay less if you use a proxy service to get a set from the second run. There are three stores that can act as proxies, but do charge a premium: Anime Export, MyKombini, and Nippon-Yasan. The first is sold out, the second still has the set available (for less than AE), and the third has a terrible reputation right now. Full-up proxies can and do ship to the US as well. Popular options are FromJapan, DeJapan, Big In Japan, Zenmarket, and White Rabbit Express. Each of them will have a cap on the total number of sets they can order, which is imposed by Bandai. If you haven't used a proxy service before, it's pretty easy. You send them the link to the product (https://p-bandai.jp/item/item-1000151124/) and they will respond with a quote. They charge a per-item fee which is either flat or a percentage of the item's cost. Shipping is sometimes paid for up front, but generally comes in as a second invoice once the proxy receives your item and you select the method you want to use. Usually cheaper than going through the stores acting as proxies, but you might have to check with a few to see if they can still order the set for you this late in the window. You can also keep an eye on the For Sale forum here. When members order multiples of something and decide they don't want to keep all of them, they usually show up in that forum before moving to sites like eBay.

Much appreciated, @Drad! I love helping out fellow members when I can. I just posted a thread in the For Sale forum so this thread doesn't get clogged up with decal discussions: I read through the last half dozen or so pages and I think this is a complete list of the members that have expressed interest so far: @Lolicon @Checkmate @Angesdad @Alan Molina @rdrunner @Sayroll @dafob @mechaninac I'll be sending each of you a PM. If others are interested, please PM me.

Yep, it's me. Behind on getting back to everyone. Will do so today.

That happened with my DHL shipment from Tenso, which contained the Roy I got from AJ. It started moving again after a day. Happens occasionally. Looks like @vladykins had a similar experience. More than a few pages back in this thread, a merchant mentioned that one of the owners of NY might have taken a bunch of money (embezzled?) and left, hence the downward spiral. He was careful to label the info as rumor, but it would explain a lot, if true.

I had to open up both of mine so I could inspect them before shipping one to a friend who missed out during PO Madness. No QC issues beyond the air brake not sitting entirely flush against the chestplate, but that seems to be a common thing with newer DX releases. A tiny bit of blue tack under the part will fix that in a jiffy (hat tip to @sqidd for the solution ). Otherwise, all of the paint looks good, parts are well-aligned, etc. Ran into some paint problems on my Hayao and was hoping it wasn't a new trend.

And I think there are still one or two ultra-rare, ultra-funky bootlegs he's trying to track down

Thanks for the clarification. Couldn't remember where he displayed the Strike Battroid. I'm keeping some space on a display shelf available, right next to where the Strike Fighter and Strike Gerwalk are going to live, in the hope that he might actually make it available. Agree that it would cost a lot more for him to make the Strike Battroid kit because a lot of new parts would be needed. Making the Fighter kit after the Gerwalk kit was relatively easy, not many new parts needed. Structural integrity and stability are definitely concerns. You'd almost need a dense plastic or metal internal frame (skeleton) to which you attach everything. That way the frame bears the load, not any one section of parts. If he did make a Strike Battroid kit, he could also release a regular Battroid one, like he did with the Fighter kit, so that could spread the design, fabrication, and production costs out a little bit.

My second Roy came in from AJ via Tenso. They basically just slapped a DHL shipping label on the AJ box, which is not something they normally do, but I think it saved me some money on shipping. That's the good news. The bad news is that AJ didn't bubble wrap the Roy at all, just dropped it in the box with some of that plastic air pillow packing material along one side. There was enough empty space left that Roy moved around in there and at least four of the corners are slightly damaged. Still, I know of members who've received valks from AJ that shipped in plastic bags and got damaged in a bunch of different ways, so I'm not complaining too much. I noticed several replies and PMs regarding the DX decal set. I'll be responding to all of you tomorrow. Had to deal with some high priority stuff at work for the past two days that ate up all of my free time.

Max did a prototype for a hobby show about a year ago and it was on a stand for exactly that reason (and for dramatic posing, I'm sure). He also reinforced the model in several areas during the build process.

Well, shoot. The one upside is that my wallet gets a small break now. Between the DX Roy release that just happened and the DX VF-1D PO coming up at the end of the month, it could use a small break.

Did someone mention needing ejection seat triangle and cockpit skull decals? I'm open to doing another run of my DX valk supplemental set. They've been coming through for many of us. My order from them arrived today. At least one of the members in your position contacted Nin-Nin and asked for a status update. They were told that there was a shipment delay for some of the stock and orders would be going out next week (I think).

That's possible. Thinking back to earlier this year, I remember getting a message from their support team saying "ignore the countdown." Maybe we can't ignore it anymore if there's a viable shipping option?

Yep! I live at roughly 6300 feet, right next to one of the mountain ranges. Woke up to about six inches of snow. FedEx wasn't daunted, though. Roy showing up today was a complete surprise, but a welcome one. That's how I feel some days. I look out my window and say "Mountains!" I feel like this needs the Dave Chappelle crack meme that's been bouncing around in this thread for a few days. Weighing out valks in grams....

My Roy from NNG just showed up! A day early. During a snowstorm.

Yep, FedEx/DHL shipping for Roy should be $55-65 to the US, based on my experience. If you were lucky enough to score a Roy through HLJ or AJ with Global Priority Shipping, the bill would be lower, probably around $35, but they're the exception. $150? That's highway robbery. All I can figure, and I think @sqidd has direct experience with this on other valk purchases, is that Buyee took whatever box the seller put Roy in and dropped it into a larger box. If that larger box is over a certain size, the next rate category kicks in. Then they arbitrarily increase the price some more, apparently.

Thankfully, at this point, pretty much all online shops have added options for DHL, FedEx, and/or UPS. The alternatives would be to continue to hold items indefinitely or start turning away international business. Heck, even AE finally caved and started offering DHL after refusing to do so for roughly 7-8 months. Yeah, I'm betting that AmiAmi's system saw that he selected EMS during PO, couldn't find any other JapanPost options available besides ferry, and sent out that note.

Here's hoping that it's just an automated message that doesn't take into account that DHL is an option. Worst case, you could request that they send the items domestically to a Tenso address that you set up, then have Tenso ship using DHL. I did that to get my remaining items out of Anime Export earlier this year when they were only offering that sketchy off-brand courier service. Cost me about $10 to have my stuff shipped across Tokyo. After that the usual Tenso fees kicked in, but it was better than letting my items sit there indefinitely.

Same here. Mine is moving through the system, but no estimated delivery date yet.

I stand corrected. Went back and looked at what @ghostryder posted, which turned out to be a VF-1S Max that he made out of a DX Hikaru. With a black heat shield!

I think the nicest-looking one I've seen was done by @ghostryder. I'm pretty sure @sqidd just posted pics of it.

I just did the math on the two that I managed to snag during PO Madness. One was from AJ, the other from Nin-Nin. AJ had the 10% consumption tax added to MSRP, but had free shipping to my Tenso address, where I just paid to have it shipped here via DHL. Nin-Nin had a 10% discount on MSRP after which they added what they called a "PayPal transaction fee" that effectively canceled out the discount, no consumption tax, and direct FedEx shipping. Average price for both: $243. Moving forward, I'm going to keep $250 in my head as the baseline cost for DX valks, shipped to my door using DHL or FedEx. If I can do better than that somewhere, awesome, but I think that number is realistic--even for a proxy purchase of something like a TWE VF-1D (fingers crossed). Missing out during PO Madness and having to grab them on the secondary market means the cost goes up, of course, but at least I have a decent idea of the minimum amount I'll have to spend to get my next transforming hunk of plastic.