Graham

If anybody wants to sell a unit 3 head or swap a unit 3 head for a unit 2 head, please PM me. Graham

Damn, gotta find time to get the rest of the pics up. Got about 150 poics still to post of non-Yamato stuff. I'm out 3 nights this week, so don't have much time. Hope to have some firm news on VF-0 & YF-19 fixes soon. Graham

I'd recommend the following books as an essential part of anyone's Macross book collection: - Macross Perfect Memory. DYRL Gold Book. Shoji Kawamori Macross Design Works. Tenjin Valkyries book. TIAS Macross Plus. TIAS Macross 7 Animation Materials. TIAS Macross 2. Of course there are many, many more Macross books, but they above is a good core start to a collection. Graham

Only having seen about 3 early episodes of Votoms, I've always wondered what are the Red Shoulders? Are they a special forces unit, or a mercenary group or what? Graham

Hey, leave off Blue Gender. It's one of my favorite animes and highly under rated IMO. As for Gasaaki, well at least it has some nice mecha designs and some good military mecha action. Now if only they'd stuck with that and left out all the weird mumbo jumbo. Graham

Ah, I see. Yes it seems to be the same. Graham

Saw a Manga DVD box set on Amazon. Which is better, the Manga set or the CPM set? What's the differences? Graham

Interesting question. Being at work at the moment I can't check, but I seem to recall seeing in the TV series one or two scenes of pilots sitting in the Tomahawk cockpit with the hatch open and I think their uniform was the same as a Valk pilot. of course, I could just be imagining it! Graham

Actually, I've always thought the YF-19 was quite lacking in missile firepower. Those leg missile bays are not really very big. The production VF-19F/S are supposed to hold a total of 48 micro-missiles in the legs (24 per leg), but again this is only micro-missiles which are short range only. Graham

M+ & M7 era VFs have such powerful engines with an insanly high thrust-to-weight ratios that I think technology has gotten to the point where the VFs thermonuclear engines are superior to the rocket engines of missiles. Unlike today, where contemporary missiles have an edge in max speed, acceleration and number of gs they can pull, I think by the 2040s or earlier the advantage has shifted to the VFs at least in terms of raw speed and acceleration. It seems that in Mac Plus and Mac 7 that as long as the pilot has warning of the missile coming he can out accelerate and out run or out manuever the missile, or try to shoot it down. It's interesting that the VF-11B/C, VF-17 & YF-21/VF-22 carry only short range micro-missiles for their missile armament and no medium range missiles, which implies that medium or long range missile combat is pretty much a thing of the past and large volley missile salvos at short range seems to be the norm. Saturate the enemy with many missiles at close range in the hope that one or two get through and hit before the enemy can escape. Graham

I also think the 100th MG will be an RX-78, it's a no-brainer really. I also agree with Sebastian that the RX-78 sucks. One of the ugliest mecha ever IMO. Graham

Will try to get the rest of the stuff up by Wednesday. Sorry, had a busy weekend and no time to work on it. Graham

You tend to notice the exposed screws more in the publicity photos. When you actually have the toy in your hands they are less of an issue. The quality of this bodes well for the Legioss & Tread. Now if only CM's would make a diecast Helldiver. Graham

One theory that I've held for a long time is that by the 2040 to 2045 period (Mac Plus through Mac 7) the performance of VFs (speed, acceleration & manuverability) has improved to the point that missiles are simply just not that effective anymore and more emphasis is placed on gunpods and beam weapons as the primary form of armament. The seeming inaffectiveness of missiles is shown in the animation over and over again. In the opening of Mac Plus we see Isamu in his VF-11B easily dodge and outrun missiles from the Renegade Powered Armor. Also telling is that none of the VF-11B in the opening fight even bother to launch micro-missiles and instead rely on their gunpods. Later on, neither Guld or Isamu manage to score any hits on each other with missiles from their respective YF-21 & YF-19. And of couse there's Guld showing the true ability of the YF-21 by dodging all the high manuever missiles. In Macross 7, we see a very low hit rate from missiles fired by the VF-11Bs and VF-17D/Ss and much more reliance on gunpods and inbuilt beam weapons (VF-17) throughout the entire series. Gamlin does exceptionally well with his gunpod whether flying his VF-17 or a borrowed VF-11C (ep # 7). The design of later VFs seems to support the theory that missiles are becoming less important, with the VF-17, VF-19 & VF-21 all sporting more gunpods (or more spare magazines) & beam weapons than older generation Valks and fewer missiles. Graham

Broke down and picked up one yesteday for HK$658 (US$85). Not all shops in HK are that cheap and I did have to shop around to find such a good deal. Initial thoughts are that the sculpt is great, as is the paint application. Articulation is also fairly good. With all the diecast it's got a nice heft to it, although to be honest I'm not a huge fan of diecast in mecha toys as I always worry about paint chipping and hate it once a diecast toy gets a chip exposing the bare metal (not something you have to worry about with ABS toys). The styrofoam tray, gives the toy a nice old school feel. The shoulder LEDs are very well done and when switched on really look light police light bars. There are a few things I think CM's could have done better though, regarding the gimmicks and features: - 1) The little pop-up lights on the top of the chest don't actually pop up, they are in fact swapable parts for closed lights and open lights. This was a bit disappointing as at the size and price they could have made them folding. 2) Although the pilot seat can be reaised to the up position, it is not easy and required me to use a flat-tip srewdriver to to push the seat up. It would have been better if CM's could have added some sort of lever of switch to raise and lower the [pilot seat. 3) The heads actually include a moveable 'narrow-slit' riot visor, but it seems like you have to actually disassemble the head and remove the standard green visor before you can raise the riot visor. This is a bit of a half-assed design effort, they could have easily designed the head so that the green visor pushes out of the way as the riot visor is raised, without needing to disassemble the whole thing. 4) The shield attaches with two pegs, but they are not really secure enough and the shield does come off quite easily and the heavy weight of the diecast shield doesn't help. I would have preferred an ABS shield with better attachment points. 5) The screw holes should have had covers. 6) The cloth covers on the hip joints come untucked quite easily and CM's actually provide you with a small tool to push them back.....LOL! All in all, it's a nice toy with good QC and IMO certainly the best interpretation of the Ingram in toy form to date, but does have a few design related issues. Graham

That grill doesn't cover the cockpit hatch, which is on the top part of the chest, in front of the neck on the RX-79G. Graham

Definitely, getting 3 of the RX-79G, it looks great. I note there is no beam rifle though. I guess that means they will probably release an Ez-8 with beam rifle. Wonder if we will get the hover APC as well? Graham

Not official. I have several pics of that from WF, which I'll be putting up soon. It's just a Hasegawa 1/72 kit with custom delta wings. The delta wings are from the same company that sell the metal head lasers every year at WF. I forget the name of the company. Graham

Got some nice pics of this from WonderFest, will put them up over the weekend. Graham

Then the host vehicle would be huge and probably expensive. Graham

The VF-0A & Shin VF-0A are essentially Low Vis already. Camo may be a possibility. Graham

Are you planning to sculpt a new head? The 'D' head is different from the 'A' head. Graham

A toy may present problems. While the non transforming host vehicles such as the plane, sub etc would be simple, the transforming cockpit section would be tiny, that is is you assume a host vehicle size of about 12" (30cm) long. Graham

Cheapest I've seen this here in HK has been HK$650 (US$84). Getting very tempted. Graham

At WonderFest the batteries in the Fold Booster were nearly dead, so I didn't bother taking a video. The next day when I went to Yamato's office, I got to see it in all it's glory with fresh batteries, but stupidly didn't think to ask to take a video.....duh! Graham