jvmacross

I think anyone who is at this stage of the VF-2SS experience (nightmare?) is in it because they have accepted its limitations and is satisfied with it's "looks" and not necessarily its build quality. In short, it is a piece that you pick a mode, your favorite mode, and display it with the understanding to never...ever....make the mistake of transforming it again....I agree with you...it will not stand the test of time....IF you keep fiddling with it.....what concerns me more is that it will turn into a yellowed mess within a few years or less.... On the Faerie I received....on of the shoulder locking tabs is already yellowed.....so I do not have high hopes for the rest of the plastic....

They used the savings to go into improving the overall fit and quality of the VF-2SS......oh wait.....they just added clicks to the arm armor! Gabriel is correct. Guess they just assumed the only collectors crazy enough to buy a Faerie or Nexx after all the bad reviews for the Silvie....already had the Silvie, so no instructions required!

You want clicking arm armor....use the ones in the separate blister pack.... No clicking....use the ones in the tray.... Either one holds the gun pod just fine..... It makes no sense....

They'll do the SDF-1 bridge once we've bought everything in 1/100....it will then kickoff the all new HM-FU 1/144 line!

LOL.... Arms and legs hanging on with a prayer....no problem! Covers on SAP armor not "clicking" when closed....blow your entire V 1.5 mold tweaking budget on it!! Pray for the Mospeada fans....

Weird....the gun fits just fine in the arm armors packed in the tray.....the lid closes just fine too....

Are you referring to the Big West license sticker?

beats succumbing to peer pressure!!!

For Nexx, yes....although maybe his SAP combo also comes with the regular gun....did anyone get the Nexx to confirm? For the stand-alone SAP and the Faerie Squadron combo set....the regular gun can be stored within either arm armor....

It wouldn't surprise me if Toynami came out with some SD versions....they seem to think that is all Robotech collectors want....

Yeah, but it'll look like those goofy Macross Delta versions....yack! Unless.....they make the silly appendages removable and swappable with regular regult parts??? Now you're thinking like a Bandai HMR Macross marketing guru!

Those are the same portfolios I use. They have served me well.

I'm sure someone with photoshop can stitch this together much better...

HMR has the best box art.....

No...that piece is apparently exclusive to the Nexx SAP combo....there is a pic of it in the instructions book..... There is also an empty spot in the SAP Armor tray for what I assume is the heavy rail gun-pod.... Also....google translated this.... "Note armor to be given to both arms, those of the main of the blister is not used, should be used here"......huh? At first I thought maybe they were special arm armor to be used when in fighter mode.....that would have been the smart thing to do...to add some tabs on them...but nope...no tabs...they seem identical to the ones in the tray......and even if they did have tabs.....the leg armors do not, so there is no way of attaching the arms to the legs when wearing the SAP armor....it's even less "secured" than when it is naked!!! WTF???? Seriously ET??? Boneheads......

Yes.....but it's not easy....have to get the legs and feet just right to keep it from toppling over....

Aaaaand the Battroid pics.........took me a good 30 minutes to get it to stay together.....this one was definitely more fidgety in battroid mode than the Sylvie model....I think I prefer the SAP in Gerwalk mode..... Guess an ET VF-2J Icarus is all but a pipe dream now.........but perhaps it's for the best.....

Miscellaneous pics:

Part 4: As before, the fighter look good only in certain angles....mainly any angle that does not expose the underside mess...... If you have the Silvie....this one is basically the same thing....the failures are in the same locations.....there are no significant improvements in the fit.....but the SAP does make it look better....it will make a nice display piece in the mode that you finally decide to leave it in.....but make sure you decide quickly and do not transform it too many times because I do not think it will hold up to too many transformations...... Based on the Silvie, I am sure the battroid mode will be the most solid mode once again.....I will take some pics of it in battroid once I have taken some time to get over the disappointment of this release....the SAP Armor could have been designed so that it would work in holding the fighter mode much tighter....but for whatever reason ET opted to do nothing....... Final assessment......looks great with the SAP in gerwalk and fighter......pick a mode and then "set it and forget it".....still looks good among other 1/60-ish valks..... Until the ultimate 1/60 DX is released......this is still the only game in town if you want to "display" one among the rest of the 1/60 valks in your collection.....

Part 3: I basically just transformed it into gerwalk mode from fighter and added the SAP armor....like the previous Silvie version.....the transformation process was an excercise in patience and frustation.....keep at it....you'll eventually get it all put together...just be very careful with it..... I have to say...it looks very menacing with the SAP armor on it.....even the gerwalk, which was IMO the worst mode, looks pretty good with the SAP mounted..... I am really liking gerwalk mode with the SAP armor......I guess I can consider this an improvement over the non-SAP equipped version.....maybe I am trying too hard to come up with something nice to say....but no....gerwalk mode really does look better to me with the SAP......

Part 2: So, lets just move on..... Like the Silvie plain valk....it looks good dressed up in the SAP armor in certain display positions. The SAP is decent enough...it does lack detail, but it matches the amount of detail of the valk it is being mounted on.....basically it looks like a non-detailed model kit.... The SAP has some cool features, like opening missile bays, arm armor gun storage gimmick, rotating bits and pieces, etc...... I would suggest to use an x-acto knife blade to open all of the small hatches and missile bays.....they are kind of tight and seem very fragile.....

Part 1: Basically, nothing really has been improved on the VF-2SS Faerie Squadron Type over the Silvie Gena version previously released. With two exceptions. Two insignificant exceptions really. And one of them blows up anyways just as the last one did without the "improvement". The first change was the ability for the valk to hold onto it's gun. It seems there may have been some tweaking to the hand mold as it does a better job that the hands of the Silvie version.... ...it is still not perfect, but it holds the gun better than before.... The second "improvement" is in the tailfins.....to everyone who has the Silvie, you were most likely frustrated (probably the least of the concerns) with how the tailfins would barely "lock" in place with the poor fitting tabs..... On the Faerie version, they added a groove into the tab that holds the position somewhat "better".....however, what little improvement this offers on this Faerie Squadron VF-2SS is quickly....and by that I mean after just a few handlings....offset by the fact that the tailwings will easily come apart from the ball joint connection.....mine was so bad that I just gave up and removed them entirely....they are pointless and barely noticable when in gerwalk or battroid...and definitely unneccesary once the SAP is mounted.....sorry if the groove is not easy to see in the pic...but it is there....and not there in the Silvie..... As with the Silvie VF-2SS....the biggest failure in the design is the complete lack of any tabs or locking mechanism strong enough to keep the arms/legs connected while in fighter mode..... Sadly, this failure is continued with the SAP armor parts used in this same area...the connection between the arms and the legs..... There is NOTHING......NADA.....that holds the arms and legs together in SAP mode......why? to those that will eventually get your SAP or SAP combos....you can easily see how this could have easily been achived...this bird is not going for any prizes in lineart accuracy...so adding some kind of brace that would connect the legs armor to the arm armor would have been greatly appreciated.....I am sure someone could easily come up with something via shapeways to "fix" this problem.... No tabs....not even crappy ones! ...Perhaps I missed something and there are some tabs there.....some magical tabs that will hold everything together! So basically, the hope that maybe ET would have at least figured out a way to make the fighter mode more solid via the SAP armor has been squandered.

No good news I'm afraid.... More pics and commentary to follow.....

Bandai can get maybe 7 VF-1's from the amount of plastic used to make one Monster....sucker's big!

Pretty sure Bandai plans their production quantities to match both local and international consumption. They may not want to know or care where in the world their Macross products are ending up, but they have to know that there is not that much demand for Macross in Japan alone that the quantities they are producing all stay in Japan. In short, whatever is being produced is more than what is required to satisfy Japanese consumers. Otherwise, these toys would be much more difficult to get if everyone had to compete with just the amount available to only meet Japanese demand.