aurance

I'm probably in the minority here, but the VF-19S/F is my favorite valk in fighter mode. I love the sleek look of that plane with smaller wings and without canards.

Yeah, I don't have the model. Looks okay though, I don't mind it. I was just surprised the fin was that big in the first place. I thought it was just angled badly in the DX v1.

Odd, seems like the lower leg fins don't retract into the leg all the way. Or rather, they fold into the leg and are too big to be concealed completely.

Oh, sweet

I hope they will remember to include the (tiny) gerwalk rear thrusters on there. Now that they've re-sculpted the shield attachment point in fighter mode, I have a sneaking suspicion the thrusters will be overlooked.

Yep. Definitely throwing both my v.1's against the wall.

Observation: I have a feeling that the metal-on-metal ball joints on its shoulders and thighs could get loose fairly quickly. We'll see.

I own 2x 25 v.1's, and a 29 now. If it's as simple as adding engineering changes of the YF-29 to the 25 (and it should be - in fact from playing around with the 29 I would surmise that they focused on creating an improved 25 v.2 first, and built a 29 around the design), it'll be pretty fantastic.

Totally agree. And yes, both are still pretty great.

The wing engines are pretty loose on mine. It seems to be a common problem. I might just superglue it in place; I'm not really enamored with the swivel engine anyway.

Should note that, if you don't like the crotch thrust, you can snap it back to flat. At least with YF-29.

Sweet! As soon as I get one of these I'm throwing my armored v.1 vf-25s against the wall.

Yep, I can confirm this. I usually just leave my gun-hand + open palm hand on for all my VF-25's through transformation. I'm the most happy about the fighter mode gun clip thing, that started with the 27. The detaching gun clip on the 25's really really bothered me. Second, would have to be the integrated gerwalk mode brace. Sweet!

I always thought this thing was totally goofy, but I'm excited for the Blazer remold/repaint!

Wow, check out that thigh hinge! They might have finally gotten the crotch angle thing right.

You can do it. All I can say is go incredibly slowly and apply even pressure to both sides of the legs. It gets better with practice. I've gotten pretty good in keeping them in there, as I greatly dislike leaving parts out from one mode to another. By the way great fan of yours Peaugh, from when I used to buy Transformers (don't anymore). Welcome to the Macross bandwagon. I love these things.

I don't think it can. I did a fairly careful frame analysis of certain scenes of Macross Frontier in HD, and it certainly looks like the intakes really do detach in the cartoon as well, and that's how it achieves its A-stance.

I've had mine for about five weeks now, and I've transformed it many many times. I consider myself a fairly meticulous person, so I am very precise with the transformations. 1) Yes, there are gaps around the forearms in fighter mode, simply because the forearms have a somewhat curved aesthetic that has to fit into a straight fuselage. The gaps are not very big, however. 2) I could never get the belly plates to come together completely. Just like you, squeezing them together unseats some other tabs. I've never been able to find a way to "fix" this; however, the gap is very small, and I've just chalked it up to complexities in engineering and number of parts, after a couple hours of poking/prodding/looking around with an LED flashlight. The perfectionist in me says that it could be even better, but as it is, with its (very) small flaws, the YF-21 is a stunning bird in all forms.

I actually had a toy of this thing when I was growing up in Korea. I believe it was a rather well-made knockoff of the 1/55 Bandai VF-1J. After I moved to the States, I acquired a Transformers Jetfire/Skyfire, which was another 1/55 Bandai. So my first two Macross toys were from other franchises. It somehow feels kinda dirty now.

I always separate it. But it does take scary amounts of force. Held up okay so far though.