1/1 LowViz Lurker

http://protoculture.lebhead.com/ ^ that might help you a bit to see all the differences between the two. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=228 ^ thread discussing differences. I haven't seen the Macross movie. (actually I did but that was a VERY long time ago) I've only seen Macross tv, M+(OVA), and M II. I'm now in the process of watching all the old robotech episodes on dvd for nostalgia. Then plan on getting the DVDs of macross tv.

Thanks, it explains a lot. It all makes sense to me now. I bookmarked the compendium. I would like to have seen a non-faceplate Breetai just out of curiosity. They should have scrapped one of the less important episodes ("globals report" or something) and given a breetai flashback episode. Does britai's faceplate shrink if he gets micronised?

Ok I don't have the actual novel with me to check but from I remember the invid and zentreadi was fighting at some point (Dolza and Zor were surrounded by swarms of invid) and Britai at the time was the most trusted guard of Dolza and came in just in time. While he was fighting, I think an "annihlation disc" or some shrapnel hit his face and that's why the face plate. This was in the very first volume of the mckinney novels "genesis", and in the very first few pages before the events of the SDF1 crashing to earth. Anyway this is going in OT territory..

I'm willing to assume this is the case. I can remember something about him saying "I was not built to be quite as brittle as you" (in reference to being asked if he was ok) or something to that effect in the tv series after that close combat brawl with hikaru. Exedol/Exedor I thought, was "born" deformed wasn't he? He kind of looks a bit uglier than the others hehe but the side effect may have been added intelligence? A larger brainstem?

Is there an official macross backstory of how britai got that metal plate bolted onto the side of his face? How could he have survived with 1/4 of his face blown off? In the Mckinney robotech novels they explained it by saying it was a war wound from fighting the invid or something. Also if Britai is superior to normal Zentradi, why couldn't they clone him instead of allowing inferior soldiers to be cloned? I'm thinking it's for control purposes to maintin order. Were the Zentradi designs inspired by the legends and myths of giants that once roamed the earth? They were known as the Nephilim in the bible. I'm thinking that the Zentradi are the macross equivalent of the myths of real literal giants that were believed (by some religions) to have been fallen angels out of heaven (space) and that these had lived amoung men in ancient times. (I could give some references but I'm too lazy for now) I think they refer to themselves as satan's dolls in the macross tv series. That sparked a connection in my mind.

See, it's all about maintaining brand loyalty I'm not a macross toy nut in particular, (ie I don't buy stuff just based on whether I'm a big fan of a series) but when I see something really good I get excited. I was tempted to buy one of thier vf1 mpcs, but I've heard they don't live up to expectations. Bad reputation now. Still.. can't say I'm not excited about the upcoming legioss (and tread?). If the quality can live up to the price I will not hesitate, but I'm naturally pessimestic so I'm holding back until others have acted as the poison tasters.

Ah that pic was much better. It looks more bad ass when you can see the detail up close. Now all they need is one of those downloadable 3d images in quicktime which allows you to rotate it to different angles..

Heck as long as people keep saying "Could use a bit o detail here..meh, I'm going to be buying it for $20000 anyway!!1", it probably won't matter to yamato. *hides under desk* My opinion: Vote with your $, use the wallet (and a bit of your wife's purse for some here, heh) as leverage. Fanboys demand a voice. I 'll be happy, just print those eyeballs (no stickers, it will peel because the eye is on an angular part) on the side. eyeball image 1 eyeball image 2 eyebal image 3 ^Like him. And allow it to squat down a little to look fat. I'm going to be leaving it in gerwalk for most of the time and I would love to pose it in an anime style "butt nearer to ground with feet angled outwards" instead of tall with legs fully standing up like in the pictures they got. ^legs not bent, make him look skinny, more like the zentreadi officer's battle pods. ok bit of an exaggeration )

According to some of the rpg stats some of the new vf's even have pinpoint barrier system. Sorry acid or not, the alien is outclassed. Now if the alien could use the predators cutting tools it would be a a different story I reckon.. But again I still think the pinpoint shield thingy would protect it. In M+ I think one of the character's even focused the pinpoint barrier on the fist of the mech so it could punch another mech without any damage to it's own hand. And the macross could just space fold out of there to a safe distance, and use the maingun from afar. Monsters are too stupid.

fire can hurt them though. The thrusters of the vf will just melt the poor bastard while it screams in agony trying to get a bite. If the thing gets too close just grab it, blow a hole in the ceiling, fly up and throw it in space like ripley always managed to do in most of the movies. ..And if it won't let go, you can use the head laser to cut it's limbs off your body. lol

heh yeah I was kidding around. Aliens (from "alien/s") don't stand a chance against valks. I reckon a giant Zentreadi could even kill an alien barefisted. (remember in the tv series when breetai ripped open the chest armour of a valk without any weapons? Now lets see aliens do that) They may look scary but aliens are nothing but zombie cockroaches without skin covering thier body.

Basically there is a picture of an alien on a surfboard imitating the limp wrists of the 1/48 yamato trying to get a gunpod off a valk. And a green mutant guy riding a bike which uses a dead cockroach's body as the armor of the bike. Disgusting. The gunpod looks cool though but he hasn't pulled the handle down fully. He won't be able to fire any bullets.

Maybe if every member here got together to bulk purchase 1000s of Valks from yamato at once we could all get them cheaper. lol

Well, I hope they have a weathered, beat-up looking version to compensate for the lack of detail. I want it looking sort of similar in age to those dirty AT-ATs from the original star wars trilogy rather than all shiny and new. If I can only get one, I would choose a battle-worn version over a shiny, clean-looking edition. I just think heavier mecha look cooler when they old and dirty. Maybe even sprinkle some sand or something to suggest it's been in a dusty, rugged environment... the uglier the better I say

Just got a low visibility 1:48. Very impressed with the level of detail and look of the thing in all modes, plus the quality is very good and it's not as delicate as I thought. No problems so far except for an unpainted area on the outer edge of the left throttle in the cockpit. Very strange. The one on the other side is painted fully. Anyone else notice this on thiers? I'm going to throw it in the bin for recyling now.. just kidding. Now bring on the 1:48 brownies!

I asked myself the same question too. There's some interesting "rpg" info on fast packs for M+ mecha from steelfalcon.com here: (relevent bits in bold) There's even an explanation for why the legs and arms are so skinny on the YF-21 here. Ah. No wonder. Just as an unrelated sidenote: I've always liked the traditional, rounded, bulky "organic" look of Zentreadi mechs as opposed to the straight and rectangular look of the human ones. Reasoning that in the end it shouldn't matter what shape your fighter mode is when you're in space should it?

I want them to paint the little eyeball thing on the side of the cockpit.

Definately want one. It looks like it comes in two different shades of diaorhea? Can the legs squat down really low? Or is that the lowest it can sit? It just seems a little tall compared to what it normally looks like.

I was planning on getting one of these. Could you post a pic of them standing together just for the sake of it?

Good idea. Almost all the members here could be yamato spies for all we know! (now I'm getting paranoid.)

Minmay and Hikaru/Rick had thier Guardian/Gerwalk stuck to the ground because a dead Zentreadi had it's hand grabbed to its foot. Roy leaves expecting them to make it back to sdf1 on thier own, but then they are traumatised at the site of the giant alien so they don't do anything. Later, Roy comes back to pick them up, sees they are stranded and detaches thier cockpit to his arm or something. (very strange! I wonder if yamato will re-release 1/48 with this feature! ) Later when roy makes his escape and has zentreadi pods chasing after him (Hikaru and minmay are still hanging on somewhere, Roy is still escaping when suddenly a single zentreadi pod appears from behind a cliff armed with missiles and everything. Then I remember it cuts to a closeup of Roy's face to indicate panic and concentration, and as he flies within range of the pod.. bam! 1 shot of the "Laser" cannon kills it (making the pod explode I think), ....and they escape and fly away to the hangars of sdf1 in space. Anyway I can't remember the episode name. I just sort of thought it was cool how he could kill a massive pod in 1 measly hit. (Based on the idea that they are bigger than standard vfs.) And it's not like he aimed for a weak point or anything. EDIT: Actually now when I think back to it, the lasers were shot from the cockpit and not the gunpod. My mistake. doh Anyway there are a lot of "hidden" compartments we don't know about such as the little miniture "robotic repair arm" that pops out of the forearm/wrist area of the VF. I swear I saw this in the tv series. The mystery makes it alll the more sweet when you're a little kid.

It's wierd, when I ws a little kid I always assumed the gunpod was just a rapid fire laser cannon (with options for single and burst fire) because of the sounds. In the tv series we see Roy (in the episode where he has just rescued Hikaru and Minmay and attached the detached VF cockpit to his own veritech) actually killing a zentreadi pod with a single shot! (which is why I always thought it was just a beefy laser cannon with full auto, single and burst fire option) In the macross plus collection dvd (haven't seen the movie edition btw) I've noticed the sounds for the gun pods seem a little different when you switch to japanese sound. It's a noisy gatling gun sound, but when switching to US audio, gunpods sound more star warsy. (go to the last ep where Bowman and Dyson are dogfighting in the air then keep switching audio with your audio button while it is playing in realtime to compare sounds. I probably wouldn't have noticed the difference if both tracks weren't on the disc.)

Yeah I agree now. Must be the angle they put it in playing tricks with my eyeballs.

The big ass cannons look a little short to me... Is that thier real length?

I have two of these without the FP and armour. They have good poseability with the legs and you can make some nice "crouching-with-both-arms-pointing-gun-forward" poses. (mimmicking that pose when hikaru breaks a hole in the Zentreadi scoutship of the 3 spies in the tv series.) One of them had a loose ball joint so I had to put some blue tack right inside the part where it connects to stiffen the joint a little. The best modes (in order of best to worst) to look at them imo are: 1. Battloid (I have mine set to holding a little Handgun (from a GI JOE style toy hehe) up next to his face like the cops do when behind a wall, with legs spread apart like he is crouching low for cover, and his other hand is supporting the base of the handgrip of the handgun. His gunpod is attached to the underside of this arm too. 2. Fighter (becuase it just looks sleek) 3. Guardian. (worst because the legs can't spread out and the shoulders scrape against the wings, limiting the amount of movement for arms. One thing that stands out (I don't have many macross toys though) is how the shoulders in battroid mode look really natural when pushing them outwards or hunching them forwards to create a more dramatic look. When you push the arms forward as far as they reach, the shoulder will hunch inwards to compensate because they've got a little bar atachment between the upper arm and the area of the main body where the shoulder connects. (hard to explain but basically you can make him look like it's stretching back in a heroic superman pose or squeezing shoulderblades forward) The same sort of freedom is in the upper legs (attached to thier independant bars) since they are independent of the "hips" of the mech. This means you can have half the asscheeck of the mech stretched way back and the other half of the asscheeck (sorry about the strnage terminolgy ) up front, as well as rotate the legs outward, bending the knee, and adjusting heels accordingly. I think these are fun to play with provided you aren't unlucky and happen to get one with loose pieces that fall off. (my heatshield is very loose) Overall I think they strike a nice balance between poseability, playability, and look. (they look pretty good for their size if you ask me) Now if only the guardian mode allowed the legs to rotate outwards...