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Thanks @Radioguy - it was my understanding when they filed bankruptcy that the banks and lawyers got all the money that was left, I think that company is a new company and has nothing to do with the old HAL-9000 project (unless you know something I don't - there were a lot of us out $1k or more)

Wow! Amazing improvement is an understatement, complete new rebuild that looks F#$%King AMAZING!!!

@Radioguy yes unfortunately (and I thought they were thoroughly vetted too)

I love my Battlepod! But no more kickstarters for me EVER - I lost over $1K over that HAL-9000 fiasco, it was written up all over the most respected magazines and online, but when it went down and bankrupted none of those outlets that reported on how great it was printed anything about the loss - ARGH! (of course having said that, I did pre-order the Tomy Refit Enterprise LOL - but I think that's a bit different than a Kickstarter)

This video shows the Zentradi markings to be slightly different https://www.facebook.com/share/r/5nx2t8KoFMZx83hV/?mibextid=NpOjYg

I don't see the add-ons on their site to order? How?

Can you order the missile attachments separately? I can't find where? Great news about the recon pod - I love that!!!

Thanks, checked them all out, cdjapan ended up the cheapest at $77cdn shipped - hope I don't get dinged with customs & brokerage

Ah! How could I have missed the art book!!! Is it only on sale from PlayAsia (from what I see earlier on this thread) or is it anywhere else maybe friendlier to ship to Canada?

It's not just this release, it started with the VF-25, VF-31 and now the YF-21 - Bandai just doesn't understand aircraft landing gears (and a little blame needs to go to SK too)

My biggest grip are the anemic landing gears! All Bandai seems to have the landing gears as an woefully undersized afterthought (maybe some of the blame should also fall on SK since they are awful in the newer designs - what's up with the back of kneecap landing gears WTF?!?!?!) - with the possible exception of the VF-1s. I can't ever display any of my Bandai Macross models (other than VF-1) on their gears and have to resort to Battroid, Gerwalk or flight mode with gears retracted.

Thanks! I bit the bullet, it says in stock and shipping ($46 for 10-17 days S&H is in the ballpark nowadays, unfortunately) I don't have a lot of enemy mech so I'm interested in what this is going to turn out to be like. I hope they do a Scout. I really like the fact that it opens up and the operable rear hatch.

That actually looks pretty good! So what's the general concensus on KitzConcept? I wished they just wired them all up to a central bigger battery. I didn't know anything about them before this. I'm not a huge fan of their Valkyrie interpretation, but this Regult looks pretty cool and not a terrible price considering all the gimmicks. I'd love to get that missile pack add-ons but can't seem to find that on their site. Are they hard to get after pre-order? It says its in stock. What do you all think?

How tight are the holes @pengbuzz - I've seen perforated paper/card stock at art stores and some cross-stitch papers that are more like card, just don't know how tight you need the holes. There are also perforated vinyl films, they put ads on glass to see through them, different closeness of holes for different transparencies - that's pretty opaque and light blocking.

OK, I've left it to breath and walked away from it for a few weeks and I've calmed down. After the Alclad clear coat crackling, it dried but attacked the paint underneath, but only the Tamiya orange areas (Tamiya Acrylic thinned with Mr. Color leveling thinner - which works amazingly), the lighter tan area is Mr. Color Tan Radome which is a lacquer and seemed to resist better. However there is still a very raised pronounced texture over everything. I've sworn off Alclads now (I only use them for metalizers - this is the 4th time I've had problems with their stuff like the gloss black enamel undercoats). I'm going to try switching over the Mr. Color Super Metallics - nice to have something brushable for touch ups. So after walking away from it a while I can come back with a bit of calm. So I started to sand everything down working from 4000 grit to 6000 to 10000 grit. I think I got pretty good at gauging how far down to go without removing too much paint, just getting through the layers of clear coat to a smooth finish. I've seen people sand down decals and I didn't have the guts to do it before, but now after sanding down the clear coat just to the decals, I think I got the hang of it. Plus it gave a really smooth finish and blended all the decals in so they looked painted on with no carrier film. Unfortunately, I can see now that the Alclad aqua clear when it reacted with the Mr. Color Super clear (lacquer) actually attacked the orange Tamiya Acrylic paint and created this weird pattern. But I noticed that the decals protected the orange paint underneath and it was perfect (look at the space between the 0 and 7 in the 607 and you can see the carrier film protection. So I thought I would sand everything down to a smooth finish without disturbing the decals and mask them and re-spray the orange. I got everything smooth now. There were a few spots I went a bit too far and I had to repair with some lighter tan. Unfortunately, the orange separation to tan was no longer crisp because the paint reaction somehow made it seem to bleed into each other. I managed to take the masking off today and it looks pretty good - so I'm pretty happy with the repairs other than the added 2wks of heart stopping sanding. Here's some before and afters... I'm going let the orange cure (luckily I still have some mixed from Tamiya Orange + Red) and then hit it with a light mist of Mr. Color GX100 Gloss clear. I want that lacquer clear coat because I want to try doing that ink weathering technique that uses Tamiya X-20A thinner. Hopefully things will go more smoothly over the next few weeks after this save.