Awacs

I would have thought that if there was someone from Big West lurking here it would be in their best interests _not_ to make themselves known. Once the subject of an observation knows for certain they are being observed they may change - either conciously or unconciously - their patterns of behaviour. So if Big West wanted to find out what we really thought they'd have a better chance if they maintained a lower profile. More likely to get honest results that way. Karl

It did, but like Macrossworld it got better - it just moved a bit. I shall take the rest of this to PM and now return everyone to your regularly scheduled thread. Karl

Graham - a very good and thorough review as ever. You have more patience than I do, I don't think I'd be able to do a review in that level of detail. I'm a bit disappointed to here that the -19 has problems with the way its gunpod lies in Fighter mode. It's the same problem as my -0S has - as a result of which the -0S' gunpod sits on an impromptu stand along with my -11's. I was hoping that the problem with the gunpod was going to be perculiar to the -0 but it looks like not. It isn't going to stop me picking up the -19 when I can afford it in the New Year. There's room on the rack for a third gunpod, and the review - and especially the lovely pictures - have convinced me that this definitely does justice to one of my favourite VFs. Karl

Every time I look at this thread I turn a little green with envy. I was planning to pick up the YF-19 when it came out, but house-related expenditures (reglazing, some roof work) have meant that the fighter procurement budget has been raided for funds to shore up the "refit and maintenance budget". Ah well, I guess I shall just have to hope that it is still available some time in the early part of next year when the budget might be balanced. Karl

Ah, your a man who lives in hope a little like myself. A 1/60th VF-11 would be something I'd want to see even before a -22. There's just something about the "workhorse" nature of the -11 that makes it appeal to me a lot. Karl

Nice VF-11 shots. Seems to me I've seen one of them before. Your not Pete from "The Hub" forum are you? Karl (Legios from The HUb)

Must admit I sometimes use cheats - mostly when I've been well and truly stuck on a game and I'm on the verge of losing interest because I'm well and truly bogged down. Used cheats to get past the bridge defense mission on Battlecry after a week of trying - I was on the verge of lobbing the game in the bin out of sheer boredom with it. By contrast playing "Black" on the X-Box I'm quite glad there aren't any significant cheats available. Somehow it heightens the experience knowing that the last checkpoint was a half-hour away and I'm very low on health. Karl

Well spotted Jenius - the price they wanted for them was in fact £20GBP, marked down from £25. I guess I was more tired than I thought when I did that post last night. My apologies for the confusion. Still and all, £20 is a lot more than I would have been willing to pay for the 1/100ths. Karl

Finally saw some of these in the plastic this weekend. Decided that I am going to skip them. They had a rather cheap-and-nasty look to them in the packaging. Given that the shop that I saw them in wanted £12(GBP) for them (approx US$38) for them I felt it was a bit steep for what they were. If they'd been £10 or so I might have been prepared to consider it. (The shop actually had them marked down from what they claimed was an original price of £25gbp (US$47) - depressing to work out that it would be cheaper to import them from the US myself than to buy them on import from a shop). Karl

There were a few up on ebay from UK based sellers recently but they've mostly dried up. It's mostly Hong King based sellers at the moment. Not seen them in any "Bricks and Mortar" store as yet. T'is a shame. I quite fancy getting Bumblebee. Karl

Now I have to admit to being slightly on the fence here. Neither of them have particularly grabbed me. Having Mac II a couple of times, and the first of Mac 7 through once I would have to say neither show grabbed me enough to make me in any hurry to rewatch them. That said... I'm not a big fan of Macross II, mostly because it doesn't actually have any characters I care about in. I never really made any kind of connection to any of the cast of MacII, and a number of them I outright disliked as people. For me that is pretty much a dealbreaker, if I don't click with any of the characters it doesn't matter what I think of the rest of the package. MacII had a few things I liked - the VF2JA, clean-config VF-2SS and the main title song - but other than that it left me completely cold. Macross 7, whilst some of the story elements just didn't work for me and it suffers from the limitations of its budget, had some characters I connected with. I like Gamlin a lot, there's something in the VA's performance that endears him to me. Mylene I like a lot(although not the chara-design), she's amusing and has an entertaining line in stropps and self-righteous tantrums. The Jenius' Senior are a nice little stereotype as well - the marriage that isn't working under the pressure of competive tendecies. I'd like them even if they weren't Max and Miriya. That just adds icing to the cake in this case. Not crazy about some of the design work for Mac 7 (The Battle 7's hands make me inhale the dregs of my cup of tea the first time I saw them) but the fact that I made some sort of connection with the characters means it edges over the line. Neither of them really hold my interest in the way SFDM, DYRL or Mac Plus do, but with Macross 7 there are some characters I care about. By contrast, for me, Macross II is just pretty noise and lights. Karl

Royal Marines don't tend to have organic fixed wing aircraft, that is the domain of the Navy or Air Force (at the moment a joint service structure called Join Force Harrier provides the fixed wing airgroups for our carriers). I believe that the Royal Marines do maintain some helicopters for airmobility and the like. However, I could be wrong - my information is a few years old now and things can change quite fast. Don't know if anyone else can shed any more up-to-date light on the subject? Karl

I seem to recall reading something somewhere that it was on Diaclone that Shinji Aramaki first started thinking about motorcycle mecha. Although that could just be my mind playing tricks on me. Didn't Kawamori-sama also design "Great Robot Base" for the Diaclone line? Karl

*raises glass of Orange Juice* Happy Birthday to Macross! Karl

I actually sold all the BT's I'd bought because of the paint chipping issue, plus I was reluctant to touch them because I was afraid I would end up damaging the paint job. As far as I'm concerned a transforming robot toy I never transform is quite simply pointless. I've got a Starscream on order with Hobbylink Japan and I'm very much looking forward to it's arrival. The colour scheme for me isn't really a deal-breaker. I never liked Starscream's colour scheme in the Sunbow cartoon that much anyway so I'm not particularly attached to one colour scheme or another on him (except perhaps the black/yellow of the BWII version which is probably my favourite Starscream toy). Karl

I'll be honest, I don't have a favourite mode. Individual VF's may have modes I'm less partial too (Gerwalk on the 17 for example, prefer my 17s and 19's in fighter mode, but love Gerwalk on the VF-1 and the VF-11) but I don't have a broad preference for one mode or another in general. Karl

See what happens when I don't pay proper attention to the toys forum for a bit - I miss some seriously exciting news! Have to admit I'm looking forward to this a lot - a few liberties do look like they have been taken with the design but overall I have to say I'm rather impressed. It looks close enough to my mental image of the -19 that this pretty much a "must have" for me. Now, where exactly I'm going to put it I have no idea. But that's a bridge I'll just have to cross when I come to it..... Karl (Just thought, looking at the 1/60th -19 makes me wish there was some prospect of them doing a 1/60th VF-9..... Yes, I know I'm probably the only one...)

Well, my finances are going to be very limited in the next couple of months, and I'm having to make harsh decisions about what I buy. Fortunately I've already reached my "composite squadron" level that I wanted to get to (15 official Variable Fighters of various scales) so I now feel free to buy the stuff that really appeals to me. I will definitely be picking up the 1/60th VF-19 - I never had the chance to get the 1/72nd version and I have wanted a -19 since I first saw Macross Plus. I'm considering MP Starscream, but it depends on how the release date of the -19 pans out and whether I have the money. Starscream is a maybe purchase. I'd love to pick up the -1A Angelbirds just because I love the colour scheme - but I doubt the money will stretch that far this side of Christmas. The -1A Kakizaki and the 0A are right out of contention on costs grounds. Might pick up a set of Stealth FASTpacks for my second VF-1S Roy though - they'd give it a nice distinctive look, as befits my collections "CAG bird". Karl

That's pretty much the way I've always interpreted. I've always seen it in terms of Roy making a concious choice about how he wishes to use his death - being with Claudia one last time, rather than passing away separated from her by glass and steel in operating room of a hospital. I think your right with your speculation that it's a cultural thing. I've tended to think it comes from a viewpoint that accepts death as being a part of life rather than the absolute negation of it. Rather than being something to accept any cost to postpone, death as an inevitable part of each individual's life with it being up to each individual how they use that death - just as it's up to each individual what they do with their life. I'm only speculating here but that's what seems to me to be one of the roots of that story element. But I could be way off-base here. Karl

Russian? I thought it was the CG artists impression of the Royal Navy's "Future Carrier" concept? Could just be my eye-sighting going but it looked to me a lot like the shots that have been showing up in the magazines since the program became "newsworthy". It's a nice wallpaper regardless of who'se ship it is. I think I shall be adding this one to my rotation. My current one is about up for resting anyway.. Karl

I tend to find myself using HLJ only when I can get a better price from them than from other sources. My -0S is coming from them because including shipping it seemed to come out the best price of any of my usual suppliers. However, I had forgotten just how long it takes them to process orders. It took them five days from the request to ship the order to verify my card details, pack up the Zero and ship it out to me. Still it's better than my last order - which I spent over a week being unable to cancel because their order handling system was down, by which time it was too late to cancel it and which it then took them six days to actually ship out... In the meantime I had ordered another Roy-1S and a set of FASTpacks from Action HQ and received them in the time it took HLJ to prepare the order for shipping. That said, I've never had HLJ make a mistake with my order, and I've only been unhappy with the way the order was packed once. Which is pretty good going. If you don't mind exercising the virture of patience then HLJ can be fairly reliable. But if your like me and want new mecha to teleport straight into your living room then it can be a bit frustrating. Karl

Voted VF-4 myself. There's something indefinable about the aesthetic's that I like. Even like the oft-maligned Battroid mode - it's got a broad-shouldered competence to its look that I like. My second choice would be a VF-11, the quintessential VF-1A CF replacement - it has that "everyone flies one at some point in there career" look to it. Karl

Just catching up with this thread - saw it when it was just two posts in (what was for me) the morning just before I went to work, looked at the picture and thought "Nah, that can't be what I think it is. The universe isn't that kind to me", and thought no more of it. I come home this evening to find out that it is in fact what I thought it was, and apparently the universe and Yamato are that kind! Time to start saving now me'thinks As someone who missed out on the 1/72nd version this one is very, very welcome news. Not too worried whether or not it comes with FAST packs or not - just being able to get a -19 to be CAG Bird for my small collection of Macross toys is good news enough. I wonder which colour scheme they'll release it in - I would assume they'd use the Plus colours, but they could always surprise me by releasing it in the VF-X colour scheme (Heck, they'll probably release it in both - and a non-canon scheme as well at some point.... low-viz -19 would be nice). Doubt we'd see a -Kai though, I seem to remember someone mentioning something about Yamato not having the Mac 7 licence, which would seem to militate against it. Wonder if there's any chance of a 1/60th Thunderbolt to go along with it at some point. Karl

Black Lio Convoy was indeed an evil clone of Lio Convoy. As I recall though, Black Big Convoy didn't show up in the BWNEO tv show only in the Manga - where he was a heroic clone of Big Convoy who led forces defending Seibertron. (As I recall, but it has been a long time since I saw the Neo Manga so I could be in error). Karl

I'd always figured that the White Box was a tongue in cheek reference to the first release of what became the Dungeons and Dragons rules many, many years ago. I'm fairly sure that was first released in a white box back in the day. That's the way I understand the joke. But I could be way off base. Karl