Penguin

I've been getting the Hasegawa catalogue for years, and they've pretty much never advertised upcoming Macross models unless they were already announced at the time the catalogue was published. Last year's catalogue didn't mention the reactive armour VF-0, for example. So, I wouldn't let lack of notice in the catalogue get anyone down.

You're off to a terrific start! Great work!

Well, I've run three Macross campaigns to date. The first two both used modified Palladium rules (as I wasn't sick of them as I am now) and leveraged Dave Deitrich's venerable Macross Mecha designs (as I wasn't as Macross-savvy as I am now). The most recent used Dream Pod 9's Silhouette system and my own mecha statistics. The first campaign was a short one circa 2020 following a group of new recruits through their first couple of postings. It didn't last too long, and was more of a play test for the Palladium rule mods I'd developed. The second one lasted for quite a while, following a single squadron, the "Black Diamonds" (leading to all manner of jokes since Black Diamond is a brand of cheese here in Canada), through a couple of generations. It began during the UN wars, with a UN Air Force squadron flying F-203s (and, at one point, Commancheros to intercept Anti-UN tanks). Later, the squadron was absorbed into the Spacy, went through some flight training on SF-3s, then got their hands on the VF-1. They were on the SDF-1 throughout the TV series, taking part in the major series battles and a side story or two. In this continuity, the CO of the squadron became CAG of the SDF-1 after Roy's death (while Hikaru still became leader of Skull) and had some notoriously loud "discussions" with Global over fighter deployments. After the end of SW1, the story moved forward 15 years to the newest members of the squadron, now equipped with VF-5000s, while some of the old PCs were promoted and appeared as NPCs. The campaign petered out after the new squadron defeated a terrorist organization on the colony world of New Alexandria. The third campaign is currently on hiatus, but not dead. It followed another group of recruits as they were asssinged to fly VA-3Ms in a UNS Marines squadron circa 2050, once again on New Alexandria. The campaign built off the story elements of the previous one, and involved an embittered General who hired mercenaries to stage a crisis on the planet in order to increase his own prestige when he defeated the threat. After much subterfuge and furious firefights both in the sky and on the ground, the PCs managed to survive an ambush that killed most of their squadron, uncover the General's duplicity, and pull together the disparate UN units around the colony to overthrow the General and his cronies. After that, my players expressed dissatisfaction with the character description in Silhouette. They like the mecha rules, but wanted more variety and crunchy bits for the character descriptions. To this end, we decided on d20 Modern for the base system, so I'm enmeshed in creating dogfighting rules for d20 Modern and a mecha system somewhere between Silhouette's and the Guardians of Order d20 Mecha rules.

My favourite song of those listed is "Girlfriend". My favourite song to play is still "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight". Forget Clapton... Tufnel is the only god who goes all the way to 11!

I like it, Grebo. The colouring reminds me more of the "aztec" mottling on the NCC-1701A Enterprise than panel lines, which is kinda cool.

The "Nexx Special" VF-2SS has a special gun pod in right leg SAP armour. The standard VF-2SS doesn't have the leg holster.

The lineart in the Macross 2 This Is Animation shows the folded gunpod ejecting from inside the SAP forearm armour on the VF-2SS. It didn't appear to be available in fighter mode. Without the armour, the VF-2SS cannot carry a gun pod in fighter mode.

I picked GH2 up recently, but haven't had a lot of time to play it. I almost killed myself laughing at the end of the "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" encore. Gotta agree though... I prefer the GH1 song list. Can't wait to get to Matthew Sweet, but largely the song list doesn't do a lot for me. Not enough of a metal head, I guess. And here I was hoping for "Don't Fear the Reaper"... Gotta mention, though... I picked up the wireless flying V, and mine doesn't work with GH2!!?? I thought maybe the batteries were low or it had been kicked around or something, but when I slap in GH1, it works like a charm. With GH2, only 2 fret buttons worked but were mismapped, and I get random chords playing without even touching the strum bar if I try to actually play a song. It's messed up.

In no particular order... Macross Plus Super Dimension Fortress Macross Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory Spirited Away Kiki's Delivery Service My Neighbour Totoro Patlabor the Movie 2 Patlabor TV series Perfect Blue Last Exile

I actually am an honoured no-prize winner, but from the earlier days before Marvel got sick of morons who didn't get the joke asking where their no-prize was and started sending out empty envelopes. So all I have are my pride and the Uncanny X-Men issue where they printed my letter... buried somewhere in all my comics boxes so I can never find it.

PM sent. Just gotta get in on my favourite destroid.

A salient point, Mr. March. Just for the record, the first part of my post was a supposedly comedic reference to the Marvel Comics no-prizes of the 80s and 90s, which apparently fell flat upon its face, proving that not only am I a geek among geeks, I am an old geek among geeks.

Any true Macross fan is a RUOTMOMO*, not a BARBOMTAOS**. We should all be rigourously proving how there is nothing wrong with any Macross series. Seriously, though, I've enjoyed every Macross production to date. SDF Macross: Great characters, great drama, great mecha... great series. DYRL: Great animation. Characters a little thin, but a fun "abbreviated" version of the story. Flashback 2012: The "bookend" pieces featuring "An Angel's Paints" are, strangely, among my favourite pieces of Macross animation. Macross II: I was thrilled at finally getting some more Macross, coming as it did just as I was discovering the non-Robotech form. Loved the mecha and the music (although why in the English dub they substituted some Ethel Mermann sound-alike for the last half of Ishtar's big song at the end, I'll never know), though the story was brief and the characters not too enduring. Macross Plus: Mecha porn indeed. Love the battles. Love the fact that the characters are deeply flawed and not particularly lovable. Adore the music. I have a Yoko Kanno shrine in my apartment. Well, not really... but you get the picture. Macross Seven: Thought it could do with about 15 fewer episodes and a lot less battle repetition, but the characters were different and interesting. Love Fire Bomber, especially Mylene's songs, though if I never hear "Planet Dance" or "Totsugeki Love Heart" again, it will be too soon. Loved Dynamite 7 too. Macross Zero: More mecha porn. The dogfight with the F-14s in the first episode totally suckered me in. Naturally, everyone's entitled to their opinion (by definition ), but I have to say I don't get the vitriol some people display for some of these series. It's not like Kawamori "betrayed us all" by taking the franchise in directions we might not like, 'cause frankly he didn't owe us anything in the first place. *Righteous Upholder Of The Myth Of Macross Omnipotence **Boring And Repetitive Basher Of Macross Two And/Or Seven

Sweet... now I can plan my Christmas holiday modelling project.

Well, that's a possible solution, but not an easy one. White backing decal paper is fine for when you have simple shapes to cut out, like a "Warning" label on a white background, but it will be an incredible pain for anything complex, and you aren't able to produce a decal that has a combination of white and clear. Think about the Minmay Guard decals and the white skirt Minmay has on in the decals. To reproduce that image using white and clear backing decal paper alone you'd have to do some really intricate cutting. Even a white "U.N. Spacy" to go on a dark-coloured VF would be a lot of work.

The key thing here is how to make white decals. I've made my own decals now and then... anyone with an inkjet printer can make clear decals. The thing that the Alps printers gave us was opaque white ink (correct me if I'm wrong here, anyone). From what Devin was saying, support for these printers is going the way of the proverbial dodo, so not only do we need someone to take up the game from a talent perspective, but also there needs to be a new technical solution.

I suppose it could be viewed either way... UN Spacy as the "top level" organization, or itself another branch of an overall "UN Defence Force". I've always preferred the latter, but in truth we've only ever heard of other branches in print, model label sheets, and so on. I don't recall any animation source that ever presented a UN Army, Navy, or Air Force label on any mecha, ship, etc. (Feel free to correct me, anyone.) As Zinjo noted, it would make sense if the New Edwards base in Macross Plus was administrated by the UN Air Force or Space Air Force, but all the markings I see in Macross Plus only read "Spacy". So, I think we could interpret it as one of the following: 1. The UN Spacy is the overall organization, with all other branches falling underneath it (if they even exist post-SWI). 2. The UN Spacy is a branch like the rest, but they just never bother to animate any of the other branches, and as a result we get F-14s with bizarre "UN Spacy" labels.

US Manga Corps, who releases the OAV and TV series, labels the first OAV as "the Original Series" and the second as "The New Files". Original Series The New Files B oth are released in single sets. The TV series is just named "The TV Series" and is released as 3 boxed sets.

Just to further clarify drifand's list of the animation... The first OVA is stand-alone. It serves as a great introduction to the characters and style of the subsequent Patlabor productions. The TV series starts over from the beginning, ignoring the first OVA stories. Both the first OVA and the TV series begin at the same point story-wise... the loveable screw-ups of the SV2 2nd section get an upgrade to the latest in police labors, the Ingram, and new team-member Noa Izumi. The TV series fleshes out the characters and story more, and then continues on into more adventures. Basically, if you love the characters from the first OVA, the TV series gives you even more. The Second OVA is a direct sequel to the TV series, and wraps up some lingering story lines from the TV series. The first movie takes place between the TV series and the 2nd OVA. The second movie takes place after the 2nd OVA, and basically wraps up the story of the original characters. The third movie comes somewhere in between the first two, as drifand wrote earlier.

I always figured a Space Air Force would be responsible for operations in near orbit of a planet or some other fixed location. To use the Air Force/Navy analogy, an Air Force operates out of fixed bases. For a Space Air Force, these might be ground bases with transatmospheric craft, or space stations. The Spacy is the mobile branch, providing the UN Government with interstellar force projection. VF Pilots could be part of either the Spacy or the Space Air Force (or the Air Force, or the Marines, for that matter), since all of these branches field combat aircraft. When operating from a starship like the Macross, pilots would likely be Spacy or Marines, just as pilots operating from aircraft carriers are naval or marine pilots, not air force. Although, I've heard it mentioned (I think in the Macross Compendium) that the Marines in Macross are more akin to the Royal Marines in the UK than the USMC, and I don't recall whether the Royal Marines use combat aircraft like the USMC does.

I'd always presumed that the UNN and UNAF saw their peak during the UN War. After that, focus changed to defence from threats in outer space. Later, with smaller, more widely distributed population centres throughout the colony worlds, the need for a Navy or Air Force diminished even further. For example, would there be any need for a permanent Navy on Eden? Coast Guard maybe, but I can't think of a good reason for a true Navy. Thus, we're left with Spacy to provide rapid-response-style military strength throughout the colonized worlds and Space Marines to supply the grunts for the Spacy. As for the Space Air Force, maybe major/strategic colony worlds would merit a standing defence from invasion, bandits/pirates, etc., and thus have Space Air Force units permanently stationed there.

"New VF-0A Battroid... now with new hat!"

While I usually try to use the same manufacturer when I mix paints, I have successfully mixed Tamiya and Gunze acrylics in the past. I've never tried using Tamiya thinner in Gunze, though, so I can't comment on that.

Count me in as well.

Once again, I'm struck by the awesomeness of the VF-0D. I'm gonna have to build those kits next.