Lynx7725

As lord_breetai implies, Mutant Chronicles is actually a fairly old title (for those of you who don't know that...). FWIW, there's also a 54mm non-collectible, pre-painted miniature game coming out from FFG, so for those of you hankering after minis of the Brotherhood or the Trenchers, keep an eye out for them.

Umm, just how many "Idol Master" girls are there? Will I have to wait for another dozen to be done before they do OTHER characters in the Fraulein series? Yeesh.

That's fine by me actually. I'm getting Revoltech overdose, time for cold turkey I think.

That's a nice pose. Can the legs really hold up like that?

The knees aren't a problem in this case -- the ratchets in the knees are quite strong and adequate. If anything would give, it's more likely the hips would delimit first.

Overall, the YF-21 is fairly light for its size, though it's still by no means a featherweight. I'm not too sure about the joint between the stand and the Valk proper, it might not hold for extended period, but the only way to find out is to leave it for an extended period, no?

, I don't see this as a problem, they are expensive toy, better handle it with care, there is no prize for doing it fast, but it will cost you some good money if you break it...

True, true. Thankfully the exterior's plastic, not much wear marks there.. I'm a bit concerned because some of the acrobatics I went through in my first few rounds are quite stressful, hopefully nothing has stressed the plastic too much.

I think you meant YF-21.

Sorry, brain farted. How's it going for you?

you can fish them out by folding out the side panels, then use your pinky finger to push them back out. no tools needed. well, with the exception of bigger fingers.

I have bigger fingers...

At any rate, if the panel is fully down -- which it can, even in Fighter -- it's very difficult to use fingers to prop it back up. It won't be so bad if elsewhere, but it's right at the wing root, where it's the best place to pick up the aircraft...

is it supposed to rotate automatically both ways ? i thought it just did that for battroid-to-fighter.

I think it's supposed to, just not that reliable on mine.

I managed to do 2 full transformation cycle within an hour!!!

Swoosh, who did a photo shoot for Graham to include on the site, can only do 2 cycles in 1 hour? We are so screwed...

Graaa! Fricken crappy instruction photos!! Fighter to Gerwalk....wuh? Where did the legs go (pic7-? Oops popped them off. Guess that's delimiter mode. Somewhere between pic 22-25 GAh! The entire backside came off! Whew...pop them back on the pegs and its good. Aw screw it. Back to fighter mode and deal with this tomorrow after work. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. Crap forgot to unfold those covers. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. Stupid back not lining up properly. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. Grrr stupid covers flipped back in again. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. Belly plates not aligning right. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. Fracken belly plates. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. GRAH! Hulk SMASH! Oh wait now it goes in. WTF happened? Deal with this later.

Yes, sounds quite familiar..

As a comment, I think full-colour manual would have helped tremendously -- b/w photos is a bit useless on a dark-toned aircraft like the YF-19.

And yes, I think we would soon come to refer the YF-19 as the "Self-Delimiter".. sheesh, but those legs drop off easy. I think in the longer run we might have issues there.

Now facing another problem. Going back to fighter mode or at least to put the adapter for the stand. I can't extend the backpack area again. I've used as much elbow grease as I dare but the damn thing doesn't budge. Is there some kinda lock somewhere that i forgot to unlatch?

There is one major latch along the leading edge of the backpack portion, but that should only kick in while in Fighter mode. In GERWALK or Battroid it should be primarily friction stays.. try wriggling it from side to side to see if that frees things up.

Is it as bad as transforming one of the Megahouse cyclones??? Cause those were a PITA ...

I have no idea, as I don't have a Megahouse Cyclone. If they are halfway as bad as the YF-21 though, I won't buy them..

The good news: The YF-21 didn't take a flight. GogDog was right in his diagnosis of my problem, the knees weren't retracted far enough. While the pinhole is a good gauge, a better one is that the screw hole on other side of the knee -- it should be mostly (>90%) covered by the hip armour. The pinhole really shouldn't even be seen unless you look up the leg. It does take quite a bit of force to go the last indent to achieve the above though.

Other things to watch out for:

• The side panels flap constantly and invariably get into the way as you close the back. Might get damaged that way.
• The same side panels are not apparently meant to sit flush with the shoulder joint just next to it. Extension of the shoulder depressable panels would bring everything in line.
• Shoulder area depressable panels. Annoying as this is where you tend to hold the Fighter. Once fully depressed, you cannot get it out without a tool. Should be improved.
• The flappy panels on the belly plates, you're supposed to lock them away for transformation to GERWALK and Battroid. Remember to unlock them as the first thing to do when you transform back to Fighter, as there is precious little clearance once you get the legs back up.
• The belly plates don't need to bend. If they are bending, you are getting it wrong.
• The hand covers, one of mind sticks too hard and makes it difficult to get the hands out -- might actually cause hand damage IMO.
• The hands would probably need to be in a particular configuration to get the feet to sit nicely. However, that configuration (slightly opened with fingers hooked) makes it difficult to get the hand out during transformation. A tool small enough to get it and tweak the fingers would help.
• Landing gear doors -- all of them! -- are tight and would need a tool to open them. Landing gear has stays to keep them in the up position, so said tool is useful to bring them down. As noted in Graham's review, only the front gear has stays to keep them down; if you reverse your YF-21 on the ground, it's going to collapse the main gears.
• When you transform back to Fighter, you are supposed to rotate the hips. It's tricky as there's two joints there and they conspire to do all sorts of weird things, but there is a groove that denotes where the hip is supposed to be in Fighter. Don't fight it; the groove will give the hips to the correct spot. It's the knees that will give you the problem.
• The pilot seat on mine doesn't reliably turn upright on transformation to Battroid. It does reliably turn back on transformation to GERWALK/ Fighter.
• On transformation to Battroid, there is one point where you have to bring the "folding torso" together. The top joint is a two-tab connector with the neck area. That might need you to force the parts over, as by natural inclination the tabs want to stay below the holes. Watch the intake swing bar to make sure you got the position right first though, and watch the fingers -- easy for a finger to get trapped in the folding torso.

The tool I used was an ear-digger (suitably cleaned). It's small enough to get into the holes and crevasses, and with a hooked edge to grab parts. The weird things you do to get your YF-21 to sit right..

Overall, the YF-21 is a marvel of design, engineering and QC; however, tolerances are very tight and you need to have a lot of patience on your first few transformations. Getting your spouses or Significant Others to work out escape routes might be a good contingency plan...

B-2 crash footage from 2 different cameras:

it's the second one to takeoff, skip the first half

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1...nnel=1213897972 again, skip the first half

The Youtube version looks like its from a base security/ monitoring camera. It was a very close thing for the crew, literally a split second from ejection to crash.

At around the 1:59/ 2:00 mark on the Youtube version, it seems like something flew off the B2?

I agree with ComicKaze. My experience with FIX is that they serve better as poseable display pieces (which sometimes due to fit issues need a tad bit of tweaking) rather than toys. The material they are built of isn't typical display pieces but the quality is sufficiently high.

Personally, I might consider yet another FIX Alex, but I prefer the EMSIA line myself. I like the option to play with these things.

I had the same problems with the legs overlapping in fighter mode. Here is the solution:

When transformed properly into fighter mode, the legs (knees) should not even touch each other (look at the manual insert pictures). The reason they are touching is because the back of the knee is still hyper-extended like it is in gerwalk mode.

Thanks for the pointer. I did RTFM. I think the hole is in the correct place but still couldn't get it to sit right. I will give it a shot again later, but at the moment though, I don't really want to look at it, so it'll probably be tomorrow.

In its defense, the YF-19 is a very gorgeous looking toy. Fighter is of course excellent, but Battroid is good too -- once you locked down everything, it feels solid but top heavy. I didn't get much time in GERWALK but had some issues with the base plate locking into the hand covers.

At the current moment, had the YF-21 had not been so expensive, it would have taken a short flight from my hands to the wall.

Two words I can think of to describe my experience: flappy and flippy. While overall construction is very good -- much better QC -- the basic design and mechanical engineering made the plane full of small parts that just flip and flap around a lot. Annoying as it is, but when it's the two side panels flipping in just when you are putting the back in, it's just plain frustrating. The lack of resistance stays for some parts (such as the flipping cockpit section when you are transforming to Battroid) makes it just that much more irritating.

Right now I'm having incredible problems getting the legs re-aligned in Fighter, specifically, one leg always end up lapping over the other such that I cannot get the bottom hull covers closed. It's so bad I simply couldn't get them to align properly to transform back into Fighter. I spent so much time trying to get the legs right that I inadvertently "delimited" one leg, and the ball joint and main swing bar now has visible wear. I. just. cannot. get. the. legs. to. sit. right!

*deep breath*

I'm going to park the YF-21, in the very nice Battroid mode, one side so as to not aggravate me. When I'm calmer, I'll give it a shot again, but any pointers would be appreciated.

Well, a big box was waiting for me yesterday, but I didn't had the time for it... I now have the Yamato Air Box out of the HLJ box, cracked the cover to take a look at Fighter mode (Gorgeous, of course), and got the instruction manual out. Quite thick too...

(Pause for a moment. Instruction manual. For a toy. WTF?)

Anything that I should watch out for before taking it out and transforming it? Looks gorgeous, but with so many pictures in the manual showing tabs and slots, it's mighty confusing mighty fast.

Hmm, a bit too much hip, a bit too much gorilla arms. I'll wait, but probably pass. Still, having a AV-98 means that much closer to the X-0.

Not particularly.

On another note, my five Regults arrived the other day. No time to unpack them, sadly. Pics when I finally get them out.

Gurren Lagann and Regult are out.

http://www.toysdaily.com/discuz/viewthread...;extra=page%3D1

http://www.toysdaily.com/discuz/viewthread...;extra=page%3D1

And my 5 Regults are winging their way to me now!

If they are going to do Fist of the North Star, I wonder if they would do Berserk?

Not going to get these. I'm getting my 1/60 Yammie 21, so not keen on a non-transformable version. 'Sides, the Battroid mode was never my favourite.

Ah, Crystal-balling.

Do I believe the Beta will eventually be on sale? Yes.

I tend to agree. Now, with CM already proving there is a market -- although not sure how big it is at the moment -- Toynami has more incentive to sell their Beta. There probably are manufacturing problems at the back end and they probably won't produce as many (since they still have leftover stocks of Alphas..), so I'm guessing we might not see one Beta of the four possibles. At this point, I'm guessing Shadow Beta..

Do I think Toynami will meet their projected release date? No. I'd expect to see the first Beta out by this time next year at the earliest... hope I'm wrong on this, though.

I'm thinking end year '08, first version for the Christmas rush. They have most of the hard work done, it's really just sourcing for the right manufacturers and any other business decisions.

I'm also thinking, if we don't see a first release by, say, your date, we're unlikely ever to see one from Toynami. Interest wave would have passed and demand probably drop lower, especially with CM now more readily available than the old Gakken.

Do I expect the toy to have exorcised Toynami's poor engineering, material choices, and abysmal QC? IMO, we'll see little, if any, improvement over the Alphas.

Agreed. In terms of complex, transformable toys, Toynami simply does not have the track record.

Do I hope Toynami will revise their MSRP (currently proposed to be anywhere from $150-$200)? No. If anything, I foresee them proposing the final cost to be closer to the upper limit then the lower one... hoping to be wrong here too. However, I believe that we'll see them selling under MSRP within 4 months of release. Unless reviews are absolutely stellar I'm not shelling out full retail for this. IMO, their Beta should be no more than $120 (1.5 x the price of the Alpha) each.

Agreed, I think it'll hit the higher range for MSRP, but it would come with a nice box. (As an aside, maybe the box design is what's holding things up. Hard to design a box sufficiently big to hold the Beta and the required dead air space...)

Will it come down in price on the reseller market? Probably. How far? Depends on how big a lemon. If it's ok -- meaning Toynami-ok, QC hit-and-miss, etc -- I'll think it'll fall to what, 75% to 80% of MSRP? If it's terrible, lower, but we probably won't want to get it. If it's stellar, well, bullet-biting time.

Eh, the part about helical magazine? That's a bit reachy...

You're right, my bad.

Any news on the Beta? Still vapourware?

TBH, this particular person has LMFAO so much I'm not sure how much of an a$$ he has left.

... and 5 Regults had been promised a good home. Thanks!

Nice. Who's up for recasting?

Why not just do two different connecting pieces? It seems to be the most logical choice. It seems like CMs meant for the connecting arm to do more but for the life of me I can't get it to be any better than "kinda lame" in everything I try to do with it.

I'm actually pretty sure that if CM's Legioss takes off -- and it seems it has to some extent -- there will be fan-made after-market parts to do exactly what you said. I'm just wondering how best to tackle the problem, is all.

Hmm, it does look like the main issue is the connecting joint being too low for the Legioss arms to slot into the chest "plugs" on the Tlead. As indicated in earlier post, a customized linkage would solve that. And judging by the way the heel of the Legioss is butting up against the thighs of the Tlead, bringing the Legioss up a centimeter or so should give the Legioss legs room to straighten, improving the overall look in Combined Fighter.

The tricky part here is that the connector piece needs to accomodate the Combination with the Legioss in Armo-Soldier mode too, that makes it tricky.. unless you don't care to display the toy in that mode at all.

I was fairly sure that somewhere on the EMSiA box, they did mention it was 1/144. Nonetheless, if they are 1/170(ish), it just means the Sazabi gets an even bigger footprint "in real life".

Quite amazing there actually, to consider that we even dream about building something that is so big and complex, much less to build them in sufficient quantities to wage wars with.