Chronocidal

I'm still a young'un with TF stuff, since I missed out on G1 entirely, and until G2 all I had was the deluxe Spay-C Gobot shuttle, and a Robotech-branded Bandai Joke Machine VF-1. I fell down the rabbit hole when I saw the fancy G2 commercials though, and asked for a G2 Starscream for Christmas of 93. He wasn't available, so I got a Ramjet instead.. which confused me for years, since he was essentially colored like Skywarp. G2 is also why I thought Megaton was always a tank. My younger brother got pretty into Beast Wars, so he had a bunch of them, but I think the next actual TF I picked up was the Walmart MP Skywarp.

Happened upon this by accident browsing Amazon, and I have no idea if the brand is any good, but boy do I want to build one of these now. https://www.amazon.com/Building-Control-Compatible-Rechargeable-Robotics/dp/B0D8149WMY?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0D8149WMY&pd_rd_w=bL8QN&content-id=amzn1.sym.ee4d428e-9145-4c8f-81ac-5c7e8f43b2cc&pf_rd_p=ee4d428e-9145-4c8f-81ac-5c7e8f43b2cc&pf_rd_r=XY7XJG6YJMVMREV30R5B&pd_rd_wg=c3Dlu&pd_rd_r=7bc0e19d-ba8e-4417-a0a9-a8c26ac23526

Unfortunately this is kind of what I've come to expect from companies in China, but my interaction with them to replace my VF-1J's wing (came with damaged paint in the package) was nothing but smooth, if a little long. What's tricky is when they actually want the item returned for a replacement, at which point, you're probably much better off fixing it yourself. In my case, they just sent out a replacement wing, since it was easy to swap out, and they didn't ask for the damaged one back. With something like the canopy, you might have to replace the entire nose section, so they might want you to send it back before they replace it. Depending on what you buy from China, I've seen cases where someone received a faulty item, and they didn't want it back, but they wanted photographic proof that the purchaser had completely destroyed the faulty item before they would send a new one. The product in question was a flight sim joystick, and they wanted the buyer to disassemble the entire thing, smash all of the individual components with a hammer, and send them photographic proof of the destruction before they would discuss a replacement. That particular seller is absolutely draconic about not letting people scrounge their faulty products for spare parts.

Not sure if the price is a regional thing or not, but it's definitely not $185 when I check, it's showing $263. Maybe just a typo?

Yeah, there's a good reason for that, Bandai just bought up a bunch of the CAD designs for Yamato/Arcadia valks, and reproduced them in smaller scale.

Yeah, the comparison of the neck alignment is interesting actually. I don't think either looks bad at all there, they're both far superior to the old original YF-19 from Yamato. I also don't think that photo of he Arcadia VF-19 is doing it many favors, the nose actually looks droopier than it should be. Animation-wise though, I actually think the Bandai gets closer to the art. The Yamato looks closer to the YF-19 in general, but I think a lot of the art in Macross7 is closer to the DX profile. They keep getting so close it's really hard to pick any major benefits between one or the other.

Maybe I need to get another set of the normal super packs and paint them in gray too.. although, honestly, Messer's set in black looks pretty decent out of the box. If only the armor pack didn't come in freaking day-glo orange.

Up for sale at AE now, so I grabbed one. We'll see if they show up on Amazon later, but I'm just happy to see it show up again. https://anime-export.com/index.php?product=99137

Yeah, these look really good. This is why I picked up spare sets of super packs when they went on discount from.. I think Luna Park? It was back when I tested whether they could actually deliver, and ordered a couple of other items they had.

My go-to has been AE lately, but if this one goes international, it might not be worth scrambling.

See, this is the part that I'm not sure if we've ever gotten any truth about, and probably never will. The rumor/excuse at the time was that Bandai had production issues with the paint, and it caused them to cut production. Granted, this was also deep in the midst of the Great Nippon-Yasan Fustercluckening, so any news anyone had was probably at least partially polluted by their customer gaslighting service. What I suspected was going on was that Bandai truly didn't expect any heavy demand for a CF variant from the domestic customers, and never made that many to begin with. That smaller production run might have truthfully been reduced further due to production problems, if the stories are to be believed. What's not really clear though is where the scalping began (you know, beside NY). I actually half expect that some of it came from Japanese collectors who picked them up just to complete their own collection, only to discover they could make a tidy profit on the international market thanks to those silly international military aircraft enthusiasts. I would love nothing more than to see all of the prices of the old 31As tank after this, but I doubt they'll really drop that much. What I think is probably more likely is for this one to wind up discounted at Amazon.

Oh, definitely, but what I think is kind of funny/ironic about this re-release is that I don't think the Kairos had much demand in Japan to begin with, which may or may not have contributed to the low production the first time around. I would be really interested to see how sales go on the re-release. In fact, I hope we see the scalper market absolutely gobble them up, and then dump them on ebay for cheap. I think it was actually both now that I think about it. The crystal covers definitely caused issues, but the Kairos also had a bigger canard that wouldn't fit through some part of the chest armor.. although I might be thinking of the later armor pack? I think that one had a piece that clipped around the canard entirely. Either way, there are too many versions floating around, and since the original question was about the AX super packs, I thought the canards and different chest covers on that one might cause even more problems than just the regular 31 packs.

Oh, they're still trying to make money. Their financial crystal ball is just obsessed with chasing the international dollar, instead of putting out things everyone wants.

That would have required them to actually care enough to make a variant of the packs that fits the Kairos though.

This is a Bandai valk. We're not allowed to modify them in ways Bandai didn't intend. More seriously though, I'm actually pissed that they changed the hips so much from the YF-19. Those were all assembled with screws, and you could easily disassemble them to tweak the tightness. Yeah, that's gone now. They replaced one of the screws with a permanent pin, so good luck adjusting anything. It won't come apart anymore.

The legs? Maybe. The rest is very unlikely. The boosters especially won't work on the different wing/tail design, and the chest armor tends not to match because of the different canard shapes. I just realized this goes on sale in a few hours though. That's fast!

Boy.. I still think the nacelles are really the only part of that that kind of mostly work... Secondary hull isn't too bad, but the saucer is just a giant eye-sore. Whose idea was it to scatter little brown triangles on it like they were intended to be there? All they do is highlight the fugly angled garbage going on. For all the work they put into making the actual edge of the saucer shape work, the rest of it feels like a complete aesthetic failure. I can't look at it without just immediately picking out dozens of little places where I can't understand why they chose the pieces they did, when a very obvious alternative would have looked much better.

Ok, yeah, awesome. In for two more this time around, and maybe I'll be able to get them at retail, or even Amazon.

It's not bad. I had a couple issues with the neck cover, but I still managed it without looking at the instructions (and keeping in mind the warning to raise the head before pulling the torso to extend the spine). It's functionally the same process as the DX YF-19, but mostly much simpler, since it doesn't use all of the tiny folding panels in the upper body, there is no crazy folding panel puzzle in the legs, and there are no barrel things to get in the way. The Yamato version is still the king of enjoyable transformation where the 19 is concerned, but this is getting closer to that, and I didn't need to find a spoon to pry the shoulders away from the legs.

Yeah, overall I would still call all of the mentioned issues just standard quibbles with Bandai being Bandai, and they don't detract much from the valk itself. I do really like this one, since they did improve on a couple aspects of the YF-19 (the feet are so much better shaped it's tempting me to attempt to swap them out). The tampo is much less obnoxious, the general alignment is a bit easier to manage, and there's no stupid high speed hinge on the wing to leave it flopping around. All things considered, I actually even prefer this one very slightly over the Yamato in fighter mode. My biggest gripe about the Yamato Fire Valk has always been how far forward the LEX reaches, making the nose look too stubby (yes, this even bugs me more than the feet ). Bandai chose to make the LEX slightly curved from the wingroot toward the nose, which gives the nose section a slimmer and longer look. The downside is that this prevents it from converting that LEX tip into a side cover under the chest. I think Bandai also managed a better intake profile than Yamato (with covers even), though the improvement is less substantial than on the YF-19. I admit I was a little sad they removed the secondary twist joint in the gerwalk joint, and the range of that joint is disappointing, but it's no worse than the Yamato. Overall? Setting aside the YF and focusing on the VF, I think Bandai pulled off a slightly better fighter, but Yamato still managed a better battroid, and the Yamato versions will always be more fun to transform. That being said, I am in for the long (and expensive) haul toward the rest of the VF-19 line, and I'm hoping against hope that Bandai actually goes beyond the canon schemes to give us some variety, even if it's just something from Macross 30. I really hope we get the F/S/P, but my personal holy grail would be the white VF-19F with black stripes from the Master File. Do it Bandai, I will buy four. I'll still buy several P-models too, and probably do the same repaint I'm planning for an HMR version, but boy it would be nice to get some alternate schemes. Come on Bandai, make it happen!

Yeah, the face settles directly into those angled notches. Really easy to scrape up the face if you even slightly try to move the torso around before raising the head out of the way.

Yeah, they work, but what's really missing is a notch to keep the barrel aligned. Wouldn't have been hard either, all they needed to do was add a stud to the underside of the barrel that would lock into the recess in the center of the backplate. The gun stays mostly level.. it just doesn't get held in place by anything.

Hey, I'm just happy I can pose this one on the feet that way. The stupid mechanism in the YF-19's leg meant the feet can't be pulled out in fighter. In this case though, I figured the door made a nice reference line to show how everything was lined up vertically, even if the angle of the pic showed the door slightly tilted. A few notes on this one though.. This is absolutely a Bandai design, through and through. All kinds of little considerations to make fit together more tightly or align better.. all of which are unnecessary, and make transformation more difficult than if they'd just left well enough alone. Yeah, carving a slot for the shield to fit against the legs tightly sounds like a good idea.. Until you go to mount the gunpod. So you stick it between the arms, and press the legs together to hold them together to hold it there... and now the shield won't fit because you have to spread the legs to fit it into the slot, which lets the arms pop apart, which leaves the gunpod falling out. I'm also fairly certain that nifty mechanism to retract the purple lenses in the shoulders will be the first thing to break when people stress the shoulders from posing. And as innovative as that folding neck cover is, holy cow would I just prefer a removable one. That thing added so many extra layers of complication. You can't open the hinged panels to manipulate the cover panels unless the arms are rotated back.. which means you can't lift the panels out of the battroid position until you fold the arms back, which won't work when the spine is in the way from still being in battroid mode. Then in the reverse direction, you can't pull the head out until the panels are raised, which means the arms can't fold forward while you can raise the head, which means the arms being folded backward gets in the way of raising the head. Seriously. Those panels get my vote for most astoundingly irritating feature on a valk in the past year.

So.. the I finally got my copy delivered from AE.. yeah.. that's the absolute last time I deal with DHL. Period. Long, epic, and ridiculous tale there, but that's for another thread. Anyhow... I dunno what's wrong with all y'all's gunpods.

Boy, that's definitely.. something. I kind of feel like they really should have attempted an easier subject than this one on the first go-around. Specifically, all the blocky layers on the saucer kill any illusion of curvature, to the point that I feel a pixely-looking stack of plates would be a huge improvement. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but it feels like the standards set by their Star Wars sets have gotten almost impossibly high in comparison. As a specific thing though, the deflector looks.. better than I expected, but still feels like it needs a central printed dish added in the middle.