DX VF-171EX from Macross Frontier

[wmkjr]

My EX had a broken triangle but I might be one of the few to have that problem. Might have been due to user error when transforming the first time but it was a used one anyway.

Edited June 19, 2015 by wmkjr

[Valkyrie Driver]

So, I have a few questions about this. I had a minor issue, one of the small pins on the wing has sheared off. I was wondering if anyone knew where to find replacements? Additionally, I have the super parts set, and the arm gun seems to be a right pain. I attached it the way it showed in the instructions, but it just doesn't want to stay on the mounting plate. Was there a screw or something that was supposed to hold the arm onto the mounting plate?

Sorry for the thread necro, but I didn't know where else to ask this question...

[Chronocidal]

So, if the part of the wing pin that sheared off is the little mushroom cap that the wing snaps over, you don't even need it.  All those do is snap the wing on more securely before plugging the larger pegs in.  The wing rotates around the base of that shaft, so there's really no reason the little cap needs to exist.

[Valkyrie Driver]

22 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

So, if the part of the wing pin that sheared off is the little mushroom cap that the wing snaps over, you don't even need it.  All those do is snap the wing on more securely before plugging the larger pegs in.  The wing rotates around the base of that shaft, so there's really no reason the little cap needs to exist.

That's true, but it's floppy and irritating...

[derex3592]

i have the same problem on my Alto 171. Right out of the box!...

[Sanity is Optional]

Just now, derex3592 said:

i have the same problem on my Alto 171. Right out of the box!...

I feel a bit better about my Alto 171 now, Got it used from Mandarake, missing one of the wing post covers.

[Chronocidal]

That's entirely on Bandai for coming up with such a stupid design in the first place.  Wings should have been hardpointed from the start, and permanently attached like the Yamato 17, and the entire thing would have been a non-issue.  It's really just inexcusable.

[Sildani]

Ayup. Still doesn’t stop me wanting one though. It’s a nice design. I’m surprised Bandai didn’t go ahead and make a tan CF one from Delta. 

[Valkyrie Driver]

Since I'm never going to use the non hardpoint wings ever again... I was thinking of carefully drilling out the post and putting a cutoff nail in the hole.

[Sanity is Optional]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

That's entirely on Bandai for coming up with such a stupid design in the first place.  Wings should have been hardpointed from the start, and permanently attached like the Yamato 17, and the entire thing would have been a non-issue.  It's really just inexcusable.

At least it's the only DX Chogokin they've done this on (that I'm aware of, all the rest have hardpoints as standard). I'm not sure why they ported the HMR replaceable wings over just for the VF-171s.

[Chronocidal]

On the HMRs, the hardpoints are a bit bulky, so I can understand people wanting wings without them to a point.  But at 1/60?  There's really no excuse.

The only thing the removable wings accomplished was giving them a way to make absolutely sure you had to buy matching armor packs for every individual 171, and that you couldn't use missiles on the standard releases.

And they still haven't made any attempt to rectify that particular flipping off of their customers.  Every new release that comes with hardpoints just pops another pair of giant middle fingers at their fanbase, as the only place to get anything to mount on them came in a limited accessory pack for a valk from the previous Macross series.

[arbit]

I dont think its intentional. Somehow just seems that all of Bandai's learned knowledge does not pass form one valk to the next. Same thing with their Gunpla and Gokin in general; it seems that as soon as they find a solution with one figure, they go back and screw it up on the next one.

[kajnrig]

Would anyone who has one of these be willing to take close-up shots of the three diamonds on either side of the nose cone? I'm trying to convert the Mecha Colle kit's sticker sheet to a high-quality decal sheet, and the details on the sticker covering the nose are terrible. I have a feeling they're just innocuous sensors, but the RVF toy seems to have some white around there (or maybe its just the light).

Anyway, I just wanted to be sure. Thanks for any help.

 

[Chronocidal]

I believe a lot of those are supposed to be thruster exhaust ports, but it's difficult to say.  Bandai hasn't been exactly consistent with marking those across their assorted releases, even outside of the 171s.

Edited November 15, 2017 by Chronocidal

[Sanity is Optional]

Here ya go.

https://imgur.com/a/f92wz

[kajnrig]

OHHHH. Thanks very much, you two. Wow, the details are even worse on those stickers than I originally thought.

[Duymon]

Annual VF-171 Fleet Cleaning using the spare bedroom :0

I really need to put these inside a glass shelf lol

Edit: the bottle of Krazy Glue is there to fix any disintegrating VF-171 parts

Edited May 3, 2018 by Duymon

[Sandman]

1 hour ago, Duymon said:

Annual VF-171 Fleet Cleaning using the spare bedroom :0

I really need to put these inside a glass shelf lol

Edit: the bottle of Krazy Glue is there to fix any disintegrating VF-171 parts

Out of curiosity, are there any CF 171s  that haven't had parts disintegrate?

[Duymon]

22 minutes ago, Sandman said:

Out of curiosity, are there any CF 171s  that haven't had parts disintegrate?

3 out of 12 have had 0 breakages...pretty bad track record lol

[kajnrig]

So... did I hear that right? You're selling these for $50 apiece? Wow, what a steal! I'll take two!

But seriously, though, that MUST be at least $2k worth of variable fighters there. Jelly jelly.

[mickyg]

They're one of my faves but in a fleet, they're just awesome to look at!  Nice collection there Duy!

[505thAirborne]

4 hours ago, Duymon said:

Annual VF-171 Fleet Cleaning using the spare bedroom :0

I really need to put these inside a glass shelf lol

Edit: the bottle of Krazy Glue is there to fix any disintegrating VF-171 parts

That is amazing Duymon!! 

[borgified]

@Duymon: Got a squadron of VF-171 ready for deployment when needed?

Glad to see and read that there are members that still like the VF-171 even though it's one of least desired valks in the entire Macross series.

Maybe picking up Luka's RVF after getting Alto's and the Armoured Parts for my ever growing valk collection.    

[Sildani]

I like the 171 design, it’s just prices for the CF version are around $220-250 at the moment which is too dang high for a toy that might be broken MISB. 

[slide]

3 hours ago, borgified said:

Glad to see and read that there are members that still like the VF-171 even though it's one of least desired valks in the entire Macross series.

On the model side of Macross collecting, we've been drooling for one since it hit the screen! 

[kajnrig]

^ Speaks the godly truth. I'd almost literally give an arm and a leg for a nice 1/72 VF-171, transforming or not.

[Duymon]

13 hours ago, kajnrig said:

So... did I hear that right? You're selling these for $50 apiece? Wow, what a steal! I'll take two!

But seriously, though, that MUST be at least $2k worth of variable fighters there. Jelly jelly.

VF_171 i my fav so I will sell literally everything before I sell these lol  Believe it or not it's a lot less than 2K because the 9 broken VF-171 CF's I got were on the secondary market from disgruntled Early adopters who were offloading their broken VF-171's on Ebay and even here Macrossworld. Also when Mandarake had a fire-sale on their VF-171 EX armor parts for $30 I snapped up several boxes of them.

11 hours ago, borgified said:

@Duymon: Got a squadron of VF-171 ready for deployment when needed?

Glad to see and read that there are members that still like the VF-171 even though it's one of least desired valks in the entire Macross series.

Maybe picking up Luka's RVF after getting Alto's and the Armoured Parts for my ever growing valk collection.    

I have no idea why peeps don't like it as much. It's got the old-school charm and none of the busy fragile backs with folded out wings that have plagued the VF-25, VF-27, YF-29, YF-30 and VF-31.

Maybe it was just Bandai's execution that turned everyone off, especially on the QC plagued CF version

4 hours ago, Sildani said:

I like the 171 design, it’s just prices for the CF version are around $220-250 at the moment which is too dang high for a toy that might be broken MISB. 

Yeah I can't justify paying a mark-up on a valk that has a high chance to be broken.

1 hour ago, slide said:

On the model side of Macross collecting, we've been drooling for one since it hit the screen! 

Yeah... believe it or not I am kinda hoping that doesn't happen. My model backlog is already too large 

[slide]

Just now, Duymon said:

Yeah... believe it or not I am kinda hoping that doesn't happen. My model backlog is already too large 

So is mine, but I'll add 4 or 8 VF-171's [OR VF-17's] to it in a heartbeat!

Edited May 4, 2018 by slide

[rdrunner]

I've always liked the 171-EX's design and so recently bought a sealed Alto's version.  Quick question please, what's the going rate for a decent ish second hand super pack and what's the use of the spare wings in the package?  Does this mean we have to do parts swapping when putting on the super parts? Thanks!

 

[kajnrig]

1 minute ago, rdrunner said:

what's the use of the spare wings in the package?  Does this mean we have to do parts swapping when putting on the super parts? Thanks!

IIRC, the extra wings have hardpoints for the various extra munitions. Also IIRC, the wings are designed for easy swapping, which has the side effect of making them prone to falling off.

Someone who actually has one, feel free to correct me on this.

[Duymon]

3 minutes ago, rdrunner said:

I've always liked the 171-EX's design and so recently bought a sealed Alto's version.  Quick question please, what's the going rate for a decent ish second hand super pack and what's the use of the spare wings in the package?  Does this mean we have to do parts swapping when putting on the super parts? Thanks!

 

IF you don't care about the box you can nab them on Mandarake for like 40 bucks before shipping

 

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1032159023&ref=dos

 

The wings have the ordinance mounts on them so you can mount the missiles. Just make sure you buy the Alto version. (the other version is the regular VF-171 CF version)

[Duymon]

6 minutes ago, rdrunner said:

I've always liked the 171-EX's design and so recently bought a sealed Alto's version.  Quick question please, what's the going rate for a decent ish second hand super pack and what's the use of the spare wings in the package?  Does this mean we have to do parts swapping when putting on the super parts? Thanks!

 

IF you don't care about the box you can nab them on Mandarake for like 40 bucks before shipping

 

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1032159023&ref=dos

 

The wings have the ordinance mounts on them so you can mount the missiles. Just make sure you buy the Alto version. (the other version is the regular VF-171 CF version)

3 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

IIRC, the extra wings have hardpoints for the various extra munitions. Also IIRC, the wings are designed for easy swapping, which has the side effect of making them prone to falling off.

Someone who actually has one, feel free to correct me on this.

Yup they are easy to swap but the pegs are really loose on the Alto VF-171 EX. This was fixed on the VF-171 CF with its tighter pegs, but that CF has a whole host of other problems to say the least

Edited May 4, 2018 by Duymon

[borgified]

4 hours ago, slide said:

On the model side of Macross collecting, we've been drooling for one since it hit the screen! 

 

4 hours ago, kajnrig said:

^ Speaks the godly truth. I'd almost literally give an arm and a leg for a nice 1/72 VF-171, transforming or not.

There's that 1/144 scale (?) Mecha Colle version of the Tan NUNS 171..  I have a feeling that you two are not going to pick that option either.

 

35 minutes ago, rdrunner said:

I've always liked the 171-EX's design and so recently bought a sealed Alto's version.  Quick question please, what's the going rate for a decent ish second hand super pack and what's the use of the spare wings in the package?  Does this mean we have to do parts swapping when putting on the super parts? Thanks!

 

 I echo on @Duymon and @kajnrig replies as well. I take it that you haven't seen Jenius's, or Collection DX's review on the VF-171?

Here's a link to help you out: http://anymoon.com/blog/?cat=22

 

[kajnrig]

6 minutes ago, borgified said:

There's that 1/144 scale (?) Mecha Colle version of the Tan NUNS 171..  I have a feeling that you two are not going to pick that option either.

I have two or three of those (they're roughly 1/200 scale). They're nice for what they are, but this bird definitely deserves a nice big-scale kit.

[Mechapilot77]

20 hours ago, Duymon said:

Annual VF-171 Fleet Cleaning using the spare bedroom :0

I really need to put these inside a glass shelf lol

Edit: the bottle of Krazy Glue is there to fix any disintegrating VF-171 parts

lol and i thought i had a lot of 171s.  i've got a few non CF (alto, rvf, and maruyama custom) but I have 3 CFs only...that was my "troop building".  IIRC I got one of them from you?  We met up once I think if i'm remembering correctly.  you taking it to a whole other level there.  i count a dozen CF versions!