Hi-Metal R Fire Bomber (VF-19 Fire Valkyrie, VF-11 MAXL, VF-17T)

[Mommar]

11 hours ago, 26662 said:

Got my HMR VF-19 Custom today Luna Park.  The good: she arrived in perfect condition.  Luna Park is batting 1000 with me this year.  The bad: started to transform it and remembered/relearned quickly that I really do loathe HMRs.  PM me if you're interested in taking it off my hands for $75.00 USD.  [S+H extra, but it'll be actual S+H and not some Ebay markup BS.]

Interesting, what about it was such a turnoff?

[26662]

6 hours ago, Graham said:

Gotta say I'm loving the HMR VF-19. It's such an awesome little toy.

Originally planned to buy 2, but just bought a third.😅 

I'm really hoping we do get more Macross 7 HMR toys. 

Given how good the HMR Fire Valkyrie is, I'd really like to see Bandai make an HMR YF-19, as I'm not a huge fan of their DX effort.

 

I can see the allure of the line; objectively, there's a lot to like.  It's mostly that my age has caught up to me in ways that make manipulating bots with lots of small parts infuriating.  [For clarity, I'm in great health so this isn't a pity party.  Father Time's just being an a-hole.]

[26662]

1 hour ago, Mommar said:

Interesting, what about it was such a turnoff?

I didn't see your post until after I had responded to Graham.  Fair question.  I think my answer above remains the same: too many fiddly bits for my aging hands and eyes.  At a larger scale, it would be an entirely different experience for me.  Which, oddly enough, is something my wife says...a lot...  [That was a cheap, throwaway joke.  Don't crucify me.]

[MKT]

Unboxed the VF-19 Kai, so just some impressions:

First thing I noticed after pulling out the trays, is that the schematic drawing sheet is now silver instead of black. Coupled with the high gloss surface, the white lines want to blend into the background and are near illegible. Tried my best to capture on pic, but there's just so much glare obscuring parts of it lol.

 

On to the valk itself, I messed about with it in its default Battroid mode for a while, before taking it straight to Fighter to see how it compares against its predecessor the HM Fire Valk that came out years ago.

1. The forearms are on metal sliders, just like Arcadia's. When sliding them back and forth, I noticed the left forearm is much looser than the right. This possibly afflicts all copies as I'm seeing lots of comments on this in FB groups. Fortunately, it doesn't become an issue in any modes, because there is stopper mechanism to hold the forearm in place when retracted for Battroid / Gerwalk, and when fully extended for Fighter the forearms do get held in place by the shin cutouts & shield.

2. The diecast on diecast articulation points are really tight. For example, the double-jointed elbows takes more force than necessary to bend them. However, by far the most frustrating aspect of this are the hip joints. These are CRAZY tight, as in, they are tight on the level of Sentinel's first issue Legioss ETA's shoulders & knees. Trying to rotate the hips back & forth independent of moving the swing bar is akin to.. trying to tear a raw chicken drumstick off its thigh, to give a crude example. On my copy, the right hip is even tighter than the left, and when transforming it to Fighter, I could not rotate the final 5% to its appropriate position. As that piece forms a chunk of the lerx which would be quite out of alignment if I left it alone, I had to open up the hip to see what was going on inside (didn't take pics though). Luckily the assembly of the hip housing around the diecast joint is a simple affair, with the hip housing being 2 halves held by a single screw, and just lubricating the diecast joint inside immediately solved the stiffness and unlocked the final 5% movement range I needed. I'll likely open up the other hip later to lubricate it so I won't get so much grief next time. 

3. Opening the hip housing made me realize the housing is actually diecast (nice!), and I could not tell that before as the paint match between it and the surrounding plastics is near, if not 100%. During the course of transformation, I found the whole back / spine piece is also diecast, just like Arcadia's (DX is still plastic), and also excellently paint matched. As far as I could tell, all the reds between various parts matches well to each other to a single shade of red, unlike the old HM where there are noticeably about 3 different shades.

4. Nevertheless, the reds & yellows of the HMR and HM are very close down to the matte finish, that it's little doubt Bandai intended it to be such so the HM Soundbooster can be nicely paired to the HMR valk. I'll bring it back to Battroid again later and mount the old Soundbooster to it.

5. Other than the hips, transformation to Fighter is a pleasure and just like the HMR VF-0 mold, everything comes together so precisely that it feels even tighter than its larger 1/60 sibling in this mode, exactly like the HMR VF-0 mold vs Arcadia's. Just rock solid Fighter mode that makes handling & swooshing great fun. The old HM on other hand, doesn't hold a candle in engineering & tolerances and really shows its age now.

Still, I do prefer the HM's sculpt in Fighter for reasons @Chronocidal have well explained in an earlier post.
 

 

6. Unlike the HMR VF-0, which just feels ever so slightly out of tolerance, the landing gear doors here are very nicely flushed when closed. About the only fault I see so far in Fighter is the action of opening the rear bay doors - the doors pop off entirely too easily from their hinges, and it happened on both sides for me. They can snap back in, but it is a minor irritation. The gears themselves plug in more easily than the VF-0 due to the shallower depth, but what's up with the rear gears having comically thick posts?

Ultimately, I won't be displaying this in Fighter (the HM will do that) and will have it in Battroid, where the sculpt truly shines. Thigh fillers ala the 1/60 actually fits the semi-partsforming nature of the HMR better, so the lack of it here is a small bummer. But all in, I'm quite happy with the HMR Fire Valk, and hope Bandai produces more Mac 7 valks in this line.

 

[Chronocidal]

2 hours ago, MKT said:

Still, I do prefer the HM's sculpt in Fighter for reasons @Chronocidal have well explained in an earlier post.
 

 

Thanks for saving me the trouble of digging that up again, and helping me not sound like a broken record.  

I've been messing with my copy for a few days as well since I just got mine with a couple other items from HLJ, and agree on pretty much everything said.  It really is a perfect little Yamato Mini-Me, with pretty much all of both the positives and negatives carried over.  That long leading edge has bugged me ever since the first CAD teasers of the Yamato release.  It really comes down to the proportions of the wing sections, and how wide they are relative to the fuselage.  One of these days, I really want to experiment with making a wider wing glove that lessens the sweep angle of the LEX, and pushes it back further along the neck like the original HM.  It's part of why I like the YF-19 layout so much, and the VF-19F/S are also a little better, just from not having the canards highlighting how far forward it extends.  Interestingly, the new 1/100 HG kit plays an interesting compromise by having the LEX slightly curved, which I don't mind.  I'm really curious to see where Bandai goes with their DX version, if it ever sees the light of day, but the initial teaser display seemed like it was leaning toward the long LEX again.  

Otherwise, all good points, and pretty much my same experience.  The metal joints are all terribly stiff, and need some working back and forth and lube to function properly.  The arm extensions also gave me a little trouble, taking what felt like excessive force before they would lock in the collapsed or extended position.

The right hip definitely seems to be a problem spot.  Mine was ridiculously resistant to rotation, and the two halves of the hip didn't quite line up as they should.  I wound up taking both apart to loosen up, and in the process noticed that the tiny metal hook shapes that loop around the screw tunnel were both slightly bent.  I was able to correct one, but the other snapped off as soon as I gave it any pressure.  Not a problem though, the hip still screws together rightly around the joint, and the alignment is better now without the off-kilter hook.

A few little differences I did notice were related to how the valk does or doesn't lock together in this scale.  Bandai removed a lot of the smaller alignment tabs in the wing and leg areas, and the transformation is better for it, I think.  It's also missing the torso lock in fighter mode from the crotch plate, but the metal hinge is stiff enough that it really doesn't need that mechanism to stay together. 

It's not nearly so overly-sensitive to things being out of alignment, and the legs and wings can just be pulled down without any massaging that you needed to do on the 1/60 versions.  The shoulder locking tabs are still a little overly strong though, and it's worse in this version because instead of being a pinned hinge, the shoulder covers just snap on, rather than being on a pivot.  You really just have to twist the legs out from under them, rather than popping the shoulders as the first step out of fighter mode.

Happy to see the ankles are either "resolved" or just not an issue anymore.  Whether that's due to a design change, or just the valk no longer weighing enough to make the ankles feel sloppy is up for grabs.  

Overall though, I'm really impressed at how close to perfect-transformation they got this one.  I was really expecting more swapped parts for the head, but they managed to fit everything in, provided you just use the straight antennas, rather than the angled ones.

Paint looks like a dead match for the Yamato, and the matching is very good, though I wish they'd gone a bit more golden and less lemon on the yellow parts.  The tone used on the HG kit feels like a much better, warmer gold than pure yellow.

Far as the gear are concerned, I haven't had the doors pop off of mine, but the rear gear have always been those sort of blocky constructs on the VF-19, so that's not something Bandai did.

Now the wait begins for whether they decide to put out the other variants, and the rest of Sound Force.  I'll probably grab a few of the Blazers if I can, and hopefully the P as well, since the parts are already engineered for the shoulder fins.

[MKT]

^^^ Sorry to hear the metal hook at the hip joint broke, but glad to hear it didn't affect its articulation.
I'm just thankful Bandai had the sense to make the hip housings to be metal, otherwise if they were plastic there would be many a broken or sheared housings due to the force needed to rotate them.

When I got to the head, I was impressed by how the head spike & lasers can be moved and hidden out of the way in Fighter, and even more impressed how the surrounding covers & flaps cleanly hide them (In the HM, the spike and lasers have to be removed & stored away elsewhere). For the 1/60, I've only ever handled the Blazer valks with their head lasers sticking out in Fighter like any other valk, and so now I believe the Fire Valk is the only valk that's able to hide all its multiple head pointy bits in Fighter. The way it does so is pretty elegant and is yet another reason why Macross transformation design, translated properly into toys is just so satisfactory.

Oh and the blue cockpit canopy looks much better than the yellow tinted one of Arcadia's. 
 

[Chronocidal]

Yeah, agreed on the blue canopy.  I'm tempted to swap out the yellow one on the Arcadia and just keep that canopy hidden forever in a battroid display.

Fun fact though, you can actually hide away the head lasers on quite a few of the various designs.  From what I remember, both the old VF-11 and the rest of the VF-19s are able to slip the center head laser down between the arms and under the shield, just like the crest on the Fire Valk.  The 19S and 19P both have side lasers that don't collapse, and won't fit inside like the Fire Valk's, but the central ones all have a sliding hinge that lets them sink below the shield, and between the elbows.

It even works with the Arcadia YF-19, but since that one doesn't use the shoulder flaps, and the shield is designed with the notch for the laser, it just winds up looking gappy.

[seti88]

waiting for a hmr YF-19...cant be too far away? 🙊

mold differences a separate discussion of course...🙊

but of course...a HMR vf-11 (whichever variant) first!!

Edited September 10 by seti88

[danth]

I'm totally out of the loop on the HMRs.

Are these still 1/100? Is the Kai perfect transformation/no part swapping? Are the landing gear built in?

[Chronocidal]

Not quite 1/100, a lot of the HMRs come out closer to 1/90.

I'd say this is about as close to perfect transformation as you can get at this scale.  You will need to swap to fixed pose hands to hold the gun, and the landing gear struts snap into bays with opening doors.  There are also a pair of swappable head antennas that stick out to the side further, but they included narrower ones that let you transform the head without any parts swapping.

I think the only one closer to perfect transformation at this point was the VF-4, just because you don't technically need to swap the hands, since it was never supposed to hold a gunpod.  I think Bandai just included one because Yamato/Arcadia did with theirs.

[MKT]

When I think about head lasers on the HMRs, I'm now reminded that the VF-2SS didn't need swappable ones. They are on proper ball joints to angle whichever way appropriate for its mode like a lot of the larger valk toys.

The VF-2SS is bit of an outlier; it shows that HMR can be more PT than they currently are with the ball-jointed head lasers and properly hinged cockpit canopy, but Bandai then decided to make certain elements part-swapping on purpose for all valks after that.  

 

[Chronocidal]

Boy, I will always have a weakness to this design and mold, in pretty much any scale.  I'll be curious to see what shade of blue Bandai settles on for the VF-19F/S if they do them... but I will probably buy multiples of all of them regardless.

I feel like the lack of canards makes the nose seem longer, with less of the LEX issue, and it just looks so good. :

Interestingly, the Fire Valk should be the only one that actually needs any parts swapped on the head, since it's the only one with the side lasers that fold in.  They aren't actually ball jointed, the lasers on the 1/60 just had a tiny hinge that let them fold inward, and there was no way to replicate that on the HMR.  Aside from those, it's pretty impressive that Bandai replicated all of the other necessary panels and moving parts to get the Fire Valk's head completely hidden exactly the same way Yamato did in 1/60.

The S and F head lasers both stick up above the shield, and while the VF-19P's arrangement is closer to the Fire Valk's design, the side lasers stay elevated above the shield, so they won't need to be swapped. 

 

[Spacecore]

Just got mine in yesterday, and despite it being my first Hi Metal (and only second Macross figure lol, I only got into the series this summer), I'm pretty blown away by it. The VF-19 is just a gorgeous design, this thing is really impressive for the price. Damn close to perfect transformation, too, especially impressive for the size. Had to add a bit of paint to give the cockpit some detail, but I don't think I'll go so far as panel lining it or anything.

[MKT]

11 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Boy, I will always have a weakness to this design and mold, in pretty much any scale.  I'll be curious to see what shade of blue Bandai settles on for the VF-19F/S if they do them... but I will probably buy multiples of all of them regardless.

I feel like the lack of canards makes the nose seem longer, with less of the LEX issue, and it just looks so good. :

Interestingly, the Fire Valk should be the only one that actually needs any parts swapped on the head, since it's the only one with the side lasers that fold in.  They aren't actually ball jointed, the lasers on the 1/60 just had a tiny hinge that let them fold inward, and there was no way to replicate that on the HMR.  Aside from those, it's pretty impressive that Bandai replicated all of the other necessary panels and moving parts to get the Fire Valk's head completely hidden exactly the same way Yamato did in 1/60.

The S and F head lasers both stick up above the shield, and while the VF-19P's arrangement is closer to the Fire Valk's design, the side lasers stay elevated above the shield, so they won't need to be swapped. 

 

The Yamato VF-19F & S were among my first handful of valk acquisitions, and over the years I give increasingly more respect to what Yamato did with this mold. Yamato has really set the standard for the VF-19, and the fact that this mold still stands up more than a decade later in HMR form is just a testament to how right they got it in the first place. That said, I'm not too enthusiastic about the F/S wing design - the stubbiness of them just looks kinda weird for a jet, but everything else is lovely and that blue is the perfect shade in my eyes.

 

9 hours ago, Spacecore said:

Just got mine in yesterday, and despite it being my first Hi Metal (and only second Macross figure lol, I only got into the series this summer), I'm pretty blown away by it. The VF-19 is just a gorgeous design, this thing is really impressive for the price. Damn close to perfect transformation, too, especially impressive for the size. Had to add a bit of paint to give the cockpit some detail, but I don't think I'll go so far as panel lining it or anything.

Congratulations, and there has never been a better time to start collecting HMR. The HMR VF-1, which is a nice mold by itself, always felt slightly lacking in comparison to its larger cousins and really needed the Destroids & enemy mechas to lift it up. But these newer HMR molds that Bandai have been pushing out recently are really killing it, and there are aspects of them that I do like better than the larger 1/60s.

 

[Spacecore]

bit of a side note, but does anyone know where to find good images of the "hangar" (and I use that term very loosely) that Basara stores the VF-19 in?

I want to model and 3d print a bit of a diorama to set it in for display, but I don't want to rewatch the whole show for a few screencaps, as much as I enjoyed it the first time.

[WhatBoutMyStar]

20 minutes ago, Spacecore said:

bit of a side note, but does anyone know where to find good images of the "hangar" (and I use that term very loosely) that Basara stores the VF-19 in?

I want to model and 3d print a bit of a diorama to set it in for display, but I don't want to rewatch the whole show for a few screencaps, as much as I enjoyed it the first time.

I thought he kept the fire valk in a nearby alley by his run down apartment and he got to it by zip lining to it out of a window. Wasn't even hidden from sight or anything from what I remember.

[Chronocidal]

Hopefully it plays for you, but this clip shows him doing the zip line.

I also picked up a long distance shot that gives perspective about how big the valk is relative to the buildings around it.  You can barely see the head peeking out on the left.

Edited September 13 by Chronocidal

[derex3592]

Hahahaaha! Man, you gotta love Basara. He was a douche, but he could hold his own in a fight, kick ass when needed, put the girls in their place, and fly the hell out of the FireValk like nobody's business! 

[Spacecore]

Thinking of remolds/repaints they could do, what do we think the chances are of the one from the end of Dynamite 7 getting a figure using this mold? Pretty low I'd think, since I don't think I've ever even seen a full image of the thing, but from what I remember of it, the red and white look pretty nice. 

[Chronocidal]

3 hours ago, Spacecore said:

Thinking of remolds/repaints they could do, what do we think the chances are of the one from the end of Dynamite 7 getting a figure using this mold? Pretty low I'd think, since I don't think I've ever even seen a full image of the thing, but from what I remember of it, the red and white look pretty nice. 

The one you're thinking of is the VF-19P, and so long as Bandai doesn't just drop the line abruptly, it's the most similar model to the Fire Valk, since it only needs a new head, gunpod, and leg panels, since they put back the lower leg fins seen on the YF-19.

Something to note, the HMR Fire Valk already has the peg-holes necessary to mount those fins on the shoulders.  Whether they actually make it remains to be seen, but this one would be the least work to produce after the Fire Valk.

I wouldn't expect this one to be a regular release though, so probably more likely to be a webshop item.

[Spacecore]

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

The one you're thinking of is the VF-19P, and so long as Bandai doesn't just drop the line abruptly, it's the most similar model to the Fire Valk, since it only needs a new head, gunpod, and leg panels, since they put back the lower leg fins seen on the YF-19.

Something to note, the HMR Fire Valk already has the peg-holes necessary to mount those fins on the shoulders.  Whether they actually make it remains to be seen, but this one would be the least work to produce after the Fire Valk.

I wouldn't expect this one to be a regular release though, so probably more likely to be a webshop item.

Huh, I guess that is the one. I was kinda thinking of the post-whale one that Basara flies off in at the end, after it gets coated in red, but that one is probably more likely than the one that showed up for all of 20 seconds lol

[Chronocidal]

I'd be pretty surprised if Bandai actually does the whale blood version, though a few people joked about that as a limited run for the Yamato when it came out.

If they did that as an exclusive, and made the plain white one a regular release, I'd be perfectly happy, but I wouldn't put it past them to only make the bloody one, and never give us the clean version.  

[sh9000]

I'd take them all if they decide to milk the mold.  Especially several VF-19F.

 

[Spacecore]

12 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

I'd be pretty surprised if Bandai actually does the whale blood version, though a few people joked about that as a limited run for the Yamato when it came out.

If they did that as an exclusive, and made the plain white one a regular release, I'd be perfectly happy, but I wouldn't put it past them to only make the bloody one, and never give us the clean version.  

Is it blood, or spores? I've heard conflicting things on that lmao.

either way, it's a cool look. iirc, the jet mode has more white, since it being in battroid mode when it got covered acted as a mask and kept some of it white. Really cool look, kinda mixes the VF-19 with some of the YF-19's colors.

[jvmacross]

8 hours ago, sh9000 said:

I'd take them all if they decide to milk the mold.  Especially several VF-19F.

 

This one too....

[PointBlankSniper]

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

This one too....

That one is basically just a YF-19, which I think probably could only reuse a quarter of the molds. Other than arms, chest, and spine, everything is different between the YF and VF. It's probably the reason why the DXs haven't been pumped out like brain dead repaints.

[Chronocidal]

12 minutes ago, PointBlankSniper said:

That one is basically just a YF-19, which I think probably could only reuse a quarter of the molds. Other than arms, chest, and spine, everything is different between the YF and VF. It's probably the reason why the DXs haven't been pumped out like brain dead repaints.

Thing is, there are still plenty of repaints Bandai could do of the YF-19 mold.  They just don't.

This applies to Arcadia too though.  The closest we've gotten was the VF-19 Advance, which was just a YF-19 in SMS markings, while everything else remained essentially the same.  I think Yamato got burnt with their Double Nuts and Bird of Prey releases for the old YF-19, and concluded no one really wanted anything else.

There have been several video game schemes that could have been used (both VFX, and Macross 30 ones at least), and that's not even touching the Master File, or the assorted sets of markings that Hasegawa has released their kits with (which may have also come from the Master File).

[PointBlankSniper]

Well, tbf, all that stuff is kind of non canon or outsourced designs. Bandai pretty much only deals in mainstream canon when it's not gundams.

Even then, they won't even complete a line up of all the mechs from any specific gundam show. Even one offs for very popular designs from their own side stories is a big maybe at best.

There's also weird stories of japanese copyright issues too. A game studio or magazine, or even just a seperate department of the same company, could tangle up IP ownership and stop someone else from using a design somewhere down the line. Even anime cannot legally use their own titles after a season ends. That's where you get weird titles with extra exclamation marks or random new wording when a new season comes out. Gintama for example, with all the seasons full of punctuation marks in their titiles, had to even be "moved to a whole new animation studio" in name at some point, because of strange legalities. They had to move from Sunrise to Bandai Namco Pictures, just to make a sequel with the exact same staff. Both studios are still just under Bandai Namco, so none of this makes sense to the average sane person.

Gundam sentinel for example is supposedly written and therefore owned by a magazine. So everytime the ExS Gundam is in a game, the pilot has to be faceless, because Bandai has no rights to him.

I'm sure Hasegawa is willing to jump through all sorts of funny hoops to get a niche model kit out, but Bandai is too big a boat to expect navigating such niche matters for IP that isn't even their own, as much as I'd like to see them do it.

[djivaldi7]

41 minutes ago, PointBlankSniper said:

Well, tbf, all that stuff is kind of non canon or outsourced designs. Bandai pretty much only deals in mainstream canon when it's not gundams.

Even then, they won't even complete a line up of all the mechs from any specific gundam show. Even one offs for very popular designs from their own side stories is a big maybe at best.

There's also weird stories of japanese copyright issues too. A game studio or magazine, or even just a seperate department of the same company, could tangle up IP ownership and stop someone else from using a design somewhere down the line. Even anime cannot legally use their own titles after a season ends. That's where you get weird titles with extra exclamation marks or random new wording when a new season comes out. Gintama for example, with all the seasons full of punctuation marks in their titiles, had to even be "moved to a whole new animation studio" in name at some point, because of strange legalities. They had to move from Sunrise to Bandai Namco Pictures, just to make a sequel with the exact same staff. Both studios are still just under Bandai Namco, so none of this makes sense to the average sane person.

Gundam sentinel for example is supposedly written and therefore owned by a magazine. So everytime the ExS Gundam is in a game, the pilot has to be faceless, because Bandai has no rights to him.

I'm sure Hasegawa is willing to jump through all sorts of funny hoops to get a niche model kit out, but Bandai is too big a boat to expect navigating such niche matters for IP that isn't even their own, as much as I'd like to see them do it.

But they did do the VF-2SS in HMR, wasn't that non-canon?  Agree 100% with your IP perspective, I also keep hearing it's really about sticking to primary characters.  Fringe items are left to the garage shops etc.   And that might explain why the VF-2SS squeaked through?  Primary vehicle from M2 so they negotiated the IP rights to produce? 

[twich]

2 hours ago, djivaldi7 said:

But they did do the VF-2SS in HMR, wasn't that non-canon?  Agree 100% with your IP perspective, I also keep hearing it's really about sticking to primary characters.  Fringe items are left to the garage shops etc.   And that might explain why the VF-2SS squeaked through?  Primary vehicle from M2 so they negotiated the IP rights to produce? 

Macross 2 is not non-canon, just a different continuity. Like the different Gundam timeline.

Twich

[Chronocidal]

They also produced several paint schemes (Ozma's. Rod's, and Isamu's YF-29s) and one valk (the YF-30) that are entirely unique to either Macross 30, or one of the other games.  I seriously doubt there is an IP issue there.

There were also a lot of really good schemes out of Macross 30 that they entirely ignored, probably because they were on other valks that didn't sell as well, and they didn't see them as worth the investment.  I'd probably chalk Aisha's pink VF-19A up to that as well, since I really don't know how well it would have sold, but even with how bad the VF-171 releases were, I would have absolutely grabbed the Diamond Force or Millia repaints they gave it in the game.

Edited September 15 by Chronocidal

[David Hingtgen]

Macross 30's "use, and lack of use" by Bandai is so weird----they made the YF-30 itself, but none of its AWESOME repaints in the game to get any use out of the mold.  But they made -29 repaints.  But not Mei's awesome white+purple -27...

[Slave IV]

6 hours ago, PointBlankSniper said:

Well, tbf, all that stuff is kind of non canon or outsourced designs. Bandai pretty much only deals in mainstream canon when it's not gundams.

Even then, they won't even complete a line up of all the mechs from any specific gundam show. Even one offs for very popular designs from their own side stories is a big maybe at best.

There's also weird stories of japanese copyright issues too. A game studio or magazine, or even just a seperate department of the same company, could tangle up IP ownership and stop someone else from using a design somewhere down the line. Even anime cannot legally use their own titles after a season ends. That's where you get weird titles with extra exclamation marks or random new wording when a new season comes out. Gintama for example, with all the seasons full of punctuation marks in their titiles, had to even be "moved to a whole new animation studio" in name at some point, because of strange legalities. They had to move from Sunrise to Bandai Namco Pictures, just to make a sequel with the exact same staff. Both studios are still just under Bandai Namco, so none of this makes sense to the average sane person.

Gundam sentinel for example is supposedly written and therefore owned by a magazine. So everytime the ExS Gundam is in a game, the pilot has to be faceless, because Bandai has no rights to him.

I'm sure Hasegawa is willing to jump through all sorts of funny hoops to get a niche model kit out, but Bandai is too big a boat to expect navigating such niche matters for IP that isn't even their own, as much as I'd like to see them do it.

They've done a few non-canon valks. 

YF-29 Max, VF-1S Messer, Anniversary VF-1J,... I'm sure I'm forgetting more.

[twich]

8 minutes ago, Slave IV said:

They've done a few non-canon valks. 

YF-29 Max, VF-1S Messer, Anniversary VF-1J,... I'm sure I'm forgetting more.

YF-29 Max is from second Macross Delta Movie, so it is very much canon.

Twich

[Chronocidal]

Maybe crossed wires and thinking of the VF-0S HMR Max?

But yeah, they'll do weird one-off schemes sometimes, but I'm sure it's dependent on how well the base mold has sold.  The ridiculous abundance of YF-29 repaints is honestly staggering compared with everything else.