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 Manchu wrote:
Seriously though, I love Minmei. RoboTech would not be RoboTech without Minmei.

To be fair she's quite likable in Macross Ai Oboete Imasu Ka (where that gif is from). Actually it's Misa who is whiny in the movie. You've seen the Macross movie right?

 judgedoug wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Seriously though, I love Minmei. RoboTech would not be RoboTech without Minmei.

To be fair she's quite likable in Macross Ai Oboete Imasu Ka (where that gif is from). Actually it's Misa who is whiny in the movie. You've seen the Macross movie right?

It was my very first contact with Robotech/Macross (first VHS tape I ever rented). Love it to bits, even though it has some weird stuff. Robotech was... alright, in comparison, but...

 Albertorius wrote:
It was my very first contact with Robotech/Macross (first VHS tape I ever rented). Love it to bits, even though it has some weird stuff. Robotech was... alright, in comparison, but...

I hope it was the uncut Macross and not the horribly cut Clash of the Bionoids! Someone decided to remove like 30 minutes of, y'know, plot, from Macross and release that abomination, haha.

 judgedoug wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
It was my very first contact with Robotech/Macross (first VHS tape I ever rented). Love it to bits, even though it has some weird stuff. Robotech was... alright, in comparison, but...

I hope it was the uncut Macross and not the horribly cut Clash of the Bionoids! Someone decided to remove like 30 minutes of, y'know, plot, from Macross and release that abomination, haha.

We didn't get that thing over here Not sure why, but hey, won't complain.

Japanese Minmei is way less annoying to me. Also Mari lijima was just at macrossworld 2014 last weekend in LA last weekend and I missed it. So sad.

 Swabby wrote:
Japanese Minmei is way less annoying to me. Also Mari lijima was just at macrossworld 2014 last weekend in LA last weekend and I missed it. So sad.

Yep, Minmay is way less annoying in the original series, and in the movie and Flashback 2012 she's kinda great. Mari Ijima helps A LOT in that, though.

Of course, she's no Sharon Apple or Sheryl Nome, and if you really want annoying, take a look at Ranka...

Macross DYRL and Flashback 2012 are also two of the only places where Haruhiko Mikimoto's beautiful and distinctive character designs are accurately portrayed in animation.
Especially Flashback 2012. The animation is incredible and looks like Mikimoto drew every frame.

Ah man why the Ranka hate? She has done wonders for Nyan Nyan publicity.

Nooooooo I can't stand Macross 7 or Frontier!

edit: and we are wayyyy off topic now

But I love M7 and MF. I even have some of the valkyries from both shows in 1/60.

 Cypher-xv wrote:
But I love M7 and MF. I even have some of the valkyries from both shows in 1/60.

Kinda not a fan of any of the mecha designs after the VF-11. Also not a fan of the plots, or really any of the characters, in M7 and MF
I've got a 1/48 Yamato VF-1J Super and a 1/60v2 Yamato VF-1S Strike on display in my office at work Keepin' it oldschool!

judgedoug wrote:Macross DYRL and Flashback 2012 are also two of the only places where Haruhiko Mikimoto's beautiful and distinctive character designs are accurately portrayed in animation.
Especially Flashback 2012. The animation is incredible and looks like Mikimoto drew every frame.

I loved Macross 7 Trash back in the day, even if Mikimoto's style had changed a lot over time.

Swabby wrote:Ah man why the Ranka hate? She has done wonders for Nyan Nyan publicity.

She kind of gets on my nerves. I liked her on the movies, though.

judgedoug wrote:Nooooooo I can't stand Macross 7 or Frontier!

Cypher-xv wrote:But I love M7 and MF. I even have some of the valkyries from both shows in 1/60.

I love them, TBH, even though M7 went down, down the stupid hole.

judgedoug wrote:edit: and we are wayyyy off topic now

That we are ^^

Macross: The first is way cool tool! Mikimoto retells the TV series and takes a detour. Too bad we'll never see it in english like Gundam:Origin. Ranka's not bad. Sheryl is better. Nothing beats Sharon Apple especially when it goes crazy.


Lots of inspirational stuff there for playing RTT. There are some great still images to use for terrain ideas for buildings and roads. More than in SDFM or DYRL. There, back on topic.

I plan on Playing my Macross 4CD set on loop while playing and Building.

Notice Ben was so "American"

I remember being incredulous the first time I found out (many if not most) anime characters are supposed to be Japanese.

Hey, now that some people actually have their stuff, maybe we can get an answer to the Recovery Pod question?

On the picture in Update 139, the picture of the Recovery Pod,
appeared to be missing the pin on what I *think* is the left arm outer cowling (second piece from the left, top of the left sprue). There was speculation that it was either a poorly lit picture, a snapped piece, a short shot, or possibly even not a part of the final (at that point at least) mold. It was never answered at the time. Just curious if it was corrected in the final production.

There is a peg in the hollow of that piece on the sprues I received.

Like the small laser mounts on Wasp and Stingers I take it. As in when opening the container/package treat it like its a bomb in case something small and insignificant is thrown away Manchu?

 Manchu wrote:
There is a peg in the hollow of that piece on the sprues I received.

Coolies. It was a bit disconcerting for some that it wasn't answered at the time, highlighting the communication issues that were going on. Glad it was sorted out.

 Jihadin wrote:
Like the small laser mounts on Wasp and Stingers I take it. As in when opening the container/package treat it like its a bomb in case something small and insignificant is thrown away Manchu?

No. Back when they first showed off the Recovery Pod sprues, there were two pieces that connected; one had a peg, the other had a hole. This was something that you got two of (left and right), and an eagle eyed soul noticed that the second set had the hole, but no peg; either a sprue design flaw or a short shot or whatever.

While a minor thing, keep in mind how much gak some people were feeling they'd been fed, how getting solid info out of them seemed to be like pulling teeth, and suddenly what they were showing off not only wasn't "mouth watering" and in a kajillion pieces, but QA seemed iffy as well, and some people got pretty antsy.

 Jihadin wrote:
As in when opening the container/package treat it like its a bomb in case something small and insignificant is thrown away Manchu?

Forar answered about the peg but I will say I basically treat all miniature kits just as you describe.

Hello all! posted this up yesterday, but forgot to repost it here. I took a crack at the Defender (Or Rifleman, for us Inner Sphere types) and here’s some thoughts about it. Similar to my Spartan review, It's pretty in depth, but you can skip to the end for final verdicts.

I’m seeing some consistent trends with the RDF minis here. While the layout of the sprue is more open for the most part, some pieces are wedged in there pretty good and on a few of them the connection between part and sure is in an awkward location. The gun barrels in particular are crammed in there and will need EXTEMELY careful cutting. The piece count is once again high. However, things are starting to look up with this mini, and it is overall better than the Spartan. As always, final grade is at the end if you want to skip ahead.

The Build:

The torso area goes together well, but still too many piece to do so; the back plate may initially feel like it doesn’t fit, but it does, it actually snaps on a bit to be more secure. Be warned, there’s a massive seam running down the cockpit, and some mold lines on the left and right torso.

The waist plug that connects to the torso is shallow, but works, and most importantly allows you to rotate the torso for your final pose. Just to be clear, this part will need glued together, but you do have some choice in it its final pose. This will also be true for a couple other parts of the mini.
The legs fit together fairly well, with two pin connectors that fit the two halves together; connection to foot is also very solid, while it’s a small tab a lot of the foot fits flush with the leg for a good glue surface, and the foot itself will give a stable gluing connection to the base. *HOWEVER*, of the pieces I put together both have a minor gap near the bottom of the shin and one leg half was slightly offset from the other. As mentioned above, the legs are connected with 2 pins inside, so there’s not much leeway to slip up or down. I suspect this is a manufacturing error, the good news is on mine at least it’s small enough that once the model is assembled and painted neither of these things will ever be noticed. We’ll need more data from other backers to see if this is consistent, or just variations in the casting process. I suspect the latter.

On first glance, especially after the Spartan, the hip joints looked bad, but even after a quick dry fit I felt better about them. They look a little tenuous, but there’s enough surface area there to form a good bond. Also, they let you manipulate the legs a little bit for your pose, which is another good thing. For the most part, I really like the detail of the legs. I feel like they got that right, minus the thigh hole. By now you’ll have noticed the strange hole on the thighs. If you look at some art images of the Defender, this is meant to be a spotlight or running light, or possibly access port. Its purpose seems to vary a bit from art to art, and in fact some drawings don’t have them. They chose to try and put it on the mini, however, and to be blunt they failed. At this scale, it doesn’t look like anything other than a hole. I suspect some thoughtful paint application will make it look better, though some may wish to fill it. The other issue with the legs is that they too have joined the seam party, and I actually think they look a little worse than the Spartan.

The arms are pretty good, and the shoulder joint can rotate to your desired pose as well. The bad news is this joint is quite shallow, but it connects well enough. The forearm gun barrels plug right in, but the piece is slightly asymmetrical so I would advise looking close at the directions to make sure they are put in the right way.

THE GOOD STUFF: Some good poseability at the waist, thigh and shoulders. Details are pretty good overall, this looks much more like what I wanted. Good connections for most the pieces involved, all of them have at least one pin ridge or plug that connects it to the other pieces, making it a much more solid model, as well as a much easier build. While the bottom of the foot is hollow, there’s at least more total connection area to glue to the base, and the pose is also much more stable. Also, as you can see the mini can stand on its own very easily.

THE BAD STUFF: That damn seam down the cockpit is always gonna be front and center. The leg seams are pretty apparent as well. The Thigh Hole is a thing. Part count is still a bit high; the torso in particular. The shoulder connections are very shallow; they should have been deeper. While functional, time will tell if they become a structural weak point.

FINAL VERDICT: B – We’re getting better, and it does look pretty cool. Once I had it all together, the front seam was not the dealbreaker I thought it would be, For many of you, your personal verdict will be lower than mine but for me despite the front and center seam, and some slight manufacturing defects, the detail on this one feels and looks much better, and the poseability goes a long way. I do think the waist could have been made better by making it a ball joint instead of a plug, adding even more options. That’s the kind of extra design choice and finishing touch that would have put these over the top (well, that and minimizing the mistakes and strange choices.) Some good ideas can be seen here, and some bad as well. As it is, so far the RDF minis range from acceptable to good, and this one is much better than the Spartan.

Something I’ll test something out on this one tonight; I have some liquid green stuff (think of Green Stuff as a sculpting putty if you’re new to it.) that you can simply brush on and I think a quick pass with it will be enough to fix the seam. But it’s worth noting, that’s a step that shouldn’t be needed in the first place. Still, it should be a quick fix; I’ll post an addendum when I do so.
Tomorrow, we’ll try the Veritech Fighter!

Yeah, I haven't had many problems with seams 'cuz the plastic weld melts pieces together so well, but that center line gap is just absurdly bad. I was thinking of doing my destroids tonight, depending on when the lady's hair appointment is, so I'll post my own short-sentences-on-my-phone reviews

 Terwallace wrote:
Hello all! posted this up yesterday, but forgot to repost it here. I took a crack at the Defender (Or Rifleman, for us Inner Sphere types) and here’s some thoughts about it. Similar to my Spartan review, It's pretty in depth, but you can skip to the end for final verdicts. <snip>

Good review, I was able to follow all that.
Some questions now that you have all the parts in front of you:

1) Is there one leg assembly and then the option for "warhammer" or "rifleman" torso? I may have missed this being answered earlier. If there are options, magnets at the waist may be easily doable?

2) For shoulder and hip assemblies, do you think they would benefit from "pinning"? I hate weak joins (why I am hunting down glue that welds) so some strengthening may be in order.

3) Considering size and detail, would you recommend certain parts of assembly being kept separate for painting or all together should work out? (From the photos I would figure all one piece should work).

4) Any areas to look out for when clipping off the sprue? (Like the dreaded "cut the wrong part first and the other section snaps off...).

5) That "seam" in the front, is it an actual "mate-up" seam or a bit of a design flaw of the die making the joining sections longer than they should be (sanding the two sides a bit may correct?).

Thanks!

 Talizvar wrote:

Some questions now that you have all the parts in front of you:

1) Is there one leg assembly and then the option for "warhammer" or "rifleman" torso? I may have missed this being answered earlier. If there are options, magnets at the waist may be easily doable?

I can answer this - the leg assembles, much like the Phalanx, while similar, and based on the same core shared locomotive design (in the fluff), are actually different: the upper outside thighs/hips of the Defender, Tomahawk, and Phalanx, all have different storage box configurations.

I've got a lot of pics (56) from unboxing and working on the Battlesystems terrain for the table. Would you guys prefer me to post the pics and my explanations here or just put all the pics on a google drive and let you sift through them?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OK, 32 are from the terrain and the other 24 are from the unboxing.

Probably Google or imgur or hosted elsewhere that a single link can take us to the gallery
I think both let you put a description on each image though

Showdown Pics
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vNnB4UWlYZEJfcU0&usp=sharing

Terrain
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vT19Yem9zNHhsaEk&usp=sharing


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll see if I can label them

Photobucket is good for that as well.

Oh excellent, so the Expansion Boxes each have a decal sheet? That's fantastic!