Misrule

Quite busy this week, we got the preview too with a bit of a fleet battle

Few new ships to report on, hopefully Bandai will put these ones out at a reasonable price First is the mass produced Andromeda type in a nice blue scheme then a carrier variant with a literal flat top holding 180 fighters And finally the Main Earth ship of the line. Where the Andromeda type are meant to be flagships these ships are the backbone of the fleet Nice to see some English names too on these craft, more of a united Earth fleet feel to it

Reminds me, if Bandai do start doing kits with unmasked faces I'd really like to see some Rebel troopers. The Commando teams on Rogue One were among the best looking sci-fi troopers I've seen. Right up there with Colonial Marines and Tech-com

Not bad at all, giant robots punching giant monsters is still a great idea for a film

Not sure if mentioned yet but the next mecha kit is a Snowspeeder and AT-ST box set Not sure if its 144 scale, looks like it might be next to those TIEs

A 1/72 U-Wing would be excellent, plus the oft requested B-Wing and TIE Bomber Wouldn't say no to some assorted Rebel warships too... I can see them doing the Cargo AT-AT from Rogue One, but I'd say that's probably the only other big vehicle beside the U-Wing from that film. I'm sure next year we'll have some new ships from Episode VIII (Hopefully a bit more interesting than colour flipped TIE fighters) But before then hopefully we'll get some nice OT kits.

They did use the wing design on the Death trooper landing craft but it is such a minor ship I'd be surprised if it ever got kitted. Still, pretty simple design, probably wouldn't be hard to scratch

Looking forward to a top build Bit hit and miss on the Striker design myself, I can see it has a different function so is built heavier and with more guns, but then I saw this official concept art of what the Striker could have been... I love that ship. Hope it turns up in one of the other movies

Found a few pics of the Andromeda kit, the fellow who does the ship designs for the new series got his hands on a couple of early releases and built a couple up, one in standard grey and the other customised. The kit is 444mm long so pretty hefty, he has a few build photos on his twitter thingy https://twitter.com/makomako713/media

Pity about that Bandai plastic, you'd think big company like that would use a less reactive formula. Probably some guy in a suit with an abacus responsible Glad it is still on track despite obstacles and it looks superbly spiffy, blue and silver always a great combination

I only remember the one myself, plus the various other Earth ships, but I'm pretty sure they show up once or twice in later shows so at somepoint they must have made a few more

Something a bit different ] Well not the Yamato mini ships, but the figure. I quite liked the sci-fi look, sort of anime meets stormtrooper and I've been meaning to do a Koto kit for a while. Surprisingly hefty box so interesting to see what it ends up like Also scored a Bandai Boba Fett and Clonetrooper. I know the prequels are a bit hit and miss but Clones were awesome I also acquired a charming little Darjeeling figurine from Girls und Panzer but that's not quite sci-fi

Funnily enough the next generation of Earth ships do have some Gamilas flavour, those big side vents are very Domelaze style.... They have enclosed engines too like Gamilas ships instead of the big rockets of the old school Earth fleet. Probably took a while to get it integrated, my guess is its a sign of technology sharing. Earth does like those T-Shaped superstructures though Though oddly the Andromeda Mark II has a plain looking bridge Be very interesting to see the Andromeda design with an alternate bridge, you could definitely make it work

My guess is those other Andromeda types are going to have a very short service life and the old ships will need to make a come back to save the day the DVD art looks pretty nifty The Andromeda looks mean of course and the Yamato is stripped down in dock there. That big ship behind her is a Gatlantis Dreadnought, we haven't seen that one in the trailers yet so they are probably saving it as a challenge. Very big looking warship.

You're right, they are looking very young and fresh faced still No worry lines from having to save the Earth or anything! Natural born heroes I can only assume Should be most of the same folks save the few that were killed last time out, plus a whole new bunch of Green baddies to look forward to though in theory the main villain from 2199 should be showing up for a second attempt at revenge. Not sure what is happening with Yamato in this one, she looks like she's in pieces in the videos. In the old show they had decommissioned her and planned to make her a museum ship as while she was a powerful vessel she was very crew heavy and built to prototype specs. The new fleet was more automated, more advanced, and in the case of Andromeda more potent as a warship in every aspect. Might be the same here. Though again in the old one Andromeda was a one off brand new prototype super ship, this time they are mass producing them which is potentially awesome. We already have a Carrier variant of the Andromeda beside the standard battleship design and some different paint schemes, all we need is an affordable kit As a small aside that new fighter? One with all the missiles? Someone spotted that the tail code reads 'Moonbase Alpha' as a nod to Gerry Anderson

Another update bit more action, more characters, more irritatingly expensive Andromeda

Pretty big fellow BSG was a good show, especially the first two series which was just non stop tension and drama, loved it. These Cylons were quite intimidating but I admit I like the old ones better, Disco Cylons as a mate of mine calls them I think they actually did show up in the last few episodes which was a nice treat. Anyway love the worn out look, probably those smug human-cylons making him do all the heavy lifting! awesome cat too!

Then they are fools because if they really knew SW designs they'd be aware that the very first TIE designs such as the Inquisitor TIE from Rebels had the same wing/radiator assembly as this Infiltrator had in episode 1, so if the TIE series evolved to full radiator panels and then Interceptor style curved wings then there is no reason the Infiltrator design can't show the same evolution. All you have done here is recreate the TIE series evolution on a larger ship, and as both craft lines are made by the same corporation, SIenar Systems, makes sense they would share design traits and components. Here's the early TIE- Exactly the same wings as the original Infiltrator, they even fold to land. So if they ever modernised this craft in the same way they modified the TIE's it would almost certainly look like yours. Well, if nothing else its a pretty good argument

Didn't really like Delta, it was more pop idol magic girls in space fighting mind control through the power of song and not really offering any set piece combat. A real tragedy as it had some amazing aircraft and warship designs, this jet in particular looks superb, but never really exploited them. The original Macross series was solid for it's era and Macross Zero remains excellent, the rest is a bit of a mixed bag. That said I'll definitely grab one of these one day, maybe wait for Hasegawa to do a simple jet kit, and I really, really want the VF-31A variant.

Excelsiors are grand ships, nice sleek 80s design, definitely a product of its era Remember getting this kit for my 12th birthday so very keen to see how it turns out, definite nostalgia kick happening

Bit more information on the Andromeda, she's due out in March for the rather princely sum of 12,000 yen. Which is mental. The Domelaze which is as big as a 1/350 carrier was about 9,000 if I recall and the Andromeda isn't close to that size, most likely its the light and sound additions that are bumping the price into orbit. Bit disappointed, was quite looking forward to this ship but not at that price. With a bit of luck a static version will show up later for those of us less easily impressed by bright lights and noise They are also bringing back the Earth Force warship box set (Battleship, cruiser and destroyer) but presumably in the newer blue and grey schemes rather than the lolipop colours of the original

Very aggressive looking craft, has a more raider or attack ship feel to it, love the new lines. Got to be something parked in Darth Vader's garage

I'd guess that K2 probably has a fine film of grime and dust over him and the dark scratches are where the grime has been scratched to reveal the plain paint scheme underneath. I don't want to say I know that from what my car looks like this time of year, however... That'd be my guess anyway, especially if he is on a desert world.

I think the company that distributes them had some problems getting it all together for a western release. Luckily the Japanese release had English subtitles as an option so you can at least get the story but I haven't heard of any voice dubs for the new batch, or even a conclusive western release. Seems to have been that they didn't expect it to do quite as well as it did, the Asian release was fine but they botched it elsewhere. Fortunately this new series starting next month which is the Comet Empire story seems a bit more together, they already have some English advertising and are using the Starblazer name from the start so with a bit of luck we might see a much more organised western release. Maybe more kits closer to here too, cheaper shipping would be a blessing especially if the Gatlantis capital ships end up as big as it looks like they are I'd like to say I have the DVDs.... Probably best not to mention exactly where I found them, bit of a funny grey area on the whole legal front and I'd not want to cause bother for this forum But a quick google and a stout adblocker should see you right. But you didn't hear it from me

Yeah I agree, the tooled up one looks like it's an unmanned experiment to me, that cockpit looks pretty small to fit a pilot into and we know the Earth fleet is still using regular looking fighters as their main strength. But if you were to combine the regular Earth fighters with the gunned up one you'd end up with something very similar to that sketch, I definitely think that's going to end up being the future Earth fighter in the series. Even drawn by the same artist so i guess it makes sense