Saw the RRT minis in person today

[Jerell]

I went by to drop something off for a friend, and I was graciously shown around the office and got to see all the Robotech pieces on hand. I also got to talk a little with Mr. Siembieda. Nice guy, I would say he's quite fired up to get RRT rolling out.

First let me talk about the battle pod and sprue. What they had on hand there looked fantastic. The battle pods put together on their desk looked great. Looking at them from gaming distance (from about 2 feet away) the only seems noticeable are the ones on the heavy missile pod, and they were fairly minor, nothing more than the seems on my 40k marines or Dark Eldar. Light artillery missile pods look great. Looking closely, like from a few inches away, you can see a seem on the very top. Again, it's minor. Single piece legs look fantastic. I'm certain I could put a pod together without instructions in a fairly short time, it looks like it'll go together easy even without instructions. I can't wait to get my own pods going, after seeing them physically, I believe I'll be selling off the last of my space marine company to make room (and capital) for a bigger Zentraedi strike group.

I saw the recovery pod they just got and have together, looks good, forgot how big the thing is compared to the other mecha.

Also looked at the hot topic of last month, namely the hastily reassembled destroids, the Spartan and Tomahawk. I was told that the seems are as bad as they are on those because they had to be pried apart and there was a lot of glue on the seems when they arrived. I believe Wayne has some other models to put together. That being said, I'd wait to see how those look before going nuts. I was looking at an assembled leg on a Tomahawk that looked much better than the reassembled prototype pictures. It was vastly better about seems than the hasty one we got pictures of. I'm hoping that will be the way freshly assembled ones look.

After looking over what the stuff looks like in person, I think the detail is good. I believe this is going to be good. I'm eagerly awaiting to see what the Male Power Armors are going to look like. It my personal hope that ND prioritizes finishing up RRT before they get too heavily involved in more projects.

[Jorel]

Thanks for the report. Makes me feel a bit better.

[rosco60559]

Glad to hear it, now where are the pics? Any chance if they estimated how much longer before production kicks off?

[Scott Gibbons]

Thanks Jerell, nice to get a first-hand report!

Did you remember to place the spy-cams while you were there?

[Jerell]

Me? I'm aware some war gamers don't care for model kits, and others plain don't like it. I'm also aware that some like building scale models, and some are even fanatical about scale realistic terrain. I've got war gaming friends that I've been playing 40k and Alzo Zero with for probably 2 decades now. Half of them are hard core modelers the other half aren't. Myself, I'm good at building models, like 1/72 dragon armor we use for Alzo Zero, but I absolutely hate putting some things together like Marine Drop Pods (I've built 3), all of which I've had trouble with the way some of it's pieces go together. Even my basic 40k plastic marine comes in 10 parts (more if I'm adding grenades, knife and iconography), it's just part of having to deal with plastic models for war gaming. Some people insanely detail the insides of Rhinos and Land Raiders, some don't. That being said, I would have been happy with single piece legs (plus a piece for the foot) for the destroids like the battle pods got.

Ideally I think it would be great if there was a place on the web were the designers, PB, and HG all had a representative and backers and interested players and interested Macross collectors could give input and get comms directly from the designer of said piece. But then I guess I'm an advocate of a non Byzantine system.

Thanks Jerell, nice to get a first-hand report!

Did you remember to place the spy-cams while you were there?

SSssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[Forar]

Y'know, someone is going to accuse me of being impossible to please, but I find it odd they have what sound like half a dozen other figures with sprues/completed products, but continue to only show the one (Support Pods). Glad to hear from an experienced wargamer that the seams aren't a big deal. Like others have advocated, I shall reserve judgement for when I see them myself, but at least someone who IS a wargamer has given a first hand account, rather than those of self admitted non-wargamers.

And I really hope their next update is today/tomorrow/saturday, and has something truly spectacular to share. They dropped the bomb that they hope to go to production by mid May, they really, really, really, really need to follow up on that with us transparently (even if it gets pushed back a week or whatever, I'll take bad news given honestly over BS).

[Alpha 11]

Thanks for the info! It puts my mind a little at ease.

[rosco60559]

I'm calling bs. there should be mention of these built mini in the new update on kickstarter. so either those were proto you saw and they let you think they were the real deal or somebody isn't telling the backers the truth.

[Kryptt]

Thank you for the insider info. Yes it will be nice when the vf sprues get here. Although for a project this big you'd think they would know if it was shipped or not. I mean I would use tracking and overnight delivery. This way I would have something else to show this week or next.

Then again considering how everything is being chopped up chances are the vf is in many bisected bits like the fighter version. Meaning PB will be crucified by the backers. Like when the backers were shown the spartan.

[Jorel]

I hope they aren't being charged the time the people on both sides sit waiting.

[Forar]

Whelp, we've seen sprues for the Zentraedi half of wave one now.

Considering they're supposed to start punching plastic in somewhere between zero days and two weeks from now, hopefully they (and we) see the RDF half in the very near future.

While it'd be nice to see how 'new modeler friendly' the figures are by having some of the PB staff assemble them to show off, at the very least John or someone at ND needs to get a sprue or two to build and test connections, ensure that everything is lining up correctly for assembly. Missing a mold fault and punching out tens of thousands of sprues only to catch a problem later could be disastrous.

And if things are being mailed from China to the US, they aren't going to have a whole lot of time to build and make those calls.

[Kryptt]

What gets me is if Wayne couldn't be bothered to put one together like we were promised, makes me think that the models are not beginner friendly. Also Wayne shouldn't use a hobby knife, he should use sprue clippers. The knife will make his job harder.

[Forar]

Yeah, I used a hobby blade on my Wyrd miniatures, and while the smaller/thinner pieces weren't a problem, the thicker connections definitely took more effort than I'd normally want to use, especially since that much force can cause pieces to go flying if something slips (not to mention not wanting to slip while holding a blade). Totally recommend spending $10-20 on petty cash and snagging an appropriate set of clippers.

Doesn't even have to be "Gale Force 9 clippers" or whatever, just hit a local hobby store or home depot or whatnot, they shouldn't be too hard to find.

[rosco60559]

seeing how thin some of that plastic looks like clippers and files are the way to go. also heard abs plastic and normal plastic cement don't mix very well so may have to just use super glue or find something new, other than the trusty old testors model master stuff.

[Jerell]

Yeah, I might have to test some different glues out to see what works best on these. Jeff had something special he was using, but I don't remember what it was, I'll see if I can find out.

Also Wayne shouldn't use a hobby knife, he should use sprue clippers. The knife will make his job harder.

Totally. I like the clippers that come in the Tamiya basic tool set myself. It's reasonably priced around 18 USD usually and you get a file and tweezers n' stuff too.

While it'd be nice to see how 'new modeler friendly' the figures are by having some of the PB staff assemble them to show off, at the very least John or someone at ND needs to get a sprue or two to build and test connections, ensure that everything is lining up correctly for assembly. Missing a mold fault and punching out tens of thousands of sprues only to catch a problem later could be disastrous.

That would be a nightmare and a half. ND gotta see the finished product... right?

Glad to hear from an experienced wargamer that the seams aren't a big deal. Like others have advocated, I shall reserve judgement for when I see them myself, but at least someone who IS a wargamer has given a first hand account, rather than those of self admitted non-wargamers.

Well, the battle pod/Zentraedi seams looked great that they had together there. I'm still concerned about how the production Tomahawks missile covers, and the dreaded Spartan seams will turn out. I mean, I got an explanation on why the seams were bad on the destroids we've all seen when I was there. I'm still waiting to see how those two will turn out. The missile pod covers especially. No reason those shouldn't be clean in the final production. But if they aren't, I'll have to get out my modeling puddy or green stuff. And I'll do it, but I'd really rather not have to. So let me restate - Zentraedi seams are good, got explanations on why pictured seams on destroids where bad, hoping to see Tomahawk missile pod covers and Spartan seams on final, fresh model to see how that turns out. Might even hold my breath on that one. How they go together without being glued and pried apart is what I want to see before I give any final judgment on that. There was one Tomahawk they had there that's leg seams did look better on though.

The 3D printed Defender they had assembled looked great too. If the production model is as good as the 3D printed pieces on the Defenders I'll be happy.

Eagerly awaiting Valkyrie pics now.

Oh yeah! One other thing, I was thinking about what Jorel said while I was there, so I did ask about the pre-shipping process. Was told they have a plan that includes checks, double checks and triple checks. They sounded like they were taking it very seriously.

[Kendachi]

They sounded like they were taking it very seriously.

This sounds real familiar to me.

They claimed to be taking something else seriously... oh, yeah.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that my reward makes it here with all my Spartans.

[Jerell]

Like, groovy man.