Aw yeah. According to the CD soundtracks I was listening to building him took a couple of hours last night (maybe 3), and by the time I was done my eyes were all bloodshot and strained from all the intense staring. This kit came in three boxes, 1 torso, the left arm/left leg and the right arm/right leg. Wach box had 4 or 5 sprues with all the bits on them. Instructions are the the reverse of the box, so take care opening the boxes, you don/t want to ruin the images. Sure you probably won't need the instructions but better safe than sorry right? Anyway the tools I needed for this was knife, nail file, toe nail clippers (for easy sprue removal), small scissors and superglue. Now while I'm no expert at Airfix/model kits, I'm not a novice either, but I did get a few things wrong with this fella. i) Some of the sprue connections are quite big. I sanded down a part I couldn't quite clip off with the nail clippers with a nail file, but ended up scratching and damaging more than if I just persevered with the nail clippers. Its the hatch on his left shoulder, its not really noticable but really, I shouldn't have made that bonehead mistake in the first place. You can see what I'm talking about in the second picture just above Microglides wing. ii) Max's left arm hatch thing (the red thing on his wrist) was snapped on the sprue. I 'think' I may have damaged it when I was separating the sprues from each other but I was all 'OMG SHIT!' Anyway, strategic superglue and its sound, but there's a slight distortion to it now, which can see in the 4th picture. If you look really closely you can see an extra warp or line thats not on the right arms hatch. iii) His right fist was oh so slightly too big for its position, but rather than sand it down slightly I thought I would just force it. Stupid stupid boy. Sure it popped in but caused MASSIVE stress marks on the back end of his wrist. The arm went straight into boiling water to alleviate the stress marks and its 75% better than it was, but some stress is visible. Doesn't seem to affect the toy at all though. Just fuggin' annoying that I did such a bonehead thing, which could have been a lot worse. Anyway apart from those three assembly went off without a hitch. Critisms, the labels are kinda poop, there's not enough of them and they're lower detail than the originals. His face label is one whole label, that ruins his face a bit, Max has a fully scupted face but the label covers all of it. Ideally only his eyes should be stickered so you can see the detail. If Reprolabels do a full set of labels based off the 80's toy I'll be on them in a FLASH. But yeah, all in all I'm very impressed with this. In city mode he's got a activated ramp tilt in his central bay, put Microcharger in there, press the lever and out he slides! Max also has a spring loaded launcher on one of the ramps, put its really too powerful for any of the Microbots, they just get blasted away. One thing though, in city mode the central bay can swing right up and over revealing the inside of the base, I can't see what its for or any G1 Fort Maxes that do this. Its not in the intructions either, it just 'is'. Why does it do this? I should really have taken a picture of it but y'know. I'm an ass.
I put mine together last night and did the same exact thing with one of the hands. It was tight, so rather than do anything smart I just Hulked it into the hole and was rewarded with stress marks on the plastic around the hole. I also had one of the leg turret hinge pegs break off as I was trying to snap it into place. I really like this set. It helps sooth some of my desire for a true Fort Max toy, looks good on the shelf with other TFs, is more articulated than the standard Kabaya kit (hips that can move forward, gasp!) and comes with what are essentially WST sized versions of my two favorite minibots. Speaking of which, unless I am mistaken I believe Windcharger is the first Kabaya TF that can be transformed without parts removal, even though he's so small you could inhale him and never notice. The sticker faces (and all of the stickers in general, really) are awful, but the faces are sculpted and can be easily painted so I wont complain. Now give me a Metroplex kit the same size with more minibots.
It's in the instructions, it's for adding play value to the #1 kit, assuming you only have that one. It opens up so you can put Windcharger all the way in there and still press the lever. If you put him all the way in there in normal base mode and press the lever he gets caught on the roof. All three kits have little (mostly lame) extras added to them to make them separately playable. I love this guy and I would totally be down for some reprolabel upgrades.
I have box #1 done so far and am really impressed. I suggest any of you attempting Kabaya kits get some dikes/snips/side cutters. That and a sharp knife makes dealing with the sprue flash much more pleasant. The dikes are also super handy for cutting TFs out of their plastic prisons.
Got this guy today. He's amazing! No partforming, all the articulation of the original, with most of the major features still intact. If I can get ahold of another, I might be tempted to paint and detail as a classics Marvel G1 Fortress Maximus. His size is perfect for that. I even find myself really liking the tiny Powerglide and Windcharger, who I was pretty sure would suck. My only complaint about anything in this set is that Windcharger's legs pop off whenever I bend them to transform him. Because thread lacked size comparison:
Painted all of the faces today, or in FM's case just his eyes. Looks MUCH better than the stickers. Also, don't be a dunce like me and put Windcharger together without the tiny middle wheel (I didn't use the instructions and missed it on the sprue). When I tried to take him apart to put the wheel in, the grey panel was so tight that I ended up stressing the plastic and breaking one of the connector pegs.
Looks great. Can't wait to get mine in. I'll def have extras so if anyone wants one I'll be tossing them in my sale thread once I have them in hand.
Just finished building it. This guy's amazing. Just wish he could store the remaining gun in bot mode.
I might try to snag this guy, he looks like a great first try of a Kabaya. Originally considered getting the Protectobots & Hotspot, but this looks pretty sweet.
Hm, I was just looking at their site yesterday thinking about getting a second set and I swear it said in stock. Sorry for the misinformation.
Never know, they might have had some more come in between me checking last week and checking again today.
