Sorry about the late reply. Not sure how I missed this. But I don't think Stick is up anymore on HLJ. I too only see Ray, and now Belmont.
Quality control. Go back a couple of dozen pages and you'll see me lamenting about the shoddy tolerances on my copy of Stick. When Rey came out, they seemed to have fixed all the problems and I heard that another release of Stick came out with the improved QC (this is a lot of guess work and hopeful thinking. So while my Rey stands proud in his Ride Armor mode, my Stick lays in a box with his bike in pieces because I had pretty much rage-quit the transformation.
Aaahh shit, I picked up a first-release Stick and haven't opened the box yet. Maybe i'll just pawn it off then....
I say at least give it a try. If parts keep popping of balljoints at the slightest application of pressure, you have a dud. If it holds together and pops off only with more significant pressure, that should be about normal.
The ankle armor pops off when I so much as glance at it, so i'm thinking i'm not even going to bother. Ah well.
You guys weren't kidding when you said these things are fiddly I transformed Ray's into armor, and then back to bike. I didn't particularly care at that point to transform Stick For now they'll be in the detolf in bike mode. But I did notice Ray's instructions had Belmont's ride armor next to it on the cover: It's the same as the box art so I was wondering if they weren't hinting as to what was next? If that's the case, I wonder if Belmont's box art and instructions wouldn't feature Houqet's (Rook's) ride armor too?
Looking good. Maybe theres a difference between each item but all four of mine are pretty solid. Yes things do pop odd but for the most part they are stiff all over. All 4 are version 1.
So is there a way to tell from the packaging which is the v.1 Stick and the v.2 re-release, or is it a crapshoot? And is it the case that Ray is markedly improved over Stick?
Anybody know anything about the Aoshima Mospeada 1/12 ride armor kit? Is it any good? Is it snap-fit?
It's the old Imai kit in an Aoshima box. Must have built 5 or 6 of that kit in the day: it was fiddly junk back then, and it's fiddly junk now. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that doesn't have extensive modeling skills and even at that, you'd get a better model built from scratch with less grief.
this was like my second ever Mecha model, found at a local mom-and-pop hobby shop back around 1992/1993 for $16.00. i must have been something like eleven~twelve at the time. the box art left a powerful impression upon me, from the first moment i laid eyes upon it. i was instantly hooked on to Mecha Anime and it's associated plastic modelling hobby right on the spot, and it has remained as such ever since...
