At least by GW.  Okay, it has a pilot in an enclosed cockpit that has to be painted before getting past the first step in assembly, that is okay.  Glue together the seat, legs and cockpit back.  Glue together the torso and head.  Glue the control panel down.

Now, paint everything, including arms & shoulder pads taking care not to paint areas to be glued, especially on control panel.  Add Black Templar icon on left shoulder.  Given, painting all that with any detail was a PITA, but it looks pretty good and will look better when finished.  It really wasn't hard at all.

Last thing to do, slide the cockpit cover over and glue it down.....wait, it won't go on....WTH, I checked it several times....oh wait...THERE ARE TWO FRICKING FLANGES BLOCKED BY THE CONTROL PANEL!  Where is my knife....okay problem solved.

Notice, something easy to do up to that point is designed as a major PITA.  If you assemble it in order (control panel after everything else), then you cannot detail it well.  If you detail everything else in assembly order, then you are stuck trying to glue in the torso, arms and/or control panel either in pieces or as a unit (which you hopefully have lined up just right) all in the now enclosed cockpit area.

Solution?  Cut those two little bits off the cover and be done with it.  Although next time, I'm going to try the trick with super hot water and fabric dye to "sunscreen" the cockpit, that way I'll get some more Marine bitz to use later.

I've seen a few I've wanted to get into, but never could justify to myself the idea of getting a good game that will 90% likely get looked at and sit on a shelf.   Palladium is doing a Robotech tabletop game on Kickstarter and I couldn't resist.  I'm old enough that I remember when the show was playing originally and at the time all you had was "nothing serious ever happens and everyone will be back next week" on TV for cartoons.  Then watching this nifty little anime, out of the blue, one of the major characters dies!  Not some big heroic Horatius at the bridge thing (poem), but rather stupidly (hit, skipping medical check and dying of internal injuries at his girl's place).  Necessary for story development, but it wasn't obvious at the time.

Even if I don't play this one, I can live with that...after all, it is Robotech.