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[Warcry]

Picked up both of them, even though I figured I could let Starscream sit for a while (I get the feeling Grimlock will be the faster selling one, but couldn't help myself).

That's how it is around here! Every other POTP figure sold out in a snap and hasn't been restocked yet, but I could buy at least five Starscreams without going out of my way.

Can't say that I blame folks. He looks really blah in the package with his oversized limbs, ugly stickers and plain, half hollowed out wings. It really emphasizes all of his worst features. Grimlock's robot mode at least looks pretty cool in the box, regardless of whatever problems you might find when you open him.

[ganon578]

That's how it is around here! Every other POTP figure sold out in a snap and hasn't been restocked yet, but I could buy at least five Starscreams without going out of my way.

Can't say that I blame folks. He looks really blah in the package with his oversized limbs, ugly stickers and plain, half hollowed out wings. It really emphasizes all of his worst features. Grimlock's robot mode at least looks pretty cool in the box, regardless of whatever problems you might find when you open him.

I think you can tell that it's one of those 'Torso-first' designs and everything else came after. And I still wish they would mold a SS head that has a smirk, or something with a little character. All of his recent art features the smirk, though all we get is stone-face SS. The other thing that struck me is the jet mode - it doesn't really scream SS to me. It looks more like CW Silverbolt to me. The mold designs in the blue parts of his body also appear destined for repainting into somebody else.

[Warcry]

I get what you mean re: Silverbolt. Starscream basically wears the whole jet mode on his back, doesn't he? I don't think they could have done much else, not with him being a combiner torso. The G1 Seeker transformation is unique and iconic, but I think doing it properly would have made the torso mode pretty unstable. And I actually think the torso mode comes out pretty well, kind of a blend of his G1 and Movie looks.

I think the reason why they don't give him a smirk is because they're hoping to repaint it as Skywarp or Thundercracker later and don't want to have to remold the head to make it more character-appropriate. They totally should, though. It'd fit the character so much better. As is, it's like how Reveal the Shield Jazz just feels kinda off because he's got the most "serious business" face of all time.

[Tantrum]

PotP Grimlock - The dino mode looks great from the front. That sounds like faint praise, but with the Animated and, I believe, FoC Grims having blatant gaps in the dino chest, without even an attempt to conceal the bot head, PotP Grim looks pretty good. The dino back has the combiner waist plate in plain view, as well as the panel concealing the combined head, but at least it looks fairly solid.

The tail isn't just blocky, it's flat. They could have made the dino body taper off into the tail better without harming the functionality of the bot and torso modes. But, the other two modes would have looked worse.

I don't think he's a torso-first design, since the torso's a bit of a kludge. The shoulders are too wide. Putting the extra hand/armor things in his sides helps, especially if you attach them to the holes in the dino legs, not the bot chest. The width does prevent bulky deluxes causing combiner arms to bump into the torso/thighs, which I've had with CW combiners. It works better than I thought it would from pictures, though I still think they should've gone with Sludge as the torso.


TLK Nitro - I was going to pass on this guy due to the amount of blatant leg kibble under the wings. But, I saw him on clearance, gave him a shot, and am glad I did. The instructions try to show all the molded detail on too small a page, and are pretty useless. Fortunately, his leg splitting and asymetrical arm transformaion are similar enough to Dragonstorm that I was able to figure him out on my own.

The way the wings fold into the shoulder cannons is clever. The cockpit becoming a melee weapon is clever. The way the arms fold into the torso is clever. And then you point the toes and fold the legs under the wings. It's like Hasbro's decided that a ridiculous amount of non-aerodynamic kibble under plane mode wings is a feature, not a bug.


RiD Galvatronus - After picking up Ultra Bee and Shocknado (the purple crash combiner) I decided to give one of the 5 member teams a shot, and picked the one that looked better. Cyclonus is a decent toy on his own, though the bot mode lacks articuation.

Cyberwarp and Skyjack (the arm bots) have ball jointed shoulders and hinged hips and knees, though the legs don't separate. They basically have the articulation of a titanmaster, sans neck joint. That's more than the limb bots I grew up with, so I'm satisfied. The leg bots are bricks, like Strongarm and Sideswipe.

The vehicle modes don't look like any real world vehicle, but do look like vehicles that someone would design on their own, not just bot pieces jumbled together, which is what I want out of a cybertronian mode.

My only complaint is that the connector joints in the legs are awkwardly placed within the leg bots, not at the actual knee. This means that only the skinny leg of a 5-bot torso can fit down there to make a connection. I was hoping to give one leg each to Ultra Bee and Shocknado so they could hop around, Kuribo's shoe style, but that's impossible.


Tribute Optimus Prime/Orion Pax - Optimus is kind of tricky since he's packed slightly mistransfromed to fit in the box better, so he doesn't match the starting point of the instructions.

Orion Pax (TM Kup repaint) is why I wanted the set, and is definitely the highlight. The way the sides of the vehicle fold to become the legs results in a near kibble free bot mode without a complicated transformation. It reminded me a bit of Prime Vehicons.

[ganon578]

I was able to open up Starscream and fiddle with him over the last two nights and... very disappointed. I would warn against anyone rushing out to get him at full retail; I paid $25 USD, and he's probably worth $10-15. The jet mode is quite chunky on the bottom, as he's just folded up underneath, and poorly at that. I'm having a hell of a time getting his arms to peg in properly without splitting the legs/engines apart. I don't think this is an isolated incident either, as a couple of reviews I have seen mention the same thing. Some panels don't line up properly, and the null rays themselves don't plug in deeply to the wings so they fall out easy.

As for the robot, he's just OK. Not balanced very well, and the stickers are shoddy. I haven't yet found a good way to position his arms with the null rays, without them going straight out to the side.

Oddly, the TR Voyagers made it a point to put up the 'cheek protectors' to make their heads look bigger, and with SS they just molded him a tiny head. At least Grimlock's is the proper size.

I get what you mean re: Silverbolt. Starscream basically wears the whole jet mode on his back, doesn't he? I don't think they could have done much else, not with him being a combiner torso. The G1 Seeker transformation is unique and iconic, but I think doing it properly would have made the torso mode pretty unstable. And I actually think the torso mode comes out pretty well, kind of a blend of his G1 and Movie looks.

Yep, that jet is essentially stuck there on one rotating peg. It gives him a good back silhouette, but sadly hampers his arms with anything pegged into his shoulders. I haven't put him into torso mode yet, but I hope to do so this weekend. Maybe that will be his saving grace.

I think the reason why they don't give him a smirk is because they're hoping to repaint it as Skywarp or Thundercracker later and don't want to have to remold the head to make it more character-appropriate. They totally should, though. It'd fit the character so much better. As is, it's like how Reveal the Shield Jazz just feels kinda off because he's got the most "serious business" face of all time.

I have that feeling too. Unfortunately I would feel slightly compelled to get Skywarp because of his sweet color palette, but the figure is just a stinker.

PotP Jazz's face errs on the side of serious as well.

PotP Grimlock - The dino mode looks great from the front. That sounds like faint praise, but with the Animated and, I believe, FoC Grims having blatant gaps in the dino chest, without even an attempt to conceal the bot head, PotP Grim looks pretty good. The dino back has the combiner waist plate in plain view, as well as the panel concealing the combined head, but at least it looks fairly solid.

The tail isn't just blocky, it's flat. They could have made the dino body taper off into the tail better without harming the functionality of the bot and torso modes. But, the other two modes would have looked worse.

I don't think he's a torso-first design, since the torso's a bit of a kludge. The shoulders are too wide. Putting the extra hand/armor things in his sides helps, especially if you attach them to the holes in the dino legs, not the bot chest. The width does prevent bulky deluxes causing combiner arms to bump into the torso/thighs, which I've had with CW combiners. It works better than I thought it would from pictures, though I still think they should've gone with Sludge as the torso.

You're right, FoC Grimlock's chest was a gaping hole. The PotP version covers this much better.

I was surprised at how wide the T-Rex looked when viewed straight on. It's not a deal-breaker, mind you, just surprising. Pretty fun in dino mode otherwise! I have trouble getting the top of the legs to peg in properly for the tail. The tip and mid fit together just fine. Am I doing something wrong? It's like his hip joints are too far apart for it to snugly tab together.

Robot-wise, he's light-years ahead of Starscream... I'm still sad he didn't come with a weapon though. I'll have to try him in torso mode this weekend too.

[Tantrum]

The dino is a bit wide. A lot of it's the bulky bit shoulders giving thick dino hips. I've got PotP Grim next to his Animated, Energon, and RiD15 counterparts. The RiD one might actually have it worse. The Animated one looks better due to narrow bot arms. The best T-Rex mode might actually be the Energon one, since it's got rounded dino hips to minimize the extra width, and doesn't have a gap anywhere.

I have no problem getting the top part of PotP Grim's tail together, and can easily put a Titan Master on the two pegs there. However, this leavs a gap on the underside of the tail, where the stickered sections do not touch. Maybe you need to rotate the bot thighs just a bit.

I think the reason why they don't give him a smirk is because they're hoping to repaint it as Skywarp or Thundercracker later and don't want to have to remold the head to make it more character-appropriate.

If they're going to make more torsos out of this mold, I hope they make a lot more limbs. I already have more torsos than limbs to go with them from CW, and I doubled up on some Deluxes when they hit discounters. They've announced 3.5 sets of limbs for PotP, and 5. If they're going to do more PotP Seekers, I'd hope for a Deluxe Thundercracker/Skywarp/Acid Storm/Sunstorm mold, a Legends weapon Dirge/Ramjet mold, and a Legends armor Thrust mold for 1 all Seeker combiner instead of several orphaned torsos.

TR Slugslinger - He's a reworking of Triggerhappy, but without the rotation in the back. He wears his jet wings as a backpack instead of on his arms, which may help articulation, but doesn't look as good. My only real beef is that I thought the flight stand mounting hole would be on the bottom, which would make it easy to make a stand out of Mega Blocks. But, it's on top, which would be more complicated.

TR Wingspan and Cloudraker - I was going to skip these, since the original clones were one of the things that put me off TFs back in the day. What was the point of having supposedly identical bot modes, with special rubsigns to reveal which was which, when it was obvious from their kibble who was whom?

But, since these two were sold together, without their alleged twins, I figured I'd give them a shot as stand alone toys. I wanted to have a TM ride around on a little bird, and now I can, so I'm satisfied. The jet's OK, too, with a little seat that opens up.

[HeavyArms]

RID 2015 Strongarm - Wasn't originally going to buy this figure, but not much was of interest to me at the time so I thought to myself 'why not?'

[Skyquake87]

Classics Constructicon Devastator
I picked up one of the limbs for a a few quid at TFNation and haven't stopped fiddling with it and enjoyed it enough to see if I could track the set down. Took 6 months of waiting for a reasonably priced set to come up (or one at all in the UK), but I finally got one! This was the 2007 Walmart exclusive recolour of the Energon Constructicon team in G1-ly colours. The set looks lovely - I love the vibrant colours they've used - and each of the individual robots are pretty decent, although the crane mould remains the weakest of all the Energon combiner limbs - that big goofy boom arm just isn't practical and gets in the way of everything. The gestalt isn't too bad, but on this example at least, the leg connections are quite weak, so the legs tend to fall off when you pick up Devastator. What really harms it - as with all the Energon gestalts - is the narrow waist which really limits how you can successfully get this thing to stand. Plugging the foot / claw connectors into the two payloaders also rapidly scrapes the paint off the figures too, which is annoying.

[ganon578]

I have no problem getting the top part of PotP Grim's tail together, and can easily put a Titan Master on the two pegs there. However, this leavs a gap on the underside of the tail, where the stickered sections do not touch. Maybe you need to rotate the bot thighs just a bit.

Yep, that was the problem. The left hip needed to be straightened by one click to make it more snug. It's so subtle I didn't even notice at first.

If they're going to make more torsos out of this mold, I hope they make a lot more limbs. I already have more torsos than limbs to go with them from CW, and I doubled up on some Deluxes when they hit discounters. They've announced 3.5 sets of limbs for PotP, and 5. If they're going to do more PotP Seekers, I'd hope for a Deluxe Thundercracker/Skywarp/Acid Storm/Sunstorm mold, a Legends weapon Dirge/Ramjet mold, and a Legends armor Thrust mold for 1 all Seeker combiner instead of several orphaned torsos.

Same here, though not to the same extent. Right now I'm sitting on CW Cyclonus and PotP Starscream, with no real limbs in sight (save for Dreadwind and the incoming Darkwing). So that takes care of half of one. Now I just need 6 more (appropriate) limbs.

Also, I finally put SS into torso mode, and it may be his saving grace... it doesn't exonerate him from his previous shortcomings though. He's sturdy all around and the look is pretty neat in the end. As Tantrum mentioned above, I hope we get some other Seekers, and I would even be happy with the non-coneheads being the limbs. Probably a missed opportunity for Hasbro to simply repaint the Voyager mould though.

Through putting him in torso mode, I also fixed an issue with his alt-mode: the arms have a small nub that 'locks' them into place for functioning as his torso legs. This is also required (something I missed earlier) for snapping the arms in nicely in jet mode. It's still not great, but at least it's better.

Classics Constructicon Devastator

I used to have that guy too! I think your opinion hits it well. Pretty fun (mostly) and the colors are fantastic, but there a few issues that drag him down. I never could quite grasp the weird-ish non-descript face. I wish it was a little more clean like the original design. And he was an absolute chore to get into any sort of 'action' pose.

[Tantrum]

When I hit Walmart last week, the shelves were pretty bare, but there was a printout by the pegs listing how to stock PotP stuff. It was dated 15 Jan, so I stopped by again today. No PotP stuff I didn't already have, but I did get:

TLK Wave 3 Bumblebee - This is my 7th movie Bee purchase, and my first at regular retail. I got the black Power Battler at TJ Maxx, and the rest at 2nd hand shops and flea markets. He looks good, and the transformation is clever. But, stuff pops off pretty easily, and it can be tricky to get everything lines up correctly. If he'd been made slightly larger, like the Deluxes of earlier movies, that might've helped. His weapon is a cannon that can replace his left forearm, instead of being hand held. If he can transform with that in place, I'll probably just leave it in all the time.

They also had Turbo Changer marked down to $2. That still wan't enough to get me to buy TC Bee, who looked pretty awful, but I did get the other 3:

Megatron - 5 movies in, and I still don't have a full size Megatron. I've got the little beige truck that came with a trailer/base, Power Battlers Galvaton, and now this guy. He's pretty nice. He does a better job of concealing his bot parts in jet mode than most fill size planeformers. His head is completely covered, and there's no bot parts under the wings. The only flaw is his feet fold down below the jet instead of hiding away anywehere, and even this acts to make the plane display level when you set it down. If there's any left next time I'm there, I may pick up more.

Berserker - Having the Deluxe Berserker and Crankcase, I wanted a Dread that I could actually get into SUV mode. This fits the bill, though the bot's backpack is ridicuous. It's not only large, it sticks way out.

Grimlock - I already own this mold in another color scheme, but it's good enough to own again. I like watching all the bot pieces fall into place when all you do is unfold the T-Rex legs. I may display these next to my other movie dinos as the TLK baby Grims.

[Tetsuro]

Encore Bruticus

Probably because of how bad Hasbro's Piranacon reissue had it, the Encore Bruticus doesn't seem so bad, apart from the aesthetical issues brought about by mold degradation. At least unlike the aforementioned Piranacon, he can actually stand straight.

[Warcry]

POTP Dreadwind. He's an Aerialbot! Actually, he's a better Aerialbot than the real Aerialbots, because he's the only one whose wings end up on his lower legs in robot mode, like the G1 Aerialbots. That makes him slightly more clunky than the CW uses of this mold though, and you can see why Hasbro didn't go with this originally.

He's got more reused parts than I thought from pictures, but they still did a pretty good job of making him look like Dreadwind considering the combiner transformation puts his cockpit on his back. The new head, shoulders and chest differentiate him well enough from Skydive and Air Raid, the colours are wild, and overall I think he's my second favourite use of the Aerialbot body style.

[HeavyArms]

I bought a RID (2001) Megatron for about the price of a Voyager class figure off a Facebook group and apart from some chrome wear he's in reasonably good shape.

[Heinrad]

So, around me the POTP figures are slowly, and I mean SLLLLOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYY starting to trickle in, so I went farther afield.

POTP Beachcomber - He’s a nice little figure. A bit bulkier than I would have thought, but a nice little figure.

POTP Evolution Optimus Prime - The vehicle mode is a bit iffy, but both Orion Pax and Optimus Prime are really good figures. The design on both is really good, the tilt on the Prime feet is great, and the stickers on mine are really well placed. Which I never thought I would point out as a positive thing....

[Tantrum]

I found TR Ramhorn at Aldi's today. At first, I just saw a Ptero laying on some other product. That was enough to make me look behind and around every other toy on the shelf until I found Ramhorn. I like the way the rhino head unfolds into tank mode. The rhino mode is very good representation of the G1 toy, and the rhino mode works even without the TM installed, so you can have both the beast and head at the same time.

[Warcry]

I found a POTP Skullgrin on Wednesday. He's pretty underwhelming. Even if all you're comparing him to are the same-sized figures from Titans Return, the Pretender shell is really basic and doesn't do much, while the inner robot (who I refuse to call "Liege Maximo", ever) is pretty useless since he turns into a box and doesn't have anywhere near the same fun factor as head swapping. A definite step backwards.

[Heinrad]

The local Wal-Mart finally got some more POTP figures in, which means if I'd waited a week I wouldn't have had to make a 3 hour round trip to get Optimus, but there you go. And for the second time of seeing him in person, I still don't want to get Rodimus. He just doesn't feel very dynamic. Maybe it's just me. I did wind up getting......

POTP Slash - Slash wound up being a bit of a test run, really. I wanted to see how my FoC Grimlock fit in with the POTP colorscheme, and it seems to work pretty well. Still, a female Dinobot..... It's a good design, and now I'm planning on getting the rest of the Dinobots.

[HeavyArms]

I've started collecting figures from older lines when I'm able to and I've started with BW Cicadacon, Ram Horn and Sea Clamp who when combined make Tripredacus.

[Skyquake87]

Platinum Edition Battle Of Junk Clash
Snapped this up because I sold my RTS Wreck Gar a while back and have recently re-watched the Animated movie so had Junkions on the brain. It's a really nice set, for is basically money for old rope. You get Wreck Gar and Scrap Heap (the latter was difficult, if not impossible to find at UK retail) plus the 94th outing for the Classics Hot Rod toy (which I still really, really like), in a nice box with some great artwork on (even if this didn't actually happen in the film). The older moulds still stand up well, although Hot Road does seem quite dated even next to Wreck Gar / Scrap Heap. The paint applications and finish are just superb. I don't think I've seen a prettier version of Hot Rod, he just looks glorious, with a nice metallic cherry red 'stripe' that runs over the flame decaled hood and roof. The robot mode has some nice silver shins and some bright yellow plastics and it's just a lovely looking thing. The two Junkions also look excellent. On the face it, there's very little that's been changed from the original releases, just a more uniform paintjob for the two Junkions - Wreck Gar has some nice bronze pain on his forearms, whilst Scrap Heap's are yellow. Hasbro have also remembered that the Junkions aren't Autobots or Decepticons, so they've taken off the silly faction logos which is nice. They have some nice yellow flame decals and look great er, riding each other and the inventive transformation still impresses after all these years. Great stuff and more fun than I was expecting from a bunch of (impressive) repaints. This also seems to be one of the cheaper Platinum sets out there. Much like the Conehead and Triple Changer reissues, you can find this for around £30 online. Bargain.

RID Deployers Overload & Backtrack
I bought Overload simply because he looks ace, and was cheap enough and enjoyed the other Deployer I bought. Sadly, Overload isn't as much fun. His robot mode is hollow and static. lacking any articulation, despite how great it looks. It's puzzling, because whilst some compromises are necessary for the Deployer gimmick, I can't fathom why they'd need to scoop out the entirety of the robot to house it. That aside, the transformation is decent, if very much on the Legends side of things and the launching gimmick works well. Backtrack is a cute and devilish looking fellow and I like him very much. It's probably not that surprising to see that the Deployers have ended up cluttering up the shelves at B&M. They're not the greatest.

TLK Legends Dragonstorm
Another B&M find, this super cute and really well painted version of the three-headed dragon is fantastic. The sculpted detail and transformation are great and the paint apps in robot mode are excellent. Easily the best Movie Legends figure.

TR Roadburn
Finally managed to find one of these! It's not the greatest Legends toy, but as a fan of the Throttlebots, I'll take him. I'm hoping some of the others will pop up down the line. Wouldn't take much to turn this mould into Searchlight and TR Brawn into Rollbar, a new head and metallic paint would easily get you a Goldbug out of this mould too, which would just leave Freeway and Wideload. The robot mode is a little awkward looking and the alt mode looks like one of those weird big Minis - a small car that looks like it's been enlarged on a photocopier.

[ganon578]

POTP Evolution Optimus Prime - The vehicle mode is a bit iffy, but both Orion Pax and Optimus Prime are really good figures. The design on both is really good, the tilt on the Prime feet is great, and the stickers on mine are really well placed. Which I never thought I would point out as a positive thing....

I got PotP Optimus Prime yesterday, and you're right on. The trailer is OK, just the cab seems a little disappointing. Otherwise, the robot modes are great like you mentioned, especially Prime. Just don't linger too long on his back. The front is amazing! The whole deal is a little much to transform, but once you get the hang of the panels it's pretty fun and I keep fiddling with the guy.

I can't say the same for my stickers though - the two Autobot emblems on the shoulders are just a touch off. They only had one in stock though, so I didn't have the option to be picky. Otherwise, OP gets a big from me.