TFARCHIVE FORUMS

Warcry wrote:I feel like saying something about buying toys you know you're not going to like, but then I just bought that Hot Rod, so...

Oh, I don't mind Badcube so much. They're sturdy with good sculpts, but they're just far (far) more complicated than they need to be in most instances.

Getting something in vehicle mode and cycling through to be rewarded with the robot mode is part and parcel of the TF experience, obvs... But I hadn't realised just how much I wasn't in the mood to deal with Badcube's engineering until I cracked open that box and saw him already in robot mode.

Will probably tackle the transformation at the weekend, but oh lordy the relief at knowing it's optional. Actually tangible.

I mean it's Gears FFS. Nobody's ever bought a Gears toy because they really want Gears. He's the definition of "rounding out the set".

Missed this earlier because Warcry posted a yard of text.

inflatable dalek wrote:Brend had warned me beforehand he'd had enough sense not to try and transform it, but like an idiot I had to try and have a go.

My official response to this is "LOL".

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:I mean it's Gears FFS. Nobody's ever bought a Gears toy because they really want Gears. He's the definition of "rounding out the set".

Can't fathom spending third-party prices on something just to fill a space on the shelf, either. Especially on Gears of all things. He's a poor man's Huffer, at best. But then I'm sure I've used exactly the same logic on plenty of smaller, cheaper figures over the years so I should probably just shut up now.

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:Missed this earlier because Warcry posted a yard of text.

Come on now, it can't possibly be more than 30 inches' worth!

Warcry wrote:Can't fathom spending third-party prices

Third party prices aren't really that much different to the legit stuff at the moment, to be honest. At least over here, anyway. Kapow's listings currently have Ironhide at £70, Anime Alert is £60, Primal is £90, Cheetor is up for preorder at £70, Grapple preorder is £130. The reissue cassette two-packs are £40.

Fanstoys' version of Skyfire is £180. Masterpiece Megatron is £170.

Badcube's Gears was £55. I can cope with that in context. Plus it's not like it's XTB - this is a sturdy piece with a decent number of parts and a transformation that'll likely take a week to get through. I may even grow to tolerate it.

My main collecting goal at the moment is to have the season 1/2 cast represented in the same scale. I'd be stunned if Takara aren't following Inferno/Grapple/Artfire with Trailbreaker and Hoist in that size point... the MP-39 Jazz rumour's been swirling for a while, so I'm in no rush to go out and grab any of the 3P versions of those characters.

Buuut I've not seen anything to indicate that Takara are planning any of the Minibots. The release schedule is currently slowed down a bit, so it's not really a hardship to plug the gap with the occasional smaller 3P piece. If Takara do trot these guys out, I can't imagine they'll be much cheaper (given the current economic state) and if they don't... well the secondary market price is going to be even more ridiculous.

I figure that so long as I play the waiting game for Takara to do the guys they'll almost certainly do, I can justify plugging the Minibots/Dinobots/Skyfire gap with 3P. Even if it involves buying the shit guys like Gears and whichever your favourite one is.

Doubt I'll ever be able to justify forking out for FansToy's version of Omega Supreme.

I also flogged off my TFC Hades and what there was of the Fansproject Dinoking, so my outlay on this dude is covered.

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:Missed this earlier because Warcry posted a yard of text.

Warcry wrote:Come on now, it can't possibly be more than 30 inches' worth!

Inches? Yards? I thought most of you all were in Canada and the UK! USE THE METRIC SYSTEM!!!

Leave the non-sensical measurement systems to us Americans!

By the way, I was out yesterday and saw no new TR stuff anywhere

BUT - I found some of those new 'Alt Modes' figures and picked up Starscream for my desk at work! Neat little, but due to the auto-transformation, his legs are wobbly and he doesn't stand well. Pretty fun for a little desk toy, but I probably won't be buying any more at $7 a pop.

Also was out during my lunch today and found TR Kickback and TR Gnaw! Holy crap are these guys fun!!! Haven't transformed Kickback yet, but his robot mode is awesome. Gnaw is such a chubby little guy in both modes I can't get enough of him.

The length depends on the size of your screen surely? Brend's must be bigger.

inflatable dalek wrote:Brend's must be bigger.

Giggity.

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:Third party prices aren't really that much different to the legit stuff at the moment, to be honest. At least over here, anyway. Kapow's listings currently have Ironhide at £70, Anime Alert is £60, Primal is £90, Cheetor is up for preorder at £70, Grapple preorder is £130. The reissue cassette two-packs are £40.

Fanstoys' version of Skyfire is £180. Masterpiece Megatron is £170.

Badcube's Gears was £55. I can cope with that in context. Plus it's not like it's XTB - this is a sturdy piece with a decent number of parts and a transformation that'll likely take a week to get through. I may even grow to tolerate it.

After doing a bit of quick research, your Gears would probably cost me $120 bucks after taxes and shipping, which is a good slice more than the last official MP car that I bought (Blue Bluestreak a couple years back was less than $100 all in, and was a bit pricier than usual because of the limited run). So there's still a price gap here, especially since Gears is probably closer to Bumblebee-sized.

But then I wouldn't spend official MP prices for a Gears figure either, so I'm obviously not the target demographic. Gears is in "maybe spend $10 on a Legends figure if it looks really nice" territory for me at best.

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:My main collecting goal at the moment is to have the season 1/2 cast represented in the same scale.

Looking for scale in Transformers is the quest of a madman, but I hope you can put together what you need.

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:Even if it involves buying the shit guys like Gears and whichever your favourite one is.

My favourites are mostly from '88 and '89, I don't think they qualify here.

ganon578 wrote:Inches? Yards? I thought most of you all were in Canada and the UK! USE THE METRIC SYSTEM!!!

Leave the non-sensical measurement systems to us Americans!

Sorry to burst your bubble, but nobody uses the metric system for anything here other than liquid volumes, and even then only because our gas and beverages are sold by the litre. No one in Canada uses centimetres or kilograms or kilopascals or whatever the hell else unless we're forced to.

It's kind of hard to indoctrinate new generations into using a different system than their parents when everything in the real world is build using Imperial measurements, from roads to cars to houses to sports equipment to staplers.

ganon578 wrote:Also was out during my lunch today and found TR Kickback and TR Gnaw! Holy crap are these guys fun!!! Haven't transformed Kickback yet, but his robot mode is awesome. Gnaw is such a chubby little guy in both modes I can't get enough of him.

Gnaw looks super fun. I may not be able to resist the urge to buy a small school of them.

inflatable dalek wrote:The length depends on the size of your screen surely?

That was the joke.

Warcry wrote:But then I wouldn't spend official MP prices for a Gears figure either, so I'm obviously not the target demographic. Gears is in "maybe spend $10 on a Legends figure if it looks really nice" territory for me at best.

The MP-scale bracket is pretty much the only TF line I buy now. It's easier for me to justify when I'm not weighing it up against "or I could buy two hollow Titan Master deluxes" or whatever.

Or I can fund it by not buying fourth-tier Marvel Legends figures

Looking for scale in Transformers is the quest of a madman, but I hope you can put together what you need.

Robot mode scale is the key. Across alt modes? Never going to happen. The fact that scale regularly got ignored in the cartoon doesn't help. but it comes down to "yeah, close enough" at the end of the day.

It's kind of hard to indoctrinate new generations into using a different system than their parents when everything in the real world is build using Imperial measurements, from roads to cars to houses to sports equipment to staplers.

Yeah, most people over here exist in a weird hybrid state where we're taught in metric at school, but our parents are still conditioned in imperial, so we flit back and forth between both systems depending on context. It's like being bilingual in a way.

I tend to think mostly in imperial. Our speed limits are all marked out in mph, road signs give distances in miles... football pitches are marked out in yards... people give heights in feet/inches. Metric is only really used if I have to sit down and measure something, as mm is more precise than fractions of an inch. Beer is sold in pints/halves, but if you're buying something pre-bottled then it's measured in litres. Petrol is priced in litres too, though people still talk in miles/gallon when discussing fuel consumption.

So yeah, metric is theoretically the default, but most of us actually USE imperial. Apart from when it comes to temperature. Because the fahrenheit scale is a nonsense system created by lunatics.

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:The MP-scale bracket is pretty much the only TF line I buy now. It's easier for me to justify when I'm not weighing it up against "or I could buy two hollow Titan Master deluxes" or whatever.

The math's a bit different here...I can usually buy a whole wave of main-line figures for around what an MP or 3P figure would cost. Obviously the value on either side of the equation depends on how good the figures are, though. But with Hasbro spamming 1987-88 characters while Takara and third parties mostly concentrate on making figures that are increasingly accurate to a cartoon that didn't look very good, the mass market stuff is winning right now. A few years ago it was the other way around.

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:Or I can fund it by not buying fourth-tier Marvel Legends figures

This is exactly how I've paid for all the Headmasters I've bought recently. Or maybe I just went nuts with the Marvel figures last year because there were almost no Transformers worth buying between January and November. Same difference, I guess.

Though the fact that the last few waves have barely shown up anywhere doesn't help much either. And it's not like there's a pile of unwanted stuff shelfwarming, the Marvel sections at local stores are just plain empty (except for the two or three Misty Knights per store that will never, ever sell...though I'm kinda tempted now to get one to hang with Disco Dazzler) and Amazon sold out of anything I might want the second it showed up.

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:Robot mode scale is the key. Across alt modes? Never going to happen. The fact that scale regularly got ignored in the cartoon doesn't help. but it comes down to "yeah, close enough" at the end of the day.

I'm at the point now where I don't even care. If it's a good representation of a character I like I'll buy it regardless of size (except for Titan-class stuff, that's just too big for me to even fidn room in my house). I've got so many figures I like in such wildly varying sizes, from G1 stuff to Alternators to Deluxe versions of big characters like Straxus to MPs that no matter what scale a figure is in I can find something it'll look good with. And it's not like I'm going to bin stuff I already own and like just to replace it with something in a "better" scale.

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:So yeah, metric is theoretically the default, but most of us actually USE imperial. Apart from when it comes to temperature. Because the fahrenheit scale is a nonsense system created by lunatics.

Oh right, I forgot about that. Fahrenheit is for madmen. Unless you're using the oven, because no way in hell am I metricizing a 200 year old recipe.

TR Gnaw - Grabbed it last Sunday from Big W. Looks like one of the more fun and colorful figures of this theme so far.

AOE Slog - Finally bought this guy off eBay after putting it of for the past year or two.

Thrilling 30 Rhinox - Also bought from eBay, I like that some of the parts have a more rubbery feel, because y'know, Rhinoceros' being an animal and all.

I'm underwhelmed with my recent haul.

RiD Bisk should be just what I want from the line: an animal/humanoid hybrid bot mode, whise form allows for a unique transformation. So why don't I like him? That's not rhetorical, I just don't care for him much at all and can't figure out why. I might be the orange, which manages to be simultaneously obnoxious and bland, or the lack of head/neck articulation.

RiD Scatterspike is a redeco of Quillfire, who I already have. I prefer SS's mauve and lavender to QF's tan, brown, and grey. First, I just like SS's colors better. Second, I prefer the alt mode to have a single dominant color.

TR Gnaw is the best of the bunch. The shark eyes are hemispheres of translucent yellow plastic, which give the beast mode a suitable creepy look. The jaw has Titanmaster pegs inside, so a little guy can ride around in Gnaw's head. I especially appreciate this, since I miss the absurdity of Grax riding around in Skullcruncher's mouth. The bot mode is nice, too, witha spot-on head sculpt.

My only issue is the shark face and arms attach to the bot's ankles instead of its back. This gives the bot an almost Throttlebot amount of heel kibble, while leaing an almost prefectly flast back, which doesn't suit the bot's overall chubby look.

TR Kickback is the biggest dissapointment. I still have my G1 Kickback, which is a pretty efficient design. The bot head becomes the insect head; the 2 bot arms split to become the 4 insect forelimbs.

TR Kickback has separate parts for each mode. A nicely sculpted grasshopper head folds like a helmet over the bot head in insect mode. The modes share antennae. although the insect head looks nice, this results in a very tiny bot head, with overly large antennae.

The bot arms fold underneath the insect mode, and are separate from the insect forelegs. However, the upper arms are the same purple as the forelegs, so when you look at the insect from the side, all you see is a mesh of purple parts, with some of them coming points; these are the forelegs. The bot wrists/fists have black kibble covering them, and form a lump that sticks out of the insects back. On non-grasshopper insects, this might look like a thorax or something but here, it just gets in the way.

The insect forelegs fold onto the bot's back, and aren't really in the way, but the wings are attached to the same pieces, so instead of coming from the bot's shoulders like the G1 toy, the wings come from the backpack, and dont really look like they come from the torso.

The advantage of this is modern bot arm articulation: ball jointed shoulders and elbows. The cost is all these parts getting in each others' way, and a total loss of foreleg articulation.

The TR does have better bot legs/insect rear legs than the G1 toy. Half of the insect legs fold into the bot legs, like 30 years ago. But, the legs fold in half, so they store in only the lower part of the bot legs. This allows for articulated bot legs, which have ball joints in the knees as well as the hips.

Opening the yellow panel on the chest reveals a pair of TM pegs, so a little guy can ride the grasshopper around. However, this is more a seat than a cockpit. The yellow panel stays open to form the back rest; the TM does not fit inside Kickback.

Kickback my be the most dissapointing insect themed TF since Prime: Airachnid, and I haven't had a better version of Airachnid sitting on my shelf for 30 years.

Unite Warriors Woman Decepticon Warrrior Combiner Megatronia

Mad Decepticon repurposing of the Victorion Combiner, with sexy neon colours shot through with a healthy dose of BLACK. It was the accompanying Manga for the Unite Warriors that got me hooked on these figures. I've no idea what's going on, but I liked the pictures and the characters seemed fun. As you'd expect, cramming female heads and torso plates on the slightly blocky Combiner Wars moulds isn't hugely convincing, and except for Flowspade (okay then), they all have the deathless stare of haunted Victorian dolls.

The colours are pretty banging though. I do like the unifying palette with the two helicopters Lunaclub (pink) and Moonheart (blue) having black as the secondary colour, whilst Flowspade and Trickdiamond look deadly in black with lavender and yellow secondary colours. Paint apps are nice and crisp, and Mega Empress is nice and silver and red and black.

The combined form has a decent silhouette, thanks to some thoughtful pairing up of deluxes, which puts Victorion to shame. The headsculpt is... tall? I dunno what's up with that. Nicely detailed though, and Megatronia does look like some awesome space princess who's stolen She-Ra's sword. I like the hands and feet, which are a massive improvement on the hand/foot jobbies. Just wish the designers hadn't felt the need to go for some weird high-heeled robot shoes. That's not practical for running and warrioring! The hips seem a lot more sturdy on Megatronia, which is nice.

In short: Yaaay!

Titans Return Sky Shadow w/ Ominus

Wow. Just wow. Sky Shadow is hench. He's a big, beefy out of space looking fella, all great gobby planks for legs and great big tenderizers for arms. The black/ grey/ siver/ whatever colour the forearms are supposed to be colour combo is excellent. I love his regal and sneery looking face. He has excellent joints for awesome posing stuffs and oh, man, what a cool, fun transformation he has. Base mode is pretty decent, riffing on Overlord's adventure playground effort ...AND THEN he splits off into a super chunky tank of DEATH and a looming jet of OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! AND THEN you can clamp the tank to the bottom of the jet for a silly flying tankcraft which is amazing. And then he can drop the tank and squish his enemies and shoot stuff! Ominus (great name) could do with some paint, and he's one of the weaker Titan Masters, as he turns into a face, rather than a head, but I don't care. Absolute belter and another triumph for the already insanely awesome Titans Return line! Thank you Hasbro!

Thrilling 30 Brainstorm - Another of the Thrilling 30 line that as far as I know we never got over here.

Titans Return Kickback

Hmm. I like him. He's not Bombshell awesome, but he's god nonetheless. His robot mode head is just too small though, which throws his proportions off - especially when coupled with those great gangly arms. The colours and level of detail are excellent though, and top marks for the grasshopper mode, which is superb!

Titans Return Twinferno w/Daburu:

I had Doublecross as a kid, so seeing a modern reimagining of him I had to pick him up. Sadly I am underwhelmed. His arms are...meh at best, his guns are loose where they are supposed to peg in, his dragon mode is a slab with beast parts hanging off of it. All that said I still like the look of the robot mode and am glad I bought him, if only for the nostalgia value. Doublecross was a favorite toy of mine growing up. I do appreciate the tiny little buzzsaw blade on his chest as a homage to the original.

Titans Return Triggerhappy w/Blowpipe:

From one end to the other in the same day. After Twinferno I wasn't expecting much from Triggerhappy but I was pleasantly surprised. His transformation is inventive and fun, his jet mode has plenty of swoosh to it, and he looks good in either mode. Plus you can do Shooty McGun-Hands with him if you want. All in all he hits all the marks in what I want from a Transformer.

Beast Machines Tank Drone
Already have one of these, but thought Tankor could do with another minion to boss around. Man, figures from the turn of the century are nice. Good quality plastics, chrome, decent paint applications and just really nicely designed figures (well, if you like Beast Machines oddities like what I do).

Super Gobots Leader-1
F**k me. He's really good! Nice and solid, thanks to all the Die-cast and the transformation is simple and fun. Robot mode is better than I was expecting and I love his headsculpt. Top stuff!

Thanks to some sharp eyes on the part of Heinrad, I've got a CW Onslaught. Which also means that (thanks to the Combaticon limb-bots that I ended up buying on clearance) I've got a complete Bruticus.

Onslaught himself is pretty weak. He's basically the same toy as Hot Spot, but with a duller colour scheme, an alt-mode that isn't as much fun and somehow even more obtrusive hollowness. But he's easily the best combiner torso of the ones I own. And the Combaticons make for a solid selection of limbs, meaning that Bruticus turns out a darn sight cooler than Superion (the only other full combiner I collected).

So while Onslaught himself is kinda weak -- though not the worst Combaticon, that prize goes to Brawl -- he lets you make a great Bruticus. And normally I like to prioritize the individual robots over the combined mode. But in this case, with such a cool combined mode, I'll make an exception.

Warcry wrote:So while Onslaught himself is kinda weak -- though not the worst Combaticon, that prize goes to Brawl -- he lets you make a great Bruticus. And normally I like to prioritize the individual robots over the combined mode. But in this case, with such a cool combined mode, I'll make an exception.

Yeah, that Bruticus is just ace. Definitely my favorite of the three-ish combiners I own.

I caved and bought a TR Bumblebee on the second time I saw him in store. He's a neat little guy, but quite fiddly during transformation. The windshield/top/hatch thing is weird, as I expected the cockpit to open more like Chromedome/Getaway. And while you can put a Titan Master in the seat, the windows are not transparent so you can't see him in there anyways. The two modes are OK for what they are, and it's nice to have a BB more in scale with how he was in G1. To be honest, I really just bought him to A) be able to put him in PM Optimus' trailer, and B) try out the mold before buying Roadburn.