Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Figures, collectables, customs and collecting.
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Skyquake87
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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The Transmetals are awesome! (So much so I picked up some of the Fox Kids repaints. But not Tarantuals because he costs $$$) I love Tarantulas, personally, mainly for being a massive improvement over his first toy - and his show model. Love the silly motorbike mode too. I've been lucky with my TM Megs. He's survived intact so far, I'd been blithely unaware of his fragility until joining this here forum, so I am a little careful with him now. I liked his TM2 mode, but you can't beat his first TM form for out and out fun. I also appreciated that Hasbro made the Leaders Mega (or Voyager sized, in today's money) sized so they didn't cost a fortune.

My Rattrap has lost all the red paint on the tip of his tail. Just so you know.

As it was a nice day yesterday, I did something I've wanted to do for years - get all my Micromasters out and have a go at connecting all the bases!

https://imgur.com/gallery/t7bg3kE
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Clay
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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(re: Warcry's pic) I have all those! :wave:

Tarantulas is actually my favorite of the bunch. Not just because he's totally metal, but also because at some point I realized that his relative transformation scheme is the same as Starscream's, and I like that quite irrationally.

I too have Armada Predacon instead of a proper transmetal megatron. I remember buying him in the store when armada was current and then not pursuing an original deco later when I was hunting beast wars stuff as I already had the mold. I didn't actually learn about the brittleness of the BW version until later (after I had watched the show and wanted one, and also after they had started to get expensive). Oh well.

(Re: Skyquake's pic)

Your micros are all in good condition. I still have the smaller bases and the two vehicles (groundshaker and cloudcracker?) from the the of days of yore, but they have not survived well.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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I've been really lucky with the Micromasters I've picked up. All bought off ebay, as well. Countdown shows signs of his age. The plastics make a horrible cracking sound when you fold out the central tower - weirdly they've not broken or anything, so I'm guessing the plastic's expanded or somesuch. A lot of the 1990 Micromasters (Monster Truck Patrol, Hot Rod Patrol, Militatry Patrol etc) I picked up about 10 years ago when ebay was suddenly flooded with mint on card stock. I've no idea if they're bootlegs or what (they don't seem to be, and the packaging did look slightly aged), but I was happy enough to pick them up.

I absolutely adore the Micromasters. I love that you can amass an army of them and have all these cool little bases and vehicles ... and they don't take up too much room. The earlier Patrols are perhaps my least favourite (aside from the Air Strike Patrol), as I prefer the brighter colours of later figures, but they did at least have more unique transformations. The way the Off Road Patrol's Tote and High Jump transform is particularly impressive.
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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Skyquake87 wrote: Sat May 30, 2020 10:15 amA lot of the 1990 Micromasters (Monster Truck Patrol, Hot Rod Patrol, Militatry Patrol etc) I picked up about 10 years ago when ebay was suddenly flooded with mint on card stock. I've no idea if they're bootlegs or what (they don't seem to be, and the packaging did look slightly aged), but I was happy enough to pick them up.
Despite the MicroMachines craze, back in the day B&M wound up with tons of remaindered MicroMasters (both the normal ones and the combiners). So the chances of a load of boxes being in one or more warehouses 10+ years later were pretty good.

edit: I've gotten the gift set Seacons (they seem to be advertised for silly money now, IIRC they were clearanced for thirty quid at the time) and a ropey loose Laser Rod Prime with substitute accs out of storage to go on top of the bookcase with MOTUC Multi-Bot and the Bandai Space Marine.
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Warcry
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Skyquake87 wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 7:27 pmThe Transmetals are awesome! (So much so I picked up some of the Fox Kids repaints. But not Tarantuals because he costs $$$)
I'd love to get Fox Kids Tarantulas, but yeah, the price is a bit much. Was he under-produced, I wonder, or is it really because he showed up in those obscure Botcon comics ages ago like the Wiki implies?
Skyquake87 wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 7:27 pmI love Tarantulas, personally, mainly for being a massive improvement over his first toy - and his show model. Love the silly motorbike mode too.
My Tarantulas is missing his pizza-cutter, so I can't make the vehicle mode properly. :( If I gave the impression in my previous post that I didn't like him, I didn't mean to! He's a very good toy, it's just that "very good" gets lost in the crowd when everyone else is absolutely great.
Skyquake87 wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 7:27 pmI liked his TM2 mode, but you can't beat his first TM form for out and out fun.
TM2 Megs is worth tracking down, though? I've never had one, and never quite been sure what to make of him. The TM2s are very hit-or-miss, for me.
Skyquake87 wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 7:27 pmI also appreciated that Hasbro made the Leaders Mega (or Voyager sized, in today's money) sized so they didn't cost a fortune.
I was all set to argue that Voyagers were closer to BW Ultra in size, but I guess that really hasn't been the case for a long time now. :( Back in the Universe days, the Universe Ultras sold for the same price as a Voyager, and it's hard to shake that comparison even though nowadays Voyagers are closer to Polar Claw than Depth Charge.
Skyquake87 wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 7:27 pmMy Rattrap has lost all the red paint on the tip of his tail. Just so you know.
The original TM Rattrap is one of the worst figures for chrome-shedding, if I remember right. Mine is the 10th Anniversary reissue, but he's held up really well so far.
Skyquake87 wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 7:27 pmAs it was a nice day yesterday, I did something I've wanted to do for years - get all my Micromasters out and have a go at connecting all the bases!
That's awesome! I always forget how many Micromasters they actually made. I had tons as a kid but probably only a quarter or so of what they made.
Clay wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 9:34 pmI too have Armada Predacon instead of a proper transmetal megatron. I remember buying him in the store when armada was current and then not pursuing an original deco later when I was hunting beast wars stuff as I already had the mold. I didn't actually learn about the brittleness of the BW version until later (after I had watched the show and wanted one, and also after they had started to get expensive). Oh well.
With Takara branching out and reissuing stuff like Big Convoy and God Fire Convoy, would it be crazy to hope that Metals Megatron is on their short list for future Encore releases? It's a very popular old mold that's in very short supply due to the materials issues on the Hasbro version.
Denyer wrote: Sat May 30, 2020 2:58 pmedit: I've gotten the gift set Seacons (they seem to be advertised for silly money now, IIRC they were clearanced for thirty quid at the time) and a ropey loose Laser Rod Prime with substitute accs out of storage to go on top of the bookcase with MOTUC Multi-Bot and the Bandai Space Marine.
Is that the original gift set, or the box set reissue from a decade or so ago?

Re: MOTUC, did they ever get around to making Stinkor? He's the only one I really have any attachment to, because of how utterly HORRIFIED my mom was when she realized that he really stunk. (I still have the original and it still reeks!)
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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It'll be the Hasbro reissue set from about 10 years ago. The one with the chromed sword and the teal head for Snaptrap and none at all for Overbite (IIRC - haven't dug the set out for a while). That was a surprise, it seemed to be heavily discounted barely 5 minutes after release. Think mine cost £25 from Amazon.

Transmetal 2 Megatron is an awesome toy. Like Tigerhawk, he's a bit too gimmicky (or rather have ones that whist fun, do restrict the ability to pose well) - the beast head arm has gearing mechanism in it for leering about which is more useful in beast mode , plus one for splaying and locking his wings.I sold mine some years ago, as whilst I thought it was impressive, he didn't get as much love as regualr TM Megs. I think as well, I bought both him and Tigerhawk sometime after my Beast Wars collector-mania had died down, so he didn't wow me as much as I expected.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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The commemorative set -- it was supposedly an exclusive somewhere, IIRC but clearly enough had to be made to justify production that large numbers ended up in general circulation with the value remaining at wholesale prices for ages. Not a bad set even with the Skalor in mine having two of the same leg piece and the colour substitutions but I wouldn't say worth any more than that price.

I'd forgotten there was also a weird Timelines redeco set.
Warcry wrote: Sat May 30, 2020 6:49 pmRe: MOTUC, did they ever get around to making Stinkor? He's the only one I really have any attachment to, because of how utterly HORRIFIED my mom was when she realized that he really stunk. (I still have the original and it still reeks!)
Yep, and Moss Man. Allegedly the original formulas were found and used.

IIRC only part of the MOTU/He-Man lines that didn't really get completed in MOTUC (or the post-Mattel releases that are still around; there've been a lot of movie releases recently) was the New Adventures cast. Too many release slots got wasted on minor non-toy characters, plus the exploitative release approach (die-hard fans having to commit to every bit of tat and trying to re-sell it) used by Mattel burned people out.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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I noticed there were some right non-entities put out in the Mattel MOTUC line. Whilst trying to find a Glimmer, I found myself scratching my head going 'who's the nameless one?' and why can't people shift it... ohhh. It looks like an evil Orko. I love He-Man and She-Ra, but am not massively familiar with every character. I've finished the only UK box set of She-Ra, which has the first 32 episodes (good fun) and have just started on the UK 9 volume release of Season One of He-Man (I bought this version, even though it takes up a stupid amount of room as I really, really like the artwork that was commissioned for these releases). The figures aren't cheap, so you'd have to have deep pockets to complete the line. I find it all a bit baffling and confusing now. Super 7 seem to have gone back to the start and released two classics lines - one based on the old toys and another based on the Filmation animation models, plus somesort of re-issue type line. It's all a bit much. Makes me glad for the restrained pace of G1 homages in Transformers Generations.

...I want to play with my Seacons now! Did anyone manage to get the Selects releases? I was considering those, but between the price tag and Combiner Wars fatigue I found them easy to pass. Which is a shame, as the Seacons are such brilliant colourful villains. That and I was expecting the sort of looseness/ fluidity in the figures that plagues pretty much every second/third/fourth resuse of the basic CW limb / tosro moulds.

In thread-related news, I've been playing with my Fox Kids Transmetals :swirly:

https://imgur.com/gallery/UtJVYdw

I was so happy to have found FKTM Cheetor at TFNation a few years back (same year I got Rapticon, IIRC). The angry red is really nice, but it's the superb mix of colours in robot mode that I adore. It really makes the mould pop! I hope to pick up the Armada version one day, see what that's like.

The other FKTMs are a bit of a mixed bag. Rattrap looks nice in orange, Rhinox looks sunburnt/ like a gammon in robot mode and Airazor's recolour isn't as different as I'd have liked. Do like the powder blue though, that's nice :)
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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Skyquake87 wrote: Sun May 31, 2020 4:31 pm...I want to play with my Seacons now! Did anyone manage to get the Selects releases? I was considering those, but between the price tag and Combiner Wars fatigue I found them easy to pass. Which is a shame, as the Seacons are such brilliant colourful villains. That and I was expecting the sort of looseness/ fluidity in the figures that plagues pretty much every second/third/fourth resuse of the basic CW limb / tosro moulds.
Apparently it doesn't hold the weight well. I was considering the repaint set until I realised it had only 5 out of the 6 members of the team (like the original IIRC).

Since the Terrorcons (at least the four limbs so far) have been knocked off -- by Aoyi I think -- like a lot of the CW teams, I think there's a good chance of the same happening with the Seacons and the KOs being oversized and high quality.

Being into later-era stuff, I loved the 3P pretender monsters and would like some form of the Seacons at non-rip-off prices. I think some of the speciality stuff and new size class price points (leader and commander) are hard to swallow for regular figures, there are some nice designs but not a great value proposition.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Good to know I'm not missing anything then. The Terrorcons had turned out to be a minor disappointment next to the Dinobots that share the same moulds. DItto the Technobots. Great designs and colours, but really loose and wibbly figures :(

Agree that the current price points don't offer great value, but at least the build quality is there for Siege. Can't comment on Earthrise, as I've not bought a single figure from the line (yet). Have heard that every release has some QC issue or other though.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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I'd have been more all over Siege/Earthrise if not for already having MP or 3P versions of characters I was interested in. And there've been wins there -- Impactor and Spinister are pretty large for deluxes.

Grapple I'm really impressed with -- no gimmicks, just a solid and logical transformation. Ironworks is likely to wear if played with, but the same's true of anything held together by friction that snaps apart to convert.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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As I am looking to move house in the near future I've had reason to disassemble the G1 Japanese Predaking re-issue that was lurking my cupboard with all my comic boxes. That's a boxy little piece of genius.
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I love that set. I was so excited to get that, back in 2004. And then a bit underwhelmed, as they're such boxy bricks. That charm won me over as I got into playing with them. They're great. If I had to pick a favourite, I'd have to go with Razorclaw. I love his colours and big roaring lion mode.
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Skyquake87 wrote: Sun Jun 07, 2020 6:41 pm I love that set. I was so excited to get that, back in 2004. And then a bit underwhelmed, as they're such boxy bricks. That charm won me over as I got into playing with them. They're great. If I had to pick a favourite, I'd have to go with Razorclaw. I love his colours and big roaring lion mode.
I really have a soft spot for all the gestalts of that period. Only ones I've never had full sets of are Computron and Devastator although the latter was never through lack of trying. I had a full set with the exception of Hook at one point and went into Woolworths and finally found him only to discover, upon getting him home, that he was broken in the middle meaning he couldn't form the top half of Devastator's torso. Never did see another one.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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They're good fun, the Special Teams. It felt like such an event to me to complete Defensor, which I only managed thanks to the early '90s Classics reissues. Still have a soft spot for the Protectobots because of that.
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Yeah, I think they were bigger than a fad over here at least in part because of Classics -- it might have been difficult for kids to complete any given combiner with the amount of heavily-advertised toy franchises in the 80s onwards, but with figures already in circulation from older siblings and car boots there was a much better shot at it. Particularly with the Weetabix Drag Strip and Fireflight in play.

Doesn't stop them being bricks, but probably puts them up there with the minibots and cassettes in terms of popularity.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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I loved the combiners, but they were definitely tough to put together when I was younger. I only had three (secondhand) Constructicons, two Technobots and three Terrorcons when I was really little. Of course, that didn't stop me from having Abominus shamble around with Lightspeed, Afterburner or Scavenger (who kinda-sorta connected as an arm) as limbs... They were definitely bricks but combiners also had a really fun "play pattern", and they made so many of the things that I suspect a lot of kids wound up with enough that they could mix and match a squad like I did, even if they weren't lucky enough to finish a proper team.

When G2 rolled around I was a bit older, and actively set a goal for myself to get all the Aerialbots. But that took probably the better part of a year to accomplish, or at least it felt like it back then (I fully admit that things that seemed like "forever" have actually turned out to be, like, six weeks when I look back on them as adults). I think I still enjoyed Frankensteining various team members together more than I did playing with Superion properly, though.

In retrospect, I like them for providing at least SOME continuity across a line that was otherwise going through some massive changes in terms of design philosophy. Them and the cassettes...it's nice that SOME guys from 1987/88 still fit in with toys from the first couple years' releases.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Denyer wrote: Tue Jun 09, 2020 6:41 pm Particularly with the Weetabix Drag Strip and Fireflight in play.
Still have my original Weetabix Dragstrip and Fireflight!

The Stunticons were definitely the first team I had completed, closely followed by the Combaticons. Classics were definitely prevalent in their collection. I recall getting Overbite as a gift of my grandparents which put me on a path to getting a complete Seacons set (albeit some 15 years later with some help from Cliffy if memory serves)

I had a complete g2 Aerialbots set but the gold plastic disease wreaked its terrible havoc on Slingshot and I no longer have a full set or are willing to pay exorbitant ebay prices for a replacement
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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I pulled out all my modern Targetmasters today after making what wound up being partners for Spinister and Scourge.

Image

I love almost all these guys, but most of them are fairly new. The older three, though, definitely deserve another look!

Universe Cyclonus is getting a bit long in the tooth. Looks-wise, honestly, I think this mold would still feel right at home among the more recent Generations lines. It does a great job evoking the 80s character models, mostly the cartoon one (which -- and I'll almost never say this -- was clearly and by far the better one) but there's something of the comic/box art model in the legs. The engineering shows it's age, though. It has lots of joints but they lack the functionality that you see in modern Deluxes. The arms especially are quite limited. But for it's day, this was a great Transformer.

The alt-mode is probably the thing that people complain about the most online, and I get it. It's definitely wobbly. But what's always bothered me is the colours. Hasbro's version of the figure slapped the toy colours on a sculpt that was clearly designed to look like the show, and the end result is just a bit too drab. Takara didn't get it right either when they made it over for Henkei, making a Cyclonus who was way more pastel than he ever was in the show or comics. The figure's been repainted three or four more times since then and I don't think they've EVER gotten it right. One of the Hasbro box set versions finally used the right purple, but ruined it by omitting a bunch of the (already quite sparse!) paint apps. I feel like this is a figure that really should be an all-time great, and they were 90% of the way there but never quite managed to push it the rest of the way.

Generations Scourge, on the other hand, comes from a time when I think the brand was at it's peak. That ROTF/NEST/TF2010/Generations/Reveal the Shield run of toylines produced some of the absolute best toys Hasbro's ever put out, and while Scourge isn't at the head of the class, he's pretty darn close. Of course, everything about him is heresy to the Sunbow extremists who seem to have the franchise by the balls nowadays -- he's "too small" according to their scale chart, he's got an updated alt-mode, his colours are based on the original toy and his robot mode silhouette is all triangles instead of the sweeping curves of the cartoon model. But those things are also the reasons why I love him! Because -- let's be honest -- G1 Scourge was a total dork. He transformed into a flying bathtub and he dressed like an extra in a Rob Zombie video. But this guy? This guy looks like he actually transforms into something! He's also got pretty darn good poseability, and even though the shoulders are a bit awkward the contrast between him and Cyclonus really shows how much Hasbro learned in just a couple short years.

Thrilling 30 Scoop, on the other hand, comes from the decline years after the crest that Scourge was a part of. And you can tell. He's easily the smallest toy in that lineup, and also easily has the worst engineering (the entire front end of his load mode just isn't there at all, with the tires and the shovel poorly hiding the gap). The colours were also awful, with a lot of the original's yellow being orange now, and what little yellow they kept being cast in this awful, washed-out pale plastic. I took mine apart and sprayed the hands, thighs and shovel with a nice, bright yellow, and that helps, but as a Transformer toy he's just not very good. His Targetmasters also leave a lot to be desired, even compared to the samey and unimaginative Siege ones.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Warcry wrote: Sun Jul 05, 2020 4:08 am I pulled out all my modern Targetmasters today after making what wound up being partners for Spinister and Scourge.

https://i.imgur.com/8JJZVoe.jpg[

I love almost all these guys, but most of them are fairly new. The older three, though, definitely deserve another look!
Illustrates well what I've always liked about TFs and most 3P stuff -- you can put a wide assortment of similarly scaled figures, whether it's MP and voyagers or whatever, together and they don't look out of place unless it's a case of a cartoon MP-only display with a token main line figure amongst them.
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