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Brendocon 2.0
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

Masterpiece Cheetor is gloriously meh.

As you were.

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Warcry
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Post by Warcry »

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:Masterpiece Cheetor is gloriously meh.
Mine is still in the mail, but I hear that the best mode is better than the robot. Curious to see if that holds true.
Heinrad wrote:Titans Return Twinferno: I've always liked Doublecross' design, but I never got the toy. He's a really odd 2-headed dragon, but he does look neat. My only complaint is the holes in the sides of the dragon heads for the guns when he's in robot mode. They throw he symmetry off. Robot mode looks pretty good, and his feet have a neat design.
Grabbed this guy, though! I'm pretty sure that Walmart only put out a single case, but the only thing that had been picked over when I got there were the Triggerhappys. I've always really liked the Monsterbots, so grabbing a modern Doublecross was a no brainer.

I really like the blocky mech-dragon mode. In fact, I think it might be my favourite of the TR beasts so far. The three 'Con molds have a lot of personality but aren't the greatest for poseability. This guy has just as much personality (really, it's amazing how much presence all the 1988 beasts had and how good of a job today's designers have done in capturing it) while also being a lot more flexible, and he's really just a ton of fun. He could really use a waist swivel, but there's a Titan Master compartment in his lower torso so it's understandable why he doesn't.

I thought the robot mode was a little clunky. The skirt-flap gets in the way of his legs, the arms are understandably a bit gimped by being dragons, and the lack of a waist swivel is a bit less understandable now. Also, universal 5mm pegs are awesome but I really wish they'd optimized his guns so that he could hold them in his mouths a bit less awkwardly. It kind of works if you leave them combined but it's clearly not natural. The lower legs and feet are really well done, though.

It's not often that I leave a figure in alt-mode the majority of the time, but I think this guy's likely to wind up that way.

And after seeing it in person, I'm even more hopeful than before that this toy eventually gets retooled into Fangry.
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ganon578
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Post by ganon578 »

Warcry wrote:And after seeing it in person, I'm even more hopeful than before that this toy eventually gets retooled into Fangry.
I was initially going to say 'fat chance' since they already made the Titan Master for the line...

But then I realized they made a Titan Master and Legends class Brawn in the same line, so there's a pretty good shot there that it'll be done.
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Warcry
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Post by Warcry »

With the molds they've already made, the small Headmasters seem like ideal late wave/box set retool and repaint fodder. They've even got the head tooling for them!

Give Doublecross new arms that combine into a single neck/head and you've got Fangry. A new tail and beast head for Weirdwolf would give you a passable Horri-Bull, and new feet would complete the package if they're feeling generous. Replace Mindwipe's folding bat wing legs with Squeezeplay's pincer feet and give him a new beast head and you're set there too. Chromedome and Hot Rod would make for a passable Nightbeat and Siren without any new tooling required at all (though ideally they'd switch the heads to make them comic-accurate since the toy-accurate ones already came out individually). The only one who doesn't have an easy option is Hosehead, who I guess would have to be made from Kup by default.

At this point I doubt they're in the plans for the main line. Between the latest reveals and the rumours that have been floating around, it sounds like the Targetmasters will be the focus of the last couple TR waves, which I'm hardly going to complain about since I love the Targetmasters. But hopefully a couple of them get made later, either in a box set or as a Takara release.
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Brendocon 2.0
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

Fanstoys Grimlock/Grinder is here and he is immense. He's like regular Masterpiece Grimlock, but done in a mid-80s WWF everyone-was-on-steroids style.

Transformation is a bit underwhelming. There's a lot of parts that look or feel like they should be clipping or tabbing or slotting into something but don't. There's nothing innovative about the sequence, fairly basic even by Grimlock standards. No muss, no fuss. Gets the job done, little more. Might have to muck about with him a bit more, as the beast mode torso isn't flush on one side...

Beyond that, it's a Fanstoys Dinobot. Massive and covered in shiny. Looks superb with the other four, though I'm going to have to rethink my shelving for the group, as the space I'd left in no way accommodates him in the way I'd expected.

Aaaand I think that's my incoming TFs done for the month. It's either feast or famine innit.
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Tantrum
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Post by Tantrum »

This isn't really a new acquisition, but I finally opened the AoE Hot Shot (Tracks) I got last year. The coat is solid blue, while the lower robot is mostly black, so the cloak effect actually looks better than it does on Crosshairs, who has a mix of green and black for both. At least, it's easier to tell what it is from more than couple inches away.

There's some red detail on the blue forearms that was left unpainted on Crosshairs. I didn't even notice that the forearm detail was asymmetrical in CH.

The only point where the new guy falls short is the head paint. CH has green goggles, which stand out against the black head and silver face. Hotspot has a white head and goggles, witha red face to match G1 Tracks. This just makes the head look unfinished.

While fiddling with him, I noticed that the small pistol handles let you put one in on the top of the hand, like normal, and the other on the bottom of the same hand, making it look like a dual barreled gun gripped in the middle. That leaves the other hand free for the rifle, so he can wield all three of his weapons at once.
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Heinrad
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Post by Heinrad »

TR Gnaw: I think I can see why people love this figure. I never thought a Sharkticon would have such sad, soulful eyes. His robot mode is kind of neat, but I put him in shark mode, set him down to do something else, then looked back at him...... He looks so sad.
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Skyquake87
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Post by Skyquake87 »

Machine Wars Starscream
Sexy redeco of the Skyquake mould, although the neutered Scope Master gimmick is a shame. Can't say as I miss the piddly hand cannon Skyquake had and the carpet bombing gimmick is still ace fun. The gothy colours of black, grey, teal, trans blue and bone white are killer. The toy's halmark of being a cheap store exclusive is borne out in the cheap packaging design - nothing interesting on the back except the instructions, which miss out label directions for half the sticker sheet. Hooray!

Machine Wars Soundwave
Nice military recolour of Stalker, kind of a shame they didn't go with the blue and red of the box art, but the grey brown and green isn't so bad. Again, the neutered Scope Master gimmick is a shame. I really like this mould and its a good looking toy. Although a cheap repaint, I like that some effort has been made to update Soundwave's bio to include references to his new tank alt mode. Probably the best not-a-tape-deck-on-wheels update Soundwave ever got.
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Warcry
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Post by Warcry »

Got my Cheetor. Kind of lukewarm to it. The figure absolutely defies my expectations, but not entirely in a good way. From the pics I'd seen, I'd expected a really nice cat mode, but it's actually all kinds of a mess. Panels everywhere, lots of robot mode bits on display, and nothing tabs together the way it should. The leg articulation is so awkward that it's really difficult to get a satisfying pose out of the thing in spite of having a zillion joints and lots of head options.

On the other hand, I didn't expect to be impressed by the robot mode but they did a great job with it. The original Cheetor toy was honestly pretty weak, and the changes that the Mainframe show model made to it (the flattened chest and exaggerated head) didn't make it look any better. But Takara have turned some not especially good source material into a very good action figure. Cheetor's got wonderful articulation and good balance, and he looks really fluid in most poses. Primal's robot mode had some awkwardness with the elbows and knees where the CGI model didn't quite translate into physical reality, but there's none of that on Cheetor. The engineers did a great job making Mainframe's design into a working toy.

Unfortunately, my Cheetor suffers from QC issues -- too-tight joints throughout, tabs that won't tab together and a waist-flap hinge that was already broken before I took him out of the box. Not super impressed on that score. Half of the problems crop up in cheetah mode and most of the rest make themselves evident while transforming him, and that's a big issue because we're talking about an ROTF-tier over-engineered transformation here. And from what I hear these are pretty common issues.

So Cheetor winds up being a one-mode figure that I'm honestly not sure if I'll ever bother transforming again. And I'm having a fair bit of fun playing with him in robot mode. But I expect more than one good mode out of a $60-plus-shipping Masterpiece figure, so this is a bit of a disappointment.
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Brendocon 2.0
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

Yeah, I fought mine back into beast mode (as that's how my MP Primal/Gens Rattrap & Rhinox are) and he's currently just sat on a shelf and I've got no idea if I'll ever even touch him again.

Bigger letdown than Tracks.
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Warcry
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Post by Warcry »

Right there with you. Cheetor's the first MP that really disappointed me in hand since Rodimus Prime. There's a lot of parallels between them actually, what with the awful transformation, the fragility and the totally unappealing alt-modes. They both even came pre-broken!

Though I'd still rather have spent money on this than Tracks or any of the recent barrage of detail-free, blandly Geewun Autobots. At least Cheetor's going to look cool, as long as I remember to never, ever try to transform the stupid thing.
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HeavyArms
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Post by HeavyArms »

A few weeks back I made a fairly big order on Big Bad Toy Store to finally buy these guys after waiting at least a year or so:

Generations Thrilling 30
Rattrap
Windblade
Arcee
Chromia

Combiner Wars
Air Raid
Dead End
Breakdown
Decepticon Offroad
Destruction is my specialty
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Cyberstrike nTo
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Post by Cyberstrike nTo »

Finally got TR Brainstorm, Sentinel Prime, and Sixshot.
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Sades
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Post by Sades »

As someone who is considering purchasing the Cheetor MP, I'm a bit sad to find out what a mess it seems to be. What I've seen of the figure looked very nice. But then, I'm not much of a "fiddler" anyway so I think once I manage to get it in a pose I like I won't care much.
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inflatable dalek
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Post by inflatable dalek »

With Computron now reduced to a sensible price (basically a tenner a toy) in Smyth's stores in the UK, how could I not (or Compu-not)?

The individual toys are all good fun, though Afterburner's limbs are a little stiff. Combining had some nice innovations compared to what I was expecting (Scattershot flipping upside down was fun), even if getting him to stand was surprisingly tricky.

Whilst the Japanese version definately improves on some areas by the look of it (Nosecone), the final result is still a pretty nice take on all sane people's favourite combiner.

Sadly, and as a sign of why I shouldn't be allowed nice things, I've already lost Lightspeed's gun. Though whilst looking for it under the bed I found where I'd put my copy of Marvel G2 issue 2 (kept for Ghosts) for safety and had forgotten all about.

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Oh, why pretend? It's the Scrounge and Friends set:

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Skyquake87
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Post by Skyquake87 »

ooh - placed me an order. thanks for the heads up! :)

Picked up Computron this morning and had a quick play this evening. Initial thoughts are that this is a big improvement over the originals .. and how versatile the CW moulds have been and how well they've been repurposed for the Technobots.

Scattershot looks way more interesting and suited to the Silverbolt mould than Silverbolt, thanks to a lively colourscheme and some neat retooling. Might have a go at trying to do that daft cannon mode at some point :)

Nosecone is ace. Really nice paintwork and a nice turd brown colour on the go.

Strafe is a funny bit of nonsense, nice colour placement and shiny paint, looks good in robot mode. Alt mode is a bit of a boxy space freighter.

Lightspeed is cool, although the blanket grey/white plastic used on the vehcile mode windows is boo. Would have perhaps worked if the moulded window detail had been retooled to a smoother surface.

Afterbreaker. Hmm. Afterburner was my favourite of the Technobots, and I'm not quite sold on this new version. The thing I find off-putting is not being able to do anything particularly useful with the windscreen/ front wheel in robot or arm mode, its just hanging around his back.

Scrounge and his unnamed Targetmaster chum are pretty cool. I missed out on Generations Cosmos (by missed out I mean 'deliberately didn't buy as £££s') so its nice to be impressed by the engineering and transformation. He's just too yellow for me. Still, a nice addition to the set although his contribution to the gestalt is ...silly.

Computron looks ace and I like the tilty feeties and big thumpy fists he has. The antennae on the head are way more wibbly than Superion's. He looks great and I like him. As with a lot of the later CW sets, the figures feel very loose. The moulding is crisp, and everything looks good, so I can only put it down to the plastics. I'd be genuinely interested to know whether there's a difference in the materials used nowadays.
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electro girl
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Post by electro girl »

I got MP Bumblebee from TRU as he was reduced to £60. From the size of the box I expected him to be bigger .
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Denyer
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Post by Denyer »

TRU are still doing customers over, the official ones seem to go for under fifty and the KOs are about half that (at the latter price they're not too bad for customs).
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HotShot81
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Post by HotShot81 »

Well, it seems the toys are alive.

Gnaw found my credit card, Gnaw went online, Gnaw then ordered himself 4 more times!

Now I have five gnaws here to counter five dinobots!:D
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Heinrad
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Post by Heinrad »

LG 35 Super Ginrai: I found one for a relatively reasonable price on eBay, and I like him even more than Powermaster Prime. Mainly because of guns and feet. And mine doesn't seem to have the leaning backwards problem.
As a professional tanuki (I'm a Japanese mythological animal, and a good luck charm), I have an alarm clock built into me somewhere. I also look like a stuffed animal. And you thought your life was tough......

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