The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[sh9000]

I want Target to also have the G1 reissues.

[jenius]

3 hours ago, sh9000 said:

I want Target to also have the G1 reissues.

That'd be great for me!

[mikeszekely]

Picked up the Flame Toys Furai Model Optimus. I think it will probably look fine out of the box, but I think I might paint the red and light gray parts anyway before I build it.

[mikeszekely]

Ugh, I can't win with Hasbro lately.  First I get a G1 Hot Rod that's missing the sticker on his chest.  Then, I finally get my hands on Siege Optimus and he's got two left hands...

EDIT: And then I get a Battle in Space version of Classics Hot Rod today and he's got two right hands.  FML.

Edited January 5, 2019 by mikeszekely

[mikeszekely]

Well, like I let slip in my previous post, I found some Siege figures (finally).  Among a few other things.  Since I don't have a ton to say about them, I'm going to talk about all the little guys at once, so what I have here are Siege Micromasters Roadhandler and Swindler, aka the Race Car Patrol, and Battle Master Firedrive.

So these are the littlest guys in the Siege line, and they're a little less that double the size of a Titan Master or a Prime Master.  I'd compare Firedrive to the Nightstick that came with Universe Cyclonus, except that I have no idea where he's at since I moved last spring.  Since all the G1 -masters were the same size, and since he makes a pretty large weapon, there's a part of me that wishes Firedrive were smaller.  On the other hand, smaller figures usually have worse engineering, so maybe it's fine.

Firedrive is supposed to be Firebolt, Hot Rod's old Targetmaster buddy.  He looks the part, aside from having white arms instead of black.  He comes with two translucent pink rubbery blast effect parts.  The Micromasters don't come with any accessories.

Speaking of the Micromasters, they're essentially the CHUG version of the old G1 Micromasters (and it just so happens I still have my G1 Roadhandler and Swindler from when I was a kid).  Roadhandler, my favorite Autobot Micromaster, comes out pretty close.  He's even still got the big screw hole in the center of his chest.  His thighs should be yellow and his pelvis should be blue, and he's got some extra black stripes on his shoulders and more molded details, but that's about it.  Swindler gains blue shoulders, but loses his blue pelvis and thighs.  His molded rear window shades are gone, too, replaced with painted black ones.  The biggest change, though, is that he's got some molded details on his chest instead of the front of a car.

The new Micromasters are about the same size as the old ones, but the articulation is slightly better.  They've got ball joints for shoulders instead of swivels, so they can move their arms laterally instead a bit (Roadhandler more than Swindler, due to Swindler's obnoxiously tall shoulders).  They also traded their hip swivels for ball joints, giving them pretty good lateral hip motion and a slight thigh swivel.  Their legs aren't stuck together like the G1 toys', either.  They can bend their knees.  And... well, that's it.  No elbows, no biceps or wrists, no waists or necks, no feet.  Both are a little back heavy, and without any real feet Roadhandler especially is prone to falling over.

Despite being the same size as the Micromasters Firedrive's articulation is slightly worse.  Same ball joints for the shoulders and hips, but nothing at the knees.  You can remove the gun barrels from his back, though.  They have a small peg that fits into the peg holes on his arms.  Too bad he doesn't have such holes in his hands.  He can use his sole accessories, the fire blast effects, by fitting them over the tips of the gun barrels.

While I couldn't find any other uses for them on Firedrive, turns out that they can fit in the screw holes on Roadhandler and Swindler's chests.  Or, they can peg into the bottoms of their feet like they've got jet boots on.

Firedrive turns into a gun, just like Firebolt did, although the resulting gun is definitely different than Firebolt.  I like the molded missiles in his feet.  It's a shame Hasbro didn't paint them; a little red would make them pop more.  As Targetmaster gun modes go, I've definitely seen worse.  And he can be held by any Transformer, official or 3P, that can hold a 5mm peg.

Roadhandler and Swindler turn into cars, of course.  Somehow they're both slightly larger in their car modes than their G1 counterparts.  Roadhander's transformation is basically identical to the G1 toy.  The only difference for Swindler is that his front end collapses onto his back via a double hinge instead of folding down over his front.  Roadhandler still looks like a reasonable Trans Am, except more of an early '80s model instead of a later '80s one.  Swindler looks more like an '80s Corolla than a DeLorean.

There's one interesting difference between the new Micromasters and the old ones.  Both of them have flip out 5mm pegs under their front ends.  Sorry to leave you in suspense, but we'll talk about that again in a later review.

Now, I don't intend to go all-in on Siege, so in some ways my review of these figures aren't just for them.  They're serving as ambassadors for their size classes.  So on that note, would I recommend Firedrive and/or any other Battle Master?  I'm not blown away by him or anything, but if you've got some other figures who could use an extra weapon I think he's probably worth the $6.99 retail price.  The fire effect parts especially will make for a more dynamic display.  Personally, I'm thinking I might pick up the other gun, Blowpipe, but I think Lionizer makes for a pretty awkward-looking sword and the "swoosh" effect he comes with isn't really as versatile as the fire blasts Firedrive and Blowpipe come with.

What I don't recommend are the Micromasters.  The only reason I bought the Race Car Patrol was because I had a ton of Micromasters as a kid, the G1 Race Car and Air Strike Patrols were my favorite Micromasters, and (minus Roadhandler's right arm) they're some of the few G1 toys I still have from when I was a kid.  Thing is, the new ones are barely an improvement from the originals, they still don't have any accessories, and they cost $9.99 for a pair.  Now, I get that value is subjective, but there's just no way one of these guys is worth $5.  Maybe if they still came in four packs like they did in '89 (and the Race Car Patrol also had new versions of Free Wheeler and Tailspin, both of which I liked better than Swindler back in the day) I could consider it, but as it stands they just feel like a rip off to me.

EDIT: Roadhandler and Swindler actually DO have waist swivels.  I'd tried first with Roadhandler, and his was just tight in a way Hasbro toys usually aren't.  I was messing with Swindler and his waist turned much easier, prompting me to double-check Roadhandler.  Yep, he had one, too.  Mea culpa, you guys.

Edited January 6, 2019 by mikeszekely

[mikeszekely]

With the Micromaster/Battle Master appetizer out of the way, let's get to a main course of a Siege... Voyager-class Optimus Prime.

It's taken eleven years and four tries at a Voyager-class Optimus Prime... but holy, did Hasbro get it right this time!  His smokestacks are a little stubby.  You can see the wheels in his torso.  He's missing the fuel tanks on his legs.  The bottom of his crotch is left unpainted gray instead of blue.  And yeah, he's got some kibble on his arms and back.  But the head sculpt is amazingly good.  His pelvis has the correct shape and number of yellow bits.  Nothing is particularly modernized or stylized like the other three.  And his proportions are actually better than MP-10's.

And you know, it seems like people have been complaining a lot in recent years about how Transformers have been shrinking, but with them all lined up it sure looks like Classics Op, Titans Return Op, and Siege Op are basically all the same height to the head.  And despite their similar sizes, Siege Op is noticeably heavier than CW or TR Op.  There's still some hollow places on his body, although his transformation does fill in a lot of them, and none of the usual Hasbro cost-cutting like hollowing the backs of the thighs just to save plastic.

Oh, and is that paint I see?  Why, yes it is!  The smokestacks, grill, and toes, face, and forehead have silver paint.  There's yellow on his pelvis and the lights on his chest, plus white for the stripe under his windows.  His eyes are painted blue.  That all looks great!  Unfortunately there's also some haphazardly applied silver on his arms, chest, and thighs that doesn't look so good.  It's meant to look like mud and scratches, like this is a battle worn Optimus, but... eh.  I think in hand it's not as bad as it first looks, but I'd have rather the paint budget went elsewhere.

The G1 cartoon-accuracy carries over to at least one of the accessories, as he finally comes with a gun that looks like his classic ion rifle (ok, one of CW Prime's was close, if it weren't for the odd engine details).  It's a shame they put so many hollow spaces in it.  I'd have been perfectly content of Hasbro had stopped their, but he also comes with an axe weapon.  The axe can fold up into something like a shield, and it's actually got quite a bit of silver paint itself.

This isn't just a good-looking Optimus, Hasbro has improved the articulation over previous efforts as well.  His head is on a ball joint that can look up and down a fair bit and tilt sideways ever so slightly in addition to rotating.  His shoulders rotate, and a joint inside the shoulder lets his arms move laterally about 90 degrees.  The smokestacks are even on a hinged flap so they can open and get out of the way.  Due to his transformation he's got a bit of a backwards butterfly motion in his shoulders as well.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend on a single hinge a little over 90 degrees.  His wrists can swivel.  His waist can swivel.  His hips are friction universal joints that can go forward and backward maybe 75 degrees, and laterally the full 90 degrees.  His thighs can swivel around the joint a bit, and if you need a little extra there's a swivel above the knee, too.  Speaking of knees, his are a single hinge but they get closer to 180 degrees than a mere 90.  His toes and heels can bend downward.  And, in a shocking twist for a Hasbro figure, he's got actual ankle pivots, good for about 45 degrees.

It's not just that he has a better range of motion than other Hasbro figures, either.  The tolerances on his joints are much better than I'd expect.  I can pick up Siege Op, give him a little shake, and nothing will move.

He is, of course, still a mainline Voyager, so his hands are molded into 5mm peg holes.  He can hold his weapons fine in them.

You can even open his chest up.  There's some molded details in there, but mostly just a big gap where his head goes when he's in alt mode.  No Matrix.  You can fit a Prime Master in there, though.

In addition to his weapons, Siege Op can also hold a Battle Master, or really any other weapon with a 5mm peg.  Actually, he can hold a lot of weapons with 5mm pegs, because there are several on his body.  There's one on the outside of each forearm near his elbow, one in each shoulder on the smokestacks, one on the outside of each lower leg, between the wheels, and two on his backpack.  There's also two on the sole of each foot.

Those peg holes aren't just good for weapons, either.  Remember those pegs I mentioned under the front ends of the Micromasters?  You can slap them onto Siege Op, Armada Minicon Powerlinx style.  Actually, turns out you can peg Swindler and Roadhandler together, and with their feet folded out they become a gun.  A stupid-looking one, but it's an option.  If you have a Battle Master, using the fire effect parts with them does help sell it.

Speaking of, turns out the outer edge of the fire effect parts' attachment point is 5mm, so you can stick them into 5mm ports on him.  Remember the ones on his feet?  Stick them in there, looks like he's got boosters.  The barrel of his rifle is also a 5mm port, so you can use the fire effect there.  You'll also fine tiny pegs in various spots on his shield and on his body that the fire effect parts can stick onto.  I think putting them there makes it look more like Prime is being shot.

Although Siege is the first line in a series being called "War for Cybertron" and this is ostensibly a Cybertronian alt mode, Siege Optimus turns into a truck.  In fact, although it's not as G1-accurate as his robot mode, it's debatably closer than the previous Voyager-class figures.  It does look a little smaller, but that seems to be mostly that the cab is a little shorter.  Without the wind vane on the top of Classics Prime it's similar in height and length.  And, again, much heavier than CW Prime.

As I was saying, for a Cybertronian alt mode it's not that far from the G1 truck.  We've still got two windows, a white stripe, a grill, two headlights, and a bumper on the front.  The big changes are the translucent blue on the lights and grill, the overhanging roof with extra lights, and the small silver-painted gatling guns on the sides of the bumper.  Moving around the truck, the smokestacks end up in the right place, although there's a bit of a gap between them.  From above, you can also see a little bit of  gap between his thighs.  Checking out the sides we do have fuel tanks, as well as some molded bits that could be storage boxes and some skid plates, also painted in silver.  His rims are painted in silver.  Unlike the G1 version, they're kind of covered still.  Weirdly, the windows on the sides are painted silver, despite the front windows and part of the side window being translucent blue.  Would I have liked a more earth-mode, G1 truck?  Sure.  But this isn't bad, and transforming Prime into this mode is surprisingly complex without being confusing or difficult.

You can still open up the chest in this mode.  Rather than an exposed head, you see silver-painted molded detail that's evocative of a Matrix.  There's also a number of peg holes showing- two on the roof, one on each side of the cab, one on each side near the rear wheels, and one on each of the smokestacks (plus, if you open them back up, the four on the feet), so you have a lot of options for storing weapons, Micromasters, blast effects, etc.

With a retail price of $29.99, Siege Op is a little more expensive than the Voyagers of yesteryear, but with improvements in sculpt, engineering, articulation, and paint, not to mention enough weight and lack of hollowness that Hasbro doesn't feel like they're skimping on the materials, so the higher price tag feels justified.  On the flip side, he might still not be up the same level as an MMC Reformatted or Maketoys Cross Dimension figure, but he's between half and a third the price.  It's almost like Hasbro has heard the complaints of the adult collectors and watched those same collectors snap up 3P alternatives and decided they'd actually listen to those collectors and make a competing product.  The end result is simply the best Optimus figure Hasbro has released that wasn't part of the Masterpiece line.  I just wonder if it's coming too late, at a point where a lot of collectors have abandoned Hasbro in favor of either 1st and 3rd party MPs or 3P Legends.  It'd be a shame of that were the case, though.  Siege Optimus is a solid figure with a fun transformation and plenty of articulation to get him into so really dynamic poses, and little touches from things like the Battle Master's fire effect parts can add to the display factor while the numerous 5mm ports and compatibility with other weapons and Microsmasters add to the playability.  Despite being a mainline Hasbro figure you can walk into a Target and buy it's a great figure, one I'd definitely recommend.

[M'Kyuun]

Between yesterday and the first, I've been to two of the local Targets in my area, and they pretty much have nothing for Siege, except maybe some of the micro guys. I have yet to see anything over deluxe size. Anyway, I can't argue with how good the bot mode looks for this iteration of Prime- by far the best representation since the G1 toy, which itself didn't look much like its highly stylized toon representation. I still find its Cybertronian truck mode abhorrent, though. I vehemently hope that Siege is followed up by a wave or three of all our favorite G1 characters given their Earth alt modes, essentially a low cost analogy to MP, which I think is what many of us have wanted all along from the Generations line.

[sh9000]

I just found out that Paul Eiding will also be at the local convention along with Arthur Burghardt and Alan Oppenheimer.  I’ve got to plan accordingly.

[sh9000]

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers-Vintage-G1-Optimus-Prime-Collectible-Figure/210385764

[mikeszekely]

6 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Between yesterday and the first, I've been to two of the local Targets in my area, and they pretty much have nothing for Siege, except maybe some of the micro guys. I have yet to see anything over deluxe size.

Same, plus two Walmarts, even though both the Targets and the Walmarts have bare shelves and empty peg hooks where the Transformers stuff should go.  I don't know if the problem is Hasbro's distribution or if scalpers have just been snatching them up.  You can find them plenty of Siege figures if you shop on ebay or Amazon... as long as you're willing to pay 2-4 times the retail price.   I eventually gave in and just ordered from TFSource.  Who also quickly sold out.  It's a shame, because while I don't think can go all in on Siege I'd like to review at least one figure from each size class.

Prime wasn't the only Voyager I picked up from TFS, though.  I also grabbed Megatron.

As with Siege Optimus, Siege Megatron is easily the most G1-ish megatron Hasbro's released.  He's a tad broad in the chest, or his torso is a tad short, but I think he looks better in robot mode than even the Leader Class from Combiner Wars.  There are even nice touches like part of his shoulders folding back to leave fake gun hammers on top.  That said, instead of a gun barrel on his back he's got two noticeable chunks of tank.  His wrists are permanently bent inward a bit, and where they fold out he has hollow spots in his forearms.  And like Prime he's got that silvery paint all over him meant to look like dirt and scratches.  It actually doesn't look too bad on his legs, but it looks kind of gross on his torso and forehead.  Aside from the dirt paint I think he might have a bit less paint than Optimus

Interestingly, Siege Megatron is definitely looking a little shorter than the previous Voyager Megatrons.  However, that might have been due to previous Megatrons being a little taller than previous Optimuses, because when you put Siege Megatron and Optimus together they're very evenly matched.

Aside from his trademark fusion cannon, which does NOT have to be removed for transformation (which I very much appreciate), he comes with this big sword thingy.  Almost looks like it could be a new type of Star Destroyer.  The two tabs on the one side are so you can attach the "swoosh" effect that comes with Lionizer... which I don't plan to get.

Megatron's head is on a ball joint that can look up and rotate... and that's about it.  You can get him to look down, but that's because his head tucks down into his chest for transformation.  Somewhat irritatingly there's no locking point for his collar in robot mode, so it sometimes winds up tucked in there when you're messing with him.  Shoulders can rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees.  Biceps rotate just above the elbows, which can bend 90 degrees.  No wrist rotation.  His waist can rotate, although you have to pull the bottom of his backpack out a little to clear his hips.  Speaking of his hips they're universal joints that can go forward 90 degrees, backward about 60 degrees (they're capable of more, but his backpack is in the way, and laterally a little over 90 degrees.  His thighs rotate on cut swivels.  His knees can bend 90 degrees.  His heel spurs actually lock into place, and with them extended you can't bend his feet up or down.  He does have ankle pivots, though, good for 45 degrees.

If you don't like how weird is sword looks, there's a peg on the one side, and the halves of the blade can be turned out so the sword becomes a gun.  Battle Master fire effect parts can be placed in the barrel of either weapon.  Both of his fists are molded 5mm pegs, so he can hold his sword or other weapons.  And, like Prime, he's got a number of 5mm ports on his body for other weapons.  There's one on each forearm, including the one his fusion cannon is plugged into...

...there's also one on the outside of each shoulder, one on the outside of each lower leg, two on the back of his backpack, and two on the top of his backpack, so you have lots of options for other weapons, Battle Masters, and Micromasters to attach to.  He's also got some of the little pegs to attach the fire effect parts to, and peg holes on the soles of his feet for them.

I guess turning into a gun has become taboo again in the eleven years since Classics Megatron came out.  And when Megatron's not a gun, he's usually a tank.  While Optimus went for a G1 truck mode with random extra bits to be more Cybertronian, Megatron skips emulating the Leader-class version and doesn't even try to look like an Earth tank.  It's not a bad-looking tank, though, although he's got a bit of a gap in the rear between his treads.

Megatron doesn't have working treads, but he's got wheels on his undersize so he still rolls.  His turret can rotate.  However, the barrel can't move up or down.

Like Prime, Megatron has plenty of spots on his alt modes for weapon storage, fire effect parts, Micromasters, Battle Masters, etc.  Unlike Prime, who stored his accessories at random, both of Megatron's accessories are part of his alt mode.  The fusion cannon is the middle of the turret, and the blades flip around on the sword and slide under the turret, with the sword handle fitting into the barrel of the fusion cannon.  Since he can transform without removing his fusion cannon I don't think that should count as partsforming, but forming the barrel out of his sword definitely is.

If you really don't like partsforming, here's how he looks without the barrel.  Not ideal.  Rotating the turret 180 degrees does give you a little of the cannon sticking out, but still not great.  One more alternative is to not rotate the fusion cannon on his arm before folding his arms into the turret.  That will leave most of the fusion cannon's barrel sticking out, and as long as the turret's rotated backward so the cannon is pointing forward I think that looks passable.  Plus, this way the cannon actually can move up and down a little.  The downside, though, is that there's a gap between his arm where the barrel would normally sit.

Siege Megatron is a good Voyager-class figure.  He's definitely an improvement over the Power of the Primes Voyager, and as much as I love it, over Nerf gun Classics Megatron.  However, he feels like a step back from Optimus.  The articulation is a little worse, although I'm happy he's still got ankle pivots. The joint tolerances aren't as tight as Prime's; if I pick him up and give him a shake, his hips at the least will wiggle.  There should have been some mechanism to help his head not collapse into his chest until you actually want it too.  And, while this is more subjective, I'm not a big fan of that sword, so I'm not loving how it's basically a necessity for a proper alt mode.  If you're the Siege line or otherwise still collecting Hasbro CHUGs he's definitely a great addition to your collection.  But, if you're only going to try one Voyager-class figure from the Siege line Prime is the better of the two figures.

[mikeszekely]

Minor addendum to my Megatron review:

I was messing around with him a bit, and I noticed on one side of the sword, on the part the blades rotate around on, there's a screw.  If you remove the screw, you can pull the blades off.  Without the blades catching on the underside of the turret you can raise and lower the barrel, although the pivot point is set near the back of the turret instead of the front.  Without the blades attached it's not much of a sword, but he can still hold it like a rifle.

And since he's got peg holes on his back you could stick stick the gun back there, like the gun barrel on G1 Megatron's back.  My only gripe is that it sits much too high.  That seems fixable with a 3D printer or Shapeways, though.  The hole that the blades connected through is still a 5mm hole.  An adapter that's basically a thin strip of a plastic maybe an inch long, with a 5mm peg pointing down on one end and a 5mm peg pointing up on the other could peg into the hole on his back with the second peg hanging closer to the bottom of the backpack for the gun to fit onto should do the trick.  Anyone with a 3D printer care to try it?  I definitely would, but I don't have a 3D printer.

[M'Kyuun]

Fair warning: I think this is the guy's first time transforming it, and it's a bit painful to watch.  He mis-transforms the arms, as the window bits are supposed to rotate to the backs of the arms. Reviewers ineptitude aside, it's a satisfyingly complex transformation, with both modes looking pretty good. I dig it.

 

[mikeszekely]

I saw Bumblebee right before Christmas, then right after Christmas picked this guy up- Studio Series Dropkick.

When Hasbro launched the Studio Series line, the impression that I got was that it was something special.  A little more expensive than previously, but in return were were getting more paint, we were getting robots that were in scale with each other, and we were getting the most movie-accurate Transformers outside of the MPM line.  And while the line has had some hits and misses, for the most part I've been fairly satisfied with what you're getting for what you're paying.  Unfortunately, while there are toys galore for the new Bumblebee movie the only new figures announced in the usual Deluxe scale all carried the Studio Series branding, making me worry that Studio Series was less line for the definitive movie toys (again, outside of MPM) and more of a generic umbrella for movie toys in general.  And we kind of saw that with Bumblebee, and the toy turned out to be lacking in accuracy due to the toy's design being finalized before the movie's model.  However, while tabbing together the alt mode is an exercise in frustration he still made for a solid bot with plenty of accessories, and the MPM of this Bumblebee turned out to be just as inaccurate.  Maybe there was still hope for the Studio Series line.

And then I got Dropkick.

Look, I don't envy the designers.  Despite it not being necessary to the plot, someone somewhere decided that Dropkick (and his partner, Shatter) should be triple changers.  And those same people used a lot of movie magic to make the transition between modes happen, and ultimately gave us a robot with car and helicopter kibble hanging off it.  That series of decisions left somebody else (who definitely isn't being paid enough) the unenviable task of up with a toy that looks like the robot in the movie but actually transforms.  And on the looks department, I'd give them a D-.  I mean, they kind of gave him faux tires at his elbows and some black blocks with red centers that are maybe supposed to be taillights, but there's really no effort to even attempt to look like car parts anywhere else.  His head is fairly accurate, and he does have the helicopter cockpit in his torso and rotor on his back like he should, but the split car grill pecs are kind of just empty gaps here.  The blue in his torso, arms, and thighs is totally missing, even in spots where blue paint wouldn't have affected the alt mode.  His door wings are gone, inadequately replaced by two kibble flaps that don't secure in this mode, flopping loosely on ball joints positioned so that they sit vertically against his back instead of even trying to stick out horizontally like the door wings.  His arms are also burdened with helicopter kibble, kibble that frustrates me because it looks so unfinished.  Would it have killed them to put a double hinge in the tail so that it could lay flush on his forearm?  This figure is closer to being a Bayverse Whirl than the robot you actually see on screen.

He doesn't come with a ton of accessories, but I guess what you get is fine.  And what you get is a pair of these guns.  The black barrel can fold in for alt mode.  Unfortunately that leaves a big empty space when the barrel is deployed.

Dropkick's articulation isn't great, especially after being spoiled by Siege and the better Studio Series figures.  Pretty sure that his head is on a ball joint, and it can rotate, look up slightly, down slightly, but no sideways tilt.  His shoulders have ball joints inside the shoulder for rotation, a little butterfly, and a little lateral movement.  With the transformation joint you can get a little more lateral movement, but the kibble behind his head don't leave the tops of his shoulders enough clearance and you can't even get all the way to 90 degrees.  His biceps swivel.  Elbows bend 90 degrees.  No wrist or waist articulation.  His hips are ball joints and can kick forward and backward well over 90 degrees, and about 90 degrees laterally.  His thighs can swivel.  His knees are single hinges that can get nearly 180 degrees.  But he has no foot or ankle articulation.  Generally speaking I found posing him to be a chore, simply because the junk on his back kept getting in the way of the junk on his arms.

He holds his weapons fine, with the usual 5mm pegs for handles that fit into 5mm fist holes.

The transformation is, at least, pretty interesting.  It takes a fairly thin robot and stretches it out even thinner, moving in ways that don't seem obvious at first but aren't difficult, either.  The result is a fairly accurate Bell Super Cobra attack helicopter.  The rotors do turn, although the main rotor doesn't spin freely.  I think I actually like it that way, though, since it helps the rotor to stay put in robot mode.

The weapons peg onto the slightly-too-stubby wings, emulating the 19-tube rocket launcher a Super Cobra might carry.  Molded onto the nose you can see the sighting system for TOW missiles, and the 20mm triple-barreled cannon (which is very easy to forget about folding out when you're transforming him).  Sadly, you can't really rotate the cannon without forcing the barely-tabbed halves of the copter apart.  His hands are super visible on the tail, and I honestly think there's more blue showing in this mode than in robot mode, which is the opposite of what you want.

Helicopter aficionados may find some value in a fairly accurate Super Cobra with a fairly unique transformation.  However, the robot mode is fairly weak and so far removed from the on-screen model that it might as well be a different character, making Dropkick one of my least favorite entries in the Studio Series.  Save yourself some money and let this guy shelfwarm at the store.

[SMS007]

Anyone here going to get Generations Selects? This will be the packaging:

 

[mikeszekely]

9 hours ago, SMS007 said:

Anyone here going to get Generations Selects?

I don't think so. I didn't have any Dinobots as a kid so I've got no attachment to red Swoop, only the blue one. Glad he's being made available for the people that do want him, though. And I kind of dig the package.

[derex3592]

Brother-In-Law got me Studio Series Bumblebee for Xmas and I gotta say--I'm NOT impressed. Talk about a hard transformation to get right for a cheap toy.   Maybe I'm to use to Macross stuff. What a gappy mess in car mode. You think you have everything lined up and then something pops loose. REALLY glad I'm not into Transformers anymore other than a MP Takara here and there. 

[M'Kyuun]

Neither the SS nor the MPM versions of Movie Bee looked good to me.  Now, I'm probably in the minority, but I like the SS Dropkick figure. Reading Mike's review above, he makes valid points (lots of kibble, the intakes flop about a bit, the hollow guns when the barrels are extended, etc). What I like about the figure is that they pretty much completely ignored the triple changer aspect and concentrated on giving it a decent helicopter mode, essentially eschewing any pretense of car kibble. I think it was the right way to go, as making this a triple changer would have introduced  too many compromises. I wish they'd given Shatter her Harrier mode instead of  the muscle car- we've had like how many car modes over the years?  To wit, we've never had an accurate Harrier mode, and, as it's one of my favorite military planes, I would have welcomed it.  Anyway, concerning Dropkick, I found it to be a fun figure and I really like the transformation. 

It'd be nice if Has/Tak and the producers of these movies talked about feasibility when designing the onscreen counterparts for these characters. I wish they'd design the toy first, use that transformation format, with some embellishments. As for triple changers, I think they're cool, but I think the alt modes should compliment in terms of basic size and shape. That isn't the case with Shatter or Dropkick, and that's why we'll likely never see triple changing toys of them. Too much CG magic with little regard to logic.

[mikeszekely]

3 hours ago, derex3592 said:

Brother-In-Law got me Studio Series Bumblebee for Xmas and I gotta say--I'm NOT impressed. Talk about a hard transformation to get right for a cheap toy.   Maybe I'm to use to Macross stuff. What a gappy mess in car mode. You think you have everything lined up and then something pops loose. REALLY glad I'm not into Transformers anymore other than a MP Takara here and there. 

I know I reviewed him a while back, but I don't really remember what I said then.  What I'm saying now is that the only reason I don't rank him lower is because I do like the robot mode, even if it's not super movie accurate, and I value the robot modes over the alt modes.  But yeah, the alt mode is hot garbage that tabs together so poorly that it always looks half-transformed.

[Kuma Style]

[JB0]

So my Target, to my surprise, had empty pegs where the 10- and 20- dollar Siege toys would go.  Lionizer was cute, but I wasn't convinced he was six bucks cute.

...

They DID have a slot for the 50-buck toys. Picked up UItra Magnus, looked at him, decided he looked like Magnus... after Magnus had been dragged across the playground(lot's of paint-damage apps right across his chest). That kinda turned me off.

Back of box says he turns into a white robot and combines with the trailer to form the real Magnus, so points for that. Seems like the white robot actually turns into a truck cab on its own, too, so... points for successfully matching the original toy's feature set for once?

 

 

However, while putting Magnus back, I realized the toy behind him wasn't another Magnus. It was SHOCKWAVE. And the battle damage paint is limited to the add-on shoulder armor parts(apparently bodily harm is illogical).

The core robot is... well, it's Shockwave. No two ways about it. He's a smaller version of the original toy.  I am very pleased.

 

Turns into a space ship of some sort... that looks annoyingly familiar until you flip him upside down and he turns into his G1 raygun form, except the barrel is purple and his feet don't fold away, so they hang off the back and get in the way when you grab the two-inch pistol grip and point him at your dog like you're five again. No flip-up scope plate, but his front landing skid and rear pylons make a good set of pistol sights. 

...

Annoyingly, despite the surplus of peg holes on him, there's no hole on his gun barrel that's really reachable by the hose . There IS a gap at the elbows you can cram the hose into, and it looks fine once you tilt it to clear the sights, but it isn't as secure as a peg hole would've been.

 

Attaching all the armor to this mode makes a BIGGER space ship, that no longer looks like an upside-down raygun(consequently, it is lame).

 

If you don't want to put his armor on his robot mode(and why WOULD you?), it can be assembled into a flying drone thing.  Hasbro helpfully illustrates Shockwave riding atop the drone like some kind of flying sound stage.  This is silly, and I'm ignoring that idea.

Edited January 11, 2019 by JB0

[mikeszekely]

Like JB0, I was also at Target today.  Looks like a new plan-o-gram; prior to this visit the shelves were all still marked for Power of the Primes, Cyberverse, and Studio Series, and the Siege stuff (empty pegs for Micromasters, a few Weapon Masters, and empty pegs for Deluxes) were on a temporary holiday display.  Now the Cyberverse stuff seems scaled back a bit, and the PotP stuff is clearanced out and moved off the shelf.  In its place were spots for all the size classes of Siege.  On the shelf they had Voyagers, Micromasters (but no Air Strike Patrol), and Weaponizers.  The pegs for Deluxes and the shelf space for Leaders were both empty.  I almost bought another Optimus so I could have one with a right hand instead of two lefts, but it looked like people were moving stuff around and restocking, so I figured I'd ask.  They really were out of Deluxes, but instead of another Prime I picked up both Leaders.  We'll start with Ultra Magnus.

While my childhood collection was light on season 1 and 2 characters, I had most of the season 3 toys, so I have a deep appreciation for an Ultra Magnus that's a white Optimus.  I was actually kind of disappointed with Combiner Wars Magnus and MP Magnus because they don't have that feature.  On the other hand, Has/Tak has kind of taken the white Optimus thing to an extreme, though, giving us Ultra Magnus repaints of practically every Optimus Prime toy released in the last decade.  Siege Ultra Magnus delivers the white Optimus I crave, but they didn't take the cheap repaint option.  Instead, Ultra Magnus is an entirely new mold (I've heard some people suggest that the head is the same, but Magnus has some molded detail that Optimus doesn't).  If he were painted in the traditional red and blue Magnus would be instantly recognizable as Optimus, but Magnus is sporting very different proportions.  His upper torso is a little wider due to the folding panels between his chest and shoulders.  His lower torso has more chunk.  His pelvis is larger and his hips sit lower.  His thighs are shorter, and his thighs and biceps are wider. His hands are bigger.  His feet are smaller.  Taken by himself, he's a little chunky but I don't think he looks too bad.  Compared to Siege Optimus, though, there's no question who has better proportions.  I'm not mad, though.  I actually like how it gives him the basic white Optimus look while also giving him a unique aesthetic.

Something else I like is how the front of his pelvis folds down and can spin around.  One side is the more Optimus-looking side, while the other is blue with Magnus' white belt.  Something I don't like, though, is the huge chunk of very un-Optimus kibble on his back.  We'll let it slide, for now.

Now, you might have noticed that Magnus (so far) is basically the same size as Voyager-class Optimus, but he's a Leader.  I'm guessing the rest of his plastic budget went to his accessories.  You've got two leg parts, a torso part, his shoulder missiles, his shoulder pylons, two arm guards, and three guns.  One of the guns is silver, and looks like the G1 gun if it had an extra stock.  The other are black, and super hollow inside.

Magnus' head is on a ball joint that can rotate, look up and down a fair bit, and tilt quizzically a tad.  His shoulders can rotate and move outward a little over 90 degrees.  His biceps can swivel.  His elbows can bend 90 degrees, and he does have wrist swivels.  His waist can swivel.  His hips can move laterally 90 degrees on friction joints, and forward/backward 90 degrees on ratchets.  His thighs can swivel around the joint.  His knees bend 90 degrees.  His feet don't have any up/down tilt, but they do have about 45 degrees of pivot.

He holds his guns ok, but for some reason his grip on other 5mm pegs (including the one on Weapon Master Firedrive) are super loose.  As far as other 5mm ports go, he's got one on top of each shoulder, one on the outside of each forearm, one on the outside of each leg just above his ankles, one on the blue kibble on his back, and one on the sole of each foot.  His silver rifle actually has two on either side, one right above the handle and one behind the barrel, and the black guns each have one above the handle on the non-hollow side, so you can connect all his weapons up if you like.

Magnus' cab is roughly the same size as Optimus', and there are some similarities.  Both have translucent blue plastic over the windows, grill, and headlights.  Both have a pair of multi-barrel cannons on either side of their bumpers.  But on the whole, Magnus is a greater departure from the traditional Optimus cab, with the windshield being a single pane, small slivers for lights, and a front bumper that looks like it could have been more at home as the cow catcher on an old locomotive than a truck bumper.

That bumper... this is looking kind of familiar...

It's also a lot lazier than Optimus's cab.  His forearms and hands don't tuck away so much and look ridiculous, like a half-robot, half-truck riding a pony.  There's a huge gap between his robot hips and the tire on his front bumper; really wish they'd have put the tire on an accordion hinge so it could have swung back over that gap.  Although is heels fold in, his toes don't fold down and stick up in a way that screams "I am robot feet!".  There's a bit of gap between his legs, too.

You can distract yourself from some of the ugliness of the lone cab by loading him up with weapons and what not, as you've still got access to the hole in the bumper, two on top of the cab, and one on each side just behind the rear wheels.

While Has/Tak has been pretty content to paint an Optimus white, call it Ultra Magnus, and go home for the day Siege Magnus uses all the extra bits to armor himself up.  The wider torso and thighs, longer arms, bigger pelvis, and bigger hands are starting to make sense now, eh?  What you get is a little greebly, but very G1 Ultra Magnus.  With his armor on he's noticeably shorter than the Combiner Wars Leader Magnus, although he's much heavier.  He winds up just a head or so taller than Voyager Prime.  Now, a lot of people are complaining about this, saying that Leaders are shrinking.  Personally, this doesn't bother me.  Honestly, I didn't buy a lot of Leaders even at the height of my CHUG collecting, because Leader-class figures tended to be wildly out of scale with the rest.  A head taller than Optimus seems like the ideal height for Ultra Magnus.  And let's be fair, they're using more plastic than the previous Leader. 

You're also getting better articulation than the previous Leader-class.  His new head is still ball-jointed; not much sideways tilt, but he can look up and down, and rotate his head.  His shoulders can still rotate and extend over 90 degrees laterally (I at first didn't like how his shoulder missiles sat up above the blue part of his shoulder, but that's how they stay out of the way of the lateral movement).  He's still got his bicep swivels, elbow bends, and wrist swivels.  His waist still swivels.  His thighs, hips, and knees use the smaller robot's joints and have basically the same range.  His ankle still don't have any up/down tilt, but he's got almost 90 degrees of ankle pivot.  One thing to note about that ankle pivot, though, is that his feet are molded at an angle to his shins, so he's always got a bit of an A-stance.

As far as 5mm holes, they're similar in number.  The one on his truck bumper is on his butt instead of his back, but he did get another one on his back.  His forearm covers plug into the ones on his smaller robot forearms but those covers also have a 5mm port on the outside.  His new legs have a port each on the outside, just below the knee, and the number on his feet jump from one to two on each sole.  The ones on his smaller bot shoulders are covered, but he's got a pair just inside of his shoulders on top of his torso, plus one each on the outside of his new shoulders (although you're probably going to stick missiles there for that traditional Ultra Magnus look).  Since his hands are the same as the smaller bot's, he still holds his weapons fine but still holds other weapons loosely.

All that armor's not just for robot mode.  The torso section stretches out to make the roof of a trailer, with the head tucked in and his forearm guards pegged in behind his head.  The sides of the legs unfurl and snap together, encapsulating the roof as they do.  The backs of the shoulders fold down, the shoulders tab together back-to-back, then the shoulders are pushed so the circles on top of the pylons lock into grips behind the ankles on the boots.

The white parts of the boots do not fold down.  And because the feet are molded at an angle the back of the trailer isn't level.

And there we have the cab and trailer together.  Although shorter than the older Leader-class they're about the same length front to back, with a bigger cab on the newer one.  Plus the wheels are actually painted this time.  Unfortunately, since the trailer doesn't really open and since his head and forearms are taking up room in there you can't really fit a Deluxe-class (or larger) vehicle into the trailer.  The cab also doesn't turn.

I put the Magnus missiles near the front of the trailer for maximum G1-ness, but this alt mode really isn't G1 at all.  In fact...

Yeah, it's totally RiD Ultra Magnus, isn't it?  The way the front of the cab slopes in, the giant cow-catcher bumper, the little slit headlights, the extra side panel grating, it's all RiD Magnus, just in more G1 colors.  And although I put the missiles forward, the instructions actually suggest putting the missiles where I have the black guns pegged on, and the black guns pegged on where I have the missiles and pointing straight down.  The shape of those guns, now that I'm looking at them, is very close to that blue part behind the cab on RiD Magnus.

In addition to those two pegs on each side of the trailer you've still got the hole in the bumper.  Plus, there are two holes on top of the trailer you can use, so while he can't accommodate a ton of extra weapons or Micromasters in this mode you'll have no problem storing all the accessories he comes with, at least.

Ultra Magnus is a great figure, once you accept that he's a bit shorter than you might expect a Leader-class toy to be.  He's got good articulation that isn't hampered by his armor, the cab is a unique mold and not a repaint of another Optimus, and he's the first Ultra Mangus toy since the G1 version to do both the white Optimus and traditional Ultra Magnus (by design, so I'm not counting Fansproject's City Commander).  While I would have liked the truck mode to be more of a G1 Ultra Magnus it doesn't bother me now that I recognize the RiD homage, and these are technically still supposed to be Cybertronian modes anyway.  Easy recommend from me.

[JB0]

3 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

MP Magnus because they don't have that feature

Well, between the two MP Magnuses... one's a white Optibotimus, the other's Ultra Magnus only. Maybe the third time will be the proper two-in-one?

 

Having spent more time messing with Shockwave, I'm finding that I need some pegs. In an attempt to make the "complete" "spaceship" mode not look absurdly back-heavy and dorky, I keep wanting to plug two holes together. I've settled for using them as landing skids for now, but I'm noticing that Shockwave hasn't given himself entirely over to logic, as he's got two small guns across the bow of his ship that will blow the main cannon off if he fires them, and the articulated gun on the right will take out his power cable if fired forward(a problem exacerbated by my landing skid plates).

Despite the appearances in these photos the plastic is a consistent deep purple.

 

I found that attaching the booster/cannon modules to the sides of his backpack instead of particularly flamboyant shoulderpads looked decent-ish and gives him kind of a cool rocket pack.  I'm not very good at posing, but I'll take a swing anyways.

Annoyingly, he can't look up because of the hinge for the backpack swingbar. As much stuff that detaches and clips on elsewhere, you'd think they could've made the barrel do the G1 switcheroo.

And My Shockwaves always wind up shaking their fist megalomaniacly for some reason.

 

 

The "barrel enhancer" used to make "complete spaceship" mode is kind of exasperating. It is very clearly designed for only that purpose, and any other use is an afterthought. The side rails are in two segments, and the back segment doesn't really peg in nicely to anything in rocket-stage mode. In robot mode, it gives Shockwave a pair of tails.

It also looks enough like stage equipment that I fully expect to see it again on Soundwave or Blaster. 

 

 

 

[vlenhoff]

i never understood the mini cons thing. I know i may need to watch the animation to understand it, but how does a car hanging off your arm would help you fight? I don't mean to sound negative or interrupt, but i may skip this line altogether. 

 

[mikeszekely]

5 hours ago, JB0 said:

I'm noticing that Shockwave hasn't given himself entirely over to logic, as he's got two small guns across the bow of his ship that will blow the main cannon off if he fires them, and the articulated gun on the right will take out his power cable if fired forward

Don't forget the molded missiles on his heels that will wipe out his bridge tower.

4 hours ago, vlenhoff said:

i never understood the mini cons thing. I know i may need to watch the animation to understand it, but how does a car hanging off your arm would help you fight? I don't mean to sound negative or interrupt, but i may skip this line altogether.

Technically the Siege Micromasters combine into a weapon (although the result looks more like little robots having intercourse more than a gun). I just stick them on as cars as an homage to Armada.

I don't recommend skipping the entire Siege line, as they're the best mainline Transformers have been for as long as I've been collecting. But like I said in an earlier review, you can absolutely skip the Micromasters and not be missing out.

[Mechapilot77]

my comments as an observer....who has yet to buy them.

so, ultra magnus' ankles in armored up form are always tilted?  woudln't that make the back of the trailer look even more odd?  haha.  looks like some great play value (i hesitate to use the word because its still not $50 of value but whatever) for this toy.  its a little too greebly vs the too plain mp line, but white optimus like bot that armors up into a very g1ish magnus is probably getting bought.  i bet the minute i do that some unlicensed brand is gonna do an upgraded ko oversize and have the armored up mode finally be a correct mp height magnus (i hate and love mp magnus but hate more than love) and get rid of some greeble and give it some nicer paint apps too.  haha.

for shockwave....the "leader class" additions really don't add to the appeal for a g1 fan.   the coolest use of the extra parts to me is that sled mode....reminds me of robotech bioroids or the gundam sleds (whatever they are called).  the core bot is smaller than optimus and megatron right? 

[mikeszekely]

If you guys know me by now, you knew this was coming.  Leader-class Siege Shockwave.

Yes, I did say Leader-class.  And yes, Shockwave is really a Voyager, one who's slightly shorter than Prime, Megatron, or Ultra Magnus' core bot.  But, as a fan of the early Marvel comics, Shockwave is one of my favorite Transformers, and this is a very satisfying version of it.  His color is a satisfying purple, with a translucent piece in his chest, a lavender fist and gun-hand, and some silver feet (painted) and thighs (plastic).  He's got a properly chunky backpack and a menacing mono-eye.  It's not showing well with my lamps aimed straight at him, but get some light above him and the eye glows so well you'd swear it was an LED.  He's even got a hose running from his back to the back of his left arm, and the "dirt" paint prominent in the Siege line is confined to his toes.  One might nitpick and say that maybe he's a tad greebly, but that's part of the Siege aesthetic.  Really, the only part of the Siege aesthetic carried onto what is otherwise an extremely G1 Shockwave.

Like Ultra Magnus, it seems much of the Leader price-tag on Shockwave is devoted to his accessories.  And I'd describe them largely as "chunks of things that Shockwave didn't really need."

Shockwave's head is on a ball joint, but one with the ball in his chest instead of his head.  As noted, he can't really look up but be can look down or tilt his head sideways a good deal in addition to rotating it.  His shoulders can rotate, extend 90 degrees laterally at the shoulder itself, and a transformation joint in the chest allows him to extend his arm all the way until his shoulders are touching his ears.  His biceps swivel, and he can bend his elbow a little over 90 degrees.  He has wrist swivels, on both his actual fist and his gun-hand.  His waist can swivel.  His hips can bend 90 degrees forward or backward on a soft ratchet, and 90 degrees laterally on a friction hinge.  His knees bend 90 degrees backward on a ratchet, and can actually bend one click forward as well.  He's got cut thigh swivels a little above his knees.  His feet don't tilt up or down, but he does have about 30 degrees of ankle pivot.

Since we know it's a Siege gimmick now, I didn't bother to take any pictures of him with a ton of weapons and Micromasters hanging off of him.  I'll tell you, though, that he's got 5mm pegs on the outside of each shoulder, the outside of each forearm (and one on the back of his left forearm, but that's where his hose plugs into), one on each side of his backpack, one on the back of his backpack, one on the outside of each lower leg, and one on the sole of each foot.  There's five spots on his body for attaching fire effect parts, and the tip of his gun-hand is just the right size to put a fire effect part there.

If you feel like using his accessories, the official way is to stick junk that looks like winged, feetless legs with arms coming off of them onto his shoulders, some flat parts with big cannons become his shoes, and the rest clips onto his backpack, although as JB0 noted you can come up with other configurations.  This turns him into some kind of four-armed monstrosity... with dapper coat tails.  The new arms have bicep swivels, double-jointed elbows (that, for clearance reasons, don't get much better than 90 degrees), and wrist swivels, but they don't have separate shoulder joints, so they rotate and move laterally with main arms.  While his coat tails don't do much beyond hanging off his back, they do have a swivel and a hinge so you can keep them out of the way.  Plus there are flaps with little cannons, and you can arrange his tails so that the cannons are firing forward.  So, the extra parts don't really add any extra articulation, but they don't hinder what he has, either.  The backpack and shoulders add a lot of bulk, and his shoes give him a slight boost in height, but to the head he's still only about as tall as Optimus and Megatron.  As far as peg holes go, he loses the ones on the outside of his shoulders, the ones on the sides of his backpack, and the ones on his soles, but he gains new ones on the sides of his backpack, plus an additional one on each tail, one on the back of each extra forearm, two on the bottom of each shoe, and one on the inside edge of each shoe.  All of the small pegs for fire effect parts are still available except ones on his shoulders, but his new shoulder pads each add two more.

Basically, this mode isn't hateful, but it doesn't really add anything meaningful to the experience.

If you don't like Shockwave the four-armed freak, all the extra bits can be assembled into a drone, of sorts.  The arms do have a point where they lock in, but if you want you can extend them.  You still have access to the bicep and wrist swivels, as well as the double jointed elbow.  Technically you can even rotate the whole part they're on, like a shoulder rotation, but with no lateral movement.  A lot of pegs are visible on the drone, but no the only peg holes are under the forearms and up inside the drone (although if you remove the arm parts, like JB0 did, you'll have access to two on each side of the remainder).  Using the peg holes on top of the drone, you can attach Shockwave to the top and he can ride the drone around like a Base Jabber or other SFS from Gundam.

Of the two bot-mode uses for the extra parts I'd say that I prefer this one.  I can definitely see Shockwave flying around Cybertron on an SFS designed to look like himself, shooting Autobots and dictating his commands to Decepticons.  It still seems unnecessary, though.

By himself, Shockwave turns into a gun submarine spaceship of some sort.

Ok, no, seriously, fold the little winglets on the bridge up, fold the landing skid back in, flip it over, unplug the hose from the bridge tower, and plug it into the landing skid.  That's totally a gun!  The barrel could stand to be silver, I wish his feet folded in, and he's missing his scope (and arguably his trigger), but I'm willing to let the trigger and barrel things slide in the name of nailing the robot mode.  I don't even mind that the handle is really too small for an adult hand to hold.  It's not like this is an MP.

Assuming that you're using the hole on the top of the barrel for the hose, you've got peg holes on the sides of the barrel, the sides of the handle, and one on each side near the back if you want to stick stuff to him.  Not sure why'd you'd want to, though.

If you insist on using the parts he comes with, though, this is the official configuration for his complete spaceship mode.  I will grudgingly admit that it's kind of a cool spaceship, probably the best "Shockwave as a spaceship" design we've seen.  His bot mode heals look like missile racks, and the little cannons on his tails look like the kind of defensive batteries you'd see on a warship.  Makes me wish they were articulated.  I also dig how the bridge is basically an elongated Shockwave head with his ears horizontal instead of vertical.  The eye in the middle is even light-piped, same as his real head.  The only thing that looks really out of place is the hose.  Unfortunately, only one end, the end that goes into his bridge tower/barrel/forearm can be unplugged and moved around.  The end that connects to his robot back is fixed.

In full ship mode Shockwave has peg two peg holes on the underside of the wings, one on each extra gun arm, two along each side of the bow, one on the underside of the bow (unless you deploy the landing skid), one on each side of the bridge tower (although you'll likely use one for the hose), and one on the sole of each robot-mode foot.  Although there is a spot that looks like it'd work in gunbarrel of the bow, I tried putting different fire effect parts in it and they just didn't fit.

Since the Transformers Classics line debuted over a decade ago one of the most commonly-demanded figures was a Voyager Shockwave.  After all this time, we finally got one, and he's excellent!  Unfortunately, he's saddled with with unnecessary parts that, while not hindering anything, don't really add enough to the experience, either, driving the price up to Leader-class.  Had he been sold as a Voyager with just the core Shockwave this would be one of the easiest recommends I've ever given for a mainline Hasbro product.  Personally, I'm not sorry I bought him even at the Leader price, and I'd go so far as to say that he's my favorite of the entire Siege line so far.  But I'm not sure that the add-ons he comes with really justify the extra $20 over an actual Voyager.  So if you can live with the price, I say get him, he's a great figure.  Just be very aware of what you're actually getting for your money. 

[JB0]

I tell you what I would've done with the accessories if I were doing this thing(assuming I had to work within the current line's gimmicks and limitations).

The "barrel extension" would have a purple lens and the plastic would be silver back to the hinge(the "coattails" would still be purple), and I'd probably sculpt the foot plates so they could become an upper and lower face for the barrel extender, giving Shockwave a proper gray barrel. You can see a hint of this idea in the rocket-sled thing's presentation.

Most importantly... the rocket booster/arm-blaster  things? I'd make them smaller, and pitch them as leg armor(especially given how they're already sculpted to match the original toy's leg profile). And in "ship" mode they could clip together over the conning tower to give a usably-sized pistol grip larger and more imposing conning tower.

 

IDEALLY, I'd want to get rid of the additional bits and put their plastic into the core robot, so Shockwave could be bigger. Not sure how I'd resolve the "purple backpack/silver barrel" issue without a complete redesign. That Shockwave doesn't really HAVE any silver parts in robot mode makes it hard to create a one-piece conversion. But all the extra bits make a lot more sense for Magnus than they do Shockwave, though I do concede that he has always HAD extra bits, even in the original cartoon.

(As a very minor aside, it irks me every time I see MP Shockwave described as having a "perfect transformation", since if toon-accuracy is what matters, the original toy was perfect transformation.)

I do feel somewhat put out that they managed to ship a toy that HAS extra bits that snap onto the barrel and STILL completely missed the chance at a silver barrel.

 

 

If nothing else, I'd've put a peg hole farther back and to the side on the barrel surround, so the cable could go in WHERE IT BELONGS instead of stretching to make it to the front or just tucked into nowhere. .

 

 

 

14 hours ago, Mechapilot77 said:

 the coolest use of the extra parts to me is that sled mode....reminds me of robotech bioroids or the gundam sleds (whatever they are called).  the core bot is smaller than optimus and megatron right?  

It reminds me of Gaogaigar's Mic Sounders the 13th, and I'd be lying if I said this wasn't why I wanted to see Blaster riding the rocket sled.

Edited January 12, 2019 by JB0

[mikeszekely]

14 hours ago, Mechapilot77 said:

woudln't that make the back of the trailer look even more odd?

It would look exactly as odd as the right-hand section of the third pick up from the bottom of the review I posted, since that's the rear of the combined truck.

41 minutes ago, JB0 said:

IDEALLY, I'd want to get rid of the additional bits and put their plastic into the core robot, so Shockwave could be bigger.

While I understand the desire for a larger Shockwave... that's what Cloud 9's Quakeblast is for (or Fans Toys Quakewave, or the official MP Shockwave... whichever floats your boat...).  For robot mode scaling with the other figures in the Siege line I wouldn't actually want more than half a head taller (aka, the same size as Op and Megs).

43 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Not sure how I'd resolve the "purple backpack/silver barrel" issue without a complete redesign.

Invert it, so the emitter is on the inside.  Then design it so that, instead of opening and encapsulating the arms, it unfolds as you move it up, then turns inside out to wrap around Shockwave's arms.  Admittedly, you'd need a lot of hinges, though, to maintain the octagonal shape of the barrel, but no changes to anything but the backpack would be necessary.

[mikeszekely]

Eh, I did wind up going to Target again and getting a Siege Prime that doesn't have two left hands.  Still no Deluxes there... but it turns out Amazon had them, and at the regular retail price.  I didn't grab all of them, especially since Skytread is a character I don't give a crap about and really feels like a "we didn't finish the Duocons in the old Generations stuff, so let's stick the other one in Siege" move on Has/Tak's part.  But I grabbed Hound.

I don't have the old Universe Hound anymore (although I remember it being pretty good), but here he is next to CW Hound (who was not so good).  His legs are a little less tidy than the G1 cartoon, and that slathered on silver dirt paint hides some of the green.  Speaking of green, I'd have liked to have seen a more metallic forest green like the G1 toy, or at least a brighter olive like the cartoon.  The rounded lights and plates on the ends of the bumper try to evoke the fenders and mirrors on G1 Hound, but aren't entirely successful.  And using some of the at silver paint for the chunk of stuff above his bumper might have also made him a little closer to the Hound's cartoon model.  All that said, he's got the right overall shape and color scheme you'd expect from Hound, which is more than we could say for the CW version.

Hound comes with three accessories.  We've got a rifle, a round thing, and his shoulder cannon.  The round thing is fairly superfluous; it's got an offset peg hole on the inside and a tab on the edge, but the dearth of pegs and slots on Hound limit where it can go.  The rifle has slots on the side that work with the round thing, a small tip for the Battle Master shot effects, and a 5mm peg on the butt.  The shoulder cannon works via a 5mm peg, so it can be plugged into ports besides his shoulders or into his hands, and it also has a 5mm peg on the back.  My big gripe with the shoulder cannon is that instead of coming to a point, like a missile, the silver part has an open 5mm hole for a barrel to work with shot effects.

I can't quite tell for sure what kind of joint Hound has for a neck; it swivels, and there's a tiny amount of up/down play, but there doesn't seem to be any sideways tilt.  The kibble behind his head makes manipulating it kind of a pain.  Shoulders rotate and extend 90 laterally.  Biceps swivel, elbows bend 90 degrees, and his wrists swivel.  His waist swivels.  His hips can kick forward, backward, or laterally 90 degrees, and they're universal joints instead of the ball joints you'd usually see at this size class.  His thighs swivel around the universal joints.  His knees bend a little over 90 degrees.  His toes have a slight upward bend, and his ankles can pivot a little over 90 degrees.

As I mentioned, the round thing has tabs that can fit onto the sides of the rifle, or onto the butt of the rifle or the shoulder cannon (although not when the shoulder cannon is actually on top of his shoulders, as there isn't enough clearance with his backpack).  The instructions also helpfully suggest that the peg on the rifle can fit into the barrel of the shoulder cannon, with the round thing on the back for one large combined weapon.  Aside from his fists he's got one peg hole on either side of the top of his torso just in from his shoulder joints, one on the outside of each shoulder, one on the outside of each forearm, one on the front of each shin, one on each sole, and one in the middle of his back.  He's also got a few of the tiny pegs on his body for the blast effects.

The transformation to jeep mode is pretty interesting, and the jeep is... ok.  I dig the bronze stripes, and overall it's much more jeepy than CW Hound's alt mode.  I guess I'm just not a fan of the black roll cage, preferring the windshield-and-nothing-else look of G1 Hound.  Which would have been doable- the rollcage is only there to connect the engine to his back, but the engine isn't necessary.  I think I also might have preferred silver rims to the green, but hey, at least they are painted.

You can still put the round part on the side of the rifle or on the back of the rifle or shoulder cannon, but the jeep mode actually has a place for it near the back on the engine.  You can see a semicircle cut out around a peg.  As for peg holes, Hound has four on the back (two on the engine, one on either side of the engine) plus one on either side of the vehicle.  The instructions suggest putting his weapons into the two holes on the engines, but you do you.

Although there's a roll cage, the driver's compartment is open.  I could kind of wedge a Titan Master in there, although he's a little too big, can't really sit, doesn't have anything to really sit on, and there's no visible controls inside.

Hound has a lot of good going for him.  Objectively he's one of the better Deluxe-class figures I've handled.  I mean, wrist swivels and ankle pivots!  On a Deluxe!  But I'm still a little lukewarm on him.  Maybe it's that his torso is too blocky and not jeepy enough.  Maybe that roll cage on the alt mode is just really bugging me.  Maybe it's the 5mm cannon barrel instead of a missile tip.  Whatever it is, it's more of a subjective nature, so if you think this Hound works for you then by all means get it.  But if you're just not a big Hound fan and you're being selective about which Siege figures you pick up I certainly won't fault you for skipping him.

[JB0]

11 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

The rollcage is only there to connect the engine to his back, but the engine isn't necessary.

If the engine isn't there so they can do a Roadbuster repaint, I'll eat my hat. Mark my words.

 

[mikeszekely]

The other Deluxe I picked up is Sideswipe.

Like Hound, I don't have the old Universe Sideswipe anymore (I kind of remember not liking it, anyway), and unlike Hound Sideswipe didn't get into Combiner Wars, so here he is with CW Brake Neck/Dead End.  Maybe a shade shorter, but (spoiler) so much better.  They did a really good job of nailing Sideswipe's aesthetic.  The chest isn't the front of a Countach, but everything else would look totally at home on a G1 Sideswipe.  The silver dirt paint on his shins even looks pretty good, like scratches, although I would have liked his knee pads picked out separately.

His accessories are something of a gripe of mine, though.  You've got a black tube with a tab on one side and a 5mm peg a quarter turn from it, with 5mm peg hole openings on both ends, and a red cone with a 5mm peg handle and a 5mm peg on the back.  The peg on cone fits into either end of the tube.  Neither accessory looks like Sideswipe's usual fair.

Sideswipe's head is on a ball joint; not much down, but good up, good sideways tilt, and rotation.  Shoulders rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees.  Biceps swivel.  Elbows bend 90 degrees.  No wrist swivels, though.  His waist can swivel.  His hips are universal joints that go 90 degrees forward, backwards, and laterally.  The thighs can swivel around the universal joint.  Knees bend just a sliver under 90 degrees.  No up/down tilt on the feet, but he's got over 45 degrees of ankle pivot.

Unlike Hound, he doesn't have any 5mm peg holes on top of his shoulder area.  Instead, the white parts flanking his head have slots for the tab on the tube.  If you put the longer side of the tube facing forward (and put it on his left for cartoon accuracy) then the peg on it interferes with his head articulation.  Spinning it 180 degrees and sticking the cone into it gets the peg out of the way and gives you something closer to his G1 shoulder cannon, although it's black and red instead of white, and it leaves him without a hand gun.  It'll be my first time, but I do believe I'm going to hit up Shapeways for a proper shoulder cannon.

Beyond slots and his fists, he's got 5mm peg holes on the outside of each shoulder, on the outside of each forearm, on the outside of his lower legs, on his soles, and one on his back.

He's supposed to be a Cybertronian car (and Hasbro likely isn't looking to spend money on licensing), so he's not a Countach.  But the low profile, the wedge nose, and the vents behind the cabin are certainly Countach-esque.  He's a low, sleek car, and although he's a fictional one he looks and feels more like he could a real car than basically any car we got from Combiner Wars.

Not a lot of peg holes in car mode; just one on either side in front of the rear tires and one on the roof.  I guess you don't really need more, though.  Even if you don't combine his weapons you've got enough to store all his weapons.

Between Sideswipe and Hound, I greatly prefer Sideswipe (although the fact that I had a G1 Sideswipe makes me a bit fonder of the character).  The lack of wrist swivels and more G1 accessories are my main complaints, but he's otherwise one of the best Deluxe-class Transfomers in recent memory, so I'd give him a recommend.

Now at this point, I've looked at not one but two figures in every size class of the Siege line.  And taken as a collective, Siege is shaping up to be to be one of, if not the best mainstream Transformer lines to grace store shelves.  All of the characters maintain a strong G1 style in robot mode despite ostensibly sporting Cybertronian alt modes.  Every figure from Deluxe on up has better articulation than previous figures (they're four for six on wrist swivels and six for six on waist swivels and ankle pivots), with better joint tolerances, more paint, and fewer obvious hollow spaces.  The Battle Masters don't just make for more weapons that can be used by the larger figures, they come with effect parts that can be used in a variety of ways and come at a reasonable price.  Although some people are bemoaning the smaller (or more gimmicky) Leaders, I like that Hasbro is keeping the characters relatively in scale with one another.  The Micromasters are the only dark spot in what's otherwise been a stellar line.  They just don't feel worth the asking price, even with gimmicks that allow them to combine into weapons or otherwise be used by larger figures.

While Hasbro seems to be addressing a lot of complaints with the previous Generations lines by delivering a fantastic aesthetic, scale, less hollowness, more paint, and better articulation I still don't have an answer to my original question: are these changes coming too late for the adult collectors?  With third party having filled most of Takara's gaps I think a lot of collectors have given up on CHUG and gone MP.  A lot of those that haven't, either because they prefer simpler engineering, have space concerns, don't care for a slavish G1 aesthetic, don't care to pay $100+ per figure, or just for fun, have dived into the prolific world of 3P Legends.  Are those collectors, people like myself who have cut back or even quit buying the mainline Hasbro figures, going to come back?

That's something only time will tell, although it seems to be that interest has definitely been higher than it's been in a couple of years.  And while I'm certainly not going to say that I'm all in (definitely not buying Skytread, probably not any more of the Micromasters besides Ravage and Laserbeak), before Siege came out I said I wasn't going to buy any and somehow ended up with both Leaders, both Voyagers, and half the Deluxes in the first wave.  And looking ahead, I could definitely see myself buying both Wave 2 Voyagers and at least two of the Wave 2 Deluxes.

One thing worth noting... there's one Deluxe, Cog, that's labeled a "Weaponizer."  The Weaponizers look to have special gimmicks that add more value to other figures.  I haven't picked up Cog because he's apparently based on a minibot that came with Fortress Maximus back in the day, and I didn't have ol' Fort Max.  If I get bored and have money burning a hole in my pocket I might pick him up later.  However, the Weaponizers in waves 2 and 3 are Sixgun and Brunt, based on the robot made from Metroplex's guns and a non-transforming tank that came with Trypticon.  I did have both of those guys back in the day, and I'm probably going to pick those guys up.  So if I don't pick up Cog, you guys might have to wait for me to review a Weaponizer.

[Kuma Style]

[Kuma Style]

 

[sh9000]

Cool.

[Mechapilot77]

12 hours ago, sh9000 said:

Cool.

it is very cool but he should pose legend size toys with it IMO.  prime can't fit in a spaceship whose width he is taller than. haha.