The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[M'Kyuun]

With the recent announcement of potential 2023 releases, including Animated Prime, I already had a few figs to look forward to. Missed in that announcement, but revealed in the wee hours this morning on Facebook and reposted on TFW2005, is an apparent update to Prime's Skyquake, with a dash of G1 Skyquake because G1. 🙄Legacy Evolution Leader Class TFP Skyquake First Look - Transformers News - TFW2005   Oh, one caveat: the FB poster said this may be mistransformed, so Skyquake may indeed sport his cockpit on his chest like the original.

So, as an aircraft fan and, moreso, a fan of good engineering, spoiled by Macross's clean lovely designs over the decades, I tend to take a strongly critical eye at those Cybertronians who convert into flying craft, most notably, fighters. Right out of the gate, this thing impresses. I'll concede, she's a chubby fighter, but I can see some parallels between this and Macross 7's VF-17 or Mospeada's Legioss, minus the arms arranged above to form engine nacelles. This design, unlike so many lazy fighter modes, tucks the arms into the center of the craft where they blend quite well with the undercarriage. This is no hang-gliding robot under a partial airplane shell- this guy's various body parts become the airplane as the gods of good engineering intended.

Moreover, in comparison to the original voyager class Skyquake from the Prime line, this toy fixes some of the glaring flaws of that toy, which incidentally I passed on for those flaws. My snobbery has been at work for some time. 

Fixed on the new version are the splayed and obnoxiously protuberant halves of his pelvis, the lack of engine exhaust augmenters built into the feet resulting in hollow legs, and those damned hands just hanging out of the back of the plane. 🤮 I'll admit, I was on the cusp of buying this guy regardless, as I really liked the robot mode, but ultimately, I couldn't bear the egregious concessions in fighter. With this new improved toy thusly revealed, I'm pleased that I passed on the original even though I never suspected that Hasbro would touch this line again. Along with the much-improved fighter, the bot mode enjoys a laudable lack of hollow spaces, similar to Legacy Tarn. So, maybe Hasbro's listening to fans. I hope so.

Not to be excluded, G1 Skyquake gets some of his features tacked on to this new amalgamated figure, like the large wing vents and engine nacelles that sprawl the longitudinal length of the wing and the twin set of black stripes on the upper aft fuselage, which appear to be picked out in grey or silver on the new toy. For my money, I'm glad they stuck with the olive green in lieu of that tacky teal and magenta. G2 was hideous for its atrocious color choices.🤢 As for bot mode, the large translucent panel carries over to the new toy, but little else, which is fine by me. In every way, the Prime design looks better IMHO.

As I mentioned earlier, the FB poster mentioned that he may have this mistransformed, as the cockpit section can rotate for no apparent reason, and there are tabs that weren't used, so it's very possible that this thing was engineered from the start to switch bits around to alter his look from the G1 incarnation to the Prime, which is pretty slick, will please fans of either, and opens the toy up to even more repaint potential, all good things for us and Hasbro.

[mikeszekely]

I kind of dig it. It's got a lot of recognizably Prime stuff about it, but like Bulkhead, Arcee, and Knockout they had to make the aesthetic work with the rest of Legacy, and they did it by working in a lot of G1 Skyquake.

EDIT: Just had a thought about the cockpit and what not... AFAIK, Prime Dreadwing is also confirmed for Legacy Evolution.  Perhaps, in an effort to keep Skyquake and Dreadwing from being identical in all but color Dreadwing's tooling will allow for the jet canopy to show on his tummy to appear closer to his Prime appearance.

Edited December 11, 2022 by mikeszekely

[Chronocidal]

Man, I would love so much to see a masterpiece-level Dreadwing pair someday, either official or third party.

[JB0]

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Man, I would love so much to see a masterpiece-level Dreadwing pair someday, either official or third party.

Did Dreadwing ever show up in the cartoon? There might be a problem if they only do extremely toon-accurate(from a specific viewing angle) versions.

[Chronocidal]

7 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Did Dreadwing ever show up in the cartoon? There might be a problem if they only do extremely toon-accurate(from a specific viewing angle) versions.

Actually.. I was thinking of the original G1 combo of the F-16 and Tornado, but apparently the green one above was already Dreadwing.

Granted, a much better looking version of him than the kibblemonster previously shown.

I really would love to see someone pull off the original combo jet/bot though.

[Scyla]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

Actually.. I was thinking of the original G1 combo of the F-16 and Tornado, but apparently the green one above was already Dreadwing.

Granted, a much better looking version of him than the kibblemonster previously shown.

I really would love to see someone pull off the original combo jet/bot though.

FansHobby is doing a G1 Darkwing/Dreadwind Buster/Hydra set. They are a bit stylized and I’m not a big fan of FansHobby products in general but they made it to the prototype stage:

 

More images here: https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/fanshobby-mb-24-dark-wing.1233082/

XTB also showed renders of a Buster (so in the Japanese colors) but nothing else.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Scyla

[Chronocidal]

Huh, not a terrible Tornado, though the Falcon just is a really bad platform for a transformer to begin with.  The combined mode doesn't look great, but it was always pretty dorky.  

Anyhow, back to official stuff.

[mikeszekely]

Welcome, friends, to what is likely going to be my final yet biggest review of 2022... Transformers HasLab Victory Saber!

Due to the nature of this set, I don't think the usual robot-accessories-articulation-alt mode format works.  We're going to go out-of-order and start with accessories, and there's a lot.  There's a translucent blue stand that comes in three parts, six blue-green blast effects, a large V-lock cannon, a smaller rifle, two red-and-white cannons, a rubbery silver sword blade, a sword hilt/jet nose, two Micromasters, a shield, and an adapter for the shield.

The stand has two configurations.  You can slide the arm into the gap at the top of the "V" on the base so that the arm is perpendicular to the base for robot mode.  Or, you can slide the edge of that triangular protrusion on the arm into the side of the base.  The third translucent blue part fits onto a large peg, forming a cradle with a tab for alt mode.  As for the shield, plug the adapter into the 5mm port right in the middle. 

Transformers Victory heavily featured the Micromaster Rescue Patrol team.  The toys themselves were identical to the American versions, of which Stakeout and Red Heat/Hot already saw modern releases during Siege, so Hasbro figured it'd be easy to include those two with this set (although the other two didn't get Siege toys, so they're excluded).  In the anime they were colored differently than their toy counterparts, so the Micromasters in this set are colored to look like the anime.  Fire is a pretty minor repaint of Red Heat/Hot- basically, the blue is a much lighter shade, and they put some of that blue on his hands.  Holi is the more drastic redeco, as Stakeout is mostly black but, for whatever reason, the animators thought Holi should be predominantly white.  Aside from deco, the figures are identical to the Siege releases, but I'll note two important things.  First, the joints are tighter on Holi and Fire than my somewhat-floppy Stakeout and Red Heat/Hot.  That's good!  But, the ball joints in their hips have some issues.  In Fire's case, his legs a prone to popping off during transformation.  In Holi's case, his legs are prone to popping off pretty much any time you move them.  That's bad!  However, the Micromasters were announced as third-tier backer option, I think after the initial HasLab started, and I never really cared about them.

What I did care about is the figure proper, so we start with the roughly Deluxe-class Saber.  I don't have a lot to complain about here... he's a pretty simple figure, with visible gaps on the inside of his forearms, but he's not exactly the main show, either.  Standing just a head shorter than a "standard" Deluxe like Sideswipe, but a head taller than a small Deluxe like Bumblebee, he sticks pretty close to the cartoon with the silver lats, white trapezoids on his chest, and a larger white panel with an Autobot insignia, but the yellow on his crotch sort of splits the difference between the simple line of the cartoon and the original toy's stickers, and the gray hinges in his shins are very reminiscent of the original toy's wheels.

He's clean and looks good from the back and sides.  However, he's got some additional 5mm ports that the original didn't have to keep in line with the modern Legacy/WfC figures.  The ones on his forearms are opposite the hollow gap, so you can see right through his arms.

Saber's head can swivel, but it can't tilt... frankly, given how he works, it's impressive that it even swivels.  His shoulders are on hinged ball joints so they can swivel, and just using the ball joint he can get a little under 90 degrees laterally.  Using the hinge, too allows him to get closer to 120 degrees of lateral movement.  The combination also allows him to shrug or slump his shoulders.  His biceps swivel, and his hinged elbows bend 90 degrees.  His wrists are actually ball joints, which allow them to swivel.  HIs waist swivels a little, although his backpack prevents him from turning too far.  Unusual for a Hasbro figure, Saber actually has a good ab crunch (which will allow his hips to clear his backpack when you're swiveling the waist).  His hips go over 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees laterally, but only about 35-45 degrees backward, again, due to the backpack.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend almost 90 degrees.  His toes can tilt down, and his ankles have a small but present pivot.

Saber can hold the smaller rifle, although the fit is a little loose (the issue is the rifle's peg, not Saber's hand).  Additionally, there are 5mm ports on either forearm, the outside of either shoulder, in the middle of his back (just behind the wings), and under each heel.  The rifle itself has a 5mm port on either side that the G1 toy didn't as well, but there's not exactly an abundance of pegs to plug into them.  The jet nose can plug into the 5mm port on his left shoulder for cartoon/toy accuracy.

In the cartoon, Saber was one of four "Brainmasters."  Brainmasters are kind of like Headmasters in reverse... rather than being a small robot that connects to a larger Transtector body, the Brainmasters are regular-sized Autobots who can transfer their brains into Micromaster-sized Transtectors.  In the cartoon, the Brains entered the chests of their larger bodies, then they'd shoot up through the neck hole, becoming heads that filled in the empty helmets.  Although I'm not really sure how the gimmick worked on the original toys, HasLab Saber retains the gimmick, and it's pretty clever here.  You open his chest and you'll find the Brain of Courage inside, secured to a black cylinder via a tab on it's tiny butt.  You pop him out, then fold Saber's face on to his back to reveal his own little head.  The original toy was nearly double the size of a G1 Headmaster with a square, red torso, white limbs, and a gray head.  For HasLab, though, the Brain of Courage is very tiny, maybe half the size of a Titan Master.  Despite his teeny tiny size, he tries to copy the cartoon look (which was kind of like a mini Star Saber body with regular Saber's head), so he's got more of a deco than most most Titan Masters- he's got white paint on his abs, and I do believe that his legs are white plastic with blue paint on his thighs and red-painted feet.  He's even got a tiny bit of gold paint on his chest.  Surprisingly, the little guy even has some articulation!  His legs are hinged at the waist so he can bend into a seated position (although both legs are a single part).  His arms also have tiny ball joints for shoulders.  They don't allow for much lateral movement, but they can rotate 360 degrees.

Saber turns into a little jet.  Perhaps this one is acceptable to @M'Kyuun?   Or maybe not, as the nose of the jet does have to be partsformed from Saber's shoulder to the front of the jet.  When you look at the underside it's pretty obviously a scrunched up robot, but from the sides and top he tucks in pretty well, and he's pretty accurate to the cartoon.  In this case, totally cartoon.  He's lacking the blue stripes on his wings and the extra yellow details that the G1 toy had.  He's also resting on his chest and knee pads; unlike the G1 toy, he doesn't have any landing gear.

Saber's cockpit can open, and there's a seat inside that the Brain of Courage can sit it.  Which is good, because he can't say in Saber's head/chest, as it folds into the cavity that the Brain stands in.  The only peg on Saber in this mode is under the nose, but his chest doesn't have clearance to plug it into his rifle's peg holes.  Still, he's got two 5mm ports on either side of the jet, plus one on top behind the canopy that you can plug the rifle's handle into.  His heels form the engine nozzles of his jet mode, and you can plug blast effects into them if you like.

Should I call this an accessory?  The set comes with a brick (I'm hesitant to call it a spaceship) known as the V-Star.  In the anime, the V-Star would occasionally be piloted by Saber's adopted human son, Jan, and operate autonomously.  But what you're really meant to do is fold Saber's wings up and his stabs down, then dock him into the V-Star.

The combined ship is pretty big.  He's got a bit less mass but a comparable size to Commander-class Sky Lynx, but he's still dwarfed by Jetfire.  As you might expect, the yellow on the original toy's wings has been replaced with white and the stickers that ran down the nacelles are omitted to be more cartoon-accurate.

Unlike the original toy, the red bits near the front with the Autobot insignias don't open and don't have landing gear.  There is landing gear in the yellow knees underneath, though, and the whole thing balances on the yellow landing gear and the black bits at the very back of the ship.  The back of the V-Star has two very obvious nozzles plus two additional 5mm ports for plugging in blast effects, and you can see four smaller nozzle-looking bumps that the small holes in the blast effect pegs can fit onto.  If you start to transform the V-Star, you'll also find slots on the edges of Star Saber's legs where you can store the sword blade.  Alas, there doesn't seem to be a place to store the blade in his back, the way he did in the anime.

The guns on what will become Star Saber's shoulders are hinged, as are the antenna on Star Saber's head.  The shoulder guns have the bumps for blast effects, as does Saber's rifle, which can be stored in one of 12 available ports on the V-Star (four on each white nacelle, four on the blue back).  There's actually six on the back, but one is covered by Star Saber's head.  There's also a peg on the end of the blue part that plugs into one of the ports on the back of the shield, allowing the V-Star to carry it.  You don't even have to remove the adapter from the back.  And while Saber isn't designed to use the flight stand, the combined V-Star is.

Of course, the V-Star doesn't just park in a garage while Saber's doing his thing.  Like many larger G1 toys at the time, the V-Star has a rudimentary base mode.  Although there are places you can plug in Saber's rifle, Saber himself can't interact much with this mode (I think the G1 toy had a platform he could stand on, but no such luck here).  His instruction suggest using two slots on the back of the shield to plug into two tabs on the gray panels at the front, attaching it to the base.  On my copy it doesn't work; the tabs fall right out of the slots.  Not a huge deal for me; the G1 toy didn't have a shield.  I haven't watched Victory, but I got the impression he maybe only used it in like one episode.

I'm sure anyone with a passing familiarity doesn't care about the base mode, and is unlikely to keep the V-Star in ship mode, either.  No, it's all balling Saber up and transforming the V-Star into a larger robot body for him.

The combination of Saber and V-Star gives us Star Saber, the main reason I wanted this set in the first place.  Star Saber's a big fellow; I'd argue that if Hasbro were to have tried selling him at retail he'd likely be a Commander-class.  Some Transformer fans may derisively suggest that some of the Japanese Transformers are "too Gundam," but in this case, after Takara did the initial design, it was finalized by none other than Kunio Okawara, and the comparison with Gundam is probably a bit more fair.  It is a very Gundam-ish design, with lots of red, while, blue, and yellow.  Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Some views from the back and sides.  Star Saber is pretty kibble free, but it's not hard to do considering the simple squarish nature of the V-Star.  For the most part, his robot mode doesn't diverge too much from the original toy, you just have white on the little chest wings instead of blue and yellow, and the little yellow sticker on the original toy's crotch is molded, painted detail with some extra Gundam-esque yellow vernier on his hip skirts.

Note that Star Saber's head is a partsforming piece that slides over Saber's head.  I believe Star Saber's head also covered Saber's on the original toy, but that there was a flap so it was never disconnected from the V-Star.

Star Saber's head can swivel, and he can look up quite a bit (too much, though, and you'll start to see Saber's head through a gap between Star Saber's face and neck) and down slightly.  His shoulders have ratcheted rotation, but only about 45 degrees of lateral movement.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows are technically double-jointed with a friction hinge at the top and a ratchet at the bottom.  However, due to his Popeye forearms you're still limited to just a little over 90 degrees of bend.  His wrists swivel.  His hands are built like Jetfire's, with a fixed thumb and fingers that are hinged at the base and can open.  Closing them pushes a 5mm port out of the inside of his palm.  His waist swivels.  His front and side hip skirts can move, so his hips can go forward just under 90 degrees, backward maybe 45 degrees, and laterally 90 degrees, all on ratchets.  His thighs swivel, and his ratcheted knees band just a bit short of 90 degrees.  His toes can bend down, or the whole red part of his foot can go up and down, however, the gray part of his foot doesn't move.  The red part is designed to move around it, but on my copy (and most that I've heard from) the right foot is a bit tight, and you might need to trim some excess plastic off the gray part.  Finally, he does have some ankle pivot, but its disappointingly pretty limited- just enough to keep his feet flat with his hips out one click each into a basic A-stance.

Star Saber can hold Saber's rifle.  He can also use a handle to hold the shield.

The blue handle on the jet nose can be extended, and that'll give you room to plug in the sword's blade.  An interesting thing here, because of how the jet nose is shaped as a hilt, the original G1 toy is designed so that the top of the nose is facing forward, and you can plug the blade into this one the same way.  However, in the anime Star Saber is drawn so one side of nose is facing forward- it looks more natural as a sword like that.  And the blade/jet combo is also designed to work if you plug the blade in that way- his wrists bend outward just enough, and the handle is long enough, that Star Saber can hold the hilt either way and still have the the edge of the blade in the right direction for chopping.

As for the shield, in addition to holding it the adapter has pinchy clips.  These clips latch onto slots on the edge of either of Star Saber's forearms, Gundam-style, and frees up his hand.  This also gives you a place to store the sword.  There's enough space to slide the blade through the adapter and plug the peg on the bottom of the jet nose into a hole at the top of the shield.

Alternatively, you can store the sword in one of the three peg holes on his back, or the ones on either hip.  Star Saber also has two ports on the back of each leg, one one the wings on the sides of his legs, one on the back of each shoulder, one on the back of each forearm, three on his butt, and four under each foot.  There's also a slightly large peg on the bottom of his butt.  This is the place where you plug in the stand.

We're still not done.  Star Saber also comes with his pal, Victory Leo.  So, at the end of Masterforce, the Transtectors that were boded with humans gained sentient personalities and ditched their humans.  God Ginrai became a friend and ally of Star Saber's, until Deathsaurus kind of killed him and Perceptor and Wheeljack used his body to create Victory Leo.  And I'm telling you this because Victory Leo kind of looks to me like it was Tantrum and Razorclaw who got killed and had their parts made into Victory Leo.  Again, to better match the cartoon, sticker details on his shins have been simplified to a large yellow chunks with raised red shapes under them.  The blue was removed from his shoulders, and stickers were removed from the yellow parts of his chest (although there's molded detail where the stickers would go).  They painted some vents red that were simply molded onto the original.  And the stickers on the original toy's pelvis are reduced to a single red square with an Autobot insigna tampoed on.

While the top of his head isn't much taller than Prime (and even then Victory Leo's got a big hat, and his eyes are probably level with Prime's), he's still a pretty big boy that I'd argue qualifies for Leader-class.  And while I think he looks pretty good, it's here that were getting back to Hasbro's usual cost-cutting.  While probably more solid than a typical Voyager or Deluxe, Hasbro did hollow the insides of his thighs, the undersides of his wings, and, worse, the undersides of the V-Lock rifles on his back.

Also, while they painted some red striping on his wings, they apparently missed on spot on what is, in his robot mode, the back of the wings.  Two red stickers are included in the package to cover those spots.

Victory Leo's head can swivel, but his helmet snags and you kind of have to lift the panel his head is on like you're going to transform him.  His shoulders rotate and can extend almost 90 degrees laterally.  His biceps swivel, and although his elbows have just the one hinge each they can bend around 150 degrees.  His wrists swivel.  Unfortunately, due to how he splits apart, he doesn't have a waist swivel.  His hips can go a little over 90 degrees forward and a little less than 90 degrees backward on ratchets, then about 60 degrees laterally on a softer ratchet before gatling guns on his hips get in the way.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 90 degrees.  He doesn't have proper ankles, but the red toes have a swivel and there's a bit of a black part with a hinge that lets you tilt the front of his foot almost 90 degrees up or down, or turn the toes into a faux 90 degree ankle pivot.

For animation accuracy, the V-lock rifles plug into 5mm ports on some red bits on Victory Leo's back.  The red bits are hinged, which will bring them up and over.   There are 5mm ports on his forearms, though, and you can plug the V-lock rifles into them, like the G1 toy.  He can hold the V-lock cannon, too, but I gather he had it on his hip in the cartoon.  Sure enough, there are 5mm ports on the sides of his waist.  There's also two more on his back, one on each of his calves, one on each of the cat paws on the backs of his legs, two on each of the cat legs on the sides of his legs, and one under each toe.  There's also a post in the middle of his back.  The V-lock rifles have two ports under each barrel, and the V-lock cannon has one port on each side and one peg on the right side.  The V-lock rifles and cannon are, naturally, compatible with the blast effects parts.

On his own, Victory Leo isn't compatible with the flight stand.

Victory Leo turns into a lion... with wings!  The transformation is pretty simple.  A bit of VL's forehead folds down over his face*, his front legs fold out from the backs of his forearms (oh no, visible hands), you fold the "tail" out of his robot legs and scrunch them up, and the back lion legs unfurl from their spot on the outsides of the robot legs.  You don't even have to remove the V-lock rifles.

*Note that, again, this is an area where you may have some excess plastic flash around the hinge, and you might need to cut it off before you can fold the cover down over Victory Leo's face.  I know I did!  So be careful and don't force it.

Despite the simplicity, Victory Leo really isn't too bad on his own.  His wings have hinges at the base so they can flap up.  The V-lock rifles can swivel and have hinges built into them so they can angle up even while the armatures they're attach to stay plugged into his back.  His front legs have all the articulation of his arms (minus wrist swivels).  His back legs can swivel at the hips, bend at the knees, and bend at the paws.  His mouth can open, and his head can turn into a sideways tilt.  If you don't mind breaking the sculpt a bit, you can untab the panel it's on and tilt it up.  Plus, his robot hips become an ab crunch/back bend. 

Due to transformation he loses two 5mm ports on his back between the V-lock rifles.  He does still retain two on his back, that were his calves in robot mode, plus one under each of his rear paws, two on each rear cat hip, on on each side of his waist, one on each forearm, and on on both the inside and outside of his front paws.  Then there's a special raised gray part with a peg in the middle of his back.  You can fold the handle of the V-lock cannon in, revealing a clip with a hole in it.  The hole goes onto the peg on the lion's back, and the clip grabs onto the gray part, securing it in place.

Victory Leo's original toy was just meant to have the lion alt mode, but when the animators of the Victory anime were messing with the toys they invented a "jet" mode.  This time, it's official!  You basically get there by folding his head onto his back, unfurling his wings, curling up his legs, and turning the V-lock rifles around because his back is now his front.

The V-lock cannon even has its own way of attaching in this mode.  There's two slots on the top of the rifle.  Turn it upside down, and the slot near the back plugs into a tab on Leo's unfolded back, while the other slot closer to the front grabs onto a tab formed from smaller tabs on both legs.

From this "jet" mode, remove the V-lock cannon (but not the rifles, and open his robot legs up enough to fold the "tail" back in.  Now, grab Star Saber in his alt mode, and life the blue flap on the back.  Tabs on Victory Leo's rear cat legs (circled).  They go into slots on the inside of Star Saber's legs, then the blue flap folds back into place, locking into the red clips you see on Victory Leo.

This, then, is their (somewhat ridiculous, but in a good way) combined alt mode.  And now were definitely a lot closer to Jetfire in size.

With all the ports on the V-Star you'll have plenty of room to store both Saber's rifle and the V-lock cannon.  The shield can stay, too, but you'll have to remove it, pull the adapter off, and put it on a port closer to the bottom of the shield, and even then it kind of sits at an angle.  Oh well, I guess that helps hide the lion head.

So far, we've been talking about Star Saber and Victory Leo, but the HasLab was for Victory Saber.  Like the Godbomber that he was (at least partly) made from, Victory Leo is actually an upgrade for Star Saber.  To get there, with his arms, wings, and V-lock rifles in their jet mode positions, you slide the back and sides of his torso off, along with his head.  The instructions tell you to turn the lion head 180 degrees, then fold it down into his chest cavity, the fold the back flap around under the head.  I haven't watched enough Victory to know, but maybe this is cartoon-accurate?  Turning the head doesn't seem to be a necessity.  As for the rest of Victory Leo, you split him right down the middle.  Fold the big feet out of his chest, fold the "tail" and the large red clips out of his legs, and fold in the smaller red clip in his pelvis.  Then, right where the gatling guns on his hips are, bend the halves of his body over on themselves, so that the tabs on the cat legs plug into slots on the sides of his chest.  Yep, like 80 percent of Victory Leo is just shoes for Star Saber.  You attach them by folding Star Saber's feet in the way you would for his alt mode, then using the big red clips to grab onto spots on his heels.  Then, fold the "tail" parts up over the gray parts of Star Saber's feet to lock them in.  By the way, I'd have sworn the instructions tell you to put them on the way I have them in my pictures, but I've since come to realize that they're backward.  If you ever forget, the gold chrome goes on the outside, but they'll fit either way.  I'm too lazy to go back and redo all my pictures, though.

As for the rest, the raised gray bit with the peg that you could clip the V-lock cannon onto the lion mode has its own clip, and it pegs into and grabs onto the spot on Star Saber's back where his head sits on the V-Star.  You further secure this new backpack into place by untabbing the red armatures the V-lock rifles are on from Victory Leo's back, then hinging them up and over to plug into slots on the top of Star Saber's back.

And now, Victory Leo plus Star Saber equals Victory Saber, who's a really tall fellow.  He's roughly equal in stature to Takara Legends God Ginrai or Siege Jetfire.  He does this with kind of odd proportions, though, as his shoes are taller than God Ginrai's and he doesn't get he new longer forearms like God Ginrai.  The result is that his shoes don't really look like part of his legs with little red feet, It looks like he's standing on boxes.  To be clear, though, this is me critiquing Victory Saber's design going back to 1989, not this particular figure.

Like I said, the instructions are very clear that this is how the lion's head goes in Victory Saber mode.  It doesn't hurt anything, though, if you'd rather have a right side up lion head on Victory Saber's back.

Because it's just shoes and a backpack, Victory Saber's articulation is largely unchanged from Star Saber's.  The only difference is that the new red feet can tilt down, but not up; the ankle pivot is still up above, at Star Saber's ankle.  Victory Saber plugs into the stand the same as before, and he can wield all of his accessories- at the same time, even!  Just plug Saber's rifle onto the peg on the side of V-lock cannon, or use one of the other ports on his body.  Heck, you can even transform Holi and Fire, fold out some pegs on them, then stick them on Victory Saber.

Or, if you prefer, you can just store his gear.  His new backpack covers the peg holes on his back, and the wings cover the ones on his shoulders, you've still got the ones on the cat's paws on the outsides of his shoes, two on each of his calves, one on the back of each forearm, on both the insides and the outsides of the cat's paws on his backpack, on the cat forearms on his backpack, hips hips, his butt and on the wings on the outsides of his legs.  His new shoes also have a 5mm port under each foot.

Over on the boards that shall not be named, there's a lot of drama surrounding this set's QC.  To be clear, there have been reports of actual QC issues, ranging from common but minor issues like mine where I had to trim a little excess plastic from Victory Saber's face cover and Star Saber's right foot, and the hips on Holi being worthless, to more serious issues like parts that should be mirrored actually using the same part, missing parts, or damaged parts.  Other issues have included damage to the gold chrome on Star Saber and/or Victory Leo, and light scratches on Star Saber's face plate.  The majority of the QC complaints I've been hearing, though, really come down to paint.  And for that I'm talking stuff like, if you look closely at the right shoulder on my copy, you'll see a paint chip where white is poking through the red, or in the one picture of Star Saber's side you might see a little fleck of blue where it shouldn't be.  While I'm not making light of actual QC issues, and I do agree Hasbro could probably do better (maybe if they moved their factory again), I have to stress that Victory Saber is a Legacy figure.  He's a CHUG, and he's built like one.  There's a notion that, because this was a $180 HasLab project aimed at adult collectors that this is some kind of premium product, more akin to an MP maybe (or maybe not, given how shoddy Takara's own QC has become).  Nope.  You're buying a box with a $90 Commander-class, a $50 Leader-class, a $10 Micromaster set, and an extra $30 to cover the flight stand, shield, blast effects, and fancier box (assuming Star Saber comes with the sword and rifle, and Victory Leo comes with the two V-lock rifles and the V-lock cannon).  And just like with the Legacy figures you buy in a store, you're going to have some minor paint defects.  You're buying the same plastic used in the mainline.  You're still getting color that comes more from the plastic than what paint they did use.

Despite the fact that Victory Saber is most definitely CHUG, you're getting a solid figure with sturdy connections and joints that hold up well even in Victory Saber mode and carrying that big V-lock cannon.  Indeed, he feels a lot more solid than either my Sky Lynx or my Jetfire.  I very much love this set, I definitely think it was worth the price, I'm very glad I backed it and chose to back Deathsaurus.  If it were possible to get him at retail still I'd absolutely recommend it.  Unfortunately, the reality of HasLab means by the time he goes out and I can actually tell you I love it and it's good you're stuck looking for one on the aftermarket.

[Scyla]

Nice review Mike. I’m glad you had good look with QC on your copy.

I hope mine is fine. I ordered through Zavvi and they said it was ready to ship. Hopefully I will have it before the holidays.

[edit:] @M'Kyuun I think it would be great to get a Skyquake in the original G2 color (maybe even a Machine Wars Starscream). 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Scyla

[mikeszekely]

13 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

but apparently the green one above was already Dreadwing.

Kind of.  Skyquake was green and died in his first appearance (although his zombie corpse appeared one or two more times).  Dreadwing was the same CGI model, but blue.  He joined the Decepticons on Earth because he wanted to avenge Skyquake, and wound up being a recurring villain.  When it came to the toys, Dreadwing actually got them first (in both the Cyberverse Commander-class and Voyager-class), and then was redeccoed as Skyquake after the fact.

As I said earlier, I really dig that this Skyquake is listed as Prime-universe but is getting blended with the G1 version, and I hope that when it's released as Dreadwing it can be changed enough (think Universe Sunstreaker and Sideswipe) to downplay the G1 Skyquake and look more like Prime Dreadwing.

11 hours ago, Scyla said:

FansHobby is doing a G1 Darkwing/Dreadwind Buster/Hydra set. They are a bit stylized and I’m not a big fan of FansHobby products in general but they made it to the prototype stage:

Fans Hobby had a few QC issues with their Armada Prime, and they do get a little too-stylized sometimes (their Armada Prime has a too-small upper body and goofy head on the smaller robot).  I like them overall, though, they made some figures I really love like their Scourge, Laser Prime, Overlord, and Armada Megatron.  I expect I'll pick up their Buster and Hydra, and probably their Energon Prime.

13 hours ago, JB0 said:

Did Dreadwing ever show up in the cartoon? There might be a problem if they only do extremely toon-accurate(from a specific viewing angle) versions.

They had some animated scenes in commercials, and they were a thing in the old Marvel comics, but they never appeared in the Sunbow cartoon.  Their Japanese counterparts, Buster and Hydra, were major villains in the Masterforce anime (Fans Hobby has a track record of doing the Japanese versions first, but following them up with the Western ones after, so we'll have options).

1 hour ago, Scyla said:

[edit:] @M'Kyuun I think it would be great to get a Skyquake in the original G2 color (maybe even a Machine Wars Starscream). 

I think this Prime/G1 Skyquake scratches the G1 itch enough for me (maybe because Skyquake and the Predators weren't released in the US).  But, with rumors of a Legacy Thunderclash coming, I'd absolutely throw money at Gen Selects Machine Wars Optimus and Machine Wars Starscream.  MW Starscream was the best colors of that mold, anyway.

In other news, if you're in for Deathsaurus (and you still have about 35 hours left to get in on it as of this writing), all tiers have been achieved.  I'm looking forward to posing mine with Victory Saber sometime next year.

[M'Kyuun]

6 hours ago, Scyla said:

[edit:] @M'Kyuun I think it would be great to get a Skyquake in the original G2 color (maybe even a Machine Wars Starscream). 

Different strokes. This mold seems to have a lot of recolor potential (I wasn't even aware that G1/2 Skyquake existed prior to this discussion) so hopefully everybody gets the variant(s) that appeals to them.

[mikeszekely]

Backing window is closed on Deathsaurus.  I kind of remember Star Saber getting a surge in backers after the backing window closed as international orders from affiliate sellers were counted, but right now the final count is just over 25,000.  I backed one, anyone else?  Hopefully he doesn't take as long to produce as Victory Saber- I'm hearing that Hasbro  is targeting September.

[Scyla]

8 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Backing window is closed on Deathsaurus.  I kind of remember Star Saber getting a surge in backers after the backing window closed as international orders from affiliate sellers were counted, but right now the final count is just over 25,000.  I backed one, anyone else?  Hopefully he doesn't take as long to produce as Victory Saber- I'm hearing that Hasbro  is targeting September.

I didn’t back one. I have the MMC IDW D-Zef for my Deathsaurus fix which I’m very happy with.

 

[mikeszekely]

36 minutes ago, Scyla said:

I didn’t back one. I have the MMC IDW D-Zef for my Deathsaurus fix which I’m very happy with.

 

I'd have bought the G1 version of D-Zef if Hasbro hadn't announced their HasLab. I may still get the IDW version.

[Scyla]

7 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I'd have bought the G1 version of D-Zef if Hasbro hadn't announced their HasLab. I may still get the IDW version.

The good thing about MMC toys is that they don’t feel like Hasbro products; which is what I ultimately want.

I would be careful with the IDW version since a higher number of units gad issues with the mechanism that keep the swing bars locked in robot mode, my own copy included. MMC was kind enough to provide replacement pieces but they might not have any more in the future.

With Star Saber I was hoping for a fun toy to just pick up and play with. Which is an experience non of the other options offer. It looks like this is exactly what we are getting.

Plus most of the available options are terrible so the HasLab Star Saber is in a good position of ranking high on my charts. 

[mikeszekely]

9 hours ago, Scyla said:

The good thing about MMC toys is that they don’t feel like Hasbro products; which is what I ultimately want.

The flip side of that is that MMC's stuff is kind of out-of-place with Hasbro stuff, which is why I settled on HasLab Deathsaurus.

Don't get me wrong, though. MMC is my very favorite 3P, as they're the only one that seems to understand that the transformation matters. I expect I'll kick off 2023 reviewing some of their stuff.

Getting back to Deathsaurus, though, looks like Hasbro is tossing in Pipo and Boater, completing the Rescue Patrol.

[Scyla]

18 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

*snip*

Getting back to Deathsaurus, though, looks like Hasbro is tossing in Pipo and Boater, completing the Rescue Patrol.

They should have announced that earlier. Maybe I would have backed Deathsaurus to have a complete set of Micromasters. 

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, Scyla said:

They should have announced that earlier. Maybe I would have backed Deathsaurus to have a complete set of Micromasters. 

In all seriousness, I didn't care that Holi and Fire came with Victory Saber.  In hand they turned out to be kind of junk, but it didn't bother me because they were always kind of last-minute add-on crap I didn't need in the first place.

But now that I know I'm getting Pipo and Boater, too, I'm suddenly excited about the prospect of having the whole team.  I even started watching my Victory DVDs and dug TFC's Liokaiser out of storage to replace the joints with the ones TFC made for the reissue.  I'm kicking myself for never completing their Road Caesar, and wondering if some enterprising 3P would make the Multiforce...

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

What a great remix of the Victory theme for Haslab.

[Hikuro]

My Haslab Victory Saber arrived after getting pushed back from UPS. I was a bit worried cause it had updated yesterday with a Monday arrival when it was originally slated for Friday. Luckily it changed again to Saturday delivery but needed a signature....so I had to stay home all day to wait. 
I think the box is beautiful, and I'm totally going to hold onto that. The instruction manual ripped when I tried to unfold it..that bummed me out....When I opened the box poor Stakeout already had a popped off leg lol.

Did have a very light amount of paint defect, none on the gold which was awesome. Most of it was on Star Saber's body around yellow regions and a little black paint mark on some white of his forearms. 
Victory Leo has a little black mark on the left side of his chest in the mustard yellow. 

Other than that I didn't find much else. 

Transformations were super easy to figure out, Victory Leo's forearms flipping to his beast form were insanely tight....I might look at that at some point when I got more time. 
Star Saber himself I fiddled with and it all seems to be really nice, not to tight not to loose. 

I will say I'm disappointed like many others over Victory Leo having that little missing paint application on his wings. I don't know if I'll apply them either as I'm sure they'll wear out in time. Since it's a gloss red I might just carefully mask the area off and paint it. 

I have the entire combined setup sitting on a my bench right now as I try to figure out where I'm going to put Victory Saber...that'll be a tough one. Combined form I think he's gonna be maybe a bit too big without compressing those cannons. 

Guess just wait and see! I'm just gonna admire it for now and go from there. Now to wait a year for Deathsaurus. 

 

[mikeszekely]

Another (Deluxe-class?) Junkion in Legacy Evolution...

And a G1-ified Animated Prowl

And... yeah.  I mean, I guess they do look kind of cool.  And I shouldn't be a G1 curmudgeon and I should let Prime and Animated fans enjoy some new figures.  On a personal level, though, Legacy was definitely a lot less exciting for me than the WfC Trilogy, and while I'm pretty pumped for Tarn and Leo Prime Evolution isn't exactly wowing me.  Thank Primus that I can still expect some good stuff in Studio Series 86.

[M'Kyuun]

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Another (Deluxe-class?) Junkion in Legacy Evolution...

And a G1-ified Animated Prowl

And... yeah.  I mean, I guess they do look kind of cool.  And I shouldn't be a G1 curmudgeon and I should let Prime and Animated fans enjoy some new figures.  On a personal level, though, Legacy was definitely a lot less exciting for me than the WfC Trilogy, and while I'm pretty pumped for Tarn and Leo Prime Evolution isn't exactly wowing me.  Thank Primus that I can still expect some good stuff in Studio Series 86.

That Wreck-gar is new to me, but I saw that G-1ified Animated Prowl over on twitter before popping in here for the morning perusal. Honestly, instead of redoing all these other lines' figs, I wish they would just reissue the original toys for those who didn't get them back in the day. That said, this take on Prowl is ...interesting. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. I like the Animated aesthetic, so seeing this cubed and squashed iteration is a bit off-putting, although it does look like they tried to carry over the original's transformation and salient features- looking at him, there's no doubt who he's supposed to be, so that's a feather in Has/TT's respective caps. Too, though I'm not in any way a motorcycle enthusiast, for some reason Transformers who take that particular alt appeal to me, and Prowl here is no exception. 

[JB0]

The only immediate complaint I have with Bike Prowl is the head.

[sh9000]

I want Earthrise Prowl to be reissued in the Studio Series TFTM line.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

I want Earthrise Prowl to be reissued in the Studio Series TFTM line.

I don't recall hearing anything yet, but it's probably not an impossibility.  Ramjet and Dirge are rumored to be getting re-released.

1 hour ago, JB0 said:

The only immediate complaint I have with Bike Prowl is the head.

They gotta G1-ify it so it fits with the rest of Legacy, I guess.  Seems reaction is pretty mixed, some people really like it, others feel like giving up Wyatt's style is like giving up the soul of the character and are lamenting that they're not getting actual new Animated figures.  While odds are good that I pick up this Prowl, and bad that I'd pick up a cartoon-faithful Animated Prowl, I think my position really hasn't changed.  That is, I love the idea of taking the best characters from outside G1 and retroactively G1-ing them into Legacy, but I'm decidedly less enthusiastic about G1-ing characters that already have popular G1 versions and would rather Hasbro gave those characters more animation-accurate upgrades.  In other words, I think Bulkhead and Knockout worked for me, and I love how the upcoming Skyquake amalgamates Prime with G1, but, Arcee and Prowl are kind of redundant.  I'd rather see G1-ish versions of Bayverse Blackout, Animated Lugnut and Lockdown, RiD '15 Strongarm, and Cyberverse Slipstream and Shadowstriker.

[JB0]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

They gotta G1-ify it so it fits with the rest of Legacy, I guess.  Seems reaction is pretty mixed, some people really like it, others feel like giving up Wyatt's style is like giving up the soul of the character and are lamenting that they're not getting actual new Animated figures. 

In this case, I think it's more that this isn't Prowl's head. Not just that it isn't curvy and elongated and 50% chin(actually, he has a surprisingly large chin for the blocky style), but the fin is far too large, the basic optics shape  is wrong, the expression is stern... it's like they used G1 Prowl's head and characterization to guide the design.

 

 

That said, he's recognizably Animated Prowl, which Bulkhead wasn't. I'm also VERY pleased that Hasbro's strict budget constraints didn't prevent them from including the two hubcap shuriken. I won't ignore that there's a lot right here.

...

Huh... Legacy Bulkhead's head was the only part that WAS right. Is there a "do the head or the everything-else" rule we don't know about?

Or maybe the head's wrong to make sure people have a reason to double-dip when they do samurai armor Prowl.

Edited December 19, 2022 by JB0

[Scyla]

I wonder what’s up with those big forehead crests. Leader Skyquake also has  a massive forehead crest…

…maybe a new design language?

[Scyla]

Wotafa's review of Legacy Evolution Tarn: 

I still think the proportions of the legs look awkward and he has visible hand syndrome but I sill look forward getting mine.

 

[sh9000]

That's a lot of Terrosaurs.

[mikeszekely]

At least the Street Fighter crossover figures are there. My Target is nothing but Dinobots.

[Scyla]

Got a notification that my HasLab Victory Saber I ordered during the funding period via Zavvi was canceled due to "insufficient stock".

Apparently it is happening to other people throughout Europe that thought they backed the project through Zavvi too.

Merry Christmas to me I guess. 

[Kuriza]

1 hour ago, Scyla said:

Got a notification that my HasLab Victory Saber I ordered during the funding period via Zavvi was canceled due to "insufficient stock".

Apparently it is happening to other people throughout Europe that thought they backed the project through Zavvi too.

Merry Christmas to me I guess. 

Same for me. **** Zavvi. Never again 😡 

Merry Christmas to all of you

[lechuck]

6 hours ago, Scyla said:

Got a notification that my HasLab Victory Saber I ordered during the funding period via Zavvi was canceled due to "insufficient stock".

Apparently it is happening to other people throughout Europe that thought they backed the project through Zavvi too.

Merry Christmas to me I guess. 

4 hours ago, Kuriza said:

Same for me. **** Zavvi. Never again 😡 

Merry Christmas to all of you

Holy crap, that is just terrible to be served off like that!? I don't have any invest in Victory Saber, but if I did my blood would be boiling.

How does one end up with insufficient stock for something that is made to order?

Edited December 23, 2022 by lechuck

[Scyla]

41 minutes ago, lechuck said:

Holy crap, that is just terrible to be served off like that!? I don't have any invest in Victory Saber, but if I did my blood would be boiling.

How does one end up with insufficient stock for something that is made to order?

I reached out to Hasbro Pulse after all I got as a response from Zavvi was that they received insufficient stock:

Quote

Dear Scyla,

 
Thank you for contacting the Hasbro Pulse Consumer Care Team.
 
We are truly sorry for what you experienced with your order.
 
We would love to help you as we can see you are a big fan, but we are sorry we have no control over orders placed with Zavvi. We can only recommend that you contact Zavvi directly again.
 
Nevertheless, we will forward your mail to our marketing team to inform them about the problem.
 
We hope that a solution to this problem can be found.
 
Thank you for your understanding.
 
Kind regards
Your Hasbro Pulse Consumer Care Team

If it really is a widespread issue and not just a couple vocal consumers it might be worth reaching out to Hasbro so that they know that there is a bigger issue.

I was under the impression that Zavvi was just acting as a proxy and forwarding the numbers that they received to Hasbro but something went wrong.

[mikeszekely]

Seems sketchy to me that Hasbro couldn't cover the amount Zavvi ordered but they could send copies to YouTubers that didn't order one.