The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[mikeszekely]

Alright, I've been wanting to do this forever, since I had ordered the rest of the team back in April and guys like Skullface were getting review samples what seems like ages ago. Here's Maketoys' Vulcan, their Hot Spot.

In my earlier reviews, I'd shown how the limb bots were about the same size as their Combiner Wars counterparts. I've also seen pictures online of Guardia with Quantron, so I know that Guardia is about the same size as Combiner Wars Defensor. But, as you can see, Vulcan is NOT the same size as CW Hot Spot. He's a big dude!

Aesthetically, this is a Maketoys release, so you know it's going to be more stylized and less straight up G1. He's got enough Hot Spot details, though; red chest, the wheels in his chest, mostly blue arms, blue lower legs, black thighs. He's got more red and black in his abs, and the blue that's usually in that spot has been moved to hip skirts, and his chest and abs have some heavily stylized gray and transparent red details. I believe the effect, combined with the hip skirts and the asymmetry of the details on his abs, is meant to evoke a fireman's coat. His head goes for the black of the toy, but with a silver face plate. It looks really nice, but I'm not going to lie, I'd have preferred the cartoon's blue head. The cab splitting and becoming his upper arms is, I think, toy accurate, just turned sideways. I'm not sure why, since the toy and 'toon had wheels on the outside of his legs, but Maketoys opted to put a molded fake wheel on the inside of each leg. For the most part, I really like how Maketoys captured enough of Hot Spot so that he's recognizable, but updated enough to give him a dynamic look.

As far as accessories, Vulcan comes with a ton of stuff. There's his ladder assembly, the combiner chest, two combiner feet, two objects I'd assume are water canisters of some sort, a pair of guns, new blades for Katana, and new diecast handlebars for Axle. If you're wondering about hands, the combined mode hands store in the water canisters.

In keeping with Maketoys' action-figure style, Vulcan is very articulate. His head is on a stiff ball joint. He can get a little up tilt and side-to-side tilt, a lot of downward tilt, and he can of course look side-to-side. His shoulders are on mushroom pegs for rotation, but it feels like there's a soft ratchet inside. He's got ratchets for lateral movement (and transformation) where the shoulder connects to the body, plus another hinge inside the shoulder that again feels like a soft ratchet. Together, you can get about 90 degrees of lateral movement. Due to transformation again, he's got a bicep swivel just under the cab part and another swivel between his elbow joints. And I say between because he's got double-jointed elbows that would almost let him touch is shoulder if the armor on his forearm didn't bang into the cab shoulders first. His wrists are ball joints, so he has swivels but also a little up/down/side-to-side waggle. He's got a ratcheted waist swivel, and a ratcheted ab crunch. Not just a crunch, really... his torso actually stretches to reveal the joint, and you can crunch two clicks forward but you can also arc his back two clicks in the other direction. His hips are universal joints with ratchets for both front/back and lateral movement. He can kick 90 degrees forward, almost 90 degrees back, and more than 90 degrees laterally. His front hip skirts are on ball joints so they can rotate out of the way when you bend his legs forward, but you can also splay them a little so they follow the line of his legs in an A-stance. He's got ratcheted thigh swivels and ratcheted knees that can bend 90 degrees.

Now his feet, like I said, are a little weird. They're attached to the back of his leg, on a rotating ratcheted joint that provides his ankle tilt. There's a ratcheted hinge back there that will let him point his toes downward, and another ratcheted hinge in the middle of his foot that bends the toes back up. From most angles that works, but from the right angles you'll seen enough of a gap that it looks like he's actually floating just above his feet.

YMMV, but my copy seems to hold his guns a little loose.

Now you may have noticed that there's no ladder on him. This is a sort of cartoon look, IMHO, since his ladder always just disappeared in the cartoon. If you prefer less partsforming, you can plug it into his back and leave it there throughout his transformations.

Personally, I like to leave it off to the side, where the combined-mode chest plate and water canisters can be attached to it. If you really hate partsforming, you can put the combiner chest and water canisters on the ladder, then jam the whole thing onto his back.

While you're at it, you can clip the combiner feet onto the outsides of his legs, and combine his two guns into one larger gun for a "Full Armor mode", ala Metalstorm and Diesel. While I've never liked Metalstorm or Diesel's full armor modes, Vulcan's isn't too bad. I'm actually cool with everything but the combiner feet hanging off his legs.

Now, while you could do Metalstorm's alt just fine without combiner parts and you could make a smaller "delivery truck" out of Diesel without combiner parts, you need at minimum the combiner feet and chest plate to put Vulcan into his alt mode, which is a fire truck. From the rear tires back the truck is made from combiner feet, the back of the truck is the chest plate, then if you want to store everything in truck mode the guns peg into the top of the back, where the base of the ladder sits, and the water canisters clip onto the sides of the truck near the mid point and rest on top. It's much closer to G1 Hot Spot than the Combiner Wars toy, but it's a little kibbly. The canisters go a long way toward hiding Vulcan's feet, but the truck's siren lights are lost in a see of gray joints, and nothing's hiding the robot hands just behind the cab. It looks unfinished. It'd be partsformy as all get out, but I'd have liked a roof with its own light bar that clipped over that mess. It could have tabs that fit those slots on the front and slots for the tabs on his wrists in the back.

As a truck, his wheels spin, the ladder can rotate but that rotation is hampered by his guns. And the ladder can extend. It's about what you'd want in a fire truck.

One final thing... when I talk about accessories, I never mention paperwork like instruction sheets (Vulcan has two) or collectors cards (none here). But I do want to mention that Vulcan comes with a card of a different kind. It's really just an add from their upcoming Cross Dimension line, with a big picture of Striker Manus (Optimus) with a smaller picture of Manus and silhouettes of what I assume are Rioter Despotron (Megatron) and an Powermaster-Prime styled armored version of Manus.

On the back, though, is a black and white picture of Manus and some instructions that start by telling you to download the Maketoys app (available for Android or iPhone). Using the Augmented Reality feature of the app, you can make a picture of Striker Manus appear. If the AR picture is scaled properly, we can see that he'll be maybe a head shorter than Vulcan. Neat!

Anyway, I'm going to give Vulcan what I'm calling the "Maketoys recommend." Because by now we know that Maketoys loves to use tabs everywhere, and likes to make their toys with a stylized, anime-influence look that isn't strictly G1, and by extension not for everyone. If you're not a fan of Maketoys Vulcan is unlikely to win you over, despite being probably the best toy to come out of their MT Combiner series. If you're cool with Maketoys' style, though, Vulcan is a solid toy with lots of articulation aided by strong joints and is, IMHO, a much better toy than Combiner Wars Hot Spot.

[JB0]

The canisters go a long way toward hiding Vulcan's feet, but the truck's siren lights are lost in a see of gray joints, and nothing's hiding the robot hands just behind the cab. It looks unfinished. It'd be partsformy as all get out, but I'd have liked a roof with its own light bar that clipped over that mess. It could have tabs that fit those slots on the front and slots for the tabs on his wrists in the back.

Man, there had to be a way to design the chest plate where the back side would be a decent truck roof. It'd be no more of an issue than putting it on the back, and I personally am far more forgiving of a janky back-end than I am a roof.

And that roof REALLY looks like it was designed for a cover to snap over it.

[mikeszekely]

Man, there had to be a way to design the chest plate where the back side would be a decent truck roof. It'd be no more of an issue than putting it on the back, and I personally am far more forgiving of a janky back-end than I am a roof.

And that roof REALLY looks like it was designed for a cover to snap over it.

Right?

I think putting Defensor's chest on the roof is how TFC did it.

[Firefox]

Just finished a stand adapter for DX9 Gewalt.

Is the horizontal tail a custom job or the Gewalt actually come with it? All the pictures on the internet show it without the tail horizontal tail.

[Scyla]

I think the horizontal stabilizers where a last minute addition to the toy. I don't know why maybe due to fan demands. That is why they don't integrate very well. It seems DX9 just constructed a ball-joint with a fin on it as the simplest solution.

[JB0]

I think the horizontal stabilizers where a last minute addition to the toy. I don't know why maybe due to fan demands. That is why they don't integrate very well. It seems DX9 just constructed a ball-joint with a fin on it as the simplest solution.

Hey, at least they break up the big monotonous slab of purple, even if they do look tacked on.

[mikeszekely]

Hey, at least they break up the big monotonous slab of purple, even if they do look tacked on.

How do you you figure? The horizontal stabs add more purple.

[technoblue]

How do you you figure? The horizontal stabs add more purple.

Instead of a purple brick, it looks like a purple brick with triangles?

[mikeszekely]

Instead of a purple brick, it looks like a purple brick with triangles?

Fair enough.

[mikeszekely]

Sorry guys, I meant to have this up earlier but my computer decided that it wanted nothing to do with the internet. Honestly, I still haven't fixed the problem, just sidestepped it by installing a USB Wi-Fi adapter. Anyway, here's Guardia, the completed combiner meant to be Maketoys' Defensor.

Ok, so that's not actually Guardia. It's really just Vulcan. But you can see how, like Diesel and M3, Vulcan supplies half the legs himself.

Unlike M3, where the cars were just chilling out in car mode on his shins, Rover and Axle actually do some transforming, wrapping around the skeleton in the process. The result makes them look very integrated, especially Axle.

Aesthetically, Guardia is very recognizable as Defensor. The limbs aren't just in their "correct" position, but they're oriented properly with Katana/Blades nose at the shoulder and tail bending up toward the elbow, Axle/Groove's bike front sitting on the knee, and Rover/Streetwise's front end bent outward. He's got the blue collar around his head, black hips, blue shins, (mostly) black feet and hands, mostly blue on the torso, and a very Defensor-esque chest. he's even got fake wheels on the sides of his thighs. What Maketoys has done is given it their usual stylized anime makeover by enlarging the chest plate, swapping the red dots on the toy for shapes that almost look like eyes, trimming his abs down to just the red part on the toy, making the fingers red, making the limbs look a little more "transformed." It takes away some of the blockiness of G1 Defensor and gives Guardia proportions that are both more natural and more heroic. I'll be very upfront here; I absolutely love what Maketoys has done aesthetically to get to Guardia from Defensor. There's no question in my mind that Guardia is the best-looking Defensor, period. He makes Combiner Wars Defensor look like crap.

He's a little taller than CW Defensor, and that puts him at the same height as M3, Quantron, and (I assume) Giant. He makes a good opponent for M3 here, but Warbotron WB-01 (Bruticus) towers over him. When I decided to go in on Guardia my combiner shelf was Quantron, Ordin, and an armless Feral Rex, and Guardia seemed fine then. Today, though, Ordin, Rex, Warbotron Bruticus, and Uranos are all similarly-sized, with Hades and Poseidon as works-in-progress that should also shake out in that size. Then there's Constructor, who's just friggin' huge. I'm giving serious thought to checking out TransFormMission's Menasor, too, which would just leave Quantron and Guardia in that smaller size, and I wouldn't mind checking out Warbotron WB-03 (Computron). I honestly have half a mind to get Giant, consider MMC's Defensor (whenever that actually happens), and put M3, Quantron, Giant, and Guardia in a separate display.

To make Guardia, you actually have to split the ladder into two parts. The part that's been plugging into Vulcan's back stays, and Guardia's head is on it. The rest clips onto Guardia's back, always off-center to the left or right, with the water canisters attached. I don't mind it, but if the ladder being off-center bothers you or if you just want a ladderless cartoon look you can just remove it and set it off to the side somewhere, which is what I intend to do.

I have to say, though, that Maketoys missed an opportunity to make a weapon out of it. With the canisters it looks like a massive hammer.

Everything connects solidly, giving Guardia a cohesive look and plenty of articulation. His head is on a stiff ball joint, so he can turn his head, look up, look down, or tilt it in confusion. His waist, hips, and thigh swivels are Vulcan's with the same ratchety range of motion (although the ab-crunch joint is stretched out to give Guardia some of his height, so no combiner ab crunch). The combiner pegs for the arms are ratcheted and can rotate, plus the combiner joints inside Katana and Himed are on ratchets, further aiding in his lateral movement. He's got dedicated elbow joints built into the waists of Katana and Himed, and these joints provide ratcheted bicep swivels and ratcheted elbows. His arms can also rotate at Katana and Himed's waists, below the elbow joint and also on ratchets. Guardia's wrists wrap around Katana and Himed then lock down on themselves, but the hands themselves seem to be on ball joints, so he can both rotate and waggle his wrists a bit. The combiner hands are similar to Quantron and M3's with a hinge and the base and one additional knuckle. The thumb is a little different, though. The red part of the thumb is on a ball joint at the base with a single hinged knuckle, but the red doesn't connect to the palm directly. Instead, it's seated in a black box which is itself attached to the palm on a double hinge, so Guardia can get some crazy thumb poses. His knees are ratcheted and can bend 90 degrees. It almost looks like they could be double-jointed, but the lower joint is a transformation joint and if you try to use it the skeleton will start to come undone. As with the arms, the legs have a second rotation point below the knee. Unfortunately, things fall apart a little at the feet, which are on ball joints. On paper, that gives him up/down tilt, lateral ankle tilt, and ankle rotation. In practice, the ankles feel loose and there are times when Guardia wants to lean and tip over. If you're careful, though, you can give Guardia plenty of really dynamic poses, with or without the twin rifles (made up of all the guns that came with the five individual bots).

The loose ankles are the start of where I started to feel let down by Guardia. There's also the fact that it took me an hour and a half to get him combined. A lot of it boils down to Maketoys love of tabs and disregard for tolerances. To give you just one example, to fully tab in the back section you're supposed to line up a flat panel. The panel has a tab on one edge, and a slot on the bottom. The tab goes into his back, and the slot receives a tab on Vulcan's elbow. You're supposed to tab in both (actually, those plus a tab on Vulcan's forearm that goes into a slot on Guardia's back), despite the fact that the elbow tab forces the panel up a little to high for the edge tab to slot in, and the slot tab forces the panel a little far back for the elbow tab to reach the slot. You're going to be bending plastic and cursing, and this being Maketoys, there's going to be lots of tabs and lots of cursing. And it's not all Vulcan. I had a bear getting Himed's arms locked into place, and getting Rover into leg mode means forcing tabs on his hips to lock into different slots than he uses for car mode, but the slots always want to sink into the car mode tabs. I cut my finger when he popped apart while trying to force the car slot past the tab. Stuff kept popping off, too. And I don't mean stuff like a tab would pop out of its slot, or the chest plate would pop off. No, I mean one of Rover's doors, one of Himed's legs, one of Vulcan's arms, and Katana's nose/front windshield. Stuff that absolutely should NOT be falling off. And the icing on the cake for me is that Katana and Himed have friction joints under the combiner connector, and Himed's is loose enough that you can move Guardia's shoulder outward laterally but the friction joint will cause his elbow and forearm to sag back inward.

Peaking around the internet, everyone else seems to really love Guardia (even Skullface, who is notoriously hard on toys). I don't know if my loose joints are unique to my copies. I don't know if I'm letting my frustrations with the tabs sour me more than they normally would because I had such high expectations for Guardia. I don't know if it's because this size is starting to be too small for my personal collection. There is definitely a lot to love here, like the way the combiner components lock together solidly and the really fantastic aesthetic design. The fact remains, though, that I am a little disappointed with Guardia. Since I do think he blows CW Defensor and TFC's Prometheus out of the water, I'll give him a recommend UNLESS you're feeling patient enough to see how MMC's Defensor shakes out, whenever that may be because I don't think anything's been shown except for line art for their Hot Spot from over a year ago.

[dapro]

Fans toy is making too many good stuffs this year. Arghhh FT-10 or Ft-16?

[mikeszekely]

Fans toy is making too many good stuffs this year. Arghhh FT-10 or Ft-16?

Well, neither for me... while I do think that FT-10 will turn out to be loads better than Kronos, and he does technically scale well with MP-10, he's too big for my tastes (honestly, most "MP-scale" figures are).

As for FT-16, nothing I've seen makes me think I'll like it better than Tyrant. On that note (not that a person can't actually prefer FT-16), there are a lot of people that seem to go with the Fans Toys option just because it's Fans Toys. Like it's just assumed that FT makes a better product than everyone else. Personally, I try to evaluate each individual release on it's own, not the company's history (otherwise I'd have never bought another TFC product). I'm sure FT makes a good product to get the following that they have, but I still don't get the borderline religious devotion they seem to inspire.

[Scyla]

Thanks for the review Mike, I think I have to get Guardia now because MMC didn't show anything about their Ocular Max Defensor on TFCon. This is a weird thing because it was the first image of the line that was show. Sadly also no news on the OX Insecticons.

I also got no news about replacement pieces for my Backdraft which got me thinking if I really should wait for the OX Insecticons or if I should go with the FansToys one. I really hope Backdraft is just an outlier and not the new norm.

[Firefox]

I think the horizontal stabilizers where a last minute addition to the toy. I don't know why maybe due to fan demands. That is why they don't integrate very well. It seems DX9 just constructed a ball-joint with a fin on it as the simplest solution.

I think adding the horizontal tails is a good call. It looks more complete in jet mode. Personally I don't like ball joints. I'll pass this and wait for FansToys Berserk

[Scyla]

I too think it is a good idea to have them. However since they where a last minute addition the implementation of the horizontal stabs is lacking at best and they don't integrate well into tank and robot mode.

[JB0]

How do you you figure? The horizontal stabs add more purple.

Honestly? I got horizontal and vertical mixed up. Because the V. Stabs look immediately slapped on after-the-fact to me. They hang over empty space, and are clearly not "attached' to anything.

(Apparently the prototype intended for them to be canted outward, which actually looks halfway-decent. So they aren't really slapped on so much as they are blatantly mistransformed when in the now-correct configuration)

[areaseven]

Tiny Headmasters.

[Dio]

Mike, did you have to do the tab trim fix on Vulcan to get it to lock together for torso mode?

[mikeszekely]

Mike, did you have to do the tab trim fix on Vulcan to get it to lock together for torso mode?

I haven't done it yet, but yes, it needs to be done. The bumpers don't stay pegged in otherwise.

[mikeszekely]

I'm still waiting on Hypnos, but tonight we're going to take a look at Cerberus, TFC's Jallguar.

Aesthetically, he's about what you'd expect by now from a TFC Hades member. He's got the mix of cartoon (black helmet, red visor) and toy (white crotch, red lines on his shoulders, gold on his knees) details. He's got detailing on his chest that mimics the look of the cartoon with the breast partner attached even though it's not attached. He's even got wheels on this thighs and little red missiles on his ankles. He's got some odd design choices, too, like translucent red hands instead of black or white, and translucent red toes. Since Aiakos and Hypnos are basically remolds of Thanatos and Minos, I'm going to say that Cerberus is the shortest Hades member. He's a little taller than Smart Robin and the other Function-X Headmasters, and about a head shorter than Generations Brainstorm. Despite his shorter stature, he's a wide, thick dude, which may not sit well with Masterforce fans.

Although I find the overuse of translucent red to be a bit much, and I wish they'd used white plastic instead of gray for his elbows and biceps and used the black on his midriff lower on his hips and crotch, I actually dig the overall aesthetic. Black and white is a good combo, black with red accents is a good combo, and there's just enough little details to break up the colors. Plus, cat ears!

When it comes to articulation, compared to the rest of the Hades set Cerberus is a step forward and a step back. His head is on a swivel, but it has no tilt whatsoever. His shoulders can move laterally about 90 degrees, but combined with a transformation joint you can actually keep going until his shoulder hits his head, and they can rotate all the way around. His biceps and wrists swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed. Bending the upper elbow joint will even reveal some hidden detail. His waists and thighs swivel. His hips are on ratchets for both forward/backward and lateral movement, a first for this set. He can kick all the way forward, almost all the way back, and he can almost do the splits. Technically his knees can bend 90 degrees, but a transformation joint essentially gives him double-jointed knees. Then his feet... well, he really doesn't have feet. What he's got are little boxes with with hinged toes. The boxes are on a ball joint. Tilting the box gives you faux ankle tilt, but it's not the best since chunks of leg he stands on will go below the corners of the box if you tilt it. You can also bend it down, or use the hinge to point the toes upward.

The only accessory he comes with is his gun...

...which we know by now is his "screw G1-accuracy" breast plate. While other members of this set have ranged from "yuck!" to "meh" with a breast plate, I think Cerberus actually looks better with it.

It's also the unnamed stand in for Jallguar's breast partner, Jaguarbreast. Now, Masterforce fans will likely be quick to point out that Cerberus' partner doesn't look a whole lot like Jaguarbreast. And you know what? I don't care. Because, you know who he totally does look like? Ravage. The hinges on his back legs are even slightly evocative of Ravage's hip missiles. I'm telling you guys, this remold of Rhadamanthus' partner is Ravage with red and white legs and a red tail. And that's awesome.

Cerberus' alt mode is probably the biggest departure from Jallguar. They both turn into mostly-black buggy-type vehicles with missile launchers on the back... but that's about it. Cerberus is longer and possibly narrower, and he lacks the front wing. This is due to his arms becoming the front end instead of the sides of the buggy, and he lacks the backpack that makes the front end on the G1 version. He's totally lacking the gold stripes on the toy. Instead, he's got the red stripes from his shoulders and some molded and painted engine detail. His legs still transform into the missile launchers, but the different shape of his lower legs gives the launchers a different shape, and rather than using his ankle missiles for the buggy's missiles TFC opted to mold and paint smaller missiles under his toes (although the ankle missiles can rotate so they're still in a firing position). And his cockpit windows are red instead of gold. I'm not enthusiastic about these changes, not just because of the reduction in G1 accuracy but because they seem to cause some of the issues I have with the toy, like the tires on the backs of his forearms and the weird feet.

You can, of course, attach his partner. He sits on the roof, and doesn't look too shabby there.

If you take him off you can open the cockpit, which is a nice touch.

A lot of people will tell you that Cerberus is the weakest of the set. I though that maybe they were unhappy with how broad he is, or how inaccurate his buggy mode is, or the overuse of translucent red plastic- things I could forgive. I mean, I thought he looks a lot cooler and has a more interesting alt mode than Thanatos. But now that I have him (and Thanatos, who was better than I expected) in hand I can see that they're right. Cerberus has problems. I'll give the tires on his thighs, which can get in the way, a pass, simply due to G1 accuracy. But the ones on his arms get no pass. His stubby feet get no pass. But going further, there's his knee pads- they don't lock in in bot or buggy mode, which leads you to trying to position them as best you can and hoping they don't move (but they will move). And there's the way that his missile-feet fail to cover the entire bottom of his mostly-hollow leg, leaving a rather unsightly gap. I haven't put any of these guys into their combined modes since I figure you need at least two legs to stand, but I strongly get the feeling that sacrifices were made to his bot and alt modes to make him a better combiner part. Now, while I do occasionally pull them apart and play with them I mostly keep my combiners in combined mode, so if the combined mode turns out great then the sacrifices are worth it. But after TFCon, we know that Hades won't be the only Liokaiser on the market. Mech Ideas is working on one, too. We don't have more than gray CGI images of Leozack mode and some half-shots of the individual heads yet, and when you're holding a good toy it's easy to shrug and keep going with what you have. But when you're holding a flawed toy, that gray CGI image is enough to have you wondering if the other guy is going to do it better.

Anyway, I'm going to have to say that I don't recommend Cerberus, not on his own, anyway. I just don't see him being the Jallguar Masterforce fans are looking for. That said, Cerberus isn't bad so much as he is flawed. Given the relative quality of the other three (and knowing that the last two are basically remolds), if you're in it for the combined mode Cerberus isn't reason to quit now.

[mikeszekely]

Cut the tabs on Vulcan's bumpers. You don't cut the whole tab off; about halfway along the tab it gets thinner. Just cut the thin part. Apparently MT was going to do this at the factory, but there was a similar situation with Iron Will and people complained?

I also shortened the tabs on the arm flaps that plug into his back in combined mode. Huge difference! Guardia's sides tab in much more securely. From there, I can line up Vulcan's arms but leave them rotated out. Then, I can fold the flap down, tab it on the joint, rotate the arm in, tab the flap into the back, then tab the forearm into the back. The result is that the entire torso feels MUCH more secure, and it's a lot less frustrating to transform him (the limbs are still a pain, though).

There was some discussion about whether the thin portion of the bumper tabs served a purpose in robot mode. My verdict is no. The wheels bend around and rest against the tabs in robot mode, but whether you cut the thin part or not all they do is rest, not lock. So, cutting the tabs makes the wheels neither more or less secure. However, it does make them nestle in just a tad more, making it less likely they'll be bumped out of place while handling him.

[technoblue]

Cut the tabs on Vulcan's bumpers. You don't cut the whole tab off; about halfway along the tab it gets thinner. Just cut the thin part. Apparently MT was going to do this at the factory, but there was a similar situation with Iron Will and people complained?

<Vulcan Specific Info>

I think the only issue that bugged me with Iron Will were the tabs on his headmaster. MT noted that these were mistakenly cut off at the factory. With Cupola, I didn't like the ankle joints and the restricted motion in the legs for an MP-scale figure. That reminded of Code, and I am more forgiving of Code who is smaller (and was also released three years prior with a few repaints--Code:2012, Cupola:2015).

[technoblue]

MP Megatron Wars? It looks like DX9 fans might also have reason to rejoice:

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-3rd-party-discussion/1079280-dx9-d09-mightron-mp-styled-megatron.html

I like both MT and DX9's attempts at Megs more than Apollyon, but I'm leaning to MT looking at the pictures themselves.

[JB0]

I look forward to seeing all the Megatrons in one shelf.

[mikeszekely]

MP Megatron Wars? It looks like DX9 fans might also have reason to rejoice:

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-3rd-party-discussion/1079280-dx9-d09-mightron-mp-styled-megatron.html

I like both MT and DX9's attempts at Megs more than Apollyon, but I'm leaning to MT looking at the pictures themselves.

There's been a lot of activity in the Bold Forms Megatron thread, too.

Unfortunately for me, I'm not really interested in an MP-sized Megatron that turns into a gun (blasphemy, I know). Give me a More Than Meets the Eye tank Megatron that's about the same size as Leo Dux, though, and you can have my money.

[Mechapilot77]

MP Megatron Wars? It looks like DX9 fans might also have reason to rejoice:

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-3rd-party-discussion/1079280-dx9-d09-mightron-mp-styled-megatron.html

I like both MT and DX9's attempts at Megs more than Apollyon, but I'm leaning to MT looking at the pictures themselves.

lat i heard mightwon was legends sized? haha. guess they saw an opening to do another MP. i have apollyon and still think it looks better from the waist up (especially thea head) but i will likely get DX9's. maketoys takes a bit more comic/anime/fanart inspiration which is cool but not sure i like it as much (legs are too thick for one, helmet is too small, forehead is toosmall etc). maketoys do make well put together pieces though (so does dx9 though their aesthetics tend to be off...this is their most g1 looking release IMO).

***EDIT**

on second thought...dx9's legs aren't great either. shin isn't curved. at least maketoys has that.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Mechapilot77

[slaginpit]

Comparison Bot mode

Gun modes

[sh9000]

Looks too boxy with ugly legs.

[Tking22]

I never considered Apollyon, he always looked terrible to me, plus his QC issues made him an easy pass. I really had my eye on Despotron, but this guy is looking good too, even better then Despotron in my opinion. Oh well, I don't do Mp Cons so none of this means anything to me either way.

[slaginpit]

meh I have X transbots and I have no issues. Will get Maketoys and DX9 . Cant have enough Megs in your collection

[dizman]

So many megs but will any be any fun to transform without parts falling off? I'm in on whoever can pull off that mighty feat.

[M'Kyuun]

I also have Apollyon, and out of the three here, I still think he has the best overall proportions. However, I like the look of Despotron; he's a little chunky, but still a nice looking Megatron. I kinda wish he was Voyager scaled for the CHUGs. Looking forward to reviews.

[technoblue]

There's been a lot of activity in the Bold Forms Megatron thread, too.

Unfortunately for me, I'm not really interested in an MP-sized Megatron that turns into a gun (blasphemy, I know). Give me a More Than Meets the Eye tank Megatron that's about the same size as Leo Dux, though, and you can have my money.

Bold Forms does have a nice concept, an updated gun mode, and a tank mode, turning their Megatron into a triple changer. The strict US import rules on toy guns will make getting these new Megatrons...interesting. I do like what I've seen of the unconventional Stealth Bomber (IDW?) Megatron, though.

[JB0]

Bold Forms does have a nice concept, an updated gun mode, and a tank mode, turning their Megatron into a triple changer. The strict US import rules on toy guns will make getting these new Megatrons...interesting. I do like what I've seen of the unconventional Stealth Bomber (IDW?) Megatron, though.

As I recall the MP Megatron imports were darn close to completely unimpeded. Customs doesn't care unless you are very blatant about it(like "importing an entire shipping container full" levels of blatant).

So many megs but will any be any fun to transform without parts falling off? I'm in on whoever can pull off that mighty feat.

I will buy, no questions asked, the first one that turns into a working cap gun.

[mikeszekely]

Bold Forms does have a nice concept, an updated gun mode, and a tank mode, turning their Megatron into a triple changer. The strict US import rules on toy guns will make getting these new Megatrons...interesting. I do like what I've seen of the unconventional Stealth Bomber (IDW?) Megatron, though.

Yeah, the bomber Megatron is from IDW. It was a nice design, but he's had like 3 designs since, so it feels a little late.