The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[mikeszekely]

This would be Ironhead, UT's Headstrong.

The aesthetics aren't quite as on target as Sharp Claw, eh?  I mean, most of the colors are in most of the right places, but the chest is rather unlike either the G1 toy or the cartoon.  There's plenty of molded detail and silver paint, but no black.  And he's got neither the button panel of the cartoon nor the folded up rhino legs of the toy.  That being said, it's still close enough for a "Classics" version of Headstrong.

I have him with the roughly Voyager-sized Soundmixer for comparison, mostly to show how Unique Toys quickly evolved.  Soundmixer still didn't have the best plastic and some joint looseness, but he was already bigger had much better articulation.

Onto accessories.  Once again, we have a G1-inspired but not-quite-G1 sword, and once again we have no guns.  As a leg, he does come with a foot.

The foot's kind of worth talking about on its own.  For whatever reason, UT put LEDs in the toes.  UT clearly but some thought into the combined articulation; each toe is hinged and can move independently, plus the front half of the foot is on a strong ratchet so the combined mode could be posed lifting his heel.  A portion of the top has a hinge on one side, so the gestalt should have about 45 degrees of ankle tilt.  As with the hands, the foot seems to be painted silver with some painted red accents and a few translucent green parts for detail.  Speaking of, check out the sides of the foot.  It's not something you'd really notice unless you were really looking at the feet, but under the green plastic on the sides are "UNIQUE TOYS" on one side and the UT logo on the other.  The other foot is inverted, so the UT logo side is always the inside of the foot and "UNIQUE TOYS" on the outside.

But enough about feet, back to the figure.  The head is on a swivel.  His shoulders are on ball joints, but due to the shoulder armor he can only get about 45 degrees of lateral motion.  He doesn't have a bicep swivel, but like a lot of modern Hasbro figures his elbow is a ball joint.  He can get a little over 90 degrees of elbow bend and his arm forearm can rotate on the ball joint.  No wrist.  He has a ratcheted waist swivel, and ball jointed hips that can go 90 degrees forward, a little less than that laterally, and a little more less backward.  He has thigh swivels, knees that bend 90 degrees, and feet that can bend upward due to transformation but have now downward or sideways tilt.

Once again, he can hold his sword and it's a pretty tight fit.

Rhino mode.  I think it's pretty fair.  He's got more black showing than the G1 toy, but that's mostly because he doesn't have that big, curved back with the butt flap to hide his robot legs behind.  Note that his is how the instructions tell you to transform him, but he kind of looks better, feels more solid and cohesive, and his rhino head locks down if you transform him so his robot chest faces up, not down.  As I alluded to, the only other big difference is that his front rhino legs don't come out of his robot chest, they 're attached to his robot arms.

As far as articulation goes, his front legs are still on ball joints for the shoulders, giving him rotation and a little lateral movement.  His front elbows are still ball joints for bending, and there's a dedicated swivel under the ball joint.  The rhino feet don't have any inward/outward ankle tilt, but they are hinged for a little up/down movement.  The back legs are on hinged ball joints.  Like the front legs, he can rotate at the hip and he can do a little lateral spread, but the ball joints are a little loose so they're prone to popping off.  They won't fall off if he's just standing there, but they've come off every time I've transformed him.  The lower part of the rear legs are identical to the front legs, so ball joint bend, dedicated swivel, hinged up/down feet.  His head, if transformed according to the instructions can rotate and look down, but if you transform it the way I think they really intended (robot chest up) his head is pegged in place.  Either way, he can open his mouth.  And, unlike MMC, he's got a little tail.  It's just hinged at the base.  I like the little tail, though.

Also, just like the G1 toy (and MMC's version), he can carry the foot on his back like cannons.  Actually, since UT's foot is flatter in the front than MMC's, I think it works better here than on the Feralcons.

Ultimately, we're finding ourselves at the same place we were with Sharp Claw.  Yes, the MMC version is bigger, more detailed, with more advanced engineering.  But Ironhead is simple, fun to flip back and forth between modes, and honestly cleaner in limb mode.  So, once again, he'll look pretty out of place against a lot of other 3P combiners but feels like he should be right at home with Hasbro's stuff.

[mikeszekely]

This is Savage Bull, UT's Tantrum.

No real complaint's here.  The shoulder pads, black shins, and textured center to the red panel on his chest is all toy detail.  The silver-filled circles match some holes that were on the toy as well.  He's basically red where he's supposed to be, black where he's supposed to be, and orange where he's supposed to be, the exceptions being some orange and red parts with silver paint where he had gray parts on the toy, silver paint on the shins, silver forearms instead of gray, a red stripe on his crotch, and a band of black around his waist.

Obviously still Deluxe-sized, and Mania King here (which wasn't long after UT did the Predacons) is light years ahead in engineering and quality.

As the other leg, Savage Bull comes with the other foot and his sword.  Still no guns.

Articulation is basically identical to Ironhead: the head is on a swivel.  His shoulders are on ball joints, but due to the shoulder armor he can only get about 45 degrees of lateral motion.  He doesn't have a bicep swivel, but like a lot of modern Hasbro figures his elbow is a ball joint.  He can get a little over 90 degrees of elbow bend and his arm forearm can rotate on the ball joint.  No wrist.  He has a ratcheted waist swivel, and ball jointed hips that can go 90 degrees forward, a little less than that laterally, and a little more less backward.  He has thigh swivels, knees that bend 90 degrees, and feet that can bend upward due to transformation but have no downward or sideways tilt.

Bull mode.  Just like Ironhead didn't have the butt flap, Savage Bull doesn't have the fold down panel on his chest that the G1 toy had.  As a result, we once again have a black rear half instead of orange.  The orange parts on the sides of his legs do help from the side, though, and the silver painted patch stands in for the gray parts on the original.

His articulation is still about the same as Ironhead's.  He's still got ball jointed shoulders, elbows, knees, and the pop out hips.  He's still got dedicated swivels just below the ball joints on his cow legs, and hinges so his cow feet can bend up and down a little.  He's still got a little tail, even if it didn't show up in any of the pictures.  His mouth still opens and closes.  His head doesn't lock in place like Ironhead's can, so his can swivel.  And due to transformation his bull head can look up, but it's going to break the sculpt and make is robot face visible.

And we find ourselves at the same point we keep finding ourselves with this set.  There are better 3P figures out there, but Savage Bull is fun the way a CHUG Deluxe can be, I pity anyone who paid full price for this set back in the day, but if you can get this set under $150 he's pretty cool.

[mikeszekely]

Now that the hockey season is done, I've got a little too much time on my hands at the moment, so I'm going to push ahead and review UT's take on Razorclaw, named Sharpclaw (I know that's what I told you the name of Divebomb was, but that's my mistake, Divebomb should be called War Hawk).

Although Sharpclaw is bigger than the other UT Predacons, he's a little short compared to Voyagers like Generations Brainstorm or the Combiner Wars torsos.  That actually means he's smaller than one of Feral Rex's limbs.

Aesthetically, he doesn't have the best proportions, with the lion head dominating his torso.  He seems a bit short and/or a bit wide.  He's also very toy colored.  He's got yellow arms and black hands vs the cartoon black forearms, the red face of the toy, and black pelvis of the toy.  He's got the toy's black shins and red feet, but he's lacking the red on the front of his thighs.  The stickered details on his knees are reduced to a simple splash of paint.

Sharpclaw comes with the most accessories, most of which are for combined mode.  It's no secret by now that War Lord will make use of partsforming, but I can't say I much mind here.  I don't think it's more egregious than Constructor, and people actually praise the level of partsforming there.  Anyway, we've got a dedicated set of wings for combined mode, the combined mode head, partsforming abs and waist skirts, the combined mode sword, Sharpclaw's own sword, and a pair of guns cannot be held by Sharpclaw.  I'll note that, for the first time, that Sharpclaw's sword is actually very G1-accurate.

For what it's worth, as much as MMC tried to incorporate it into other modes, I put Feral Rex's diaper on the same level as War Lord's abs and skirts.

Despite his larger size, UT didn't bother improving articulation on Sharpclaw.  His head can swivel but has no tilt.  His shoulders can rotate, and there are hinges so he can move his arms a little less than 90 degrees laterally.  He has bicep swivels, and elbow hinges that are also a little shy of 90 degrees.  Still no hand or wrist articulation.  His waist swivels.  His hips are ratcheted and can go 90 degrees forward or backward.  The ratchets for lateral movement are soft, and stop short of 90 degrees.  Now here's where things start getting a little dicey... his knees are ratcheted, and can bend almost 90 degrees backward but also almost 90 degrees forward.  And on my copy, he can't totally straighten his right leg.  You can get it so it's bent just a little backward, but moving it forward just one click has it bent a little forward.  I opened his leg up and took a look, but I'm not really sure how one would fix it.  The other knee doesn't have that problem, but it has a different problem; just below his knees are swivels.  The right leg isn't great, but it's not worse than your average Hasbro friction joint.  The left leg, though, is super loose.  A casual tap on his foot will send it at least a quarter turn.  Finally, his feet are the same sort we've been seeing, able to tilt up for transformation and this time a little bit down, but no ankle tilt.

The guns have combiner pegs on one side and combiner ports on the other.  They can be plugged into the ports on Sharpclaw's shoulders, giving him the shoulder guns of the G1 toy and the cartoon.  By connecting via the combiner pegs and ports, they can rotate on his shoulders so you can position them how you like.  YMMV, but to me Razorclaw needs to have shoulder guns, and having them on his back doesn't cut it (I'm looking at you, Leo Dux).  And, of course, he can hold his sword.  Technically, he can use the combined mode wings, too, but we're just going to wait until we cover combined mode.

WE WILL NOT TALK ABOUT HIS TAIL IN THIS MODE.

Lion mode.  Again, not the most cat-like lion, but I don't think it's really any worse than MMC's.  Aside from his robot hips peaking out, he's missing the yellow on his lion hips.  Most of his body is black, and he's got some raised detail on his back, but no paint to mimic the gold stickers of the G1 toy.  His hind legs and front paws are red, but most of his front legs are yellow.  He does have his little red tail, though.

If you put his shoulder guns on him in robot mode, it's not necessary to remove them for lion mode.  His lion head can look up and down, and he can open his mouth.  His front legs are his robot arms, so he can still rotate them, spread them nearly 90 degrees, and bend nearly 90 degrees at the elbow/knee.  His front paws are on ball joints so they can tilt up until his knuckles hit his wrist armor, down 90 degrees, laterally 45 degrees, and swivel.  His waist swivel is intact, as are his ratcheted hips.  The real lion legs have a knee hinge and an ankle hinge, as well as a little play on the transformation hinge above the lion knee.  His tail is hinged at the base (a base that happens to be his robot mode crotch), with one additional hinge in the middle.

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little more disappointed with Sharpclaw.  A lot of that is due to the fact that his one knee is kind of messed up, and the swivel on his leg is the loosest joint on all five.  Some of that is because I kind of expect more from a Voyager than I do a Deluxe.  Joint tolerances aside, in terms of articulation and engineering I really don't think he's any worse than a Combiner Wars torso, so the refrain stands: He isn't and never was worth what UT was asking when he was knew, he won't fit with most other 3P figures, but at current market prices he's a decent choice if you want a Razorclaw that fits with your Hasbro Combiners.

[mikeszekely]

Real quick, since I spent way too much time in an argument with my brother (please don't debate science with me if you don't understand the science and aren't going to cite any sources).  This is Violence, UT's Rampage and the last of UT's Predacons.

I'd say Violence is a pretty good Rampage, wouldn't you?  He's definitely skewed a little more toward the toy look, so he's got the red face and gold panels on his chest instead of lightning bolts.  Like some of the others, Violence goes for all red legs instead of black like the cartoon or having black tiger legs in his thighs, which is fine with me.  Although, he does have some black-painted molding on his arms where the slider gaps would be on the G1 toy.  Alas, he doesn't have orange hands.  He's a little stylized; his head is molded so it looks like he's got tiger ears, but I definitely dig it.

In what will be the only comparison with a Feralcon until I get my hands on Ares, you can see that Felisaber towers over Violence.

You probably could guess by now that Violence would have the other combiner hand and a sword.  You probably could have also guess that he'd have the combined mode arm cannon.  But that's not all!  He actually has two pretty G1 guns.  If that's not enough for you, the arm cannon breaks down into five smaller guns that can be used by the individual Predacons.

Violence's head is on a swivel, no tilt.  His shoulders are on ball joints good for 90 degrees of lateral motion in addition to rotation.  He's got bicep swivels, and double jointed elbows that get you way beyond 90 degrees, although we still don't have any wrist articulation.  His waist swivels his thighs swivel, and he's got ball jointed hips that can do 90 degrees forward and backward, and a little less than that laterally.  His knees can bend 90 degrees, and his feet can bend up a little, down a lot, but no inward or outward ankle tilts.  It's worth noting that Violence seems to have the best joint tolerances of the five UT Predacons.

He can hold his sword, or one of the guns that make up the arm cannons.  Technically, he can hold the little black guns, too, but they can peg onto his shoulders just like the G1 toy.

And tiger mode.  He's lacking the big red hips, and his shoulders are proportionally smaller than the G1 toy's.  Maybe he's arguably got a little more orange on his back that the G1 toy or cartoon.  He's got some red on his forearms, but there's still more black than just his paws.  On the whole, I really like his alt mode.  It's very evocative of G1 rampage, but with more feline lines.  Plus, he hides his robot head better than Felisaber, here.

The tiger head can rotate, and you can use the transformation hinge to get some upward tilt.  His jaws can open.  His waist swivel is intact.  He's still got ball-jointed shoulders, bicep swivels, and double-jointed elbows.  His front paws are on ball joints, so he can tilt them up, down, inward, outward, and swivel them.  His hind legs can rotate at the hip, plus bend on a transformation joint at the bottom of the hip, bend at the knee, and his rear paws are still on ball joints.  His tail is hinged at the base, with a second hinge at the mid point.  While he's lacking that rotating ab joint that lets Felisaber get those awesome arched back poses, Violence still has a fun, expressive alt mode.

As a Deluxe-sized, CHUG Rampage, I have no qualms recommending Violence.  He's definitely my favorite of the set.  The standard caveat about him not really being up to the level you might expect from other 3P companies still applies, though.

[mikeszekely]

Last one for a little bit.  Tonight we'll look at War Lord, UT's version of Predaking.... although we're going to start a bit differently.

Comparing War Lord's limbs to some Combiner Wars limbs, you'd think that they'd be pretty similar in size.

War Lord's torso is a bit bigger, though.

By the by, you can leave the guns plugged into combiner ports on the shoulders.  As I noted in Sharpclaw's review, the other side is another combiner port.  In theory, it's possible to plug the arm bots into the guns, very much like the G1 toy.  Now, the reason I say "in theory" and I don't have any pictures is because the ports on the guns seems slightly smaller than the ones on Sharpclaw, and I decided not to force an arm bot into one.

Another look at the combined mode wings.  The tips of the feathers can be displayed like the left side of the image, with just a little gold tip poking out, or they can rotate around to reveal longer, sharper tips as on the right.  Each feather can wiggle up and down independently, and the the gold sections can move up and down on ratchets where they connect to the orange.  The orange sections are also ratcheted where they connect to hinges on the backpack for more up/down movement, and the said hinges let you move the wings backwards and forwards.

You can see two holes in the largest gray patches on each wing.  Since we're using dedicated wings for combined mode and War Hawk's wings have to be removed for arm mode or they'll get in the way, you can plug War Hawks wings into those holes and kind of give War Lord extra feathers.  Again, I didn't picture it because UT didn't use the best plastic on this set, and I didn't want to damage War Hawk's wings.

There are also two tiny holes on the outside edges of the top of the backpack.  Small fold out pegs on Sharpclaw's shoulder guns fit into them, allowing you to put the guns on War Lord's back like the cartoon.

War Lord's head is on a hinged swivel, so he can look up and down a bit as well as turn his head.  His shoulders rotate on the combiner pegs, and the pegs themselves are tight ratchets for lateral motion.  The arm bots' waists make bicep swivels, and their hips and knees become double-jointed elbows.  His hands are actually attached to the wrist via a ball joint, so he has wrist swivels as well as some up/down movement.  The thumb is hinged at the base with a swivel just above it, with two additional hinged knuckles.  Each finger is on a ball joint at the base, allowing him to splay his fingers a little, with two additional hinged knuckles on each finger.  Due to the way the partsforming abs and skirt armor connect he doesn't have a waist swivel.  Sharpclaw's ratcheted hips provide War Lord with his lateral hip movement, and you can either move the skirts to use Sharpclaw's hips for War Lord's forward/backward motion or you can use the forward-bending knee ratchets on Sharpclaw.  The swivels below Sharpclaw's knees become War Lord's thigh swivels.  For knees, you can either bend at the combiner port on Sharpclaw or on the pegs on the leg bots, either way it's ratcheted.  Sections of the feet where the leg bots connect are hinged on one side so he has about 45 degrees of inward ankle tilt, and ratchets behind the armored part of the front of the foot allow the front of the foot to bend up.  On paper, the articulation is pretty good but play between the ratchets, super loose thigh swivels, general top-heaviness, and the fact that the ankles are only friction joints can make him a little unsteady (but not as bad as pre-Poseidon TFC stuff, or ToyWorld's Dinobots).

He holds his sword just fine.  Unfortunately, his arm cannon only connects to Violence, as there's no peg holes for it on War Hawk.  And no, I don't know why I prefer the cartoon configuration for Tantrum and Headstrong but the G1 box configuration for Rampage and Divebomb.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but War Lord seems to be heavily based on this Studio OX artwork.  It's the same very un-G1 sword, the feet have the same armor with the row of lights under it and above the toes, with the same protrusions where UT hid their logos.  He's also got the same hip armor, right down to the curved point at the bottom of the front, the same spikes on the sides of his hands, the points on bottoms of his wings (and the gap between those points and the feathers), and even those same line work on the front of his mouth plate.

Generally speaking, it's pretty good-looking Predaking.  In some ways, I prefer the look to the chunkier proportions of Feral Rex.  He's very light, though, and I think just by looking at them you can tell that Rex is made of better plastic.

All combined, he does stand a fair bit taller than a Combiner Wars/Unite Warriors combiner.

In fact, he's pretty similar in size to an earlier TFC combiner like Prometheus here (whom I did indeed get Reprolabels for).

Being about TFC-sized does mean he's a head shorter or so than guys like the Warbotrons, Gravity Builder, the pre-Constructor ToyWorld combiners, and Ordin.  But if I can justify displaying those TFC guys with those bigger guys, then I'd have to concede that War Lord would fit my 3P combiner collection in a pinch, in combined mode.  That doesn't mean that I think he's the best Predaking for a 3P combiner collection, though.  The individual bots are too small, the engineering too simple, and the plastic lacks the premium quality that basically everything after Uranos has.

Despite being a little larger, I'd still argue that he's a great choice for a Predaking to fill the gap in the Combiner Wars/Unite Warriors lines, though.  The individual bots are about the same size, and the combined mode is only a head or so taller.  If you're using add-ons with the official combiners like the Perfect Effect hands/feet, the difference should be even smaller.  I think if I'd have bought him instead of Feral Rex back in the day there's a good chance I'd have been happy enough with him and how he fits with the Hasbro stuff that I probably wouldn't have looked at other 3Ps and I'd still be buying official today.  Like I've said before, I don't think he's worth what he was going for when he was brand new, but I think he's a fun toy that's worth the $150 or less you can get him for these days.

[Scyla]

I'd love to see a Studio Ox version of Predaking in the Ocular Max line. With die-cast and all. Love the look bit could never get around the build quality of the UT version.

Nixe reviews though. I enjoy reading them.

[mikeszekely]

25 minutes ago, Scyla said:

Nixe reviews though. I enjoy reading them.

Thanks, Scyla.  I love getting feedback; sometimes I feel like I'm just cluttering this thread.

But yes, while I love the look of War Lord and think he's a great CHUG Predaking now that he's cheap, and much as I love Rex, I definitely agree that a newer Predaking, one that's got the OX proportions but with better materials and better engineering, and 15" or so combined, would be great.

[Black Valkyrie]

 

New pics, this month release : 

 

[mikeszekely]

For some reason, I'm not a fan of the Ginrai version, but I kind of want the white repaint PE is doing for Ultra Magnus.

[JB0]

Other way around for me. My first Prime was the Powermaster, and there's a soft spot in my heart for what I could tell even at the time was an ugly brick.

[M'Kyuun]

I kinda like PE's little OP for Ginrai. I'm not crazy about the stacks out front, but overall he looks like a fun little figure. Too many other things eating my budget now, but if this little guy goes on sale, I may have to get him.

I'm still waiting for a restock of FT's Stomp and the release of their new mold for Slag (Cesium). If they release at the same time, that's a nearly $400 divot in ye olde bank account. But, if they're anything like the other three Iron Dibots, so worth it.  

[mikeszekely]

Well, all debates about PE's little Ginrai aside, I've got an Optimus for you tonight.  This is Op Ex, Generation Toys' take on a Masterpiece-style Optimus Prime based not on G1, but on Don Figueroa's design for IDW's Transformers comics.

I don't honestly know how familiar you guys are with this design for Optimus, but GT generally does a good job capturing it.  Pretty much every detail that should be there is, and the shapes and colors are generally right.  Some pictures make his chest seem a little puffy, but in hand I think it's fine.  Really my only aesthetic gripes are that I wish GT had gone for a light blue instead of silver for the lights on his chest and just above his waist.  They'd be more obvious as lights, and I think it'd help him pop a little more.

Size-wise, he's very close in height to MP-10.  I must say, even though they're technically different Optimus Primes, I do think Op Ex has better proportions.

It's harder to say how accurate Op Ex is from behind, due to the lack of art showing this version of Optimus from behind.  I will say that Op Ex cleans up very well.

Op Ex has just two accessories in the box.  One is his gun, which is pretty accurate to Figueroa's art (see the cover of issue 6 of the first IDW ongoing Transformers series to see what I mean).  The other thing is an optional part we'll talk about more when we get to alt mode.

(Note: from here out the "wings" on his back are mistransformed, because that's how they came out of the box. Refer to the first two pictures for the correct robot-mode wing transformation.)

Op Ex's head is on a hinge at the top of his neck so he can look about 45 degrees up or down, and a swivel at the base of the neck to rotate his head.  Due to his transformation, his shoulders have a bit of backwards butterfly.  His shoulders have two joints.  There's a rotation joint and a friction hinge outside the red armor, but the lateral movement on that joint is pretty limited.  A second joint inside the red armor, also friction, gets you another 90 degrees, although you have to manipulate a flap to use it.  He has bicep swivels and double-jointed elbows that get something like 135 degrees of bend.  His wrists can swivel.  His fingers are pinned at the base knuckle, with an additional hinge on his index finger.  The index finger can move independently of the other three, which are molded as one piece.  His thumb is on a ball joint.  His waist can swivel, and the skirts on the sides and front of his hips are hinged so they can move out of the way.  His hips are on friction universal joints, and he can get about 90 degrees forward and and laterally, but the bumper on his butt limits him to about 45 degrees backward (which seems fairly natural to me).  His thigh swivels are built into the universal joints, so they're a tad limited but still convey a fairly natural range.  His knees, which are the only ratchets on the toy, are double-jointed and can bend until the tires on his calves start to rub the backs of his thighs.  His ankles are on hinges so he can bend his foot up and down a bit or bend his ankles inward or outward a little less than 45 degrees.  His heel, the front half of his foot, and his toes are on hinge pins, so you can play with them for a little more foot bend.

The joints on this guy, specifically the lack of ratchets, are probably Op Ex's biggest weakness.  I'm not one of those people who think every joint should be ratcheted, especially the lateral movement on the hips (remember what ratcheted hips did to poor Salus?).  That said, I think the lateral movement on Op Ex's shoulders and hips are adequate (after I tightened the screws), and the forward/backward movement on his hips is downright floppy.  The worst, though, is his feet.  Aside from some rubber pads on his toes, they're basically hollow, and most of the figure's weight isn't supported by the ankle joint itself (which is plenty tight) but by the pins in his heel and the front of his foot.  On my copy's left left, the pin in the front of the foot is a little too weak, making it slightly prone to bending upward and causing Op to lean a little.

He doesn't have any trouble holding his gun, though.  It uses the usual GT tabs on the handle into slots on the hand, which are basically a slightly better version of what the official MPs use (or used to use).

You may have noticed that Op Ex's eyes are a little dead.  He actually has an LED in his head.  I'm not really a fan of LEDs, but it honestly does look pretty cool.

Oh, and what 3P Optimus figure doesn't come with a Matrix these days?  (The answer is Maketoys' Striker Manus, but there's a reason why Manus doesn't have the "Rubicon" in the Cross Dimension story, so...).  Op Ex's is diecast surrounding a translucent blue core, with a little gold paint around the middle.  When you pop it out you can see fair amount of molded and painted detail behind it.

Op Ex turns into a truck, like most good Optimuses should, and again it's pretty accurate to Don's art.  The silver stripes could have debatably been white, but the key word there is "debatably."  The grill and headlights could have been more recessed, and I'd have gone for a red outline instead of silver around the headlights, but I don't think it looks bad.  I will reiterate my bot-mode complaint that the silver lights should have been a light blue to help them pop and to separate them from the silver stripes, grille, and bumper.  I'm also not super keen on how the side of the truck, in the space between the wheels, came out.  To my eye, it looks unfinished, even though that gunmetal color is actually painted on blue plastic.  I suspect that GT was trying to go off of one particular picture, probably the best picture of Op in truck mode in the comics, where the back of the truck (that is, Prime's legs) are gray.  Since the back of the truck isn't gray, though, I think it'd have worked better if they painted the hinge silver and made it look like a fuel tank, left the part blue behind the hinge, and painted the part red in front of the hinge.  But what do I know.

Something else I'd like to point out... for a lot of collectors, MP-10 is still something of the gold-standard benchmark for MP figures.  After all, he looks pretty good in both modes, his transformation is just the right amount of complex that's fun but still intuitive and not overly-complicated, and he's reasonably well-articulated.  But something I think we've kind of overlooked or forgotten is that MP-10 doesn't always come together in truck mode all that great.  There were complaints of the chest windows not lining up right, working the arms into place can be a bit of a pain, the compartment that holds his gun always wants to pop open a little bit, and the entire front of the truck is ready to explode apart, barely held in place by the headlights and the edges of the bumper, and if his hips weren't lined up just right good luck getting all his wheels on the ground at the same time.  Op Ex doesn't have any of that going on.  Once everything is pegged in place, he's a very solid truck.  Nothing is loose, nothing is going to pop out of place.

Op Ex's gun folds up and is wedged into the gap between his arms at the back of the cab.  Some people of complained about it, but I don't think it looks any worse than the arm and hinges that the wind deflector is attached to on the GCreation version, and the rest of the back of the cab looks pretty good.  Op Ex's legs are also much less obvious as legs than, say, MP-10's, Fanshobby's Archenemy (RID Scourge) or Gunfighter (Laser Optimus Prime), ToyWorld Primorion, or pretty much any other similarly-sized Optimus figure.  All 10 tires are rubber.

Now, you can stop here.  This is fine, and fairly accurate to he comic book minus the U-shaped hitch you'd see on a real truck.

You can plug that remaining part onto him, though.  I think it actually looks less accurate, both to the comic and to an actual truck, but it has a purpose... assuming you (like I) have a copy of MP-10 laying around.  It's got two slots in the top.

(Also note, from this angle, you can see that gunmetal-painted patch between the wheels that I was talking about.)

Those slots are designed to fit with the tabs on MP-10's trailer.  It's actually a more secure connection than MP-10's own connection to it.  It looks pretty good, although to my eye maybe the trailer looks a little short?  I'm not an expert on such things (but maybe David has a thought on this?).  I guess the tires and rims don't exactly match the trailer's, but I figure that's probably normal.

How much you enjoy Op Ex is going to come down to whether or not you want an IDW Optimus, really.  Despite some gripes about his joint tolerances and a lack of ratchets, I think Op Ex is probably a better toy than MP-10.  He's got better proportions in robot mode, better range on most of his joints, and he transforms into a more solid truck that's got less obvious robot legs.  However, I think most people buying Transformers on this scale are collecting the G1 cartoon characters, and those people probably already have MP-10.  Better or not, Op Ex isn't G1 and for most people not going to replace MP-10.

If you are in the market for an MP IDW version of Optimus, the other elephant in the room is GCreation's Ultra Maxmas.  I don't have him to compare, but I've watched the videos, I've read the forums, and I have experience with GCreation's first five figures.  While I think Ultra Maxmas looks good, perhaps even better than Op Ex (at least in bot mode), the transformation looks like a nightmare, and I've heard plenty of stories of broken parts and stress marks.  It sounds like it might be a great piece if you want something to display in robot mode but never touch.  Op Ex isn't like that at all... the transformation is actually a lot like MP-10's, both in execution (spin the waist, faux grill stays on the bottom, truck grill comes out of chest and leaves a space for the head behind it, arms fold back and in, front wheels come out of the torso, legs make up the rear) and in the way that it's just involved enough to be fun but it's actually pretty intuitive and not overly complicated.  Op Ex is a toy that you can transform and play with.  And on that note, while he might not be a replacement for MP-10 I do definitely recommend him if you're a fan of IDW Optimus specifically or cool Optimus toys in general.  I dare say that he's competing with Kultur for my favorite release of 2017.

[tekering]

Great review, Mike!  

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

How much you enjoy Op Ex is going to come down to whether or not you want an IDW Optimus, really.

I want an IDW Optimus, but it needs to be to scale with all the other IDW figures that Mastermind Creations, MakeToys, Mega Steel, Mech Ideas, Second Chance, FansProject, Perfect Effect, Hasbro and TakaraTomy have released.  Generation Toy (and GCreation) made the mistake of producing a figure too big to display with anything else IDW (except TransFormMission's Stunticons), and the decision has baffled me since the project was first announced.

Thankfully, MMC's IDW Rodimus is consistent with the scale everyone else has been adhering to:

...and the likeness is spot-on.

Plus, the alt. mode is drop-dead gorgeous!

Couldn't recommend "Calidus" more highly!

[David Hingtgen]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Those slots are designed to fit with the tabs on MP-10's trailer.  It's actually a more secure connection than MP-10's own connection to it.  It looks pretty good, although to my eye maybe the trailer looks a little short?  I'm not an expert on such things (but maybe David has a thought on this?).  I guess the tires and rims don't exactly match the trailer's, but I figure that's probably normal.

Prime's trailer has always been too tall and mis-proportioned.  MP-10 is actually worse than the G1.  

Also---is the cab striping supposed to "go that low"?   I think it'd be much better if the bottom 'riveted' area was red.  That'd off-set both the gunmetal area, and the headlights.    ::edit::  Like this:

 

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, tekering said:

Great review, Mike!

Thanks!

2 hours ago, tekering said:

Generation Toy (and GCreation) made the mistake of producing a figure too big to display with anything else IDW (except TransFormMission's Stunticons), and the decision has baffled me since the project was first announced.

And their J4ZZ.  And given that GCreation has shown a prototype of IDW Prowl, and some artwork indicating that they're going to do IDW Sixshot, Starscream, Megatron, Ultra Magnus, and Drift.  GT's shown prototypes of a Don Figueroa's IDW Bomber Megatron that they're doing, and since TFM is GT the IDW Stunticons are theirs.  I'd guess that GT isn't worried about scaling with other companies' IDW stuff, they're do like GCreation and make their own line of MP-ish IDW figures.

From a collector's POV, when MMC is giving us some figures that are very Alex Milne IDW (Calidus, Tytrantron, the DJD) in a different scale it can be frustrating that GT's don't scale with them (as for MT and FP, theirs are on a smaller scale, and while Hasbro's Springer and Ultra Magnus work they're clearly more interested in making figures that fit their Deluxe/Voyager/Leader template than sticking with any particular scale).  I'm not going to be too fussed, though.  Scale is so wildly inconsistent Transformers, both comics and cartoon.  I can show you panels where Prime is a lot taller than Rodimus, and I can show you panels where Prime and Prowl are about the same height.  I'm just happy to be getting cool toys of Transformer designs I like.

3 hours ago, tekering said:

Couldn't recommend "Calidus" more highly!

I actually had him preordered but had to cancel, since I'm way over budget this month.  If I can sell some stuff, though, Calidus is high on my want list and I'll probably squeeze him in.

2 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

Also---is the cab striping supposed to "go that low"?   I think it'd be much better if the bottom 'riveted' area was red.  That'd off-set both the gunmetal area, and the headlights.

It's sometimes accurate... even just from Don Figueroa's art, he's portrayed kind of inconsistently, sometimes having stripes and sometimes not, sometimes having silver ribs and sometimes not... but I digress.  I think this is the picture GT was going off of.

And going by that, the stripes definitely go that low (although the rivets aren't necessarily a feature).  And, you can kind of see what I mean... the colorist chose to color Op's rear gray instead of blue, and GT decided to replicate it in just that spot between the wheels.  But that gray should always have been blue, with the possible exception of what I'd assume is a fuel tank under the rear corner of the cab.  If we pretend the hinge is that fuel tank, everything behind it should have stayed blue, everything in front of it should have been red, and the whole thing would look more finished.

[Scyla]

While MMCs Calidus looks like a well done toy. He definitely needs more painted highlights to break up the chest and front of the car.

I think bright orange or red Energon glow lines would really bring out all the molded details.

[Xigfrid]

Guys, I need some advices about the GCreations Shuraking Dinobot combiner:

After watching Transformers : The last knight, I really want to buy the best dinobots available, and that's when looking for a great Grimock that I came accross that Shuraking combiner. I really love the Combiner look and I am ready to buy them all.

But mikeszekely review saying that OP Ex is  superior to Gcreation Optimus and that the Gcration have issues tiklles me a bit. Would you think that Gcreations Shuraking Dinobots are great toys? if not the best dinobots out there ?

[David Hingtgen]

Now that it's out, and it has been "owned and assembled" for a while, the general consensus for Shuraking is:

Stay far, far away.  Apparently it's a godawful mess in every sense, in combined mode.  Numerous issues, more than simply "applying Future" will fix.   

Does it look awesome in most pics?  Yes, yes it does.  I considered buying their Grimlock alone, just to have a really cool Grimlock. 

[mikeszekely]

4 hours ago, Xigfrid said:

Guys, I need some advices about the GCreations Shuraking Dinobot combiner:

After watching Transformers : The last knight, I really want to buy the best dinobots available, and that's when looking for a great Grimock that I came accross that Shuraking combiner. I really love the Combiner look and I am ready to buy them all.

But mikeszekely review saying that OP Ex is  superior to Gcreation Optimus and that the Gcration have issues tiklles me a bit. Would you think that Gcreations Shuraking Dinobots are great toys? if not the best dinobots out there ?

I didn't just mention GCreation when I reviewed Op Ex... I actually reviewed GCreation's Dinobots and compared them with ToyWorld's.  You can find my Dinobot reviews beginning on page 109 of this thread.

If you just want a quick summary, I think that the GCreation Dinobots look better in robot and dino mode and come with much better accessories.  However, they're not particularly fun to transform... I can pick up a ToyWorld dinobot and flip it between modes  with no trouble, but the GCreation ones have lots of flaps and armatures that need to move around.  The combined mode for Shuraking is fairly stable, but obnoxiously partsformery, bigger than most other 3P combiners, but smaller than Constructor.

Personally, even though he's fairly unstable and you have to be careful how you work his hips and knees, if you must have a Dinobot combiner I prefer ToyWorld's.  But, if you don't care about combining and just want the best Dinobots I'd suggest Fans Toys.

[Scyla]

Or the PlanetX ones if you like the FoC aesthetic and don't want to go the Masterpiece route.

 I agree however that the FansToys versions are the best toys of the Dinobots out there.

They have some inconsistencies, their Scoria is not as good as the others but Sever, Stomp and Grinder are great (if you like the Transformers MP style)

Edited July 4, 2017 by Scyla

[Xigfrid]

Thank you so much for your inputs, Mikeszekeli I will have a look at your review but thanks to your summary I know that I will look closer at both Tou worlds and FansToys ones now. 

[sh9000]

Finally.  I'll most likely get these.

[M'Kyuun]

I'll second Mike on the Fans Toy's Dinos; very solid toys, with great engineering, die-cast where it's needed, good paint apps, and nice marriages of both G1 toon and toys, with more of a leaning to the original toys. I have Grinder, Sever, and Soar, and all three are extremely well done, to the point that I honestly doubt that Takara could do much better. I wouldn't mind seeing them try, but Fans Toys set the bar high.

I'm still waiting for Stomp to reissue, and instead of Scoria, I've gone for they're remake, Perfect Fusion Cesium, which is much closer to the G1 toy aesthetics. 

[Dangard Ace]

I'm still chilling for Gigapowers Dinobots.  They may be slow but the paint apps and build are better then most of my non dinobots FT bots.  Don't own any of the FT Dibots.  Plus they're bigger. 

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, sh9000 said:

Finally.  I'll most likely get these.

I'm still all in on and loving TFM's Menasor. But XTB's Breakdown is going for $40, and he's my favorite Stunticon. I'll pick him up, then decide if I want the rest. I'm not really a fan of G1 Wildrider or Dead End's alt modes.

[technoblue]

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

I'll second Mike on the Fans Toy's Dinos; very solid toys, with great engineering, die-cast where it's needed, good paint apps, and nice marriages of both G1 toon and toys, with more of a leaning to the original toys. I have Grinder, Sever, and Soar, and all three are extremely well done, to the point that I honestly doubt that Takara could do much better. I wouldn't mind seeing them try, but Fans Toys set the bar high.

I'm still waiting for Stomp to reissue, and instead of Scoria, I've gone for they're remake, Perfect Fusion Cesium, which is much closer to the G1 toy aesthetics. 

 

50 minutes ago, Dangard Ace said:

I'm still chilling for Gigapowers Dinobots.  They may be slow but the paint apps and build are better then most of my non dinobots FT bots.  Don't own any of the FT Dibots.  Plus they're bigger. 

It looks like both companies are shaping up to be real winners, especially now that Gigapower is reportedly using a new factory and has tightened up their QC issues. I was disappointed with the waist waggle on my copy of Guttur, which is what originally got me looking at FansToys. 

With the way things are looking nowadays, I wouldn't mind having both sets: one of the metallic GP and one of the X version FT dinos.

There are only two problems with this plan: 1) it is a very expensive path 2) it will take up a lot of space. 

[M'Kyuun]

True on both counts. I'm satisfied with the FT versions, but the GP Dinos are cool in their own right. I think the FT ones are more refined, but the GP ones are the next best option, IMHO, for G1 Dinobots. At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal preference. 

I'm still eyeballing Fans Toys Phoenix (Skyfire). Pretty much, it's a dream toy come true; if only money weren't such a scarce commodity.

[sh9000]

Cool!

[Tking22]

18 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

True on both counts. I'm satisfied with the FT versions, but the GP Dinos are cool in their own right. I think the FT ones are more refined, but the GP ones are the next best option, IMHO, for G1 Dinobots. At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal preference. 

I'm still eyeballing Fans Toys Phoenix (Skyfire). Pretty much, it's a dream toy come true; if only money weren't such a scarce commodity.

Probably not helping, but get Phoenix/Skyfire, he is probably figure of the year for me so far, he's brilliant. He also appears to be disappearing fairly quick around the web, I'd grab him now in case FT decides they're done with him and stop releasing more.

4 hours ago, technoblue said:

 

It looks like both companies are shaping up to be real winners, especially now that Gigapower is reportedly using a new factory and has tightened up their QC issues. I was disappointed with the waist waggle on my copy of Guttur, which is what originally got me looking at FansToys. 

With the way things are looking nowadays, I wouldn't mind having both sets: one of the metallic GP and one of the X version FT dinos.

There are only two problems with this plan: 1) it is a very expensive path 2) it will take up a lot of space. 

I also have to put my opinion in for FT Dinos if you're looking for some nice Dinobots, I've got the whole set of 5 and they are top shelf pieces for me. For MP, I prefer them to Giga in pretty much every way, not that the Giga Dinos are bad mind you, I've handled three of them at different friend's houses and they are solid, well painted toys, I just hate the aesthetic personally. I don't like the faces at all, and I hate the huge, stung by a bee, super beefy G1 toy look. FT pretty much nailed the current TT MP aesthetic, and toon aesthetic overall in my opinion. If you're not looking for MP necessarily there's plenty of other options out there for chug too, I've also handled the FOC inspired Planet X Dinos and they are beautiful little figures as well. I was especially blown away by Planet X Grimlock, fantastic figure, put the official TT/Hasbro Voyager or whatever version to shame.

[M'Kyuun]

'Preciate the heads up concerning Phoenix- saving money's impossible when you're a collector of just about anything these days. Sigh.

But yeah, the transformation is brilliant, as is pretty much every other aspect of the figure. From vids I've seen, it doesn't look like his gun stores in starship mode, which seems an odd omission. If so, I can live with it.

[mikeszekely]

So this guy showed up today.  This is TFC's Raging Bull, their version of... some guy named Laster, I guess?  Despite Star Saber getting an MP, despite picking up TFC's Liokaiser, I still haven't watched Victory, so I really don't know more than Laster than what I get from quick Google search, but AFAIK Road Caesar, Raiden, Landcross, and Dinoking/Monstructor are the only G1 combiner characters I don't have at least one representation of.

Well, for a character I'm not really familiar with, I'd have to say that he looks pretty good to me.  His head walks a fine line between toy and toon, and he's got some spots of painted details on his chest and pelvis that fill in for stickers on the original toy.  He's got the yellow and the black mostly right, although his biceps could have been silver/white*, and his feet definitely should have been yellow.  He's got some red on his shoulders, which seems about right, as well as on his shins, which doesn't.  That said, I like it.  It does sort of call to mind the red stickers on the toy's spoiler without actually putting red on the spoiler, so it's still cartoon-ish.  For the most part, the big changes boil down to TFC giving him a less blocky, more streamlined look, ditching the panels that hung off the cartoon's shoulders.

*The cartoon went with white, the toy looks silver, TFC went silver for the lats and the face, so I'd say silver.

Size-wise, he's similar in height with MP Sideswipe.  Is that how Laster should scale with Sideswipe?  It works for me, since I think a carbot is a carbot, but I do know that Chromedome is supposed to be way bigger, so I don't know.

Raging Bull comes with a ton of accessories, and I gotta say it feels like he's got both too many and not enough.  There's two identical guns (the instructions look like they should be mirrored, but TFC has confirmed that Raging Bull's guns should be mirrored and their Braver will have the other ones), a sword, a spare head, the Brain of Skill, the sideview mirrors, the combiner foot connector, translucent red taillights, open and closed headlight covers, and a sprue with some clear translucent parts to go in the open headlight covers.  Now, I say this is too many because there's really no reason the sideview mirrors, taillights, and the clear lenses for the open headlight covers couldn't have been installed in the factory, and the swappable headlight covers are a gimmick that nobody asked for.  I'm installing the closed ones and the open ones (as well as the sprue of clear parts) can go back in the box.  As for the not enough, TFC shows pictures of another part that Raging Bull doesn't come with.  This part seems to mount the guns to his shoulders in robot mode, and with a mirrored gun instead of an identical one it makes a weapon for the roof of his alt mode and the foot for combined mode.  So, even if Braver will come with the mirrored guns, I'm left wondering whether both middle parts will come with Braver or Blacker.

The Brain of Skill is tiny, by the way.  I don't have an MP Star Saber to compare Brainmasters with, but you can see he's less than half the size of a Titans Return Titan Master, and they're already a head shorter than Generations Brainstorm's head or a FansProject Function-X Soleron.  As you'd expect, there's not a lot of detail or articulation on such a tiny guy... he can rotate his shoulders, or kick forward.  He can, at least, move his legs independently, so suck on that Hasbro.

Raging Bull's chest opens up, and you'll see two grooves that the Brainmaster's feet slot into.  If the head is lined up right, closing the door will automatically slide the Brainmaster up into place.  If the head's off a bit, though, things won't quite line up right.  Whether you line it up right or not, using this gimmick results in no head articulation at all.  And as far as gimmicks go, I hear you don't see the Brainmasters (outside of maybe Star Sabers) in anything but stock footage, so between you and me I prefer to swap out the gimmick head with the other head, which has a face permanently in it, and skip the gimmick.

Raging Bull's articulation is pretty good, although there's a few odd hang ups.  I already mentioned that if you're using the gimmick head he can't move it with the Brainmaster installed, but if you're using the other head it's on a ball joint that can look straight up, a tiny smidge down, no real lateral tilt, and rotate 360 degrees.  Due to his transformation his shoulders can butterfly forward, he's got a ratchet for lateral movement that goes well beyond 90 degrees, and ratcheted for rotation.  His got bicep swivels, but due to how his shoulders are built they actually interfere with his bicep swivel.  He's got double-jointed elbows so he can curl his arms all the way up, and wrist swivels but no other hand articulation.  His waist can swivel.  His hips are universal joints that ratchet forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees.  Although I'm not a huge fan of ratchets for lateral movement in the hips (see Voodoo Salus for why), TFC did put enough clicks in Raging Bull's hips to give him a relaxed A-stance.  He has thigh swivels, and ratcheted, double-jointed knees.  Despite being double-jointed, he's still only going to get 90 degrees of bend before the folded flaps on his calves collide with his thighs.  His feet are a little weird.  The front half of his feet and his heels are separate pieces, both on ball joints.  By themselves you can ankle rotation, inward and outward tilt, and up/down tilt.  However, due to the crazy origami that goes into transforming his legs, the front half of his foot is actually a ball joint at the end of an armature with a few hinges and swivels.  Weird or not, the result is good foot articulation and a long base for him to stand on.

He holds his accessories just fine.

Raging Bull turns into a Lamborgini Countach.  As you can see, his proportions are a little off from MP Sideswipe, which is a bummer.  They're close enough for me that, if I put a few cars between them, I can ignore the difference, but your mileage may vary.

Aside from the size discrepancy, I don't have a lot to say.  He's yellow, and he's got the flame decals on the hood and sides that he should.  He's also got some black around the bumper, the skirt, the fenders, the mirrors, and the pillars that I'm not sure are appropriate, but ultimately don't bother me.

There are two little pegs on the roof to mount his guns.  I'd show you, but like I said, TFC didn't include the right part.  So instead I'll show you that you can open the entire roof, and there's little tabs where you can sit the Brain of Skill on one side and another Brainmaster on the other (although, I'm guessing, not MP Star Saber's).

I've got mixed feelings about this guy.  I keep bringing up the accessories, but between what he's pictured with but doesn't come with and what he does come with that should have been installed at the factory Raging Bull feels kind of rushed.  Maybe he was; there's a rumor that TFC's version of Tentakill is running into issues that keep delaying him, and maybe TFC needed to get another figure out the door.  The Brainmaster gimmick feels kind of like a waste.  I'm disappointed that his alt mode doesn't size up better with MP Sideswipe.  And despite being close to an MP car in size stuff like his hands and weapons still feel very TFC/CHUG.  And don't get me started on the origami necesary to get his legs transformed.

On the other hand, he's a pretty good looking, dynamic figure with lots of ratchets.  Aside from his legs his transformation is pretty intuitive.  And it looks like he's using the same combiner connectors as TFC's Poseidon, which was handily the best TFC combiner to date and, aside from Mentarazor, comprised of pretty good figures all around.  My gripes aside, Raging Bull does feel pretty close to the Poseidon guys in hand.  You might want to see how TFC's Blacker and Braver turn out, and how the combined mode turns out, before you commit.  For now, though, I'll cautiously recommend Raging Bull.

[mikeszekely]

I don't know how you guys remember it, but when I watched Transformers as a kid I seem to recall most of the pre-movie toys showing up in an episode or two then kind of serving as background filler while a handful of "main" characters got a lot more screen time.  So while I can think of at least one episode where a mini-bot had a starring role, none of them seemed to feature as prominently as Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, and Brawn.  Today, Bumblebee toys are a dime a dozen, and Hasbro's happily repainted a few as Cliffjumper, but poor old Brawn has largely been neglected, with just a 2008 Legends-class and a current Titans Return Legends-class (unless you live in Asia, where they threw a new head and some different paint on TF Prime Bulkhead).

Then along came Badcube with Brawny, whom I believe is intended to be a Masterpiece take on Brawn.  Despite not really collecting MPs, the lack of a Brawn in my collection kind of stung, so when Badcube announced that they were reissuing this guy I preordered him right away.

In bot mode, Brawny is about as much G1 Brawn as you can get.  He's a little taller than MP Bumblebee but smaller than an MP car, which I think is about right.  He's got the stumpy proportions you'd want, although you might argue that his arms are a tad long, with his gray dome head, the yellow chunk behind it, the yellow torso, the green upper arms and (most of his) legs, and the silver forearms, hands and knees.  Badcube actually went a little further and nailed a lot of the finer detail, like the black "belt" on his pelvis, the little patch of silver and blue with the two circles on his waist, the flat, protruding sections at the top of his torso and his waist, and the curved middle section with the horizontal grooves at the top and the curved "suspenders" on the sides.  In terms of design, he's a good match for the older MPs that were a comfortable mix of the cartoon and real-world detail.  My only complaint about the aesthetics is that he's kind of lacking that MP finish.  He has very little paint, and at least 60% of the paint on the figure is his face.  While the silver plastic they used for his forearms and knees doesn't look as bad as, say, ToyWorld's Hegemon, it'd still look a lot better if they'd painted it.  There's also a few spots where you can see some sprue marks.

I'm not sure what all came with the original release of Brawny back in 2014, but the reissue comes with a number of accessories.  There's a bazooka, a thing so you can mount the bazooka in alt mode, a drill, a blowtorch thing from that time he used it on Huffer, a second face, and a gas can.  The bazooka is meant to homage an episode where Brawn got a hold of Megatron's fusion cannon.  As you can see, when compared with Despotron's fusion cannon, it's much too small (and gray) to be Megatron's fusion cannon, at least not an MP one.  Maybe if for a Deluxe Megatron?

The gas can is actually pretty neat.  It's actually two parts, and Branwy's gun folds up and nestles inside, providing storage for said gun in alt mode.  In bot mode, though, each half of the can plugs into a lower leg, filling out his calves.  Yes, it's partsforming, but it's clever partsforming.  Certainly more clever than Maketoys' Gundog sticking his gas can on his arm or his toes.

Articulation is pretty good on Brawny, especially because I don't think of Brawn as being the most dynamic character.  His head is on a hinged swivel so he can rotate it.  He can't really tilt his head sideways or look down, but I think that's ok for the character.  He can look nearly straight up, which is much more important for little guys like Brawn.  His shoulders use soft ratchets for rotation and friction hinges for over 90 degrees of lateral movement.  He has bicep swivels and double-jointed elbows (ratcheted on top, friction on the bottom) that curl around so he can touch his shoulders.  He has wrist swivels and a little bit of up/down motion in the wrists, with his fingers molded as one piece pinned at the base knuckle so he can open and close his hands like an MP car.  His waist can swivel.  His hips can swing about 90 degrees forward, half of that backward, and a little less than 90 degrees laterally on friction universal joints.  His thighs can swivel but they are limited due to the shape of his thighs around the joint.  However, the range you get on the swivel seems fairly natural.  He has soft-ratcheted double-jointed knees that get you beyond 90 degrees.  His ankles can swivel, and there's a hinge for some inward ankle tilt.  It's a little more limited than I'd have liked, but again I don't really think of Brawn as the most dynamic character.  His ankles don't bend up or down, but they his toes do on their own separate hinge.

He holds his gun using tabs on the handle that fit slots in his palm, not unlike the MP cars or GT/TFM's figures.

The handle on the bazooka is angled a bit, but otherwise uses the same tabbed handle as his smaller gun.  The extra wrist articulation also helps him hold it.  Meanwhile, the adapter that lets you mount it in vehicle mode can stay attached when you put Brawny into bot mode.  The blowtorch fits onto a small tab that's exposed when his hands are folded into his forearms.  Unfortunately, there's nowhere to put the drill in bot mode.

Swapping out the faces is easy.  Just tilt his head back, hook a finger under his chin, and slide it out.  Then, just slide the other one into place.  As you can see from the pictures, one's a sort of typical stoic face, the other is a more emotive grimmace.  I'm not usually big on emotive faces, but I think Badcube did a good job making a face that's very appropriate for the character.

So alt mode... I think it's too small compared to an MP car like Prowl, but I think that's true for MP Bee as well.  On that note, I think he does scale pretty well with Bee.  He rolls well enough, but like the official MP cars his tires are plastic, not rubber.

Again, Badcube seems to have captured a lot of the right details, like silver grill, the yellow bumper, the molded roof rack and roof lights, and the (non-removable) spare tire on the roof.  What it's missing, though are the flared out fenders and running boards that were on both the cartoon and the G1 toy.  Aside from how it'd affect the robot proportions I'm not entirely sure why they did that, because it's one thing that makes an otherwise pretty solid alt mode seem off to me.

I've already mentioned how Brawny's little gun folds up and stores in the gas can, which fits onto the rear of the vehcile.  The bazooka mounts to the roof with the adapter.  And the drill, which doesn't spin, fits into a slot on the front grill.  The side-view mirrors are a rubbery plastic, so there's no worry about bending or breaking them.

So let me level with you guys for a moment.  Brawny is the first Badcube figure I've owned, but I've heard stories.  Badcube has a reputation for putting out products that look good and are of reasonable quality, but tend to be overly complicated and not very fun to transform.  I bought Brawny to fill a gap in my collection, but I expected to tolerate him more than to like him.  In hand, though, I was pleasantly surprised.  Transforming him from alt to robot is actually pretty easy and intuitive.  Going back to alt mode is only marginally more difficult, and that's only because you have to try to get everything lined up and it doesn't really lock into a solid piece until the very end.  I think he's actually a pretty fun little figure.  There are a few things I think could have been better, like how his torso locks together or the fact that the lower part of his pelvis doesn't actually lock into the top of his pelvis, plus the aforementioned missing fit and finish details that would have given Brawny a more premium, Masterpiece feel.  But those minor issues aside, I don't feel like I bought a placeholder figure until someone like FansToys or Maketoys comes along and does it better.  I feel like I bought a really good representation of Brawn that isn't likely to go anywhere even if someone else does take a crack at him.  Definitely recommend him.

[sh9000]

I can't wait to see the rest of the XTB G1 Stunticons and Menasor.

[mikeszekely]

18 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

I can't wait to see the rest of the XTB G1 Stunticons and Menasor.

Keith says they're going to show off the whole thing at TFCon. They're still pretty early on, though. They're still tweaking the colors.

[slaginpit]