The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[mikeszekely]

I guess we're not totally done with Reformatted yet... at least, not with their Remix subline.  Sadly, MMC decided to skip Ratbat, Slugfest, and Overkill and move on to Blaster's cassettes, starting with Tempo, their version of Steeljaw.

We're going to work backward on this one, so like the other Remix releases Tempo turns into 1:1 scale cassette tape.  I feel like I've probably touched on this when I reviewed other Remix releases, but going with 1:1 cassettes instead of microcassettes like the G1, official MP, and now Fans Toys versions means that there's simply no Blaster out there that Tempo will fit into.  For some, that probably defeats the purpose of transforming in the first place.  As an '80s kid, though, this is a powerfully nostalgic form factor, as I had probably a low-hundreds number of cassettes, mostly of hair metal bands that sort of faded away when grunge took over in the '90s.

Tempo is pretty bland, though.  To be fair, I suppose the other Remix cassettes are pretty bland by default, too, but I got the labels for Jaguar (I seem to recall MMC had some kind of deal with Toyhax at the time?).  As is, Tempo has some obvious cassette features, like the thicker trapezoidal section at the bottom and the two spindle holes, but without the window for the reel and any sort of labels he looks more like a flat-packed machine than an obvious cassette.

Fortunately, he has one accessory, and it mostly helps with that.  Like the other Remix release, Tempo comes with a cassette case you can store him in.  Unlike the other Remix releases, though, where the instructions came as liner notes that also fit into the cassette case, MMC seems to have messed up with Tempo's instructions.  Yes, they're still designed with a cover and spine, and the instructions are meant to look like liner notes, but this time they do NOT fit into the case.  Instead, they sort of wrap around the outside of the case when it's closed.  If I'm totally honest, my Remix figures have been in their non-cassette modes pretty much 100% of the time I've owned them, and the cases for the previous ones are in a closet.  And yes, once we get Tempo out of cassette mode he's not likely to go back, and his case will also go in the closet.  But somehow, this design choice/issue really bugs me.

Getting Tempo out of cassette mode has similarities to Jaguar, but with shorter limbs and a lot more building a box around his upper torso.  It's not difficult, although there are a few areas you need to pay close attention to.  Folding the halves of his body together can be a bit finnicky, though.  At the very least, at least his body locks together solidly, whereas Jaguar's halves just kind of lay against each other, so Tempo feels a bit more solid.  Or rather, solidly built... like Jaguar, most of the diecast in him is in his forelimbs, but since his forelimbs are smaller than Jaguar's, he weighs noticeably less.

Aesthetically, I think MMC did a pretty good job.  The molded linework on his mane and the slight upward bend at the end of his tail are both features seen in the cartoon.  His face has a more defined, feline sculpt than the flat, mushy animation model.  I think the biggest change on Tempo vs the animation are the gold wing guns.  In the animation, the gun part is larger and covers a lot of his sides, and the whole thing sits lower so the round part of the wing is below his back.  Tempo's design is meant to incorporate the wings into the transformation, no partsforming, without interfering with his articulation, though.  So I'd say it's forgivable.

Speaking of that articulation, he's got a good bit.  His head is on a ball joint, that allows him to look up, look down, tilt his head sideways, and turn his head from side-to-side.  His ears can wiggle, and his jaws open.  The whole of his mane is hinged, allowing him to arch his back there, plus some hinges just behind where his wings are attached allows him to arch his back or ab crunch.  Thing wings themselves are hinged, so they can fold outward a bit (there are clearance issues with the gun barrels and his shoulders).  His shoulders have ball joints for rotation and a backwards butterfly, and hinges for 180 degrees of lateral motion.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  His paws are on hinged ball joints, so they can tilt up, down, and pivot.  His hips are ball joints that swivel and move laterally 90 degrees.  His "knees" bend forward around 90 degrees, and his rear paws use the same hinged ball joint setup as his front ones.

Should you get Tempo?  For me, the impetus for getting the Remix cassettes has been that, regardless of what Takara says the official scale is, the official MP cassettes seem too small to me.  If you prefer the smaller scale, then you're probably fine with the official MPs, or the Fans Toys/Robot Paradise ones.  And, hey, Fans Toys/Robot Paradise seems to be working on a Blaster and his cassettes, so maybe you're covered there.  But if you're like me, and you prefer the larger scale for the MP cassettes, then Tempo is a fine addition to your collection, and I'm looking forward to MMC doing Ramhorn, Rewind, and Eject.

[M'Kyuun]

I've always been a big fan of the cassette bots, and these upscaled versions by MMC definitely strike a chord. Not only does the larger scale allow for more complex engineering and detail, but the bot modes scale far better to the rest of their respective bots. I, too, hope MMC continues to produce these guys- all of them, including the combiner cassettes, in this scale. IMHO, there simply is no such thing as too many cassette bots, and when they're realized this well, I'm happy to have them at this scale, G1/MP scale, and legends scale (looking at the tiny but impressive Magic Square cassettes). There's just something intrinsically cool about them, and as Mike mentioned, growing up in the 80s with cassettes being so prevalent as the primary means of listening to music, nostalgia is surely a meaningful factor for most of us G1 fans. I wish we had a modern equivalent today for future Soundwave toys- that cassette and player gimmick was one of the coolest ever in any toyline.

Anyway, I've got a copy of RMX-11EX Tempo with chrome gold wings POed and hoping he'll be available for release soon. It's prob not worth the markup just for a little chrome gold paint, but it just adds that extra bit of G1 goodness to the fig, and since he'll likely spend most of his days in lion mode, it's worth it to me.

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by M'Kyuun

[nightmareB4macross]

[mikeszekely]

Interesting, but realistically too big for my house and still too stylized (though better than the scrawny Thrilling 30 one).  

[Convectuoso]

Here's the full video for that Metroplex

https://fb.watch/hWxaD5JSL4/

[Scyla]

I envy every collector that has room for a toy robot the size of a child. 

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, Scyla said:

I envy every collector that has room for a toy robot the size of a child. 

I envy every collector who has room. 😊

[nightmareB4macross]

Since we don’t have a Simpson’s slot we might as well place this transforming toy somewhere.

It’s pretty cool to think this one off character has a toy.

[nightmareB4macross]

This should be made.

[derex3592]

I would buy the SH*T out of those!!! 

[Scyla]

BSF reviews and transforms the Wonderful Trans Ronin. He is doing an admirable job with the transformation but sheesh it looks like a fiddly nightmare.

If you don’t plan on transforming it I think you are better off with the Kuro Kara Kuri Drift (even if it has that annoying wobbly midsection).

[mikeszekely]

On 1/11/2023 at 3:52 PM, Scyla said:

BSF reviews and transforms the Wonderful Trans Ronin. He is doing an admirable job with the transformation but sheesh it looks like a fiddly nightmare.

If you don’t plan on transforming it I think you are better off with the Kuro Kara Kuri Drift (even if it has that annoying wobbly midsection).

I think it's impressive that they took Flame Toys' non-transforming Drift and not only made it transform, but made it transform into the Asurada from Cyber Formula.  But just because something is impressive doesn't mean it's good, and just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.  As you said, the transformation looks like a fiddly nightmare with too many sliders, weird clearances, lots of twisting, and the kind of transformation where everything kind of explodes then has to be lined up just so to tab in a bunch of thin panels in just the right order or things won't tab in without gaps.  Honestly, I was watching Ben's video and thought, "ah, that's not that bad" until he got to the stuff below the waist.

Still, it seems pretty solidly built and decently articulated.  Might still be worth checking out, even if you don't plan on transforming it.  Ronin goes for something like $110... you could buy like three for the price of Flame Toys, assuming you could even find a Flame Toys at the original list price.

[Scyla]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

I think it's impressive that they took Flame Toys' non-transforming Drift and not only made it transform, but made it transform into the Asurada from Cyber Formula.  But just because something is impressive doesn't mean it's good, and just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.  As you said, the transformation looks like a fiddly nightmare with too many sliders, weird clearances, lots of twisting, and the kind of transformation where everything kind of explodes then has to be lined up just so to tab in a bunch of thin panels in just the right order or things won't tab in without gaps.  Honestly, I was watching Ben's video and thought, "ah, that's not that bad" until he got to the stuff below the waist.

Still, it seems pretty solidly built and decently articulated.  Might still be worth checking out, even if you don't plan on transforming it.  Ronin goes for something like $110... you could buy like three for the price of Flame Toys, assuming you could even find a Flame Toys at the original list price.

I think you can pull off such complex transformations but they need to be designed in a way were you transform the toy in chunks that are then securely stored away. During that the toy shouldn’t flop around and all the clearances should work properly.

I hate the feeling when you transform a toy and it unfolds into trice its original size while 1000 tiny panels flop around on thin armatures. 
It is the worst! 
 

But this is not the focus of most designers, since companies know that the majority of their customers will take the robot out of the box and put it on display. Plus they don’t to enough testing of the test shots (if they do any at all).

[mikeszekely]

5 hours ago, Scyla said:

I think you can pull off such complex transformations but they need to be designed in a way were you transform the toy in chunks that are then securely stored away. During that the toy shouldn’t flop around and all the clearances should work properly.

I hate the feeling when you transform a toy and it unfolds into trice its original size while 1000 tiny panels flop around on thin armatures. 
It is the worst! 
 

But this is not the focus of most designers, since companies know that the majority of their customers will take the robot out of the box and put it on display. Plus they don’t to enough testing of the test shots (if they do any at all).

I agree. In this case, I think Wonderful Trans would have been better off designing an original Drift that used more of the Asurada's parts, or an original car that used more of KKK Drift's parts, instead turning everything inside out.

[mikeszekely]

Taking a break from reviewing new Legacy Evolution figures in the official thread to take a look a 3rd party kit for a non-evolved Legacy figure.  This is Nonnef Production's upgrade kit for Legacy Pointblank.

You'll get three sprues with this kit, two blue with most of the parts but a black sprue for the elbows.  Nonnef made a limited number of the elbow sprues in red and blue as well; while supplies last, if you have the basic kit in your cart you can add a set of the red or blue elbows by going back to the Pointblank upgrade page and selecting the color you want from a dropdown menu.  As you can see, I opted to go with the blue elbows.

To get started you'll need Pointblank in robot mode.  Turn him over and there's a pair of screws on the back of his shoulder you'll need to remove.  Once you've done so, the front of the shoulder and his whole arm will come off.  The arm is attached to a post on the front of the shoulder, go ahead and wiggle the arm off.

For the next step, you'll need one of the two parts with this gear-shaped hole, and two of these round bits with half a peg on one end.  It doesn't matter which ones, as the they're the same for both arms.  Note that the gear-hole part has one side that's flat, and one side with a lip.  Install the flat side toward the front of the shoulder (that is, away from you) by sliding it on the peg the arm just vacated.  Take the round bits and fit them onto the pegs on the bottom of the gear-hole part such that the peg halves become a whole mushroom peg.  Make sure you slide those parts onto the gear-hole part all the way, but don't worry too much if there's a slight gap on the peg you're making.

Ok, now go back to the arm you removed.  You'll find a screw on the inside of the forearm.  Remove it, then slide the blue part of the forearm and fist off.  Then, remove the other side of the forearm with the car hood by working it off the elbow peg.  Hang onto the forearm parts, but we don't need the rest of the arm anymore.

OK, whether they're black, blue, or red you're going to need two of the elbow parts.  One should be smooth, the other should have grooves molded into it.  Take the one with the grooves and set the mushroom peg you just built into it so that the grooves are facing the front of the shoulder (and away from you).  Use the smooth elbow part to finish capturing the mushroom peg to form the new elbow, then slide the blue part of the forearm over the peg on the inside edge of the elbow to hold it together.  With the forearm in place, put the red part on by feeding the screw post though the forearm and stuffing the peg on the other side of the elbow into the peg hole, then replace the screw in the forearm.  Reattach the arm by capturing the mushroom peg on his shoulder socket with the front with the arm and the blue back, then replace the screws.

Here's the arm with the upgrade on his right (our left), and the original arm on his left (our right).  Well, we can see the first problem with this kit, and that's that the blue of Nonnef's plastic does NOT match Hasbro's blue plastic or paint.  It's noticeably darker.  If I'm being honest, though, I'm glad I went with the blue elbows, because I personally think the all-blue arms look better, even if the blues don't match, than blue with a black line through the bicep and a red chunk in the forearm.  I also like that the new Nonnef elbow is flush with the forearm, were the original stuck out quite a bit.

Aesthetic improvements are subjective, what's objectively better is the articulation.  On the original arm the elbow bend is the black hinge in the bicep, and  clearance between the protruding red chunk and the wheel on his shoulder pad meant he had less than 90 degrees of elbow bend.  Plus, he had no bicep swivel, which was a big no-no.  Nonnef's kit adds the bicep swivel- it's around that mushroom peg we built.  But what's more, since Nonnef's new elbows are flush with the forearms the forearms can bend on the elbow pegs around the new elbow.  This puts the elbow bend in a more natural position, and gives him a deeper elbow bend using just that joint.  However, their is still a hinge in the new bicep as well.  You can use it as a double elbow hinge for some poses, just be aware that the second hinge is above the bicep swivel so it's not useful for some more extreme poses.

Now, I should say that at this point Nonnef's kit has address my number one complaint with Pointblank, but it's not without a cost.  Those protruding red elbow bits formed the car's front grill.  While the grooves Nonnef molded into the new elbow parts is meant to look like a grill, it's not quite as detailed, and it's noticeably more recessed.  This is likely to bother some people.  However, I don't think the original grill looked all that great to begin with.  The minor downgrade in the car's appearance is a small sacrifice for the greatly improved robot mode, in my opinion.

While we're in car mode, we can look at Nonnef's attempt to address my third-biggest complaint with Pointblank- the lack of his engine wing thingy.  You'll need these two parts, and they fit together by taking the part with the wings and fitting the peg into the hole on the with the hole.  Just make sure that the 5mm peg on the underside of the hole-part is pointing toward the back.  Install it onto the car by plugging the smaller peg in the middle into the screw hole on Pointblank's butt.

And ok... that looks pretty decent.  The blue is a little too dark, the molded detail is a little soft, and the wings are a little small, but it's decently G1 accurate.  But...

...the wing doesn't have enough clearance for Peacemaker.  You can still tab him onto the back, but the barrel will be forced upward at least 45 degrees.  I supposed you could think of it as an AA gun for shooting Seekers.  Or maybe flip the barrel back in and just pretend he's a big, un-aerodynamic engine block.

Nonnef did come up with a solution, but it seems like an afterthought.  See, there's one more piece in the kit.  To use it, you'll have to pry the wing apart again, then sandwich the third part between them so that the bigger hole is pointing toward the front, and the wing plugs back in to the smaller hole.  Then the whole thing can plug on as usual.  But this forces the wing up higher and back further, with a large gap under the wing.  The peg hole itself sticks out kind of far and doesn't seem to line up with the bottom part.

The peg hole at least allows you to plug Peacemaker into it in front of the wing.  As a bonus, by using a peg hole and working with the 5mm peg on Peacemaker instead of the tabs that go into Pointblank's knees, you could plug in other weapons or Battlemasters instead of Peacemaker.  Still, I can't help but thing that a far better solution would to have made the bottom piece a little longer and thicker at the rear, then putting a 5mm peg hole just behind the 5mm peg.

Maybe Nonnef didn't want to change the shape of the bottom part because he was concerned with robot mode storage?  See, he designed this kit so that you can plug the wing part into his butt, and the base into his back.  The base doesn't actually plug in securely, since it fits by putting the smaller peg into a 5mm port, and relies on the chunk of windshield to pinch it into place.  This solution leaves a bit to be desired, I feel, as I'm not a fan of pulling the pieces of the wing apart, and there's nowhere to put the third part with the 5mm peg hole.  The alternative is to build the wing, with or without the peg hole adapter, and have him hold it in his fist.  It's not pretty, I wish there was some way to attach it to his forearm like a shield, but if I'm being fair to Nonnef plugging the wing into his fist is how the G1 toy did it.

One final note about this kit.  This is really just me being petty, but Nonnef did NOT address my second-biggest complaint with Pointblank: the awful Sunbow head.  I really, really want a head for this guy based on the G1 toy/Headmasters anime, so it's a bit of a bummer that I fixed two issues I have but not that one.

So where do we stand?  This is kit definitely has a few issues, like the blue plastic not matching, what it does to the car's grill, and being forced to choose between a more-accurate, better-looking wing and getting issues stowing Peacemaker or building an ugly wing but one with a 5mm port.  That said, if you're in the US I'm still going to recommend you get this kit.  The improvements to his arm articulation more than make up for every issue I have with the kit.

 

[M'Kyuun]

On 1/13/2023 at 10:39 PM, mikeszekely said:

I think it's impressive that they took Flame Toys' non-transforming Drift and not only made it transform, but made it transform into the Asurada from Cyber Formula.  But just because something is impressive doesn't mean it's good, and just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.  As you said, the transformation looks like a fiddly nightmare with too many sliders, weird clearances, lots of twisting, and the kind of transformation where everything kind of explodes then has to be lined up just so to tab in a bunch of thin panels in just the right order or things won't tab in without gaps.  Honestly, I was watching Ben's video and thought, "ah, that's not that bad" until he got to the stuff below the waist.

Still, it seems pretty solidly built and decently articulated.  Might still be worth checking out, even if you don't plan on transforming it.  Ronin goes for something like $110... you could buy like three for the price of Flame Toys, assuming you could even find a Flame Toys at the original list price.

I'll be finding out, as I ordered this figure. It looks amazing- very much like the Flame Toys fig, only transformable, and that was the clincher for me. Too, I love the Asurada alt mode, so regardless of which mode I have him in, I'm gonna be happy with him. That transformation, though....I'm trying to mentally prepare for it. It doesn't look like fun at all for all the reasons you pointed out. I watched Skullface fumble with it, and I have a feeling my experience is going to be similar- I always seem to have issues with one side or the other not lining up, or being tough to tab, or some other obstructive issue. Fingers crossed it'll go smoothly. I'll almost certainly have a vid up by a competent reviewer who's adept at doing transformations.

7 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Taking a break from reviewing new Legacy Evolution figures in the official thread to take a look a 3rd party kit for a non-evolved Legacy figure.  This is Nonnef Production's upgrade kit for Legacy Pointblank.

You'll get three sprues with this kit, two blue with most of the parts but a black sprue for the elbows.  Nonnef made a limited number of the elbow sprues in red and blue as well; while supplies last, if you have the basic kit in your cart you can add a set of the red or blue elbows by going back to the Pointblank upgrade page and selecting the color you want from a dropdown menu.  As you can see, I opted to go with the blue elbows.

To get started you'll need Pointblank in robot mode.  Turn him over and there's a pair of screws on the back of his shoulder you'll need to remove.  Once you've done so, the front of the shoulder and his whole arm will come off.  The arm is attached to a post on the front of the shoulder, go ahead and wiggle the arm off.

For the next step, you'll need one of the two parts with this gear-shaped hole, and two of these round bits with half a peg on one end.  It doesn't matter which ones, as the they're the same for both arms.  Note that the gear-hole part has one side that's flat, and one side with a lip.  Install the flat side toward the front of the shoulder (that is, away from you) by sliding it on the peg the arm just vacated.  Take the round bits and fit them onto the pegs on the bottom of the gear-hole part such that the peg halves become a whole mushroom peg.  Make sure you slide those parts onto the gear-hole part all the way, but don't worry too much if there's a slight gap on the peg you're making.

Ok, now go back to the arm you removed.  You'll find a screw on the inside of the forearm.  Remove it, then slide the blue part of the forearm and fist off.  Then, remove the other side of the forearm with the car hood by working it off the elbow peg.  Hang onto the forearm parts, but we don't need the rest of the arm anymore.

OK, whether they're black, blue, or red you're going to need two of the elbow parts.  One should be smooth, the other should have grooves molded into it.  Take the one with the grooves and set the mushroom peg you just built into it so that the grooves are facing the front of the shoulder (and away from you).  Use the smooth elbow part to finish capturing the mushroom peg to form the new elbow, then slide the blue part of the forearm over the peg on the inside edge of the elbow to hold it together.  With the forearm in place, put the red part on by feeding the screw post though the forearm and stuffing the peg on the other side of the elbow into the peg hole, then replace the screw in the forearm.  Reattach the arm by capturing the mushroom peg on his shoulder socket with the front with the arm and the blue back, then replace the screws.

Here's the arm with the upgrade on his right (our left), and the original arm on his left (our right).  Well, we can see the first problem with this kit, and that's that the blue of Nonnef's plastic does NOT match Hasbro's blue plastic or paint.  It's noticeably darker.  If I'm being honest, though, I'm glad I went with the blue elbows, because I personally think the all-blue arms look better, even if the blues don't match, than blue with a black line through the bicep and a red chunk in the forearm.  I also like that the new Nonnef elbow is flush with the forearm, were the original stuck out quite a bit.

Aesthetic improvements are subjective, what's objectively better is the articulation.  On the original arm the elbow bend is the black hinge in the bicep, and  clearance between the protruding red chunk and the wheel on his shoulder pad meant he had less than 90 degrees of elbow bend.  Plus, he had no bicep swivel, which was a big no-no.  Nonnef's kit adds the bicep swivel- it's around that mushroom peg we built.  But what's more, since Nonnef's new elbows are flush with the forearms the forearms can bend on the elbow pegs around the new elbow.  This puts the elbow bend in a more natural position, and gives him a deeper elbow bend using just that joint.  However, their is still a hinge in the new bicep as well.  You can use it as a double elbow hinge for some poses, just be aware that the second hinge is above the bicep swivel so it's not useful for some more extreme poses.

Now, I should say that at this point Nonnef's kit has address my number one complaint with Pointblank, but it's not without a cost.  Those protruding red elbow bits formed the car's front grill.  While the grooves Nonnef molded into the new elbow parts is meant to look like a grill, it's not quite as detailed, and it's noticeably more recessed.  This is likely to bother some people.  However, I don't think the original grill looked all that great to begin with.  The minor downgrade in the car's appearance is a small sacrifice for the greatly improved robot mode, in my opinion.

While we're in car mode, we can look at Nonnef's attempt to address my third-biggest complaint with Pointblank- the lack of his engine wing thingy.  You'll need these two parts, and they fit together by taking the part with the wings and fitting the peg into the hole on the with the hole.  Just make sure that the 5mm peg on the underside of the hole-part is pointing toward the back.  Install it onto the car by plugging the smaller peg in the middle into the screw hole on Pointblank's butt.

And ok... that looks pretty decent.  The blue is a little too dark, the molded detail is a little soft, and the wings are a little small, but it's decently G1 accurate.  But...

...the wing doesn't have enough clearance for Peacemaker.  You can still tab him onto the back, but the barrel will be forced upward at least 45 degrees.  I supposed you could think of it as an AA gun for shooting Seekers.  Or maybe flip the barrel back in and just pretend he's a big, un-aerodynamic engine block.

Nonnef did come up with a solution, but it seems like an afterthought.  See, there's one more piece in the kit.  To use it, you'll have to pry the wing apart again, then sandwich the third part between them so that the bigger hole is pointing toward the front, and the wing plugs back in to the smaller hole.  Then the whole thing can plug on as usual.  But this forces the wing up higher and back further, with a large gap under the wing.  The peg hole itself sticks out kind of far and doesn't seem to line up with the bottom part.

The peg hole at least allows you to plug Peacemaker into it in front of the wing.  As a bonus, by using a peg hole and working with the 5mm peg on Peacemaker instead of the tabs that go into Pointblank's knees, you could plug in other weapons or Battlemasters instead of Peacemaker.  Still, I can't help but thing that a far better solution would to have made the bottom piece a little longer and thicker at the rear, then putting a 5mm peg hole just behind the 5mm peg.

Maybe Nonnef didn't want to change the shape of the bottom part because he was concerned with robot mode storage?  See, he designed this kit so that you can plug the wing part into his butt, and the base into his back.  The base doesn't actually plug in securely, since it fits by putting the smaller peg into a 5mm port, and relies on the chunk of windshield to pinch it into place.  This solution leaves a bit to be desired, I feel, as I'm not a fan of pulling the pieces of the wing apart, and there's nowhere to put the third part with the 5mm peg hole.  The alternative is to build the wing, with or without the peg hole adapter, and have him hold it in his fist.  It's not pretty, I wish there was some way to attach it to his forearm like a shield, but if I'm being fair to Nonnef plugging the wing into his fist is how the G1 toy did it.

One final note about this kit.  This is really just me being petty, but Nonnef did NOT address my second-biggest complaint with Pointblank: the awful Sunbow head.  I really, really want a head for this guy based on the G1 toy/Headmasters anime, so it's a bit of a bummer that I fixed two issues I have but not that one.

So where do we stand?  This is kit definitely has a few issues, like the blue plastic not matching, what it does to the car's grill, and being forced to choose between a more-accurate, better-looking wing and getting issues stowing Peacemaker or building an ugly wing but one with a 5mm port.  That said, if you're in the US I'm still going to recommend you get this kit.  The improvements to his arm articulation more than make up for every issue I have with the kit.

 

I got my kit today and installed it, and the elbow peg that goes into the car hood side of the right arm was so tight it cracked the post hole housing. Sorry for the blurry pic. Anyway, I disassembled the arm and sanded down the peg, but the damage was already done. What's odd is I had no issues with the left arm. As I mentioned above, I always seem to have asymmetrical issues with my toys where one side works perfectly, and the other side doesn't. Anyway, I like the articulation the kit imparts to the arms, and one wonders why Hasbro couldn't have just designed it this way themselves. I'd rather have had the full elbow bend over the little grill extensions it originally came with that restrict elbow bend to less than 90 degrees. I wish Nonnef had given us the bits to make a fully articulated gun dude for Pointblank; the one that came with him remains in the box, as I can't abide its lack of articulation. I don't care how small these things are- the same standards of articulation should apply regardless. It's 2023, not 1985. Evolution in technique, quality, and features should be equal across the board.

I'll second on the Headmasters head sculpt, just not the gimmick. The Sunbow bucket head is not as appealing.

 

[JB0]

12 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Anyway, I like the articulation the kit imparts to the arms, and one wonders why Hasbro couldn't have just designed it this way themselves.

They could've, but it would've exceeded the budget for the class.

I'd've rather they made him a Voyager, but they didn't ask me.

[mikeszekely]

16 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

I got my kit today and installed it, and the elbow peg that goes into the car hood side of the right arm was so tight it cracked the post hole housing.

That's unfortunate.  I had one go on like a glove, the other was so tight it wouldn't go at all until I filed the peg down.  Do you think you might be able to repair it with one of those UV resin pens?

16 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

I wish Nonnef had given us the bits to make a fully articulated gun dude for Pointblank; the one that came with him remains in the box, as I can't abide its lack of articulation. I don't care how small these things are- the same standards of articulation should apply regardless. It's 2023, not 1985. Evolution in technique, quality, and features should be equal across the board.

Mine's out, because Pointblank needs a weapon.  I just don't take him out of gun mode.

But Nonnef has hinted that he's planning on making some Targetmasters, starting with Peacemaker.

[M'Kyuun]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

That's unfortunate.  I had one go on like a glove, the other was so tight it wouldn't go at all until I filed the peg down.  Do you think you might be able to repair it with one of those UV resin pens?

I've never heard of a UV resin pen. I assume it uses the UV light to cure it quickly.  TBH, I wasn't really planning on doing a repair, but perhaps I should, if for no other reason, it would prevent the crack from potentially spreading.

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Mine's out, because Pointblank needs a weapon.  I just don't take him out of gun mode.

But Nonnef has hinted that he's planning on making some Targetmasters, starting with Peacemaker.

I figured at least one, and probably more (Dr. Wu comes to mind), third party upgrade kit makers will make Targetmaster figs with better articulation. I'll keep an eye out.

[mikeszekely]

On 1/16/2023 at 3:28 AM, M'Kyuun said:

I've never heard of a UV resin pen. I assume it uses the UV light to cure it quickly.  TBH, I wasn't really planning on doing a repair, but perhaps I should, if for no other reason, it would prevent the crack from potentially spreading.

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly it.  A pen filled with a liquid resin, on the other end is a little UV light that cures it.  It's apparently very similar to what your dentist might use to fill a cavity.  My experience with it is mixed- it's not as strong as a glue, and because you have to be able to shine the light on it it's pretty useless for some things.  But I've had luck using it to repair cracks like the one on your Pointblank.  The one I got came from Amazon under the name Bondic.

Well, since Amazon stopped sending me Evolution figures I guess I'll take a little break from them and cover a 3rd party release.  See, back in November I reviewed Studio Series Hot Rod.  And I compared him with Studio Series Lockdown... which got me thinking about my copy of Unique Toys Peru Kill.  And that made me decide to buy DX9's La Hire, their version of an MPM Hot Rod.

You might recall that Studio Series Hot Rod was only half a head shorter than Lockdown, who were both Deluxes.  But... Hot Rod was around the same size as Bumblebee in The Last Knight.  But, in Age of Extinction Lockdown was just a little shorter than Optimus... so shouldn't the size difference between Hot Rod and Lockdown be greater?  Probably!  And indeed, La Hire only comes a little less than halfway up Peru Kill's chest (to be fair, I don't think Hasbro's Hot Rod is too big, I think their Lockdown was too small).

As you'd expect from something aimed at the MPM market, La Hire is a lot more screen-accurate than Studio Series Hot Rod, too.  As a matter of fact, La Hire was apparently done in collaboration with Unique Toys, and while I'm not exactly a fan of the Bayverse designs, the figures I've got from them (Nero, Challenger, Dragoon, and Peru Kill) have been extremely impressive, with screen-accurate robots that don't even look like they should transform but cleverly do into vehicles that barely look like they transform.  And on that first point, robot that doesn't look like it should transform, La Hire nails it.  Like, from the front, I have to start nitpicking little things like the orange bits on his waist should be black, and they probably should have painted some silver on his biceps.

From behind he's nearly as impressive, as he doesn't have a big chunk of folded-up car for a backpack.  Instead, he's got a movie-accurate engine on his back, and although they're a bit smallish here even diecast movie-accurate buttocks.  The backs of his biceps, forearms, and thighs lack much of the mechanical details of the CGI model, though, and the GGI's almost Gundam-esque orange heels are black vents here, one of the few concessions to car kibble that wasn't present on the CGI.  That said *looks at MP-44* it's a lot more effort into a screen-accurate back than most companies do.

La Hire comes with a few accessories.  You have a faceless girl in a black jumpsuit- presumably Viviane, although I don't recall if the outfit is screen-accurate (wasn't it sleeveless?).  You get a replacement set of wing mirrors, and a translucent yellow blast effect part.  Finally, you get a pair of guns.  You might recognize one as his "stop ze time!" gun, and just assume the other is his regular gun.  Actually, both guns are identical- the magazine under and the... I dunno, time grenades? around the one are removable.  The underlying gun is the same as the naked one.

La Hire's head is on a hinged swivel.  He can look up maybe 30 degrees and turn his head, but that's about it.  His shoulders swivel and have a hinge for 90 degrees of lateral movement.  However, the swivel is on the wrong side of the hinge.  Normally, that'd mean swiveling his shoulder then trying to get some lateral movement would be impossible (liek Studio Series 86 Hot Rod), but fortunately La Hire has a backward butterfly that will still provide some lateral movement.  His biceps swivel.  His elbows are double-jointed and good for basically 180 degrees of bend.  His wrists swivel.  His thumb is on a ball joint with one additional hinged knuckle, while his fingers are pinned at the base with one additional hinged knuckle.  The index finger is separate, but the other three are molded together.  His waist swivels.  His hips go about 90 degrees backward or laterally, and just a bit shy of that forward.  His thigs swivel, and his knees bend maybe 125 degrees on a single hinge.  His toes have a very slight upward tilt, and his ankles can pivot up to 90 degrees.

His guns tab into his palms using the time-honored method of plugging little tabs on the handles into slots on his palms.  The blast effect can plug into the barrel of either gun.  I guess he can pick up Viviane, but there's really not a lot you can do with her in this mode.

So we'll go to his other mode!  And... maybe this is why Unique Toys let DX9 put their name on this one.  There's some of the same Unique Toys' trick of basically turning inside out, but it just doesn't feel as elegant or refined as UT's efforts.  It's also not as intuitive- it's been forever since I've handled Peru Kill, but I had no trouble figuring it out again after all that time without any instructions.  I needed the instructions to figure out how to transform La Hire in the first place, then just a few days later I still needed the instructions to transform him again.

Oh, and we can see how UT was able to make Peru Kill so big while La Hire is so much smaller... these cars are definitely NOT in scale.  Peru Kill is noticeably larger, but in real life his alt mode is around 9" shorter than La Hire's.

And what is La Hire, exactly?  He's a Lamborhini Centenario, and if you ignore all the seams he's a fairly accurate one, too.  He's even got the retractable spoiler (although it doesn't extend super far).  Only thing he's missing is the Lambo badge on the nose, and that's likely because DX9 is more afraid of Lamborghini taking legal action than Hasbro.

Not only does the spoiler work, but the doors open.  And in a refreshing change of pace, they don't just open on robot kibble... there's seats in there, and you can fit Viviane inside.  Sadly, though, there doesn't seem to be any place to store his weapons in alt mode, which is a bummer.

Ultimately, La Hire sits in a somewhat awkward position.  If you're a fan of the Bayverse designs then you'll probably love La Hire.  He's got a screen-accurate robot mode that's a step up from a lot of the official MPM stuff and turns into a very nice Lamborghini.  However, if you're less a fan of Bayverse designs and more a fan of what Unique Toys specifically does with them, you may find La Hire a tad disappointing as he lacks some of the refinement that gives UT's figures that "wow" factor.  Still, I'd say he's better than the only other non-HasTak and non-UT MPM-style figure I have, NewAge's Mista, and ultimately I think he's worth checking out.

[JB0]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Not only does the spoiler work, but the doors open.  And in a refreshing change of pace, they don't just open on robot kibble... there's seats in there, and you can fit Viviane inside. 

Very nice!
That's almost as rare as a jetplane that doesn't have a robot hang-gliding under it.

[sh9000]

 

[mikeszekely]

Some time ago I reviewed APC Toys Attack Prime (and the superior repainted version), which was basically a KO of Transformers Prime First Edition Optimus Prime with extra accessories from a Dr. Wu kit.  The later I checked out their Dark Master, which was also still technically a KO of a HasTak Prime Megatron with some extra accessories from a Dru Wu kit (I think), but a slightly more ambitious project- unlike Attack Prime, who was a 1:1 KO (with better paint on the second version), Dark Master took the superior Deluxe-class toy the improved and upscaled it until it was bigger than the Voyager.

I skipped APC's third major release, a KO of First Edition Arcee called Angel Engine, because even though she had a much better paint job than the original toy there were apparently some QC issues, and I happen to prefer the Robots in Disguise version over the First Edition.  But I'm back on the APC train tonight with Demonic Whisper, their version of Prime Soundwave.

A word, before I get too far into this... Demonic Whisper is actually APC's second crack at Soundwave.  You may also see listings for Soundwave under Evil Voice.  As near as I can tell, they're the same figure but Demonic Whisper has a slightly more subdued but more cartoon-accurate deco.

Deco is also the first way that Demonic Whisper differs from the original Hasbro toy.  Some joints in the shoulders, biceps, and hips that were black on the original are the same color as his body.  He's got more purple energy lines, in place more correctly.  Then he's got some additional gunmteal paint on his knees, feet, cheeks, crest, and upper torso.

While the deco is better, there actually isn't much that's actually changed with the mold itself.  There's no improvements to give him wrist articulation or ankle pivots, for example.  The only real difference I could find is that his head isn't permanently thrust forward in a bit of a slouch.  I don't think they modified any joints for that, though, they merely did away with a spring mechanism that shot his head out when you opened the backpack up.

Of course, I may be burying the lede.  The biggest, most obvious change isn't a missing spring or a new paint job.  Demonic Whisper is a little bigger than the Hasbro version.  Now, I don't have a scale chart for Prime, but the gist seems to be that Soundwave should be as tall (or even slightly taller) than Starscream, and the original definitely was not.  But Demonic Whisper seems about right with First Edition Starscream and APC's own Dark Master.

As a somewhat-enlarged, better-decoed, but otherwise mostly the same version of Hasbro's Soundwave he retains the chest that detaches and turns into Laserbeak.  Like the Hasbro release, Lasberbeak is missing a few details, largely due to the mold not being changed aside from size.  Laserbeak can use the same peg that attaches him to Demonic Whisper's chest to also attach to a hole on his wrist to make it look like he's perched there.

We're not done, though.  APC continues the trend of giving you a bit more than a simple KO of Hasbro, this time with what I believe are some totally original accessories.  These accessories are a pair of cables, a pair of claws, four wire parts, and a plate with some peg holes.

The plate with the peg holes works by simply plugging into a screw hole on Demonic Whisper's butt.  The two peg holes now on his back are where we can plug in the cables.

The cables themselves have bendy wire inside, so they'll hold a pose.  Then you can pop the claws on the other end.  The claws have another hole that you can use to attach two of the wire parts, if you like, to give Demonic Whisper the tentacles that Soundwave used in the show.  Unfortunately, while the claws use some of that gunmetal paint (which is close enough to the silver of the cartoon, I guess), the cables are wires are simply black with none of the purple seen in the show.

Demonic Whisper's articulation, by the way, is pretty much identical to the Hasbro release.  But since I never covered the Hasbro release here, real quick, head's on a hinged ball joint that can look up slightly, nothing really down, decent sideways tilt, slight left-right swivel.  Shoulders swivel and can move laterally a bit under 90 degrees, but the lateral hinge is outside the swivel.  But then there's a ball joint that gives him some inward bend, and is maybe supposed to be part of his shoulder as it allows you move most of his arm below the hinge forward or backward and it sits about his bicep swivels.  Below the bicep swive is another hinge that I'd say is 90 degrees of elbow bend.  No wrist or hand articulation.  His waist is tight, but it does swivel, and there's a slight ab crunch to give him a slightly hunched posture.  His hips are ball joints that allow for over 90 degrees of forward motion but very little backward or laterally.  His thighs swivel, but are limited by the kibble on the backs of his thighs colliding with his butt.  His knees are also fairly limited.  His actual knee is bent back as far as it goes already, and the digitigrade joint below it can't go too far backward due to kibble.  His feet have a slight downward tilt and a ton of upward tilt, but no ankle pivots.  All-in-all, I do wish they could have made a few more mold changes to improve his articulation below the waist.

Transformation is identical to the Hasbro toy.

Again, the changes are mostly minor deco ones- a grayer blue plastic, gunmetal on the engine, different purple lines.  I'll note, though, that APC used a harder plastic for the vertical stabilizers.  Not as safe for kids, but as an adult collector I'm happy Demonic Whisper doesn't have the droopy warped stab my Hasbro version does.

Also, not pictured, but you can still attach the plate and tentacles while he's in drone mode.  Doesn't interfere with anything.

In some ways, Demonic Whisper (or Evil Voice) is a harder sell than Attack Prime and Dark Master.  Attack Prime was based on a fairly limited release figure, and Dark Master replaces the Hasbro Voyager release with a better-scaled version of the superior Deluxe-class toy.  Demonic Whisper has a better deco and is a bit bigger so he's more in-scale, but aside from some new tentacle accessories doesn't really do anything to fix my other complaints with the Prime Soundwave toy.  If you already have that Soundwave and you're not too bothered by scale then you might not need to upgrade.  However, if you're years late to the party Demonic Whisper goes for roughly half the $80-ish you might expect to pay for Prime Soundwave on the secondary market and you get a better toy to boot.

[mikeszekely]

While APC's first product was a KO of Transformers Prime First Edition Optimus Prime, their first announced product was a KO of First Edition Bulkhead.  And yet, a few releases and several repaints later APC's Bulkhead is nowhere to be found.  Or is he?  Because I just received this-

Now, I don't normally cover packaging in my reviews, because I'm generally a "toss the box" sort of collector.  But... what is this?  I mean, we can reasonably assume AC-01R is the model, but is Arms Iron the name of the company or the name of the figure?  Is "Model-Level Deformation Toys" the company, or a description of what they do?  Confusing things more, while a rep from APC has denied their involvement, other sources involved have claimed that this is, in fact, from APC.  I don't know what's true... all I can say is that the box is not at all APC's style, but the instructions (a single paper with robot-to-alt one one side and alt-to-robot on the other) is exactly like APC's.  Curiouser and curiouser...

And out of the box, wouldn't you know it, it's a KO of First Edition Bulkhead... like APC announced and never released.  Specifically, this one is colored like the Takara release.  There's apparently an AC-01 without the R that's colored like the Hasbro release.  I grabbed this one because it was more readily available when I decided to try it instead of holding out for an official APC release, but I kind of think I might prefer the darker green anyway.  As near as I can tell, it's a 1:1 KO.  I think that's fine for the size, but here's hoping that if this isn't from APC and APC does eventually release one that they change up the deco to make it more cartoon-accurate.  I mean, while this Takara-colored one uses a darker green, I think both versions used the same color for the hands, biceps, and crotch, which is sort of a warm taupe instead of cooler silver or gunmetal.  Actually, if they'd matched the color of the plastic on his knees that'd have been fine.  His feet are painted to match that taupe color, and I'd argue that his feet and hands should be a very dark gunmetal or even black.  He lacks the darker green stripes on his arms, too, which is something that the later Robots In Disguise version had.

On that note... which version did you guys like better?  There's definitely some things that the newer Robots In Disguise mold tried to get right from the cartoon, like the black shoulder pads, the more refrigerator-shaped body, and the shape of the outside of his leg and foot right down to the faux wheels in this heels.  On the other hand, the FE design has a rounder shape that I associate more with Bulkhead, a grill on his tummy, and the headlights are properly on his chest behind the doors instead of under the doors near his waist.  I think his wheel-wings are also more accurate, with less kibble on top peeking over his shoulders.

Oh, a note about his shoulder pads... since they're actually part of the alt mode instead of random floating bits, I don't mind that they're not totally black even though that'd be cartoon accurate.  That said, there's a splash of silver on them that doesn't show in alt mode, and that silver could have been black to at least be a bit closer to accurate.  APC, I hope you're taking notes.

As far as I know, the only accessory First Edition Bulkhead came with back in the day was his wrecking ball.  In a most APC-like manner, this figure comes with some extra accessories that appear to be knocked-off from a 3P upgrade kit from a company called Dreamworks... you get a pair of blasters, a black bumper part*, two parts that form a long handle, a claw, and a... I dunno... thingy.  The blasters, handle, claw, and thingy can be combined to form a large hammer.

*The bumper part reads DP-12-001 Dreamworks... they didn't even bother to remove the name of the kit-maker they KO'ed.

Bulkhead's head is on a ball joint, but it has no up/down/sideways tilt and you can only swivel it a bit under 90 degrees to the right or left or it will pop off.  His shoulders rotate and extend laterally about 90 degrees... the rotation joint is a tad loose on both shoulders on my copy (the other joints seem fine though).  He's also got a little backward butterfly.  Elbows are a single hinge, but they bend a bit over 90 degrees.  His wrists don't swivel, but due to how they transform they can bend inward.  No waist swivel.  His hips go forward and backward about 45 degrees, and 90 degrees laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend on soft ratchets 90 degrees.  No ankle pivots, but his toes have a slight upward and plenty of downward tilt.

The wrecking ball works the same as the original Hasbro/Takara toy- fold his hand into his forearm to reveal a peg hole, and a peg on the wrecking ball will plug into it.  To use the hammer, pull the bottom of the handle off, slide the upper portion through his fist, and then plug the bottom back on.  Like I said, the shoulder swivels are a tad loose, though, and they don't support the weight of the hammer all that well.  That said, they're just mushroom swivels, so a little floor polish should fix that right up.

BTW, notice the bicep on the arm holding the hammer?  Now, I own neither the Hasbro First Edition or the Takara (if I did, I wouldn't have to resort to KOs, would I?), but AFAIK that bicep filler was NOT part of the original Hasbro toy and therefore not on AC-01, but it was on the Takara version hence its inclusion on AC-01R.

To use the arm blasters, there are clips that allow the sides of the blasters to pull apart, and they're just pegged to the thing on top of the handle.  With the sides of the blasters open there's enough room to stuff Bulkhead's arm inside- just make sure his hands are still folded in so they can peg in like his wrecking ball.  Speaking of pegging stuff in, if you take the thingy off the handle, then take the spikey part off, it can also plug into his wrist port, giving him a kind of claw.  And, I have to say, I can do without the hammer, but I love the new blasters.

Which just leaves the bumper piece.  You can store it on his robot mode by turning him around, where you'll notice two slots on the sides of his pelvis.  Little tabs on the bumper fit into those slots, holding it in place over his butt.  It's not the prettiest, but at least it's storage.

So this is probably super subjective, but I strongly prefer the transformation for FE Bulkhead over RID Bulkhead.  Like, both of their arms have to tuck under the rear of the car, but his forearms don't have to be twisted to fit.  They both have their collar and back make up their roofs, but the rear of FE is made from his shoulder pads, giving him less back kibble and not requiring you to move the shoulder panels on their own separate armature to form the rear side windows.  Both have their rear wheels and fenders on their backs like wings, but FE doesn't have the additional side panel.  Both have the legs tucked under the food, but FE doesn't require spinning his legs around, and it tucks his crotch more neatly underneath.

Both are pretty accurate in truck mode, shape-wise.  I like RID Bulkhead's larger front bumper, and he's got the darker green stripe on the doors.  I like the bigger silver sections around the headlights and wider body on FE Bulkhead.  I like the FE Bulkhead has translucent front side windows, no dark green around the windows, and no translucent plastic on the roof, plus he's got the dark stripes on his bed cover.  I also think FE Bulkhead manages his undercarriage kibble just a bit better, and as a bonus his wrist ports are facing out the back like exhausts... that you can totally plug Siege blast effects into.  Both have paint on the grill, headlights, taillights, and side skirts, and both are missing painted details on their bumpers.  Both also could have used painted rims.  More stuff for APC to improve on later, eh?

As was the case on the original toy, you can use the peg on Bulkhead's wrecking ball to plug it into his bed cover in alt mode.  And this is where the Dreamworks bumper really comes in- you just wrap it over his actual bumper.  I'm not sure it's entirely necessary, though- the bumper he already has is cartoon-accurate, so he doesn't really need a bigger one.  That said, I suppose his shoulder pads to tend to pull apart a bit, and the bumper acts as a clip that holds them together, eliminating any unsightly gaps.  I probably won't use it, but it's an option, at least.

If you want to store his blasters on the truck it's a little bit trickier.  You'll notice that two of the panels that make up each blaster has a pair of slots, one the third pair has some ridges.  The ridges look like they should fit around the rails on his roof, but the tolerances are far too loose.  The slots, though, can fit onto the spikes on his wrecking ball.  If you don't mind the blasters pointed out at a 45 degree angle you can simply plug the blasters onto the ball, then plug the ball into the bed like normal- no part of the blasters will be directly over the bed.  If you want them facing forward, though, you'll find that the blasters are slightly lower than the bottom of the ball, preventing the peg from reaching the bed.  To get around this, get the claw, plug it into the bed first, then plug the ball into the claw.  That'll raise it up enough that the blasters can sit over the bed.

I suppose, in some ways, this is more review of First Edition Bulkhead and a comparison with the Robots In Disguise mold, and I ultimately conclude that the First Edition version is the better version.  And, given that you can buy a new copy of FE Bulkhead from Hasbro Pulse or one of their retail partners, and used copies on eBay hover around $100, I don't really have any qualms about suggesting the KO instead- aside from slightly loose shoulders (which is fixable) the quality seems on par with my legit RiD version, plus you get some extra accessories.

However, APC's releases are rarely 1:1 KOs.  Prime got a more show-accurate, premium deco.  Megatron was an improved upscale of the superior Deluxe-class mold.  Arcee got a more premium paint job.  Soundwave got a more accurate deco and was embiggened a bit to scale better.  These improvements don't always equate to modern articulation like ankle pivots that an original 3P release might have had, but they still help your Transformers Prime shelf look a bit better.  So, while I might recommend picking up this KO over buying an actual FE Bulkhead on the secondary market, I'm not sure that FE Bulkhead is so much better than RID Bulkhead that replacing RID Bulkhead with this KO is necessary, especially with the specter of a more-accurate deco with possible mold improvements from actual APC Toys still hanging over us.  And if you already have a legit FE Bulkhead there's zero reason to replace it with this KO (although, buying this KO for the extra accessories might be cheaper than tracking down the original Dreamworks upgrade kit, so...), whereas an APC release with silver on his biceps and crotch instead of taupe and black on his feet, shoulders, and hands, painted lights on the bumpers, and the stripes on the doors and forearms might have been worth an upgrade.  Alas, AFAIK APC's next planned release is a KO of First Edition Cliffjumper, so the wait for an APC Bulkhead goes on.

[Scyla]

Yuck! I just bought a $125 upgrade set (+shipping from China) for an upgrade kit that fixes the two most glaring issues of PlanetX Kadmos: the head and the weak knees.

Since CNY is currently going on I will probably have to wait till mid February to get it.

I'm already regretting my purchase. 

[mikeszekely]

7 hours ago, Scyla said:

Yuck! I just bought a $125 upgrade set (+shipping from China) for an upgrade kit that fixes the two most glaring issues of PlanetX Kadmos: the head and the weak knees.

Since CNY is currently going on I will probably have to wait till mid February to get it.

I'm already regretting my purchase. 

Isn't that close to what Kadmos cost in the first place? And I thought I was bad for thinking about dropping $16 on cartoon-accurate missiles for TF Prime First Edition Starscream...

[Scyla]

3 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Isn't that close to what Kadmos cost in the first place? And I thought I was bad for thinking about dropping $16 on cartoon-accurate missiles for TF Prime First Edition Starscream...

Yeah, roughly in that range. You do get a Victory Leo with it though…

And Kadmos has some good aspects but the stock head and the weal knees kill it for me. 

I just wished there was a replacement for the awfully designed ankle joints and the hollow feat. I don’t know what PlanetX thinking putting die cast in the thighs but not in the feet. 

[mikeszekely]

34 minutes ago, Scyla said:

Yeah, roughly in that range. You do get a Victory Leo with it though…

And Kadmos has some good aspects but the stock head and the weal knees kill it for me. 

I just wished there was a replacement for the awfully designed ankle joints and the hollow feat. I don’t know what PlanetX thinking putting die cast in the thighs but not in the feet. 

Oh, ok, I gotcha.  I didn't realize that Ptereleons Nemeios came with replacement parts for Kadmos.

[Scyla]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Oh, ok, I gotcha.  I didn't realize that Ptereleons Nemeios came with replacement parts for Kadmos.

It is an MP Soundblaster situation where you bought the expensive toy only to get Ratbat out of it.
 

I have no interest in Nemeios but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.

[mikeszekely]

If you follow APC and their love the best show on Hasbro's short-lived Hub channel, then you might have seen this coming after Soundwave and Bulkhead (unless you thought I decided to get their FE Arcee or their Vehicons... not entirely out of the question, BTW).  No, tonight I'm taking a look at APC's first* totally new figure- Night Countess, aka Airachnid.

*That I know of... you know how these third parties are.  For all we know APC is a brand TFC created just for knocking off TF Prime figures.

When it comes to Transformers, I think one of the least controversial things I can say is "Hasbro's Deluxe-class Airachnid sucked."  Huge backpack, limited head articulation because she had a seat on the back of it, awkward arms, and practically no deco as she's almost entirely black.  Ironically, one of the few places she had purple paint is her pelvis, and that's probably the one place she didn't need it.  Needless to say, it'd take more than a fresh coat of paint to save that figure, so APC didn't.  Instead, they brought us an all-new design that, from what I understand, was actually something a fan worked up years ago.  I'm told APC bought the design and put it into production, and here she is.  Mor purple on her legs, arms, abdomen, and feet.  Gold on her knees, shoulders, and wrists.  Actual arms, not just the panels.

She has a backpack, sure, but it's not particularly large or egregious.  All-in-all, I could probably find little things to nitpick on like the screws on her forearms or her thicc hips, but when you look at what she's replacing Night Countess is clearly a huge upgrade.

Emphasis on huge!  I'm pretty sure that the official scale has Arcee and Airachnid as being among the smallest of the Transformers in the Prime continuity.  Night Countess dwarfs RiD Arcee, and stands roughly equal to First Edition Starscream and APC's own Soundwave.  But... I recall a scene where Airachnid was trying to convince the Decepticons that Megatron was gone and she was in charge, then Soundwave kicks the crap out of her.  Now, if I rewatch that scene, I can plainly see that Soundwave is bigger than her, but that's not what stuck out in my mind.  What stuck out was that she must be high-ranking... and higher-ranking characters in G1 tended to be bigger, my brain applied that logic to Prime, and lo and behold I wound up remembering Airachnid being bigger than she was.  Even though I rationally understand that Night Countess is too big, this scale feels right to me.

Night Countess' head is on a ball joint with some sideways tilt, but really good downward tilt and the excellent upward tilt until she's look straight up.  Her shoulders are ball joints and they swivel fine, but she only gets about 45 degrees of lateral motion and only if her arm is down.  If you raise her arm first you get nothing, and it's due to the kibble on her biceps.  Speaking of she has a ball joint at the elbow that doubles as her thigh swivel, but a hinge below it means her elbows are double-jointed and can bend 180 degrees.  She doesn't swivel at the waist, but she does have one under her chest.  There's also a hinge there that gives her a slight back bend/ab crunch.  Her hips are ball joints that'll go 90 degrees backward, a little short of that forward, and about 45 degrees laterally.  Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend about 90 degrees.  No foot or ankle articulation, although her heels are hinged for transformation and can tilt up or down as needed to keep her feet flat.  The three limbs on her backpack have ball joints at the base that let them swivel and hinge, plus a second hinge mid-limb.

Did she have a weapon in the cartoon?  It's been awhile, I don't remember.  I do remember that the Hasbro Deluxe had those weird-looking web guns.  In any case, Night Countess doesn't come with any guns.

That's not to say that she doesn't have any accessories, though!  Her rotor comes off, and you can replace it with the six spider limbs she often deployed in the cartoon.  They come in two set of three, and instead of plugging in where the rotor goes they plug into the sides of her backpack.

They have the added benefit of letting her do her half-spider mode.  In fact, a good portion of her lower leg actually detaches from her shins and hinges backward, and her legs tab together.  Her hip skirts then kind of cover over the sides of her leg.  They don't seem to lock in place that I can find, but since the backs of her legs don't detach for alt mode this was clearly an intentional design, not a fan transformation.  This is also likely why she can look straight up and arch her back.

Much has been made of how the spider legs can't support her weight, and indeed, when I first started messing with her I thought it was a pain just to keep them attached.  If you run into problems, you're probably doing it wrong.  I eventually figured out that the sides of her backpack need to fold out so that they're pointing away from her body.  Then the spider legs don't attach to the outside of those flaps, they attach to the inside- quite securely.  From there, you'll find that you can swivel a trio of legs at a time, then each leg has a hinge that moves it forward/backward and a pair of hinges for bending in/out.  Properly attached, you should have no trouble posing her in spider mode with the legs more than capable of keeping her body off the ground.

Night Countess' transformation is interesting, because while it is definitely a bit more complex that the simplistic Deluxe Airachnid, it's not at all complex by 3P standards.  Her backpack unfurls, revealing the cockpit and nose, then her upper body spins 180 degrees so the cockpit is in the right spot and she's kind of sticking her face between her legs.  The outermost section of her backpack spins around to cover over her head, then arms curl up and combine with the hip skirts to make much of the sides of her alt mode while her legs clip together so they form her tail boom.  That's it.  In a way, it doesn't feel like a 3P sort of design, it very much feels like something Hasbro could have come up with on their own if they'd made Airachnid a Voyager in the first place and she had a bit more budget to work with.  Which is good, because even as I replace certain figures with the APC versions APC's stuff is still mostly tweaked KOs of Hasbro toys in the first place.  Feeling like she could have been a Hasbro toy means she doesn't feel out-of-place with them.

All that being said... if we're being totally fair I do have to point out that aside from the rotor blades Hasbro's Deluxe is actually more accurate in helicopter mode.  She's thinner and less bulbous in the front, with sharper angles that flow more smoothly into her tail boom.  The mechanical detail around the rotor isn't present on the Deluxe or the animation, and her cockpit can open up.  Night Countess doesn't have anything on her underside to rest on the way the Deluxe does... in fact, if you look at her underside you can plainly see her whole robot mode from the bottom of her ribs down to her toes, with her face peaking between her thighs.  But you gotta pick your poison... do you want a great helicopter but a robot mode as bad as the Deluxe?  Or do you want a great robot that makes kind of a fat helicopter?  I mean, most of my stuff is displayed in bot mode, so I know what I pick.

Not a lot you can do with the helicopter, though.  Her rotor does spin, but it doesn't spin freely to make posing her in bot mode easier.  Her cockpit doesn't open, and she doesn't carry any weapons.  I suppose you can pull out the rotor and pop on the spider-legs for a spider-chopper.

Night Countess is an impressive figure that looks fantastic in robot mode with a fairly intuitive, not overly-complicated transformation that manages to fit in with your official Transformers Prime toys.  My only real complaint is that I wish her shoulder and ankle articulation was a bit better, but it's not like the decade-old toys she's meant to be with were setting a new standard for articulation, although her larger size may also bother some.  Honestly, though, at a very reasonable $40-$50 I'd still recommend her, she's a figure Prime fans won't want to miss.

[M'Kyuun]

Great review, Mike. I'm one of those fans who was underwhelmed by the Hasbro toy, to put it kindly, but that line like many had its share of both good and bad figs, subjectively speaking. I consider Prime's Knockout and Dreadwing toys to be on the low end for their concessions in bot and plane modes respectively. Airachnid was due a better toy, especially since she was a recurring character who, much like BW's Tarantulas, often worked her own agenda apart from the other Decepticons and gave the show that extra bit of fun and intrigue. I should have a burning desire to buy this fig, but I don't. She's definitely an improvement over the original, and I don't mind the concessions to her helicopter mode, but it's just not grabbing me for some reason. TBH, I haven't been interested in any of the APC's Prime updates, as I'm fine with the original toys, which still adorn one of my TF shelves. I doubt anything better is going to come along, but for some reason, I just don't have much enthusiasm for her.

I think my pique would be better served if they were making some Animated updates. In particular, Blackout, whose original toy I missed out on, and who goes for a king's ransom on the secondary market, would be wonderful. Unlike Prime, Hasbro has been mostly silent on Animated rereleases, updates, anything really; it's as if they want it to just disappear despite the fact that it was a really well-done show and there are many fans who would love to have a breadcrumb or two. I was hoping for some sort of special release on its tenth anniversary, but nothing. There is, however, a glimmer of hope that it's not completely under the rug, as in my rather minority opinion, Legacy Bulkhead was an update to the Animated, not Prime, character, and now we have an Animated Prowl fig coming. I continue to hold out hope for a Titan class Omega Supreme, but honestly, I don't want it G1-ified; I want a proper Animated-style Omega Supreme that looks like the show's version of the Ark when transformed. Given the direction of Legacy, I'm not holding my breath. 🙁

[mikeszekely]

6 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

I think my pique would be better served if they were making some Animated updates. In particular, Blackout, whose original toy I missed out on, and who goes for a king's ransom on the secondary market, would be wonderful.

I've gone on record more than once for saying that while I liked the show, I don't like Wyatt's exaggerated cartoon designs as three-dimensional objects, so I can honestly say that if a third party did any kind of Animated toys, be they designed to augment and replace the originals like APC is doing with Prime or even a more ambitious attempt at Masterpiece Animated designs, they'd be a hard pass for me.

That said, I'd kill for Blackout to get a G1-ified Legacy-style update in the mainline.

[M'Kyuun]

At this point I'd take either, especially if it was done as well as the upcoming Legacy Skyquake. That said, I'd still like to get my hands on the original toy or a nice update that maintains the Animated aesthetic.

[derex3592]

Do any of you guys know if any company has ever made a decent toy version of the Cybertronian Seekers? I can't seem to remember seeing any, but I could be wrong. 

[mikeszekely]

Well, there are the Hasbro Siege ones.  They're not quite as smooth, and the nose and tail aren't as sharp, but they're definitely supposed to be those Seekers.  Modern Voyagers.

A company called Impossible Toys made some very accurate tetrajet modes... but the robots aren't so hot, and they're smaller, closer to Deluxe size (around the same size as the original Classics Seekers).  I'm not sure how easy they'd be to find on the secondary market these days.

Planet X did all three main Seekers, plus a few repaints like Acid Storm and Sunstorm, based on Starscream's look in the War for Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron videogames.  The tetrajet is the inspiration for their alt mode, but it's not exactly close.  They're a bit bigger than the Hasbro Siege ones.

And that's pretty much it.  MAAS Toys was working on an MP-esque design with a bit more of a stylized jet mode.  But they went bankrupt.

Hasbro did a small War Within Starscream in the Titanium line, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Hasbro also did their own version of Starscream from the video games.  I think they did repaint him as Skywarp and Thundercracker.  They're small, Deluxes.