The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[M'Kyuun]

54 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

I'm not.  As Hasbro's been doing a pretty good job of checking my boxes in the last few years I've been losing interesting in expensive 3P figures that take up way too much space, to the point that I've actually thought about selling off a lot of the ones I bought just to try to have a complete Sunbow cast at the MP scale but never actually liked all that much.  I didn't have the Omnibots as a kid, nor were they in any fiction that I recall, so I don't have any attachment to the designs.  I was passingly curious to see what XTB might cook up, but when reviews of Fioravanti started hitting it seemed like the usual XTB "looks nice, is kind of a pain" design and I figured I'd be better off spending my money on other things.

Perfectly fair. The reports of Fioravanti's challenging nature are not exaggerated. I messed with him for the first time since getting him tonight to do my review and managed to break one of his seats (they're on little sliders and my one seat wouldn't budge so I applied a little more force to it and the little plastic loop that let it slide broke). Also, one of the retractable headlights covers came off, so I'm going to have to reglue it back on. Breakages aside, it's not a fun or easy transformation, especially the legs, and handling it, you find yourself wondering why on Earth they made it that way when there are certainly easier ways that accomplish the same thing. Anyway, Yaguchi is quite a bit simpler to transform. I'm hoping their Camshaft will be as well.

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

If Hasbro ever gets around to them, though, I'm sure I'd check them out.

Oh, I'm all in for mainline versions. Evan Brooks mentioned wanting to do them in a stream, so I'm hoping he gets his wish. I'm guessing Hasui san would probably want to get in on that too. They're way overdue some official toys and Legacy is the ideal venue. Digits crossed.

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

And I've definitely got my eyes on Mecha Invasion's Hook and Long Haul.

I've got my eyes on them purely from a curiosity position. I dig that they're doing something different with such established characters. However, I haven't the space for much of anything anymore, let alone another MP scaled Devastator. I still have ToyWorld's Constructor, and while it's a bit dated, it's fine. I'm wondering where I'm going to put SS86 Devastator, and potentially Superion depending on how the jet modes turn out (little faith, I'm afraid). Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how Mech Invasion's take on Devy pans out and any future combiner projects they feel like putting their stamp on.

[David Hingtgen]

Mech Invasion's Hook and Long Haul are SO good, but making Mixmaster an arm, and a conventional truck instead of a cabover, is a deal-killer.  It's like they're trying so hard to be both G1 and Bayverse at the same time.  Long Haul being clearly a Bayverse dump truck instead of G1 isn't that big a deal IMHO--still forms the lower torso, and it's still a generally similar-looking type of dump truck.  But Mixmaster is so clearly neither the G1 position nor type of truck.  And it doesn't even look good as an arm, it looks terrible.  Maybe if they'd made an awesome-looking arm mode out of that cement mixer, I might possibly be convinced.  

And Scrapper just has a terrible bot mode with shovel-feet.  (and is also now an arm...)

If they redid it with the same torso bots, but made the legs legs and the arms arms, as they should be---I'd be all-in.   

[Tking22]

Yeah I've been eye-balling these new Constructicons, and for the most part they look great, but there's enough I'm not liking to not want to upgrade. Overall, they look good, but still, years later, I'm still happy with my Constructor G1 box set. 

[Ignacio Ocamica]

Sovereign 2.0, my favorite Decepticon from my favorite 3P company:

 

[mikeszekely]

It's got more Sunbow-ish lines, but unlike Tesla and Spindrift there's nothing about it that makes me feel a need to upgrade.

[Ignacio Ocamica]

On 11/13/2024 at 12:42 AM, mikeszekely said:

It's got more Sunbow-ish lines, but unlike Tesla and Spindrift there's nothing about it that makes me feel a need to upgrade.

Don't get me wrong, I love FansToys Sovereign 1.0 but Galvatron and Megatron are like the VF-1 to me. If there's a new improved version I gotta have it.

Sculptwise this Sovereign 2.0 is perfect to me.

[Hikuro]

considering I don't own one, I'd probably be willing to pick one up. Don't really have much in terms of 3rd party MP figures, they're really expensive and with so many variations and options out there I always have a hard time figuring out what I want. I mean I am pretty satisfied with my MMC Mirage but the Cliffjumper version, not so much, I mean it's okay it works well with the Bumeblebee 1.0 I got so I can't really complain. 
Still though those prices are tough. 

[shazam]

 

[mikeszekely]

Generally speaking I prefer injection molded upgrades to 3D printed ones.  However, there's just not as many injection-molded kits out there... Perfect Effect seems to have vanished, Nonnef was affected by the hurricanes, and DNA's output has been both slow and an infuriating crapshoot swinging wildly between kits that are absolute must-have upgrades and kits that create as many problems as they solve (and often don't even solve the main issue I had with a figure).  So on a whim I decided to to pick up a few 3D printed kits after all.

My single biggest complaint with the Orion Pax figure that came in the SDCC Fractured Friendship pack is that they took the gun that came with Gamer Edition Prime and stuck a block in the gap to give it a 5mm peg.  It just looks awkward.  In search of something better, I found this set from BDT Studio.  It's a pair of comic-accurate rifles and a pair of adapters.  The sculpt of the rifles themselves is pretty good, and BDT painted them a nice gunmetal color.  You have look pretty closely under bright lights (like I'm doing for pictures) to notice the print lines.  However, I absolutely loathe BDT's penchant for 3D-printing their weapons with holes that they affix a plastic tube into instead of printing the handle.

Despite my misgivings, the handles certainly seem secure, and they fit snugly in Pax's hands.  However, they don't really have any bot mode storage.

As for alt mode, that's where the adapters come in.  The idea is that you're supposed to remove his arm guns then plug the adapter into the port that the arm guns were in so that you have a new port facing outward and a peg pointing backward.  The peg plugs into the back of the rifle, and the arm guns plug into the new ports.  Now, I think this would look terrible even if it did work, so I don't know if I'm disappointed or relieved that it doesn't even actually work.  The new ports are way too big for the arm guns to plug into; they just fall right back out.  It seems like an over-engineered solution anyway, when something like a slot molded into the rifle itself that fit over the tabs on the back of the truck would have been a lot easier and better.

At around $16 these guns aren't exactly cheap and I hate the alt mode storage.  But they're the only comic-accurate rifles for Pax I can find, so I guess my recommendation comes down to how badly you want to replace his stock gun and how much it matters to you that the replacements are accurate.

TFSafari, where I buy my kits from, offers discounts based on how many upgrade kits you buy in an order, so I decided to toss in these Shockwave Lab smokestacks for SS86 Optimus Prime.  As you can see, they're pretty similar to the stock smokestacks; maybe the paint is a little shinier.  They don't even look 3D printed.

Some assembly is required.  You'll need to remove these two screws from the back of Prime's shoulders.  The front of the shoulder and the joint will stay attached to the torso, while the back of the shoulder, the smokestack, and the entire arm will come off.  Once the arm is off, swapping the stacks is as easy as sliding the original one out of the groove and slipping the new one into place.

Given how similar they are, you might be asking what's the need for a kit like this?  Well, for one, the new stacks fix one of my few complaints about SS86 Prime, in that they're much more snug than the stock ones.  You're far less likely to bump them out of place when you rotate them.  But the other difference is that the tips are actually holes, which makes for a slightly more realistic look.

I can't say that this kit is necessary, especially for $11, when you could just use floor polish or something to tighten up the stacks Prime already had.  But the quality here is pretty good, should you decide that this is the way you want to go.

As long as we're talking about Shockwave Lab smokestacks, there's also this kit, but for Legacy Deluxe-class Prime, that comes with smokestacks and a few fillers.

Unlike the SS86 ones, this time there's a much more noticeable difference.  The stock stacks only had the holes one one side of the exhaust shields, and they're very shallow.  Plus, they're bare gray plastic.  The Shockwave Lab stacks have deeper, more visible holes and are painted silver like the ones for SS86 Prime.  And, once again, they have the hole in the top of the exhaust pipe.

Installation is super easy (barely an inconvenience), since Legacy Prime's smokestacks are simply pegged into his shoulders.  All you have to do is pull them out and plug the new ones in, and they're a nice fit.

As for the fillers, the red ones go in his back and are meant to cover the gaps and pins in the butterfly transformation joint.  They're kind of a pain to get in, because if they're not sitting right they'll actually block his arms from transforming.  Once they're in, though, they'll stay in with no issues.

The silver pieces fill in the gabs in his thighs.  They're painted silver, which doesn't make them a perfect match for the bare gray plastic his thighs are molded out of, but installation was simple enough.  I guess the thing is, neither his back nor his thigh gaps really bothered me.  I'd have preferred they fill in the gaps around the 5mm ports on the bottoms of his feet, since they face up in truck mode.  Alas, that's something you don't get a filler for.

Despite being a bit underwhelmed by the filler parts, of the three kits this is the one I actually do recommend outright.  At $11 it's the same price as the SS86 smokestacks, but the filler, underwhelming though it may be, at least adds to the value.  Plus, unlike the SS86 stacks, the ones for Legacy Prime are more obviously an upgrade.

[shazam]

 

Edited November 23, 2024 by shazam

[David Hingtgen]

3 hours ago, shazam said:

 

Wow, I only needed to watch the first 2 secs to go from "interested" to "hard no"---that side view of truck mode is atrocious.  

(I put a LOT of emphasis into truck mode, for my Primes---and so many sacrifice SO much in truck mode for such minimal gain in robot mode---there's no 'balance' at all between the modes, they're willing to do almost anything to make it look "1% more like that one screen shot" even if it instantly makes truck mode so much worse)

[shazam]

3 minutes ago, David Hingtgen said:

Wow, I only needed to watch the first 2 secs to go from "interested" to "hard no"---that side view of truck mode is atrocious.  

(I put a LOT of emphasis into truck mode, for my Primes---and so many sacrifice SO much in truck mode for such minimal gain in robot mode---there's no 'balance' at all between the modes, they're willing to do almost anything to make it look "1% more like that one screen shot" even if it instantly makes truck mode so much worse)

Which toy version do you think hits the best medium for presentation? A lot of effort goes into designing the transformation aspect of these figures. Way too much if you ask me. 

My eyes get tired from watching how many panels need to be folded, spun around, redirected again in another orientation, then hidden behind something else. 

[shazam]

 

Edited November 25, 2024 by shazam

[sh9000]

TouchToys J35-C Xiaoyao Navy version.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

6 hours ago, sh9000 said:

TouchToys J35-C Xiaoyao Navy version.

Eat your heart out, Breakaway.

I just placed a pre-order for MMC's Stray. I love my Ronin, but the alt mode for Stray looks quite good:

 

[mikeszekely]

That's a darn fine looking Peg. Maybe I should get one...

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

TF Source's ad showed this variant:

The red tinting is cool, and I imagine it would totally fit the character.  Overall though, I prefer this deco over the plain black striped one from Initial D.

Ooh boy, chase variants are going irk some people bad.

Edited November 26, 2024 by Valkyrie Hunter D

[sh9000]

DX9 Red Storm.

[mikeszekely]

Got my notice from ShowZ to pay off the next set of Mecha Invasion Constructicons.  Seems doubtful they'll ship before the end of the year, but it's looking like they'll be here before the Chinese New Year shut down.  I'm pretty stoked; the first set, while not perfect, were simple, fun, and relatively inexpensive; it's easy to overlook some minor flaws when four MI Constructicons cost less than one of Fans Toys.

Speaking of, while I'd thus far bought most of the Devastators, I can't bring myself to do another Devastator war and buy them all.  I've heard good things about XTB's Long Haul, but their track record for QC issues is keeping me away.  I think Fans Toys' Scrapper just doesn't look all that hot.  And 01 Studio's looks like the old ToyWorld one, but more stylized and without partsforming.  I expect I'm passing on all of those.  Given how their Combaticons and Protectobots came out, I think MMC's Constructicons will be my final G1 MP-style ones.

I'm thinking about giving Dream Star's Constructicons a go, though, or at least their Scrapper.  Like Mecha Invasion, Dream Star seems to be an offshoot of Generation Toy that's doing a more stylized take on Devastator, and I dig how their Scrapper looks.  Plus it looks like Hook is next, and he has both a torso mode and a leg mode, because Dream Star might also be doing a Prowl that can combine with the Constructicons IDW-style.  What's more, it looks like some of the combiner kibble will form a Megatron.

[Scyla]

5 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Got my notice from ShowZ to pay off the next set of Mecha Invasion Constructicons.  Seems doubtful they'll ship before the end of the year, but it's looking like they'll be here before the Chinese New Year shut down.  I'm pretty stoked; the first set, while not perfect, were simple, fun, and relatively inexpensive; it's easy to overlook some minor flaws when four MI Constructicons cost less than one of Fans Toys.

Speaking of, while I'd thus far bought most of the Devastators, I can't bring myself to do another Devastator war and buy them all.  I've heard good things about XTB's Long Haul, but their track record for QC issues is keeping me away.  I think Fans Toys' Scrapper just doesn't look all that hot.  And 01 Studio's looks like the old ToyWorld one, but more stylized and without partsforming.  I expect I'm passing on all of those.  Given how their Combaticons and Protectobots came out, I think MMC's Constructicons will be my final G1 MP-style ones.

I'm thinking about giving Dream Star's Constructicons a go, though, or at least their Scrapper.  Like Mecha Invasion, Dream Star seems to be an offshoot of Generation Toy that's doing a more stylized take on Devastator, and I dig how their Scrapper looks.  Plus it looks like Hook is next, and he has both a torso mode and a leg mode, because Dream Star might also be doing a Prowl that can combine with the Constructicons IDW-style.  What's more, it looks like some of the combiner kibble will form a Megatron.

I think you can’t go wrong with MMC at the moment.

I just got their Incertus (G1 Protectobot Groove) and he is such an awesome Transformer (not just a converting toy robot). Easily the best Transformers toy I bought this year.

Fans Toys is currently really falling out of favor with me since their super G1 toon style is neither doing the character justice nor playing to the strength of Fans Toys fit and finish.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, Scyla said:

I just got their Incertus (G1 Protectobot Groove) and he is such an awesome Transformer (not just a converting toy robot). Easily the best Transformers toy I bought this year.

My copy of Incertus should be arriving next week.😉

[mikeszekely]

I don't think I'm getting any more official Transformers stuff this year, but I think we can squeak a few upgrades for official products in under the wire.

I'm going to start with the DNA DK-47 kit for Legacy Core-class Volcanicus.  In this kit we get new forearms and hands, new feet, a new pelivs, new wings/dino chest for Grimlock, six small guns, six small swords, and two large swords.

Among the six Dinobots, Sludge is the one who gets the most individual stuff as all the filler bits go on him.  There's a part the covers the mushroom peg near his dino foot, and one that covers the empty gap behind the dino hip.  Turn him around to the back, adn there's a filler that covers the mushroom peg in the waist swivel, and one the covers the the dino hip swivels.

Gap covers in place, Sludge also gets two of the included guns, which is good since he's the only guy in the set that didn't get a weapon.  He can hold them in either hand, store them on his back, and wear them on his shoulders in dino mode.

For Grimlock, you have to pop his dino chest parts off at the ball joints and pop on the replacements.  They're so similar to the originals that it took me a hot minute to even realize why DNA thought they were necessary, so I'll spell it out for you guys.  The dino arms and chest parts were single pieces on the original, but the arms are separate and pegged into the DNA ones.  That allows them to swivel at the shoulders.

Grimlock gets two of the swords.  Does he need two?  I'd say no, since he can only hold one and his tail gun.  But both can store on his back/tail in dino mode.

Slag also gets two swords.  Unlike Grimlock, Slag as a port on his back, so you can store either one of the swords or his tail back there, whichever he's not carrying in his hand at the time.  The swords can plug into his hips in dino mode.

The last two swords are Swoop's.  They go on the backs of his wings in dino mode.

Snarl already has a sword, so he doesn't need one.  Instead, he gets two of the guns.  Like Slag, Snarl can store either his sword or one of his guns on his back, whichever he's not using.  The guns can plug into his rear legs in dino mode.

Last up we have Skarr, who gets the last two guns.  For those of you keeping score, this setup means that everyone has a gun (since Grimlock and Slag have their tail guns, and Swoop has the half-hands on his wings), but Skarr and Sludge are swordless unless they take one of Grimlock/Slag/Swoop's.  What's more, Skarr already had his tail-hand-gun, bringing his personal gun count to three, and the only place he can store an extra is to plug one of the DNA guns into the dino hips on his lower legs.  That's where they go in dino mode, too, but the tabs and slots are oriented such that Skarr is forever aiming at birds flying directly overhead.

Of course, I don't think anyone was looking to buy upgrades for the mid-to-bad individual Core Dinobots.  If you're like me, especially after seeing how something simple like actual feet and better hands improved Dinoking over Volcanicus, you wanted an upgrade for the combined mode.  So we'll start buy putting Snarl and Grimlock into their regular leg modes, but adding the new DNA feet.  They work pretty much the same as Dinoking's, which I-shaped pegs that jam up into Grimlock and Snarl's gooches.  Grimlock's tail gun can plug into the heel of the DNA feet rather than to Grimlock himself.

Slag and Sludge combine with no changes, except now there's an extra pelvis part that plugs into the mushroom peg's cutout on the front of Sludge's waist swivel.

Swoop is where things start to get a bit different.  Rather than folding his legs down to make the forearm, we're going to leave them folded up in his alt mode.  However, before we smush and lock everything together you'll notice lightning bolt-shaped hollows inside his knees, just below the mushroom swivels in his thighs.  The new DNA forearm has tabs that were designed to fit into those hollows and will be sandwiched in place when you lock his legs together.

For the other arm, Skarr is also folding his right leg up into his alt mod position.  But, his left leg is going to fold down into his robot position, except we're going to swivel that leg at the ball-jointed knee so that the hollow back of the leg is facing outward.  The other new DNA forearm will plug into the hollow side, filling it and bringing with it a new hand.

Speaking of hands, there's the small question of what to do with the stock ones.  I mean, maybe we don't strictly need Swoop's anymore, but Skarr's forms his tail, so we have to keep it around.  Well, DNA thought of it, and it turns out we'll need Swoop's after all.  First, we combine the halves into their fist mode, then we wedge that fist into the void between Sludge's dino head and Slag's rear legs.  It doesn't lock in place, it's just wedged in.  But doing so puts a 5mm port on Volcanicus' back, which is just what we need to plug Skarr's tail in.

Speaking of storage, Snarl's sword plugs onto Volcanicus' shin, as it did before, and Grimlock's swords plug onto Volcanicus' calf.  Skarr's guns plug into holes where his dino head his connected to a hinge.

Swoop's working the hardest.  Snarl's guns plug into his fists, while Sludge's plug into pegs on the back of Volcanicus' forearm.  Swoop's own swords plug into their alt mode spots on his wings.

Slag's swords can be stored by plugging them into the 5mm ports on Skarr's tail-gun-hand, now on Volcanicus' back.  While we're back there, tabs on the large swords plug into Slag's dino hips, allowing them to be stored on Volcanicus' back as well.

I've stalled long enough- here's your money shot.  The DNA feet have ball joints in the ankles, giving Volcanicus ankle pivots like Dinoking but also up/down tilt and ankle swivels.  The new forearms add a new ball joint on Swoop's side and take advantage of an existing one on Skaar's side to give Volcanicus bicep swivels and elbow bends, plus the new hands have wrist swivels and individual fingers with ball joints where they connect the hands.  The new hands hold the two larger swords MP-style, by plugging tabs on the handles into slots on his palms.

Suppose you do actually want your Dinobots stomping around in their dino modes.  What can you do with all this new combiner kibble?  Is there someplace better to store the new weapons than on the Dinobots themselves?  I'm happy to say that DNA did think of this.  First, we'll take the Swoop arm and turn it so the tabs that go into Swoop's knees and the back of the forearm are facing up and the closed fist has the fingers on the ground.  Plug Snarl's guns into ports on the elbow piece.  Plug Sludge's guns onto the forearm as you would for combined mode, then plug Skarr's guns into Sludge's.  Get the other forearm, orient it so the front of the forearm is facing up and the hand is making a fist with the fingers on the down side.  The two arms should clip together so that the fists are side-by-side, and the pelvis part will fit onto the elbow-side edge of the Skaar arm.  Then the backs of the feet will use tabs to grab onto slots on the arms.

With your base assembled, you'll now be able to store the swords on it.  The feet each have four holes around the top.  The instructions suggest Grimlock's swords near the toes on the "front" of the base, Slag's swords near the heels on the front, and Swoop's swords near the toes on the "back" of the base.  I stuck Snarl's non-DNA sword into one of the remaining small holes.  There are bigger ports near the heel, behind the ankle pegs.  Volcanicus' large swords plug into those.

I'm not going to blow smoke up your rears... Core Volcanicus was a pretty bad figure to begin with, and adding an upgrade kit brings him up to a little better than Dinoking, so not awful but still not great.  I didn't recommend buying the Core Dinos before, and this kit doesn't change that.  The individual Dinobots still suffer from pour articulation, Grimlock still has wonky proportions, and Sludge is still a hot mess; this kit doesn't do anything to address that.  I'd have liked to seen new wing missiles for Swoop and a new tail for Skaar that didn't have fists attached (and could be stowed without wedging Swoop's old gun-fist into Volcanicus' back).

However, while far from perfect, if you didn't listen to me and you already bought the Core Dinobots you should probably consider buying this kit.  Like I said, it doesn't suddenly make Volcanicus an amazing figure, but for display purposes it's hard to overstate just how much some added articulation, cool weapons, and actual feet improve the base figure.  I think DNA did a good enough job here that I might buy the Dinoking version of this kit despite Dinoking already having better hands and feet.

[shazam]

 

[mikeszekely]

You guys know that Animated Optimus Prime's a fire truck and should have a trailer, right?

So it's kind of weird that we've gotten how many toys of Animated Op over the years but the closest we've got to a trailer is an axe that folds up to look like part of the truck on the original Voyager.  Luckily, for the Legacy version, DNA has stepped in to give us a trailer.

This is DK-54, and there's a couple parts in this package.  It's a bit spoilery, but I'm going to say that there's two guns, two arms, two feet, a ladder, a hammer, an extra handle, a mask, a visor, and a backpack.  But all those pieces becomes a trailer, I promise!

We're going to start by opening up the hammer.  It happens to be hollow on the inside, and that hollow space is big enough to store the mask and visor parts.  Once the hammer's all closed up, you'll notice that there's a 5mm port on either side of the handle.  We're going to take the extra handle and plug it into one of those ports.

Get the backpack part, and it'll wrap around the hammer so that tabs on the sides of the hammer will plug into slots on the red parts.  At this point, the extra handle should be below the original one; if it's not you can pull it out and plug it into the other hole.

We need that top hole because that's what the ladder is going to plug into.  Don't worry if it doesn't seem very secure yet.  We'll lock it down when we add...

...the feet parts!  They'll come out of the box attached to each other already, but if you don't have them together yet (or are taking them apart) be aware that DNA used an unusual method of connecting them to each other.  Rather than normal tabs and slots, they have hooked tabs with slots under and in them, so you have to slide the left side up before pulling them apart, or down to lock them together when you're connecting them.  Anyway, they go under the edges of backpack/hammer handles/ladder, such that the slots I've marked in green fit on tabs on the red plastic edges, and the slots marked in orange fit onto tabs on the bottom of the ladder.

If you've done everything correctly so far, you'll have the ladder pointing toward the front, tires and boosters on the back, and a flap on the backpack flips open to reveal some mechanical fire truck details.

We're going to finish the top of the trailer by installing the arms.  Take the fists and turn them sideways, so the fins point up and the fingers are curled in toward the edges of the trailer.  Get the fists under the tabs (marked in green) and slot them into the slots on the armor the fists are attached to.

We can finish it off by attaching the guns (or water nozzles?) to the end of the ladder.  Now that the trailer is fully assembled, you'll notice a pair of red pegs under the front of the trailer.  You attach the trailer by plugging those pegs into the peg holes on Prime's feet.

Oh yeah, that's much better!  No, it's not totally cartoon accurate, what with the dual nozzles and the rocket boosters, but it's close enough for me and it definitely goes a long way toward selling the idea that Prime's supposed to be a fire truck.

Heck, there's even 5mm ports on the sides, so you can store the axe Prime came with on it.  Which is good, since the trailer is attached to the spot Hasbro intended for axe storage.

Now, I might buy an upgrade kit that gives Prime a trailer and does nothing else, but you guys might not.  Also, if it was just a trailer, it wouldn't need to come in so many pieces.  So, yeah, the gun nozzle things have fold-out 5mm pegs, and Prime can hold them like guns.  The rocket boosters on the sides of the trailer come off, and you can plug them into Prime's shoulders.  The bottom of the hammer's handle comes off, allowing you to slide it into one of Prime's fists.  And if you prefer Prime to have the battle mask on look, the one in this kit just clips onto his face.  In fact, if you really prefer the masked look, the mask can stay on during transformation to alt mode.

Fans of Animated may recall that Prime had Ratchet build him a jetpack in the two-part series finale.  What fans may or may not be aware of is that the jetpack was a simplification of a design to create a whole God Ginrai sort of upgrade for the canceled fourth season.  While you can use the parts from the trailer to recreate the jetpack from the show, DNA went the whole nine yards to recreate the concept art for season 4 Prime.  And we'll begin by folding Prime's hands in, and attaching the arm parts by simply plugging them into the 5mm ports on Prime's forearms.

For the leg parts, flip the toes and heels out from the underside, and lift the white part up to reveal a 5mm peg.  Take note of which way the built-in ankle hinges bend, then attach them to the correct feet by plugging those revealed 5mm pegs into the peg holes under Prime's feet, then closing the white part over Prime's own knee pads.

Open Prime's back flap, then take the main trailer part and fold the sides back to make a pair of v-shaped wings.  Plug them into the inside of Prime's back, and turn the boosters so they're pointing their exhausts down at the ground.

The ladder has a 5mm peg that folds out from the top; plug that peg into the 5mm port between the wings.

Prime's new backpack wings have a pair of 5mm ports on top, just behind Prime's head.  You can use 5mm pegs on the guns to plug them in there and give Prime shoulder cannons.  Then slide the visor over Prime's head and mask.

And here we have Prime's armored up super mode, and it looks pretty great if you ask me.  The new parts all fit securely, due to most of them simply using existing 5mm ports on Prime's body to connect.  Articulation is more or less the same; the new feet have their own ankle pivots, and though they don't have the extreme range of the toy's original feet I think the 45 degrees they give you is enough.  The new wrists swivel, and unlike the base figure the fingers are hinged at the base and can open, allowing you to pop the hammer into his hand without pulling the bottom off.  Actually, you can plug the second handle into the bottom of the original one to give the hammer an extra long handle that Prime can hold with both hands.

If that's not enough, you can remove the ladder from Prime's back, and fold a gun barrel out from the end.  The 5mm port can then plug into his hand, giving Prime a BFG.  My only complaints here are that DNA didn't make the barrel compatible with the usual blast effect parts, and that there's no paint that could have helped distinguish it from being just part of the ladder.

Overall, though, I think my complaints are very minor about what's turned out to be one of the very best kits DNA has made.  I mean, it gives Prime a decent fire truck trailer in alt mode, it gives Prime an optional battle mask and guns, it gives you the backpack, shoulder guns, and hammer to recreate his look in the series finale (something only Takara tried to do before), and then goes one further by giving you all the parts you need to recreate the God Ginrai-esque concept art for Prime's season 4 upgrade.  There's no loose parts in trailer mode, and there's no loose parts in his fully upgraded robot mode.  Everything fits together snugly in both modes.  There's a lot of upside and very little downside in this kit, which elevates an OK figure to pretty darn good one.  If you bought Legacy Animated Prime you should consider this kit to be an essential upgrade.  If you don't have Legacy Animated Prime, then this kit might be worth picking him up for.  Highly recommended.

[JB0]

Fire Guts Truck God Ginrai.

[J.T. Silversmith]

Yeah this kit looks really neat, I had some problems with the way the animated Prime looked and was not going to get him, and then I saw these pictures! I immediately pre-orderded the upgrade kit and then orderded Animated Optimus.  I am glad to see it is as nice a quality as I could want.  MY copy showed up yesterday, and is now wrapped and under the tree.  Tomorrow will be fun! Merry Christmas!

[sh9000]

Nice packaging.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

Nice packaging.

It's kind of ironic that NA matched the Studio Series purchasing so faithfully, only for Hasbro to change their packaging for 2025.😆

[tekering]

12 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

It's kind of ironic that NA matched the Studio Series purchasing so faithfully, only for Hasbro to change their packaging for 2025.😆

It's kind of ironic that NA matched the Studio Series packaging so faithfully, only for a figure too small to scale with SS'86 Optimus. 🙄

[M'Kyuun]

3 hours ago, tekering said:

It's kind of ironic that NA matched the Studio Series packaging so faithfully, only for a figure too small to scale with SS'86 Optimus. 🙄

TBF, it's obvious that NA developed Romulus with an expectation that SS86 Prime would be complimentary to ER Prime in scale. I think a lot of folks were surprised, myself included, when SS86 Prime was notably larger, and by that time NA was already well past the stage where they could change it. While it's slightly disappointing, I shan't cast aspersions as I've been waiting and hoping for a CHUG scaled G1 Megatron that turns into a Walther P38ish pistol, and thus far, only NewAge have had the chutzpah to even attempt it, let alone pull it off. Moreover, I felt that their legends scale fig was a bit lackluster and I'm both happy and relieved to see that Romulus is a new figure from top to bottom, a marked improvement. I'm looking forward to getting my copy as he'll be the one fig that's sorely missing from my CHUG collection. All that said, I still opine that Magic Square's Doomsday is the best iteration of G1 Megatron I've ever handled at any scale and I seriously hope they'll take a note from NA's playbook and produce Doomsday at SS86 Prime's scale. It would be both a nice coup for them from a business standpoint, but more meaningfully, it would give us fans a nigh-perfect Megs to both match the new Prime toy and fill that missing void in many a collection. I'd be happy to have CHUG Megatrons from both companies. I have both of their legends toys, but mainline is my primary Transformers collection and at the very least, I want all the first season characters.

On a side note, if Magic Square was to upgrade Doomsday, I would hope they'd also give their Optimus the same treatment, as both their 2023 legends Prime (Light of Victory) and their MP scaled variant (Light of Peace) are IMHO absolutely the best versions of that character in existence, and a CHUG scaled version would be superior to SS86. I think having CHUG scaled versions of both would preclude my ever needing to buy another G1 OP or Megatron fig for my mainline collection. I hope it happens.

[M'Kyuun]

On 12/23/2024 at 4:22 PM, mikeszekely said:

You guys know that Animated Optimus Prime's a fire truck and should have a trailer, right?

So it's kind of weird that we've gotten how many toys of Animated Op over the years but the closest we've got to a trailer is an axe that folds up to look like part of the truck on the original Voyager.  Luckily, for the Legacy version, DNA has stepped in to give us a trailer.

This is DK-54, and there's a couple parts in this package.  It's a bit spoilery, but I'm going to say that there's two guns, two arms, two feet, a ladder, a hammer, an extra handle, a mask, a visor, and a backpack.  But all those pieces becomes a trailer, I promise!

We're going to start by opening up the hammer.  It happens to be hollow on the inside, and that hollow space is big enough to store the mask and visor parts.  Once the hammer's all closed up, you'll notice that there's a 5mm port on either side of the handle.  We're going to take the extra handle and plug it into one of those ports.

Get the backpack part, and it'll wrap around the hammer so that tabs on the sides of the hammer will plug into slots on the red parts.  At this point, the extra handle should be below the original one; if it's not you can pull it out and plug it into the other hole.

We need that top hole because that's what the ladder is going to plug into.  Don't worry if it doesn't seem very secure yet.  We'll lock it down when we add...

...the feet parts!  They'll come out of the box attached to each other already, but if you don't have them together yet (or are taking them apart) be aware that DNA used an unusual method of connecting them to each other.  Rather than normal tabs and slots, they have hooked tabs with slots under and in them, so you have to slide the left side up before pulling them apart, or down to lock them together when you're connecting them.  Anyway, they go under the edges of backpack/hammer handles/ladder, such that the slots I've marked in green fit on tabs on the red plastic edges, and the slots marked in orange fit onto tabs on the bottom of the ladder.

If you've done everything correctly so far, you'll have the ladder pointing toward the front, tires and boosters on the back, and a flap on the backpack flips open to reveal some mechanical fire truck details.

We're going to finish the top of the trailer by installing the arms.  Take the fists and turn them sideways, so the fins point up and the fingers are curled in toward the edges of the trailer.  Get the fists under the tabs (marked in green) and slot them into the slots on the armor the fists are attached to.

We can finish it off by attaching the guns (or water nozzles?) to the end of the ladder.  Now that the trailer is fully assembled, you'll notice a pair of red pegs under the front of the trailer.  You attach the trailer by plugging those pegs into the peg holes on Prime's feet.

Oh yeah, that's much better!  No, it's not totally cartoon accurate, what with the dual nozzles and the rocket boosters, but it's close enough for me and it definitely goes a long way toward selling the idea that Prime's supposed to be a fire truck.

Heck, there's even 5mm ports on the sides, so you can store the axe Prime came with on it.  Which is good, since the trailer is attached to the spot Hasbro intended for axe storage.

Now, I might buy an upgrade kit that gives Prime a trailer and does nothing else, but you guys might not.  Also, if it was just a trailer, it wouldn't need to come in so many pieces.  So, yeah, the gun nozzle things have fold-out 5mm pegs, and Prime can hold them like guns.  The rocket boosters on the sides of the trailer come off, and you can plug them into Prime's shoulders.  The bottom of the hammer's handle comes off, allowing you to slide it into one of Prime's fists.  And if you prefer Prime to have the battle mask on look, the one in this kit just clips onto his face.  In fact, if you really prefer the masked look, the mask can stay on during transformation to alt mode.

Fans of Animated may recall that Prime had Ratchet build him a jetpack in the two-part series finale.  What fans may or may not be aware of is that the jetpack was a simplification of a design to create a whole God Ginrai sort of upgrade for the canceled fourth season.  While you can use the parts from the trailer to recreate the jetpack from the show, DNA went the whole nine yards to recreate the concept art for season 4 Prime.  And we'll begin by folding Prime's hands in, and attaching the arm parts by simply plugging them into the 5mm ports on Prime's forearms.

For the leg parts, flip the toes and heels out from the underside, and lift the white part up to reveal a 5mm peg.  Take note of which way the built-in ankle hinges bend, then attach them to the correct feet by plugging those revealed 5mm pegs into the peg holes under Prime's feet, then closing the white part over Prime's own knee pads.

Open Prime's back flap, then take the main trailer part and fold the sides back to make a pair of v-shaped wings.  Plug them into the inside of Prime's back, and turn the boosters so they're pointing their exhausts down at the ground.

The ladder has a 5mm peg that folds out from the top; plug that peg into the 5mm port between the wings.

Prime's new backpack wings have a pair of 5mm ports on top, just behind Prime's head.  You can use 5mm pegs on the guns to plug them in there and give Prime shoulder cannons.  Then slide the visor over Prime's head and mask.

And here we have Prime's armored up super mode, and it looks pretty great if you ask me.  The new parts all fit securely, due to most of them simply using existing 5mm ports on Prime's body to connect.  Articulation is more or less the same; the new feet have their own ankle pivots, and though they don't have the extreme range of the toy's original feet I think the 45 degrees they give you is enough.  The new wrists swivel, and unlike the base figure the fingers are hinged at the base and can open, allowing you to pop the hammer into his hand without pulling the bottom off.  Actually, you can plug the second handle into the bottom of the original one to give the hammer an extra long handle that Prime can hold with both hands.

If that's not enough, you can remove the ladder from Prime's back, and fold a gun barrel out from the end.  The 5mm port can then plug into his hand, giving Prime a BFG.  My only complaints here are that DNA didn't make the barrel compatible with the usual blast effect parts, and that there's no paint that could have helped distinguish it from being just part of the ladder.

Overall, though, I think my complaints are very minor about what's turned out to be one of the very best kits DNA has made.  I mean, it gives Prime a decent fire truck trailer in alt mode, it gives Prime an optional battle mask and guns, it gives you the backpack, shoulder guns, and hammer to recreate his look in the series finale (something only Takara tried to do before), and then goes one further by giving you all the parts you need to recreate the God Ginrai-esque concept art for Prime's season 4 upgrade.  There's no loose parts in trailer mode, and there's no loose parts in his fully upgraded robot mode.  Everything fits together snugly in both modes.  There's a lot of upside and very little downside in this kit, which elevates an OK figure to pretty darn good one.  If you bought Legacy Animated Prime you should consider this kit to be an essential upgrade.  If you don't have Legacy Animated Prime, then this kit might be worth picking him up for.  Highly recommended.

As a fan of Animated, it would stand to reason that this would appeal greatly to me, but oddly it doesn't, at least not enough to have moved me to order it. That doesn't mean I don't think DNA did a great job; quite the contrary, I think they did an excellent job, and I especially appreciate how all the bits come together to form his firetruck appendage as seen in the show, or close enough, anyway. I was just never partial to his Wingblade look, and with this being a rather pricey set, I opted out. Even now, having read the review, I'm feeling a touch of regret; I dig that firetruck look and the fact that it comes with his iconic battle mask and the Magnus Hammer as well as all the armor accoutrement to capture what would have been in fourth season (we were so robbed!). I just don't think I'd want him on the shelf wearing the armor and to me, that defeats the purpose of buying it.

[mikeszekely]

Surprise, one last review for 2024!  I'm closing out the year with MMC's Incertus, their take on a Masterpiece-style Groove.

I think by now we kind of expect that MMC isn't going to necessarily go as hard on Sunbow as some of their competitors.  Realistic details, like the handlebars behind Incertus' head and the taillights visible at the bottom of his shins are still part of how MMC's designers do their work (and, as a fan of Takara's older, pre MP-35-ish stuff, I'm grateful).  Even with the extra detail, though, MMC did stick impressively close to the Sunbow design, in ways that not even the made-specifically-for-Groove Combiner Wars figure managed.  He's got the solid gold chest, the silver arms that still have white fists, and the pipes running over his shins and around the edges of his legs.  His head even sits on a white "shelf" above his shoulders, though the edges of his "popped" collar are less a decorative lip and more functional vehicle kibble on Incertus.

Now, if you've looked at the Sunbow model, you might see that his cartoon backpack is sort of an abstract version of the front of his bike mode with the shocks, fender, and wheel missing entirely.  We don't have quite that level of toy engineering yet, but I think MMC did do a pretty impressive job of rotating the fender and storing most of the wheel inside Incertus' torso.  This contributes to a fairly clean robot mode overall.

As far as accessories go, you don't get a ton, but at the same time, you get more than enough.  There's a pistol, two leg-mounted guns, two alternate faces, and what I assume is a speaker that I guess is one of those "thing from that episode" bits.  To be frank, The Protectobots have been, in my mind, the least memorable of the combiner teams and as a stand-alone character Groove made almost no impression on me.

Groove the character might not have made much of an impression, but Incertus the toy sure is.  The articulation here is pretty great!  His head is on a ball joint that swivels, tilts up, and tilts sideways (though looking down is kind of limited due to his massive chin).  His shoulders swivel and move laterally 90 degrees, plus he's got a tiny bit of a forward/backward butterfly going on.  His biceps swivel.  His actual elbow joint bends around 130 degrees on a single hinge, but by opening a flap and using a transformation joint in his forearm you can actually bend his elbows a full 180 degrees.  His wrists swivel.  Each of his fingers are individual digits, molded into curves but hinged at the base knuckles for the fingers and a ball joint for the thumb.  His waist swivels, plus he's got nearly 90 degrees of ab crunch.  His hips can go 90 degrees laterally, plus they 90 degrees backward and around 120 degrees forward on a soft ratchet.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 120 degrees on a single hinge.  HIs entire foot has a little up/down tilt, plus his black does have their own up/down tilt, and his ankles pivot 90 degrees.

Just like other recent MMC figures, Groove's pistol has a tab on the back of the handle that plugs into his palms.

I don't know if he was actually animated with them or not, but Groove's control art has guns on the sides of his legs near his feet.  This is a gimmick lifted straight from the G1 toy, and if it's a look you like Incertus has you covered.  Above his ankles, just above the tampoed "POLICE", you can fold out a small tab.  This tab plugs into squarish plugs on the inner edge of the guns.

Likewise, if you don't really like the neck shelf, no matter how cartoon accurate it is, you can use a few hinges to sink part of it into his chest, lowering his head to a more natural position at the expense of some of that shelf sticking around as kibble along the sides of his head

As far as the faces go, it looks like they just slide forward and off, but I prefer the stoic face and don't want to accidentally scratch the paint, so I didn't feel like actually pulling it off.

Oh, yeah, and the speaker-thing.  Turns out his hands are actually pegged into his wrists, so all you have to do is yank his whole hand off.  Then the speaker, which has a peg on the back, simply plugs into the hole on his wrist vacated by his hand.  I guess it's nice that they included it, but if I'm being real it's going in a baggie, and that baggie is going into a box in my closest where I will promptly forget about it forever.

Groove's transformation is surprisingly interesting.  His head, chest, and upper arms mostly wind up inside his torso, with the kibble that was flanking his head closing up over the top of his torso to form the fuel tank.  His calves fold out and bend around to lift his feet up and form the seat, but his shins and thighs remain flat and form the bottom of the bike with his forearms filling in the gap between.  It's a transformation that seems both clever and surprisingly straightforward once you've done it once or twice, but it can be a bit tricky to make sure his head and the flaps they're attached to are actually in the right spots for his chest to fold inward all the way.

Groove's original toy was kind of chunky and missing details, and the sunbow model replaced the pair of headlights with a weird-looking grill, but they were both kind of recognizable as an early '80s Honda Gold Wing motorcycle (GL1200, I think).  To better match the Sunbow art some of the faring is missing, leaving the engine a bit exposed, but there's a good amount of realistic detail mixed in the with simple Sunbow deco.

The details include painted tachometer and speedometers, painted handbrakes, and painted switches on the handles, plus turning the handlebars turn with the front wheel.

Due to the way the G1 toy transformed, the guns that were on his ankles wound up behind the seat.  However, the bot mode tabs are, as I mentioned, just behind the "POLICE" tampoes.  I think a lesser company might have left the connection there, and figured it's close enough.  Not for MMC, though.  There's a second set of tabs that fold out near the top of the back of the bike, allowing you to mount the guns there.  As for his pistol, it kind of tucks into a notch on the back of the bike.

From bike mode, it doesn't take much to get into leg mode.  As you'd expect, the entire front of the bike comes up and swivels over.  The fuel tank splits open into it's bot-mode position to give the front of the bike some room, and the seat splits in half and slides open to leave a gap for the wheel to tuck into.  It's not nothing, but I think we have to concede that it's not really as clever as the way their Streetwise expanded into leg mode, and their Hotspot is doing a lot of the heavy lifting by storing the feet instead of having the leg bots do it.

I'm not complaining, though!  I think it'd be kind of petty to complain that the leg mode is kind of simple when it's A.) still effective, and B.) coming in addition to what is already a fantastic robot and fantastic motorcycle.  I mean, a running theme with MMC's Protectobots has been that they're already a step up in engineering from their still-impressive Combaticons, and Incertus might just been the best one yet.  I think Incertus is about as close to a perfect MP Groove as you could hope for, and ultimately I think edging out Fugu's God of Flame, the Mecha Invasion Constructicons, and fellow MMC Protectobot Ignis (Hot Spot) as my favorite 3P figure in 2024*, so I'm giving him my highest recommendation.

*I actually have one other 2024 release coming, but it won't be here in time for me to review.

[sh9000]

 

Looks good.

[Hikuro]

heading to a shop out of town tomorrow, decided I'm going to pickup Stellarus, the stock the shop I'm going too has the fixed qc issues so they say, and I'd rather have that than the titan class Star OP. Maybe find some other stuff but not sure exactly what yet....this shop tends to stock more 3rd party figures than anything. 

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

Regarding M-01 Steel Fortress, do I skip a house payment, or just save it for a 4 foot tall Metroplex?