The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[JB0]

As a kid, Kickback was the insecticon I wanted, Shrapnel was the insecticon I had. Nothing left but the rest.

 

Those two look so much like the toys they're based on, and it makes me really happy. Just need chrome guns. Pity Kickbutt is so chunky.

(Shrapnel's forearm-clip is an iconic part of his gun to me, but I do realize that's a decidedly minority opinion.)

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, JB0 said:

As a kid, Kickback was the insecticon I wanted, Shrapnel was the insecticon I had. Nothing left but the rest.

 

Those two look so much like the toys they're based on, and it makes me really happy. Just need chrome guns. Pity Kickbutt is so chunky.

(Shrapnel's forearm-clip is an iconic part of his gun to me, but I do realize that's a decidedly minority opinion.)

Well, like I think I mentioned, $140 at BBTS for all three of the the toy-style Collector's Edition.  Considering that they originally went for $80 each, and the FansToys ones would run you a little more (assuming you could actually find them all), I can forgive a chunky Kickbutt.  I mean, at that price, it's like buying BC's Bombshell and Shrapnel and getting Kickbutt for free.

Of course, if you're on the fence you could always wait until I review their Bombshell tomorrow... 

Anyway, I think the fly in the ointment could be MMC's.  What I've seen of them looks pretty good, and they're not too expensive, but they've been delayed so many times.  And now that I have Insecticons, it's not like I need them.  I may or may not pick them up, depending on how much other stuff I want is out at the time.

[JB0]

Are the MMC ones chromed with amber chestplates?

...

Looks like chrome yes, amber no. But Shrapnel's gun is as close to the toy as you can get without clipping onto the forearm(Missed it by a hair, guys!).

Insecticons are toy-canon in my mind, so if the MMC versions ever ship, having "the right" guns is a big deal. On the other hand.... the Badcube clones are here now. And MMC may have decided two almost-perfect sets of insecticons was enough and they'd never turn a profit on their's.

[mikeszekely]

Wrapping up BadCube's bugs with Hypno, their version of my personal favorite Insecticon, Bombshell.

Aside from the now-obvious chrome (on his gun and his little head thing) and the translucent chest, one distinction I'm going to point out right away is that this Collector's Edition of Hyptno has a toy-style purple chest.  Like I said, I had the toys as a kid and purple is what I'm used to.  Anyone looking for a G1 Sunbow gray chest should get the Value Pack.

Beyond that, what's to say that i didn't really cover with the other two?  He's got the wrist guns and enough of the bug legs protruding from his shoudlers to be accurate to the cartoon.  And, like the cartoon, he's got the molded lines on the front of his shoulders meant to evoke the middle bug legs.  He goes for the silver helmet and red eyes of the cartoon, which is fine, but I think I'd have liked some black in the slots on the mouth plate.  His thighs have the shape of the cartoon, complete with the circle knobs on his knees, and his shins have the little triangular bumps.  Although he sports a toy-style translucent chest BadCube painted the squares silver to match the cartoon.  The extra detail on his crotch and the tiny splashes of red and purple paint on his shins seems to be an invention of BC, but a welcome one that keeps him visually interesting.

Accessory-wise, he comes with a yet another Energon Cube and his gun, which lack some of the details of the cartoon and the toy.  However, I think it's probably close enough, and there's a reason for it.  No extra faces for him, though.  As with the others, you can fold the gun up and place it on his back, which is very neat and tidy.

Hypno's head is on a ball joint that can look up about 45 degrees, down a hair, rotate, and tilt sideways a little.  His shoulders rotate with the entire yellow bug eye and can soft ratchet out the side over 90 degrees.  Just be sure when you're manipulating his shoulders that you leave a finger on the bug leg, since that's actually the ratcheted part, and lowering his shoulders without holding the bug leg in place will cause the shoulder to move without it.  He has a bicep swivel, and double-jointed elbows (friction on top, soft ratchet on the bottom) that doesn't quite have the same range as Claymore and Kickbutt but still gets you better than 90 degrees.  His wrists swivel, and he's got the same MP-carbot hands as the other two.  His waist is ball-jointed, and he can do some sideways and backward lean but the hinge for his chest door prevents him from getting an ab crunch.  Ratcheted universal hips can go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally, and like the others his thigh swivels around the joint which limits the range, but still provides enough of a natural range.  Ratcheted knees get a little shy of 90 degrees.  His ankles have a miniscule up/down tilt, and his toes can bend upward.  He's got a fantastic inward tilt that can easily exceed 90 degrees.  And of course he can hold his gun using the same style of connection as the others, which is very snug and secure.

Insect mode has some red and blue painted details that evoke the G1 stickers, and a lot of the molded details  I also like how the wrist gun and bug legs folded into his shoulders extend to make his front and rear bug legs, but the middle legs fold out from his back and reach under his robot arms in a way that still gives him a very G1 leg arrangement.  There's a lot of clever engineering going on, actually.  Panels fold out of his legs and wrap over his chest.  These panels are purple no matter which version of Hypno you get, which means the gray-chested Value Pack version still makes a purple bug, just like the cartoon.  Also, the black part of his proboscis is hidden in his chest in robot mode, but the chrome part is actually his gun.  

If I have one complaint, it's the same one I've been making and that's that the bug mode seems a little too thick.

The smaller faux proboscis hides inside his chest in bug mode, and opening the chest door exposes it like an extra hidden gun.  The proboscis is ball jointed where the black connects to his body, giving him a bit of wiggle room, and hinged where the gun handle mates with the black part ot bend upward.  As with the other Evil Bug Corp members, the bug legs have a few joints but they're really more for transformation, as you really only have a few options for keeping them flat on the ground.  That being said, the joints are strong enough that they do keep his body off of the ground.

Maybe it's because Bombshell is my favorite, but Hypno feels like the best of BadCube's Insecticons.  I think that reinforces what I said yetserday... Kickbutt is the most flawed, but if you can live with Kickbutt's flaws then Mercenary and Hypno are good enough and both the Value Pack and Collector's Edition versions are cheap enough that BadCube's Evil Bug Corp is worth picking up if you need quality Insecticons with good articulation that are somewhere between a Deluxe/MP Bumblebee and a Voyager/MP carbot in size.

But is Hypno the best 3P Bombshell?  Tune in tomorrow...

[JB0]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Maybe it's because Bombshell is my favorite, but Hypno feels like the best of BadCube's Insecticons.  

I don't think it is nostalgia. He looks very technically sound, and the extra girth doesn't hurt here near as much as it did on Kickbutt. 

Not-Shrapnel doesn't really do much of anything to disguise the arms(in fairness, neither did the original, but it was a lot cheaper), and the rear deck doesn't line up the way it should. Technically-speaking he's probably the worst of the three, but he's Shrapnel and slavishly toy-styled so I give him a huge pass.

 

Also, the headgun swap at transformation is super-clever of them.

[mikeszekely]

Well, I hinted yesterday that we weren't done with bugs yet.  And here's the thing... I kind of talked a bit about some features and design notes on the BadCube bugs in relation to their FansToys counterparts, almost entirely based on what I'd seen but not experienced.  And if I'm being totally honest, my sometimes contrarian nature means that the borderline religious devotion FansToys seems to evoke in some circles makes me inclined to judge them a little harsher and give their competition a bit of a break.  In the interest of giving you guy a more fair read on the BadCube vs. FansToys thing, I broke down and bought my first (and to date, only) FT figure.  This is Grenadier, their version of Bombshell.  Note that I got this copy second-hand, so the Decepticon symbols were already there (indeed, I spent an hour removing the rest of the Reprolabels), and I'm starting with him as I received him although I think he usually ships the other way around.

So my initial thought is, from the front, I think I prefer FT's aesthetic.  The proportions are a little better, and he's got the dark paint inside his mouth grill that I wished BC had.  The paint on his chest is a gorgeous metallic purple, which I love.  Looking a little deeper, though, and I'm starting to see some problems.  His head antenna is way too small for my tastes.  He's got little faux wheel bumps on his forearms, but not the wrist guns.  Similarly, there are little circular protrusions on his shoulders, but they're entirely for show.  And, personal preference, I like the little touches of red and purple on BC's legs.  FT went with a little purple on the edges, and that's it.  Also, the unpainted gray knees really stand out against the silver paint on his thighs.

I don't often make a point of showing figures from behind, but I think it's worth doing here.  Here's the big aesthetic difference between FT and BC... BC cleverly engineered Hypno's bug legs so they're very tucked away and mostly showing up as accurate details, and BC smartly made Hypno's proboscis into his gun.  FT busied themselves making a figure that looks just fine from the front, but does so by having a ton of leg and proboscis kibble hanging of Grenadier's back.  It's true that a lot of collector's buy figures to display and never really see the back, but I still feel like this is really sloppy.

Grenadier does come with several accessories.  We get not one but three Energon cubes, an alternate, cartoon-style solid chest piece, six alternate bug legs, and a chromed weapon that's maybe slightly more G1-accurate than the one that came with Hypno, but doesn't have to do double-duty as a bug nose.

Grenadier's head is, I think, on a ball joint.  It rotates fine, but tilt in any direction is fairly limited.  His shoulders can rotate and move laterally a shade over 90 degrees.  He's got a bicep swivels, and although his elbows are single-jointed for 90 degrees you can make use of a transformation joint to fake a full curl, if you want.  On my copy, his elbows are a tad loose.  His wrists can rotate, and he's got MP-carbot-style hands with a fixed thumb and fingers molded as one solid piece hinged at the base knuckles.  His waist can swivel, but it's insanely tight.  His hips are friction universals that can go a little over 90 degrees forward, that can go about 90 degrees backward (but the proboscis on his back gets in the way), and 90 degrees laterally.  He has thigh swivels just below the hip joint.  He's got double-jointed knees that get a little over 90 degrees.  His feet can bend down, although the bug legs on his calves bump into his heels, or you can bend his toe down, but neither bend up.  For transformation reasons his feet can also rotate inward, but not outward.  Lastly, he does have a dedicated hinge for inward ankle tilts of about 45 degrees.  All-in-all, some joints have better range on the FT version, some have better range on the BC version, FT only uses friction while BC has some ratchets, but for the most part they're both similar, both good in terms of articulation.

Grenadier holds his gun fine.  It's takes a little more effort to get in than Hypno's, and isn't as secure, but it's perfectly adequate and better than some of the actual MPs at staying in his hand.

Grenadier's bug mode is good.  I think it makes a bit too much of an effort to hide the robot arms, something neither the G1 toy nor cartoon did, and had they not done so they could have tried to integrate the bug legs into said arm like BC did and maybehe wouldn't be so messy in robot mode (or have the visible robot hands from the back/underside views). And that bit of purple paint on the rear was black in both the cartoon and the toy... if FT wanted the break up the black, I wish they'd have take a cue from BC and gone for the red or blue details that came from the G1 stickers.  Grenadier feels tighter and more secure in bug mode than Hypno does, though, and doesn't have the same thickness issue.  His robot legs are locked in place a little tighter, there's no fold out purple panels to cover the robot chest (so no gray-to-purple color change gimmick like the Value Pack Hypno), and the probosics isn't on a ball joint at the base.  That means he looses some of the range Hypno has, but the base is locked firmly into place and the two hinges FT placed along the length seem prefectly adequate for articulating it.  FT did include storage for his robot gun, but rather than doing the smart thing and making it part of the proboscis like BadCube did it clips between his bot legs and sticks out the back like he's giving birth to himself (maybe that's how the Insecticons made clones of themselves?).

Now, this view is with the first set of legs, which are meant to be G1-style.  And I think they are evocative of the G1 toy/cartoon, despite not being attached to his robot arms.  But let's check out the other legs (I'm not swapping the chests; I like my translucent amber an you can probably guess what he'd look like with solid yellow).

The other set are more insectoid.  Each leg has at least one more hinge than the G1-style, plus the front and rear legs have an additional swivel.  The joints are strong enough to lift Grenadier off the ground (despite the absurd amount of diecast in him).  I greately prefer these legs.  They're not G1-accurate, and in the cartoon the Insecticons just kind of flew around, but I can totally imagine Grenadier scuttling around on these legs.

Switching to the insectoid legs doesn't really help clean up his robot mode, though.

There is one thing, one difference between Grenadier and Hypno, that pictures don't show.  Grenadier has an insane amount of diecast in him.  I wish I had a kitchen or postal scale for you guys to give you some concrete numbers, but Grenadier probably weights more than all three of BadCube's bugs combined.  I'm actually holding an Xbox One controller with the batteries installed in one hand and Grenadier in the other and I feel like they're pretty close.  Is this how FT brainwashes people?  I mean, on the one hand, Grenadier certainly has a lot of lovely paint, and the heft of him does take you back to when you were a kid in the '80s playing with toys that had a lot more diecast than modern toys do.  But let's be realistic, how much diecast does a toy a head taller than MP Bumblebee need?  Does paint and diecast cause people to overlook things like questionable joint tolerances (like I've got with Grenadier's elbows and waist), or other QC issues (Scoria's hips, Tesla's elbow, Forager's wing clasps, etc)?  Because a lot of people hold them in such high regard, like they're the best 3P out there and there's a gulf between them and the 2nd place, and if FT announces a figure people will declare that it'll be the best one based on nothing but a sihlouette and a reputation that, frankly, I'm not sure they actually deserve.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Grenadier or any other FT figure is bad; they're not!  FT makes good figures.  What I am saying, though, is that other 3P's do too.  Sometimes better... there's a reason I bought Gundog instead of Willis, and in the near future we're going to talk about some other cases where FT made a figure and I went/will go with a different company.

In the case of the Bombshell wars, though... I think I do actually like Grenadier better than Hypno.  Don't get me wrong, I still think Hypno's a very good choice, and I definitely think BadCube had the much smarter engineering.  I just think FanToys' made a better-looking robot (at least from the front), and a tighter, better-looking bug.  Neither is perfect, and there's definitely enough room for improvement that MMC's could turn out to be the best... if it's ever released.  But, more importantly, FansToys' bugs are over $80 each at retail, with second-hand prices climbing over $100 (with Forager, their Kickback, nowhere to be had at all).  I do personally like Grenadier better, and I feel comfortable recommending him as a stand-alone figure, but I definitely don't think he (and the two I didn't buy) are worth the extra cost and hassle.  If you want a complete set of Insecticons, BadCube is a much better value right now.  Or, you could wait and see how MMC's shake out.

[JB0]

I think you are missing the important thing. FT included THREE energon cubes instead of one. That is triple the value right there. THAT'S why they command a premium.

Edited August 4, 2017 by JB0

[mikeszekely]

6 hours ago, JB0 said:

I think you are missing the important thing. FT included THREE energon cubes instead of one. That is triple the value right there. THAT'S why they command a premium.

That's true, but the FT cubes are just a hollow, translucent purple that feels like your usual translucent plastic. The BadCube ones are solid and have a different feel that's hard to describe. I think I like the BC ones better, although they're both smaller than the clear cubes that come with MP Soundwave or the cubes that came with Despotron.

[mikeszekely]

For a long time I've been saying that I'm not really doing MPs, that my head-canon is a comic-bookish land where Transformers are similar more similar in size than the Sunbow chart would indicate and that Voyagers work best for me.  But I have an MP-10.  And a couple of MP cars (regular and 3P), because they were sort of Voyagerish.  And lately, other more MP-ish figures have been sneaking into my collection, like Despotron (Megatron), Salus (Ratchet), Op Ex (IDW Optimus), and Powertrain (IDW Motormaster) at the MP-10 range or stuff like Brawny and the Insecticons I've picked up that are smaller but still meant to go in an MP collection.

Logic dictates I get an MP Shockwave.  In this case, I went with Cloud 9's Quakeblast.

Takara's official toy is, perhaps, a more cartoon-accurate Shockwave, but I'm not really sure why anyone would actually want a cartoon Shockwave outside of completionist reasons.  He was rarely in the cartoon, chilling on Cybertron while the rest of the Decepticons did stuff, and on the occasions when the action would come to Cybertron he proved to be an incompentent sychophant.  No, friends, a Seeker-sized, skinny-legged lickspittle who can't aim for jack despite being a guy with a gun for a hand that turns into a gun isn't for me.  When I was a kid, I didn't just watch the cartoon, I also read the Marvel comics.  That'd be the comics where Shockwave single-handedly takes out all of the Autobots before beating the tar out of Megatron and taking over as leader of the Decepticons just because he decided it was the logical thing to do.  I wanted a darker purple, beefier, taller Shockwave, and man does Quakeblast ever fit the bill.  The head, the ears, the protruding hexagonal chest, the ridges on top of his chest, the protrusions on his shoulders, the knee pads, the feet, the rounded silver sides on the lower legs, all Shockwave.  The vent under his chest is a little exaggerated, but I'm cool with that.  The purple may be too dark for some people's taste, but again, I'm pretty cool with that too.  Seriously, my one and only complaint is the toy-accurate translucent pink hand and hand-gun.  I've heard that some runs of Quakeblast came with a solid hand (or at least additional translucent hands and gun-hands), but the secondhand copy I received didn't have much in the way of accessories.  And sweet baby Primus, the paint.  All that silver you see?  Paint.  The metallic purple?  That's either paint, or a really paint-like finish on the plastic.  He definitely looks like a premium figure.

Since we're talking aesthetics, let's address something upfront.  Quakeblast has been called a knock off of FansToys Quakewave.  It's even rumored that stores like BBTS and TFSource didn't carry Quakeblast because of pressure from FansToys.  Whether or not you think Quakeblast is a KO depends on where you think the line is.  Cloud 9 clearly didn't copy FT's mold.  They're aesthetically similar in the way that Hypno and Grenadier are, because they're meant to be the same character, but the sculpt is entirely original.  They definitely aped FT's engineering, though.  I've heard people say, "well, there's only so many ways you can do Shockwave" and to an extent, to the way the upper body transforms, that's true.  But the differences in transformation across the entire figure, including the way the legs and backpack work, have only the most minor of differences.  Is that enough to make it a KO?  If so, would that make ACE toys Cliffjumper a KO of MP Bumblebee?  Or does borrowing another company's method of transformation but doing an entirely different sculpt make for an original toy?  Well, that's a call you guys can make for yourselves.  All I'm saying is that I picked the one that is aesthetically the closest to my mental picture of Shockwave.

Because Quakeblast didn't come with much of any accessories, we're going to skip them for now and just talk about them later, when we get to alt mode.  For now, we'll go right to articulation.  I think his head is on a ball joint, but both his up/down and sideways tilt is fairly limited but it rotates fine.  His shoulders are ratcheted in the round part that's in his torso, then ratcheted again inside the shoulder armor itself, with a rotational joint in between them.  Between the two joints his lateral motion greatly exceeds 90 degrees.  The only thing to watch out for is that, due to the shape of his shoulder armor, there's a small range using the joint in his shoulder for lateral movement inhibits the rotation, but it's pretty easy to just use the joint in his chest instead.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows can bend a little over 90 degrees.  His right hand can swivel at the wrist, then each finger is individually articulated.  The thumb is on a ball joint with two additional hinges, and the fingers are ball-jointed at the base with one additional hinge.  His waist is on a ratcheted swivel that can be slightly hindered by his backpack rubbing the scope on his butt, but the scope can be moved or the backpack removed.  The armor on the sides of his hips are hinged to give him clearance.  The hips themselves ratchet forward about 45 degrees and backward a bit less than that due to the fixed front and rear waist armor not giving enough clearance for one or two more clicks.  They can move laterally a little short of 90 degrees on friction joints that hold great despite the diecast in his feet (so there was no reason for the crappy ratchets with too much gap between teeth in Calidus' hips, MMC, and yes I'm still sore about that!).  He has soft-ratcheted thigh swivels just below the hips, but if you want a finer control over the angle of his lower legs there's a friction swivel below his knee as well.  The knees themselves are ratcheted and good for 90 degrees.  His heels and the front silver part of his feet can bend up a little and down a lot.  He's also got about 45 degrees of inward ankle tilt, but be aware that if he's standing stock straight the armor on the sides of his legs may tab into the purple part of his feet.

Cloud 9 included a few LEDs... as far as I know, there's one in his head, one in his chest, and one in each hand/wrist.  I can't show them all off, due to the lack of batteries, but I found enough to light up his eye.  Under bright lights it looks good, but in dimmer lighting you can't see his face with the light on.  It's like staring into the sun.

Now, about that backpack of his... it works ok as a backpack, although it doesn't hug close to his back and the hinge for the scope seems inadequate to pretend to be the backpack hinge.  If you like, though, you can remove it to give him a cleaner (if less accurate) look.

As with FT's Quakewave, the backpack can split down the middle of one side then wrap backward around itself to form the alt-mode barrel.  Unlike Quakewave, Quakeblast includes a second, more G1 gun barrel as one of the few accessories.

So here he is with the backpack barrel (left) and the G1 barrel (right).  The G1 barrel is longer and definitely looks better on him, but there's something to be said for the all-in-oneness of the backpack barrel.  Like the G1 toy, the G1-style barrel has no purpose in bot mode.  I've also heard stories of some people (notably Youtube personality peaugh) breaking the gun hand due to how it sits in the G1 barrel.  I've been ok so far, but I also sanded the clips down a bit and cut out some of the plastic inside where the gun hand sits.

The only other accessoy I have with my Quakeblast is a second hose.  The idea is that the first hose is longer for robot mode, so it doesn't interfere with his articulation, while the second hose is a little shorter for alt mode.  Honestly, it takes a bit of effort to remove the hose from his back, so I don't think it's really worth switching them out.  I've also heard that the connection to his arm is a loose.  It is, but not so loose that it comes out while posing him or anything.

And finally, there he is with another MP gun-bot.  He's much longer, but much shorter than Despotron.  The trigger is more for show than function, as there's no spring or anything to move it back into place.  The entire handle feels small and he's not very comofortable to hold.  The butt of the gun doesn't quite have that tapered G1 shape, either, but it's close enough for me.  I mean, it's just a little off in a couple of areas, but those seem to be concessions to making his robot mode look as good as possible, and I'm generally ok with that.  Concessions aside, it's still very obviously a Shockwave space-gun.

This is one of those times when I say that it's just great that we as a fandom have so many great options for so many characters.  Like I said at the beginning, the official version is definitely more Sunbow G1, and if that's what you want or if you just prefer to go official when possible then MP Laserwave is a legitimate choice.  If you're like me, though, and craving a more imposing Shockwave I really can't recommend this guy enough.  For a company's first (and, aside from some upcoming repaints, only) figure it's very polished with excellent paint, copious ratchet joints, and excellently-toleranced friction joints in places that aren't ratcheted.  He's a fantastic figure, and relatively cheap to boot (ebay prices range from around $60-$80, and TF-Direct sells him for $80 with free shipping).

[mikeszekely]

Robots In Disguise is, perhaps, my least favorite Transformers fiction (that'd be the 2001 American version of Car Robots, not the current one cartoon, although I'm not real fond of that one either).  It was corny, and half the villains were repainted Beast Wars characters.  It was kind of nice to see some realistic cars turning into robots again, but characters like Prowl and X-Brawn were basically horrible shellformers.  There were a few things I liked about it, though.  Super Optimus Prime (Fire Convoy), Railracer, Ruination, and Scourge.  I was especially fond of Scourge because, although he wasn't the really the first black repaint of a Optimus/Convoy, he was my first exposure to the idea of an evil version of Optimus and probably the character who really cemented the idea of that black repaints of Optimus are Black Convoy/Nemesis Prime and not the real Optimus with new paint (like Nucleon Quest Super Convoy).  After hearing some good things about it, then, I decided to check out Archenemy, an MP-style Scourge/Black Convoy from new kids on the block Fans Hobby.

Archenemy is maybe a shade taller than MP-10, and is definitely a pretty good Scourge likeness.  Differences from the cartoon, like the blue on the edges of his "helmet" and the grill that isn't just a black rectangle is toy-accurate, if not cartoon accurate.  Some extra detail, like the vents and panels on the teal part under his chest or the grooves in his mouth plate, seem to be a deliberate attempt to give Archenemy an aesthetic style very similar to MP-10, a move I approve of.  The teap on him is all a gorgeous metallic paint.  It all comes across as using MP-10 as a model making an MP of Scourge's cartoon appearance then tossing in a little extra toy details.  I'm not really able to come up with much of anything to complain about aesthetically in this mode.

I can, however, complain about the lack of accessories, because that sword is it.  Granted, it's not a bad sword, with a nice translucent red blade and a black hilt that, although not entirely cartoon or toy accurate, I prefer to having a whole red/pink sword.  But, c'mon, no gun?  (Apparently Fans Hobby is working on a trailer for Archenemy that will include a gun for him.)

Archenemy's head is on a hinge swivel.  He can look up probably about 30 degrees and rotate his head, but that's it.  His shoulders rotate on ratchets, but the angle of the truck kibble can cause his shoulders to get caught up on his backpack.  A friction hinge inside his shoulder armor can move his arm laterally a little less than 90 degrees, but the armor itself can swivel inward a bit to get him just past 90 degrees, and ratcheted transformation joints can let you manipulate the shoulders even higher.  Like MP-10, the arms also can slide outward from his torso a little to give you a little extra clearance.  He has a bicep swivel a just above his elbow, which is a single-jointed friction hinge that does go past 90 degrees.  His wrists can swivel.  His thumb is fixed and his fingers are pinned at the base knuckle.  The index finger is separate, with an addition hinged knuckle, while the other three are a single molded piece.  Although his index finger can move independently and has a little extra articulation, he can't open any of his fingers very far so he can't even manage MP-10's droopy pointing.  He has a small ab crunch, and his waist can swivel.  His hips are ratcheted in every direction, and whichever way they move they get more than 45 degrees but less than 90.  His thighs swivel just below the hips.  His knees are double-jointed, both ratchets, and he can get some pretty deep bends before his calves start banging his thighs.  His feet can point down a little, nothing really upward, with incredible 90 degree inward ankle tilts.  Plus, his heels and toes can wiggle slightly up or, due to transformation, bend very far down.

He holds is lone accessory very well, using a notch on the handle that fits into a groove in his palm very similar to newer Maketoys figures.

If for some reason carrying his sole accessory in his hand is too much of a burden for him, there are panels on the backs of his shoulders that can be rotated around to reveal peg holes.  A peg can be folded out from the middle of the sword's hilt, and from there it's a simple matter to plug it onto the back of his shoulder in a way that just looks awkward.

I'm not one who usually criticizes toys for being too easy to transform, but Fans Hobby didn't add a lot to what was already a super simple transformation.  The result is... fair.  It does have rubber tires, and I like that they painted the lights above the cab as well as the headlights. They really should have molded another vertical line where the front of the truck splits, because that gap is pretty unsightly, and he's missing some of the teal stripes.  Due to some differences in engineering, his forearms still form a step but it's too far forward and sticks out ridiculously far.  Then, instead of being a black fuel tank, the rest of his forearm is a diamond-plate box, with silver fold out fuel tanks instead.  He's completely missing the black and teal air breathers... and his trailer.  Speaking of trailers, no, this guy is NOT compatible with MP-10's trailer.  I don't have a problem with that, though, as Scourge shouldn't be pulling anything but an oil tanker.

The step isn't even under the door.  Even if I was fine with that, and fine with it sticking out so far, and fine with the missing air breathers, would it have killed then to have some kind of folding ladder or something to fill that ugly gap between the step and the fuel tank?

As long as we're talking lazy, look at the way the feet just hang out from the back.  I think even the original toy did better than that.  How hard would it have been to make the front of the foot, which is already pretty hollow, two pieces instead of one?  If they'd done that, with a hinge between them, the toe could have folded in against the back of the truck.  Also, super lazy for them to have molded tail lights but leave them unpainted.  Finally, MP-10 gets a lot of flack forhaving really obvious robot legs on the back, but half of Archenemy's thighs are still showing.  As part of his transformation, panels from the backs of this legs fold to the insides, like MP-10, but Archenemy would have been much better off with slightly thicker legs and panels that folded up to hide his butt and thighs instead.

So where does that leave us, then?  We have a robot, wtih nearly perfect robot aesthetics and very good articulation with nice paint and even a little diecast, which is great.  But that robot has a transformation that makes some of Hasbro's current Deluxes seem complicated that makes for a more mediocre truck mode that might have really benefitted from a little more engineering, next to nothing in the way of accessories, and he's not a G1 character.  All-in-all, Archenemy is a good toy, but one that I'm not sure is worth the asking price.  If he were $100 I'd not only recommend him I'd probably be buying the Laser Optimus repaint, but as it stands I feel like I got a lot more bang for my buck even with more expensive figures like Op Ex.

[mikeszekely]

With a Megatron, a Shockwave, Constructicons, my US-releases of Starscream and Skywarp based on the old MP-3 mold (although Starscream has a busted wing), and Insecticons I feel like I've gone from someone who wasn't collecting MPs to someone having MP-style releases of nearly all the Season 1 Decepticons (kinda regretting selling off my Hasbro Soundwave now...).  Let's finish filling my fodder with Maketoys Visualizers, their version of an MP Reflector.

There are a couple different sets out there, and I'm not really going to touch on the FansToys or KFC versions.  I'll just say that, aside from the white on their feet, they're very animation-accurate (not that FT and KFC aren't).  The purple helmets are a shade too thin, but I think they have the best face sculpts of the three options and they have the most cartoonish pelvises.  There are also some interesting details; the two end guys are basically the same toy, but the middle is very different, yet they molded  fake panels and hinges on the middle's legs and feet and fake slots on the end guys' crotches to keep them visually cohesive.

It's not fair to keep referring to them as "end guys" and "middle guy."  Like the G1 toy, Maketoys did give them individual names.  On the left is Analyzer (Spectro), the middle is Lensfinder (Viewfinder), and the one on the right is Monocular (Spyglass).  Lensfinder is easy to tell apart, due to being a different figure and having the shutter in his belly.  From the front, Analyzer and Moncular are nearly identical.

It's a lot easier to tell them apart from behind, though.  Unlike FT and KFC's efforts, the lens is not detachable.  It actually splits apart and integrates into their backpacks.  Analyzer is the one with just the purple backpack, while Monocular's got the big green lense on his back.

A quick size comparison.  These guys are much taller than MP Bumblebee or any of the MP-style Insecticons.  They're just a little shorter than an MP car.  I really don't know and don't care how accurate that is to the Sunbow scale chart, but it works fine for me.

The Visualizers come with a good amount of accessories.  The black part and the gray part are for camera mode, and we'll talk about them later.  We've also got a small camera to represent them mass-shifted, three very G1-style guns, three alternate faces, and a camera flash.  The flash isn't just for alt mode; there's a handle on it so any of the Visualizers can hold it, and the front flips open to reveal some molded missiles inside.  I like that there's no goofy accessories that transform into the lense.

The extra faces aren't really working for me, though.  On the left is the default stoic face, which is fine.  There's an evil grinning face which I dig.  The others, though, are "worried pooping" and "about to cry," neither of which are really what I want on even my cannon fodder Decepticons.  It's a shame, too, because I'd have liked them all to have different faces.  As it stands, Lensfinder gets the grin and the other two will have to remain stoic.

All of their heads are on ball joints that can look up a bit, down until their chins touch their torsos, sideways a bit, and rotate.  Their shoulders are on ball joints with the shoulder armor snapped over the peg like a Gundam model.  They can rotate and move 90 degrees laterally.  They have bicep swivels, and double-jointed elbows that don't quite get the full curl.  Their hands are like MP cars with wrist swivels and all their fingers molded as a single piece pinned at the base knuckle.  They have waist swivels.  All three of them are limited by their backpacks, but Lensfinder does have a bit more swivel than the others due to his waist joint sitting a little lower.  They have friction universal joints for hips.  They all get get about 90 degrees forward and backward (although, again, Lensfinder slightly exceeds the other two), but only a little over 45 degrees laterally.  They have thigh swivels.  Lensfinder's knees are double-jointed, ratcheted at both ends, and allow him to get all the way to heel-to-butt.  The other two have soft ratcheted knees, with friction transformation joints that kind of act like a double-jointed knee, but can only manage 90 degrees of bend regardless.  Their ankles are ball joints that give them a little up/down tilt, at least 45 degrees of inward ankle tilt, and a bit of a swivel.

Their guns fit into their hands via a tab on the back of the handle that fits into slots between the thumb and the palm.  The connection is a little loose, but with their hands closed around the handles they're not going to fall out or anything.

As is tradition, the Visualizers each transform into a chunk of camera, and those chunks combine to make the whole camera.  It's a mix of cartoon and toy details (interesting, based on the screenshot I'm looking at, none of the three MP Reflectors are 100% cartoon-accurate in camera mode).  White and purple, though, it seems good enough.  I'd have maybe liked the lense to white or gray instead of black, but on the whole I think it's fine.  Again, I very much like that you can get to this cartoon-style two-shutter button look without any accessory attachments.  Those shutter buttons have springs so you can push them, but they don't make any sounds.

Maketoys put some nice detaisl on the top of the camera, including a little tampoed LED display, some molded siwtches and buttons, and a molded film winder thing.  You can pop one of the shutter buttons out and put the gray part in.  The bottom is a bit unfinished, with obvious robot legs and hips.  The black part fits between Lensfinder's legs and then slides into the slot on his crotch.  You can use it to mount the visualizers onto a tripod (not included).

From there, it's just a matter of sliding the flash into the gray part if you want a more toy-style look.  Personally, I'm content to leave all those bits in the box with the extra faces and just go with their G1-style guns.  There is no place to put the guns in camera mode, though.

I have to be honest, I'm a little disappointed with the Visualizers.  In hand, with a lot of thin plastic and ball joints, they feel a little cheap for "Masterpiece" figures.  I do like that they make a pretty good camera without a lot of accessories, though, and to be honest, the price was right  You can currently buy this set for just $80 ($96 after shipping) directly from Maketoys.  That easily makes Maketoys the cheapest option for an MP Reflector, and Reflector is exactly the kind of character that you buy because he was on the show a lot as cannon fodder but don't really want to spend a ton on because he's just cannon fodder.  For the integration and the price, I think he's worth it and I'd recommend him unless you have strong feelings about one of the other sets.  Me, I'm kind of curious about the KFC set, but good luck finding it.  As for the FansToys version, despite their reputation I think they have the worst faces and entirely too many screw holes on the back, so they'd be my last choice.

[sh9000]

https://tfsource.com/clearance-sale/3rd-party-sale/

TFSource sale.

[JB0]

So I had a thought kicking around in my head, and I'mma bounce it off you guys.

Basically, every Optimus Prime toy suffers from one of two problems:

1. There's no trailer. Truck mode is lonely and incomplete without the iconic box trailer.

2. There IS a trailer. There's a big chunk of plastic just sitting there wasting space in robot mode.

 

So here's the thing.... OTHER characters have large superfluous parts that origami down to become a part of the robot. Why doesn't anyone take a cue from some of these OTHER robot semis and do a Motormaster, Ultra Magnus, or God Ginrai-style transformation for Prime?   Particularly as Ultra Magnus has already made the transition from separate trailer to Motormaster-style.

Is it just because "if he combines with the trailer he's not Optimus", or is there some really good reason not to do it?

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

I think if the trailer is integrated into Prime's bot mode, he'd just be too chunky to remain his svelte self.

Besides, where would Roller go?

[mikeszekely]

16 minutes ago, JB0 said:

So I had a thought kicking around in my head, and I'mma bounce it off you guys.

Basically, every Optimus Prime toy suffers from one of two problems:

1. There's no trailer. Truck mode is lonely and incomplete without the iconic box trailer.

2. There IS a trailer. There's a big chunk of plastic just sitting there wasting space in robot mode.

 

So here's the thing.... OTHER characters have large superfluous parts that origami down to become a part of the robot. Why doesn't anyone take a cue from some of these OTHER robot semis and do a Motormaster, Ultra Magnus, or God Ginrai-style transformation for Prime?   Particularly as Ultra Magnus has already made the transition from separate trailer to Motormaster-style.

Is it just because "if he combines with the trailer he's not Optimus", or is there some really good reason not to do it?

Are you asking about toys, or are you asking about fiction?  If the former, I'd guess because G1 is what sells for 3P.  Original designs haven't fared super well... while Maketoys' Cross Dimension line has been getting some good buzz, MMC's Cyclonus was basically trashed for not being IDW enough.

That said, both Maketoys and Fans Hobby are doing Super Ginrai.  Maketoys' will be part of their Cross Dimension line, and looks to be maybe Ultra-sized with a Legends-sized cab robot.  Fans Hobby's Ginrai will be roughly the size of MP-10, and Super Ginrai will be... big (like the top of MP-10's head will come up to the bottom of the windows on Super Ginrai's chest).

As for fiction... Armada Prime could combine with his trailer.  And although they weren't box trailers, Energon and Cybertron Prime also combined with their trailers.  And most recently, in Robots in Disguise (the new one, not the old one) Optimus's trailer is part of his body by default, not a "super mode".  So...

Why not IDW?  As different as IDW's designs have become, IDW began as a G1-ish series.  Guess they don't want to stray too far from a classic design.

PS~ I want MP-ish figures of ALL the Optimusses.  Not sure how to work it into my budget, but I've got eyes on Gunfighter II (Laser Optimus Prime), Alpha Pack (War Within Optimus Prime) and Leonidas (Lio Convoy).  Plus I'm following the development of Fans Hobby's Super Ginrai, and Generation Toy is working on an Optimus Primal based on this design:

So yeah, if 3P gets tired of doing straight up G1, I'll happily take a Big Convoy, Fire Convoy, Armada Optimus, Energon Optimus (please make the base robot suck less than Tubbimus), Galaxy Convoy, Prime Prime, Star Convoy, Hero Optimus... just about any Optimus.

[technoblue]

I'm satisfied with the amount of Prime in my collection.  (G1, IDW, FOC, Beast Wars).

A company would have to do a very clever all-in-one Prime w/ trailer transformation to get me to bite on that character again. 

What I really don't need is another Takara Ultra/Delta Magnus clone. That was a sub-par all-in-one transformation that sacrificed articulation and bot-mode proportions for the MP car carrier gimmick. KFC got the basic articulation right with Citizen/Dai Stack but still could have improved the proportions of the final bot. Anyway, I'm still waiting for a company to get MP Magnus right, either an all-in-one or MP-scale toy homage with transforming Prime cab and armor parts.

What is starting to catch my eye are the smaller scale releases. Things like Cross Dimension have more promise and creativity (along with Maketoys hyper-articulation, which I think is very cool). Also, I'm into the Perfect Effect and X2 Toys upgrade kits for CW/Legends Ultra Magnus toys. Those are a good compromise.

[JB0]

18 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Are you asking about toys, or are you asking about fiction?  If the former, I'd guess because G1 is what sells for 3P.  Original designs haven't fared super well... while Maketoys' Cross Dimension line has been getting some good buzz, MMC's Cyclonus was basically trashed for not being IDW enough.

That was what I was afraid of. The market just won't tolerate a Prime that isn't "anime accurate".

Edited August 11, 2017 by JB0

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, JB0 said:

That was what I was afraid of. The market just won't tolerate a Prime that isn't "anime accurate".

Well, cheer up.  I've got Leonidas and Gunfighter II on the way now.  Gonna save up for Alpha Pack and Spartacus.  I think GT's Megatron to go with their Optimus is next month... so now I kind of want a 3P to do a Beast Wars II Galvatron and a G2 Megatron.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

I got to tinker with DNA's Susanoo today.  Just like a bunch of others I read about, my Susanoo has orange paint chipped off from his feet right out of the box.  The instructions were unclear on certain steps, so I had to watch a video to clear things up.  Closer examination reveals how flimsy a few of the parts are, like the linkages for the tank treads and hinges for the panels found on the forearms and lower legs.   It's a PITA to get him in tank mode for sure.  Every panel has to be leveled perfectly and tabbed up.  Once that's done, you just have to pray the tension doesn't cause the hull to degrade into a pile of loose panels.  And if one isn't careful, I could easily see the nubs and tabs used to hold parts together snapping off. Be advised that his helmet crest may rub on the forearms during transformation, resulting in gold paint getting chipped off.  Once I was able to clip the treads together and made sure all the parts were properly attached, Susanoo makes a decent looking tank.

The trials and tribulations of getting Susanoo into his alt mode certainly does not distract from the menacing spectacle he makes in bot mode.  In short, I love his bot mode.  Even if you didn't know who Bludgeon is, it would be hard to not appreciate the melding of a mechanized samurai and his spirit vehicle.  DNA's intrepetation of Bludgeon is a love letter to RotF's Voyager toy, right down to the tank turret that opens up to hold his short swords.  All the joints are solid enough to easily replicate the poses on the box, making for a dynamic range of motion.

There is a limitation with his upper legs though.  The way his torso is structured doesn't allow his thighs to swing backward, so Susanoo will not be doing any punting in the immediate future.  Would I recommend him? If you like the design as much I do, I say go for it.  Just be warned that a little more care and patience than usual will be required to get him in tank form.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

It looks like preorders for Maketoys' G1 Starscream, Howling Meteor, are showing up. $120.

[mikeszekely]

18 hours ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

It looks like preorders for Maketoys' G1 Starscream, Howling Meteor, are showing up. $120.

I put in a preorder.  A lot of people are picking at certain details, and while I don't mean to dismiss the criticism entirely the fact remains that I don't have any MP Seekers, save for an Walmart Skywarp based on MP-3, and Howling Meteor looks a lot better than that.  In fact, I'll say I'm probably in for Skywarp and Thundercracker repaints, but I'm not sure if I'll do the coneheads too.

Speaking of Meteors, Galaxy Meteor (Maketoys' Cybertron/Galaxy Force Starscream) have been extremely positive.  I couldn't be bothered to finish Cybertron, and I've got zero attachment to the character or the design, but I might just check him out after all.

[mikeszekely]

Got a few packages (and there's more coming), so I'm going to do the usual and share with you guys.  Tonight we'll be looking at DX9's Carry, their version of a Masterpiece Rodimus Prime.

I'm not sure if I mean, yeah, that's Rodimus Prime all right.  The wheels on the fronts of his biceps, the huge wings, his head, and the shape of his legs give more of a Studio Ox vibe than a Sunbow vibe, but you can see for yourself how well DX9 matched the colors and details with MP-09 (or you could even better if I had the Japanese version, which had black lower legs and the orange and yellow on his forearms, instead of my Hasbro version).  The only really noticeable "error" was giving him black hands instead of gray.  And, while your mileage may vary, I really dig the Ox notes.  Taller Hot Rod with more lines on his face seemed to always be doubting himself.  Ox Rodimus looks like a beefcake capable of filling Optimus' shoes.

Like the official MP Hot Rodimus Primes, Carry's got a backpack on him, but it's really no worse than MP-09's and probably an improvement from MP-28.  The butt flap's probably the biggest strike against it.  Well, that and the fact that the back of the wings aren't yellow, but rather red with yellow and orange flames.  This is due to his transformation, and in my opinion, not super egregious because wings with flames on them are pretty cool.

If the size comparison with MP-09 and MP-28 isn't eneough, here he is with MP-10.

Carry's lone accessory is his rifle, which for some reason DX9 decided to make a Targetmaster.  I mean, it's a nice homage to Targetmaster Hot Rod, the little robot does look kind of cool with his Hot Rod-ish wings and head, and I'll give credit to DX9 for coming up with a transformation that both gives the little robot a weapon and has a unique tranformation that results in something that kind of looks like Rodimus' weapon instead of the usual curling up and maybe flipping out a barrel.  The little robot's head is fixed, and his shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles are ball joints, so he's got fair articulation.  His gun is kind of too big for him, though, so he can kind of only hold it with his arm totally straight.  

Alternatively, there are holds on the underside of his forearms you can peg the gun into.  And for a size comparison, here he is with the Firebolt figure that came with Hasbro MP-09.  Unfortunately, I don't have Eligos, Andras, or Buzzing, so I can't compare with their Targetmaster buddies.

When I say that's his lone accessory, I mean it.  While it seems like I have an abundance of small Matrices because they seem to come with every toy of every character that even looked at the Matrix, Carry doesn't get one.  You can open up his chest, and there is a silver and blue panel with a Matrix molded onto it, but that's it.  There is a cavity underneath that you might be able to toss MP-09's little Matrix into, but for some reason I can't find mine.  The one that comes with MP-10 is much too large.  It almost looks like the Matrix that comes with KBB's downsized MP-10 it could fit, if you cut notches into the orange plastic for it.  Oh well.

  

Carry's head is on a ball joint that can look down a little before his big chin touches his chest, up only the slightest bit, and a fair amount laterally.  His shoulders are ratcheted for lateral movement, and he can actually get 90 degrees of bend, although you'll have to rotate the shoulder a bit so it doesn't hit his head.  Speaking of shoulder rotation, that too is ratcheted and he's got just enough clearance that he can get around his wings.  He has bicep swivels, but they're just above his elbows, which are single hinges good for 90 degrees.  His wrists can swivel.  His index finger is pinned at the base and can move independently, with an addition mid-knuckle hinge.  The remaining fingers are molded as one curled piece with a single hinge at the base knuckle.  His waist swivels.  His hips are ratcheted universal joints.  Interestingly, the red hip skirt is pinned to the joint and rotates with his leg as it moves forward and backward just shy of 90 degrees on friction joints.  Outward movement is ratcheted and good for 90 clicks through 90 degrees.  The first click is a tad wide for my tastes, although not as bad as figures like Salus or Calidus, but there's enough play between the detents and enough weight in the figure that you can spread a little before you get to that first click.  He's got thigh swivels, and soft-ratcheted knees that get just over 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt up but not downward, and he's got hinges that provide for some nice deep ankle tilts.

He holds the rifle that comes with MP-09 pretty good.  This is fortunate...

...because he sucks at holding his own rifle.  The grip is just a 5mm peg, but his hands aren't really cut for 5mm pegs.  Plus, the peg is a little short and the barrel so long that gravity alone is enough to start tipping it out of his grasp.  It doesn't help at all that the stock his much longer than his forearms, so just like his Targetmaster he's kind of stuck holding it with his arm straight.  I've seen alternate fan transformations for the gun that helps him hold it better, but you're much better off giving him MP-09's gun if you can.  Heck, he can even hold Firebolt better than his actual gun.

When Hasbro released their MP-09 without the trailer, I think a lot of people were thinking "big deal, the car is cooler and I was just going to display it in bot mode anyway."  I was pretty disappointed, though, as I might be in the minority that thinks Space Winnebagos are kind of cool.  Carry does indeed turn into a Rodimus Prime-style Space Winnebago.  It's a pretty good match, too.  The cab is on spot, the pipes bend around to the top the right way, it's got the orange skirt aroudn he bottom, the yellow and orange stripe near the back, and the flames doen the sides (flames that aren't just painted, but molded into the sides.  The front of the trailer is angled, although perhaps not as aggresively as it could be, and has the orange and yellow coloring of the cartoon and MP-09.  Two things are a bit off, though.  For one, the rims are all a gunmetal color instead of silver.  Two, the spoiler is missing.  The first thing is just odd, but the second can be forgiven due to the fact that, unlike the G1 toy or MP-09, Carry transforms without removing the trailer.  Large portions of the sides make his wings, the orange skirts fold around themselves to form the bulk of his lower legs, and the rest (along with his canopy) fold into his backpack.  It's a simple, clever transformation that is largely very effective despite leaving him with a backpack of obviously-stacked panels.  It also goes a long way to explain how we go from a robot that's roughly MP-10-sized to an alt mode that's actually very similar in size to the original G1 toy.  This does beg the question of whether or not Carry is large enough in alt mode, but honestly I think he's fine.  He's maybe a little too small, but less too small than MP-09 is too big.

Carry does have rubber tires and he rolls pretty well.  A peg hole on the top of the trailer allows you to peg his Targetmaster buddy up there (alas, MP-09's gun doesn't work there).  In a nice but uncessary touch you can see DX9 even used some silver paint on bits of the rear.

Back in the day, when I got my Hasbro MP-09, I remember being kind of happy with him despite him being a fidgety mess.  I think a lot of collectors have since replaced MP-09 with MP-28 and have been pretty satisfied that they have a much better MP version of Hot Rod.  If you want a Rodimus Prime, though, you don't have a lot of options.  Fortunately, one of the few options you have is really good (and it isn't MP-09).  DX9 did an amazing job crafting a Rodimus Prime that has a presence that MP-09 never did.  I love the way he incorporates the trailer into his transformation, and I love that the transformation is pretty intuitive.  My complaints are few, fairly minor, and mostly forgiven as necessities of the engineering that gives him that great transformation and trailer incorporation in the first place.  His accessory is really my only big complaint, but if you've got MP-09 you can always steal his weapon.  If you don't, you can always check out Shapeways.  Carry's a little on the pricey side, but if you can track down a reasonably-priced one on the second-hand market (I got mine for $130), I definitely recommend him.

[mikeszekely]

Since the MP line kind of sort of relaunched with MP-10, I've been pretty ok with the releases.  I mean, Magnus didn't wow me, I don't really care about Star Saber, and Bee's realistic Beetle mode still strikes me as off, but I get where they were going.  Then came MP Ironhide.  Ironhide was a shift away from the Hasui-era aesthetics for a look that hewed even closer to the animation.  Some people seem to really dig it, but I've always thought it's a tad boring.  Those of you who follow my little reviews here probably remember me going with Voodoo's Salus for Ratchet instead of the official.  BBTS has recently been clearancing some TFC stuff, so I decided to grab Ironwill, their version of an "MP" Ironhide, for less than even a KO of the official.

You'll notice that I put "MP" in quotes, and that's because he's not the most G1 accurate Ironhide.  He's got red shoulders and gray biceps instead of the other way around, chromed bumpers decorating his ankles, a van torso that's just not quite right, his shoulders, pelvis and forearms seem much more heavily-armed than they ought to be, and while I've complained that the official MP is lacking some of the detail that a Hasui MP would have the random pain and greebles TFC tossed onto Ironwill are pretty much just that- random.  To top it off, he seems a little short.  Although I don't have an official MP van to compare with, my impression of Salus was that he's very close to the same size, while Ironwill seems maybe half a head shorter.  But he's still a full head taller than the iGear vans, so he's not really suitable for CHUG, either.  

Despite not pulling off a G1 look as well as Salus, I must confess that I sort of dig the aesthetics.  I've said many times in the past that I like getting toys that are traditionally repaints from different companies because I like it when they're visually and transformationally distinct.  Ironwill makes for a beefier Ironhide that almost reminds me of IDW (despite not really looking like any IDW version of Ironhide to date), similar to but definitely distinct from Salus.

Ironwill comes with three accessories.  He's got a small rifle, kind of Gundam-ish if you ask me, done in white with some nice black details.  He's got a big sniper rifle, in gray with black and red details.  Sadly, there's something that looks a bit like a bipod molded onto the underside, but it doesn't move or make for an actual bipod.  Lastly, he's got the a wrist gun from that time that he... wait, did he ever have a wrist blaster like that?

Ironwill's head is on a ball joint that has a fairly limited up/down and lateral tilt.  His shoulders use a soft ratchet for rotation, and another ratchet for 90 degrees of lateral motion.  A transformation joint gives him a bit of a backwards butterfly joint.  His elbows bend 90 degrees, and he's got swivels at the biceps and the wrists.  His wrists don't really lock in after transforming, which gives them a bit of up/down range.  Oddly, his hands aren't the same.  The right hand is your standard MP car-style hand with a fixed thumb and four fingers molded together in a curl pinned at the base knuckle.  The curl of the fingers and the cut of the palm makes it suited for 5mm pegs.  The left hand, meanwhile, has each finger and the thumb molded as individual, curled pieces attached the the hand via ball joints.  Again due to transformation, he's got a slight ab crunch.His waist swivels, but you need to be mindful of some folded flaps on his back.  His skirt armor is all hinged so it can move out of the way, and his hips can go a little over 90 degrees forward or backward on ratchets, and about 90 degrees on strong ratchets.  That's about 4 clicks.   His thighs swivel, and he's got ratcheted knees good for 90 degrees of bend.  And then we come to his feet, which quite frankly are awful.  Due to his transformation they can swivel (which does mean you can display him with his big, windowed heels as his toes instead).  Multiple hinges give you a bit of up/down tilt, with independent tilt in the heel.  However, his inward ankle tilt is so miniscule I'm going to say it's basically non-functional.  One click outward on the hips and you're already balancing him on the inside edges of his feet, and you cannot put his feet flat.  That's a huge disappointment, well below 3P standards.  Even most Iron Factory and DX9 Legends-scale figures have better ankle tilts.  On a Masterpiece-style figure it's inexcusable.

Speaking of inexcuseable, Ironwill holds his guns fine... in his right hand.  His left hand does have a little tab on the palm, and there are slots on the guns, but the tab is so shallow and the balljoints so weak that whatever you try to put in that hand will fall right back out.

Folding in either fist does reveal a little peg, and the wrist gun can fit over either wrist peg.  Additionally, he's got a flip out little dish from that one episode (I think MP-27 has somethign similar?), and the other arm opens to reveal a keyboard but no screen or anything.  Both are ok as gimmicks, but I wish they'd have painted the back of the little dish red instead of leaving him with a big white upside-down "T" on one arm.

Ironwill turns into a van, as he should.  He's a similar size to Salus, but you'll notice that he doesn't really have the same silhouette as the Cherry Vanette, having a sort of flatter front end and, and that kind of makes him look a tad undersized.  There's no place that I can find to store any of his accessories, despite having a little gap on the underside.

Slightly-off proportions aside, he looks fairly good in van mode.  He's got rubber tires, chrome bumpers that seem to be the appropriate shape, smoked translucent headlights and taillights that are also fairly accurate, and molded lights under the front bumper that would look better in color but are at least present on MP-27 and real Vanettes.  The side mirrors are funky-looking.  He's got Ironhide's signature yellow stripe down the side, but for reasons I'm not clear on there's a big black line in the middle of the stripe near the rear.  There's also a black stripe going across the front that's a bit out-of-place.

You might already be put off by the questionable aesthetics, the fact that this is a TFC product, the useless left hand, or the apalling lack of functional ankle tilts.  Unfortunately, that still leaves me to tell you about the transformation, which is a mess of folding panels and tight tolerances.  Then there's the panels themselves, which just lay on his collar, the sides of his lower legs, and the backs of his forearms without tabbing in.  Not that tabbing would help, because the front of the van that angles down onto his abdomen is supposed to tab but does so ineffectually.  The tabs holding his knees in place are only marginally better.  Bottom line, I think I've got less for $40, but I still can't recommend Ironwill.  He's just not a good figure.

[Scyla]

Thanks for the review. I think I need to find out if you did one for the Voodoo Salus because I might be interested in one. 

Having recently fiddled with MP Grapple I have to say one of the best parts about 3rd Party transforming robots is that you can have different mold for Bots that where meant to be repaints of each other. And while I'm not smitten by Grapple like anybody else It is nice to have him and Backdraft with a  different transformation. 

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, Scyla said:

Thanks for the review. I think I need to find out if you did one for the Voodoo Salus because I might be interested in one. 

Having recently fiddled with MP Grapple I have to say one of the best parts about 3rd Party transforming robots is that you can have different mold for Bots that where meant to be repaints of each other. And while I'm not smitten by Grapple like anybody else It is nice to have him and Backdraft with a  different transformation. 

Yeah, it's great getting guys like Ironhide and Ratchet, Grapple and Inferno, etc without feeling like you literally bought the same toy twice.

BTW, here's my Salus review.

[JB0]

6 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

He's got Ironhide's signature yellow stripe down the side, but for reasons I'm not clear on there's a big black line in the middle of the stripe near the rear.  

Pretty sure that black strip is supposed to be the track that the van door slides on. Odd place to start caring about detail, since he doesn't much look like he HAS a sliding door through all those panel lines.

[mikeszekely]

50 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Pretty sure that black strip is supposed to be the track that the van door slides on. Odd place to start caring about detail, since he doesn't much look like he HAS a sliding door through all those panel lines.

You could be right.  A quick Google search does show me that a lot of Cherry Vanettes have some sort of off detailing there (although not always black).  Plus, I didn't bother looking at the G1 toy because... well, it's kind of crappy as a Transformer (as a Diaclone mecha suit it's pretty boss, but that's another story).  Looking at it now, though, I see it had that black line, so... 1 point for accuracy, TFC.  Out of a possible 100.

[mikeszekely]

Alright, you guys are probably more interested in new stuff than older figures that are awesome like Carry or older figures that suck like Ironwill.  So tonight let's look at Archimonde, the Unique Toys version of Brawl And, btw, I'm not going to keep referring to these guys by WoW names I can't spell without a wiki, so from here on out he's just Brawl.

Compared to a lot of Season 2 characters, the Combaticons' Sunbow character models were pretty different than their toys.  And so far, whether we're talking official or 3P, newer versions of Brawl have gone toy-style, with the front of the tank forming a protruding wedge of a chest and a head done in shades of gray.  So when UT's Brawl turned up, my first instict was to look at the much longer, flatter chest and the red mouth plate and think, "Hey, UT's really going 'toon on this one!"  And with that face and chest, not to mention the fact that he's more olive than green, he probably is the most cartoon-accurate Brawl you can get... he's just still not that cartoon accurate.  Black vented panels sit where the cartoon had circles.  His forearms and pelvis are green instead of gray, and his gray thighs are a lot lighter than the gray used in the cartoon. Likewise, although he's an olive color, it's a pale, desaturated olive.  The treads don't cover his entire bicep, revealing some red-striped black underneath.  And he's lacking the little black APS tubes on his abdomen.

Accurate or not, the design is still seems more cohesive and less busy than Warbotron's Heavy Noisy.  He also feels a lot more solid and weighs significantly more.  Really, it's kind of funny because it seems like not that long ago I was pretty impressed by Heavy Noisy, but UT's Brawl makes it seem like cheap junk.  You'll also note that he's a good head taller than Heavy Noisy.  There seems to be some debate over whether or not UT's Combaticons are big enough to be considered MP.  I find the debate amusing, since the naysayers will usually proclaim allegience to Zeta Toys' super stylized, not-even-close to 'toon or toy Combaticons because they're the size of an MP Seeker. I guess MP has stopped meaning high-quality, cartoon-accurate toys and just means "big" now.  In any case, I'll have to remember to toss in a few other figures for size comparisons as we go through this set.  Since the Zeta figures are cheap, I might even pick up their Vortex to make a G1-ish Blackout, but don't expect me to do the whole set.

Brawl comes with just a couple of accessories.  The big one is a foot for combined mode, which we'll talk about more when we get to said combined mode.  There's also a pair of adhesive felt pads cut to fit the bottom of the foot.  In my very unscientific tests, they do help the foot slide less than the bare plastic, some I'm going to use them, but I feel like a rubber material would have been better.  Aside from foot-related stuff, we have a pair of guns done nicely in black, olive, and silver.  The rear of the gun is on a hinge.  He holds it with the butt folded back and the peg showing, but the peg folds in and the butt folds down for tank mode.

Brawl's head is on a hinge swivel that can look up and down a good bit, as well as rotate, but has an odd quirk in that the hinge is at the bottom of his neck.  That means that his up/down range is only up/down if he's looking straight ahead; turning his head tilts it laterally instead.  The shoulders rotate and have ratcheted hinges for lateral movement, and he can get a little under 90 degrees.  It's only two clicks, but the tension is enough that you can use the joint like a friction joing between clicks.  He has bicep swivels just above the elbows; if you find that you can't swivel it, make sure that you've extended the arm.  It only moves a fraction of a centimeter, but it's necessary to free the swivel.  His elbows are single hinges, but he can get a little over 90 degrees.  His wrists can swivel.  His thumb is fixed and cut with his palm to make a 5mm peg hole.  His index finger can move independently and is pinned at the base knuckle.  The other three fingers are one solid piece pinned at the base.  His waist can swivel, but some of the kibble on his back will prevent you from getting 360 degrees.  I think the range you do get is natural, but if you want more you can unfold part of his backpack to clear it out of the way.  His hips can move forward about 90 degrees and backwards until his thighs start banging into his tank turret.  They're kind of odd, too... when you rotate them, you'll hear some clicking that makes you think they're ratcheted.  From straight out to back agains the turret is five clicks... but the five clicks don't in the same spots moving backward as they do forward.  And the joint basically works and behaves like a friction joint.  Lateral motion is definitely friction, and he can handily do 90 degrees.  The gray thighs swivel around the black hip joints, which prevents them from being able to do a full swivel but give you a nice, natural range.  If you need a little more, he's got an additional swivel below the knee for transformation.  His knees are strong, single-jointed ratchets that get probably around 120 degrees of bend.  His heels a fixed, but the front half of his foot can bend down or inward 90 degrees.  If it helps, his toes can also bend downward due to his transformation.

He holds his guns just fine.  No MP slots, tabs, or other gimmicks, just good old 5mm pegs.

Before we move on, can we take a minute to appreciate how clean Brawl is?  Yes, he's got the tall shoulders, treads jammed up into his shins, and a turret on his back, but there's not a lot of other obvious tank kibble.  Even the turret on his back doesn't seem to hang as low or cover as much as Heavy Noisy's, and the main gun retracts instead of hanging way above his head or folding over.  Even more impressive, at least to me, is that the combiner ports are hidden away and not super obvious.  I feel like this makes for a much more dynamic figure than the more traditional, chunkier Brawl with the big tank chest.

Much like his robot mode, Brawl's tank mode isn't entirely toy or 'toon accurate.  The black panels on his shins stand out a bit, and he lacks the dual hatches of the toy (or an actual Leopard 1 tank).  He also lacks the random boxes, machine gun, and turret lamp of the cartoon.  Accuracy aside, Brawl might be one of the best-looking tank alt modes I've seen.  There's painted details and translucent lights on the front, and everything fits together snugly to make a flat surface under the turret that hardly looks like it should transform.  It really looks a lot better than the poorly-hidden head, large seems, and vaguely sci-fi turret on Heavy Noisy.

The front of the tank lines up nicely with the sides and treads, instead of sharply sloping down and sticking out the in an odd way.  Although I do like how Heavy Noisy's pistols sit to teh sides more, like machine gun turrets, the way Brawl's guns tab into the back of the turrent and sit closely together is more remincent of both the G1 cartoon and toy.

UT's tolerances are a little off, though.  The tabs seem a little large for the slots they fit.  I put them in once, and you can see one side immediately developed som stress marks in the process.  Another odd QC thing, although this one seems to be normal, is that if you open the back of the turrent and peek inside you can see the tip of a screw poking through.

Minor blemishes aside, Brawl rolls on four small wheels under the non-functional treads.  The turrent can rotate 360 degrees, and the main gun can tilt upward a little bit, although I'd have liked it to be able to tilt more.

When it comes to negatives, I really don't have a lot to say that I haven't already.  A little more attention to tolerances, a bit more upward range on the main gun, and maybe a touch more cartoon accuracy like a darker olive and ditching the black on his shins would have been nice  And I prefer painted eyes to light piping.  The positives far outweigh the negatives, though.  He's got good articulation.  He's got good proportions.  His transformation is in that sweet spot that's not too complicated, but involved enough to be fun.  He looks fantastic in both modes.  The joint tolerances and plastic quality are spot on.  He's a great Brawl, but more than that, he's a good transforming toy in general.  I definitely recommend him.  But more than that, he's so good that I'll say he's worth picking up even if you already have Warbotron, as UT's Brawl is significantly better in pretty much every conceivable way than Heavy Noisy.  I think the only real question for some people is whether they should go with this or Zeta's.  I'd like to handle a Zeta Combaticon before judging them, but everything I've seen indicates highly-stylized robots covered in kibbly folded panels coupled with extremely inaccurate alt modes that happen to be half-a-head to a head taller.  If they were a little shorter, and their combined mode didn't seem to rely on a huge partsforming bit of pelvis and thighs like Constructor's, I don't think anyone would even bother with this conversation.  The only reason that I can see why you'd want to go with Zeta instead is because size matters more than aesthetics to you.

Edited August 21, 2017 by mikeszekely

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

Uh oh, Galaxy Meteor has been cancelled.

[mikeszekely]

7 hours ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

Uh oh, Galaxy Meteor has been cancelled.

That sucks, but I'm really surprised.  While some of the designs were kind of cool, I don't know that the Unicron Trilogy was popular enough that many people want to drop $140 on an MP Galaxy Force Starscream.  Especially since no one else is doing any Unicron Trilogy MPs, and Maketoys didn't indicate that they were doing any beyond Galaxy Meteor; even the people who might have been interested had to wonder how it'd really fit in their collections.  It's a shame, though, because the few that got out were getting pretty rave reviews, and that really was starting to spark some interest.  I just hope that they didn't shoot themselves in the foot too badly, because I've really liked the ReMastered line and I have the G1 Howling Meteor preordered.  I could definitely use that.

Well, Unique Toys is still putting stuff out, at least.  And in addition to their Brawl, I also picked up Gahz'ranka, their version of Swindle (who from here on out will just be Swindle).

Well, like so many takes on Swindle before him, he's kind of a light tan instead of the mustard yellow that G1 Swindle was.  Unique Toys also saw fit to add some extra details to his shins and the tops of his feet, and put black/dark gray bands around his forearms, but holy crap is that a cartoon Swindle!  Everyone else, from Fansproject to Warbotron to even Combiner Wars went for the cartoon style, but Unique Toys actually went for the window chest and jeep grill pelvis of the cartoon.  Some people have criticized the face sculpt for being too flat or too Animated but I think it's alright.  It's the sort of smirk that fits the character.

Size-wise, he's a bit taller than his Warbotron counterpart, and a head taller than MP car-sized Gundog.

And because their size is the topic of heated debate, he's a head taller than an MP Seeker (at least one based on the MP-3 mold) and chest high to Despotron.  I really think that's fine, personally.  You can get him maybe half a head taller by turning the inner hip 180 degrees while manipulating the thighs so they're still facing down and forward.  Same goes for Brawl, although without Swindle's grill-pelvis it leaves a small gap between his hips and torso.

Much like Brawl, UT did a really good job giving Swindle a clean bot mode.  I like that they painted some of the details on the backs of his legs, and that spare tire on his back is cartoon-accurate.

Moving right along, Swindle comes with the other combined-mode foot and another set of the felt pads for it, a cannon, a missile, and a piece we'll call "the connector thingy" that can be used in a variety of ways, or left off to the side in robot mode.

Swindle's head is on a hinged swivel, and unlike Brawl he can turn his head and still look up and down.  His shoulders rotate on friction joints and move laterally on more of those weird ratchets.  He can get to 90 degrees laterally, but that's just one or two clicks.  Meanwhile, friction lets you pose the arms between clicks.  His elbows are single-jointed, and both go past 90 degrees, although his right arm goes a bit furter because the left has a tab on it.  he has bicep swivels just above the elbow, and his hands are the same as Brawl's.  His waist can swivel.  His hips can go over 90 degrees backward on a ratchet, but is limited going forward due to the jeep grill.  You can get about 45 degrees before the grill blocks it.  Alternatively, the grill is on a double hinge and you can work it up onto his belly a little.  That'll allow you to get closer to 90 degrees forward on the hips, but it'll block the waist swivel.  Laterally, he can get better than 90 degrees on friction joints.  His thighs can rotate around the hip job, which like Brawl seems to have a fairly natural range but does prevent you from twisting his legs the whole way around.  A transformation joint allows you to rotate his leg just below the knee if you decide you do need more, though.  His knees are very strong ratchets that get you 90 degrees of bend.  His feet can bend downward, as can his toes, and a hinge gives him 90 degrees of ankle tilt.  

Swindle's cannon as a tab on it that can either fit into a slot on his forearm, which allows him to wield it like he's going to fire but is too long for him to be able to bend his elbow, or into a slot on the outside of his upper arm for a more relaxed arm cannon pose that doesn't block his elbow.  For cartoon accuracy you can just plug the missile into his hand, but that leaves you with the connector thingy left over.  Personally, I like to put it on the back of the missile and have him hold that like a gun.  It could also fit on the back of the cannon, but the cannon is big enough as it is.

Unless you don't want him to wear the cannon as an arm attachment.  Then you can plug the connector thingy onto the back of the cannon.  That will allow Swindle to carry the cannon like a long rifle.  Heck, you can even plug the missile onto the cannon and give him one extra killtastic weapon.  Or not, whatever you prefer.

As amazing as a cartoon-style Swindle robot is, I think I'm doubly-amazed that Unique toys eschews the trend of making Swindle larger and heavier vehicles like Humvees.  They didn't even do the sloped-front larger XR311 that the G1 Swindle toy was based on.  Nope, that's Swindle's cartoon jeep, right down to the purple hood.  Despite being taller in robot mode, Swindle seems to scale reasonably well with Gundog... not that alt scale matters when we're talking about a jeep and a tank both making legs for a guy with a space shuttle for an arm.

Unique Toys even put a steering wheel and gear shift in there, and the seats (which are part of Swindle's feet, actually) have a rubbery, leathery feel.  Speaking of rubber, all five tires are rubber, and he rolls pretty good as long as you remember to shift the front tires down and forward.  Aesthetically, I think the only thing he's kind of missing is the tow winch on the front, but I don't really miss it and I don't see how they could have fit it given how he transforms.

It's in vehicle mode that the connectory thingy really shines.  Instead of "where does this go, I guess I'll stick it here" like bot mode the connector thingy plugs into the back of the jeep.  A peg on one side fits into a hole on the cannon, and a hole on the other side accepts the peg from the missile.  The resulting mounted weapons are very G1 cartoon.

All-in-all, the heep mode cleans up very nice.  No obvious combiner ports.  Honestly, even from the underside there's not much in the way of obvious robot period.  Maybe his head, but even that sort of just fills the space between his robot thighs.

Swindle gets a definite recommend from me.  I mean, Sly Strike was considered the best of the Warbotron Combaticons and UT's Swindle absolutely blows Sly Strike away.  Zeta has already shown off prototypes of their Swindle, and he's looking like another toy-style robot that changes into a Humvee.  UT's Swindle is the most cartoon, most Swindley Swindle you can get and will probably remain that way for a long time yet.  I like him so much that I'd consider double-dipping on this set if UT does Ruination/Baldigus repaints to go with Fans Hobby's Archenemy.  That said, Swindle's transformation does require a bit more effort than Brawl's, as you're got to move parts and panels around past other stuff, and everything is kind of loose until then end when you give him a squeeze and hope that eight (not exaggerating, actually eight) different tabs are all lined up correctly.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

Gawd these Combaticons are huge, which means Onslaught will be immense!  I'll have to pass on 'em until I hear about their combined form, but the guys you've covered look great.

I'm crossing my fingers that their Silverbolt will be ace.

[mikeszekely]

30 minutes ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

Gawd these Combaticons are huge, which means Onslaught will be immense!  I'll have to pass on 'em until I hear about their combined form, but the guys you've covered look great.

I'm crossing my fingers that their Silverbolt will be ace.

Unique Toys isn't doing Superion (yet?).  That's Zeta, who are also doing Combaticons, but theirs are even bigger than UT's.  UT's Combaticons are going for a more streamlined, cartoon look, but Zeta's are chunky bruisers with tons of folded panel kibble and alt modes that are just wrong, which is why I haven't touched them yet despite being $30 cheaper.  Supposedly Zeta's Blast Off, the only figure released so far, has diecast in it.  I'd think the gestalt's arms are the last place you'd want diecast..

Zeta's only got prototypes for their Brawl and Swindle, but here's a look if you want to compare.

 

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Unique Toys isn't doing Superion (yet?).  That's Zeta, who are also doing Combaticons, but theirs are even bigger than UT's.  UT's Combaticons are going for a more streamlined, cartoon look, but Zeta's are chunky bruisers with tons of folded panel kibble and alt modes that are just wrong, which is why I haven't touched them yet despite being $30 cheaper.

Whoops, these new companies and their projects are starting to meld together in my head.

[Tking22]

So I'm not sure when this happened, but I noticed last night that a number of different Chinese Ebay sellers are apparently dumping stock of ACE-01 and ACE-02, aka MP Cliffjumper and Hubcap. I've heard very meh to downright bad things about these guys, but honestly, at $35 shipped, I took a shot on ACE-01. I don't really know what caused this, they didn't release too long ago, are these sellers that eager to dump stock? Is there too much stock? Were these made in too large of quantities and they just aren't selling? Are these sellers expecting X-Transbots CJ to pop up sometime soon? I'm not sure, nor do I care really, for $35, ACE-01 can be my MP CJ even if he is loose or crappy, that's a decent price for a crappy figure IMO. I also saw another site is selling buy one get one free on both ACE-01 and ACE-02 for like $63, I'll have to find the link again. It seems like everyone is trying to dump these guys for cheap right now, it makes their initial retail price even more embarrassing. Who thought $60+ for such small, relatively crappy figures, would actually get these to move?

[technoblue]

I'm not one to buy placeholders, but these do sound like good budget-priced alternatives if you are aware of the compromises and want a full cast of characters. I'm actually surprised the only other company working on them is X-Transbots. However, they seem to be making an extra effort to improve their QC reputation.

Personally, I've decided to wait and see since the X-Transbots versions were due out this quarter. If the reviews are as positive as Klaatu/Cosmos then I'm thinking of going with them because the official Takara MP releases continue to be all over the map.