The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[slaginpit]

Just came in. The box is huge. Just like the Mini aint mini anymore, the master made deformed series are getting bigger with each iteration, but somehow retain the same height. And this guy weighs a lot more that the previous releases. Will post more pics with a summary review shortly

[Sandman]

Personally I don't get that starscream's wings gimmick.

[technoblue]

Master Made: finally giving me an excuse to collect all the city bots. Is SD Scorponok's box bigger than MM's box for SD Omega Supreme? That box was pretty big too.

1 hour ago, Sandman said:

Personally I don't get that starscream's wings gimmick.

Ditto.

[M'Kyuun]

Destruction Scorpion looks like a transforming Zoid to me, given the aesthetic Master Made went for.  That makes it no less cool.

[slaginpit]

3 hours ago, technoblue said:

Master Made: finally giving me an excuse to collect all the city bots. Is SD Scorponok's box bigger than MM's box for SD Omega Supreme? That box was pretty big too.

Ditto.

Definitely

[mikeszekely]

TFSource sent me a whole replacement leg from the knee down for my Carnage. So, yay, but I can't help but notice the non-busted half of the original spoiler and the replacement half both have stress marks. Really wish TFM had used the rubbery plastic they'd used on J4ZZ...

[M'Kyuun]

Well, at least they responded to you. I've written to Toy World and X-Transbots for issues I had with their figures and never got a response from either one of them.

[mikeszekely]

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Well, at least they responded to you. I've written to Toy World and X-Transbots for issues I had with their figures and never got a response from either one of them.

For Eligos, have you tried contacting the retailer? I've heard 3Ps rarely respond to requests for parts, especially if they're not in Chinese.

As for ToyWorld, did you submit a claim through their support site? I'd heard that they basically ceased all contact for a few months because they seriously underestimated the issues with Burden, but old claims are starting to be processed now that they've switched the factories back to green Constructors.

[mikeszekely]

Ok, so Kultur doesn't get lonely I picked up another figure that I can review tonight.  Here's MMC's Anarchus, their take on Kaon of the Decepticon Justice Division.

Off the bat, the first thing you'll notice is that, much like Kultur/Tarn, Anarchus' robot mode is pretty accurate to Kaon's comic book appearance.  Sculpt-wise, we really don't run into much of an issue except for some minor quibbles on his forearms.  He's got Kaon's dead eyes, although they could stand to be a little rounder, the dynamo in his chest, the electrical pylons on his shoulders, the treads on his shins, the big feet, and overall lanky build.  From the waist down, he's just about perfect, with just a few extra details breaking up the white of this thighs.  From the waist up there are a few more issues.  I'll ignore the backpack, but as I mentioned his forearms are the most off.  He has white near his wrists where he should have a pink glow, he's missing the red on the backs of his hands, he's missing the black that should be between the gold and his bicep, and the back side is missing alt mode details (mostly because his arms don't seem to end up where they do in the comics.  He's also missing that pink glow entirely from his lats, and on his shoulders the pink glowing spots are painted gold.

Anarachus comes with just two accessories.  First up is his gun, which is ok.  I mean, I don't recall him having a gun in the comic; I remember Kaon firing Vos, and fighting with lightning, but that's about it.  Mostly I think the gun could really have benefited from some paint, especially on the scope.  He also comes with a little drone robot.  The drone's legs are ball-jointed at the body, and each leg has one hinged knee.  Painted red eyes are the only thing that distinguish the front of the drone from the back.  You can peg Anarchus' gun into a slot on it's back.  Like the gun, he's ok, but nothing to get excited about it.

  

As good as Anarchus looks, he does have a few issues with articulation.  His head is on a ball joint.  His head can tilt toward his chest quite a bit, but not backward.  Note that I didn't phrase that as "he can look down."  If you turn his head, whatever part of his head is facing forward tilts toward his chest.  His shoulders are on universal joints that can rotate 360 degrees and move laterally over 90 degrees.  The pylons on his shoulders hinged as well, so they can slide along the shoulder and not hinder his articulation.  He has a bicep swivel just about his elbow.  The elbow can bend 90 degrees, but there's also a transformation joint that can be used as a second joint to fold his arm all the way up if you don't mind messing up the sculpt.  His wrists are ball joints so they can swivel, but they also have a little waggle.  His waist also seems to be on a ball joint.  He can lean back slightly, he has a small ab crunch, and he can lean sideways more than I'd care to, but due to the shape of his lats his waist swivel is limited.  He has universal hips that bend 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally with hinges on his hip skirts to move them out of the way.  His hinged knees fall a little short of 90 degrees, and he has no thigh swivel.  Instead, his legs can swivel below the knee.  That sort of substitution works OK when he's standing in a fairly neutral pose, but he begins to look very awkward in more dynamic poses.  He has hinges that provide about 45 degrees of ankle tilt, and another hinge lets him tilt his foot up and down just a tad.  The front half of his foot is on a double hinge, though, and that'll get you about 45 degrees of upward bend and so much downward bend that he can very nearly fold his foot over in half.

The drone can fold up it's legs and peg onto either forearm like a shield, but it's honestly pretty superfluous for Anarchus' robot mode.  As for the gun, the combination of the hinge at the top of the handle and his unusual hand sculpt makes the gun look a little awkward in his hands.  He also holds it fairly loosely.  It won't fall out, but it may spin in his grip.

I kind of like it when Transformers turn into stuff besides vehicles, and the less mechanical the more endearing (until you get to Transformers that become animals/beasts/monsters/etc, but that's another can of worms.  Needless to say, I'm a fan of Kaon's electric chair alt mode and Anarchus mostly delivers.  It might make the back look a bit less cluttered if his forearms became the chair's armrests, but Milne's art doesn't really indicate how you'd go about that.  Besides, if you think about it, it sort of makes sense to slap all the electrical components onto the back.  Anarchus' gun is fairly crucial to this mode, as it locks his arms together, locks his arms to his body, and locks his torso to his pelvis.  So, while leg and foot rests can move, as well as the cap, the chair itself is fairly solid.

The drone can split in half, and each half can peg onto one side of the chair.  The legs of the drone can be positioned around anyone in the chair, providing extra restraints.  It's a nice touch, but not necessary, nor is it accurate to the comic book, so the drone still is pretty superfluous.

If you have any Legends-class figures, be they official or 3P, they'll probably fit in the chair, as would the forgotten Scout-class and other sub-Deluxes like some Fansproject/Maketoys combiner guys or MP Bumblebee.  Deluxe-class figures might fit, if they're not too wide and they don't have too much back kibble.  It's safe to say that anything larger won't fit.

I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall during whatever conversation led to this third mode, a mode that might generously be described as a scorpion.  Did MMC's designers think that a robot that turns into furniture wasn't cool enough?  (I don't know about you guys, but I'd love for Alex Milne to take an IKEA catalog and start churning out new characters.)  Was it something that was always planned, or was someone messing around with a prototype, bent the legs up, and was like "hey guys, I made a scorpion!" and MMC just ran with it?  Either way, it doesn't work super well.  I mean, the tail out of the seat is fine, and the cap makes for a sort of bug eye, sure.  But that's all on a big chunk of blatantly-folded up robot with super obvious hands, and having all the legs near the back means there's nothing to support that mass of robot.

The double-hinged foot and heel spur do make a decent claw.  However, they're sat kind of far back as well, and the robot arms and shallow knees limit how far forward the claws can bend.  The below-the-knee swivel does give the claws a sort of wrist articulation, though, and the hips allow for a bit of up/down rotation.

The scorpion mode is the only mode where the drone is actually required for the alt mode.  However, this mode is a non-canon, tacked-on afterthought.  The drone remains superfluous because this entire mode is superfluous.  Congratulations, drone, you're going back in the box.

After the sheer awesomeness that was Kultur, Anarchus is a little bit of a letdown (which is probably why Anarchus came first, eh?).  As much as I like an ab crunch, I'm not really liking the ball joint for a waist.  It's kind of a bummer that he can't hold his gun that well.  It's kind of a bummer that his waist swivel is so limited, and that he can't really look up unless his head is on backward.  It's a bigger bummer that his leg doesn't swivel at the thigh, only below the knee.  The drone is mostly wasted plastic.

On the other hand, if you can overlook his flaws Anarchus is a very comic book-accurate robot that turns into a mostly-accurate electric chair, giving IDW fans 90% of what they want in a Kaon figure and 89% more than Hasbro is likely to.  And as stupid as the scorpion mode is, I can give it a pass because nothing was sacrificed in robot or chair mode to get there.

If you're not a fan of More Than Meets the Eye then a lanky robot with electrical pylons on his shoulders that turns into a chair might not be something you associate with Transformers, and maybe Anarchus isn't for you.  And that's OK.  If you read MTMTE, if you know what the DJD is, and you want those characters in your collection (of if you just like seeing Alex Milne's art come to life) then there's really no reason not to pick Anarchus up.

[M'Kyuun]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

For Eligos, have you tried contacting the retailer? I've heard 3Ps rarely respond to requests for parts, especially if they're not in Chinese.

As for ToyWorld, did you submit a claim through their support site? I'd heard that they basically ceased all contact for a few months because they seriously underestimated the issues with Burden, but old claims are starting to be processed now that they've switched the factories back to green Constructors.

For Eligos, I broke one of the forward tabs on his back-plate, which forms the upper fuselage containing the canopy. I emailed them asking what kind of plastic was used so I could choose an appropriate adhesive to fix it. I didn't ask for any replacement parts. I thought it a reasonable request, but they never replied. I'm assuming it's ABS, and was hoping for an affirmation. The toy was in pristine condition when I got it; I broke it trying to force the tab into its slot- it stressed and finally snapped off. Anyway, it was my fault, so I never contacted the retailer.

As for Toy World, my Bulldozer figure's heel was pinned improperly and the linkage to which it's connected was cracked out of the box. Moreover, the heel will not move to a 90 degree position without putting stress on the pin, so it's a double issue. I contacted them through their support site, providing photos, and never heard anything from them. That was back in September.  I'm planning on getting the box set of all six figs with fixes, so I'll have a second, hopefully flawless, Bulldozer, and a spare fig if I ever need parts.  I held off on getting Burden to give them a chance to fix its issues. Gotta say, I'm not crazy about their add on foot panels- there was a better homemade solution over on the TFW boards where they made a retractable heel piece that seemed to do the job with minimal changes to the feet. I was hoping TW would incorporate that idea as an official fix. Guess not.

My other two Constructor figs, Unearth and Allocator, are in perfect condition. I love these figures, and look forward to getting the full team- it'll be my first Devastator, even if it is unofficial.

[Scyla]

I've been watching this review of the new ToyWorld Coneheads. It is really amazing how much better they are compared to the MP-11 mold. I'm not sold on ToyWorlds hip joint (same goes for their Primorion) but now I really wish they would release a Skywarp version of the mold. Of course they are not perfect but the MP Seeker mold really shows its age. 

 

[mikeszekely]

18 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

For Eligos, I broke one of the forward tabs on his back-plate, which forms the upper fuselage containing the canopy. I emailed them asking what kind of plastic was used so I could choose an appropriate adhesive to fix it. I didn't ask for any replacement parts. I thought it a reasonable request, but they never replied. I'm assuming it's ABS, and was hoping for an affirmation. The toy was in pristine condition when I got it; I broke it trying to force the tab into its slot- it stressed and finally snapped off. Anyway, it was my fault, so I never contacted the retailer.

As for Toy World, my Bulldozer figure's heel was pinned improperly and the linkage to which it's connected was cracked out of the box. Moreover, the heel will not move to a 90 degree position without putting stress on the pin, so it's a double issue. I contacted them through their support site, providing photos, and never heard anything from them. That was back in September.  I'm planning on getting the box set of all six figs with fixes, so I'll have a second, hopefully flawless, Bulldozer, and a spare fig if I ever need parts.  I held off on getting Burden to give them a chance to fix its issues. Gotta say, I'm not crazy about their add on foot panels- there was a better homemade solution over on the TFW boards where they made a retractable heel piece that seemed to do the job with minimal changes to the feet. I was hoping TW would incorporate that idea as an official fix. Guess not.

My other two Constructor figs, Unearth and Allocator, are in perfect condition. I love these figures, and look forward to getting the full team- it'll be my first Devastator, even if it is unofficial.

I still think it doesn't hurt to contact the retailer for Eligos.  Like I said, most of these 3Ps simply don't respond to emails/Facebook/Weibo if it's not in Chinese, but sometimes retailers can get replacement parts.  Even if it's your fault and the retailer doesn't want to give you a replacement part for nothing, sometimes they'll sell you a part.  I think BBTS might even sell parts even if you didn't buy from them; I was talking recently to someone who got a replacement wrist connector for a Warbotron Bruticus from them.  I think it ran maybe $5-6.

As for ToyWorld, have you checked the status of your claim on their support site lately?  Like I said, they went totally dark for a long time, but since switching back to the green I've heard tickets are moving again.  Not that it excuses the months of silence, but you might not be SOL yet.

I think you'll like Constructor, especially the V2 version with all the more G1 touches.  That stuff (the green thighs, the lat fillers, the new head) really address a lot of the complaints I had with him.  I think I still prefer Gravity Builder, though.

[M'Kyuun]

I did some checking and realized that my message to Toyworld never sent due to some kind of conflict between Windows Livemail and Hotmail, so that explains why they never responded to me. Since I'm going to get the boxset, I'm not going to worry about it.  I think I'm going to enjoy Constructor, too. I just love the chunky feel of these guys in hand, and I look forward to getting them all assembled into Constructor, as he'll be my Devastator for the forseeable future. As for the green thighs, I think I actually prefer the silver, and I hope he comes with both.

As for Eligos, thanks for the suggestion. If my gluing attempts fail, I may contact TFSource, or BBTS if they're unable to help.

[mikeszekely]

There have been several 3P toys I've wanted, but a lot of them have been waiting on a back burner while I've directed a lot of my focus toward combiners.  And recently, I've noticed some stuff on my list, especially some MMC stuff, has been selling out at stores and going for ridiculous prices on Ebay.  For whatever reason, that motivated me to pick up a figure I've had my eye on ever since he came out.  So tonight, I give you Salmoore, DX9's take on the Gobot Cy-Kill.

Truth time... I think I've mentioned, either here or in the official Transformers thread, that my family was kind of poor when I was little and I didn't have many Season 1 & 2 Transformers because my parents simply couldn't afford them.  What they could afford, though, were the next best thing... Gobots.  I had a ton of Gobots as a kid.  Although I preferred Transformers, I watched the Challenge of the Gobots cartoon just as much.  So when a 3P company makes a high-quality homage to main Gobots character like Cy-Kill, I'm going to take notice.

Obviously, Salmoore is a heavily-stylized take on Cy-Kill, but that's probably for the best.  The animation in Challenge of the Gobots wasn't super hot, and the Bike Robo toy that Cy-Kill was based on was pretty simple.  What DX9 has done here is to craft a figure with more detail and better proportions that doesn't look out of place with Transformers toys... indeed, he's fairly similar in size to an MP car or a modern Voyager.  Despite the heavy makeover, Salmoore is still undeniably Cy-Kill.  The head and face are the right shape and colors, but he looks more mechanical and less like a guy with yellow teeth and gray stubble.  His chest and hips are red with yellow markings, but again more detailed.  His thighs, arms, and abs are white like the cartoon, and the black lines on the cartoon where the engine pegged in on the toy are now silver-painted vents.  There's a also some gray and black breaking up the white on the arms and some gunmetal on the thighs.  He's got real arms and hands instead of the bendy struts with weird curly hands, but he retains the tires on his shoulders.  Likewise, the foot rests on his shoulders mimic the overly-simplistic handlebars of the original Cy-Kill.  His mismatched feet are white and gray, and he's missing the yellow marks on his knees, but his shins are still predominantly blue.  I think Gobots fans looking for a cartoon-accurate, Masterpiece-style Cy-Kill might be a little disappointed with the liberties DX9 has taken, but I personally think that Salmoore successfully creates a modern Cy-Kill that doesn't look stupid next to a modern Transformer while staying true to the character.

Salmoore comes with a handful of accessories.  There are, of course, his tires, which are rubber on chromed wheels.  He also has  pair of translucent spiked covers for the tires, and a pair of chromed guns.  The barrels on the guns can collapse into them.  That seems to be more for transformation, but if you want a Cy-Kill with smaller guns it's also an option.

Salmoore's head is on a ball joint with a hinge at the base.  Naturally, it can rotate and he can tilt is head to either side a little and look down a little.  Due to his transformation, you can use the hinge to have him looking straight up.  He has universal joints for shoulders and rotation is not a problem.  He can extend his arm laterally a bit less than 90 degrees before the tires on his shoulders start bumping the foot rests.  If you take the tires off he can go a little further, but the white tips on his shoulders still get you less than 90 degrees.  Due to his transformation, he technically has a reverse butterfly joint as well, but this is actually a small complaint for me because the joint relies entirely on friction to stay in place, and his shoulders don't actually peg into his torso.  He has bicep and wrist swivels, and double-jointed elbows that let him touch his shoulders.  Again, though, if you turn his bicep out a bit and then bend his elbow his forearm will start to collide with his tires at about 90 degrees.  His hands are solid pieces shaped so that 5mm pegs will fit in them.  He has a waist swivel and thigh swivels.  His hips are universal joints that can move 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally.  Small complaint #2, the foward/backward joints on both hips were pretty loose on mine, but I opened up his waist, took the legs out, and put a little Future on the mushroom pegs and everything's right as rain now.  Both knees can bend well over 90 degrees, but his left leg can technically bend slightly more than the right.  His heels are fixed, but the front half of either foot is on a ball joint and can provide very good inward or, if you're into that sort of thing, outward ankle tilts.  His left foot can tilt up and down a little on the ball joint, but the ball joint in his right foot is hinged at the base for transformation.  Practically speaking, that means his right foot has much greater downward tilt than the left.

The wheel covers just fit over the wheels on his shoulders to give him a menacing, spiked look.  The spikes are very sharp, so take caution when handling them.  I think it's a nice option, but honestly the bare wheels are more Cy-Kill in my book.  Since they aren't used in alt mode, I'm content to just leave them in the box.  He holds his guns just fine, but with a simple 5mm peg instead of the handles and tabs or slots or whatever gimmicks used in a lot of MP and newer 3P toys, he'd better.

Salmoore's alt mode is a motorcycle, but it's a much more drastic change from the original Cy-Kill than his robot mode.  Some of the details are still there... he's still got the seat at teh back, the white front with the yellow headlight, the chromed engine, and chromed tail pipes, but a lot of the blue is showing on top while the red is mostly hidden.  There's nothing about it that immediately says "Cy-Kill" to me.  On the other hand, though, it's a drastically more realistic motorcycle than Cy-Kill/Bike Robo.  Indeed, it's one of the nicest motorcycle alt-mode on any Transformer I own (granted, that's a pretty limited pool right now with just Scout-class ROTF Elita-1, Generations Wreck-Gar, Generations Chromia, Legends-class Groove, Deluxe-class Groove, Prime Arcee, Maketoys' not-Afterburner, and Maketoys' not-Groove to compare it too).

DX9 incorporated a lot of nice touches to the motorcycle mode.  There's the aforementioned rubber tires and chromed wheels, the chromed foot rests, and the chromed engine (which folds out from his back instead of being a separate piece like the original toy).  His guns integrate into his alt mode, with the barrels linking into the engine and forming the bike's exhausts.  The seat has a textured, rubbery coating to give it a leathery feel.  You can also see, just under the seat, that there's a fold-out panel inside is leg that serves no purpose except to fill the gap between what is his calf and what is his thigh.  He's got red-painted and translucent yellow tail lights.  He's got a fold-out kickstand, and his handlebars are on ball joints to help you pose them with any figures you might try to put on him.  And the blue plastic, while not painted, does have a nice metallic sheen to it.  It's clear that DX9 didn't want the motorcycle mode to be an afterthought.

A motorcycle robot that's the size of an MP car in robot mode is going to be necessarily out-of-scale with they're both in alt mode.  Heck, as you can see with Groove and Prowl, that's true if the motorcycle bot is a Deluxe.  I don't really care, though.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, in a universe where a space shuttle and a jeep are both limbs on the same combiner bot-mode size is far more important than alt-mode.  I want a Cy-Kill who can hang with my mostly-Voyager-ish Transformers, not an itty-bitty Cy-Kill whose bike mode scales perfectly with Prowl's Nissan.

Once we decide to ignore issues of scale, the inevitable question becomes, "Who can ride on him?"  Well, size-wise, a Deluxe-class Transformer looks like a good fit.  A Voyager or MP car bot looks like it's probably too big, but I'll confess that I don't really know jack about motorcycles and I could be way off.  If you're going to put a Transformer on him, depending on the amount of articulation and alt-mode kibble you might run into some trouble getting him on the bike.  CW Blast Off here can't turn his wrists to get them on the handlebars and he's having trouble getting his feet near the foot rests.  Unfortunately, I don't collect anything but Transformers, so I don't have any human figures to put on him.

Salmoore isn't perfect.  I've already mentioned two small complaints and pointed out a few minor issues with his articulation.  I've also mentioned that, subjectively, someone might prefer a more faithful toy like the new Bike Robo.  Another gripe I have is that his transformation, while pretty easy once you know what you're doing, does involve working his shoulders around the chrome engine parts, and the clearance there is pretty ridiculous.  The instructions (which are mostly useless as they're too dark and too small to really see what you're supposed to be doing) even caution you to pay attention to how you have the shoulders rotated.  Even when everything is lined up right the edge of the shoulder is still basically rubbing past the chrome.

For the most part, though, my objective complaints are relatively minor and my subjective one is more of a pro for me than a con.  Salmoore is pretty much exactly what I'd expect Cy-Kill to look like if the Gobots were reimagined as Cybertronians, and he's the right size for my collection (which is more than I can say for the new Bike Robo).  I love him; my actual biggest complaint isn't about the figure itself, it's the lack of other modern Voyager-sized Gobots to go with him (AFAIK, there's just DX9's Invisible with a new head and paint job as Crasher).  And if the worst thing I can say about this Cy-Kill is that I can't find a good Leader-1 for him to fight, I'd say he's a pretty easy recommend.

[David Hingtgen]

That's some serious light piping (and the blinds are closed). 

 

[mikeszekely]

Hey, David, I finally got my Deathclaw, too!  And since I'm now going to review him, I'll remind everybody that he's TFC's take on Nautilator/Lobclaw.

I think I've established the size of TFC's Seacons in my reviews for Bigbite, Cyberjaw, and Mentarazor, so instead of getting out ol' MP Prowl I decided to just show him with two other recent toys that I've really enjoyed.

Now, aesthetically Deathclaw is kind of a mixed bag.  On the one hand, TFC did some that that works pretty well for me.  I like how TFC integrated his claws into his arms (they simply came off on the G1 toy, or you left them on his back), and while his beast head is on his back his beast legs cleverly blend into his robot legs (although they're actually part of his feet).  It gives him a very clean look overall.  Generally speaking, his visual style meshes well with the other TFC Poseidon team.  And the mostly-gray torso and shins with mostly-blue/green arms and shins is mostly accurate (although the exact shades are debatable, as has been the case with this entire set).  Two things really bug me, though.  First up is his head, which is molded in the same drak gray plastic as his hands and biceps.  I swear TFC just got lazy here.  It would have been bad enough, although more accurate, if it had been done in black plastic, but what he really needs is some orangey-yellow paint on his mouth plate.  The other thing that's bugging me is the red paint.  I get that a little on his pelvis and his knees sort of calls back to sticker details on the original toy, and sure, it looks visually cohesive with Ironshell... but Nautilator isn't supposed to match Snaptrap (that's Overbite's job).  Nautilator is supposed to match Seawing, and Mentarazor doesn't have a lick of red on him.  I mean, I've heard complaints about the yellow on Deathclaw's arms (and, as you'll see in beast mode, his beast head), but at least that matches Mentarazor.

Aesthetics aside, Deathclaw comes with a bunch of accessories.  There's his gun, which has the same opening-flip-out-barrel gimmick as the other limbs.  He also has two swords and two other... things... that can be used as melee weapons.  Additionally, he comes with the left hand of Poseidon, his gun-mode handle, a pair of combiner connectors, two pink things that I'm not entirely sure about (and the instructions don't mention) that might have some use in combined mode, and a new flap and neck joint for Poseidon's head.  The complaint seems to be that people thought Poseidon's head sat back too far, and these new parts allow the head to sit farther forward.  However, getting the pin and the old parts out seems to be more trouble than it's worth.

Articulation-wise, Deathclaw is pretty similar to the other Poseidon limbs.  His head is on a ball joint with a little upward tilt and a little lateral tilt, but man can he look down!  His shoulder pads are on ball joints that are hinged on his torso due to his transformation so they don't interfere with his articulation, but they do require some additional finagling to get them work with his arm poses.  On the topic of arms, his shoulders are ratcheted for both rotation and lateral movement, of which he gets a little over 90 degrees.  He has double-jointed elbows.  The top one is a very tight ratchet (so tight I'm a little afraid to break it), and the bottom one is a friction joint.  He doesn't actually have a swivel in his bicep; instead, it's between his elbow joints.  While that means that he can only use both joints if they're lined up, the friction joint will actually allow his arm to bend until his forearm starts bumping his upper arm, so not a big deal.  His wrists and waist can swivel, although you have to be mindful that his beast head doesn't catch on any of the tabs on his butt.  His hips are ratcheted, and he can get just under 90 degrees forward and backward, and just over 90 degrees laterally.  He's got thigh swivels just under the hip joints.  His ratcheting knees get about 90 degrees of bend, although you'll almost certainly have to reposition the beast legs.  Now his feet are a little odd, although probably less so than the other three limbs.  Basically, the foot is attached to a ball joint in the middle, but the ball joint is hinged at the base to the outside of his shin.  So, his foot can rotate, it can tilt up and down, and he's got inward and outward ankle tilts, but using any of it means you have to swing the hinge out enough so that the foot has clearance.  Mostly I think this works fine, but for more extreme poses his foot will become off-centered from his shin.  His toes are also jointed for transformation, but you can't do a lot with those joints in bot mode that you can't do easier by moving the whole foot.  Also worth noting is that, as previously noted, the beast legs are attached to his robot feet, so you kind of have to pose his legs, then pose his ankles, then arrange the beast legs so they're smooth against his robot legs.

Oh, yeah, and the translucent spikes on his toes can swivel up and down.

He can hold his gun fine; there's even a notch in the back for the claw kibble on his forearm to sit in.  He can also hold the swords, although they seemed extremely tight.  I'd be a little worried about scraping the silver paint off, or stressing the hands.

He can hold the thingies, too.  I don't know what they're supposed to be.  An axe?  There's a hinge on the peg so he could flip the blade around the other way.  I dunno, if they weren't part of Poseidon's sword I'd leave them in the box.

Of course, Deathclaw doesn't actually need any weapons.  You can transform his arm into his claw mode while he's in robot mode.  Also, the top of his beast head can unpeg from his pack and peg onto the side of his arm to make a shield.  Be careful, though.  Perhaps due to the paint, the fit on his arm was tighter than the fit on his back, so when I went to remove it I actually pulled the head off it's ball joint, leaving the peg in his arm.  Inspection of the ball socket showed some serious stress marks.

Deathclaw turns into a lobster (or perhaps some sort of crawfish or claw shrimp... I'm not a carcinologist).  He's a pretty big boy, too.  Again, he's predominantly blue/green with black legs and mostly-gray claws.  The translucent black is an acceptable stand-in for gray in my book.  He does have some blue/green on his claw, but that's the trade-off for having blue/green forearms.  Aside from his eyes, the yellow is somewhat out of place but it does serve to break up all the blue-green and, as I said earlier, is visually cohesive with Mentarazor.  He could probably use more gray in beast mode; the gray on the G1 toy comes from it's robot torso forming its back, but Deathclaw's robot feet and beast head hide most of his robot torso.  I don't really mind it that much, though, since my experience with lobsters is that they're pretty uniform in color (again, not a carcinologist).  What I do mind, again, is the totally out-of-place red that doesn't match Mentarazor at all.

Aesthetic qualms aside, Deathclaw's alt mode is probably the most fun of the bunch.  The top of his head is on a ball joint for a little wiggle, the bottom jaw is on a hinged ball joint, and the shoulder pads form the sides of his mouth parts are also on hinged ball joints.  Combined, you can definitely open and close his mouth.  His whiskers are ball jointed and made of soft plastic, so they too can be arranged how you like.  His claw arms have all the same joints as his robot arms and have plenty of range, plus the actual claws are on hinged ball joints at the base for opening and closing, plus the outside claw has a hinged tip.  His eight beast legs are all on ball joints at the base, with hinges immediately after the ball joint, in the middle, and at the tip.  This does allow for some posing of the legs, but the joints aren't strong enough to support Deathclaw's weight so he really just sits on his lobster tummy.

Just like the other limbs, he can carry his gun in beast mode.  There's a little spot in his tail where his gun handle can slide in (and those spots are neatly hidden by his knee pads in robot mode).

If I'm being fair, my complaints about Deathclaw are really mostly subjective complaints about TFC's aesthetic choices.  Those are the kind of details that you have to decide, on a personal level, if they bug you enough to be deal breakers.  If they're not, what I can tell you is that Deathclaw is a very solid toy, probably the best of the Poseidon limbs so far.  He's a fun toy that manages to be a fairly clean robot and a pretty cool robot lobster.  If you're thinking about getting him, I say go for it.

[mikeszekely]

With four limbs in hand, I can't decide if I should review Poseidon sans Targetmaster, or of I should wait for the sixth member.  So in the meantime, rounding out the Decepticon Justice Division, here's Cynicus, MMC's Vos.

I broke out some Combiner Wars fellas instead of going with trusty ol' MP Prowl because I think a standard Voyager and Deluxe do a better job of illustrating how small Cynicus is.  It's not just how short he is; combined with a body so lanky that he looks like he has an eating disorder Cynicus is borderline ethereal.  I don't have a scale to compare, but CW Swindle feels heavier.

What he lacks in plastic he makes up for in design.  Cynicus, like Anarchus and Kultur, is very close to Alex Milne's design.  MMC even put those little purple bits on his shoulders, pinned onto a thin piece that can rotate independently of his arm so they don't interfere with either his articulation or transformation, despite that fact that they serve no purpose other than bot mode decoration.  Most of the inaccuracies, like the wings coming off of his chest plate not wrapping over to form shoulder armor, is due to the realities of making a toy that actually transforms.  The icing on the cake is that MMC did include a ton of paint.

Cynicus comes with a handful of accessories.  The most important is his sniper rifle.  The bipod on it can rotate at the base, and each leg is ball jointed so you can pose them how you please.  The butt of the rifle can separate and become a pistol, if you prefer.  There's also an alternate, faceless head, with a separate spiked face piece, to give you a gimmick from the comic book.  The downer here is that the face piece lacks any paint.  I can sort of forgive MMC for not painting the spikes silver, but the front of the face really should have had the light whitish gray that his regular face does so they actually match.  Oh well, it's not like they weren't destined to go back into the box anyway.  Lastly, there's a handle that works with his alt mode.

Despite serving no purpose in robot mode, the handle can peg onto his backpack, as can his rifle.

Cynicus has some serious action-figure articulation going on.  His head is on a ball joint at the base, plus his neck is hinged in his torso.  He's got enough lateral movement for him to cock his head like he's curious (or confused), and the combination of the ball joint and hinge mean that he can look straight up, look down at his toes, crane his neck forward, or pull back like he's recoiling.  His shoulders are on ball joints inside his arm and hinges in his torso, so he can slump or shrug his shoulders, move them laterally over 180 degrees so he looks like he's doing stretches, and even do a little forward and backward butterfly.  He has bicep swivels and double-jointed elbows that allow him to touch his shoulders.  His wrists are ball jointed, so they can swivel but they also have a little up/down tilt, a minuscule outward tilt, and a 90 degree inward tilt.  His waist is a ball joint as well, giving you a swivel as well as a bit of a forward/backward/lateral ab crunch.  His hips are universal joints that can handily do 90 degrees forward or backward, but are limited to a little over 45 degrees laterally due to the comic book-accurate protrusions on his hips.  His knees are double-jointed and will get you maybe 135 degrees until his calves start to bang into his thighs.  Due to his transformation, he has a second set of swivels below his knees that, in a pinch, can sub for ankle rotation.  His feet are kind of weird.  There's a gray part that's on a swivel on the bottom of the back of his leg.  That swivel provides his ankle tilt which is slight on the outward due to the shape of the part and his leg but will give you 90 degrees of inward tilt no problem.  That gray part wraps around to the outside of his foot, providing a hinge for both the front of his foot and his heel.  His feet can tilt up a little until the top of his foot his fake ankle, and his heel can also tilt a little upward before it meets the gray part.  Both halves of his feet can also hinge downward.  The maximum angle between the halves of his feet is 90 degrees, but it's up to you if you want his toes pointing down, his heel pointing down, or some combination thereof.

He can hold his pistol just fine.  The second peg on the barrel means it, too, can be used as a weapon (another gimmick from Milne's design, although on Cynicus it means you have to turn the barrel sideways).  Cynicus is also articulated enough that he can hold the combined sniper rifle with hands on both pegs.

Actually, the combination of Cyincus' size and his excellent articulation means he's a perfect choice for a robot to ride on DX9's Salmoore.  Maybe Cy-Kill should join the DJD?

Cynicus turns into a sniper rifle.  It's fairly accurate to Milne's design, with the legs forming the stock, the backpack making a shoulder rest and scope, the main grip coming out of the backs of his legs, the forward grip hanging off his arm in the front, and the rifle forming the barrel.  Again, most of the deviations come from MMC having to actually make a transforming toy, while on Milne's design something like 80% of Vos' mass just vanishes.  I guess this is more an issue I have with Vos than with this toy, but it sort of seems redundant for a guy with a sniper rifle to turn into a sniper rifle.  In any case, since I had CW Bruticus out, here's Legends-class Shockwave for comparison.

The question that most people are going to have is "can the other DJD guys use him as a gun?"  And yes, yes they can.  In Kultur's case, his grip on the peg is a little loose and Cynicus' weight has a tendency to pull him out.  He looks a little oversized for Anarchus, but Anarchus is articulated enough to hold him with both handles.

Alternatively, you could have Anarachus hold him by the front handle alone, and prop him up on Anarchus' shoulder.  This way, he still looks big for Anarchus, but big like a mecha in an anime firing a big gun and less like one of the instances of Spike trying to fire a Transformer's gun in the cartoon.

One complaint here about that second handle is that, sort of like Legends-class Shockwave, the guard on it can prevent a lot of other toys from holding Cynicus there who might otherwise be able to.

You can, if you prefer, fold Cynicus' handles forward and sandwich that other handle part between his legs in that spot to give him a bigger handle.  This larger handle is for one singular purpose, and that's to allow MMC's Feral Rex to wield Cynicus in gun mode.  It's a nice thought in theory that allows for added playability with another MMC product, but I don't really see myself doing it in practice outside of this one time for a photo.  The handle goes back into the box with the alternate head an face.

So here's the deal... concern over the fragility of some of the thinner gray parts, coupled with the fact that most other toys don't hold him that well and it really doesn't make a ton of sense for him to turn into a sniper rifle for someone else when he already has a sniper rifle, means that I won't be transforming him a lot.  Fortunately, MMC crafted a toy that feels more like a very articulated action figure that happens to transform than a transforming toy that happens to have good articulation, and they made sure that toy looked an awful lot like the character that inspired it.  The problem, though, is the price.  I know MMC originally intended for Cynicus to be cheaper, but the reality is that this reissue ran me $90.  $90 is a lot to ask for a figure as small as Cynicus is, knowing full well that for $10 less you could be picking up Maketoys' Cross Dimension figures or for $10 more you could be snagging figures like MMC's Sphinx or Maketoys' Downbeat.  So the question really comes down to how badly you want him.  If you're just thinking he looks kind of cool but aren't really attached to the character you'll probably find more bang for your buck elsewhere.  On the other hand, if you're a fan of More Than Meets the Eye and the DJD you're unlikely to get any other toy based on Vos, let alone one this good.  $90 is a hard pill to swallow for him, but he looks fantastic with the other MMC DJD guys and you'll probably feel like you're missing out if you pass on him.  It may be moot, though... at the time of writing, looks like the reissue has already sold out at most places.

[JB0]

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

 I guess this is more an issue I have with Vos than with this toy, but it sort of seems redundant for a guy with a sniper rifle to turn into a sniper rifle.

Eh, guy with a big gun turns into a big gun worked for Megatron and Shockwave.  What's one more member of the club?

...

Actually, , now that I think about it a sniper rifle would be a very good match for Shockwave's non-cartoon personality. Calm, collected, calculating, and just waiting for the perfect moment to pull the trigger. MAKE IT HAPPEN, SOMEONE!

[Ignacio Ocamica]

Picked up yesterday Sovereign from the post office. First Fans Toys product. It's better than people say, what a great hefty toy! !! It's how I envisioned Galvatron in toy form.

[mikeszekely]

Decided how to review TFC's Poseidon, their not-Piranacon/King Poseidon, was a little tricky.  Usually I'd have all the members in hand, and in pursuit of a robot and alt mode of the quality and engineering we've come to expect from 3P toys a lot of companies have ditched the the G1 Scramble City mechanic.  So, I could focus on bot and alt mode in their individual reviews, then I could just stick them all together in their sole combined configuration and get to it.  Not so for TFC.  They made sure that everyone except the torso can be an arm, a leg, or a gun in addition to their bot and beast modes.  And with four figures released who can be arms and legs we already have a complete combiner despite missing a member.

After giving it some thought, I decided we'd look at all four leg, arm, and gun modes before combine them.  I'll tell you my thoughts on Poseidon's combined mode.  And then later, when TFC's not-Tentakill comes out, we'll talk about his arm, leg, and gun modes and anything else he brings to the gestalt at the same time we review him as a solo figure.

Now onto the show!

It's pretty hard to screw up a leg mode, isn't it?  Unlike their G1 counterparts, they're clearly transformed and not simply their robot modes standing stock straight on the combiner feet, but the transformation for each basically comes down to smashing them down into the most brick-ish shape they can make.  They all have a little stuff laying on the front, and Cyberjaw and Bigbite have some stuff on the sides while Mentarazor and Deathclaw have their junk on the back.  None of them are particularly egregious, so whichever you decide to use for a leg you really can't go wrong.

With a dedicated elbow joint, all four are pretty good as arms, too.  Cyberjaw is probably the worst arm, as his lower half tabs together a little awkwardly.  TFC included a way for the individual forearms to peg into their biceps, but there's unfortunately no way to prevent the individual arms from rotating at the shoulders.  Also, while I've done my best to get these arm modes as close to the instructions as possible, you have a bit of leeway with how you arrange tails, Mentarazor's wings, and Deathclaw's claws, lobster head, and beast legs.

Interestingly, Bigbite, Cyberjaw, and Mentarazor are laid out fairly similarly to their G1 counterparts, but Deathclaw is inverted with the beast head and claws on his upper arm instead of his forearm.

The gun modes are... well, for the most part, they're no worse than the G1 versions.  I think my favorite here is probably Cyberjaw.  While the other three are folded into a shape with their guns plugged into the front, Cyberjaw looks like the gun is coming out of his shark mouth, which is pretty cool.  Bigbite's not too bad either.  Deathclaw has sort of an odd shape for a gun with his claws just chilling on the sides, but it'll work.  Mentarazor is a failure in this mode, though.  The instructions basically have you put him into beast mode, turn him upside down, then flip the wings and tail around to the other side where they don't sit flush and don't plug into anything.  His robot feet also get in the way of the handle.  The result is fat and sloppy.  More frustratingly, after instructing you to transform him thusly, the instructions show a gun mode that looks decidedly different.  It's longer, with the green panels on his legs folded onto the sides instead of underneath and his robot arms just coming up to those green panels (as instructed, they'd overlap).  I've tried putting Mentarazor's legs into an arm mode position, I've tried extending the combiner elbow joint, but they just don't line up as they do in the picture.  You could almost get everything lined up like the picture by repositioning things around his knees and transformation joints, but tabs on his butt prevent everything from closing.

Side note... it seemed to me that the handles had to be inserted backward to put them on the feet stands compared to how you'd fit them into Poseidon's hands.  That's not necessary, though, if you rotate the back of the stand 180 degrees... something they only tell you in Cyberjaw's instructions.  Not only do they not tell you in the other three instructions, but all three are photographed without rotating the back of the stand.

And here he is combined.  Again, TFC have obviously taken some liberties with the design.  I've already commented on the limbs, so I'll point out the large pinkish-red stripe running down the middle of his chest, the silver over his crotch, the translucent blue parts on his thighs and hips, the lack of light pink on his pelvis, the translucent yellow mohawk, the translucent yellow bits on this toes, and the larger and less blocky feet.  I'd have also really liked it if his hands were black instead of that gray plastic.  There's still plenty of Piranacon details, though, like the blue-green half-shell chest, the silver wings, the black cannons on his back, the spikes on his hands, the pinkish-red thighs and feet, the three-toed feet, and the the shape and color of his head once you overlook the yellow mohawk.  Here he is with Feral Rex, long held by many to be one of the best 3P combiners, and I gotta tell you that Poseidon feels better, and not just because he's half a head or so taller.

And here he is with the every-so-slightly taller Gravity Builder, whom I'd personally hold as the best 3P combiner.

Obviously, you can mix and match the limbs however you like, but in my head the King Poseidon configuration in Masterforce is the "default" configuration.  So I went with that, subbing in Cyberjaw for the absent not-Tentakill.  Something else worth noting is that I have him transformed according to the instructions, which kind of forces him into an A-stance.  If you transform his hips so that they're in Ironshell's turtle mode position his hips will be a little wider and he'll have less of an A-stance, but he'll lose about half an inch of height.  I think he looks pretty proportional either way, and I think a lot of that is due to some panels that fold out and peg together to fill out Poseidon's torso behind the shell.

By the way, the pink parts that came with Deathclaw?  Figured out what they're for.  You can slot them into the space over Ironshell's shoulder combiner pegs.  Aesthetically, I guess that fills in a little gap.  Practically, I'm not sure what TFC was going for here.  It locks the combiner pegs down, forcing you to use the joints for the ports on the limbs for lateral shoulder movement.  I'm not entirely clear on what the advantage of that over using the joint in the peg or a combination of both joints, though.

With everyone but not-Tentakill in hand, you have enough parts to build Poseidon's sword.  It's pretty impressive, and larger than even Feral Rex's Oppenheimer sword.  It's quite a bit more stylized than the G1 toy, but it retains the three-pronged tip.  My only real complaint comes from the hand guard.  The points angle down a little too low, and work against you when you're trying to fit the sword into Poseidon's hands.

Ironshell came with enough parts to make two handles, and looking at the pictures on each members' boxes gives you some ideas for alternate configurations.  There may be even more, but you'll have to experiment to find them as the instructions don't even tell you how to make the regular sword mode.

Poseidon's articulation is good for a combiner.  His head is on a ball joint, which is fine for rotation and gives you a little up, down, and lateral tilt, but not a lot.  His shoulders rotate on ratches, and lateral movement (as noted) comes from the ratcheting joint on the combiner ports in the limb bots.  You can get theoretically get 90 degrees of lateral motion, but you'll likely have to move tails (or shoulder pads) to get there, and even then some part of the limb bots will probably start bumping some part of the torso before you get all the way there.  Poseidon has friction swivels above and below his elbow joints, and ratcheted single-jointed elbow that'll get you a little under 90 degrees.  His wrists swivel, and each finger is individually articulated.  The fingers are hinged at all three knuckles, while the thumb is on a ball joint at the base with two more hinged knuckles.  His waist can swivel.  His thighs have ratcheted swivels, but they tend to want to pop open the back of the thighs.  His hip armor folds up in one solid piece to accommodate his hips, which ratchet foward a little under 90 degrees, ratchet backward 45 degrees, and ratchet laterally a little less than 90 degrees if you move the side skirts on their double hinges.  His knees bend 90 degrees on the ratchets at the combiner peg, and due to the dual-nature of limbs they can also have ratcheted rotation at the knees.  His ankles are actually a large, tight ball joint which gives his feet a little up and down tilt, as well as is inward/outward ankle tilt.  There's also a hinge in his foot so his toes can bend a little upward.

Honestly, I think it's incredible that TFC started releasing Poseidon guys before they'd even finished Hades, because they're like night and day.  Hades has the same floppy looseness to his joints that we saw in many of TFC's other combiners, but Poseidon has none of that.  His ratchets are solid, and even where friction joints are employed the friction is nice and tight.  Where I literally have Hades propping himself up with his spear, I can pose Poseidon without fear of him falling over.  And while I'd point to Hades and Uranos as the two worst combiners I've completed, Poseidon has turned out to be one of the best.  He is good enough as is, without the remaining member, that I can recommend him without hesitation.  he's not perfect, but he's a very good modern take on Piranacon, which is something that other companies don't seem inclined to do.  Even if they did, I'm not convinced they'd do better, which is something I'd never thought I'd say about a TFC product.  When Thousand Kills, their not-Tentakill, comes out we'll see what additional options he brings to the Poseidon table, but rest assured that even if he turns out to be a terrible toy that adds nothing to the experience that there's already enough here to make an great combiner.

[slaginpit]

So I received this figure today and I have to say its....small. Really small. Take a look at the pictures below. -Its smaller than 1/100 MG Gundam model. -I would say paint apps are the best part of this figure. I love the metallic look and you never have to worry about it chipping off. -Where I knock this figure is its joints. They are way to loose and will just flop over if you try to put it any dynamic pose like a bent A-stance. And this is what sets this figure apart from the original. Aside from the drastic Mini Me presence it has toe joints and an ankle rock. -Ratcheted Joints in the elbows and Shoulders. -Comes with a Orb Spark from the episode where he places the spark from optimus into his chest Overall, its decent figure but for close to 100 dollars for shipping really not worth it. If it cost 50 bucks plus shipping I would rate this figure much higher and the fact the knee joints are basically non existent knocks this down to one star. No point in a figure cant stand

 

[David Hingtgen]

Behold.......Sesquipticon?

 

 

[slaginpit]

Whats is your take on it. I've seen some pretty bad reviews of it 

[anime52k8]

I don't get why they would sell it in two parts like that.

[Scyla]

Probably because no retailer offers payment plans for that kind of thing.

[David Hingtgen]

13 hours ago, slaginpit said:

Whats is your take on it. I've seen some pretty bad reviews of it 

So far---kinda floppy.   Nothing pegs, it's all friction.  And not much friction at that.  It's one of those "backwards" joint setups---the minor joints are super-tight (like the finger tips and "cockpit"), the bigger joints (wings/canards/engine pods) are loose.    Way too many parts seem held in place by gravity and little else.

Biggest annoyances:  The lights are either inserted/on, or sitting in the box.  You cannot install them and turn them off.   They are spring-loaded on-off switches, with "on" being achieved by inserting them into their designated location.   They cannot be "attached to Trypticon, but not lit".  

Also, the hands can NOT fold up like the instructions/renders show.  Something was changed.  For the worse.  This makes the "engine pods" in Nemesis mode "half split-open".    I now have a less-than-pristine-condition right hand due to spending hours trying to make it do what the instructions show it doing...  

[Silverstreak]

On 21/02/2017 at 3:51 PM, slaginpit said:

So I received this figure today and I have to say its....small. Really small. Take a look at the pictures below. -Its smaller than 1/100 MG Gundam model. -I would say paint apps are the best part of this figure. I love the metallic look and you never have to worry about it chipping off. -Where I knock this figure is its joints. They are way to loose and will just flop over if you try to put it any dynamic pose like a bent A-stance. And this is what sets this figure apart from the original. Aside from the drastic Mini Me presence it has toe joints and an ankle rock. -Ratcheted Joints in the elbows and Shoulders. -Comes with a Orb Spark from the episode where he places the spark from optimus into his chest Overall, its decent figure but for close to 100 dollars for shipping really not worth it. If it cost 50 bucks plus shipping I would rate this figure much higher and the fact the knee joints are basically non existent knocks this down to one star. No point in a figure cant stand

 

 

Whats going on there with your OpOp's chest cannons? They're not sticking out awkwardly!

edit: looking closer, it's pretty heavily modded. Looks great. But I you've removed the wheels off his back so no tank mode?

Edited February 26, 2017 by Silverstreak

[Black Valkyrie]

 

 

[M'Kyuun]

I kinda like that cab-only Ginrai fig, minus the exhaust pipes on his chest. Overall, as a CHUG sized figure, I like him better than both Classics Prime and CW Prime. Those pipes gotta go, though.  I wonder if he's permanently in full pelvic thrust mode, or if that can straighten out a bit?

[JB0]

That is a pretty studly-looking "boxy red truck robot".  While not accurate to a "real" Optimus Prime/Ginrai, I think the stacks bracketing the chest actually look pretty good. 

...

But yeah... that crotch thrust...  I mean, surely he isn't in full boner-power mode all the time, but those are some really unfortunate promo shots.

[slaginpit]

On 2/25/2017 at 10:13 PM, David Hingtgen said:

So far---kinda floppy.   Nothing pegs, it's all friction.  And not much friction at that.  It's one of those "backwards" joint setups---the minor joints are super-tight (like the finger tips and "cockpit"), the bigger joints (wings/canards/engine pods) are loose.    Way too many parts seem held in place by gravity and little else.

Biggest annoyances:  The lights are either inserted/on, or sitting in the box.  You cannot install them and turn them off.   They are spring-loaded on-off switches, with "on" being achieved by inserting them into their designated location.   They cannot be "attached to Trypticon, but not lit".  

Also, the hands can NOT fold up like the instructions/renders show.  Something was changed.  For the worse.  This makes the "engine pods" in Nemesis mode "half split-open".    I now have a less-than-pristine-condition right hand due to spending hours trying to make it do what the instructions show it doing...  

That really sucks. I cant believe Planet X really dropped the ball. Your experience with the lights mimics anothers. No ability to turn off when installed. WTH is that when you pay that much for a toy. I cant even find any video reviews. Well Glad I read yours and anothers review before I hit the pay now button. Took out Set A from my shopping cart on RK.com. Seems not to many people are keen on the set. I wonder is this the one that breaks the company?

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

I just saw a couple of sellers on Ebay offering Mechaform's Skyfire on the cheap. Is it really that bad?

[mikeszekely]

10 minutes ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

I just saw a couple of sellers on Ebay offering Mechaform's Skyfire on the cheap. Is it really that bad?

I'll let you know in a couple days. 

[slaginpit]

15 hours ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

I just saw a couple of sellers on Ebay offering Mechaform's Skyfire on the cheap. Is it really that bad?

Yes it literally blows up

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

Mike, you may have to follow cartoon accuracy and just bury him to be forgotten.