The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[Kuma Style]

17 hours ago, valhary said:

mine is on the way I can't wait hope arrive for christmas day

Cue the Daniel Brian "Yes" chants!

[Kuma Style]

 

 

[Kuma Style]

[Kuma Style]

I'd forgotten I had the full review of War Giant set C on site. http://kumastyledesigns.com/iron-factory-cannon-chariot-review/

Overall, the set is solid but pretty underwhelming for me. I've come to realize that I just plain don't like the design of Onslaught itself rather than it being a slight on the toy which really hits high on the "marks" of being a good piece. The "Hunter" Assasin is also a great toss-in and takes the price from "Ok" to a good deal.

Here are some pics from the gallery section:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I get asked every so often for pictures in Wallpaper format so I went ahead and gave it a go for once. This one is 1920 x 1080. I don't know how to do "Thumbnails" so if it stretches the site for people I'll just hot link it instead:

[davidwhangchoi]

Kuma got some amazing photos. 

 

Diggeh and Haloid approve

[Kuma Style]

6 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

Kuma got some amazing photos. 

 

Diggeh and Haloid approve

Thanks!

[valhary]

http://plasticsparkphotography.com/toyphotos/fanshobbypowerbaser

[Kuma Style]

Late night post but wanted to share a sample of what I've been working on with the Fans hobby Power Baser Gallery: Pt. 2. Looking to add approximately 25-30 photos to the existing gallery but this time with a more "theatrical" flare to give you guys a bit of a different view of this piece.

[JB0]

Very nice!

[mikeszekely]

I'd caught some reviews of the recently released MP-39 Sunstreaker, and although the reviews were quite positive (Andrew at The Chosen Prime said he thinks it tops Megatron as the best Masterpiece release so far), I actually came away disappointed.  While there's definitely a lot there to like, I think everything about the head sculpt looks terrible.  But worst of all is his back.  Now, I don't always have a problem with backpacks, but MP-39's isn't just large.  It hangs below his waist, with chunks of spoiler dangling down over a prominent butt flap.

In fact, I was so disappointed that I mentioned that I should just buy Sunsurge, BadCube's year-old take on him.  Then someone PM-ed me with a tempting offer of a new-in-box copy for $55 shipped, I bit, it arrived, and now here's my final review of 2017.

Well, I think his feet are a little wide, or the base of his shins too narrow, take your pick.  I'm also not a fan of the way his shoulders are kind of stuck so that his arms are held a little too far out from his body on gray parts.  The fake roof chest is a bit of a cheat, but considering that Takara seemed to think it was a good enough cheat to copy and Omnigonix showed that using the actual roof doesn't necessarily work I'll give it a pass.  I don't really have much more in the way of aesthetic complaints, at least not from this angle.  Indeed, there's a lot to like here, especially the headsculpt complete with ear ridges and the little red and silver details on his black shins.  Also, note how the faux windows have a blue tint to match the cartoon.

He looks about perfect next to MP Sideswipe, and I think that's really all you could ask for in an MP Sunstreaker.

BadCube crammed a ton of accessories into Sunsurge's box.  You've got his silver-painted rifle and a pair of chromed missiles.  You've got an alternate face with a smile (vs the stoic expression on the default face).  You've got Chip Chase and his wheelchair (not sure how Chip became associated with Sunstreaker, but it's an accessory that both Omnigonix and Takara also included with their Sunstreakers).  It's an ugly piece that's going back in the box, so I'm not even going to bother with Chip's articulation.  You've got a tiny screw driver and a little baggie of screws.  And, just in case you didn't care for the G1 toy-accurate chrome spoiler and engine intakes (and chrome rims), BadCube included silver-painted parts.  Personally, I like the silver paint, and swapped the parts in between taking pictures and writing this.

Sunsurge's articulation is above average, I'd say.  His head is on a hinged swivel so he can turn his head, look down just the tiniest amount, and straight up nearly 90 degrees.  His shoulders have soft ratchets at the torso that allow him to droop his shoulders a bit, or to work in tandem with the ball joints inside his shoudler armor to extend his arms over 90 degrees laterally.  His shoulders also rotate on those ball joints.  His biceps swivel.  His elbows are double jointed and allow his arms to curl all the way up; the lower joint is a friction joint that gives you 90 degrees and the upper joint is a soft ratchet that gives you 90 more.  His hands are typical for MP cars with a fixed thumb and all four fingers molded as a single curled piece pinned at the base knucles.  His waist can swivel.  His hip skirts are hinged to move out of the way so his hips can move 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees laterally, or 60 degrees backward on well-toleranced friction universal joints.  His thighs swivel around the universal joints.  His knees are double-jointed and ratcheted at both ends for an extremely deep 160-ish degree bend.  Even his ankles are double-jointed, with a ratched hinge at the top of the ankle and a ball joint inside the foot.  They combine to give him 45 degrees of upward tilt, 90 degrees of downward tilt, 45 degrees of inward tilt, and even a small amount of outward tilt.

He holds his rifle very securely using a fairly common system of tabs on the handles fitting into slots on his palms.  As for the chromed missiles, you can flip his hands back into his forearms to reveal little tabs, and the missiles peg onto the tabs.

Alternatively, there are small posts on the sides of the rifle and holes on the sides of the missiles, so you can attach the missiles to his rifle.

From behind, Sunsurge does have a bit of a messy backpack.  It's one of the reasons I held off on him for as long as I did.  I don't think it's as bad as the official's though.  Plus, you can use the pegs on the sides of his rifle to mount it on his back if you like.

While we're back there, the official transformation has you fold the side windows all the way down against the door before tucking the door along the side of his legs.  However, you can leave them out when you tuck the door in then fold them over his calves if you prefer.  Personally, I think it helps fill the backs of his legs out a bit, but I don't care for the way the black on the windows breaks up the yellow, so it's a wash.

There are also little pegs back there to store the missiles on.  Unfortunately, if you want to store all his weapons you have to put one of the missiles on the rifle, since it blocks one of the pegs.  Without the rifle, though, you can set the missiles up like a jet pack, and I think it actually makes his back look better.

And here we have his alt mode..  Notice how the real windows on the car are tinted black, so they're a better match for MP Sideswipe (assuming you have the first version and not the newer cartoon-style one).  BadCube actually did a good job keeping the car as close to Sideswipe's as possible, with the same rims, same black paint in the door handles and vents, same black side mirrors, same molded windshield wiper, and even that litle black line under the door handle (I think it's supposed to be a running light or a reflector).  Even the overall dimensions are very close.

I want to talk about his transformation here, because I'd heard that it was with Wardog and Sunsurge that BadCube started to get their reputation for overly complicated, fiddly, difficult, or otherwise not fun transformations.  Instead of just looking at the instructions like I normally do I watched the transformation portion of Ben's (of Ben's Collectibles) review because Sunsurge's rep scared me.  And maybe part of the problem is that BadCube's instructions seem to leave out some steps.  But all-in-all, it's not that bad, guys.  The hardest part is getting the clearance to get the back of the car over and between the split halves of the spoiler.  Getting his backpack and flanks situated properly is where I'd expect most people to have the most confusion, but once you do it once or twice it starts to seem obvious and transforming him starts to seem fairly easy.

Of course, he's got the modded rear that Sunstreaker had, including the engine intakes, faux hinges at the rear edges, and round tailights where the original toy's shoulders pegged in.  That makes the rear of the car arguably more cartoon-accurate, but I must confess that I do wish he had MP-39's ability to swap them out for the actual Countach tail lights.

He does roll, and his tires are rubber.  The handle on his rifle folds up to allow you to plug it into a notch between his engine intakes in a manner very similar to MP Sideswipe's.  If you choose to put the missiles on the sides of the rifle, they can rotate on their peg to make it look like they're surface-to-air missiles for taking out Seekers.  The rifle itself can't really articulate in vehicle mode.

Without handling MP-39 myself I can't give it a fair shake.  Going entirely off of how they look, I feel like Sunsurge is a better match for the original MP-12 Sideswipe, while MP-39 is a better match with the new MP-12+.   I think both Sunsurge and MP-39 have things I like and dislike about them, aesthetically-speaking.  Looks only tell part of the story, though, and without posing and transforming an MP-39 I can't definitely say that it's worse, a little better, or miles better, which makes giving any sort of buying advice difficult.  What I can say is that Sunsurge is a very good toy, easily the best BadCube figure I've handled.  He looks the part in both modes, and the transformation isn't as bad as it's made out to be.  A year ago, when he first came out and he didn't have any competition (or his only competetion was Spinout), he'd have been an easy recommend.  On aesthetics alone, I want to say that if you already have a Sunsurge there's no need to upgrade.  I want to say that if you think MP-39's head and backpack are bigger aesthetic sins than Sunsurge's shoulders and feet like I do, or you find the discounts people are offering on Sunsurge these days more palatable than MP-39's price tag, that Sunsurge is a perfectly worth alternative.  I can tell you that I don't regret my purchase decision in the slightest.  In fact, I like him in hand better than I thought I would.  Of course, it's possible that I'd like MP-39 more in hand as well.  I will say that the fact that its so difficult to decide a clear winner, and the fact that I'm hesitating to recommend a figure this good because there's a possibility of a better alternative are loud reminders that it's a great time to be a Transformers fan.

[Kuma Style]

On 12/27/2017 at 11:56 PM, JB0 said:

Very nice!

Thanks brother. REally looking forward to dropping this gallery.

[M'Kyuun]

On ‎12‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 9:56 PM, JB0 said:

Very nice!

+1   Sweet photo, Kuma. That'd make for a beautiful box art shot. Hope the FH guys are paying attention.

Nice little review for Sunsurge, Mike. I hadn't really noticed just how toy accurate BC's version was, as opposed to Spinout's more realistic Countach. Though I've not handled either third party version, having seen vids and pics, there are things about both that stand out, both good and bad. MP-39 bridges the alt mode dilemma, but pays for that feature with a significant backpack. As you said, it's good to have options.

[valhary]

I just get mine

Easily inside the top 3 of the best 3rd party toys ever made

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, valhary said:

I just get mine

Easily inside the top 3 of the best 3rd party toys ever made

Mine shipped today.  No way it gets here before we ring in the new year, but I should have him late next week.

[David Hingtgen]

18 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

 BadCube actually did a good job keeping the car as close to Sideswipe's as possible, with the same rims, same black paint in the door handles and vents, same black side mirrors, same molded windshield wiper, and even that litle black line under the door handle (I think it's supposed to be a running light or a reflector). 

Nope.  It's a badge---Bertone.  The designer of the Countach's body-styling.   And technically, the door handles are entirely missing.  (they'd be little silver squares, in the top of the NACA ducts in the doors) 

 

Door handle:

[mikeszekely]

Is there a mode of transportation you don't possess better than average knowledge of, David?

Ok, well the points stand. Sunsurge and MP-12 have black paint on the designer's badge and the NACA ducts (brake cooling, or engine intakes?) that the door handles hide in. MP-39 lacks that (and most of the other black vent paint), as does MP-12+.

[David Hingtgen]

The Countach is my fave car, I know it well.  The NACA ducts are additional intakes for the radiators.   You'll also find the gas caps(plural) in there too.  

[Kurisama]

Gruppo Bertone being the design house yes, but Marcello Gandini was the individual responsible for the countach design. Of which the prototype is much, much nicer than the production model.

Bonus trivia - Gandini also designed the Lancia Stratos, Wheeljack for those playing at home.

[mikeszekely]

I feel like I'm late to the party on this since Kuma's been treating you guys to pics for awhile, but today I finally got my copy of Power Baser, Fans Hobby's version of Powermaster Optimus Prime/Super Ginrai.

With Masterpiece figures there's often a premium on cartoon-accuracy, so it's curious to see that what Fans Hobby delivered is an Optimus/Ginrai figure that stands about the same size as MP-10 but is something of a stylized mix of cartoon, toy, and original detail.  The head is a pretty good sculpt, with blue chrome or metallic blue paint for the eyes.  Interestingly, perhaps as a homage to the original toy, the back of his head is a squarish panel even though it didn't need to be.  His arms are pretty on-point as well, with the right general shape and blue forearms of both the toy and Masterforce cartoon, with some silver vents calling back to the toy.  His torso is where things start to go a little funky, with stylized faux-windows for his chest and chunk of his flanks replaced with folded-up wheel wells moving the wheels off of his hips.  Gone is the large hinge at his belt line, and his pelvis is chunkier in the middle and thinner around the hip skirts.  This thighs are fine, although they could have used some blue paint on the molded rectangles at the tops of his thighs like Ginrai had in the cartoon.  The lower legs skip the sticker detail of the G1 toy and the lack of detail of the cartoon for kneepads with yellow paint and white tampos.  Black vents start to run down his shins, but stop halfway for some reason.  There are silver vents, but they're not really on his shins, they're on flaps connected to the top of his big feet like the tongue of a shoe.  That flap is my biggest grip, because they don't serve much purpose (all they do is lock the feet in place for alt mode, but surely there was a better way to do it).  I'd have strongly preferred Fans Hobby had left them off and had the black vents continue the whole way down the shin.

But look at the back!  He's got the whole front of the truck cab just chilling on his back!  Plus the smokestacks are on his back- technically, they're on hinged flaps that swing his arms from the back of the cab to his sides in robot mode.  This was the cheat that the designers of the original G1 toy used to have a truck cab that looked like a truck cab, but a robot that looked more like cartoon (at least from the front).  Perhaps not getting that it was a cheat, it was also the way that Ginrai was drawn in Masterforce.  While I think there's probably some people out there who are thinking, "That's stupid! They couldn't have designed a transformation that didn't leave the whole front of the cab on his back!" I think it's a great homage to both the cartoon and the toy, which I actually had as a kid.  The big feet and the cab on his back are definitely giving me serious feelings of nostalgia.  So, while I could do without the feet flaps and the tampos (which, thankfully, aren't English, which really bugged be on Spark Toys' War Within figures), overall I'm pleased with the aesthetic here.

Being a Powermaster Optimus, Power Baser of course comes with a trailer and a little Powermaster engine.  Like the original Powermaster Prime/Super Ginrai toy, he also comes with two Twin Particle Beam Cannons and two Laser Rifles.  The barrels can be removed from the Laser Rifles, and the rear of the rifle can turn into a scoped pistol.  Not pictured are a pair of translucent blue replacement eyes for the combined mode... I think my daughter might have made off with them.

The engine turns into a little figure that's slightly taller than a Maketoys' Headmaster (so still much shorter than MP-08's or an X-Transbots' Targetmaster).  Fans Hobby opted to go with the white face and painted blue visor of the G1 Hi-Q toy, eschewing Ginrai's human face, which I think was the way to go.  His torso has crisp molded detail taken straight from the old toy.  Large silver circles sit on his knees where the old toy's pins ran through.  His shins are chunkier than cartoon Ginrai and have different detail than the old toy, plus they're gray instead of black, but I think that's due to his transformation and ultimately ok.

Little Hi-Q/Ginrai's head can swivel, although it's difficult with stuff behind it.  His shoulders are on ball joints so they can rotate and extend laterally a little under 45 degrees.  His elbows can bend about 45 degrees.  His hips are on ball joints behind his pelvis armor, which gives him thigh swivels and enough lateral him movement to give him a moderate A-stance.  Hinges at top of his thighs let him kick forward 90 degrees and backward over 45 degrees.  His knees can bend over 90 degrees on a single hinge.

My Power Baser also came with a Matrix.  This Matrix is silver with a blue gem, and (aside from the gem) is diecast.  It feels like better quality than what came with MP-10, and the gem is certainly much more vibrant, but a little gold paint around the core would have been nice.  More impressive than the Matrix itself is the box it comes in.  It's textured plastic with the Fans Hobby logo on one side and a Matrix carved into the other.  The center of the carved Matrix is translucent.  When you push on it, a tray slides out with a foam insert for the Matrix to rest in.  Now, I'm told this Matrix was a preorder incentive, but it was inside Power Baser's box.  So, depending on how many copies your favorite retailer "preordered" from Fans Hobby you might still be able to get one.

The Fans Hobby Matrix does fit into MP-10 (and presumably any other figure that can store MP-10's Matrix), as well as Fans Hobby's own Gunfighter II (G2 Laser Optimus).  It does not, however, work with Power Baser.

Optimus/Ginrai has pretty great articulation.  His head is on a ball joint that can swivel as well as look up, down, and tilt his head a fair amount (you can get a little more up if you turn his head slightly).  His shoulders rotate on ratchets and have a hinge that lets them move 90 degrees laterally.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and can curl 180 degrees.  His wrists can swivel, and his hands are MP-10-style with a fixed thumb, individual index finger pinned at the base with one addition pinned knuckle, and the other fingers molded as one curled piece pinned at the base.  His waist can swivel, and he has a ratcheted double-hinge behind his ab grill that lets him both arch his back backward and get nearly 90 degrees of ab crunch.  The grill piece even folds inward do it doesn't get in the way.  Speaking of not getting in the way, his hip skirts have swivels and hinges so they can rotate and even fold up to get out of the way of his hips, which can ratchet forward over 90 degrees, backward over 45 degrees, and laterally over 90 degrees.  His thighs can swivel.  His knees are single friction hinges that can bend 90 degrees.  His ankles have ratchets for transformation that let him tilt his foot down nearly 90 degrees, but despite actually being a double joint I wasn't able to get much upward tilt.  Hinges give him 90 degrees of inward ankle tilt and even a slight outward tilt.  In short, you can get much more dynamic poses out of him than you can a figure like MP-10.

I assume it was Fans Hobby's intention for you to use the pistols as guns for this mode.  His weapons have the same groves on the handles that fit notches in his palms that other Fans Hobby and a lot of Maketoys figures use, though, so I found that he looks pretty great with the G1-style rifle that came with Gunfighter II.  Be advised, though, that Gunfighter's rifle was a really tight fit.

If you'd rather, though, he can hold the whole large Laser Rifle.  And since the pegs on the original toy's Twin Particle Beam Cannons fit in its hands, Fans Hobby put fold-out handles on their so Prime/Ginrai can also hold those.

Now, I can't recall if they ever used base mode in the cartoon, but base mode was a gimmick of the G1 toy, and with a name like "Power Baser" you'd assume that his trailer can in fact do a base mode.  And you'd be right!  Unfortunately, it's a little half-baked.  Rather than the fold-out ramps of the G1 toy, Fans Hobby sort of has you transform halfway between trailer and super mode.  I mean, the instructions even tell you to leave those little triangle flaps in that position, halfway between their trailer and combined spots.  The Twin Particle Beam Cannons peg on in the correct spot, and the bottoms of the handles even rotate so you can rotate the guns.  The barrels of the Laser Rifles attach to an arm that connects the trailer to the cab, and that kind of works as a cannon with up/down elevation.  The rear of the rifles is a fail, though.  There's no pegs that fit the super-mode shoulders, so you don't have that option.  The instructions tell you to stick the handles into holes at the wrists.  The problem is that the handles are rectangular, but the holes are circles- even though there's zero reason why they couldn't have been rectangles.  The circular holes are fairly shallow and make such a loose fit that I had a very hard time keeping them in place long enough to take a picture.

Let's be honest, though... who really cares about base mode?  The majority are probably interested in the combined Super Ginrai mode.  And while he's definitely bigger in combined mode, I must admit that I'm suprised he's not even bigger.  Perhaps this is an attempt to scale him with Masterpiece Star Saber?  I'm not the biggest scale nut in the first place, so I really don't know the proper size for Masterforce/Victory characters, but if scale matters to you that's how he stacks up with MP-10.

Aesthetically, it's the same mix of toy, cartoon, and original details that we had with the smaller robot.  He's got a head that's basically Optimus with the little extra cheeks, fairly in keeping with the Masterforce cartoon and much more subtle than the old Marvel run.  Unlike the G1 toy but like Masterforce he's got blue eyes.  By default, they're the same blue chrome/metallic blue paint as the smaller robot's, but there is an LED inside his head (batteries not included).  If you prefer, you can swap the chrome/painted eyes for the translucent ones and use the LED.  I want to go on record as saying that this is a brilliant idea and I wish more companies (looking at you, GT) would do this.  LED's are nice, but a I know a lot of collectors prefer solid paint or chrome.

Moving along, we've got original black stripes and more of those tampos on his shoulders, which is unfortunate because it doesn't leave much room to place an Autobot symbol.  He's also missing the pylons on top of his shoulders.  Pegholes on the sides of his shoulders do allow you to properly mount the Twin Particle Beam Cannons, though.  His hands are red plastic, but the back of the hand has blue paint to give him that fingerless glove look Super Ginrai had in the cartoon.  Not too much to complain about this torso; it's the truck cab, and that checks out.  If I'm being nitpicky, the shape of the headlights is off.  His feet also stick above his shoulders a bit more than the G1 toy, although it's not entirely inaccurate.  His pelvis loses the cartoon/sticker red spot and adds some original black lining that I dig.  His lower legs are were the most stylization comes into play, but I get it.  The original toy didn't have feet so much as a shin that stuck out too far, and the cartoon used anime magic to keep his feet flat no matter how he was standing.  Without any anime magic to fall back on, Fans Hobby decided to give their Super Ginrai actual feet.  The wheels had to move up to stay out of the way of the feet, and for whatever reason Fans Hobby deciced to flip the wheel wells around to the front of the leg.  Some yellow triangles on his knees do hearken back to the G1 toy's stickers, and his shins do protrude, but instead of just stopping at the ground Fans Hobby put some molded and painted silver and gold pistons at the base of his shins.  I'm not sold on the inverted wheel wells, but all-in-all I think the aesthetics are fairly true to the original.

Once again due to a lack of anime magic Power Baser is chunky like the G1 toy, lacking some of the heroic proportions of the Masterforce cartoon.  Fans Hobby did manage to get the legs to have more leg-ish proportions, but that still leaves him with pretty thick legs and a large backpack.  I don't actually mind, though.  What I do mind is this gap in his torso.  The exposed wheel is somewhat accurate, but I really wish Fans Hobby continued the faux truck panel on his sides all the way to his waist, like the G1 toy did, so his smaller robot's hips weren't exposed.

Due to his chunkier proportions Super Ginrai Power Baser isn't quite as posable as the smaller robot, but it's still adequate for an MP figure.  The head is again on a ball joint that can rotate, look up, and tilt sideways.  Down isn't really an option.  His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and move laterally on a ratcheted hinge one click over 90 degrees.  The Twin Particle Beam Cannons can swivel in their peg holes.  His biceps and wrists swivel, and his hands are identical in articulation to the smaller robot's.  His elbows are double-jointed, and both joints are ratcheted.  The upper joint can bend about 45 degrees, and the lower one can bend just over 90 degrees.  He doesn't have an ab crunch anymore, but he does still have a waist swivel.  It's just a little weird because his hip skirts are attached above the swivel.  They are on rotating hinges, though, so you can get them out of the way of the waist or his hips, which are ratcheted all-around and go forward about 60 degrees, backward about 60 degrees, and laterally 90 degrees.  His thighs can swivel.  His knees are double-jointed, both ratchets, that combine for about 120 degrees of knee bend.  His feet can't really tilt up, but they can get about two clicks down.  He's got a little under 45 degrees of inward ankle tilt, which seems fine on paper, but remember that I said his hips are ratcheted.  If you move them out two clicks his ankle tilt falls slightly short of keeping his feet flat, which is a shame.

The notches in his hands are the same as the ones in his smaller robot's hands.  So he can hold his Laser Rifles with no problems, as well as the pistols or the Twin Particle Beam Cannons.

Now, just because we were gushing over robots we shouldn't forget that Power Baser turns into a truck as well.  As far as the cab goes... well, I know a lot of people give MP-10 grief for having obvious robot legs, but MP-10 is definitely pulling off the truck mode better.  That said, the legs tab together well in a way that rear of the cab kind of flows nicely.  It's just a shame about the obvious robot arms for the back of the cab, and the aforementioned non-accurate headlights.  The tires are rubber, and they roll fine.

Another look, this time with the trailer, and I'm not sure the trailer was Fans Hobby's best work.  It's slightly longer than MP-10's, but much shorter in height, which gives it a weirdly squashed appearance.  Plus, setting the wheels above his feet in super robot mode leaves them too far from the rear of the trailer.  And the big robot arms at the front of the trailer never made for a realistic truck trailer, those arms are one of the more memorable things about Powermaster Op's truck mode to me, so Fans Hobby's decision to tuck them inside is disappointing.

You can arm him up basically the same way you did the G1 toy.  The Twin Particle Beam Cannons go on the sides of the trailer; I always liked to point them straight up like they were extra smokestacks on the G1 toy.  The Laser Rifles peg into the top of the trailer.  One nice touch is that you can leave the Powermaster engine plugged in over the grill on the cab, but if you want the cab's grill to show you can still attach him by pluggin him onto the trailer, just behind the cab.  Speaking of the cab, the port on the trailer that the cab plugs into can swivel, so the truck can look like it's turning.

By now, you've probably gathered that there are a couple of little (and sometimes baffling) design decisions that I have issues with.  Another issue is the transformation.  Going from truck to small robot and base or vice versa is easy enough, no issues there.  Getting him into combined mode is a royal pain in the rear, though.  There are several parts that have to move around other parts and tabs that want to pop back out unless everything is lined up perfectly.  Even if everything is lined up perfectly and nothing's coming undone on you some of the parts have me thinking that the design specs called for extremely precise dimensions that the actual manufacturing wasn't up to snuff on.  A good example is that when you line up the notches on the cab with the slots inside the super torso you'll find that the back of those sides needs to go between the outside of the small robot's legs and the wheels on the outside of his legs.  The tightness of those spaces makes it likely that you'll bump something out of alignment, and that will in turn cause tabs to start popping out because things aren't perfectly aligned anymore.

Power Baser isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  However, I'm being hard on it because I had Power Master Op as a kid and I really wanted Power Baser to be perfect.  If you can look at my criticisms and either disagree or agree but don't think they're dealbreakers I still recommend him.  For all his flaws, Power Baser is a good toy.  The smaller cab robot alone is so dynamic that he's probably worth it on his own.

[JB0]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

The exposed wheel is somewhat accurate, but I really wish Fans Hobby continued the faux truck panel on his sides all the way to his waist, like the G1 toy did, so his smaller robot's hips weren't exposed.

Butbut... where would Godbomber attach?!?!

[mikeszekely]

6 hours ago, JB0 said:

Butbut... where would Godbomber attach?!?!

To the faux truck panels themselves?

To be fair, Fans Hobby is working on a Godbomber. And I did watch Masterforce, and I will get FH's Godbomber. But I didn't have Godbomber or "Apex Armor" or whatever as a kid, I just had Powermaster Prime, and he was my first real Optimus. I'm far more attached to the Super Ginrai mode than the God Ginrai mode, and would prefer that be where the focus is.

Edited January 7, 2018 by mikeszekely

[JB0]

I haven't even watched Masterforce. It just looked like it was a blatant attach point(and one that SHOULD be hidden, but...)

[valhary]

A days ago fans hobby post this pic

[JB0]

Fanshobby should hire a real photographer, that is a blurry unfocused mess.

[mikeszekely]

While not nearly as exciting as a massive new Power Master Optimus, Power Baser wasn't the only figure in the shipment.  Way back in November I picked up X-Transbot's Klaatu, their version of Cosmos, and I'd just been waiting for something else to come in at that store so I could get free shipping.

Initially I thought that Klaatu might be too big, as he seems to dwarf other MP(ish) minibots like Bumblebee and Spindrift.  I think that's more due to his signifcant heft (his lower legs are diecast) and his stocky proportions; his arms are pretty huge, and his legs are at least twice as thick.  In reality, though, he's only maybe a head taller than them, and maybe half a head taller than a Combiner Wars deluxe, which I think is actually a fairly appropriate size for him.

The other thing is that X-Transbots really nailed Cosmos' look.  The squinty eyes (painted a lovely metallic blue), the rectangular panel on his forehead, the molded arrow shapes on his upper arms, the circles on his elbows, the blue area on his torso with the white and light blue panels, the tiny wrist blasters, the molded lines on his crotch, and the L-shaped hip skirts with the columns of little rectangles are all totally cartoon-accurate.  The colors are just about right, too; the lighter green could have been a little lighter to stand out better from the darker green, but that's splitting hairs.

Really, my only aesthetic complaint is that Klaatu doesn't clean up particularly well from the back.  His feet and legs aren't too bad, but folded up panels hang awkwardly from the backs of his arms, and a large chunk of his saucer sits on his back as a backpack.  I'd mind it less if there was maybe one or two hinges to fold the backpack up a little more to keep the backpack below the top of his body so you don't see it from the front.

Klaatu comes with a bit of accessories.  There's no gun, which is a bummer, but I don't think he actually had one in the cartoon anyway.  There is an alternate set of translucent eyes and a screwdriver to open his head with in case you prefer light piping to paint (I certainly don't).  There's a can of robotic insecticde and a rubber Morphobot, both from the episode "Quest for Survival."  And there's a base with a molded crop circle, a translucent cone that can open, and an arm that can make a flight stand.  A nice thing about his accessories is that you can clip the arm to the bottom of the base, use a small tab to put the insecticide on the top edge of the base, the Morphobot inside the cone, and the cone into center of the base to store all of his accessories except the alternate eyes and screwdriver.

Klaatu's articulation is reasonable for something with his proportions.  His head is on a ball joint and can rotate, look up a little, tilt his head sideways more than you'd need, but can't really look down.  His shoulders can rotate, but they tend to get caught up on his backpack (which could have been avoided if they'd just put that one extra fold in it), and laterally 90 degrees as long as you rotate his arm a bit so his shoudler doesn't hit his head.  His biceps rotate enough to have a natural range, but the flaps I mentioned earlier do prevent them from swiveling a full 360 degrees.  His elbows are double-jointed and he can actually get nearly 180 degrees of bend between the two joints.  His wrists can swivel, and he's got MP carbot-style hands with a fixed thumb and all four fingers molded as a single curled piece pinned at the base.  He's got a soft-ratcheted waist swivel.  His hip skirts can move up on hinges so his hips can ratchet 90 degrees forward and 45 degrees backward.  Lateral hip movement is friction, but toleranced well enough that his legs won't fall even with the diecast in them.  He gets a little over 90 degrees of lateral movement out of them.  His thighs can swivel outward 90 degrees, which is again enough for a natural range of movement.  His knees are double-jointed, friction at the top and soft ratchets at the bottom.  Combined he's probably got maybe 120 degrees of bend (maybe I should get a protractor or something instead of just eyeballing these angles?).  His feet can tilt up 45 degrees and, if you don't mind moving a panel on his heel out of the way, downward 90 degrees (0 degrees if you don't move the panel).  His inward ankle tilts are ratcheted and good for 45 degrees, but that's only two clicks.  That said, it's not hard to use the friction between clicks to keep his feet pretty flat.

Although he doesn't have a gun, the insecticide has grooves on the back and a hole that his thumb plugs into so he can hold it in his left hand.

A hole on his, er, let's say perineum, lets him use the flight stand in robot mode.  The panels on his chest can open to reveal some kind of venting on one side, some molded circuits and wires on the other, and a button in the middle that causes his spring-loaded head to pop out of his chest when you're transforming him from alt mode to robot mode.

Speaking of alt mode, again X-Transbots really nailed the cartoon look.  He's got the darker green around the rim of his top and the rim of the saucer.  Yellow painted rectangles capture cartoon detail that was in turn based off of part of his legs showing on the G1 toy.  A pair of little laser nubbins and some molded rectangles, all cartoon-accurate, adorn the front of the saucer.  XTB even has part of the toes flip around so his all-green feet to reveal the cartoon-accurate white patch that's just missing an Autobot symbol to look perfect.  And the size of the saucer in relation to the size of the upper cylinder looks about right.  I know a lot of people initially went with the ToyWorld Cosmos, but I'd always thought the alt mode proportions on that one made it look more like a trash can than a flying saucer.

From another angle we see more cartoon-accurate yellow stripes on the back and the engine nozzles that doubled as the G1 toy's fingers.  The only bit of detail that isn't really cartoon accurate are a pair of little blue pipes on the back, but they are what allows the Morphobot to latch onto Klaatu.

Klaatu has a peg hole on the bottom of the saucer, and he fits onto the flight stand just fine.  Another arguably cooler way to display him in alt mode is forget about the arm.  Instead, take the cone and pop something inside, like Power Baser's Powermaster.  Snap in in the cone, put the cone in the middle of the base, then use the peg on top of the cone to attach Klaatu to the top*.  The result doesn't just make Klaatu look like he's flying or hovering, it looks like he's abducting whatever you put in the cone.  I dug through my daughter's little farm animal toys for a cow, but alas the only cow I could find was too big.

*So one downside is that the peg on top of the cone is noticeably larger in diameter than the one on the flight stand arm, at least on my copy.  Klaatu can kind of rest on top of the cone, but the peg won't go into the hole on Klaatu very far and pushes itself back out.  Big bummer.  I'm going to see if I can't file or polish it down a bit.

Klaatu isn't a perfect figure, but his biggest flaws really boil down to minor limitations in articulation and a bit of kibble on the back.  He makes up for those flaws with attention to cartoon details, fun accessories, and by oozing character.  I really get the impression that Klaatu was a labor of love by X-Transbots, and although I haven't actually handled the other two MP Cosmos (who'd have thought there'd be a Cosmos war?) I feel pretty comfortable giving this guy a recommend.

[Kuma Style]

2 hours ago, JB0 said:

Fanshobby should hire a real photographer, that is a blurry unfocused mess.

I laughed pretty darned hard.

 

 

On 12/29/2017 at 2:34 PM, valhary said:

I just get mine

Easily inside the top 3 of the best 3rd party toys ever made

Beautiful.

[JB0]

Every time I see a Cosmos-inspired toy, several thoughts run through my head in rapid succession.

First I think "Oh, neat, Cosmos was kinda cool. Spaceships are awesome."

Then I think "Wow, that is SUPER ugly. What exactly were they thinking?!"

Then I remember this is pretty much spot-on for Cosmos and I wasn't thinking of Cosmos in the first place.  My flying saucer quota was filled with the Go-Bot Pathfinder, and, well, she was just BETTER in every regard and my childhood games were more enjoyable for her substitution.

And then I'm sad that no one is EVER going to make a high-end Pathfinder. Except NASA, but their's wasn't toy- OR cartoon-accurate, and the production run was incredibly low.

[valhary]

Certainly is not easy to get all align (I have apply a lot of force and suffer stress marks in my head connector)

but once you make it is amazing solid 

[M'Kyuun]

17 hours ago, JB0 said:

Every time I see a Cosmos-inspired toy, several thoughts run through my head in rapid succession.

First I think "Oh, neat, Cosmos was kinda cool. Spaceships are awesome."

Then I think "Wow, that is SUPER ugly. What exactly were they thinking?!"

Then I remember this is pretty much spot-on for Cosmos and I wasn't thinking of Cosmos in the first place.  My flying saucer quota was filled with the Go-Bot Pathfinder, and, well, she was just BETTER in every regard and my childhood games were more enjoyable for her substitution.

And then I'm sad that no one is EVER going to make a high-end Pathfinder. Except NASA, but their's wasn't toy- OR cartoon-accurate, and the production run was incredibly low.

If UFO Robo had been part of Revenge of Cronos, you may have gotten your wish, or at least a decent update anyway. Action Toys have been very slow to pump out their MR figures; it's been about a year since their proto for Turbo was shown, and has yet to show up for POs. 

As for Pathfinder's overall look, I think I still prefer the more 50's UFO look of Cosmos. Pathfinder (UFO Robo) looks more to me like a Buck Rogers or 70's Battlestar Galactica design- not a bad thing at all, but the classic UFO just appeals more to me.

Anyway, if you have any building skills, Pathfinder could be realized fairly well with LEGO; it's not what you want, I know, but it's an alternate avenue.

[mikeszekely]

If I had money or talent I'd start a 3P focused on Masterpiece-style Gobots. 

[JB0]

10 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

If I had money or talent I'd start a 3P focused on Masterpiece-style Gobots. 

I'd buy most of them.

[slaginpit]

On 1/7/2018 at 2:43 AM, mikeszekely said:

I feel like I'm late to the party on this since Kuma's been treating you guys to pics for awhile, but today I finally got my copy of Power Baser, Fans Hobby's version of Powermaster Optimus Prime/Super Ginrai.

With Masterpiece figures there's often a premium on cartoon-accuracy, so it's curious to see that what Fans Hobby delivered is an Optimus/Ginrai figure that stands about the same size as MP-10 but is something of a stylized mix of cartoon, toy, and original detail.  The head is a pretty good sculpt, with blue chrome or metallic blue paint for the eyes.  Interestingly, perhaps as a homage to the original toy, the back of his head is a squarish panel even though it didn't need to be.  His arms are pretty on-point as well, with the right general shape and blue forearms of both the toy and Masterforce cartoon, with some silver vents calling back to the toy.  His torso is where things start to go a little funky, with stylized faux-windows for his chest and chunk of his flanks replaced with folded-up wheel wells moving the wheels off of his hips.  Gone is the large hinge at his belt line, and his pelvis is chunkier in the middle and thinner around the hip skirts.  This thighs are fine, although they could have used some blue paint on the molded rectangles at the tops of his thighs like Ginrai had in the cartoon.  The lower legs skip the sticker detail of the G1 toy and the lack of detail of the cartoon for kneepads with yellow paint and white tampos.  Black vents start to run down his shins, but stop halfway for some reason.  There are silver vents, but they're not really on his shins, they're on flaps connected to the top of his big feet like the tongue of a shoe.  That flap is my biggest grip, because they don't serve much purpose (all they do is lock the feet in place for alt mode, but surely there was a better way to do it).  I'd have strongly preferred Fans Hobby had left them off and had the black vents continue the whole way down the shin.

But look at the back!  He's got the whole front of the truck cab just chilling on his back!  Plus the smokestacks are on his back- technically, they're on hinged flaps that swing his arms from the back of the cab to his sides in robot mode.  This was the cheat that the designers of the original G1 toy used to have a truck cab that looked like a truck cab, but a robot that looked more like cartoon (at least from the front).  Perhaps not getting that it was a cheat, it was also the way that Ginrai was drawn in Masterforce.  While I think there's probably some people out there who are thinking, "That's stupid! They couldn't have designed a transformation that didn't leave the whole front of the cab on his back!" I think it's a great homage to both the cartoon and the toy, which I actually had as a kid.  The big feet and the cab on his back are definitely giving me serious feelings of nostalgia.  So, while I could do without the feet flaps and the tampos (which, thankfully, aren't English, which really bugged be on Spark Toys' War Within figures), overall I'm pleased with the aesthetic here.

Being a Powermaster Optimus, Power Baser of course comes with a trailer and a little Powermaster engine.  Like the original Powermaster Prime/Super Ginrai toy, he also comes with two Twin Particle Beam Cannons and two Laser Rifles.  The barrels can be removed from the Laser Rifles, and the rear of the rifle can turn into a scoped pistol.  Not pictured are a pair of translucent blue replacement eyes for the combined mode... I think my daughter might have made off with them.

The engine turns into a little figure that's slightly taller than a Maketoys' Headmaster (so still much shorter than MP-08's or an X-Transbots' Targetmaster).  Fans Hobby opted to go with the white face and painted blue visor of the G1 Hi-Q toy, eschewing Ginrai's human face, which I think was the way to go.  His torso has crisp molded detail taken straight from the old toy.  Large silver circles sit on his knees where the old toy's pins ran through.  His shins are chunkier than cartoon Ginrai and have different detail than the old toy, plus they're gray instead of black, but I think that's due to his transformation and ultimately ok.

Little Hi-Q/Ginrai's head can swivel, although it's difficult with stuff behind it.  His shoulders are on ball joints so they can rotate and extend laterally a little under 45 degrees.  His elbows can bend about 45 degrees.  His hips are on ball joints behind his pelvis armor, which gives him thigh swivels and enough lateral him movement to give him a moderate A-stance.  Hinges at top of his thighs let him kick forward 90 degrees and backward over 45 degrees.  His knees can bend over 90 degrees on a single hinge.

My Power Baser also came with a Matrix.  This Matrix is silver with a blue gem, and (aside from the gem) is diecast.  It feels like better quality than what came with MP-10, and the gem is certainly much more vibrant, but a little gold paint around the core would have been nice.  More impressive than the Matrix itself is the box it comes in.  It's textured plastic with the Fans Hobby logo on one side and a Matrix carved into the other.  The center of the carved Matrix is translucent.  When you push on it, a tray slides out with a foam insert for the Matrix to rest in.  Now, I'm told this Matrix was a preorder incentive, but it was inside Power Baser's box.  So, depending on how many copies your favorite retailer "preordered" from Fans Hobby you might still be able to get one.

The Fans Hobby Matrix does fit into MP-10 (and presumably any other figure that can store MP-10's Matrix), as well as Fans Hobby's own Gunfighter II (G2 Laser Optimus).  It does not, however, work with Power Baser.

Optimus/Ginrai has pretty great articulation.  His head is on a ball joint that can swivel as well as look up, down, and tilt his head a fair amount (you can get a little more up if you turn his head slightly).  His shoulders rotate on ratchets and have a hinge that lets them move 90 degrees laterally.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and can curl 180 degrees.  His wrists can swivel, and his hands are MP-10-style with a fixed thumb, individual index finger pinned at the base with one addition pinned knuckle, and the other fingers molded as one curled piece pinned at the base.  His waist can swivel, and he has a ratcheted double-hinge behind his ab grill that lets him both arch his back backward and get nearly 90 degrees of ab crunch.  The grill piece even folds inward do it doesn't get in the way.  Speaking of not getting in the way, his hip skirts have swivels and hinges so they can rotate and even fold up to get out of the way of his hips, which can ratchet forward over 90 degrees, backward over 45 degrees, and laterally over 90 degrees.  His thighs can swivel.  His knees are single friction hinges that can bend 90 degrees.  His ankles have ratchets for transformation that let him tilt his foot down nearly 90 degrees, but despite actually being a double joint I wasn't able to get much upward tilt.  Hinges give him 90 degrees of inward ankle tilt and even a slight outward tilt.  In short, you can get much more dynamic poses out of him than you can a figure like MP-10.

I assume it was Fans Hobby's intention for you to use the pistols as guns for this mode.  His weapons have the same groves on the handles that fit notches in his palms that other Fans Hobby and a lot of Maketoys figures use, though, so I found that he looks pretty great with the G1-style rifle that came with Gunfighter II.  Be advised, though, that Gunfighter's rifle was a really tight fit.

If you'd rather, though, he can hold the whole large Laser Rifle.  And since the pegs on the original toy's Twin Particle Beam Cannons fit in its hands, Fans Hobby put fold-out handles on their so Prime/Ginrai can also hold those.

Now, I can't recall if they ever used base mode in the cartoon, but base mode was a gimmick of the G1 toy, and with a name like "Power Baser" you'd assume that his trailer can in fact do a base mode.  And you'd be right!  Unfortunately, it's a little half-baked.  Rather than the fold-out ramps of the G1 toy, Fans Hobby sort of has you transform halfway between trailer and super mode.  I mean, the instructions even tell you to leave those little triangle flaps in that position, halfway between their trailer and combined spots.  The Twin Particle Beam Cannons peg on in the correct spot, and the bottoms of the handles even rotate so you can rotate the guns.  The barrels of the Laser Rifles attach to an arm that connects the trailer to the cab, and that kind of works as a cannon with up/down elevation.  The rear of the rifles is a fail, though.  There's no pegs that fit the super-mode shoulders, so you don't have that option.  The instructions tell you to stick the handles into holes at the wrists.  The problem is that the handles are rectangular, but the holes are circles- even though there's zero reason why they couldn't have been rectangles.  The circular holes are fairly shallow and make such a loose fit that I had a very hard time keeping them in place long enough to take a picture.

Let's be honest, though... who really cares about base mode?  The majority are probably interested in the combined Super Ginrai mode.  And while he's definitely bigger in combined mode, I must admit that I'm suprised he's not even bigger.  Perhaps this is an attempt to scale him with Masterpiece Star Saber?  I'm not the biggest scale nut in the first place, so I really don't know the proper size for Masterforce/Victory characters, but if scale matters to you that's how he stacks up with MP-10.

Aesthetically, it's the same mix of toy, cartoon, and original details that we had with the smaller robot.  He's got a head that's basically Optimus with the little extra cheeks, fairly in keeping with the Masterforce cartoon and much more subtle than the old Marvel run.  Unlike the G1 toy but like Masterforce he's got blue eyes.  By default, they're the same blue chrome/metallic blue paint as the smaller robot's, but there is an LED inside his head (batteries not included).  If you prefer, you can swap the chrome/painted eyes for the translucent ones and use the LED.  I want to go on record as saying that this is a brilliant idea and I wish more companies (looking at you, GT) would do this.  LED's are nice, but a I know a lot of collectors prefer solid paint or chrome.

Moving along, we've got original black stripes and more of those tampos on his shoulders, which is unfortunate because it doesn't leave much room to place an Autobot symbol.  He's also missing the pylons on top of his shoulders.  Pegholes on the sides of his shoulders do allow you to properly mount the Twin Particle Beam Cannons, though.  His hands are red plastic, but the back of the hand has blue paint to give him that fingerless glove look Super Ginrai had in the cartoon.  Not too much to complain about this torso; it's the truck cab, and that checks out.  If I'm being nitpicky, the shape of the headlights is off.  His feet also stick above his shoulders a bit more than the G1 toy, although it's not entirely inaccurate.  His pelvis loses the cartoon/sticker red spot and adds some original black lining that I dig.  His lower legs are were the most stylization comes into play, but I get it.  The original toy didn't have feet so much as a shin that stuck out too far, and the cartoon used anime magic to keep his feet flat no matter how he was standing.  Without any anime magic to fall back on, Fans Hobby decided to give their Super Ginrai actual feet.  The wheels had to move up to stay out of the way of the feet, and for whatever reason Fans Hobby deciced to flip the wheel wells around to the front of the leg.  Some yellow triangles on his knees do hearken back to the G1 toy's stickers, and his shins do protrude, but instead of just stopping at the ground Fans Hobby put some molded and painted silver and gold pistons at the base of his shins.  I'm not sold on the inverted wheel wells, but all-in-all I think the aesthetics are fairly true to the original.

Once again due to a lack of anime magic Power Baser is chunky like the G1 toy, lacking some of the heroic proportions of the Masterforce cartoon.  Fans Hobby did manage to get the legs to have more leg-ish proportions, but that still leaves him with pretty thick legs and a large backpack.  I don't actually mind, though.  What I do mind is this gap in his torso.  The exposed wheel is somewhat accurate, but I really wish Fans Hobby continued the faux truck panel on his sides all the way to his waist, like the G1 toy did, so his smaller robot's hips weren't exposed.

Due to his chunkier proportions Super Ginrai Power Baser isn't quite as posable as the smaller robot, but it's still adequate for an MP figure.  The head is again on a ball joint that can rotate, look up, and tilt sideways.  Down isn't really an option.  His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and move laterally on a ratcheted hinge one click over 90 degrees.  The Twin Particle Beam Cannons can swivel in their peg holes.  His biceps and wrists swivel, and his hands are identical in articulation to the smaller robot's.  His elbows are double-jointed, and both joints are ratcheted.  The upper joint can bend about 45 degrees, and the lower one can bend just over 90 degrees.  He doesn't have an ab crunch anymore, but he does still have a waist swivel.  It's just a little weird because his hip skirts are attached above the swivel.  They are on rotating hinges, though, so you can get them out of the way of the waist or his hips, which are ratcheted all-around and go forward about 60 degrees, backward about 60 degrees, and laterally 90 degrees.  His thighs can swivel.  His knees are double-jointed, both ratchets, that combine for about 120 degrees of knee bend.  His feet can't really tilt up, but they can get about two clicks down.  He's got a little under 45 degrees of inward ankle tilt, which seems fine on paper, but remember that I said his hips are ratcheted.  If you move them out two clicks his ankle tilt falls slightly short of keeping his feet flat, which is a shame.

The notches in his hands are the same as the ones in his smaller robot's hands.  So he can hold his Laser Rifles with no problems, as well as the pistols or the Twin Particle Beam Cannons.

Now, just because we were gushing over robots we shouldn't forget that Power Baser turns into a truck as well.  As far as the cab goes... well, I know a lot of people give MP-10 grief for having obvious robot legs, but MP-10 is definitely pulling off the truck mode better.  That said, the legs tab together well in a way that rear of the cab kind of flows nicely.  It's just a shame about the obvious robot arms for the back of the cab, and the aforementioned non-accurate headlights.  The tires are rubber, and they roll fine.

Another look, this time with the trailer, and I'm not sure the trailer was Fans Hobby's best work.  It's slightly longer than MP-10's, but much shorter in height, which gives it a weirdly squashed appearance.  Plus, setting the wheels above his feet in super robot mode leaves them too far from the rear of the trailer.  And the big robot arms at the front of the trailer never made for a realistic truck trailer, those arms are one of the more memorable things about Powermaster Op's truck mode to me, so Fans Hobby's decision to tuck them inside is disappointing.

You can arm him up basically the same way you did the G1 toy.  The Twin Particle Beam Cannons go on the sides of the trailer; I always liked to point them straight up like they were extra smokestacks on the G1 toy.  The Laser Rifles peg into the top of the trailer.  One nice touch is that you can leave the Powermaster engine plugged in over the grill on the cab, but if you want the cab's grill to show you can still attach him by pluggin him onto the trailer, just behind the cab.  Speaking of the cab, the port on the trailer that the cab plugs into can swivel, so the truck can look like it's turning.

By now, you've probably gathered that there are a couple of little (and sometimes baffling) design decisions that I have issues with.  Another issue is the transformation.  Going from truck to small robot and base or vice versa is easy enough, no issues there.  Getting him into combined mode is a royal pain in the rear, though.  There are several parts that have to move around other parts and tabs that want to pop back out unless everything is lined up perfectly.  Even if everything is lined up perfectly and nothing's coming undone on you some of the parts have me thinking that the design specs called for extremely precise dimensions that the actual manufacturing wasn't up to snuff on.  A good example is that when you line up the notches on the cab with the slots inside the super torso you'll find that the back of those sides needs to go between the outside of the small robot's legs and the wheels on the outside of his legs.  The tightness of those spaces makes it likely that you'll bump something out of alignment, and that will in turn cause tabs to start popping out because things aren't perfectly aligned anymore.

Power Baser isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  However, I'm being hard on it because I had Power Master Op as a kid and I really wanted Power Baser to be perfect.  If you can look at my criticisms and either disagree or agree but don't think they're dealbreakers I still recommend him.  For all his flaws, Power Baser is a good toy.  The smaller cab robot alone is so dynamic that he's probably worth it on his own.

sold out everywhere

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, slaginpit said:

sold out everywhere

I'd heard that the demand for Power Baser was higher than Fans Hobby anticipated, and they (and other stores) are taking preorders for a second run due in April.  Where are you at?  TFSource, The Chosen Prime, and Toy Dojo in the US are showing in stock still.  If you're not in the US, Action Robo (Hong Kong) seems to still have some.  No guarantees about whether you'll get a Matrix or not, but since it's very close to MP-10's and not compatible with Power Baser anyway you're not really missing out.

[slaginpit]

15 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I'd heard that the demand for Power Baser was higher than Fans Hobby anticipated, and they (and other stores) are taking preorders for a second run due in April.  Where are you at?  TFSource, The Chosen Prime, and Toy Dojo in the US are showing in stock still.  If you're not in the US, Action Robo (Hong Kong) seems to still have some.  No guarantees about whether you'll get a Matrix or not, but since it's very close to MP-10's and not compatible with Power Baser anyway you're not really missing out.

Canada. I always buy from Chosen. I will get it from him if its in stock

[Kuma Style]

On 1/8/2018 at 3:44 PM, valhary said:

Certainly is not easy to get all align (I have apply a lot of force and suffer stress marks in my head connector)

but once you make it is amazing solid 

This thing just doesn't look bad in any picture ever.