The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

It looks like Yes Models is now four 5ths of the way to completing their oversized KO of Maketoys' Guardia. All that's left is their version of Vulcan.

[mikeszekely]

I'd picked up the first three releases in Maketoys' Cross Dimension line, and while I found Striker Manus and Rioter Despotron both to be excellent toys with interesting designs and plenty of articulation I made the switch that a lot of TF fans do and switched to a more Masterpiece-style collection.  As such, I passed on the next two releases in the line, but I was still kind of curious.  While I still don't think they really fit with my collection anymore, I worked out a trade that sent my Striker Manus away for this guy, Thunder Manus, the Cross Dimension version of Powermaster Optimus.  Or Ginrai, if you prefer.

(Note that the other release, Thunder Erebus, is very nearly the same figure, with bit less in the way of accessories and a Nucleon Quest black color scheme, so most of this review applies there as well.)

Well... that's a little Optimus (or Ginrai).  Maybe too little?  At this particular juncture the other figures in the line are tallish Voyagers.  The previous Optimus, Striker Manus, sizes perfectly with Rioter Despotron here, but Thunder Manus only comes up to Rioter Despotron's knee.

Curiously, while he's perhaps too small to fit with the other Cross Dimension figures, he's not a bad fit at all if you're building a Legends collection.  He's just a little taller than an official Legends like Seaspray or 3P stuff like Iron Factory's Brawl.

The aesthetics are another curious choice.  While Striker Manus and Rioter Despotron were recognizably Optimus and Megatron, they were very original, stylized designs.  If you ignore the large backpack and the smokestacks on the outside of his shoulders instead of his shoulder blades Thunder Manus is pretty Masterforce-accurate.  He's got the same lithe proportions, blue stripes on the thighs, and even the bumps on his waist where the Masterforce animators drew the hinge from the original toy's hip skirt.  The only other real difference is the silver under his windshield, but even that detail is accurate to the G1 toy.  Just like the size, this only seems to make Thunder Manus a more natural fit in a Legends collection than Cross Dimension.

Thunder Manus comes with a few accessories.  For starters, can't have a Powermaster Prime without a Powermaster.  Then we've got two rifles, two double-barreled cannons, and two trailers.  The cab-robot can't hold the big rifles, but the back of the rifle comes off to make a smaller rifle for the smaller robot.

Like Thunder Manus himself, his Powermaster is tiny.  To the head, he's a little shorter than a Titanmaster.  I'm inclined to ignore the giant flap behind his head, but I'm wonderin why they cast his torso in gray plastic instead of white.  As far as articulation, he doesn't have much.  No neck, no waist, no elbows, no wrists.  His shoulders are pinned for rotation and hinges for about 60 degrees of lateral movement.  His hips are ball joints tha can go 90 degrees forward or laterally, but only a little backward.  His knees are hinged and can bend 90 degrees.  No articulation in the feet or ankles.

The articulation is a bit better on the cab robot, but there are still some issues.  His head is on a ball joint that can swivel and look up a bit, but he can't really look down.  You can kind of tilt his head sideways, but for whatever reason it wants to pop back into a straight position.  The boxy part of his shoulder is on a swivel for rotation, a ball joint at the base let shim move his arm almost 90 degrees laterally.  The entire arm is connected to the torso at the shoulder blade, which can also swivel a little, getting his total lateral arm movement beyond 90 degrees.  The ball joint also works as a bicep swivel swivel.  His elbows are hinged and can bend 180 degrees, but as a single hinge it's not the prettiest.  Likewise, his wrists do technically swivel.  However, there are red flaps attached on a hinge to the bottom of his hand.  Swiveling his fist rotates the flap around his arm.  He has a waist swivel, but his backpack almost totally negates it.  His hips can kick 120 degrees foward, maybe 75 degrees laterally, but very little backward motion.  His thighs can swivel.  His knees can bend about 120 degrees.  His feet can tilt up 90 degrees and down a little.  He doesn't have an actual ankle pivot.  Instead, the front of his foot swivels on a mushroom peg that's set at a 45 degree angle.  Turning the foot there can fake a pivot ot a point, but turning it also turns it upward, so it's difficult to get everything flat if you use it too much.

As I already said, the bigger guns don't fit in the cab robot's hands.  The smaller guns have squarish handles that fit into his squarish hands with no issue.  And course (not pictured) the Powermaster folds up and pegs onto the grill with no issue.

Of course, a little Optimus turns into a little truck cab.The mechanical detail behind the windshield is evocative of Striker Manus', and the cab is a little boxier than you might otherwise expect, but it's definitely more G1 Optimus than Striker Manus as trucks go.  I do find it somewhat odd that he only has four wheels, though.  In any case, he still fits fine with Legends.

As for the other accessories, one of the trailers turns into a bigger body, just as you'd expect.  Unlike the G1 toy or Fans Hobby's Power Baser, though, there is no base mode that I could find.

The Super Ginrai mode is probably where Maketoys spent the bulk of their design effort.  For one, it's a lot closer in size to the other Cross Dimension figures, standing a little over a head taller than Rioter Despotron.  And you'd expect super mode Powermaster Op/Super Ginrai to be bigger than Megatron, right?  Except... well I might expect him to be more than slightly over a head taller.

This mode is also a bit more stylized, although I'd say that Maketoys is still playing it pretty safe here.  Once again, the proportions are very anime-esque, with long limbs and a small head and torso.  Again, he's much more svelte than Power Baser.  While I'm still not sure he's a good fit for Cross Dimension he's about the same size as the Titans Return Leader-class Prime, so perhaps he's an alternative to that (especially if you're going to add in the cost of upgrades like Perfect Effect's transformable replacement cab).  One minor complaint I do have, though, is that his hands are solid blue.  You can wave it off as "it's Cross Dimension, not G1," and you wouldn't be wrong, but I'd have preferred the red fingers like Super Ginrai had in the Masterforce anime (like Power Baser's).

Right or wrong, in my head a regular-sized Optimus would be as big as a combiner in super mode.  I think Super Ginrai fighting King Poseidon in Masterforce might back me up on that.  Either way, I still don't hate this scale for Legends.

Another way you can tell that this mode was Maketoys' focus is because the articulation for this mode is quite good.  The head is on a ball joint that swivels, tilts up and sideways a bit, and tilts down quite a bit.  The shoulders can rotate, and they can extend laterally nearly 180 degrees.  His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows (the upper joint being ratcheted) can bend nearly 180 degrees.  His wrists can swivel.  His thumb is fixed, but his fingers are pinned at the base with the index finger being separate from the other three.  His waist is a ratcheted swivel, and he's got a ratcheted ab crunch of about 60 degrees.  The skirts on the sides of his hips are hinged, adn the ones in the front are on ball joints, so they can get out of the way of his hips.  Those hips can go forward a little over 90 degrees and backward about 45 degrees on ratchets, and laterally just under 90 degrees on a softer ratchet.  His thighs can swivel.  His ratcheted knees bend about 145 degrees.  And his feet... well, they're a ltitle weird, due to how his heel transforms.  Still, you can get some downward tilt on the front half of his foot, some upward tilt on the entire foot, and and nearly 90 degrees of ratching ankle pivots.  Combined with signficantly less backpack than Power Baser and his anime proportions it's not too difficult to get him into some pretty dymanic poses.

The silver double-barreled cannons can plug into his shoulders, as is typical with Powermaster Primes, or on the sides of his lower legs.  He holds is guns using the same sort of sliding rails as the other Cross Dimension figures, some of Maketoys' Re:Master figures, and Fans Hobby's figures.  I checked to see if he could old other Cross Dimension weapons like the ones that came in the pack with Striker Noir and he can, but a little loosely.  If you don't want him to carry any weaon the rifles can also use slots on the sides to fit onto tabs on the sides of his backpack.

In trailer mode, there are first seems to be less size disparity between Thunder Manus and Power Baser.  Unfortunately, I think this is because Power Baser's trailer is proportionately too small compared to his cab, and Thunder Manus seems to have the opposite problem.  His cab is tiny compared to his trailer.  Maybe that's why he has four sets of tires on the back of the trailer instead of the more usual two.  The folding panels don't gets as flat on the sides as Power Baser's trailer, but the missiles are a nice little touch.  I suppose that you could almost imagine that, instead of a more traditional trailer that Power Baser and the G1 toy are going for, it's some kind of oversized military-use trailer.

The trailer pegs into the cab with a little red peg that simply sits in a corresponding hole on the cab.  The connection isn't super tight, so if you pick up the trailer the cab's not coming with it.  The silver cannons sit at the front of the trailer, traditional Powermaster Optimus style (although Ginrai didn't really have them on his truck mode in Masterforce).  His rifles again use the slots on the sides, this time to fit onto tabs along the side of the trailer, near the rear.

If you're interested in the black Thunder Erebus version of this mold you can stop here.  But if you're going for Manus, you'll remember that there was one more trailer.  And, frankly, it looks less like a trailer than the Takara Legends Godbomber, which looked less like a trailer than the G1 Godbomber, which itself looked like a trailer with a cockpit on the front, a cannon and some fins on the roof, and large red vertical wings on the back.  It does still have the cockpit and cannon, though.  The cannon swivels, and it can move up and down on a strong ratchet.  On the front is a sort of bumper with a hitch on it.  The hitch fits in between the feet at the back of the regular trailer, in little slots.

Despite looking less like a trailer than ever, I don't really think this setup overall is any worse.  Godbomber was always kind of ridiculous as a trailer.  The cab can rotate where it's pegged in, and the hitch on the Godbomber trailer has a pin so it can turn as well, so you can get him in some driving poses like this.

The Godbomber trailer does come apart, as you'd expect.  In this case, into several pieces.  The rub here is that the pieces do not fit together into any sort of robot on their own.  We're making armor for Prime (Divine Armor, as Maketoys calls it), but Godbomber this isn't.

Combining the armor with Thunder Manus does give you a fairly convincing God Ginrai.  The guns on his shoulders move to the sides of his legs rather than his feet, and he's got little gray wings under his red ones, but that's about the biggest departures (that weren't already covered in super mode).  All armored up he seems even more out-of-scale with the other Cross Dimension figures, but still seems like a fit for Legends.

The additional armor does hinder his articulation a bit in spots.  His head, shoulders, and biceps are all the same.  His elbow is the same, but with slightly reduced range due to the extra armor hitting his shoulder sooner than his unarmored forearm.  His wrists and hands are new, but articulated the same as the regular ones.  His waist still rotates, but he loses a little range on his ab crunch.  His hips suffer the worst.  His new thigh armor limits him to about 60 degrees laterally, and his new pelvis armor doesn't have articulated hip skirts.  Combined with the thigh armor he only gets about 30 degrees forward.  His knees are the same.  His feet still have some upward tilt and they still have the ratcheted ankle pivots, but you loose most of the downward tilt.  His shoulder cannon still swivels and moves up and down.  His wings can fold back, and they can ankle upward a bit.

The new hands hold the rifle the same as his super mode hands.  His wings interfere with backpack storage for the rifles, but there are tabs on the tips of his wings you can mount the rifles on.  He gets one more weapon in this mode.  The back of the cannon slides out to reveal a sword.  You have to remove part of the handle, then slide into Manus' fist, then replace the handle, but he holds it fine.  I find the sword a curious addition, because it's something Takara included with Legends Godbomber as well, but not something that came with the G1 toy and not something I remember him using in the anime.  Having it doesn't hurt anything, so I really don't have any issues with it.

This is the part of the review where I'd normally say if I recommend the toy or not, but I don't feel like it's quite so straightfoward.  For starters, the big challenge is how you fit him into your collection.  He just doesn't scale right with the rest of the Cross Dimension line.  The cab robot is on the smaller side for CHUG, although he at least has one, and the super mode is close to the Leader-class Powermaster Op from Titans Return, so an argument could be made for CHUG.  But I honestly think he works best as a Legends-class figure.  Regardless of where you think he belongs, if you were considering Thunder Erebus I'd give it a recommend.  If Maketoys had sold Thunder Manus without the Divine Armor at the same price as Erebus I'd have recommended that, too.

The armor is really the wrench in the system, though.  For starters, I think he's a better toy in super mode than God Ginrai mode.  The biggest issue I have with super mode is that the folding part with the super head likes to come untabbed from the cab.  In the armored up mode, though, you've got parts on the back of his leg that pop off too easily, constrasted with the shoulder parts that stick a little too tightly.  The armor kills his hip articulation.  Still, a lot of people are going to want God Ginrai over Super Ginrai.  And there's a case to be made that paying $30 more than Thunder Erebus is better than buying a whole separate Godbomber figure if you don't plan on displaying them uncombined.  However, fans of Powermaster Op who don't care for a combined mode at all are stuck paying $30 for parts they don't want.  Maketoys is futher compounding the issue by releasing Divine Shooter, a full-fledged Cross Dimension Godbomber that combines with Thunder Manus and makes the Divine Armor totally redudant.  So now people who didn't want the armored mode and half the people who did are paying a $30 premium for parts they don't want or need.  And it seems like this was always Maketoys' plan.  See, the shoulder cannon fits onto the armor via a mushroom peg.  On the other shoulder there's a plug.  If you remove the plug, you have a slot for another cannon... which you'd get if you buy Divine Shooter.  Not convinced?  The sword has a pair of tabs on the pommel.  If you have a second one, which you will if you buy Divine Shooter, you could interlock those tabs and make a double-bladed sword.

For now, if just want a Powermaster Optimus in your collection and don't care about size, get Power Baser instead.  Pass unless you really want one this size and don't mind paying an extra $30 for parts you might not use.  If you're thinking you want a God Ginrai but don't care for an actual Godbomber this may be a cheaper alternative, but I'd suggest waiting until Divine Shooter comes out anyway.  Perhaps the combined mode with Divine Shooter will have better articulation than with the Divine Armor, and that might be worth paying more for.  And if you want a Powermaster Op this size, and you want your Godbomber to be a fully-capable robot, definitely wait.  Maybe Maketoys will sell Thunder Manus and Divine shooter as a giftset sans Divine Armor.

[M'Kyuun]

Just got my Gundog,  transformed him (great example, IMHO, of how a transformation should be; complex enough to satisfy, but not overly so, with nothing superfluous, and tabs-o-plenty to keep it all together), and put him through his paces, so to speak. Sublime toy. This is my first Maketoys figure, and it's left me thus far with a very positive impression.

Flaws- so far the only things I see are the front bumper is loose and may require a drop of adhesive, and there are some very obvious sprue marks on  the outside lower surfaces of the aft front fenders that can be clearly seen when folded up into the heels. Fortunately, they aren't too visible in jeep mode, unless looking at it from a 3/4 view from the side. The only engineering qualm I have so far is that, despite being on a ball joint, there's virtually no up and down movement with the head. In my mind, with today's articulation standards, that should be a given. The other is that the jeep gun stores a little awkwardly in bot mode by tabbing into the shoulder cannon, or to his arm. Both look weird, and I kinda wish there was a way to mount it to his back  in such a way that it could swing up over the shoulder. It's not canon, but I think it'd be  a nicer looking alternative, especially if there was a back armature that allowed the gun to swing into position for jeep mode as well.

Gripes aside, until more info comes out about the official MP, I've found my Hound.  Additionally, I got him in the dark green G1 toy deco, and I'm glad , as it's sharp, especially in contrast with all the chrome, but also much more apropos for a military vehicle.

[mikeszekely]

You guys picking up the toy Gundog, be mindful of the shoulders, as they're a point of breakage on that version.  I'll see if I can get a picture to show the joint I'm talking about later tonight.

[M'Kyuun]

The shoulder joints themselves on my copy don't seem to have any issues, although the joints that rotate the entire arm under the hood for transformation are pretty tight on mine. Still, I appreciate the heads up.  I noticed that the stalks for the shoulder ball joints are pretty thin, so I'm already wary of putting much force at all on them; they would have benefitted from being die-cast rather than plastic.

[mikeszekely]

5 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

The shoulder joints themselves on my copy don't seem to have any issues, although the joints that rotate the entire arm under the hood for transformation are pretty tight on mine. Still, I appreciate the heads up.  I noticed that the stalks for the shoulder ball joints are pretty thin, so I'm already wary of putting much force at all on them; they would have benefitted from being die-cast rather than plastic.

Yeah, those transformation joints are what I'm talking about. Apparently the thing to do is touch the metal pins for 5-10 seconds with a soldering iron, then working the joint a little.

[Silverstreak]

On 7/28/2018 at 10:32 AM, Kuma Style said:

 

That is a top photo.

 

I really, REALLY hope MakeToys release the rest of that SG Computron.

[Kuma Style]

On 8/10/2018 at 6:45 AM, Silverstreak said:

 

That is a top photo.

 

I really, REALLY hope MakeToys release the rest of that SG Computron.

Thanks so much, man.

Here are some pics of the limited Erebus trailer.

 

 

 

 

[Kuma Style]

 

[Kuma Style]

[tekering]

Introducing Lewin Industries' "Atlas."

Yes, "Atlas" is THAT big.

71 centimeters tall!  

Biggest transforming toy EVER.  

And rock-solid, too...

This ain't no combiner, yo.  

[JB0]

9 minutes ago, tekering said:

Biggest transforming toy EVER.  

I'm reasonably sure that's not true, if only because I've seen monster truck commercials with a transforming truck, and it was a lot more than two feet tall.

 

But that is a pretty darn big Prime.

Edited September 4, 2018 by JB0

[tekering]

Just now, JB0 said:

I've seen monster truck commercials with a transforming truck, and it was a lot more than two feet tall.

You may be straining the definition of "toy" a little.  

I mean, there are 3D-printed kits you can order that are larger -- one of them even based on the same MP-10 engineering that created this massively over-scaled knock-off -- but I wouldn't describe them as toys, either...  

...whereas this guy just needs his die-cast smokestacks attached, and you're ready to go.  

Pictured with the TakaraTomy MP-10 Masterpiece Convoy, for scale.  

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

Lame-it doesn't even have a trailer!

[Scyla]

I don’t understand the appeal of overly large toys. 

They take up too much real estate are unwieldy to handle.

I’d love to buy MakeToys Utopia and Pandenus but they are too large. 

Nice pictures though.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Scyla

[Numbninja]

hey guy...where can i get a flame toys drift for a good price..around $350

thabx in advance

[JB0]

6 hours ago, tekering said:

You may be straining the definition of "toy" a little.  

Difference between the men and the boys...

 

6 hours ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

Lame-it doesn't even have a trailer!

Actually, having been doing a little side project recently, I've come to find the trailer more important than I used to.

I was comparing Prime toys from three different characters(OG, Powermaster, and Cybertron), and realized that aside from "red truck" and "radiator for abs", they also all shared "trailer turns into a battle station."

[Kuma Style]

[Mechapilot77]

that lewin resources op is friggen ginormously awesome looking.  not quite in scale with 6 inch or 1/12 figures but close enough.  so much want.  so little space. 

[tekering]

2 minutes ago, Mechapilot77 said:

that lewin resources op is friggen ginormously awesome looking.

[slaginpit]

On 9/3/2018 at 10:13 PM, tekering said:

Introducing Lewin Industries' "Atlas."

Yes, "Atlas" is THAT big.

71 centimeters tall!  

Biggest transforming toy EVER.  

And rock-solid, too...

This ain't no combiner, yo.  

HAHAHAHHAHA AWesome

[sh9000]

I’d like to see that Optimus next to Black Costume Spider-Man.

[ScrambledValkyrie]

Holy huge Optimus! Had no idea this existed. And I thought DX9's Gabriel was big.

What is that, 4 different scales now that the MP-10 design can be had in?

[Kuma Style]

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

17 hours ago, Kuma Style said:

Awesome picture of Leonidas (Lio Convoy)

[David Hingtgen]

That pose makes me think very much of "Hercules wearing the skin of the lion he slew".  Except more like, Optimus wearing Razorclaw's hide..

[Kuma Style]

On 9/17/2018 at 4:24 PM, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

Awesome picture of Leonidas (Lio Convoy)

TY, man.

[mikeszekely]

Dunno how people here feel about KOs... generally speaking, I think people should try to buy the originals.  On the other hand, though, KOs are good fodder for customs.  And some KOs offer different sizes or other improvements over the originals, and for those reasons if I'm being honest I've picked up a few.  I've mostly avoided talking about them here at MW, but I did recently pick up Toy House Factory's The Hyper Magnum, and improved KO of MP-22 Ultra Magnus.  Since it's a KO I'm not going to post my usual review here, but I did write one that you can read over at TFW2005.  Although one of these days I should probably start a blog or some other site for these...

[Kuma Style]

[mikeszekely]

Feels like I was writing up a storm late last year and earlier this year, but things sort of quieted down over the summer.  They got so quiet that near the end of August I'd spent none of my monthly toy budget, so despite some misgivings I was having I decided to order this guy (who only this weekend finally arrived): FansToys' Dracula, their MP Mindwipe.

I really don't have a lot to complain about, as far as the robot mode goes.  The lighter orange-brown used on his wings is closer to the G1 toy and the Headmasters anime, as is the pinkish purple, than the dark wings and lavender from the Rebirth.  But compared to some of the other Headmasters characters I think there was less overall difference between the US and Japanese character models for Mindwipe, so he simultaneously comes off pretty well for fans of either show yet suffers from some minor discrepancies that appeared in neither.  Like ths silver in the middle of his chest is fine, and while not 'toon accurate the paint on the sides of his torso comes from stickers on the G1 toy, but the little silver details on his forearms, shins, and shoulders, the stripes on his feet, and the off-white trapezoids on his hips seem to be the invention of FansToys.  Now, that helps break up the black and purple, and it's just little details, so ultimately I think that's fine.  But something I find curious is that whether you go by the US cartoon, the Japanese cartoon, or the G1 toy, a large chunk of the purple on Dracula's chest should actually be black.  It looks to me like the door you can open to see his specs was molded in a sparkly purple plastic, and it looks like FT just decided that was good enough instead of painting the area that should be black.

Which, I guess, brings me to another point.  Now, I'm not the Bobby Skullface type who gushes over paint, but paint is a big part of how FT developed a reputation for quality (deserved or not).  And aside from his wings, where all of that orangey-brown is paint, there really isn't a lot of paint on this guy.  The silver (including his face) and off-white details are paint, his red visor is paint, but all of the purple is plastic aside from some diecast flaps on his calves.  All of the black plastic is unpainted.  There's some black diecast; I don't know if that's paint or the color of the metal.  The amount of diecast in Dracula does give him a satisfying weight, but he doesn't command the same presence as some of FT's better efforts like Sovereign.

He doesn't come with a ton of accessories, either.  We've got another of those stands that comes with Sovereign and Soar.  We've got his gun, which is pretty G1 accurate but ultimately a single solid lump of sparkly purple plastic.  And you've got his Headmaster.

The Headmaster guy shares his engineering with Lupus', but all the parts seem to be new.  The orange plastic used for his arms and legs seems like they were trying to match the paint on Dracula's wings, which I think is fine and matches the Headmasters cartoon and G1 toy, although it's maybe a little light for the Rebirth.  His eyes are painted red, but for whatever reason FT didn't bother to put the silver on his face.  Maybe FT just expected us to keep Dracula in robot mode with his head on?  I can't imagine they were worried about scratching, since his eyes are painted and Lupus' Headmaster had his whole face painted.

Anyway, for those that don't feel like looking for my Lupus review, the Headmasters have no head articulation, ball-jointed shoulders that rotate, provide a slight butterfly joint and allow for 60 degrees of lateral motion.  Elbows bend about 90 degrees.  No bicep, wrist, or waist articulation.  Hips are ball joints and can bend forward 90 degrees, laterally 45 degrees.  Nothing really to speak of backward, but they do provide a slight thigh swivel.  Knees bend just shy of 90 degrees.  His ankles are ball joints and can tilt up and down a little as well as swivel inward a bit.  Outward swivel is blocked by the edges of his legs.  Those ball joints do give him about 45 degrees of ankle pivot.

As for Dracula himself, his neck is on a disc that provides rotation for his head, and the port can tilt so he can look down, or you can remove the head, turn the neck 180 degrees, and reinsert the head and he can look up.  His shoulders can rotate on ratchets, and friction hinges let them extend almost 180 degrees.  His biceps cand swivel.  His elbows are double-jointed, combining for nearly 180 degrees.  Engaging the lower joint exposes some thin mechanical details.  His wrists can rotate, and due to how they transform and the fact that they don't actually lock in there's a little downward wiggle on them.  The hands are FT's standard, with a ball joint at the base of the thumb and one additional pinned knuckle, while the other four fingers are all individually-articulated with a pin at the base and one additional pinned knuckle each.  He has a ratcheted waist swivel.  His hips ratchet forward just over 90 degrees, but they're limited to just one click backward due to having his bat feet just hanging out on his butt.  Lateral hip motion is friction, and falls a bit short of 90 degrees.  His thighs can swivel below the hips.  His knees bend 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt up slightly, down almost 90 degrees, and his ankles pivot just under 45 degrees.

He holds his gun fine, with tabs on the handles fitting into slots on his palms, so that at least is improved from Lupus.  And he can sit on the flight stand while in robot mode, with a peg and a tab on the stand fitting into a corresponding hole and slot on his nether regions.

While I don't really have any major complaints with the robot mode, Dracula kind of falls apart in bat mode.  I mean, his head is fine, his wings are fine and his little bat feet are fine.  Where he's running into trouble are his robot mode arms.  I've done my best to get them as straight as I can, but to get everything pegged in properly his elbows have to be slightly bent.  That does two things; first, it causes the elbows to stick out from the sides of his body a little bit, and that exasperates the fact that instead of giving him straight blocks for forearms like the cartoon and G1 toy FT chose to have the arm protrude below (or in this case, above) the elbow, where the hinge for the flap on the back of his forearm is.  That spoils the silhouette for me, but that's not as bad as the fact that his biceps taper in toward his elbows, at the same place his torso is tapering in toward his robot waist.  That leaves gaps between his torso and robot arms that you can see through, and the bent elbows worsen those gaps.  The lack of a cohesive bat body is such a turn off that I strongly considered not buying Dracula at all, if it weren't for the fact that I hadn't touched my toy budget, there was nothing else newish I wanted, and I don't exactly see a bunch of other companies lining up to do MP Headmasters.

The most frustrating thing about the bat mode is that FT put all that engineering into flipping the arms around so they're upside down in bat mode, like the G1 toy did... except the G1 toy did it to invert the sides of his body to move the bat wings from his robot back (where they were actually upside down) to his bat back, and Dracula's wings move separately (so that they're never upside down).  And the thing is, if they didn't put all that engineering into flipping the arms around they could have just left them to tuck against his sides, perhaps with tabs on the backs of his forearms near his wrists fitting into slots on his robot hips.  They wouldn't sit as far forward as the G1 toy's, but I think they'd look alright compared to the animation models.  The chrome rings would still be in about the same spot, and instead of jutting out away from his body the protrusions on the backs of his forearms below his elbows would actually fill in the space where his waist tapers in.  So if FT would have just stopped here, before you start really transforming the arms, maybe tossed some screw hole covers in for those screws on the robot shoulders, they'd have avoided my single biggest issue with this toy.

Also, individual results may vary, but mine has the first fang on his upper right broken out of the box.  Given that it took a month to get here from a Chinese Ebayer it's not worth the hassle of sending back, but it's still disappointing. 

Coming off of Rouge, I'm happy to say that Dracula's transformation is relatively straightforward, yet there are still steps that make me feel like FT was making things harder than they needed to be.  I've already talked about how FT took steps to invert the robot arms for bat mode, even though if they'd stopped before they got to that step he'd probably have looked better.  There's also stuff like the waist rotating 180 degrees, which is necessary so his legs can bend forward at the hips to bring down the bat foot.  But then, instead of simply designing his knees so they could bend backward or using the existing thigh swivels, FT has you open latches on either side of his thighs to free up a mid-thigh swivel.  But they didn't even stop there!  Not content to have his robot shins showing on the bat's back FT built another set of swivels below the knees so you can turn the lower legs around and make his robot calves his bat back instead.  Now again, it's all pretty easy, especially when you've done it once and know to expect it, it just takes what could have been done in two or three steps and somehow drags it out for four or five steps, adding two joints that weren't really necessary in the process.

At least the bat has some articulation.  His head can rotate, and it can look up about 60 degrees.  The rotating part the head is attached to isn't really locked in place, though, so you can pull it out a bit to get him to look up more.  His mouth can open.  The finger claws on his wings are all individually articulated, pinned at the base with one additional knuckle on each claw.  The wings themselves have numerous points of articulation.  There's a ratcheting swivel that moves them up and down on his back.  Friction hinges near those swivels move the whole wing back but they can't go farther forward that straight out to the side.  He's got ratcheted hinges at the bat elbows that move part of the wings up and down.  Another hinge in the wing can bend about half the wing back a little, or fold it all forward enough that his wing starts to touch his robot arms.  Another swivel and a slider allows the wing to stretch out a bit more, and one final hinge lets the last section of wing bend back a little or 90 degrees forward.  As articulated as the wings are, they can't really fold around to cover his body.  He does have a (very unfortunately placed in robot mode) tail with four hinges, all of which move up/down, three of which are fine on mine but the one closest to the tip is super loose  His bat feet are on double ball joints, so they can move in and out slightly, swivel, move forward and backward a bit, move up and down, and pivot at the ankle.  His claws are individually articulated with claws at the base and one mid knuckle each.  Unfortunately, due to the weight of the diecast he's now carrying primarily on his back being supported by not two but four ball joints, you have to either use his wings to help prop him up or lean him pretty far forward if you want him to stand without falling over.  You can still stick him on the stand, but he's too heavy and the stand is too light for him to get into a good, horizontal flight pose.

The translucent door on Dracula's bat tummy opens to reveal two painted d-pads and a steering wheel for the Headmaster.  It takes a little effort to get his feet down into the gap under the controls, and to be honest that looks like a pretty awkward way to pilot the bat.  As for his robot gun, it doesn't really peg or tab in but you can wedge it between his robot legs onto his bat back and it stays in place with friction.

Despite the high praise Dracula's been getting in some circles (maybe from the FT fans who are glad that they don't have to defend a figure like Apache or Rouge again), I think he's a pretty mediocre figure.  The lack of necessary paint, like the black that should have covered some of the purple on his chest or the silver that should have been on the Headmaster's face, makes him feel a little phoned in.  This despite the fact that the transformation is more complicated than it strictly needed to be.  And despite all that went into his transformation his alt mode is gappy and unfinished.  And he stinks with what's been FT's MO for post-Phoenix releases- not giving a lot of care to engineering, alt modes, or playability as long as you can put a good-looking robot on the shelf.  I don't hate him the way I hate Rouge, but he's still the kind of figure you get because you want that character and there are no alternatives.  He's so-so.  Get him if you feel like you need more Headmasters in your collection, but if you pass on him you're not really missing out.

[Scyla]

Mike, if the broken part is bothering you FT is usually pretty good with replacement parts. Just send a PM to their representative over at TFW and they will send out a replacement.

Regatding Dracula I think you are spot on with your opservation of FTs MO. While I like their Koot, Spindrift and Apache (Rouge not so much) I think the focus is robot mode since they figured out that most of the MP collectors are fine with taking them out of the box and put them on a shelf.

Phoenix to me was probably the last FT toy where I enjoyed the transformation. The other ones are not that that bad (sans Rouge) but are sorely in need for one or two more development circles for refinement.

 

[Numbninja]

@Scylaany word on the Flame toys Q&A..im kinda excited for their Tf lines

you posed excellent questions btw

[Scyla]

I didn’t get any respone from the Moonbase 2 guy. They also haven’t talkend on their podcast about it so I assume there aren’t any news.

Edited September 25, 2018 by Scyla

[Numbninja]

7 hours ago, Scyla said:

I didn’t get any respone from the Moonbase 2 guy. They also haven’t talkend on their podcast about it so I assume there aren’t any news.

awww...thats a bit disappointing.

thanx sir

[Scyla]

Wotafa reviews Unique Toys Challenger (TLK Optimus Prime):

It is similar to their Peru Kill (AoE Lockdown) as in offering an impossible transformation where the original designers had no idea how Optimus gets from one shape to another. 

To me it is a shame that this impressive engineering is locked in Bayverse bots that I have no interest in. Why not utilize the same designer that did Challenger and Peru Kill to do an G1 Dreadwind that actually looks like an F-16 Fighting Falcon. On the other hand doing a sleek fighter jet that turns inside out into a robot is probably more difficult compared to the box that is a truck cab. 

If you are into the movie designs and love Transformers for their engineering I think you might need to get this line of toys. I think the next release is TLK Hot Rod which I look forward to in how it transforms.