The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[Dobber]

The REAL Iron Throne.

Chris

[M'Kyuun]

@Dobber Still waiting for Sci-Industry's Fiery Thunderbolt Helo to ship from Showz.  Kinda curious what the holdup is on their end; the description on my orders page says, "all payment received; waiting for release", which strikes me a little odd if they have stock in warehouse, as that's generally what prompts them to ask for full payment. Has yours shipped, or are you waiting for release too?

My Iron Factory take on Beachcomber shipped, and I paid for it right around the same time. I figured both would ship together, but apparently not.

[slaginpit]

16 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

@Dobber Still waiting for Sci-Industry's Fiery Thunderbolt Helo to ship from Showz.  Kinda curious what the holdup is on their end; the description on my orders page says, "all payment received; waiting for release", which strikes me a little odd if they have stock in warehouse, as that's generally what prompts them to ask for full payment. Has yours shipped, or are you waiting for release too?

My Iron Factory take on Beachcomber shipped, and I paid for it right around the same time. I figured both would ship together, but apparently not.

they are a little slow like that. Do not worry they will ship it. If you want shoot them a message from your order account on the item to ask when it will ship. It usually ships 1-2 weeks post payment clearance 

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

Kinda curious what the holdup is on their end; the description on my orders page says, "all payment received; waiting for release"

I've run into that before.  Basically it means you authorized the payment, but PayPal hasn't actually given the money to Show.Z yet.  It can take up to a week.

[M'Kyuun]

@slaginpit@mikeszekely Payment went through on the 21st. I'm not panicking so much as just wondering out loud why it didn't ship with payment made.  I've waited this longfor it, and I find as I grow longer in the tooth, so to speak, my patience for such things grows longer as well.  It'll get here eventually, I've no doubt: Showz hasn't let me down yet.

[Dobber]

15 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

@Dobber Still waiting for Sci-Industry's Fiery Thunderbolt Helo to ship from Showz.  Kinda curious what the holdup is on their end; the description on my orders page says, "all payment received; waiting for release", which strikes me a little odd if they have stock in warehouse, as that's generally what prompts them to ask for full payment. Has yours shipped, or are you waiting for release too?

My Iron Factory take on Beachcomber shipped, and I paid for it right around the same time. I figured both would ship together, but apparently not.

No, mine is the same as yours.

IIRC, my payment request email said that the release was imminent but not actually out yet. The payment is just being taken care of to speed things along when it does come out. I thought it said something like it was expected in 15 days or something. 
 

Chris

Edited December 30, 2021 by Dobber

[M'Kyuun]

3 minutes ago, Dobber said:

No, mine is the same as yours.

IIRC, my payment request email said that the release was imminent but not actually out yet. The payment is just being taken care of to speed things along when it does come out. I thought it said something like it was expected in 15 days or something. 
 

Chris

Thanks, Chris. I didn't see any projection, but that works for me. I've no doubt it'll release soon, and I rest easy knowing the payment is already done, as I've already had a couple things canceled due to not seeing the emails requesting payment on some previous products. I don't want this one to slip through my fingers due to my own inattentiveness. For now, it's a waiting game, and I'm good at waiting.

[Kuma Style]

 

[Dobber]

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Thanks, Chris. I didn't see any projection, but that works for me. I've no doubt it'll release soon, and I rest easy knowing the payment is already done, as I've already had a couple things canceled due to not seeing the emails requesting payment on some previous products. I don't want this one to slip through my fingers due to my own inattentiveness. For now, it's a waiting game, and I'm good at waiting.

You’re welcome

So I just checked and I still had the payment request Email and it said this:

“Please Note:
Your order status is in Pre-Order Waiting for Rest of the Payment right now which means we will get this item VERY SOON(Normally in 7 -21 days)
*In some cases the factor may delay the release to 1 or 2 months, you can contact us to get the funds back if you don't want to wait.”

e-mail was sent on the 17th so still could be a little bit longer.

Also ShowZ has post lots of new pictures of it. Man it looks good! https://showzstore.com/tfc-toys-cs-02-zhi-10_p2780.html 

Chris

[M'Kyuun]

It does look good. I thought the greyscale model looked good, but that black w/ gold accents looks awesome.

While I'm waiting, I need to find a home for this beauty. Space is at a premium around here.

 

 

[Kuma Style]

 

[Kuma Style]

[Dobber]

22 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

It does look good. I thought the greyscale model looked good, but that black w/ gold accents looks awesome.

While I'm waiting, I need to find a home for this beauty. Space is at a premium around here.

 

 

Got my shipping notice from ShowZ!

Chris

[Kuma Style]

26 minutes ago, Dobber said:

Got my shipping notice from ShowZ!

Chris

I'm excited to see your in-hand thoughts on this. I really want it but I'm needing that little nudge.

[M'Kyuun]

3 hours ago, Dobber said:

Got my shipping notice from ShowZ!

Chris

Me too!  Pretty excited for this fig.

[Kuma Style]

 

[mikeszekely]

Just now, Kuma Style said:

 

Fans Hobby got you replacement parts, yeah (I got like a whole upper torso from them)?  I remember this one really bumming you out because of the QC issues, especially because you've said the UT is like your G1.  Curious if time and replacement parts have helped make Naval Commander a more positive figure for you.

[Kuma Style]

On 1/2/2022 at 6:43 PM, mikeszekely said:

Fans Hobby got you replacement parts, yeah (I got like a whole upper torso from them)?  I remember this one really bumming you out because of the QC issues, especially because you've said the UT is like your G1.  Curious if time and replacement parts have helped make Naval Commander a more positive figure for you.

Dude, I got a replacement torso, then needed a replacement head from stripped screws, then needed replacement hands because the fingers ltierally disintegrated... this has been months ongoing and really soured me on not only this product but them as a company. They are releasing absolutely too much too fast and it shows through the quality of these products.

------------------------------

 

[Kuma Style]

 

[Kuma Style]

 

[M'Kyuun]

I recently received Fans Toys' Robot Paradise RP-01B Cassetticons set which comes with Corvus (Laserbeak), Shadow (Ravage), and Firrib (Rumble). Fans Toys are obviously aware of the red or blue debate between Rumble and Frenzy, as they give little bios on the box, and for Firrib they state, "Firrib, the red robot, who is almost certainly blue. The demolitions expert can use his arm pile drivers to cause earthquakes that bring down buildings and enemy encampments". 😄  I got a nice chuckle out of that, and I heartily agree- Rumble will always be blue, or bluish-purple, in my mind. Upon opening the package and sliding the tray out, my first reaction was to the weight of these things; in true FT fashion, there is ample die-cast employed, and while they feel good in hand, and are painted superbly, ultimately my concern is with how well the joints will last on these figs. On small highly articulated toys like this, I think I'd prefer the die-cast was used sparingly for high risk-breakage parts, like Laserbeak's cannons, and plastic used for the rest.

Since these have been out for a while now, and any number of the usual YT reviewers have reviewed them, I'm going to focus more on comparing them to the Takara MP cassettes that came with MP Soundwave back in 2013.  

MP Laserbeak (L) and FT Corvus (R)

Arguably the best of the MP cassettes, Laserbeak set the fandom abuzz in a good way when pics were first released, and eight years later, it's still an impressive design. The ability to fold his jet packs into the cassette was remarkable and groundbreaking, and the addition of the little retractable camera in his head was the proverbial icing on the cake. FT's Corvus not only copies those features, but adds additional articulation to the wings, as the inner wing is free to rotate back further than the MP, flap up and down through an arc of maybe 10 degrees, as well as rotate on a mushroom peg to change the angle of attack. Like the MP, the outer wing is on a double hinge which allows for a generous range of poseablity.  Corvus' outer wings are also longer than MP Laserbeak's.  On both toys, the feet can rotate on a pin joint, and the legs can swivel down independently.  FT chose to put Corvus' neck on a slider like the G1 toy, but, like the MP fig, only used a simple pin joint to allow the head to rotate up and down; a ball joint would have been great here to allow Corvus to turn his head sideways. Neither has an opening beak, but Corvus' beak is more robust and toon accurate than the MP. The retracting camera on the MP was molded so that it's looking straight ahead with LB's head angled down, whereas Corvus' camera is supposed to be pointing straight ahead in line with the top of his head, but it can't quite open to 90 degrees on mine, so it's always angled slightly down towards the top of his head. IMHO, Takara did it better, and who can say why FT didn't just copy it. Too, IDK why they chose to mold it in light grey instead of black to match the head. Both are odd decisions that didn't favor the toy's accuracy.

Cassette mode:

Right up front, pertaining to all three cassettes being discussed, Takara did a more convincing job with their cassette modes. That said, FT put in a good effort, and while I think Takara aimed more for balance between the modes, FT opted far more in favor of the bot modes. Since most of us will only keep them in cassette form for storage, that's fine.  FT's cassettes are 2-3 mm thicker than the official cassettes. I was able to put two FT cassettes and an official in MP Soundwave, but I was unable to close his chest hatch with all three FT cassettes on board. 

Rumble and Firrib:

Both of these toys have strengths and weaknesses: Rumble looks great from the waist up, but the thighs were very thin due to transformation, and they rotate below the hip skirt, which looks a little awkward. The shoulders on the Takara are on ball pegs, which allows them natural movement in an excellent range, and the arms are proportionate and aesthetically pleasing. Conversely, Firrib's shoulders are mounted on sliding pins which allow for some slight clearance between the arms and the body, but only allow fore and aft rotation in a single plane. Shoulder abduction/adduction is achieved through a body mounted joint like that used in SS86 Hot Rod and Kingdom Rodimus, which makes any lateral posing of the arms an awkward affair. Moreover, the shoulders mount low on Firrib due to the aforementioned joint's use in transformation.  There's a transformation swivel above the natural elbow which allows the forearm to rotate 90 degrees laterally; it looks like his arm is broken, but it's something you can do. There's unfortunately no bicep swivel, but the elbows can rotate a little beyond 90 degrees.  His head, like the Takara toy's, flips out of the body on a rotation joint between the shoulders and can rotate 360 on a swivel. He can hold his back cannons in his hands; the peg that holds the cannon into the cassette reel hole is truncated into two half-moon posts, the aft smaller one fitting into the hand while the valley between posts rests over the hand. The cannon can also fold up and store inside the leg while in cassette mode. Like the MP fig, Firrib's waist extends down out of the torso for transformation, but also like the MP, there's no waist swivel. The waist joint is pretty loose on mine, retracting into the body with very little pressure. The hip joints mount at the pelvis via mushroom pegs and can rotate just a touch over 90 both fore and aft. They can abduct to 90 degrees on pin joints, which are already quite loose on my copy. The thighs swivel 360 on mushroom pegs. The knees are double jointed and allow for 180 degrees of bend. The ankles are on ball pegs, the ball section attached to the leg and a pin joint at the actual ankle, which still allows for about 20 degrees of toe up, as much back as you like, and about 5 degrees of rocker. Both the backs of the thighs and the entire lower legs are hollow, which might bother some folks. At this scale, given the range of motion possible, I take no issue.

The entire fig is painted crisply, except for his feet which are shiny die-cast. While the body of his back cannons are plastic, the little folding wing and barrel are both shiny unpainted die-cast as well. I didn't include his pile drivers in this review, but both are also nicely painted plastic and feature a spring-loaded feature to pop the ends of the drivers out.

I wish we had an amalgam of the two toys - Rumble's upper body, and Firrib's waist and legs, as each did the one better than the other.  At the end of the day, I still think Takara's Rumble is the better toy, as it has all the articulation of the FT fig, better in the case of the arms, and makes a more convincing cassette to boot.  Too, after eight years, my Rumble's joints are still pretty tight throughout, whereas, after only a modicum of handling since Monday, the lateral hip joints are already extremely loose on my Firrib.  Too much die-cast in a small toy with small joints that simply can't handle the weight.

Ravage and Shadow

Full disclosure, Ravage is my favorite of the cassettes, and after the remarkable job Takara did with Laserbeak, I was beside myself in anticipation of the exceptional Ravage they were sure to roll out.  One might still call it exceptional, but not necessarily in the most positive of lights.  It could have been better, and for the last eight years I've been waiting for that better to come to fruition. When FT revealed their take, I was more than just a little intrigued, and I'd be lying if I said I bought this set for any other reason. The other two looked nice, but Shadow was a step above.

Again, both toys have their strengths and weaknesses, but from a purely aesthetic POV, FT hewed very close to the toon model, for the better.  While Takara attempted a more unconventional transformation, FT chose to reference the G1 toy's transformation, which makes its cassette mode weaker, but results in a better-looking jaguar. Articulation-wise, the neck rotates about 180 between the shoulders, and the head itself is on a ball joint allowing for some slight up and side rotation, not as much as I'd like, but more than I ever expected. The jaw can open and close and he even has little top and bottom canines in there.😍 The front shoulders, knees, and paws are all mounted on pin joints. Ball jointed shoulders would have been nice, but not really feasible given the transformation space limitations. All offer plenty of range for decent posing, so no issues. The hips are on ball pegs, which offers slightly more range, whilst the knees and back paws are merely pinned, but sill offer plenty of poseability.  The tail can swing down, but due to a very low attachment point, doing it breaks the sculpt. There's a little bit of a hollow area between the 'humps' of the shoulders, but it doesn't bother me. The body feels a tad too long to me, and I kinda wish they'd put the aft assembly where the hips connect on a slider to compress the body by a few mm.  The front shoulders are also noticeably thin, but that's an artifact of the transformation. Notably, the sculptwork throughout emulates the toon very well, which was the greatest weakness of the MP version, and the point of appeal for me. MP Ravage however, betters it with superior front shoulder articulation on a ball joint with a bicep swivel. Too, the bulkier shoulder has its appeal as to defining the whole body shape, even if it's not toon accurate.  Ravage's tail can be rotated without ruining the sculpt, although it's offset from center, also an artifact of transformation. From here it just gets worse: the stick-like body, the too long and thick neck, the square hips and odd-looking back legs all conspire to make it a decidedly unappealing take on Ravage's usually lithe form. I still prefer the look of the G1 toy over it- it was a walking wafer with parts-forming jets, but the overall sculpt looks much better to me. FT simply took that design and advanced it, and I think the result speaks for itself.

And here's my attempt to capture the old box art pose.  LEGO to the rescue when you need an ad-hoc prop.  

So, having had the chance to handle these guys for a couple of days, the engineering is not as refined as I'd hoped it would be, especially for $120, with the bulk of my ire directed at the poor shoulder design and weak waist extension joint on Firrib. I think the use of die-cast is too liberal, as it only serves to weaken the joints that much quicker, and I already have some loose joints after very little manipulation. As updates to eight-year-old figures, Corvus and Shadow mostly succeed whereas Firrib falls short, IMHO.  Are they worth spending the high tag if you already have MP Soundwave or FT's Acousticwave? For most I'd say no, but if you really like the cassette bots or you're like me and that Ravage(Shadow) looks too good to pass up, and you can spare the ducats, go for it.

Note: While I mentioned that some of the die-cast on these was unpainted, like Shadow's jets, it's my own assumption that it's just polished. If it's indeed painted or chromed, feel free to let me know.

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by M'Kyuun

[mikeszekely]

It's funny, while I didn't feel like shelling out the big bucks for FT/RP's Soundwave, on account of still being pretty satisfied with MP-13 (sure, Acoustic Wave is a bit more cartoony, but in a way that looks off to me, especially in alt mode), I actually did order the tapes.  And, weirdly, not for my MP shelf, where I prefer MMC's tapes, but to use with my WfC stuff in place of the cruddy Micromasters.  It'll be awhile before I review them, though.  I'm waiting for a few other things to come in before I ship my stash.

[M'Kyuun]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

It's funny, while I didn't feel like shelling out the big bucks for FT/RP's Soundwave, on account of still being pretty satisfied with MP-13 (sure, Acoustic Wave is a bit more cartoony, but in a way that looks off to me, especially in alt mode), I actually did order the tapes.  And, weirdly, not for my MP shelf, where I prefer MMC's tapes, but to use with my WfC stuff in place of the cruddy Micromasters.  It'll be awhile before I review them, though.  I'm waiting for a few other things to come in before I ship my stash.

Same boat as far as Acousticwave; there just wasn't that much improvement over MP Soundwave, which remains one of the best MP releases to date, IMHO.  Since the MP cassettes and the G1 cassettes share real world scale, FT's Cassetticons will fit in nicely. I haven't checked to see if they'll fit in G1 Soundwave, but that would be cool.  I still don't understand or like Hasbro's decision to downsize the cassettes for the WFC line; had they maintained real world scale, everything would have been universal, and the slightly larger scale would have lent itself to better engineering.  When the G1 toys are superior to modern releases, there's something wrong. 

Anyway, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these guys after having had a chance to handle them yourself. 

[Kuma Style]

 

[M'Kyuun]

@Dobber My Fiery Thunderbolt is currently at LAX presumably awaiting customs. Given the weather we've been having here in the Pacific Northwest and the general travel time, I figure I'll have him in hand towards the end of next week, or early the following week. I also have Iron Factory's take on Beachcomber enroute; it's currently in Las Vegas, so I'll likely get him early next week.

I'm curious: Do your orders from Asia arrive at East Coast air/seaports, or do they come through California as well? I figured stuff on that side of the country probably came though Atlanta, but I'm hazarding a guess.

Edited January 7, 2022 by M'Kyuun

[Dobber]

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

@Dobber My Fiery Thunderbolt is currently at LAX presumably awaiting customs. Given the weather we've been having here in the Pacific Northwest and the general travel time, I figure I'll have him in hand towards the end of next week, or early the following week. I also have Iron Factory's take on Beachcomber enroute; it's currently in Las Vegas, so I'll likely get him early next week.

I'm curious: Do your orders from Asia arrive at East Coast air/seaports, or do they come through California as well? I figured stuff on that side of the country probably came though Atlanta, but I'm hazarding a guess.

You’ll definitely get yours before I get mine as mine is still showing as in China at the airport. Never really paid attention as to were my Asian orders go through, I want to say it varies. Some times I thought I would even go through the North West too. Not sure.

Chris

[M'Kyuun]

17 hours ago, Dobber said:

You’ll definitely get yours before I get mine as mine is still showing as in China at the airport. Never really paid attention as to were my Asian orders go through, I want to say it varies. Some times I thought I would even go through the North West too. Not sure.

Chris

Hmm, ok. I check tracking on most of my stuff, as I like to have a general idea of where it's at and when it's due on the ole doorstep. Just about everything from Asia comes through California. I would have thought, given its size and the size of its docks, Seattle would be a port for that stuff as well, but apparently not, more's the pity, as I'm only five hours away by ground, and an hour away by air. 

[Dobber]

On 1/8/2022 at 1:48 PM, M'Kyuun said:

Hmm, ok. I check tracking on most of my stuff, as I like to have a general idea of where it's at and when it's due on the ole doorstep. Just about everything from Asia comes through California. I would have thought, given its size and the size of its docks, Seattle would be a port for that stuff as well, but apparently not, more's the pity, as I'm only five hours away by ground, and an hour away by air. 

My shipment finally departed China today. 
 

Chris

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, Dobber said:

My shipment finally departed China today. 
 

Chris

Cool; hope you get it soon, and more importantly, that the thing itself was worth the wait.👍 (I'm hoping the same thing)

[mikeszekely]

While things have been fairly quiet since the holidays it seems I have a few packages coming over the next few days.  One of the ones that came today contained these guys: Robot Paradise (aka Fans Toys) Cassetticons.

We have here Shadow, aka Ravage, FIRIB, aka Rumble, and Corvus, aka Laserbeak.  These guys are meant to go with Robot Paradise's Acoustic Wave, their MP Soundwave, who comes with Frenzy.  If I allow that Ratbat may appear with a Soundblaster repaint, or that perhaps Robot Paradise will do a second set with the Season 3 tapes (Ratbat, Slugfest, and Overkill) I still gotta ask- where's Buzzsaw, Robot Paradise?

Anyway, the trio come in alt mode in one box, along with these accessories: piledrivers for FIRRIB, alternate heads for FIRRIB, wing guns for FIRRIB, and a trio of clear mini cassette cases.

We'll start with Corvus, who is arguably the least impressive.  That isn't to say he's bad, though.  I think the shape of the wings and body are a little better on the official MP, but unless you have them side-by-side and are looking at a screenshot from the cartoon it's not a big enough difference that it really bothers me.  I'm actually bothered more by the paint.  It's like they couldn't make up their minds if they were going for the usual gorgeous metallics FT is known for or if they wanted to start copying Takara's recent love of mattes.  The red is metallic, as is the silver on the vented front of his boosters, and the little guns on the side are chrome-ish (I can't tell if they're actually vac-chromed or painted with a chrome paint).  But then the rest of the booster, his beak, and his forehead are light matte gray.  It makes the boosters look mismatched, it's too light for the gunmetal color used for his beak and forehead in the cartoon, and there's just too much of it on his wings.

He retains much of the function of the official MP; hinges where the neck connects to the body and where the head connects to the neck, no beak articulation, the camera in the forehead, feet that can swivel and tilt backward.  The feet have notches in them; I assume but can't confirm that they're for perching him on Acoustic Wave.  They're too small for tabbing onto MP-13 Soundwave.

On area RP did improve on, though, is wing articulation.  In addition to the mid-wing double hinge that the Takara had, he's also got a hinge and a swivel at the base of the wing.  This does allow you to pose him in some wing flapping or more relaxed perching poses.

Transformation is very similar to MP Laserbeak; the only real differences are that his head and neck slide in like the G1 toy instead of flipping in, his wings rotate 180 degrees at the base, you don't fold the fins on the boosters, and the guns on the boosters fold around the boosters so that they're always on the outside.  And the result is... well, there's some silver/gray with some red/orange stripes, but between Corvus, the MP, and the G1 tape Corvus looks the least like a tape.  I can't say that really bothers me, though.  When it comes to the tapes all I need is a rectangle with two holes, as long as it turns into the best robot possible.

Did you, like me, skip Acoustic Wave?  Corvus will fit into either MP or G1 Soundwave's chest.

Speaking of getting the best bot mode, Shadow sits on the opposite end of the spectrum from Corvus as the best of the set.  His body is a tad long, but I think that Shadow, perhaps even more than MMC's larger Ravage, does a better job of capturing the curved shoulders and rounded forelimbs of the animation model.  We again have the slight mismatch the chrome boosters but silver fins and gray legs, but it's less of an issue here.  Despite the bare diecast on the legs of the G1 toy Ravage's stealthy nature does sort of make me thing he's more black and gray.  My biggest complaint, and it's still a minor one, is that his hips are a little thin, the boosters kind of flat, and that his shoulders rotate from the gray part, as if his bicep is twisting around a static shoulder.

Shadow's articulation isn't quite as good as MMC's, but it's again an improvement from the official MP toy.  His legs rotate at the hips/shoulders and bend at the knees/elbows and ankles/wrists.  Due to how they transform, his hips are actually on ball joints which offers him a slight hip swivel/spread.  His neck can tilt up/down where it connects to the torso, but the head itself is on a ball joint.  There's not really any downward tilt, but he can look up or to the side a bit as well as tilt his head sideways.  Plus his jaws can open.

Shadow's transformation is arguably less complicated than the official MP.  In fact, it's closer to the G1 toy, except the boosters are integrated, the hips shift backward  and spread out, and the front legs are on a panel that flips over to help make him a bit more three-dimensional.  Also makin him more three-dimensional is the fact that he's noticeably thicker than the MP and G1 tapes, but honestly, it's kind of a wonder to me now how no one hasn't come up with this before. and instead gave us some really ugly cats like the MP or the one that came with Universe Hound.  That said, some of RP's tolerances are a little tight, and some of the parts that fold over are very thin, so be cautious with him.

Does he fit into Soundwave?  I mostly got him into the MP, but I couldn't get the door closed on G1 Soundwave.

Falling somewhere between Corvus and Shadow is FIRRIB, "the red robot, who is almost certainly blue."  Although I'm not totally digging the ultra-Sunbow slumped shoulders and I think the backpack wings are a bit small and hollow, FIRRIB is a definite visual improvement with better proportions and more accurate coloring.

Where FIRRIB starts to lose points with me is his articulation, which isn't really any better than the official.  HIs head can swivel and, due his transformation, kind of look up.  His shoulders rotate and can move laterally, but the hinge is in the torso instead of the shoulder so he can't rotate AND move laterally at the same time.  He still doesn't have a bicep, wrist, or waist swivel.  His elbows bend a little over 90 degrees.  His hips go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees.  His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed knees bend 180 degrees.  His ankles are ball joints, so he's got some up/down tilt and a little pivot, but honestly it's pretty limited.

Complicating matters if the fact that RP did the usual Fans Toys thing where they cram way too much diecast into the figures to trick people into thinking weight is a measure of quality.  Actually, it's made FIRRIBs legs unnecessarily heavy so the itty bitty friction joints that provide for his lateral hip movement are already loose.

FIRRIB's backpack wings can come off and be held as guns, but one thing I really like over the official versions is that they can fold up and store inside his calves, integrating into the cassette mode.  To swap heads, you just slide the installed stoic head off the mushroom peg, then slide one of the other ones on.  Personally, I'm not big on the angry head, but I love the $#!#-eating smirk on the third head, so that's the one I'll use.  As for his piledrivers you just fold his arms up like you're going back into tape mode then wedge the piledrivers over his arms.  One cool thing is that they're spring-loaded.  Pushing a switch causes them to pop out, then you push them back in and flip the switch back to lock them again.

FIRRIB's tape mode probably looks the best of the three.  Be advised that if his feet aren't totally straight on the ball joints then his legs won't line up right.

FIRRIB fits into MP Soundwave's chest, but on mine the corner of the door is pushed outward a little.  It might be because I didn't have his feet lined up just right.  Weirdly, I didn't have any trouble fitting him into G1 Soundwave.

You know where they do fit, though?  In there cases.  Not that I'll ever use them.  Honestly, the cases, extra heads, and piledrivers are going to live in the box.

At the end of the day, I have complicated feelings about this set.  On the one hand, they're kind of expensive.  I paid around $120 for them.  But... IIRC it was kind of expensive to buy the Takara two-packs, too, and FIRRIB and especially Shadow are definitely an improvement over those.  Just... maybe not enough of an improvement.  Corvus is kind of a lateral movement, and while FIRRIB looks better the lack of articulation improvements like a waist or bicep swivel are a real disappointment.  There's also the fact that if you want to replace Rumble and Frenzy you're going to have to buy Acoustic Wave.  And, I think that's where I'm going to land on this.  If you bought Acoustic Wave and you prefer your tapes smaller then you should get the Cassetticons.  If you're sticking with MP-13 then you should probably stick the official tapes, if you like them small.  But really, for an MP display I prefer Ravage and especially Frumble to be bigger, and I don't really care if they fit into Soundwave's chest or not because I never put them there.  For that, I still recommend MMC's OX Remix tapes over these guys.  In fact, I'm going to use mine to replace the crappy Siege Micromaster tapes in my WfC collection.

[Dobber]

On 1/7/2022 at 4:13 PM, M'Kyuun said:

@Dobber My Fiery Thunderbolt is currently at LAX presumably awaiting customs. Given the weather we've been having here in the Pacific Northwest and the general travel time, I figure I'll have him in hand towards the end of next week, or early the following week. I also have Iron Factory's take on Beachcomber enroute; it's currently in Las Vegas, so I'll likely get him early next week.

I'm curious: Do your orders from Asia arrive at East Coast air/seaports, or do they come through California as well? I figured stuff on that side of the country probably came though Atlanta, but I'm hazarding a guess.

To answer your question mine arrived from  in Chicago.

[mikeszekely]

A few years ago I picked up Fans Toys' Tesla and crossed Perceptor off the ol' MP list.  I did that even though Tesla wasn't very good- for a Fans Toys he had very little paint or diecast, and he was made with a horribly brittle plastic that, to my knowledge, FT hadn't used before or since.  Tesla was bad enough that Fans Toys is taking another crack at it.  However, while I'm sure the paint and diecast and the cartoon accuracy on Tesla 2.0 will be far superior, FT's MO lately has been transformations that make me want to pull my hair out, limited articulation, and prices that make me want to wrap up my MP collection and quit collecting.  Then along comes X-Transbots with Janssen, their version of Perceptor.  It looked good, and at $80-$100 less than Tesla 2.0.  But, XTB's had their own issues lately.  Dare I roll the dice on this one.

Well, first impressions are pretty good!  Indeed, if you didn't read the box and didn't know any better you might think that this is the new version of Tesla as you pull this wonderfully cartoon-accurate, meticulously-painted, hefty chunk of robot out of the Styrofoam brick he's packed in- it's a very Fans Toys experience.  Yep, everything here is painted- the black on his helmet, pelvis, and toes, the metallic blue forearms and thighs, all the red, the silver accents, the yellow on his forehead, his pearlescent white face.  The sculpted details in his thighs, the trapezoids on his shins, even the hinges on his tummy and the red bit that cuts into his pelvis are all cartoon-accurate details, and his blockier shape is definitely more in keeping with the animation model than the original Tesla.  Aesthetically, my only real complaint is that I don't really like his face.  But...

...Janssen comes with five other alternate faces.  Four of them have the same wide face and large eyes as the default, just with various expressions; grinning, slightly open-mouthed concerned face, big opened-mouth yelling face, and weird half open puckered face.  The other is another stoic face, but one with smaller eyes and narrower, more angular shape.  That last one's my go-to face, and swapping is pretty easy.  Basically, there's a tab on the back of the face that fits into a slot on the head.  But that's not all!  Janssen comes with a boatload of accessories, including two IDW-style heads (with and without the eye scope, swap heads by sliding the neck off the mushroom peg), a test tube and a pair of beakers, a mini Perceptor alt mode, mini robots of Brawn, Bumblebee, and Perceptor, three guns (a small cartoon one, a large red toy rifle, and a black-and-red toy-style missile launcher), one missile, one blast effect, two big storage parts, and one small storage part.

The two larger storage parts are for holding the guns.  The missile launcher and cartoon gun go in one, and the barrel comes off the toy rifle and both pieces store on the other.  The small one is a stand for the blast effect.  All of that's nice, I guess... but wouldn't it be better to have storage for the other accessories, too?

As for the minifigures, they're undoubtedly an homage to the episode "Microbots," where Brawn, Bumblebee, and Perceptor shrink down to get inside of Megatron's body.  They're not too bad on their own!  Their heads are all on ball joints, and they have ball joints at the shoulders and hips, plus hinges ad the elbows and knees and even dedicated ankle pivots.  Their faces, especially Perceptor's are the greatest, but for their tiny size they're actually fairly well-painted.

Janssen's head is on a hinged swivel that can look up a good bit and down just a little in addition to swiveling.  His shoulders rotate on ratchets and can extend a little over 90 degrees laterally, plus they can butterfly forward a bit.  His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend nearly 180 degrees.  His wrists swivel, and there's even a hinge that allows them to bend up.  His hands are the usual crappy ball jointed fingers.  Instead, his fingers are pinned at the base and the middle knuckle, with the index finger being separate from the others.  The thumb has a hinge at the base for folding it over the palm, and a pair of hinges for bending.  His waist swivels.  His hips can ratchet forward 90 degrees and backward a little short of that, and they friction out the sides 90 degrees.  What's neat is that the bottom panels of his pelvis slide up into the pelvis as he bends his hip forward.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend around 120 degrees or so on ratcheted double joints.  His feet can tilt up slightly, and the toes can tilt up or down on their own as needed.  He's got over 90 degrees of ankle pivot.

Note that the instructions say that he has an ab crunch, and they seem to indicate that there's a button on the small of his back to engage it.  All I can say is that I've tried pressing in all over his back, but nothing actually depresses on my copy and I have been unable to engage any ab crunch.

And maybe that's the first signs of XTB's QC issues creeping in.  While we're at it, I couldn't get him to hold the cartoon gun in his right hand at all.  The tab on the handle simply does not fit into his palm.  Fits fine in his left hand, though, and the blast effect can fit into the tip of the barrel.  Weirdly, that blast effect only works with that pistol.

I couldn't get Janssen to hold the rifle in his right hand, either.  Well, I wasn't really planning on displaying him with it anyway, especially since the barrel is not secure at all- another QC tolerance issue.  He would hold the missile launcher, which is spring-loaded and does fire the missile, but only after I cut some material around the slot in his palm.

Weirdly, I didn't have much issues getting him to hold his beakers, so he can do his science.  Just be aware that the one that looks like a cup has the peg angled so that he can only hold it with his right hand.

Before we get into alt mode, here's another example of things that just aren't toleranced right.  No matter what I do, I can't get Janssen's chest door to sit flush against his body.

Janssen's transformation is probably a little more involved than it actually needed to be.  There's a few parts with clasps, and his torso is fully of thin panels that you have to open to move stuff around before either closing back up or moving into a new position.  While doing so can be a bit finnicky, it's usually clear what it is you're supposed to be doing, so it's ultimately not the worst transformation, though.  Just be cautious; while I haven't had any issues, some users have reported breaking the arm off of a hinge that helps it collapse into his torso.

The microscope mode is, again, far more cartoon accurate than Tesla.  Janssen's torso collapses into a nice rectangular block, and his arms tuck away such that only the blue forearms stick above. His legs don't stick out too far from his sides, and even the mount for the scope has the weird blue Y-shaped base that the G1 toy didn't.  The dial on the scope turns and extends the tube.  I didn't find anywhere to store any of his accessories in this mode.  Maybe that's why you get the storage bits.

As good as it looks, microscope mode also has a few problems, and again they're mostly due to things not being toleranced properly.  Panels fold out from his sides with long tabs on them.  They're supposed to lock his hips in place, but they're fairly loose.  Worse, as part of the transformation his thighs split in the middle, with the lower half rotating 90 degrees then bending 90 degrees.  Once again, there's a tab in the upper part of the thigh that supposed to go into a slot on the lower thigh to prevent it from rotating anymore.  These tabs are completely useless.  So, when you get the microscope set up just right it looks great, but touching it even a little is going to cause the lower legs to start bowing out and everything between his legs to start tilting.

Janssen does have the tank mode.  In some ways, the tank mode holds together better than the microscope, but for the life of me I couldn't get the scope to stay plugged into Janssen's body.  Also, this mode relies on fake treads that fold out of his legs, with a thin panel that folds in to cover the gap exposed when you fold out the treads.  There's a hinge in that flap, and manipulating it is just a pain.  I'd say this is a mode that you do once for the novelty, but payoff isn't really there.

At the end of the day, Janssen is unmistakably still an XTB product, which is to say it's going for that same premium market as Fans Toys but misses that last bit of refinement that keeps it from hitting that mark.  That said, while Janssen has those little QC quibbles that I have to cover he is, on the whole, a really strong effort and one of XTB's better offerings.  Tolerances aside, the materials feel good, it's well-painted, well-articulated, with a good cartoon design in both robot and microscope mode, and a ton of accessories.  It's not the most playable figure, but it's extremely displayable.  It's far and away a better figure than the original Tesla.  Will Tesla 2.0 be better than Janssen?  I'd venture that it probably will, but not so much better that the 70% increase in price over Janssen will feel warranted to any but the most devoted FT fans.  So barring some kind of miracle where Tesla 2.0 is the best transforming robot toy in the history of mankind, my recommendation is that you go ahead and go with Janssen.

[JB0]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

three guns (a small cartoon one, a large red toy rifle, and a black-and-red toy-style missile launcher),

I really hope this becomes a trend where there's an arsenal variance. Packing in both styles of weapons is really nice.

[mikeszekely]

58 minutes ago, JB0 said:

I really hope this becomes a trend where there's an arsenal variance. Packing in both styles of weapons is really nice.

Agreed, but it makes me think they also should have included a toy-style head to go with.

[JB0]

9 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Agreed, but it makes me think they also should have included a toy-style head to go with.

And then a toy-style chest plate!

Seriously, the chest plate is the most jarring part to me. But that's also a harder part to swap without explicitly considering partswapping in the design.