The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[Scyla]

I said it before. I would be all over a G2 set of all five Planet X Dinobots.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Scyla

[technoblue]

I said it before. I would be all over a G2 set of all five Planet X Dinobots.

Oh, I very much agree. I forgot to mention that before.

I'm also tempted to pick up some of the Fansproject dinos with the diaclone drivers.

[mikeszekely]

And now *drumroll*... ORDIN!

So yeah, Ordin is UniqueToys' Abominus, and so far the only Abominus besides G1 and the Legends-class Beast Hunters Abominuses (Abomini?).

Now, a few months ago, if you wanted a modern Defensor you were pretty much stuck buying TFC's Prometheus. Today, though, there are better options in the Combiner Wars/Unite Warriors versions and probably MakeToys' Guardia (unless Vulcan sucks, which seems pretty doubtful). And, right now, if you want a modern Abominus Ordin's pretty much the only game in town. Could someone come out with something better? Maybe that one that MMC was rumored to be working on? Maybe. But I can say with confidence that Ordin is NOT a Prometheus situation. Ordin is actually pretty great.

For starters, he has a great silhouette. If you ignore the bird and shark bits on his shoulders, I think he's got much more natural proportions than the only other 3P combiner I (mostly) own, Feral Rex. Like I talked about in Siegfried's review, the four guns he came with combine into one solid rifle that looks intimidating in Ordin's fist, and if it's not cool enough you can also plug in the scimitars that come with Siegfried and make it look like a crossbow. The chest and crotch plate combo scream Abominus. His big feet provide a sturdy base for him to hold some poses. Sometimes when posing him I'd find him leaning forward or backward more than I wanted, but at no point was he falling over, and nothing feels loose on him. Even his arm joints are strong enough to hold his arm in place even while he's aiming his gun. And, despite being a five-member combiner, he's got better articulation than most official Transformers. His head can look side to side and a little bit up and down. His shoulders can rotate all the way around and swing out to the sides about 90 degrees. Even better, because of the way the combiner ports fold out of Siegfried's shoulders, his shoulders can actually move back a click on the ports' ratchets. He's got two swivels in his arms, above and below the elbow joint, a wrist swivel, a waist swivel, and individually ball-jointed articulated fingers. His hips can move back and forth and about 90 degrees out to the sides, and the sides of the crotch plate are ball-jointed and can move out of the way. He's got limited thigh swivels at the hip as well, knees that can bend about 90 degrees, ankle titles, and toes that can bend up and down.

In terms of size, he's a big dude with a lot of heft. He's just a little shorter than Combiner Wars Devastator, but weighs a lot more.

He's significantly taller than the other Has/Tak combiners. I might have to look into a 3P Bruticus if Warbotron goes on sale.

It's been almost impossible to talk about Ordin without bringing up Feral Rex. This isn't just because he's the only other 3P combiner I have; I think for a lot of people Feral Rex has been the gold standard for what a 3P combiner should be. And don't get me wrong, he deserves it. The Feralcons are well-designed toys made from quality plastic with strong joints and lots of interlocking tabs that keep everything together tightly. Each Feralcon is a good toy that, like Ordin, combines into a well-articulated larger robot with good joints that doesn't feel like he's going to fall apart. If you've heard other reviews say that Ordin is "MMC-like" there's a reason for that. These are definitely quality toys that combine into a solid combiner (I actually like all of Ordin's limbs better than Bovis and Fortis, but I still really love Tigris/Felisaber, and as far as torsos go I like Leo Dux's bot mode but Siegfried in alt-mode). It's really close as it is... I like Ordin's proportions, but the animal parts tab into Rex's limbs better, and in any case Predaking and Bruticus are my favorite combiners while the only reason I'm really aware of Abominus is because I had Hun-Gurrr as a kid. Still, if a few parts on the limbs secured just a bit better I'd be telling you definitively that Ordin is a better toy than Feral Rex.

Speaking of... in a lot of reviews people were talking like Rex is bigger? He clearly looks shorter than me. Maybe those people are extending Leo Dux's legs all the way? I set them in the middle position.

(Pardon my Rex, as he's still missing Tigris and Talon)

Now, I've talked about the flaws with the individual members. Those flaws still stand, and are still something you should be aware of when deciding whether or not to drop five plus benjamins on this guy, but right now were talking about just Ordin himself, and I'm happy to say that Ordin is pretty close to flawless. Sure, you could complain that Troll's a leg and Hagen's an arm, but as I said before Abominus was a Scramble City combiner and Ordin's configuration was always possible for Abominus. That said, after handling Troll I can see why it was much easier to make a leg out of him. One might also complain that the mauve face, chest and crotch plate, and hands and the white head aren't accurate to the purple hand/head/armor and white face, but that's more of an aesthetic opinion than a flaw with Ordin, as his colors are perfectly accurate to the G1 toy (if anything, his mauve could stand to be a little more pink). I know that some people aren't a fan of the chest and crotch plates being separate pieces (yet, they're fine with Feral Rex's diaper?), but if we're being totally honest there's almost no way you could have gotten Abominus' armor looking as good as it does on Ordin and integrate it into Siegfried without a lot of compromises. Besides, as someone who had Hun-Gurrr as a kid, I'm used to it, and I'm used to Hun-Gurrr carrying it around as a shield. Which leads me to say that while perhaps Ordin's design choices might not be the way you'd like them to be, but they're not really flaws. No, the only thing I think is totally fair to call a flaw is the fact that Hagen and Alberich's arms don't tab in in limb mode, and Troll and Fenrir's shoulders peg in but their forearms are loose. I want to stress, though, that if you arrange them the way I described in their reviews it's not as bad as you might think. They're not just flopping around all over the place. I can play with Ordin and those arms stay pretty much how I arrange them. And if that (or the aesthetics) are a deal breaker for you, well, that's your call, but I'd hate for anyone to miss out on such a stellar toy over what are honestly pretty minor issues.

TL:DR: Ordin is a stellar toy made up of good, if slightly flawed, member toys. He is absolutely worth your money. He looks and feels great, and I'm recommending him without hesitation.

[David Hingtgen]

I'm about the biggest Piranacon fan around, but I see a LOT of issues with this:

Ironically, I think it's almost an "ignorance is bliss" situation. If you only barely know the Seacons---then yes, this looks pretty cool. But if you have all their names/colors/configurations memorized for most of your life and could recite it in your sleep---then you recognize they're taking a heck of a lot of liberties with how Piranacon is arranged/patterned etc.

And from just a raw design perspective---those are pretty poor leg-modes IMHO. The beast-limbs just hang there on the sides? That's unacceptable these days. MMC Feral Rex, UT War Lord, and UT Ordin did MUCH more with dealing with beast-mode legs, in leg-mode.

And the tails just sit there on front? With the fins flopped over sideways?

(It's also very much one of the biggest issues people had with FP's Intimidator/Menasor---the cars "faced the wrong way" on the legs---Menasor's legs have the cars on the back and the robot bits on the front, but M3 reversed that---Piranacon is the same way as Menasor---but like Intimidator, Poseidon has the robot bits on the back of the legs, and alt-mode stuff up from)

[Dio]

To me it looks like fish parts on the Ares figures, in terms of design philosophy. The individual figures are more refined, but on a similar framework. As an Ares fan, I can dig it.

[anime52k8]

I got my first ever Independently produced original Transforming robot toys^TM. so here they are; (Not)Scavenger and (Not)Scrapper:

First I want to say that I like both toys a lot and I think Scrapper is a good toy overall. Going into this based on reviews, I expected Scrapper to be a bit better and was concerned about QC issues with Scavenger, but in hand I think Scavenger is a better package overall.

Scrapper does look nice; he has a good looking vehicle mode and I'm in love with his robot mode. He's just a chunky, adorable brute of a robot. I find he does have some parts fit and tolerance problems though. in robot mode his legs don't quite peg together correctly; The shin is a panel that folds over and is supposed to peg into a block at the bottom of the leg, but that block is two pieces on a hing with the peg hole divided in half between the two pieces and it just does not work. In Vehicle mode he looks good but he doesn't quite come together 100%. He's solid but there are a number of places where parts don't quite tab together securely or evenly. Also, you have to store his gun on him because that's all that keeps his feet together and prevents him from folding in half while in vehicle mode. The single worst thing about Scrapper is that they did a crap job of putting him in his box and even though he's surrounded by foam they managed to bend a bunch of the teeth on his loader shovel. One odd (but nice) think about scrapper is that the bottoms of his feet have big rubber inserts that are totally necessary, but give the toy a really nice feel when you put him down on a hard surface.

For me the real winner was Scravenger. He's packaged a lot nicer, his vehicle mode does a lot more, he's overall more solid and his robot mode has a few little things that make me like it better as a toy. Scavenger's big win is that he actually does everything you'd want a toy excavator to do when he's in vehicle mode. The treads work, cab section rotates correctly, and the shovel arm is fully articulated with working pistons. he's actually fun to play with as a vehicle which is something I find kind of rare with transformers. going to robot mode everything comes together nicely and he feels super sturdy and solid. His sculpt actually looks really good, and he has by far the best looking tread legs of any Scavenger toy my only real problems with him is that his shoulders are kind of scary tight and his shovel arm just hangs off his ass in a really inelegant way (but that's more of a fault of the G1 design anyways so I can let it go).

So comparing limb modes with this two is kind of unfair since Scavenger does almost nothing and yet becomes this amazing robot arm, while Scrapper has a decently involved transformation to get a just ok foot. Scavenger becoming an arm is 90% just plugging a complete forearm and elbow onto the front of his vehicle mode and that big hunk of arm has nothing to do when you're not using Scavenger as a limb. but by having most of the arm be a plug on piece, they were able to work in some really awesome gimmicks that will make Toyworld's devastator stand out against all the other Devastators. Scrapper has an ankle tilt and an articulated knee-pad.

and just to give you an idea of just how big these guys are:

tl;dr, Scrapper is a cool toy with some problems; Scavenger is an impressive toy even compared to high end Japanese collectable robots.

Edited April 1, 2016 by anime52k8

[David Hingtgen]

Ares had the legs "right way round" though.

Anime52k8---- do the purples really clash that badly? You'd think two different companies made the figures.

[mikeszekely]

I'm glad you posted that pick, David. I was seriously considering Poseidon... I don't expect every combiner to be as good as Feral Rex, but after seeing colored pics of not-Skalor I expected better than that.

Oh, and iirc, anime52k8 bought the Toyworld scavenger and the Generation Toys Scrapper.

Anime52k8, can you post a size comparison with another Transformer? I don't have any Macross toys.

[David Hingtgen]

Oh, whew, I forgot that he was going to try "one of each" and decide from there. For how expensive a 3P combiner is, it's a smart thing to do, before going all-in on one.

As for TFC Poseidon----hmmn, maybe just wait for the next one:

BlastOff needs to be a LOT darker, and Swindle more mustard and/or orange, but color-wise, their Piranacon turned out a lot better than their "teaser pallette" indicated.

[anime52k8]

Yep, Toyworld and Generation Toys are using very different shades for their purples. in person TW is a slightly blue violet color while GT is using a more Magenta color. it's less obvious in some pictures but they also have slightly different shades of green as well; GT's being slightly more yellow.

[anime52k8]

Anime52k8, can you post a size comparison with another Transformer? I don't have any Macross toys.

I kind of stopped buying main line figures so nothing too recent but:

Scrapper seems closer to large voyager size while Scavenger is more MP scaled to me.

the way I see it, Generation toys is trying to make an IDW style Devastator and he's going to be a good fit if you want a bigger, more luxurious alternative to CW devastator. Toyworld is trying to make an MP Devastator based on the Studio OX version of the character.

[Dio]

Ares had the legs "right way round" though.

Quite right, but strip off the detail plates and turn the inner skeleton around, and you've got more or less the same thing. Sort of like wearing a t-shirt backwards, but in this case it's the kibble.

Compared to Ares though, they have made some great improvements in the sculpting and flow of the details. Ares had a more angular look based on simple geometric shapes, which worked for me because it looked more Cybertronian as a result. In the cases of Poseidon and their Liokaiser, they've really refined the shaping to look more organic and contoured, while keeping the same skeletons and innovative, no-nonsense transformations. If I had any interest in the Seacons I'd snap these up.

Those new Constructicons don't really do much for me, however. Gravity Builder is too squat, while the TW combiner is too lanky. They do make my Giant look a little less impressive, though.

[technoblue]

Ben of Benscollectables reviews Spark Toys ST-01, not-Optimus, from The War Within.

Glorious indeed. And Megatron is next, with Grimlock not far behind. I think I'm going all in with this line, but I want to make sure that the quality is solid with Optimus first.

[sh9000]

TFC makes some of the most fugly looking combiners.

Still this.

[anime52k8]

BlastOff needs to be a LOT darker, and Swindle more mustard and/or orange, but color-wise, their Piranacon turned out a lot better than their "teaser pallette" indicated.

Can I just say that I'm liking TFC's Next level minimalist Teaser images more than their actual combiners.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

tl;dr, Scrapper is a cool toy with some problems; Scavenger is an impressive toy even compared to high end Japanese collectable robots.

Scrapper's bot mode looks pretty solid, heck, all of the individual bot modes for GT's Devy look good. Constructor wins me over though for the Studio OX inspired combined mode and the working treads. If I was gonna get another 3rd party Devy I'd go for TW's. And I probably will once I actually get to selling some stuff...

Oh, whew, I forgot that he was going to try "one of each" and decide from there. For how expensive a 3P combiner is, it's a smart thing to do, before going all-in on one.

As for TFC Poseidon----hmmn, maybe just wait for the next one:

BlastOff needs to be a LOT darker, and Swindle more mustard and/or orange, but color-wise, their Piranacon turned out a lot better than their "teaser pallette" indicated.

After what TFC did with Superion (to be more precise, Silverbolt), I'm still a little leery about their combiners. I just hope it will have less greebly bits and deco than Warbotron's mess of a Bruticus.

[mikeszekely]

David- considering that Ares sucked (sorry, Dio), Prometheus sucked, Uranos sucked, and while for a minute their Seacons looked good, their combined Pirancon isn't working for me, I'm not going to hold on to high hopes that their Bruticus will be any good. I mean, if I can pick apart their combiners when (aside from Predaking) I didn't have strong feelings for the characters, you better believe I'm going to be picky about my favorite combiner.

anime52k8, thanks, that's good. I have Generations Springer, plenty of Seekers, and MP Soundwave, so that actually helped a lot. And... well, it's a tad disappointing, because I'm more into CHUG-size figures and I think the ToyWorld Constructicons are just going to be too big for my collection, even though I think the ToyWorld ones mostly look better. I'm especially disappointed with GT's Bonecrusher... how hard is it to to fold his shovel up onto his chest, people? How is it that four different 3Ps have taken on Devastator (not counting the Legends-scale Hulkie) and only ToyWorld has done Bonecrusher right?

Anyway, I take it you're going to go for the rest of the ToyWorld ones?

VHD, I like Warbotron's Blast Off, Swindle, and Brawl a lot. They lost me with their Vortex and Onslaught, though. The combined mode isn't too bad, though. I wouldn't pay full price for it, but until something better comes along I'd consider it if I could get the whole set for $300 or under. Sort of like how I'm not entirely on board with Quantron's takes on the Technobots, but it's getting cheap enough...

[anime52k8]

I'm especially disappointed with GT's Bonecrusher... how hard is it to to fold his shovel up onto his chest, people? How is it that four different 3Ps have taken on Devastator (not counting the Legends-scale Hulkie) and only ToyWorld has done Bonecrusher right?

because everyone wants to reinvent the wheel just to say they can. Also everyone besides TW and hasbro wants to give him such a massive, stylized dozer blade that it's way the hell too big to be his chest in robot mode. What really killed GT's bonecrusher for me though was his legs. him and GT's scavenger have the worst interpretations of the Tread leg motif of any constructicon set I've seen.

[anime52k8]

so um... I managed to break Scavenger, and somehow that made the toy better.

I had mentioned earlier that the left shoulder was WAY too tight. Well I decided to take it apart to try and loosen the joint, and in the process sheared off the peg that the shoulder pivots on. The thing is when I put the arm back together it works just fine and actually has the perfect amount of tension and feels incredibly smooth. so basically breaking it accomplished exactly what I was trying to do anyways.

[mikeszekely]

because everyone wants to reinvent the wheel just to say they can. Also everyone besides TW and hasbro wants to give him such a massive, stylized dozer blade that it's way the hell too big to be his chest in robot mode. What really killed GT's bonecrusher for me though was his legs. him and GT's scavenger have the worst interpretations of the Tread leg motif of any constructicon set I've seen.

I actually don't mind the reds on GT's Bonecrusher and Scavenger. I think it's a sort of interesting way to give Devastator symmetrically-colored treads on his body while still giving Scavenger purple legs and Bonecrusher green.

It's seriously everything else about their Bonecrusher I hate.

And you're not the only one having trouble with 3P. I tried to take Ordin apart last night and Fenrir was stuck. I had to take apart Fenrir's torso and Siegfried's leg. It's funny, first-run Siegfried had three problems- hip joint, combiner port ratchets, the slider on his lower leg, and the combiner port sticking too tightly. I'm not clear exactly what the hip problem was, but my combiner port was fine (and I verified that the fix was already applied when I took his leg apart) and my sliders were fine. I assumed that Siegfried's issues were all fixed, but nope. Basically, there's some nubbins to help create friction and hold the port inside the leg-bot, but the spring that pushes the nubbins out is too long. It's so compressed that the plastic is actually flexed. Based on 6shot's video, I just took the springs out entirely and put them back in the box, but I've been playing with the individual bots and haven't tried putting him back together again.

[Golden Arms]

So Mike,

Even with the breakage which of the 2 devastators, which one are you leaning towards? I too was looking to add a 3rd party devastator and was leaning towards Toyworld due to the massive size and how well the individual bots complimented the MP toys.

[Rabidweezil]

I've been watching both TW and GT's Devy releases closely. And I've decided to put in my order for the GT version. It's close enough to MP size for me, plus I like the look of the combined mode a lot better then the TW version.

People complain about the extra kibble on the GT set, but it doesn't bother me at all. And I've heard bad things about TW releases as far as quality. Lots of reports of breaking joints. To the point where it appears some retailers won't be carrying it, or any furture TW releases anymore.

[Golden Arms]

Thanks for the added info RW. Durability is important especially as much as the 3rd parties are charging for these things.

[anime52k8]

I'm still going for toyworlds Devastator. like I said, The arm actually works better after I broke it, and it doesn't effect combined mode either way. I think the toyworld constructions look better as a group and make a Way better looking Devastator than any other set. If you mainly collect MPs, Constructor is the way to go IMO.

[Rabidweezil]

Thanks for the added info RW. Durability is important especially as much as the 3rd parties are charging for these things.

There are quite a few review videos on YouTube of each release so far from both companies. Watching several of those helped me decide on the GT set.

Of course others mileage may vary. But it is nice to have options to choose from.

[Golden Arms]

Thanks for the info guys. I had been playing Transformers devastation and the game rekindled my interest in Devastator. I'll have to go back and watch some of the reviews on Youtube.

[mikeszekely]

If it were just a little smaller I'd be all over ToyWorld's Devy. As it is, I'd consider GT's Devy but I really loathe that Bonecrusher.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

Wow! You guys are rich! Those things are expensive =o

[anime52k8]

I think GT and TW are both going be good devastators and they're both going to be a lot nicer than Hercules or CW Dev. I think the deciding factor should be which one you like the styling of more.

For me TW looks the best because it's very G1 toy and Japanese super robot from the 80's styled which I enjoy a lot more than G1 cartoon or modern comic book styles.

[anime52k8]

BTW, I wonder how many Kotobukiya chain bases I would need to do this desplay with TW devs?

[Golden Arms]

:P Far from rich here. But this formula describes my present situation.

No wife/Girlfriend X No kids X 3.5 (pocketbook modifier) + good paying job+low living expenses (rarely at home)= Too much to blow on toys!!

Life is about balance and the toy gods demand tribute!

Edited April 2, 2016 by Golden Arms

[dizman]

Ben of Benscollectables reviews Spark Toys ST-01, not-Optimus, from The War Within.

Glorious indeed. And Megatron is next, with Grimlock not far behind. I think I'm going all in with this line, but I want to make sure that the quality is solid with Optimus first.

It looks great, now I have to decide if I want to go all in with the Optimus version or wait for the inevitable Nemesis repaint.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

:P Far from rich here. But this formula describes my present situation.

No wife/Girlfriend X No kids X 3.5 (pocketbook modifier) + good paying job+low living expenses (rarely at home)= Too much to blow on toys!!

Life is about balance and the toy gods demand tribute!

damn... that's a good life, i have 3p apolly only but this stuff looks so good.

Edited April 2, 2016 by davidwhangchoi

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

TL:DR: Ordin is a stellar toy made up of good, if slightly flawed, member toys. He is absolutely worth your money. He looks and feels great, and I'm recommending him without hesitation.

I'll definitely be getting Ordin in the near future, good to hear he's a solid toy.

[Golden Arms]

Appolyon looks pretty awesome. He pairs well with the other MP deceptions.