The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[nhyone]

Does anyone have a recommended shop to get 3P transformers in Singapore or on TaoBao?

For TaoBao, I can't seem to find a single seller that sells the current set, say, of FansToys Dibots. I prefer to buy from one seller than several.

I told myself I would never buy 3P, nor dinobots, but the FansToys one are really tempting!

[mikeszekely]

Well... I did it. I canceled my preorders for non-combiners (basically, Seraphicus Prominion and his trailer, and another run of ToyWorld's Bii). And I ordered all for limbs for Guardia. According to my emails, M³ and the not-Protectobots are already on their way.

So, is MakeToys still planning on releasing Vulcan in May? I saw tons of pics of him from that MakeToys convention and he looked good to go, but so far there are no preorders up.

Speaking of pictures, they had some of Guardia next to Quantron, and they looked similar in size. Likewise, I've seen pics of M³ and Quantron, so I know they're also about the same size. That's good. I like that size, I think it's around the low-end of where a combiner should be.

I think the upper end for me is probably around Warbotron-sized. So, that puts Guardia, M³, and Quantron (and Giant and Hercules) at the small end, Uranos, Prometheus, Ordin, the Throttlebot combiner, and Feral Rex (and Ares and Warlord) in the middle (they're varying in height, but not by much), then the two Warbotrons and Toyworld's Dinobot combiner. That sound about right? I'm not sure where TFC's Hades or Poseidon fit in, but I'm thinking around Warbotron-sized for Hades, at least. I'm also not sure about FansProject's Sauros.

Now, as far as my plans to have all 3P combiners goes, Ordin, Rex, M³, and Guardia all fit nicely. And I feel like I can pretty safely pick up the WuKong KO of Warbotron Bruticus, which I'll probably do next. Hades also seems safe, and if I really have to have all the 3P combiners the Throttlebots and Uranos fit as well, although I do prefer the Autobot combiners to be a little smaller than the Decepticons. By the same token, based on my personal tastes, Warbotron Computron (with the exception of their not-Strafe) wins out over Quantron, although I prefer Quantron's size. And when it comes to Dinobot combiners, the Toyworld's Dinobot combiner squeaks in under the line. GCreation's is too darn big.

Which brings me to Devastator. Devastator was the first and probably the most well-known. I'm kind of ok with him being a little larger than everyone else for that reason. And the CW/UW version is around 2 or 3 inches taller than the Warbotron's I think. So we come back to Generation Toy and Toyworld. From pics, Generation Toy's Devastator will be about the same height as the Warbotron's. In fact, there's a picture of the prototype standing with Warbotron Bruticus, and they're pretty much the same size (honestly, between that picture and the similarities in the packaging, I'd be willing to bet that Generation Toy IS Warbotron). So, that's good, right? From the reviews I've seen, their Scrapper and their Mixmaster look like good toys, and the prototypes aren't giving me any reason to doubt their Hook or Long Haul. But their Scavenger is looking kind of off, and I hate their Bonecrusher. Plus, I'm not sure about their Devastator itself. The chest plate reminds me of Hercules, and not in a good way, and the upper torso seems a tad bulky.

So we look at Toyworld's Devy. Mike's pics of their Scavenger tells me that the individual bots are a little taller than I'd like, around the size of Leo Dux or Siegfried, when I'd prefer them to be closer to the other Feralcons or Ordin-bots in size. That said, if I can accept guys the size of Leo Dux and Siegfried I should be able to let the larger Constructicon size slide as well. The other thing is, although it might not be fair to compare finished toys and prototypes, it looks like Toyworld's bots are pretty much better-looking across the board, balancing the "I'm a 3P toy, and therefore better designed and engineered than an official toy" with a more accurate, G1 appearance. Even their Devastator looks like it'll be better. My only gripes with it are really more gripes with the Studio Ox source material than problems with Toyworld's execution.

The catch, though, is the size of the Devastator. It sounds like the combined mode is going to be ridiculously huge, around 2 inches larger than CW Devy and a good 5 inches taller than Generation Toys' Devy or the Warbotron's.

TL;DR: After M³ and Guardia, I'll probably do Warbotron Bruticus but after that I just don't know. Can't decide between Computrons or Devastators because of size vs aesthetics, can't decide if Uranos is actually a better choice than CW Superion, can't decide if Hades, a Dinobot combiner, or the Throttlebot combiner are necessary, waiting for a Monstructor retool of Sauros, and don't know if there will be a better Piranacon announced before Poseidon is out.

[mikeszekely]

Big haul today! First I got a FedEx package from TFSource with the four limb-bots for Maketoys Guardia (not-Defensor). Little later, the mail lady brought me an Ebay order with all five members of FansProject's M³ (not-Menasor). Reviews forthcoming (but playoff hockey takes priority).

If that wasn't bad enough, I'm talking to a guy about trading for his Uranos. Yeah, yeah, I know he's not that great, but I gotta have a 3P Superion and for now he's it. And a trade's no money out of my pocket. Money will go into my pocket when I sell my iPad, and then back out to get the four WuKong KO Warbotron Bruticus limb-bots. Not too shabby. That'll leave me two unreleased torsos away from replacing all the Combiner Wars teams except Devastator and the unreleased Computron. I'm going to give my wallet a rest before worrying about them (or the Dinobot combiner, or the Throttlebot combiner, or a 3P Liokaiser or Piranacon, or a Monstructor repaint of FansProject's not-Dinoking).

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

Wow, it seems like you went from 0-60 in like 3 seconds to scratch your 3rd party combiner itch.

[David Hingtgen]

There's a billion Devy's now, but I've yet to see one I really like. Most simply have stupid-looking combiner heads, and I hate most solutions to his forearms and hands. I honestly think TFC did the best.

PS----why can't anyone make a Devy where the crane folds down along his back? He shouldn't need as much display space front-back as he does in height!

[anime52k8]

I just want BBTS to stock the last 4 parts of constructor.

[mikeszekely]

Wow, it seems like you went from 0-60 in like 3 seconds to scratch your 3rd party combiner itch.

I know, right? And I swear it's just because they're combiners- I went more than two years with just Hegemon and Mania King (and that's because I thought the official toys for those characters were so bad).

There's a billion Devy's now, but I've yet to see one I really like. Most simply have stupid-looking combiner heads, and I hate most solutions to his forearms and hands. I honestly think TFC did the best.

In what way do you think TFC did Devy the best? Just because of the way they used Bonecrusher and Scavenger's treads to make Devy's forearms? Hercules may be my least-favorite Devy. Weird individual bot modes (although not as bad as Maketoys'), and the treads as forearms instead of part of the body (and black instead of green and purple) bugs me A LOT more than partsforming.

When it comes to forearms, Generation Toys might have the best solution. The forearms are portable generators towed behind Scavenger and Bonecrusher, and can be left attached in both alt-mode and bot-mode. But if you don't like them attached, they can be removed. Plus they have a cool feature where you can flip up the back of Devy's hand and reveal some missiles. I'd probably be all in on Gravity Builder, but I HATE their take on Bonecrusher. All those 3P Devy's, and only Toyworld got Bonecrusher right. If nothing else comes along, I'll probably go for Constructor when I get a third party Devy, but he's by no means perfect. From what I've seen, I don't like the head, his waist will be too skinny, I want a purple drum on Mixmaster, and I don't care for the silver thighs, plus he's going to be bigger than I want.

The articulation on those hands, though...

[anime52k8]

the lack of purple drum is kind of a disappointment, but TW Mixmaster does have a wind up motor to spin his drum and spring fired launchers in his missile hat.

as for the head, I hear that a lot where people say they don't like constructors head and Gravity builder did it better, but I feel the oposite way. I Like the Pharaonic mask look to it.

I think you really need to think about if you ever actually intend to display any of these combiners uncombined though. I get the impression that the combined form of Gravity builder is more what you're looking for, and while you don't like the individual bots, if you're gonna settle anyways you should settle on the one that's works the best in the main mode of display for you.

:edit:

Also, just my personal opinion, but having missiles in your fists isn't nearly as cool as launching your entire fist as a missile.

Edited April 16, 2016 by anime52k8

[mikeszekely]

Time for a review!

Up first, we have Himed, Maketoys' take on First Aid. Of the four Maketoys figures I got today, he was the one I was most excited to get because First Aid is my favorite Protectobot. Here he is with the Combiner Wars version. As you can see, they're about the same size, but Himed carries a lot more detail. It's worth noting that Maketoys is going with a much more stylized look; the Hasbro toy is more G1 in terms of color placement and having those little window panels, and the head is closer to the cartoon, but I dig the way the black on Himed's waist and hips breaks up the red, I dig how Maketoys sort of took the white line of the original toy's combiner port and made it into a cross, and I dig the siren-esque translucent red on his shoulders. It's also nice that he carries some details from the G1 toy, like the wheels on his torso. Best of all, Himed's head is a dead ringer for First Aid's face in the IDW comics. I love it! He does have a little ambulance kibble on his back, but honestly it's a lot less than the Combiner Wars version. It does a good job staying out of the way, and it covers the combiner port.

When it comes to articulation, Himed blows the Combiner Wars toy out of the water. His head is on a swivel for left-right movement, but also has a hinge for looking up and down with some fantastic range. His shoulders are on ball pegs that can rotate all the way around and extend about 90 degrees to his side. The ball peg is actually clipped in place and is actually attached on a swivel set behind his arm. You can unclip the peg and rotate the swivel to cheat a little when trying to get some poses. Naturally, he's also got a bicep and wrist swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed, allowing him to reach up and touch his own shoulders. He's got a waist swivel, hips are ball joints that go 90 degrees forward, 90 back, and just shy of doing the splits, and he's got thigh swivels and knees that bend 90 degrees. His feet are on ball joints, but the ball joint is at the end of a rod that swivels for transformation, so his ankles can get some very extreme tilt. The size and combination of joints make Himed feel a lot like a non-transforming action figure, and you can get some great poses out of him.

What really sets him apart, though, is that the black part of his abdomen is a joint that will be Guardia's elbow in combined mode. For Himed, though, it makes a fantastic ab crunch, further increasing the number of dynamic poses you can get out of him. In fact, he can do the Iron Man.

Transformation is, once you know what you're doing, honestly pretty easy. The most frustrating thing about it that there are a lot of panels that need to be tabbed in place. The resulting ambulance is... cute. It's actually a little shorter and less wide than the Combiner Wars version. It think it's also very accurate to the original. I certainly like it better than the Combiner Wars truck, but I think this is probably the one area where TFC's not-First Aid probably has an advantage.

So what are the negatives? Well, I did mention all the tabbing you have to do for alt-mode. The back of his thighs are hollow, which is the kind of bull I expect from Hasbro but not 3Ps. Speaking of hollow, his lower legs are four panels folded around the joint and tabbed together. They're solid enough, but the joint is connected near the back of the lower leg and the back of the knee. Meanwhile, those panels on his knees are actually attached in front of the joint and don't move when he bends his knee. In other words, when he bends his knee you can see the hollow space inside his lower legs. Finally, and this will be a common complaint among these guys, his weapon sucks. It's a single-cast piece that doesn't look a heck of a lot like a gun on one side, and on the other has hollow spots and a tab that make it look both unfinished, and like it pegs into something else (spoiler: it pegs into Axle's gun). While accurate, I think his alt-mode looks a little plain and I'll be checking Reprolabels for an upgrade. Finally, it's not really a complaint, but it'd be cool if these guys were a little bigger.

All-in-all, I feel like these are pretty minor complaints. Would I recommend him? Well, the thing is, I'm sure most of you will be buying him for the combined Guardia mode. If you want to know how that's gonna shake out, you can look at pictures or wait until Vulcan is released and get reviews then. As an individual figure, I do recommend him. I think he's got a great bot mode that offers lots of articulation and playability.

[sh9000]

I wish Maketoys made a Superion.

[mikeszekely]

I wish Maketoys made a Superion.

Or MMC, or Unique Toys, or Fansproject, or Warbotron, or... well, I think most groups would do better by now than TFC. Heck, if Hades in any indication, TFC would do a better job now than TFC already did with Uranos. Sad thing about Uranos is that I can forgive almost all the things people don't like about it, I just hate heads of the individual bots.

I think you really need to think about if you ever actually intend to display any of these combiners uncombined though. I get the impression that the combined form of Gravity builder is more what you're looking for, and while you don't like the individual bots, if you're gonna settle anyways you should settle on the one that's works the best in the main mode of display for you.

Well, that's the crux of it. I tend to cycle them every couple of days. For example, right now Ordin's combined but until a few days ago they were in individual bot mode. They were bots for about a week; before that they were all in alt mode for a few days. I think, if it came down to just the Devastator mode, that you're right. I'm not totally sold on the look of Gravity Builder, but I might prefer it to Constructor, and the size fits better. But, while Generation Toys' bots have all been pretty good (excluding their Bonecrusher, whom I just loathe with every fiber of my cold black heart), I think ToyWorld's have been been better in both bot and alt mode in every case. But, whatever. Even though I've rushed to replace the four Scramble City-style Combiner Wars guys with 3P, and then only after buying Feral Rex and Ordin, I'm really serious about taking a break for awhile. Aside from wanting to give my bank account a rest, I want to see how the final releases of Constructor and Gravity Builder shake out before committing to a Devastator, Computron was my least favorite combiner in the cartoon, I'm holding off on a Piranacon to both see how TFC's shakes out and to see if someone else doesn't announce that they're doing a better one, and I'm simply not attached enough to any of the other combiners to be in a hurry.

[JB0]

the lack of purple drum is kind of a disappointment, but TW Mixmaster does have a wind up motor to spin his drum and spring fired launchers in his missile hat.

I'm sold. TW version is best version.

[mikeszekely]

Instead of continuing with the Guardia team, I'm going to move from my favorite Protectobot to my favorite Stunticon. Presenting Fansproject's Car Crash, their take on Breakdown, with Combiner Wars Breakdown for comparison.

So yeah... with his white thighs, blue shins, blocky head, and white arms CW Breakdown is more (cartoon) accurate, sure. And he's a bit bigger; Car Crash is a wee little guy. Honestly, CW Breakdown's whole transformation is pretty close to the original (the front tires stayed on the arms, the arms didn't fold up on themselves, and the legs swung out the same way but they didn't rotate so the back of the car was actually the back of his knee), and Car Crash is upside down with the front of the car becoming his feet. But, the single most important difference between Car Crash and CW Breakdown is that Car Crash is awesome and CW Breakdown is the second-worst of the CW molds.

Actually, and it might sound hypocritical of me to say this after complaining that Uranos and the various 3P Devastators out there aren't G1 enough for me, but I LOVE Car Crash's design. Sometimes the CHUG designs and some 3P make some odd choices when updating a character (like making Ratchet an SUV or splitting Bonecrusher's shovel and putting it on the back of his arms instead of making it his chest... I'm looking at you, Generation Toy), but I think Car Crash does it perfectly. I love the head sculpt, I love the angles of his torso, and I love the way the front end moves around to become his legs and feet. He's a good-looking robot.

He's got your standard 3P articulation. Head's on a ball joint that lets him look side-to-side and down, as well as tilt his head a little, but looking up isn't his forte. His shoulders are also on ball-joints, but they're also hinged so they can swing out from the ball joint until his shoulders start banging into his head. He's got bicep and wrist swivels, and his single-jointed elbows bend 90 degrees. Waist swivels, knees are on ball joints, thighs swivel, knees bend just a tad more than 90 degrees. His feet are on ball joints and can tilt forward and backward, but the amount of ankle tilt he can get out of them is fairly shallow.

Car Crash looks just as sexy in alt mode, although admittedly the Combiner Wars toy fares a lot better here. Lamborghinis are just good-looking cars, although again Car Crash feels more modern by going for a Gallardo-esque look. And yeah, Car Crash is still itty bitty.

Transforming Car Crash is 90% easy and very intuitive. The only hang up is his feet; it can be a little tricky to get the red part of the hood to fold behind the part with the headlights without the tires getting in the way. I like the way his gun splits in half and pegs under the car to become the exhaust. It feel like it's been a long time since Hasbro tried to hide the weapons in alt-mode instead of just giving you places to plug a gun to a car's roof. To be fair, I could say the same for 3P, as all the Guardia team has places to plug their guns into their alt modes, but nowhere to hide them.

So what's wrong with Car Crash? Nothing, really. He could have a little more articulation in the head and a deeper ankle tilt, and sure I'd love it if he weren't shorter than most Deluxes, but that'd really be splitting hairs. I could maybe also say that there's really nothing that stands out about him, either, like the ab crunch combiner elbows on the Guardia or Feral Rex limbs, the neat way Alberich and Hagen's arms become their rear beast legs, the way Fenrir's beast legs hide in the back of his bot legs, or like half of Troll's transformation. But again, splitting hairs. Bottom line, he's a good-looking bot with the standard articulation that you expect from 3P toys that transforms into a good-looking car via an effective if not groundbreaking transformation. So, regardless of how not-Menasor turns out, Car Crash is a great little figure who is definitely worth owning. (Of course, you won't have to wait long to see what I think of not-Menasor.)

[Scyla]

There's a billion Devy's now, but I've yet to see one I really like. Most simply have stupid-looking combiner heads, and I hate most solutions to his forearms and hands. I honestly think TFC did the best.

PS----why can't anyone make a Devy where the crane folds down along his back? He shouldn't need as much display space front-back as he does in height!

Wasn't Green Giant able to fold down the crane?

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

I thought this kit was not gonna go through, but awesomely, I was mistaken. Now if only something like this could be made for Generations Jetfire.

[David Hingtgen]

Car Crash is a Reventon. It's just kinda hard to tell since every real Reventon was grey, so everyone who googled "white lambo" when looking for his alt-mode, would never find a Reventon.

T-Bone suffers from being a re-shell (literally) of Car Crash. Nothing fits as well in bot mode---his shin and ankle bits constantly clip into neighboring areas. He's actually quite hard to get a stable "action" pose, since his feet "just don't fit" his lower legs and often won't splay/angle correctly to touch the floor.

(he also suffers from being a fake* car, in a sea of real ones).

*No, there is no such thing as an Ankonian. It's no more real than a B-Wing nor Galaxy-class starship. Sure, you can make a small scale model of one and film it in a studio and make it look realistic, but it's not a real thing you can go sit in or drive.

[mikeszekely]

Car Crash is a Reventon. It's just kinda hard to tell since every real Reventon was grey, so everyone who googled "white lambo" when looking for his alt-mode, would never find a Reventon.

T-Bone suffers from being a re-shell (literally) of Car Crash. Nothing fits as well in bot mode---his shin and ankle bits constantly clip into neighboring areas. He's actually quite hard to get a stable "action" pose, since his feet "just don't fit" his lower legs and often won't splay/angle correctly to touch the floor.

(he also suffers from being a fake* car, in a sea of real ones).

*No, there is no such thing as an Ankonian. It's no more real than a B-Wing nor Galaxy-class starship. Sure, you can make a small scale model of one and film it in a studio and make it look realistic, but it's not a real thing you can go sit in or drive.

To be fair, Lamborghini's made several cars now with pretty similar (yet awesome) styling.

And spoilers, man! I haven't had a chance to play with T-Bone yet. Ah, I might as well review him next...

[David Hingtgen]

T-Bone Protip: (since EVERYBODY misses this)----be sure to press his hood down. There's tabs. And slots. Don't give him a "jagged" hood up front. It's like 10x worse than MP Tracks. Yet there's tabs designed to hold it down flush, and they work perfectly. But people tend to leave it untabbed for some reason.

See this? Not like this:

Partly-popped hood is bad, but more common than not.

Do like this:

Yes, it's sad---the ONLY pic I could find of a properly-transformed hood, is the official promo pic. Every other one on google images, is a "partly-popped up" hood.

PS---you can see this well in the lower pic: See the gap in his running boards, below the doors? Well, if you close it, then his roof pops apart. You can have either the top or bottom of the car flush. And this will cause the whole car to bend slightly (bent up to close roof gap, bent down to close floor gap). Again, because he's re-shelled and I think they mis-measured how long some parts should be. Granted, this is FP/MT's first full combiner, and I think they did well---they just have done better since.

PPS---do you have Diesel yet? Because one section of the instructions are WRONG and impossible to do in the order shown. (kind of like the change made from Binaltech to Alternators Smokescreen's instructions). Again, watch Breauxman's vid. The part where the shoulders are "rotated up" for bot mode.

[mikeszekely]

Well, as promised, Fansproject's T-Bone, whom you may know as Wildrider.

So, like David already said, T-Bone is basically Car Crash with a new head, chest, and alt-mode panels. I think he looks good. He's still on the small side, but he's got a very accurate color scheme. Those red thighs on the CW version? Not toon or toy accurate, although you could make a case that it helps break up the fact that Wildrider (and by extension, T-Bone) are very dark. Another thing is, while I like Car Crash's less-blocky head sculpt a lot, T-Bone's toy-style head is a tad generic and makes me wish Fansproject had gone with a more toon-style.

Since he's basically the same toy as Car Crash, I won't go into a lot of detail about his articulation. I'll merely address some stuff that David wrote about.

T-Bone suffers from being a re-shell (literally) of Car Crash. Nothing fits as well in bot mode---his shin and ankle bits constantly clip into neighboring areas. He's actually quite hard to get a stable "action" pose, since his feet "just don't fit" his lower legs and often won't splay/angle correctly to touch the floor.

That's not really my experience with him.

I mean, he's certainly not as articulate as Himed, but who is? I'd be lying if I said his feet didn't bump his leg panels, but that seems to affect his ability to tilt his feet up. If anything, I think I can get a deeper tilt for a wide-legged stance on T-Bone than I can with Car Crash. In any case, I think it's easy to forget that this set was released in 2013 and judge it by 2016 3P designs, so yes, both Car Crash and T-Bone have their limitations. I don't really think that T-Bone is any worse off than Car Crash, though, and I'm not having any problem getting some nice poses.

Moving right along... T-Bone's alt-mode is a Batmobile. OK, so David already told us it's actually a Lamborghini Ankonian, a concept car that, despite all sorts of rumors that it'll go on sale in 2017, exists only in model form. Given that CW Wildrider is just a repaint of Dead End, I appreciate the effort to give T-Bone a unique look, and they definitely nailed the colors. But, since Car Crash is an updated Lambo, might have been nice if Fansproject had gone with an updated Ferrari, maybe a 458 Italia.

T-Bone Protip: (since EVERYBODY misses this)----be sure to press his hood down. There's tabs. And slots. Don't give him a "jagged" hood up front. It's like 10x worse than MP Tracks. Yet there's tabs designed to hold it down flush, and they work perfectly. But people tend to leave it untabbed for some reason.

I can't speak for EVERYBODY, but in my case it's because the tabs may be designed to hold it flush, but they definitely DON'T work perfectly. I can't get the tabs into the slots to save my life. I might look into filing them down.

In any case, would I recommend him. Well, if you're in it for a combined Menasor, I don't think there's anything here that will change your mind. I don't think he's disappointing. But I think Lamborghinis are very distinct cars, and I think Car Crash sort of benefits from the fact that if you see a white Lambo with blue trim and red on the hood you're going to think, "oh, Breakdown." I think, especially without the cartoon head, that maybe T-Bone's just not as exciting. If you're looking for a definitive Wildrider, you might want to wait to see how the new 3P Wildrider shakes out.

Not part of the review, but,

PPS---do you have Diesel yet? Because one section of the instructions are WRONG and impossible to do in the order shown. (kind of like the change made from Binaltech to Alternators Smokescreen's instructions). Again, watch Breauxman's vid. The part where the shoulders are "rotated up" for bot mode.

Yep, I bought a set of all five, but I haven't opened Diesel, Last Chance, or Down Force yet. I don't have a ton of free time anymore, since I'm a stay-at-home dad with a wife who's out for 12-13 hours between her job and commute during the week and who wants to do family stuff on the weekend. I'm kind of limited to after the girls go to bed to mess with my toys. Although, I think I've mentioned before that it's pretty easy to have Youtube on in the background while I'm playing with my daughter. I already caught Breauxman's Diesel video, and I have his combined mode video saved in my watch later playlist.

Feel free to toss in any tips of your own, though.

[Scyla]

I think the only problem with T-Bone and Car Crash is that they don't transform to limb mode. I like the direction FansProject went with the legs integrated into the cab of Diesel but the two cars should definitely transform more and wrap around the legs or give the lower legs a more distinct shape (all the fan modes just don't do it for me).

[mikeszekely]

I think the only problem with T-Bone and Car Crash is that they don't transform to limb mode. I like the direction FansProject went with the legs integrated into the cab of Diesel but the two cars should definitely transform more and wrap around the legs or give the lower legs a more distinct shape (all the fan modes just don't do it for me).

Spoiler, but you might like Guardia then.

[David Hingtgen]

Eh, Katana's arm mode is the worst bit of Guardia's combined mode IMHO----that's just way too much tailboom+rotor to just "hang off his wrist". G1 did it better, sad to say.

Really, both arms are too fat/blocky. Should have found a sleeker ambulance(though that's almost an oxymoron) but there's certainly sleeker rescue choppers with smaller slimmer tailbooms and no landing gear pontoons. And one with a fenestron would have helped a LOT IMHO. Ironically CW Blades has one!

[mikeszekely]

Eh, Katana's arm mode is the worst bit of Guardia's combined mode IMHO----that's just way too much tailboom+rotor to just "hang off his wrist". G1 did it better, sad to say.

Really, both arms are too fat/blocky. Should have found a sleeker ambulance(though that's almost an oxymoron) but there's certainly sleeker rescue choppers with smaller slimmer tailbooms and no landing gear pontoons. And one with a fenestron would have helped a LOT IMHO. Ironically CW Blades has one!

I was referring to the way that Rover and Axle actually do some transforming to become shins.

[mikeszekely]

Continuing with the not-Stunticons, here's their leader, Diesel, who is Fansproject's take on Motormaster. This time we're starting with vehicle mode, since that's how Diesel is packaged (vs the cars being packaged as robots.

Right off the bat you'll notice that Diesel is the spitting image of Motormaster, toy or toon, while the actual CW Motormaster does not. I mean, even if we forgive the Hasbro toy for not having a trailer, the gray color scheme makes me think of Age of Extinction Galvatron more than Motormaster. Diesel, meanwhile, nails it with the black cab and extra roof windows, as purple as the all the other windows, pulling a gray trailer with a purple stripe. The cab has some nice details, with silver paint on the grill, bumper, and molded smokestacks and yellow paint on the headlights. If I have any complaints at all about this mode, it's the fact that the cab is fixed to the trailer and can't turn, and some bits that become the combiner gun are just stuck on the trailer doors instead of stored inside.

Speaking of the trailer doors... for transformation you have to split the trailer in half. The front of the trailer contains most of Diesel, while the back half contains a bunch of extra parts that can technically be attached to Diesel (more on that later), but are really meant for the combiner mode. Now, talking about the rear half, I sort of like the idea that a good portion of Motormaster's trailer is for combined mode; it helps explain why Motormaster is like Optimus Prime-sized instead of Power Master Optimus Prime-sized. And I give Fansproject a lot of credit; the entire back half of the trailer will be used, so you're not left with any leftovers. We'll talk about that more when we we talk about the combined mode, but for now I want to point out that the trailer doors can be removed from the back half of the trailer and put back onto Diesel, sort of giving him a workable alt-mode even when he's not hauling around a bunch of Menasor parts.

Transformed, he's a little taller than CW Motormaster, and again he's a whole lot better-looking. I'm not fond of CW Motormaster; his face is derpy, and my impression of Motormaster is the G1 cartoon, where he was predominantly black. Plus, if I had to pick two defining features of Motormaster, it'd be his boxed-in head and his truck cab feet. CW Motormaster has the head, but painting Optimus Prime's feet black is not the same as having a truck cab for feet. Diesel, on the other hand, has more black, he's got the boxed-in head, and while his feet aren't a truck cab his shins are, which I guess is good enough. I mean, it retails a lot of the look, but gives Diesel actual feet to pose on. Aesthetically, I might want his arms to be a little lighter and his thighs darker, and the box around his head could bigger, but any way you shake it he's a better Motormaster than the real thing.

I'd say he's got a few more problems than Car Crash and T-Bone, though, and the biggest one is kibble. Most of Diesel isn't as much made from the trailer as it is made from what's inside the trailer. The sides, top, and wheels of the trailer origami up into panels that hang off his back near his hips, the way a VF-19's wings do in Battroid mode. He's also got big blocks hanging from his forearms, and flaps on his upper arms that will constantly bang into each other. It doesn't really affect his articulation, but if you want his arms straight you have to move the flap out of the way. Oh, and that is indeed the combiner head you see in that hole in his back.

When there's not a lot you can do with the flaps or the boxes on his forearms, there are some alternatives to the big panels. In his YouTube review, Breauxman suggests that Diesel will look better if you flip the panels up and rotate the wheels so they're resting on his shoulders.

Personally, partsforming doesn't bother me as much as it bother some others, and I'm content to simply pop the panels off of their ball joints.

Now, you might notice that I haven't mentioned the trailer door. It doesn't form a part of Diesel's body, and you can leave on the back half of the trailer, but the door also splits in half, and each half folds over on itself to become a pair of shotguns. It's a neat way to integrate Diesel's weapons into his alt mode.

If dual-wielding shotguns isn't your thing, that extra chunk that was stuck on the doors can come apart and combine with the shotguns to turn them into a larger sniper rifle. That said, part of the top of the rifle folds down to become a larger handle, and I tend to think of this as more the combiner gun than Diesel/Motormaster's.

Well, we all know that articulation can make or break a toy, and we hold expensive 3P toys to higher standards than $15-$25 Hasbro figures. Fortunately, Diesel delivers. His head is on a ball joint, and he's got some good side-to-side and downward tilt, although the upward tilt could be a little better. His waist is a tight ratchet, and his hip are ratcheted universal joints. The outward motion is especially tight, which should provide stability for combiner mode (which we'll find out when we get to that review!). On his arms we've got the usual wrist swivel and double-jointed elbows that go all the way up, although mine are a little loose on the lower-arm hinge. He's got bicep swivels, but they require you to fold out the combiner connectors which, sadly, doesn't look as good as when they're folded in. His shoulder joints are pretty interesting. They can swing outward 90 degrees and rotate all the way around, but there's also a butterfly joint that lets him bring his arm back a bit. Plus, they can move forward a bit on the transformation joint, although this is actually both a blessing and a curse. Blessing, because it gives you a little more posing options, but curse because they're not the tightest joins and they tend to move when you're just trying to rotate the shoulder. Getting back to his legs, he's got ratcheted thigh swivels and ratcheted knees that get a little shy of 90 degrees. The knees suffer a little because you really only get about two clicks back, like the ratchet could have used more teeth, and also because combiner pegs are part of the backs of his knees and you have to be careful to make sure that moving the knee doesn't cause the combiner peg to pop the lower leg apart. Finally, his feet are ball jointed, and he can get an extreme inward ankle tilt off of them, although standing straight or tilting the feet outward is hindered by a tab on top of the foot.

Now, if you're the kind of person who likes to keep everything on a figure in all modes and leaving that back half off the trailer off to the side is annoying the heck out of you, take heart; Fansproject thought of you. Basically, you can split the rest of the trailer up into four main chunks, plus the wheels and some parts that stick together to make the combiner sword. These four chunks can be folded around and stuck onto Diesel's shoulders and back as cannons and missile launchers. The wheels can either stay pegged onto one of the trailer bits that are now on Diesel's shoulders, or a little handle can fold out and he can carry it like a shield. The combiner sword can even be carried on Diesel's back, even, although there doesn't seem to be a way for Diesel to wield it himself. If your memories of Motormaster had him wielding a sword, he can carry the Combiner Wars one, though. In any case, if partsforming the panels that are actually supposed to be attached doesn't bother me, I'm not going to waste my time armoring Diesel up with the rest of his trailer because I think it looks dumb. So here's a picture I found on another website. Judge for yourself.

So, should you get him? I'd say yes, if a CHUG-scale Motormaster is what you're in the market for. While not perfect, he's got quite a presence and he's miles ahead of the Combiner Wars version. If Masterpiece is more you're thing, though, you might want to wait to see how TransForMission's Havoc turns out. From what we've seen, their not-Motormaster will somehow scale with MP-10 in both bot and truck modes. Be advised, though, that Havoc seems to be even more heavily influenced by Don Figueroa's IDW Menasor than M3.

[David Hingtgen]

I ALWAYS pivot the wings up and put the wheels over his shoulders. Looks so much better that way.

[mikeszekely]

I ALWAYS pivot the wings up and put the wheels over his shoulders. Looks so much better that way.

I agree that if you're going to leave them on that's the way to do it. I still like them better removed, though. In fact, I just unfolded them and stuck them back on the rest of the trailer.

In other news, looks like the trade is going through and I'm going to have a Uranos set coming within a week or two. Plus, I sold my iPad and ordered the WuKong KOs of Warbotron Bruticus' limb-bots from TF-Direct, and I already got the shipping notice. Now I just gotta wait for the WuKong KO of Fierce Attack and for MakeToys to release Vulcan...

[mikeszekely]

So this is kind of interesting.

I haven't been paying much attention to DX9's Iron Factory series, because I don't have much use for a ton of little Legends-sized dudes. What makes this release interesting is that DX9 is scaling him as a city-dude, so Lord Scorpion is actually going to be about Voyager-sized. So fans of the old Marvel comics or the modern IDW comics who want a more ordinary-sized Scorponok can get one for their CHUG collection. Maybe make him fight Perfect Effect's Warden.

[mikeszekely]

Continuing the M3 reviews, today we're looking at Down Force, Fansproject's spin on Dragstrip.

I'll get this out of the way up front... Down Force fares the worst against his Combiner Wars counterpart. the fact that Dragstrip was one of the better Combiner Wars molds has a lot to do with that, but Down Force has some issues that make him, in my opinion, the worst if the, er, Military Motorsquad.

Right off the bat, you can see that Down Force is quite short compared to CW Dragstrip. All of the cars have been on the short side, but Down Force is the shortest. Stature aside, Down Force is nailing the look. His yellow isn't broken up by big maroon stripes that neither the toy nor the toy had the way the CW does. Personally, I've thought that those stripes spoil that Dragstrip look more than they help break up the yellow. Down Force does a better job breaking up the yellow by having light gray thighs. Down Force also has a fantastic head sculpt, compared to the weird face on CW Dragstrip.

Things start to go wrong when we look at Down Force's arms, though. It's not that they're colored wrong, it's that they've got two different bits of kibble. These bits don't peg in, because doing so would affect his articulation, but one part in particular is attached on a rod that's ball-jointed on both ends. It takes effort to get them truly symmetrical, and that effort is wasted because they're not going to stay that way. On his other end, he's got these ridiculous little purple feet. They're tiny because that's all that can tuck under the canopy in alt mode, and they go under the canopy in alt mode because Fansproject went for a more complicated transformation when a simpler one would do... in this case, if the legs just slid out the way the CW figure's did, the bottom of the car could have untabbed and along with the spoiler made the feet.

Speaking of transforming the feet, the process would have been A LOT easier if they'd included the same sort of torso extension that Car Crash and T-Bone have. Oh well.

Articulation on Down Force is pretty similar to Car Crash and T-Bone. The main difference is that, due to the way they transform, Down Force has some waggle in his wrist. Also, while his feet are ball-jointed like the others, remember that his feet are just the purple parts. His ankle articulation comes off more like toe articulation. And while the kibble on his arms don't actively interfere with with his arm articulation, they do make posing his arms a little more of a pain.

Interestingly, Down Force's alt mode isn't a Formula 1 car. It's a Caparo T1, a street-legal two-seater you could actually buy if you had more money than sense. I actually like this idea; since the other three Stunticons are exotic sports cars it makes a certain amount of sense that Dragstrip should be as well instead of an F1 car. Once again, Down Force's gun splits in half and stores underneath. I like weapons that store out-of-sight on cars; I prefer that to weapons that peg onto the sides or roof. Anyway, I don't really have any complaints here, except that those panels with the headlights can be a bit fiddly.

So, would I recommend Down Force? I'd say, for a stand alone Dragstrip, no. The Combiner Wars Dragstrip toy is really only losing in the articulation department by not having a wrist-swivel, toe tilts, and a single joint in the elbow, but that's all, and while Down Force looks better Dragstrip is cheaper and a lot less fiddly. That being said, Down Force isn't a bad figure, and if you're in it for the combined mode you might find him a little more disappointing than the others, but you won't hate him.

[Tking22]

It seems nobody in this thread cares about MP style third party offerings, it's all combiner talk! Thought I'd post this for those like myself that don't do combiners.

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-3rd-party-discussion/1065256-badcube-grump-masterpiece-gears.html

Badcube is making an MP style Gears woot! I can't wait for that, Gears is pretty awesome, and I love my Sunsurge so Badcube is definitely getting my money. Also.

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-3rd-party-discussion/1065397-badcube-huff-2-0-brawny-reissue.html

Badcube just won't quit! I missed out on Brawny, he sold out before I got into third party stuff. Brawn is my absolute favorite mini-bot, so I was kicking myself when I couldn't even find him at an inflated price. Plus Huff 2.0? Um, frakking yes please. The original Huff release looked great, I found him at a few places, but after reading about his issues I decided to pass, probably for the best, 2.0 sounds nice. Overall I'm stoked, lots of new news and Badcube may as well just link themselves to my account if they keep this up. A member of TFW2005 also asked Badcube about a possible MP Jazz, since nobody else will give us one, and they said he is indeed in the pipeline. I mean, that's no real news, but a confirmation is enough to get me excited. I've also got my MMC Backdraft releasing this month, I'm VERY excited for that, Sphinx is probably one of the nicest Transformers I've ever handled in my life, third party or official. Interesting to hear that just as MMC is ready to put out their Inferno, and right after Maketoys put out theirs, Takara releases this little teaser image that Inferno and Grapple could be coming later this year...

[Scyla]

I'm probably not getting the official Inferno and stick with my Backdraft preorder. If it turns out that the MP Inferno mold is one of the nicer Masterpiece I will probably get a Grapple.

[Dangard Ace]

I've already got MT's Inferno and Grapple with a PO for Backdraft. Badcube stuff is awesome so I'm anxiously awaiting Gears.

[mikeszekely]

I don't think it's that no one cares about 3P MPs, it's just that I've been buying a lot of 3P combiners and sharing my thoughts here.

[anime52k8]

I increasingly don't care about 3rd party MP's. MP's in general have been getting kind of boring to me.

[anime52k8]

You know what kind of stuff I am interested in? really weird crap like this:

nobody was talking about it so I had no idea they were actually doing the pretender shells for Dinoking. I'm not at all interested in dinoking himself, he just doesn't look that good to me, but giant vinyl dinosaur cyborgs that can be used as coin banks? Now that has my attention.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

You're gonna have to be on the ball to get 'em. They're gonna be made in limited numbers and quite pricey too.