Studio Series 86
Wheelie. Oddly this is the second toy of the character in SS86 after the one that came with Grimlock, and this is, you know, a full Transformer and can turn into a car and bend his knees and such. He’s a decent little figure, with a deceptively complex transformation at points, and a cute little catapult accessory. It would have been nice if one of his hands had been posed open to look like he was pulling back the catapult elastic or had just released it, but that’s a very minor thing. He’s not as satisfying as Exosuit Spike was to just fiddle with idly, but a decent figure and from a collector’s perspective, nice to finish off the movie’s main cast.
Junkheap is one of the most commonly seen Junkions what isn’t Wreck-gar in the cartoon, and the toy is a minor redeco of the latter character, fitting with the portrayal of the character in the movie as another Junkion who transforms into a bike and was involved in the Dare to be Stupid chase scene. As such he’s pretty good by virtue of being a redeco of a very good toy, but offering very little new – a different head and chestplate, and armoured vambraces on his arms meaning his wheels both connect to the mount points on his legs. I can’t really recommend him at full price, but I got him for 18 quid in Smyth’s and that’s more than reasonable to have a couple of bigger Junkions to go with the legion of the Deluxe ones I intend to buy. But he’s still 50 in Forbidden Planet and fuuuuuck that
Exclusives
Furthering the well-established “Lorcan’s a sucker” motif, I picked up Red Cog, which was basically, well, Siege Cog in red, with a baggie of extra weapons and bits and a tenner more than the original figure. The original figure was great, this version is still great and the weapons are kinda cool. It’s interesting in that a bunch of them are reuses of guns from other Siege figures, most notably Ultra Magnus and Chromia, and the set includes a mix of guns and battle extensions that you can mix and match to make different combinations – so to make the rifle that resembles Chromia’s sniper rifle from the War For Cybertron cartoon you attach a long gun barrel to Ultra Magnus’ rifle. Overall worth it if you missed OG Cog or Aragon and don’t mind paying the price bump… or if you’re stupid like me.
The other exclusive I’ve gotten recently is Minerva, and I’m gonna be up-front about this, she’s one of the best Transformers in recent years, and a strong contender for the best female character toy to date. She’s highly poseable, has a wonderful sense of character to her, is a refreshing step away from the “female action figure with a whole-ass vehicle on her back” paradigm. While she still does have a backpack it’s much more compact than Earthrise Arcee or the Power of the Primes combiners or any of their ilk. It collapses away in a very impressive way and has options to use parts to give her shoulder baffles that match the vibe of her character art/the massive shoulders the original toy, or to fold back to a more compact form. Vehicle mode is this cute little buggy, decoed in emergency services colours which match the original car mode. This probably worked better for Elita-1 where we’ve never really had a definitive alt-mode for her, but this doesn’t really match up with the Masterforce toy. Which is fine really, but still.
Legacy
Bomb Burst is a curious little guy. At Core Class there’s no way you’re gonna do a full Pretender so we get this little bot that’s more based on the original outer shell than the inner robot, and it works pretty well. He’s kinda cute, has ball joints in the shoulders, elbows, hips and knees so there’s a lot of poseability. Transformation is basic but it works, most of his vehicle mode is piled up on his back so it doesn’t intrude too much on his more organic robot mode but still has a bit of visible kibble from the front. He comes with a little pickaxe weapon thing, as well as two guns/[vehicle mode wings which have 3mm posts at the front so they can be held like axes or mount weapon effects.
There are some minor frustrations, there’s an option to store the pickaxe or the wing/guns on the backpack/vehicle mode nosecone, but it means you need to angle the nose back from the natural way the instructions place it – and like, the instructions point this out. Also, the wing/guns have 5mm ports rather than posts on them so you can’t give them to someone else to hold, and if you don’t mount them on his arms the posts stick out. And, well, this guy was €17 from my LCS. Now he probably would have been a couple of quid cheaper if I could get him in a toy shop, but Smyth’s stocked the Kingdom Core class and couldn’t shift them, and Toymaster is still trying to get rid of their heavily discounted PotP Prime Master figures. And that is a spicy meatball.
Pointblank and Peacemaker are the only Autobots in wave 3 of Legacy, it’s an interesting situation for the toy range because most lines are majority Autobot. Unlike his Targetmaster compatriot Crosshairs in Siege, he’s a fairly G1-accurate recreation and on that front he looks really good. Transformation is fairly simple with a bit of complexity around his arms – they have to clip in weird ways to make up the front of the car. However there are a couple of downsides here – the elbow joints are quite limited, which is a minor concern but still a thing, and Peacemaker is an unposeable block that harkens back to the original Targetmasters. While I’m not expecting a figure with the size and complexity even of one of the Battlemasters, this doesn’t even reach the same level as Thrilling 30 Scoop or Classics Cyclonus’ Targetmaster partners.
Crankcase is an extensive redeco of Skids, my first exposure to the mold as I was fine with my Generations one and wasn’t pushed to get Speedia Burnout (but might pick up Legacy Crosscut). Robot mode is decent, and the headsculpt is pure IDW Crankcase. The chest doesn’t lock in anywhere so you’ve got to be careful moving the arms that it doesn’t take the chest with them which is a bit annoying, and the big front grill/gun just looks like the front grill from one side which is a bit meh as otherwise it’s a nice big gun-thing. Though he also comes with the same single-barrel gun that Skids has. And alleged shoulder-cannons that are basically these teeny nubs behind his head that you can’t even fit a weapon effect into. Vaguely tempted by the nonnef parts to give him G1 toy-accurate shoulder guns but there are other bits I’d get sooner. He’s a bit fiddly to transform to vehicle mode, there’s a lot of finessing of parts to get them to clip together properly and you’ve got to turn his forearms just right but when it’s all lined up properly he’s this nice little Humm-vee-looking jeep/SUV
So, Skullgrin is a weird one. Like Iguanus (which I haven’t got yet but want) and bomb-Burst, he’s a blend of robot and Pretender shell – though in his case the body is mostly robot and the head is pure pretender. And I’m gonna say up front, I really like the robot mode as a chunky, fun and weird action figure that just about fits the Transformers idiom. There’s nice customisation options on the go too, the tank mode guns are separate from the turret assembly and have 5mm posts on them, so you can mix and match between his sword/guns and tank guns, place them in his hands or on any number of mount points, and mount the sword/guns on the cannons as well if you want.
All that said, the vehicle mode is a lot of bullshit. It reminds me of Fastlane from the Autobot Clones, where you just kinda squish him up into a box with some bits you recognise as being from a vehicle on the outside. In this case, tank treads. Which is weird because there’s a lot of really interesting things in the transformation in the service of making a box. With tank treads.
Inferno is great. Not going to mince words here. It’s all down to delivering a figure that feels like the character from the cartoon. He’s lanky and this lovely shade of red and oh Bob, the head. The head! He looks utterly demented and the mouth opens! He’s got the big thorax at the back and it opens up into petals like his flight mode in the show. Sadly you need to stick his gun back there to complete the look and he only has the one gun. A couple of minor niggles here – the transformation is a bit fiddly and it’s hard to get right, and his arm joints are a bit too loose to hold the gun extended with a weapon effect attached (I recommend the flame effect from Transmetal II Megatron)
I missed out on the Generations Armada Starscream from a few (wait, it’s nine years? aaaaaaaaaa) and between him using this body for a while in the IDW comics and me having the original somewhere so I was pretty on-board with this guy. And he’s another example of a modern transformer that takes the original design and just recreates it with modern engineering and articulation. The big changes are the removal of the gimmicks, and the ability to fold the cannons and tail assembly flat against his back. Instead of pulling off one of his wings to fold out into a sword, it’s a separate piece, and he also comes with a single-piece sword shaped like the Armada Star Sabre, with the blade segment painted blue to match how it looked in animation.
He’s a really nice figure, the transformation is really satisfying, especially with these fold-pout sections in the legs that latch together to secure the back of the jet mode and fill in a big gap in the middle there. I love that the big guns are weapon effect compatible (when that’s no longer guaranteed for some stupid reason), but the swords are a bit naff as they stand
Transmetal II Megatron is the good shit. A leader class toy that’s huge by the standards of the current sizing thanks to both a larger body in general and those gigantic wings. He’s nicely poseable and the colours are sumptuous. Transformation is a bit fiddly, mostly getting the legs to line up properly with the tail assembly, but oh my, it’s worth it. The dragon mode is fantastic, remaining as poseable as the robot mode, the segmented neck (and robot’s left arm) is amazing, the fire effect looks so good in the dragon mode mouth… I have nothing but good things to say about this guy, well except that dear Bob the price of leaders is hefty these days.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by
lorcan_nagle.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by lorcan_nagle.
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