Welcome to 2017! The year continues where 2016 left off, with more figures from Titans Return and Robots in Disguise.

• Robots in Disguise Stormshot, Toys R Us, $16.99

• Titans Return Breakaway, gift

• Titans Return Fangry, Target, $4.99

• Titans Return Fortress Maximus and Cerebros, entertainmentearth.com, $75

First let’s take a look at Stormshot. I know nothing about this character, and I know next to nothing about Robots in Disguise. So why did I buy this figure? He evokes heavy 80s nostalgia of a time when transforming robots were fun and simple. I took one took of his overall motif, and I’m immediately reminded of Transformers (Diaclones) and GoBots (Machine Robo) in their early days. Stormshot’s mechanical design borrows heavily from G1 Aerialbots, and perhaps even some GoBot figures, like Fitor.

While looking through Transformers Wiki one night, I stumbled upon Armada Red Alert. I know nothing about Transformers Armada or this Red Alert, since they came around during my TF hiatus. But take a look at Armada Red Alert, and you can bet your boron compressor that Stormshot’s design aesthetics is based on this Red Alert. This can’t be a coincidence. The head design and overall color scheme is near identical.

In both mechanics and design, Stormshot is a throwback to the Transformers of yore. And he transforms exactly like you would expect, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The legs extend out Combiner Wars style. Arms simply rest on the sides in alt mode. Feet and hands flip out from where they usually are like so many TFs before. The only original mechanics here is how the nose cone and wings form the back. They go through many folds, then collapses on itself. A very simple transformation overall. And that’s good for playability. Stormshot comes with two weapons, a handgun and a medium size rifle. The two can be combined into a super rifle. All in all, I like Stormshot. I recommend this figure for kids due to the ease of play, and I highly recommend this to collectors that grew up playing with transforming robots in the 80s.

Fangry is another Titan Master that I consider more of an accessory than a full-fledged figure. I only got him because he’s a direct homage to G1 Fangry. I never had G1 Fangry. He’s a winged wolf kind of creature. His name is a mash up of fang and angry, and I’ll give Hasbro credit for coming up with something so clever. The Titan Master figure here is kind of a fail. This thing is advertised as transforming, but it’s really just some pieces rotating back and forth.

The only value to these Titan Master figures is they can become the head of the character they’re supposed to be, and you can use them on any Titans Return figure. Here I have Fangry on the body of Misfire. This combination kind of works. See for yourself.

Breakaway is a Christmas gift from my buddy Gemini. This character means something to me, as I had G1 Getaway. The G1 toy was excellent for its time. It’s a shame that Hasbro had to rename this character, and it’s more of a shame that Titans Return Breakaway is a Headmaster and not a Powermaster. To make matters even worse, TR Breakaway is an exact repaint of TR Chromedome. I compared the two side by side and there no mold differences whatsoever between the two base figures. For the Titan Master, the face plate in head mode is different, but the rest of the figure is identical. Even the accessories are exactly the same. And to add insult to injury on top of all this, Breakaway was a pain in the butt to find during the 2016 Holidays. Breakaway is in the same wave as Hot Rod, Triggerhappy, and Twinferno. But Hasbro’s weird distribution issues rears its ugly head again, and Breakaway didn’t come distributed with the other 3 for whatever reason. Even the 3rd party online TF retailers (you know who they are) were price gouging for sets that included Breakaway. Luckily Gemini was able to find one for me. As of this writing, Breakaway is no longer hard to find. But that should not have been an issue to begin with.

Anyways, Breakaway is exactly the same as Chromedome, so I won’t go in depth. Check out some pics below.

Now, for the big enchilada of the month: Titans Return Fortress Maximus! Yes my fellow TransFans. To see Fort Max reproduced in the modern era is a dream come true. As a kid growing up in the 80s, owning something like Fortress Maximus is entirely out of reach. G1 Fort Max is the biggest G1 figure produced, and for a long time it was the most expensive Transformer ever made. It was re-issued some years ago. I considered buying it, but deep down I wanted something made to be up to par with today’s toy standards. Metroplex was made in 2013, so we all knew Fort Max couldn’t be far behind. And it really happened. TR Fort Max was produced in 2016. It is indeed a rework off of the Metroplex mold. TR Fort Max retails for $149.99. Expensive TFs will usually go on sale after some time. And sure enough, at the end of 2016, in that week between Christmas and New Years, entertainmentearth.com had a sale of this figure at half price! I was able to pick up this city-sized Headmaster at $75! Merry Christmas!

The pic above has all the decals applied. And believe me, he looks so much better after putting on all the decals. It took me about 1 hour and 30 min to put them all on, but it’s worth it.

Fort Max is a Headmaster, which is one big difference from Metroplex. For a city sized robot, the head needs to be a regular deluxe sized Transformer. That’s where Cerebros comes in. He forms the head of Fort Max. I think it’s a shame that Cerebros does not have an alt mode of his own. Cerebros himself is a Headmaster. His Titan Master is Emissary (though all hardcore G1ers know that in Season 4, it was Spike). Emissary is sitting in the gun pod on Fort Max’s left shoulder in the pic above. Below is a pic of Cerebros.

That does it for January of 2017. This month would have been all Autobots, if it wasn’t for Fangry. And I usually don’t even buy Titan Masters individually. Decepticons represent – barely!

Transform and Roll Out.

OK, I am now finally getting back to documenting my monthly purchases. I swear to Primus I will finish this and catch up to where I am currently. Might take many posts, but it shall be done!

• Robots in Disguise Grimlock, Toys R Us, $16.99

• Generations Thrilling 30 Arcee and Chromia, tfsource.com, $31.99

• Combiner Wars Optimus Prime, amazon.com, $24.99

• Combiner Wars Silverbolt, amazon.com, $24.99

• Combiner Wars Thundercracker, amazon.com, $10.99

• Combiner Wars Powerglide, amazon.com, $10.99

• Combiner Wars Windcharger, amazon.com, $10.99

• Combiner Wars Bombshell, amazon.com, $10.99

• Toyworld TW-H04 Infinitor, tfsource.com, $114.95

• Microblaze Creations MBC002 Military Titans, tfsource.com, $109.95

• Masterpiece Ultra Magnus, hlj.com, $122.77

• Masterpiece Bumble, hlj.com, $44.26.

Here are the stats breakdown for the month:

• 1 fig from Robots in Disguise
• 2 figs from Generations Thrilling 30
• 6 figs from Combiner Wars
• 2 Masterpiece figs
• 2 Third Party figs

First up is RiD Grimlock. I think this was my first figure from the Robots in Disguise line. RiD figures as a whole seems cheap and simplistic. But this is Grimlock, so I gave it a shot. I dunno… he’s not bad, but not great either. Fun to play with for a while, but very forgettable once the fig is put away. I don’t think too highly of the RiD line, and this figure doesn’t do anything to change that perception.

Arcee and Chromia are the last of the Generations Thrilling 30 figs that I would buy. I still don’t know where this Thrilling 30 tag comes from… I am guessing maybe it’s the 30th anniversary of TF. Whatever the reason, I have enjoyed figs from this line. Arcee was one that I waited for. We finally get a good CHUG representation of everybody’s favorite female Autobot in her G1 stylings. Alt mode for Arcee looks awesome. Robot mode wise, she’s got some kibble on the back, but nothing I can’t live with. Transformation wise she’s a bit of a shell-former, which again deals with the back kibble. But I think I’m just so happy to get an official CHUG Arcee that I’m willing to overlook these minor shortcomings. Chromia is an excellent figure. I believe Chromia is a minor remold of Transformers Prime Arcee. In robot mode they look very similar, but Hasbro did enough modifications to the alt mode to make Chromia feel like a brand new figure. She looks like those bikes out of Tron. Very very cool! I actually enjoyed playing Chromia more so than Arcee. But I am glad I have both TF fembots in my collection.

OK – Now on to Combiner Wars! This is a series that I have looked forward to for some time. Combiner Wars officially kicked off in January of 2015. CW is a G1-inspired subline in the TF Generations line of figures. The gimmick here is that one voyager sized figure and 4 deluxe sized figures can combine to form a giant robot. Much like the combiners from G1, the toy limb components can be mixed with any bodies in any combination (like Scramble City). Third parties have been doing combiners for quite some time now. So I guess it’s about time Hasbro got on this trend and make some money off their own properties, instead of letting third parties hog all the action.

I wasn’t able to find any deluxe sized figs this month, but I was able to get 2 voyager figs and 4 legends figs in CW. These won’t combine obviously, but I like all these characters so I bought them all.

To start things off, we get CW Optimus Prime. Yes friends, they made OP into a combiner. Not technically G1-esque, but whatever. They are also using this mold as Motormaster (which I will go into in future posts), so this is more of a way for me to check out the mold. The robot mode is kinda blocky. Truck mode is not bad. I’m personally not too impressed with this mold in combiner body form. There is a problem with the hips of the figure. But between robot and truck modes, the construction is solid and robust. So for me, the CW OP fig is just ok.

Next in the line is CW Silverbolt. The famous G1 Aerialbot leader is finally getting a modern upgrade! Yeah, there was an Ultra Class figure released around 2008 (and later repainted into Skyfall). But that figure did not combine, so he was never a true Silverbolt in my opinion. The CW Silverbolt is a G1 homage through and through. In both jet and robot modes, he looks accurate to his G1 self. Transformation may be a tad simple for mature collector, but is still leaps and bounds more involved than the Ultra Class figure (which in my opinion was one of the simplest figures ever made, especially considering something of this size). In combined body mode, this figure really shines. The body mode looks good, is G1-accurate, and provides good mechanics as the center of a giant robot. He connects easily to other limb components, and mechanically well-serves the weight distribution challenges of a combiner. I guess one can always say that the jet mode has too much bulk on the underside, but all combiner jets in this history of TF has had that problem. Overall Silverbolt is a great figure. No wonder this figure is repainted into Cyclonus and Scattershot later.

CW Thundercracker is just a repaint of Thrilling 30 Starscream, while CW Windcharger is a repaint of Thrilling 30 Tailgate. So I won’t go into them too much.

CW Powerglide is a fun little figure. Both robot and jet modes are nice, and transformation feels adequate for a figure of this size. Powerglide is another figure where Hasbro has released an Ultra Class version. But true G1 enthusiasts will always think of Powerglide as a Mini-Bot, and so a legend class fig is much more appropriate. CW Bombshell is another welcome addition to this line. We already got Skrapnel (Shrapnel), so having Bombshell is a must (now I’m hoping they do Kickback). This Bombshell is a terrific figure in my opinion. Both modes are fun to play with. He comes together really nice in the beetle mode. Bombshell is my favorite Insecticon, so I am glad to see Hasbro give him a proper modern rendition.

Now onto the 3rd party purchases for the month. I still have not opened Military Titans as of this writing in April of 2016 (shame on me), so I won’t go into him. I did open ToyWorld Infinitor. This is an homage to Fortress Maximus, but a much more smaller and playable version. I never had the pleasure of the G1 Fort Max toy. There are re-issues out there, but he’s a huge piece that would take up way too much space for me. In the G1 cartoons, Fort Max is a city-size robot (like Metroplex). However in the comics, Fort Max is a large but ordinary size Autobot. I think that is what Infinitor is going for. Regardless, Infinitor is a solid, well-built figure. I can’t say for certain since I never had the G1 toy, but Infinitor feels essentially like G1 Fort Max shrunken down to playable size. He’s very blocky, like you would expect. The Headmaster gimmick is alive and well on Infinitor. He’s got the robot mode, a space cruiser mode, and 2 different city modes (though admittedly the 2 city modes look and feel similar). Overall I think this figure is ok. Get him if you like Fort Max, but not a must have in my opinion.

Finally, we are getting to the Masterpieces for the month. First up is MP Ultra Magnus, a figure that many fans have praised over and over. Some even go so far as to suggest that this should win figure of the year. Overall I think MP Ultra Magnus is pretty good. The alt mode could not be more G1. He scales well with other MPs in this mode. Transformation to robot mode uses the familiar scheme, but there are enough differences in the engineering to make him MP worthy. The robot mode of this figure is where I’m not as impressed. He’s still too blocky for me, and I was really hoping those brilliant Takara engineers could produce a robot mode that is more true to the G1 cartoon UM aesthetic. I hold MPs to a higher standard. Maybe figs like the MP-10 Optimus Prime set the bar too high, and I was expecting too much. Nevertheless, MP Ultra Magnus is a figure that is worthy of your collection. He’s not perfect in my opinion, but still something you should consider if you collect MPs or if you’re a fan of Ultra Magnus.

And last but not least, there is MP Bumblebee. This is a figure that gets no complaints from me whatsoever. We finally have in our hands the ultimate version of Bumblebee in all his G1 glory. The VW bug is nothing short of accurate. Transformation to robot is pure genius. And in robot mode, he looks like he jumped straight out of the G1 cartoon. Takara gave us another MP perfection in Bumblebee. He’s very well built and have amazing poseability. Oh, he also comes with Spike in his Exo-Suit, as seen in the 1986 G1 movie. This Spike figure is not bad, but I got this for Bumblebee, which is what I play with most of the time. If you could buy only one figure that I listed here for this month, get Bumblebee. You will not be disappointed.

That was a lot of TFs for one month. Things will slow down a bit after this. Til next time… Transform and Roll Out!