St Patrick’s Day kinda just creeped up on me this year. Doesn’t seem like anyone in my circles is really making a big deal out of it. Maybe because this year it falls on a Sunday. On Fri I wore a green shirt to the office, but it was purely by accident. A co-worker assumed it was for St Patrick’s Day, so he makes a snarky comment. Then it hits me.

To continue with the traditions of this blog, I’m assembling all the green TFs I bought since last St Patrick’s Day for a group photo. Why is this weird tradition continuing? Who knows. Guess I’m just bored and have nothing better to do.

The Autobots
Front row (left to right): GDO legend Hoist, GDO deluxe Springer, TF Prime RID deluxe Kup.
Back row (left to right): TF Prime Beast Hunters deluxe Bulkhead, TF Prime First Edition voyager Bulkhead, TF Prime RID voyager Bulkhead

The Decepticons
Clockwise from top: Generations Fall of Cybertron deluxe Brawl, GDO voyager Powerdive, GDO scout Brawl, GDO voyager Megatron

I do have one more green Decepticon, but he’s not opened so I’ll just show him here in the box with the rest of his comrades.
Generations Fall of Cybertron G2 color dexlue Brawl (left leg)

That’s a total of 11 green figures for this edition of St Patrick’s Day TFs. 6 Autobots and 5 Decepticons. Much more balanced than last year. There are 3 Bulkheads and 3 Brawls. Hasbro must really like these characters to do them over and over.

March Madness is also upon us! Today is Selection Sunday, meaning today the NCAA selection committee decides which teams go into the National Tournament. Being a UCLA alumni, I’m always partial to the Bruins. They had a opportunity to go far this year, but the sudden loss of Jordan Adams due to injury in the conference semi-finals will hurt their chances. Still, I’ll be watching as much as I can. Bruins will get a bid for sure since they won the regular season of the PAC-12. This coming weekend (from Thur to Sun) is my favorite weekend as far as sports go. I might take time off from work on Thur and Fri, just to go catch every single game!

Previous St Patrick’s Day posts appear here:
2011
2012

Happy St Patrick’s Day everyone! Transform and Roll Out!

There are plenty of third party accessories out there that are designed to enhance Hasbro and Takara products. I haven’t had the opportunity to buy too many of these (something I’m looking to rectify), but one of the few that I did get is the Blood the Dark Warrior Upgrade Kit by Headrobots. This kit obviously is designed to work with ROTF Voyager Bludgeon (a very nice figure BTW). I bought the kit back in October of 2011, and to this day I still have not tried it with Bludgeon. Anyway, here’s how the kit looks in the package.

About a year after that purchase, I got Generations GDO Megatron. This is a repaint of that Bludgeon mold, but with a new head for Megatron. This figure is obviously a homage to G2 Megatron. Here are some pics of this Megatron in the box.

Anyway, I opened this figure pretty soon after I got it. And out of the box my first complaint is the rubbery look of those purple swords. That did not work for me at all. A badass like Megatron cannot be holding swords that look like they were made out of play dough. See the pic for yourself.

And so I remembered I still have the Bludgeon upgrade kit that I never tried. I’m gonna try it on Megatron since I have him handy.

Much better! There seems to be several figures that interpret Megatron as a samurai, like this figure and the Alternity Megatron. Having silver swords that aren’t bent goes a long way to help Megatron look like the kickass dictator that he is.

Now let’s see how this would look in alt mode.

In both pics above, we only see the gun piece attached at the end of the cannon. The long sword is hidden inside the barrel, with the gun piece fitted over the sword handle. The short sword is completely concealed inside the turret where it usually goes. The pic below help illustrates this.

The pic below shows that you can attach the gun piece to the side of the mini purple gun on the turret. This is where you would place the gun piece in robot mode, which ends up being on Megatron’s back.

All in all, I think using this upgrade kit for Megatron is quite cool. The green doesn’t match, but the way it sticks out doesn’t seem so bad. Having straight shiny silver swords is way better than the purple crap that Hasbro saw fit to use.

Transform and Roll Out!

There’s a storm passing by the Bay Area right now in Northern California. It’s not raining too heavily at the moment, but last night it was coming down hard. It’s supposed to pick up later and continue til the end of Sunday. This storm is giving me a cold so I didn’t even go to work today. With both the storm and this cold, I’m probably staying in all weekend. Me and some guys thought about doing paint ball on Sunday before this storm arrived. Pretty sure that’s not happening.

But with all the TFs I bought in November, staying in all weekend is not so bad. 🙂

• Masterpiece Sideswipe, amiami.com, about $75 shipped

• Generations GDO Hoist, Toys R Us, $5.99

• Masterpiece Optimus Prime, toysrus.com, $119.99
• Generations GDO Megatron, toysrus.com, $22.99
• Generations GDO Powerdive, toysrus.com, $22.99

• Transformers Prime Breakdown, eBay, $59.99 shipped

• Generations Fall of Cybertron G2 Bruticus, Amazon, $59.99

• Transformers Prime Thundertron, Target, $19.99
• Transformers Prime Ultra Magnus, Target, $19.99

• Generations GDO Hot Spot, Toys R Us, $22.99

That’s 14 TFs for the month: 2 MPs, 4 Generations GDO, 5 Generations FOC, and 3 TF Prime.

So far I opened only 5 of these: MP Sideswipe, Hoist, Megatron, Powerdive, and Ultra Magnus. Still plenty of TFs to open on this rainy weekend. And out of the 24 TFs I got last month, 2 are still unopened (the 2 Cliffjumpers).

I did a full review on MP Sideswipe here and here. Hoist I kind of reviewed here.

Normally I would write more thoughts about these TFs, but I’m sick and that medicine is kicking in. Need to go rest for now. Even Autobots need to spend time in the CR chamber every now and then.

Transform and Roll Out!

When it rains, it pours. Like Cybertron Acid Rain! Or Hurricane Sandy. October was a downpour full of Transformers, I was finding newly released figures multiples times per week. This will be a long post. Prepare yourself.

• Generations GDO Swerve, toysrus.com, $14.99
• Generations GDO Springer, Toys R Us, $14.99
• Generations GDO Wheelie, Toys R Us, $14.99
• Generations GDO Cliffjumper, toysrus.com $14.99

• Generations GDO Brawl, Toys R Us, $9.99
• Generations GDO Laserbeak, toysrus.com $9.99

• Transformers Prime Rumble, Walmart, $15.47

• Transformers Prime Airachnid, Target, $15.49

• Transformers Prime First Edition Terroron Cliffjumper, Toys R Us, $14.99
• Transformers Prime First Edition Vehicon, Toys R Us, $14.99

• Transformers Prime Voyager Dreadwing, Target, $21.99

• Transformers Prime Kup, Walmart, $15.47
• Transformers Prime Vehicon, Walmart, $15.47

• Generations Fall of Cybertron Onslaught, hasbrotoyshop.com, $14.99
• Generations Fall of Cybertron Blastoff, hasbrotoyshop.com, $14.99
• Generations Fall of Cybertron Vortex, hasbrotoyshop.com, $14.99
• Generations Fall of Cybertron Swindle, hasbrotoyshop.com, $14.99
• Generations Fall of Cybertron Brawl, hasbrotoyshop.com, $14.99

• Generations Ultimate Gift Set (Jazz, Combat Hero Optimus Prime, Motorbreath, Thundercracker), hasbrotoyshop.com, $29.99

• Generations GDO legend Silverstreak, Toys R Us, $5.99
• Generations GDO legend Thundercracker, Toys R Us, $5.99

Whew! That’s a lot of TFs! I knew October was gonna be special, when back in this post I said October is off to a great start. 24 TFs for the month. That’s gotta be a new single month record, even for me. 7 figures came out of TF Prime, and the other 17 all belong to Generations. And out of the 17 Generations, 5 are Fall of Cybertron, and the rest GDO. I guess this month more than makes up for the last few months, where I found virtually nothing in the stores.

Out of the 24 figs, 13 are repaints of molds I already have. Still, Hasbro made them different enough for me to want them. They sure know how to keep me interested.

Notice I bought the little legend GDO Thundercracker twice. First came with the Ultimate Gift set from hasbrotoyshop.com, and the second was a standalone purchase at Toys R Us. I guess I could’ve left the the 2nd one on the shelf, but these little guys are rare finds so I couldn’t help myself.

But yeah, so many TFs in such a short span. I’m barely able to process it all. The pic below shows the only figures that I opened so far. And believe me I plan to open them all (except for the 2nd Thundercracker).

I recommend all these figures that I opened. Well, maybe except for Airachnid. Her robot mode is pretty crappy. But the heli mode is cool and she is a rare fig, so there are still some reasons to get one.

Today is also Halloween. So I thought I do a shot of all my orange TFs with a stuff pumpkin that I have. Check it out below.

And speaking of orange, here’s a plug for a totally unrelated topic: San Francisco Giants are world champions! As a sports fan living in the SF Bay Area, it’s something I must mention. Their colors are orange and black, very fitting for Halloween. Coincidentally, the victory parade is also on this day. It will be crazy in the city! I wanted to take a pic of my orange TFs with some Giants memorabilia, but can’t find any. Earlier in the year I went to a Giants game, and I got a Brian Wilson gnome as a stadium give-away. I sold it on eBay for $50, which I’ve come to regret now for 3 reasons: 1) It’s a great piece to take a pic with my orange TFs, 2) Now that Giants are world champs, it’s probably worth way more than $50, and 3) It’s a great memento to keep around for a championship year. Though Brian Wilson has made no contribution to this championship run since he’s been hurt since May, so maybe it’s not a big deal.

Happy Halloween everyone! Transform and Roll Out!

Quick post on some of the TFs I have out displayed at the moment. I happen to have a bunch of Decepticon jets out in the open, for various reasons. So I put them together, as a not-so-gentle reminder to the Autobots that they will have a very tough time winning the battle in the skies.

This kinda feels like a rag tag bunch of Decepticon jets put together for no reason. Masterpiece Thundercracker and DOTM Hatchet was bought just last month, that’s why they’re still out and about. BTW, MP Thundercracker is pure awesomeness! I dug out MP Skywarp so the two MPs can be displayed together.

Earlier this month I bought GDO Laserbeak. I went into the Mindwipe and Laserbeak combination back in this post. I tried it too with Sunspot, that’s why these 3 figures are appear here. I also tried combining Sunspot with Strafe (not pictured), and that just looks plain weird.

In the middle of all the action is Airachnid. She would enjoy being the center of attention. I was lucky enough to find this figure earlier in the month. I like her helicopter mode, but her robot form leaves a lot to be desired.

Perhaps I need to dig out a Starscream to lead them all into battle. Or not. Starscream’s track record as a field commander is questionable at best.

Transform and Roll Out.

October is starting off right! Today I visited my local Toys R Us store and found me some GDO figures. These went up on toysrus.com last week. When I found out, Springer and Wheelie were already sold out. I did manage to order Swerve and Cliffjumper, but I was starting to worry that I missed out on the rest. This week they’re not even listed on the website anymore. So I was super happy when I saw them in store! Check out the pics I took on my phone.

I really like the look of the GDO packaging. The Chinese writing really adds that extra something. All these figures are repaints, but the Deluxe figures all have new head molds. The new paint schemes on some of the Scout figures look quite good as well. So even though I have every single one of these molds, I still wanted most of these. For a long time they were Asia only, and I’m glad TRU is able to bring them out here as exclusives.

For the Deluxe size figures, Wheelie appears to be the most rare. On the website, he was the first to be sold out, and in store there was only 1 of him and 2 or 3 of the rest. Same goes for Brawl of the Scout figures.

Anyway, I left the store with Brawl, Wheelie, and Springer (most bottom pic above, taken in the trunk of my car). Like I said, I got Swerve and Cliffjumper already. In that same order I also got Laserbeak. This means the only ones I decided against were Dead End and Sandstorm. I’m not too impressed with that Dead End mold (I have Oil Slick). And I already have 2 of the Sandstorm mold (as Dune Runner and Beachcomber).

It’s a good feeling to finally find some new TFs. That hasn’t happened for some time. Now I’m hoping to find some GDO Voyagers, and the US version of MP Optimus.

What does GDO stand for anyway? Girl’s Day Out? Garage Door Opener? We may never know. But know this… head to Toys R Us now before they disappear! Transform and Roll Out!