Generations Thrilling 30 Roadbuster is a figure I have looked forward to for some time. Third parties have made their versions of this character, which are good. However I really don’t feel like paying third party prices for everything. Hasbro must have saw a good opportunity here and delivered what I wanted.

This official Roadbuster is a nice fig. Some fans have complained about his simplistic transformation, but I like the fact that you can easily pick up and play with the figure. Both modes look nice. Poseability in robot mode is great. Vehicle mode is robust and solid. He also comes with weaspons galore. He comes with 6 weapons! You read that right… six! These weapons can be arranged in many different configurations. That’s even more playability for you.

However, Roadbuster is kind of plain in his looks. This is because Hasbro has provided decals for you to put on, just like the old days of G1. Here’s a pic of him without the decals.

Below is a similar pic of him with the decals applied. Check it out!

The decals really add that extra something. The extra details add more life to the character.

However I should point out I did not apply all the decals. These were not the best decals. They were badly cut, and many of them could not be placed where they’re supposed to go without some custom trimming. Some decals simply cannot fit into the space designated. The instructions were also inadequate as far as showing where they need to go. It feels like perhaps these decals were a after thought.

I put on as many as I can. Below are more pics of Roadbuster with the decals.

Go Roadbuster! Transform and Roll Out!

It’s been a while since I did a post about what’s on my shelf. So I’m doing one today.

Same pic, different angle.

From left to right

Lower shelf: Thrilling 30 Rhinox, Thrilling 30 Rattrap, Mastermind Creations Felisaber

I especially like the three gestalts on the top shelf. Feral Rex and Giant have been featured elsewhere before in this blog so I won’t go into detail again. Combiner Wars Menasor is Hasbro’s official update of the Stunticons in combined form. Compared to Fans Project’s Intimidator, Menasor has it’s pros and cons. Individually I like the Hasbro figures better. They are larger, sturdier, easier to transform, and more fun to play with. However in combined form, FP has the better looking Menasor. Intimidator also stays together better than Combiner Wars Menasor, as the Hasbro figure feels like it could quickly fall apart. However I should point out that the Hasbro figures feel more like a true combiner. The leg components are not simply adding on top of Motormaster’s legs, like in FP’s offering.

Poor Rattrap and Rhinox. They are the only good guys here. Technically they are not Autobots, so I don’t have a single Autobot in this post. Decepticons forever!

Transform and Roll Out.

October always seem to be a busy month in terms of TF activity. In October of 2012, I set a personal record for most TFs purchases in a month. This month I may have set another new record, of a related but slightly different category. So sit back, relax, and enjoy. This will be a long post.

• Age of Extinction Drift, Toys R Us, $24.99

• Age of Extinction Optimus Prime Evolution 2-Pack, Toys R Us, $44.99

• MakeToys Quantron, tfsource.com, $399.99

• Generations Thrilling 30 Jetfire, bbts.com, $46.99

• Fans Toys Scoria, bbts.com, $199.99

• Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Cyberverse Optimus Prime, bbts.com, $4.99

• Skrapnel with Reflector and Tailgate with Groundbuster, bbts.com, $21.99

• Nemesis Prime with Spinister and Cliffjumper with Suppressor, bbts.com, $21.99

• Generations Thrilling 30 Waspinator, Skids, Goldfire, Dreadwing, bbts.com, $59.99

• Generations Thrilling 30 Crosscut, Nightbeat, Windblade, Jhiaxus, bbts.com, $59.99

Age of Extinction Voyager Drift is a repaint of Skyhammer from Dark of the Moon. It appears they keep using this mold for Movie-verse figs. Skyhammer is one of my favorite figs from DotM, so I had to have this Drift. The figure is exactly the same, other than the head mold, the blue paint scheme, and the swords. Drift’s swords are kinda cool. He can use them separately in each hand, or have them combine into one huge sword.

I bought the Optimue Prime Evolution 2-Pack purely for the repaint of the Classic Prime mold. I love that figure, and this shiny new paint had my attention. The other Prime figure here is a repaint of Evasion Mode Optimus Prime from Age of Extinction. In retrospect, Evasion Mode Prime is one of the only few good figures from TF4, so I’m glad I have this repaint. I did not open this 2-Pack. The collector in me will probably just hold on to this as mint.

When I first head of MakeToys Quantron, I already made up in my mind that I had to have it. Quantron is an homage to the Technobots of G1, my favorite Autobot combiner team to come out of that era. Sure the Aerialbots are the most famous, but I think the Technobots are the coolest. I still remember buying Afterburner, my first fig from this awesome team. I loved his futuritic motorcycle mode. MakeToys Quantron wasn’t cheap. And I’m ashamed to say that as of this writing I still have not had the chance to play with this at all. I barely opened the box a few weeks ago to inspect the contents. Life as a working adult is way too hectic, and all of you reading should rue the day when you don’t have the time to immediately enjoy a $400 toy. But I promise to get to Quantron soon. All reviews I have seen gave it high marks. I know I will not be disappointed.

I have repeatedly mention how cool Generations 30 Jetfire is elsewhere in this blog, so I won’t do it again. Just know that he is awesomeness manifested in physical form. Go out and get yours now.

Masterpiece scale Dinobots is something that many 3rd parties are jumping into lately. These figures are usually $200 each… not cheap by any means. They all look pretty nice. But if I’m to get one, I want to go with a 3rd party that I trust. And so comes Scoria by Fans Toys. I was thoroughly impressed with Quakewave, so I had to give their interpretation of Slag a shot. Scoria does not disappoint. In robot mode he’s big and beefy. Construction is solid, and the transformation to dino feels familiar and refreshing at the same time. Scoria looks awesome in dino mode. I wish I have some pics handy to show him off. Maybe I will in a separate blog post.

I got TF Prime Beast Wars Optimus Prime purely because he was on sale at BBTS. I saw the fig quite frequently on the racks at stores like Walmart and Target and have always wondered if he’s any good. He’s not. A required purchase this ain’t. I already wasted too much time writing about this figure.

Nemesis Prime and Cliffjumper are just repaints of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, respectively. So I won’t talk about them too much. Skrapnel (or Shrapnel) is a cool little G1 Insecticon. This is probably the first time in a long time that Hasbro has made a G1 looking Insecticon. Tailgate is using a mold that will be repainted into Windcharger. This mold is ok. I got this to have a distinct mold for Tailgate, because I think the Reveal the Shield Windcharger is a much better mold and that will be my Windcharger.

The remaining deluxe Generations Thrilling 30 figures I’ll just quickly mention. Goldfire, Nightbeat, Dreadwing, and Jhiaxus are repaints of a figure in the same lineup. I really like Jhiaxus though. I’m liking the color scheme, and Hasbro reworked the mold to be different enough that it feels like a distinct figure. Windblade is a brand new mold. She looks pretty cool in both modes, but the figure itself is kinda flimsy. Waspinator is very cool! This is probably the coolest Waspinator that Hasbro has ever made. I like the wing gimmick. Skids and Crosscut are repaints of each other, though this mold is the first time we’re getting them. I was really looking forward to Skids, since many reviews praised the figure. The car mode is nice, but the robot mode has some poseability issues. There’s so much going on in robot mode that all the features start to block on itself. Still, all the weapons on Skids (and Crosscut) does make for a nice looking figure, when you can get them to pose the way you want.

Ok… that was a lot of figs! 27 total by my count. 23 if you don’t count the Mini-Cons of the Generations Thrilling 30 legends figs. My previous record for single TFs in a month is 24, so this month does surpass that if Mini-Cons are included as separate figures. However there’s one thing that this month sets a record for… and that’s the amount spent! Adding all these up, the total TF spending this month comes to a whopping $885.90! Ouch. That’s a bit much by anyone’s standard. Quantron and Scoria accounts for $600 by themselves alone. I really need to start selling off whatever I don’t play with anymore. Time to list more stuff in my Sales Section.

October is the last month of extravagant TF spending for 2014. Things will die down for the rest of the year.

Oh, one more thing, at the end of Oct 2014 I took another pic of my orange TFs. Check it out.

More to come… Transform and Roll Out!

Things cool down a bit in September of 2014. Only 3 TFs this month.

• Generations Thrilling 30 Rattrap, Target, $14.24

• Mastermind Creations Leo Dux, tfsource.com, $109.99

• Mastermind Creations Tigris, tfsource.com, $79.95

I think for the first time ever, all my purchases in a single month are figures where the alt modes are animals. Reminds me of the G1 episode “Call of the Primitives”.

Rattrap was a nice find. His release was 4 or 5 months before this, and at the time he was quite rare. As a fan favorite he’s snatched up quick. So of course online dealers spared no effort jacking up the price, sometimes at well over $40. I first saw this Rattrap figure at BotCon, back in June of 2014. Price dropped a bit by then, but at the con he was still about $25 at the cheapest. I like Rattrap, but I don’t like him enough that I want to pay any markup for this figure. So I was quite pleased when I found him in store this month. The figure itself is not too shabby. As of this writing, I only transformed him once from robot to rat. I remember the transformation was somewhat complicated. I need to spend some more time with this figure.

Leo Dux (Razorclaw) and Tigris (Rampage) from Mastermind Creations round out the rest of the figs this month. These are the last two needed to form Feral Rex (Predaking). Now that I have all 5 Feral Cons (Predacons), I think my favorite is Tigris. I feel he is the most fun to play with, and I really like both his modes. He’s also got some cool accessories. Leo Dux is cool too. Robot mode is especially nice, but the lion mode feels somewhat bulky.

Primitives… answer the call! Transform and Roll Out!

August is typically not a good month for finding new Transformers. In both 2012 and 2013, this month proved to be unproductive for TF hunting. Not so for 2014. Feast your optic sensors on all the goodies acquired August 2014.

• Generations Thrilling 30 Roadbuster, Target, $22.99

• Generations Thrilling 30 Sky Byte, Target, $22.99

• Generations Thrilling 30 Tankor, Toys R Us, $14.99

• Mastermind Creations Talon, CapturedPrey.com, $71

• Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Optimus Prime (Japanese release), amazon.com, $38

• Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Optimus Prime, ebay.com, $21.95

• Age of Extinction Lockdown, Toys R Us, $16.24

• Age of Extinction Bumblebee 2-pack, Toys R Us, $16.25

• Masterpiece Sunstorm, Toys R Us, $76.48

Let’s go over some stats first. 9 purchases for 10 figures total. 3 online purchases and 6 in-store purchases. 3 Generations figs, 3 AoE figs, 2 TF Prime figs, 1 MP fig, and 1 third party fig. 5 are Autobots, and 5 are bad guys from various factions (Decepticons, Predacons, Independents). Pretty good distribution overall.

The Generations Thrilling 30 figures were a pleasant find. In the previous months, there weren’t any TFs on store shelves other than offerings from Age of Extinction. So seeing something from my favorite TF lineup is a sight for sore optics. Roadbuster was one figure I have wanted Hasbro to release for some time now. The Wreckers are always fan favorites, and Hasbro’s Roadbuster takes it one step further to completing this lineup (here’s to hoping they will do Broadside). There has been some third party Roadbusters, but I don’t want to pay those kind of prices on every fig. Hasbro Roadbuster is a solid figure. I like both the robot mode and alt mode. Transformation is simple yet fun. Appearance wise, Roadbuster retains his unmistakable G1 look. He’s got weapons galore! He will give AoE Hound a run for his money.

Sky Byte are Tankor are characters that I do not recognize. Out of all my Transformers, I don’t have any figures that transform into sharks, and that makes Sky Byte one-of-a-kind in my collection. The shark mode is pretty good too. In robot mode, Sky Byte could pass for a G1 Pretender Shell. Not exactly my cup of energon, but I can see some fans dig this. I am not at all familiar with Tankor. And no, this is not the Universe triple-changing Tankor that is a homage to Octane. This is a separate character, which I could tell you nothing about. This toy is… unique to say the least. He doesn’t particularly impress me in either mode. His appearance does not seem to fit into any of the TF continuities. This figure reminds me of an old 80s figure that I have. That figure is not a Transformer or a GoBot, but some other 3rd party line that was looking to cash in around the same time frame. I still have that figure at home somewhere. Maybe I’ll dig out that figure some day and compare it to Tankor in the future at some point.

The only 3rd party figure this month is MMC Talon, which is an homage to G1 Divebomb of the Predacons. If memory serves, I pre-ordered this all the way back in January of 2013. Back then I never even heard of MMC. All I learned was that some new 3rd party is doing Predacons, so I pre-ordered instantly. Talon was supposed to be the first figure released in that lineup. But then I heard that something less than perfect happened with the manufacturing of the wings, and MMC really wanted to get it right, so they delayed it’s release. Props to MMC for their dedication to perfection. I haven’t actually played with Talon that much. He comes packaged in robot mode. Transformation to bird mode is pretty simple, if I remember right. I had both Bovis and Fortis before Talon arrived, and Leo Dux and Tigirs soon followed Talon’s release. So when that happened, I quickly transformed Talon to arm mode to form the fearsome Feral Rex (aka Predaking)! As of this writing I still have them combined. I think I will separate them soon, and play with them individually some more.

This month I got two Beast Hunter Optimus Prime figures from TF Prime, both the Japanese and US release. You might wonder why I did that. Back in May of 2013, I bought the US version of the fig. I really like this fig. Both modes are nice, transformation is fun, and overall construction is sturdy. But furthermore, I bought this fig immediately after meeting the girl who would become my fiancee. I still remember that day well. We met at Starbucks and chatted for 3 hours. And in true TF geekness, right after I met up with her, I went to the nearby Walmart to hunt for TFs. That’s when I picked up this Beast Hunter OP. So yeah, this figure has sentimental value for me. Fast forward to July or August of 2014. I had the sword plugged into the right fist, which is a super tight fit. When I tried to remove the sword, the handle broke off from the sword, and now the handle is stuck in the fist. Apparently this is a common problem. My buddy Gemini had the same issue, and he had to heat up the fist to get the sword out. I wish I did that instead of trying to force the issue. Anyway, the fig is now imperfect. I don’t like any of my figs being imperfect, especially one that holds so much sentimental value for me. At first I looked at possible fixes. I know I can get a third party sword (which is better). But the handle is still stuck in the first, and there’s no way to remove it. And I can’t find any third party hands for this fig. So in the end I decided to bite the bullet and just get a new one. At first I got the Japanese version from Amazon. I chose this over the US version because of the more show-accurate blue sword, and to get the feeling I’m not buying the same thing again. But then I saw a US version of the fig on ebay for a good price, so I bought that too. I guess I went a little overboard.

The AoE figures this month are Lockdown and the two Bumblebees. After watching TF4 with the GF (before she was my fiancee) at the theater, she remarked I should get the black Lambo. Of course she was referring to Lockdown. At the time, I wasn’t even sure if Hasbro would make a Lockdown in the AoE Generations subline. But they did eventually. The figure is not bad. The vehicle mode is nice, but I feel it could have been more black instead of this weird brown/grey color. Robot mode is ok. Arms are a bit too long in my opinion. The deluxe Camaro Bumblebee is not too shabby, but it really doesn’t offer anything new after all the deluxe Camaro Bumblebees that have been made in the first 3 movies. He’s not the best construction-wise, though. I already broke off a shoulder piece that forms the front corner bumper. The little Bumblebee that came in the 2-pack is a repaint of the Generations Thrilling 30 Bumblebee. This Bumblebee is the one I featured in my last post.

Last but not least, there’s Masterpiece Sunstorm. He is a repaint of the new MP Seeker mold with absolutely no new additions or enhancements. This mold was only released twice previously in the United States, once as Thundercracker and once as Acid Storm. These two were Toys R Us exclusives, and Sunstorm also continues that trend. As Sunstorm, some fans have complained of construction issues, specifically that the wings don’t stay attached to the back in robot mode. But mine seems just fine. I have done enough gushing over this mold in the past, so I will not repeat that here.

OK… that was quite a lot of TFs. Next month it slows down. Can’t have this many figures every month, or I’ll go broke.

Transform and Roll Out.

Today I’m going to feature some figures on the top layer of my Detolf shelf. I have assembled a collection of some of my favorite Season 1 Autobots from CHUG. For those of you that don’t know, CHUG is an acronym for Classics Henkei Universe Generations. These are all terms that Hasbro or Takara has used to label various Transformers lines that represent a modern update of classic G1 characters. I have also seen some fans refer to them collectively as G3, since it follows G1 and G2. Whatever you call it, they are all modern toy interpretation of Generation 1, though not necessarily in their exact G1 forms.

All these characters appeared starting in Season 1 of Transformers Generation 1.

There are a total of 6 figures here. I will describe each of them in depth, in the order of their release.

Optimus Prime, Classics, 2006
This Optimus Prime figure is part of the 6 initial figures that kicked off the Classics line back in 2006. It’s hard to imagine if Hasbro knew what kind of trend they were about to set in motion when these 6 figures took physical form. Hasbro tapped into something that was part of every action figure collector that grew up in the 80s with the launching of this Classics line. Anyway, this Optimus figure was one of only 2 Voyager size figures in the initial 6 (the other was Megatron, duh). To this day, this figure remains one of my favorite Optimus figures of all time. He looks good in both modes, the transformation was clever yet familiar for its time, and his overall appearance evokes instant G1 nostalgia while giving the character some mid-2000s updates. 9 years later as I write this, I still play with this figure from time to time. In the pics above he is holding his iconic G1 rifle that came as part of the BTS-03 G1 Prime Matrix of Leadership Upgrade Set by BTS Toys. I also have the FansProject G3 Trailer that can be added to this figure, but that was not featured anywhere on this blog. Maybe I should.

Sideswipe, Universe, 2008
For whatever reason, people love Sideswipe. I read a caption somewhere that stated he’s never done anything important, but he’s such a fan favorite. Maybe it’s because the G1 toy was such a good piece for its time. Or maybe it’s because he’s a fun loving character who does his job well without taking himself too seriously. Or maybe people just love his sexy Lamborghini alt mode. Whatever the reason, I gotta admit he’s also one of my all-time favorites. When the Universe toy came out back in 2008, I was beyond thrilled. And the toy did not disappoint. I knew Hasbro had no official licensing for Lamborghini, but I was pleased with the fictional alt mode they came up with to represent what would be a Lambo. The transformation of the figure is fun and satisfying. In the pics above, Sideswipe is using is G1 rifle and shoulder mounted missile launcher from the Heroic Duo Custom Kit Version 2.0 by Beelzeboss. I highly recommend this upgrade kit.

Jazz, Reveal the Shield, 2010
Jazz is another one of my all time favorites. Do a quick search for Jazz on this blog, and you will see there are many, many entries. Jazz is a character that has appeared in almost every TF continuity. In G1, Jazz completes missions with so much style and pizzazz, it’d be criminal if he was any cooler. This Jazz figure more than does justice to the Special Operations agent and Optimus Prime’s right hand man. I did a in depth review of the figure in this post, so I won’t do it again here.

Bumblebee, Age of Extinction, 2014
Bumblebee is a character that needs no introduction. He may be the most famous TF of all time, even surpassing Optimus Prime. Hasbro released so many CHUG Bumblebees over the years that I could have used many others for this lineup, but I used this one because I think he scales the best. And no, this is not the Generations Thrilling 30 Bumblebee. Though this is a exact repaint of the same mold, released as a Toys R Us exclusive 2-pack along with deluxe Age of Extinction Bumblebee (the modern Camero). That’s why I labeled it Age of Extinction above. This Bumblebee is a fun little figure. And I think that captures the spirit of Bumblebee. In the movie lines, Hasbro released way too many Bumblebees that are way too large and way too complicated. To me that is never Bumblebee.

Roar (aka Snarl), ToyWorld, 2014
Not counting the upgrade kits, Snarl is the only 3rd party figure on here. Technically he’s Roar, ToyWorld’s homage to Snarl. This figure is a gift to me from my fiancee. For a long time now, I was wondering why no third parties would do CHUG size Dinobots. Hasbro did do a deluxe size Grimlock, but that figure is not well received by most hardcore TransFans. No other CHUG Dinobots were made by Hasbro. Dinobots are forever fan favorites, so it seemed like a natural fit for third parties to come in and do what Hasbro will not. So it was a real mystery to me why no third party would attempt this. And believe me, there are no shortage of third party these days. But then all of a sudden, starting I think in early 2014, a whole bunch of third party companies announced that they will be making Dinobots. Off the top of my head, I can think of 4 CHUG size lineups (ToyWorld, FansProject, GCreation, Planet X) and 3 Masterpiece size lineups (FansToys, Bullsfire, GigaPower). Anyway I’m getting off topic. I love Dinobots, and I love ToyWorld products, so I had to have their Snarl. The toy comes in dino mode. Transformation to robot mode is well engineered and fun. I love how the hind dino legs can fold into the robot legs. This appears to be the trend with all the modern Dinobots. Construction of the figure is solid. Both modes look very G1 accurate. This is a third party figure I highly recommend. I already have TW Corelock (aka Grimlock) on preorder.

Jetfire, Generations Thrilling 30, 2014
Jetfire is a character with a rather complicated history in the world of Transformers. Originally based on the Takatoku toy of Macross VF-1 fame, Hasbro got the right to the merchandise of this toy and created the character of Jetfire. I’m not sure why he is called Skyfire in the G1 cartoons, or why the show designers decided to give him a somewhat different appearance from the toy. Whatever the reason, Jetfire became an instant fan favorite. As one of the very few Autobots that could fly in Season 1 of G1, the Jetfire toy was sought after by nearly every kid who was interested in Transformers at the time. Very early in the Classics line, Hasbro came out with a Voyager class toy that resembled the G1 cartoon look for Jetfire. That is an excellent figure, but in 2014 Hasbro released a Leader class figure that is even better! This Jetifire is a must-own. Both modes look sweet, and he looks like he jumped straight out of the show. Transformation is fun without being overly complicated. Some might even consider him too simple for his size, but I can easily overlook it due to the sheer fun factor. His massive size scales nicely with other CHUG figures. Jetfire gets the vote for figure of the year from many fans, and it’s certainly very hard to make a case against it. As of this writing, Jetifre can be found in store and online at MSRP (sometimes below MSRP). Make sure you pick up yours while you can!

Autobots… Transform and roll out!

I’m finally back to cataloging my purchases for each month. This activity has been on hiatus for some time, and I’m way behind. June 2014 was a busy month in terms of TFs purchased, partially because of BotCon 2014 that took place this month. The convention was in Pasadena, California, and I always go if the event is at this location. I may make a separate post for my BotCon 2014 pics. But that’s getting off topic. Time to showcase the figures for this month. This is a long list. Prepare yourselves.

• Generations Thrilling 30 Swerve and Flanker, Target, $9.49

• Age of Extinction Drift, Walmart, $9.97

• Age of Extinction Hound, Toys R Us, $24.99

• Age of Extinction Slash, Toys R Us, $7.49

• Age of Extinction Strafe, Walmart, $9.97

• Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Bulkhead and Prowl, Walmart, $12

• Transformers Prime Dark Energon Wheeljack, BBTS (at BotCon), $15

• BotCon Exclusive Depth Charge and Rampage, Hasbro (at BotCon), $62.71

• MakeToys Mobine MB01-SP2 Missile Launcher Marine Type, CapturedPrey.com, $48

• Mastermind Creations Hexatron, CapturedPrey.com, $130

• MakeToys Mobine Paladin/Chaos, CapturedPrey.com, $79

• Renderform Gold Scout Upgrade Kit, CapturedPrey.com, $25

There are a lot of TFs here. 12 purchases in all, for a total of 13 figures and 2 upgrade kits.

Generations Swerve and Flanker were the first finds of the month. These are cool little figs. I don’t care much about the Mini-Con (Flanker), but Swerve is a real prize. He’s fun to play with. I like both his robot mode and alt mode. There’s a redeco of this fig out there as Gears, though as of this writing he’s kinda hard to find. I plan to get one.

Next up are all the Age of Extinction figs. As a whole, I think the AoE figs are rather disappointing. The Dinobots pictured here (Slash and Strafe) certainly attest to that assertion. I’m not particularly impressed with either of these and I’m looking to sell them. However, Drift and Hound are quality figures. Drift is probably my favorite of the deluxe figs from AoE. Hound is a solid voyager figure with weapons to spare. I have kind of reviewed them back in this post, so I won’t do it again. Just know that Drift and Hound are both solid additions to your AoE line.

All remaining figures featured in this post are either bought or picked up at BotCon. First up are TF Prime Beast Hunters Bulkhead and Prowl. Gemini bought these for me a few months before BotCon, but I did not have a chance to meet up with him til this event. He found this pair at his Walmart for $12 on clearance. I was really only interested in Prowl as I already have Bulkhead. At the time, Prowl was really hard to find (and he is still kinda is as of this writing). So I did not mind spending $12 for both figs.

At the BBTS booth I picked up Dark Energon Wheeljack. This is a BBTS exclusive. I could have gotten this from their website (for cheaper), but at the time I had nothing else I needed to buy from BBTS and I was already there so I went for it. Normally I don’t like buying repaints for the same character, but I really like this Wheeljack mold, and I love the transparent blue, so I splurged.

At every BotCon, Hasbro will sell some of their exclusive figs at their booth where they handle registration for Transformers Collector’s Club. This year was no exception. I mentioned back in the BotCon 2011 post that this was how I got the very rare Reveal the Shield Windcharger. In 2014, one of their exclusive figs caught my eye… Depth Charge! From Beast Wars, Depth Charge is one of my favorite characters. He’s a good guy, but at the same time a total bad-ass! Plus I love this mold. Terradive, the original character of this mold, is probably my favorite deluxe figure from Revenge of the Fallen. They repainted this awesome mold once for Space Case (from Dark of the Moon). I guess one could argue if using this mold for Depth Charge is fitting, but I don’t care. Depth Charge was about $20 if you have a TFCC membership, but without one the figure was about $40. So I decided to get the TFCC membership (about $42), which also comes with an incentive figure of Rampage. Hasbro chose to repaint TF Prime deluxe Megatron for Rampage. So for about $62 total, I got the TFCC membership, and two figures. Depth Charge and Rampage are rivals and nemesis of each other in Beast Wars, so it’s awesome having the both of them. To this day I still have not opened these 2. But I already know the Depth Charge fig will be remarkable. I know nothing of the TF Prime deluxe Megatron fig, so it remains to be seen how I will like Rampage.

And now for the figures I got from CapturedPrey. I bought all these earlier, some of them as early as the beginning of 2013. However, they don’t ship anything until your entire order comes in, at least that’s how it was at the time. I don’t know if they have developed some kind of stacking mechanism since then, like TF Source. Anyway, I still had several items outstanding at the time of BotCon, but I really wanted the figures that had already arrived. So I emailed CP and told them I like to pick them up at the booth. They were very accommodating. I picked up the four 3rd party items pictured above.

The Mobine Marine Missile Launcher kit by MakeToys is pure awesomeness! These kits really improve upon the crap that are PCCs. I featured this kit a little in this post. I tried this kit with Heavytread, Steelshot, and Undertow. Out of these 3, Heavytread looks the best, but it’s not bad with the other 2. My only regret is I should have also got the Jungle version. Apparently there were a shortage of the Jungle version, and most of the stock went to BBTS. MakeToys Mobine Paladin/Chaos is a similar toy, but with another smaller figure added in that will combine with the armor. This figure is a tribute to The Fallen (from the comics, not Revenge of the Fallen). The armor portion is more or less the same as the Mobine kits, but having a smaller figure combine with the armor to form The Fallen is an excellent idea. A pic of this figure appears here. This is way better than the piece of crap that Galoob tried to do with The Fallen that was featured in the Titanium line. I highly recommend the Mobine line from MakeToys.

Mastermind Creations Hexatron! What can I say about this piece that hasn’t already been said by others?! In case you can’t already tell, Hexatron is a modern interpretation of Sixshot by MMC. Way back in this post, when I first started this blog, I said I would love it if someone made a modern Sixshot. Well, to this day Hasbro still has not made this a reality, so MMC stepped up to the plate! What they delivered here is nothing short of spectacular. Hexatron is transformation engineering genius brought to life. I still have not transformed this figure to all its modes (I only did the robot mode and tank mode so far), but I have seen enough reviews of the other modes to know that all 6 modes are great. Construction of the figure is extremely solid. MMC cares about it’s products and it shows. And at only $130, this is actually not a bad value for 3rd party products of this size. Speaking of size, Hexatron is probably a better fit for the MP-verse than the CHUG-verse, but I’ll take it anyway I can. Of all the figs featured in this post, if you can only get one, this is it. In fact, if you wanted to nominate figs for Figure of the Year and 3rd party products can be included, then Hexatron would without a doublt be nominated. Many may even argue he would win.

That only leaves the Gold Scout Upgrade Kit, which I have yet to open. This set upgrades Classics Bumblebee to Goldbug. I’ll check this out when I have some time.

Whew… that was a lot. So much so that I didn’t even open them all yet as of this writing, like I mentioned above. But having a deluge of TFs is better than being in a drought. And BotCon 2014 was pretty special. I may report on it in a separate post. Til then… Transform and Roll Out!

Welcome to another edition of my St Patrick’s Day green Transformers! Last time I did one of these was back in 2013. There has been many green TFs since then, and I try to include every single green fig that I acquired in this time span. However, I don’t have the time to dig through them all. So for this posting I only grabbed what was handy, either currently on my shelf or easily reached into a box. Here are the lucky green figs for 2015.

Clockwise from top: MakeToys Giant, Generations Hoist, Age of Extinction Snarl, Generations Cosmos, Generations Legend Waspinator, Generations Deluxe Waspinator

I obviously missed some green TFs between 2013 and now. Some obvious ones that come to mind are Generations Springer and Age of Extinction Hound. I should have got them out too. I’ll include them next year for sure.

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

Quick follow up to my last post. There are now official pics to Titan Class Devastator. I am way more interested in this than I was before!

Constructicons… Transform and Roll Out!

Happy New Year! I usually do these new year’s posts right around the turn of the year, either on New Years Eve or New Years Day. But of course life gets in the way, and so here is the annual New Years post delayed til the end of January. Better late than never I always say.

I’m conflicted as to how I feel about 2014. For starters, we had another TF movie. Age of Extinction was quite the paradox in movie history. It was the highest grossing film worldwide for 2014, yet that the same time Rotten Tomatoes report a lowly rating of only 18%. And compared to previous movies, I would say that the AoE toys as a whole are rather disappointing. I think Hasbro recognized that most mainstream fans may be sick of another Michael Bay full-length feature, and in response did not make as many toys. Personally I don’t think I can take anymore “Bayhems”. I sincerely wish another director would take over the franchise. Asking for popular and proven sci-fi action directors, such as J.J.Abrams, Joss Whedon, or Christopher Nolan, is probably out of the question. And the movie studio would not want someone who would take a dramatic departure from what Bay has laid out. Though a little outdated, this article suggests 6 directors who could potentially take over the TF movie franchise. I would add Justin Lin (of Fast and Furious fame) and Brad Bird (Mission Impossible 4) to this list.

2014 also saw a record number of 3rd party transforming robots offered. If you’re only into official Hasbro and Takara products, this wouldn’t matter to you. But if you’re reading this blog, chances are you are at least familiar with what I’m talking about. Just a few years back, all you had to know as far as the 3rd party scene was FansProject and TFC Toys. Those days are long gone. There are probably about 50 3rd parties out there, all doing its own thing and wanting a piece of your hard-earned TF dollars. And there appears to be no slow down. I sometimes fear that the market for 3rd party products are near saturation. Let’s face it: this is a niche market. Third party figs are expensive. Having so many companies vying for a piece of the pie… I don’t know how sustainable this is.

OK, now let’s look at some statistics for 2014. Here is the break down:

• 21 figures from Age of Extinction
• 8 figures from Transformers Prime
• 4 Masterpiece figs
• 1 figure from Fall of Cybertron
• 32 figures from Generations Thrilling 30
• 2 TFCC or convention exclusive figures
• 25 Third Party products

That’s a grand total of 93 figures for the year. It comes to 7.75 figures a month. Just slightly more than 2013. Notice there are 25 3rd party products! 25! That’s gotta be a record for me. I wonder if this trend will continue in 2015.

I’ll end this post with a few collection pics of some of my favorites from 2014.

Age of Extinction Grimlock, Slash, Slug, Strafe, and Scorn.

Maketoys Paladin Chaos (tribute to The Fallen)

Masterpiece Streak. Released in 2013, but actively played with in 2014. Shown here holding his standard rifle and a pistol from a Gears of War figure that I no longer have.

Age of Extinction Drift and Hound

Masterpiece Wheeljack and Bumblebee

Generations Brainstorm and Jetfire

Mastermind Creations Feral Rex (Predaking), looking awesome combined!

Happy 2015! Transform and Roll Out!