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Transformers Purchased in July 2018

March 3rd, 2020 Comments off

Only official products were purchased in July of 2018. No 3rd or 4th party products. Most figs come from the Power of the Primes line. That’s the flavor of the month.

Also, with the exception of the Terrorcons, everything came in pairs. Read on below.

  • Power of the Primes Blot, Walmart, $16.82

  • Power of the Primes Sinnertwin, Walmart, $16.82

  • Power of the Primes Cutthroat, Walmart, $16.82

  • Power of the Primes Alchemist Prime, Target, $4.99

  • Power of the Primes Alpha Trion, Target, $4.99

  • Power of the Primes Outback, Target, $9.99

  • Power of the Primes Cindersaur, Target, $9.99

  • Studio Series Jazz, Walmart, $19.87

  • Studio Series Lockdown, Walmart, $19.87

  • Cyber Battalion Jetfire, Walgreens, $17.99

  • Cyber Battalion Sideswipe, Walgreens, $17.99

Blot, Sinnertwin, Cutthroat

Power of the Primes Terrorcons were featured back in this post. Read all about them there. In short, I highly recommend them. If you can only get one combiner team from the Prime Wars Trilogy, get this team.

Alchemist Prime and Alpha Trion

I have mentioned that I really like Prime Masters. They are inexpensive, fun, adds play value to other TFs, and is a great homage to their G1 roots. Alchemist Prime and Alpha Trion continues this trend. G1 purists will immediately recognize their shells as Submarauder and Landmine. Sidebar: the only other time I have mentioned Submarauder is in this post. Landmine was never mentioned on this blog, til now.

There’s really not a whole lot to say about Prime Masters, because they’re all kind of the same. I’ll just let the pics below do the talking.

Outback

Power of the Primes Outback is a repaint of Titans Return Brawn. Read that review for all the details. As for mold variations, the only difference is the head.

In G1, Outback was also a repaint of Brawn. Outback appeared in G1 Season 3. I personally don’t remember him all that much. Get this toy if you don’t have TR Brawn, is a G1 completist, or if you feel for the character. I’ll present some pics of Outback here, in robot and alt modes.

Cindersaur

Power of the Primes Cindersaur is a repaint of Power of the Primes Slash, which I sort of reviewed here. I recommend Slash, and so I recommend Cindersaur as well. Cindersaur gets a new head mold. Other than that, these 2 molds are exactly the same. This smells like another Hasbro cash-grab repaint. The raptor alt mode bears no resemblance to his G1 monster form, other than being a bipedal beast. I can’t comment on the G1 accuracy of the new head mold.

If you already have Slash, then should you skip Cindersaur? That may be a wise choice if you are basing this purely on the toy. Keep in mind, however, that Cindersaur was a G1 character, while Slash was not. Though Cindersaur never made it to the G1 US cartoons. Cindersaur is part of a little known sub-group called the Firecons. The only other time I even mentioned Firecons on this blog is in this post. Will Hasbro release updates to the other 2 Firecons? That all depends on what else they can find to repaint.

Pics below.

Jazz

I have already reviewed Studio Series Jazz, so I won’t repeat any of that here. To summarize, I give him a weak recommendation: this is a fun figure with a nice paint job and an awesome alt mode, but ruined by a robot mode with way too much back-kibble and small size. Read that review to get all the details.

Here I will show off SS Jazz with the cardboard movie backdrop.

Lockdown

At first glance, Studio Series Lockdown looks like he may be a slight tweak off of The Last Knight Hot Rod. But comparing the two side by side, it’s obvious that SS Lockdown is a brand new mold. In fact, I wrote that Hot Rod post after I received SS Lockdown already, and in the post I mentioned that this is brand new.

In robot mode, SS Lockdown resembles his movie designs. He’s not that poseable, and I don’t like that the hands are molded onto the forearms/car-side-panels. But he makes up for it with the amount of detail. He also comes with two weapons: a sword, and a retractable claw type thing. He’s got very little kibble. The side robot profile below shows that the back cleans up very nicely.

Transformation to alt mode follows the same scheme that TLK Hot Rod does, so I won’t go into too much detail. I like the way the alt mode comes together though. This figure works just as well as TLK Hot Rod does in alt mode. Below are some comparison pics: SS Lockdown on the left, TLK Hot Rod on the right.

In short, I recommend SS Lockdown. This figure is several times better than Age of Extinction Lockdown. If you already have AoE Lockdown, sell that figure and get this one.

Jetfire and Sideswipe

I was first introduced to Cyber Battalion when I was in Shanghai. Me and Gemini were exploring the city, when we found a Toys R Us inside one mall. Of course we had to stop by. I purchased Cyber Battalion Starscream on the trip.

I opened the figure after I got back to the States. Cyber Battalion Starscream is definitely on the simple side, but I thought the figure wasn’t too shabby. He’s fun to play with, is very durable, and most importantly, scales nicely with other CHUGs. It’s possible that last point only applies to Starscream (and other Cyber Battalion Seekers, if they exist). For CHUG, he’s too small as a deluxe. But he would be the same size as Megatron at voyager. So this Cyber Battalion size is perfect. I looked forward to possible Cyber Battalion releases in the US.

As it turns out, Cyber Battalion figures would be released in the States as Walgreens exclusives. Why Walgreens is getting into exclusive TF action is beyond me. And the term Cyber Battalion is never used in the US; the boxes simply say Transformers with a Generations logo in the corner.

I bought Jetfire and Sideswipe from Walgreens, because my impression from Starscream is positive. I hate to say it, but Jetfire and Sideswipe aren’t very good. Jetfire is a slight remold of Starscream. This mold as Jetfire just doesn’t work. It makes Jetfire way too simplistic. And the scale is completely off; Jetfire should be much, much bigger. And as for Sideswipe, he feels too big to be in Cyber Battalion scale. This is a very simple Transformer, even more so than Jetfire and Starscream. At this size, with this minimal complexity, I feel like I’m playing a Fisher Price Transformer. Also, he does not come with any weapons. Articulation for both is a non-priority. Maybe the target audience of these figs is preschool to 1st grade. Mature collectors need not bother.

As of this writing, I have already sold these 2 on eBay, so I’m not adding them to my TF Count. Gemini has Jetfire. He agrees it sucks, but he kept it for his son to play with. I’m thinking I should have kept these for my baby girl. On well.

I mentioned that all TFs came in pairs, other than the Terrorcons (which came in 3). All pairs were bought on the same trip to their respective store. In case it wasn’t obvious enough, these are the pairs:

  • Alchemist Prime and Alpha Trion – Target
  • Outback and Cindersaur – Target
  • Jazz and Lockdown – Walmart
  • Jetfire and Sideswipe – Walgreens

Will this ever happen again? Who knows. Everything was actually bought in store this month. That’s becoming more and more rare, given the internet shopping age that we live in.

Transform and Roll Out.
 

Categories: On The Hunt, Pics

Transformers Purchased in August 2014

May 16th, 2015 Comments off

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.

Categories: On The Hunt, Pics