After a short break away, I am back! I was in New Zealand and Australia for about 2 weeks. We were in Auckland, Queenstown, and Sydney. These were all beautiful places, and I had so much fun! I want to go back so badly. Though after so much traveling, I am happy to be back in the States. And I welcome a return to my usual routine so I have time to play with my TFs and blog about them.

Unlike last month where I got a bunch of figures, only two purchases were made in August of 2016. And they’re both small legend size figures.

• Titans Return Wheelie, Target, $10.29

• Titans Return Rewind, Target, $10.29

Last month I mentioned that I got TR Stripes on the last day of the month. I will describe him here with his two other Legend size associates that are part of the same wave. None of these 3 figs will knock your socks off, but they ain’t half bad either. Stripes and Rewind are both triple changers, and both are meant to be compatible with Titans Return leader class Blaster (to be purchased in a few months). They each have an electronic tablet mode, which is the modern equivalent of the tape cassette mode that they had back in the 80s. To be frank, their shape in this mode still looks more like cassettes than tablets because they’re too thick. In addition to this mode, Stripes offers a panther mode and a jet mode, while Rewind has a robot mode and a tank mode. I like Rewind’s robot mode. All in all, these 2 figs are quite mediocre in every way possible. Stripes and Rewind will be painted into Ravage and Rumble, respectively. Frenzy probably won’t be far behind.

The only other figure here is Wheelie. He’s the most famous character out of these 3. Hasbro has not done that many CHUG Wheelies in the modern era. I can only think of 2 others: a legend size fig that came around 2010, and a deluxe version released in 2012 that’s a repaint of Reveal the Shield Jazz. So a new Wheelie figure that can more appropriately scale with new figures is very much welcome. I had high hopes for TR Wheelie, but in the end he’s just ok. Both modes look cartoon accurate to the G1 show, but this figure is just so flimsy. During transformation he can feel like a real mess. I would only recommend this Wheelie to those hardcore G1 purists that has to have a Wheelie in their CHUG lineup.

Below is a pic of the three of them.

This month is all Autobots, and all small legend size Autobots. I guess that’s the theme for the month. Transform and Roll Out!

When people say March, I think March Madness. It is my favorite time of year as far as sports go. The NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship has my full attention once it gets going. Especially when UCLA does well. But even when my alma mater makes a surprisingly early exit (like this year) or fail to make the tournament altogether (like last year), I still follow it closely to see how well my bracket does in the office pool, or whatever other pools I happen to participate.

As for Transformers, there was a madness this March as well. I didn’t think I was going to get this many TFs this month. In fact, I was kind of counting on a TF drought. So it was a total shock when I added up all the March figures when the end of the month was coming. Ever since I started tracking my purchases every month, this was the 3rd most action packed month, behind only February 2012 and October 2012. I was fairly busy this month too, which makes me wonder when I even had the time to hunt for these TFs. But whatever. Feast your optic sensors on the Transformers below.

• Generations Fall of Cybertron Blaster and Steeljaw, Walmart, $22.96

• Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Smokescreen, Walmart, $15.47
• Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Bulkhead, Walmart, $15.47

• Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Starscream, Target, $15.99
• Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Ripclaw, Walmart, $12.97

• Generations Fall of Cybertron Eject and Ramhorn, Target, $9.99
• Generations Fall of Cybertron Rewind and Sunder, Target, $9.99

• Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Trailcutter, Target, $8.99
• Transformers Prime RID Rumble, Ross, $5.99

• Transformers Prime Arms Micron Jet Vehicon General, amiami.com, about $23 shipped

• FansProject Car Crash, bbts.com, $59.99
• FansProject T-Bone, bbts.com, $59.99

• Year of the Snake Fall of Cybertron Omega Supreme, bbts.com, $99.99

As you can see, that’s a lot of TFs! Especially since I wasn’t expecting all that much. 7 figures came out of Fall of Cybertron, 7 figures from TF Prime, and 2 independents from FansProject. That makes a total of 16. Certainly a busy month to say the least.

Problem with buying so many TFs in one month is that you just don’t have time to process all of them. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but recently I have become backlogged in opening my Transformers. I’m almost wishing for a TF drought, so I would have the time to properly give each figure the time that it deserves.

As of this writing, I have only opened 4 figures of the 16: Smokescreen, Bulkhead, Car Crash, and T-Bone. I’ll open the rest sooner or later, preferably sooner.

I highly recommend Smokescreen. Bulkhead is ok. Buy him if you got the money to spare, but if you’re on a tight budget then you may want to reconsider.

Car Crash and T-Bone are both smaller than I expected. Early reports of these latest FansProject offerings is that they’re somewhere between scout and deluxe size. They were right. In robot mode they are exactly between these 2 sizes, and in car mode they’re barely bigger than scout. So at $59.99 each, I don’t think they are good value. Also, transformation from robot to car is kind of a pain in the boron compressor. They’re not complex figures, but getting all the tabs to line up to connect takes some effort. They are not figures that I can transform fast for that reason. Still, the figures do look good. They are well articulated and well built. I’ll reserve final thoughts about them after I see the combined Menasor mode.

The only repeat purchase here is RID Rumble. I know I said no more doubles, but I got him purely for the extra pile drivers that I will put on AM Rumble. Besides, he’s so cheap at $5.99. Yes I broke the rule. Sue me.

Year of the Snake FOC Omega Supreme is huge! This is Omega done right! I look forward to some quality time with this piece.

So that’s it for March. There’s a lot more that I wanna talk about, but I think I need to go open these TFs first. Til then, let the March Madness continue. Transform and Roll Out!