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Transformers Super Thread 9


eriku

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I'll begin this thread with a query: Has anyone picked up the Star Wars/Transformers Magna-Droid figure yet?

The SW/TF line hasn't been the best, but this figure looks pretty great compared to most of them.

I haven't picked it up but it does look good. He and Rex look to be the best of the recent SWTFs. Best hands down is still Death Star Vader.
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I looked last night but I didn't see one, but I do want to pick up a pair to stand with my only crossover figure: Gen. Grevious.

I think I like ROTF Ravage more than I expected, a great figure even if it makes for a lame transformer. And I think I like deluxe Dead End far more than Sideways. I am in love with that mold, I am really hoping for a more accurately painted premium version.

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obtw,

forgot to mention that I saw Swerve (rotf-version) a week or so ago at the local wally's.

he's basically a red repaint of Sideswipe.

i was tempted to get him, but i'm still not quite keen on any of the rotf-figures. he looks kewl, tho. :p

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aside from the paint, Swerve has a different head sculpt. I was actually tempted to buy Swerve and a can of silver paint when I noticed that his head looked different.

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obtw,

forgot to mention that I saw Swerve (rotf-version) a week or so ago at the local wally's.

he's basically a red repaint of Sideswipe.

i was tempted to get him, but i'm still not quite keen on any of the rotf-figures. he looks kewl, tho. :p

Yeah saw him the other day but part of what was so appealing to me about Sideswipe was the simple silver paint job. Something about the red looks weird on that mold.

I keep seeing people on TF boards complaining about not finding Scalpel. Are people really that keen on spending $9 on a toy that small?

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I feel like a fish out of water amidst all of this movie discussion but...

Can someone explain to me about Dinoking/Monstructor? Am I to understand that the inner-robot is the same for both, only Dinoking has Dinosaur Pretender Shells while Monstructor has those...Monster things?

And...are the inner robots all really Micromaster size?

If so - how can Dinoking fight Starsaber who is so big?

Help!

Pete

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I feel like a fish out of water amidst all of this movie discussion but...

Can someone explain to me about Dinoking/Monstructor? Am I to understand that the inner-robot is the same for both, only Dinoking has Dinosaur Pretender Shells while Monstructor has those...Monster things?

And...are the inner robots all really Micromaster size?

If so - how can Dinoking fight Starsaber who is so big?

Monstructor and Dinosaur Force have different Pretender shells, but the robots inside are the same. They are tiny. The robots are about the same size as your average minibot like Bumblebee or Cliffjumper. They are bigger than Micromasters, but not by much.

Dinoking can fight Star Saber because the cartoons have never paid any attention to the (lack of) scale the toys have.

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found this rotf-deluxe Swerve review at http://www.2deeponline.com/2009/08/transfo...-swerve-review/

so, yeah, Swerve's indeed got a different head from Sideswipe.

i reckon interested G1-fans will just swap Sideswipe's head with Swerve and call it a day. B))

now we just await the blue-repaint to arrive and have it called Tracks. with missiles and stuff, of course. :lol:

Edited by treatment
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I pre-ordered Legends Devastator from BBTS, but unfortunately, I wasn't one of the lucky people who had their orders filled. This was the one set I was really looking forward to this summer, and after calculating how much more it would cost off of ebay than to wait until November, I figured the difference(about $35, therefore $5 extra a figure) was worth it to satiate my addiction. For shipping from Hong Kong, this was surprisingly fast.

CIMG2300.jpg

I opened the figures and transformed them one at a time. Transformation on each is pretty darn cool and par for the course for the newer/better legends figures. Little blurbs about each figure:

Demolisher - Very cool, and a legends figure I would have picked anyway even without a Devastator to attach him to. Very accurate to the model despite the size. In vehicle mode, the shovel arm lifts upward. Nothing really significant. In bot mode you can extend them which is really just turning the upper arm backwards, but they really can't lift upwards.

Rampage - Pogo stick/piledriver mode, which is kind of neat. Can't really make out any pincher detail at the end of his arms though.

Mixmaster - Yeah, pretty spindly because of how the shoulders seperate out so far and thin. The Devastator face is somewhat distracting, but you can get it kind of close to the rest of the bot mode so it doesn't look too kibbly. The forearms are a bit of a pain with how the mixer plates are balljointed there. Definitely a good representation of the movie model at a legends scale despite this, imo.

Long Haul - This one's simultaneously cool and dissappointing. Cool because he looks very spot on to the movie model. Dissappointing because the truck bed is completely filled and he has practically zero arm articulation.

Scrapper - Yeowzer! This is the only normal proportioned bot mode out of the bunch, and he looks great. He has all the right articulation for a legends scale figure too.

Overload - Feels alot like Long Haul but with arm articulation. Really lacking in paint apps though. I think the "scorpion" tail/hook is a nice touch that works.

Hightower - This is the odd bug of the lot. The face definitely looks more robotic in person than it did in online pics. Again, because of the small scale, the oddness of it doesn't bother me all that much. I am dissapointed that those tiny arms don't move at all.

On the first merging into Devastator I tried to do it without the instructions. It makes perfect sense once you know what to do, but it's not that obvious on the first try. After failing to combine Demolisher and Overload satisfactorily I open the instructions, which have a couple of tiny, but key pictures. I follow the rest of the instructions, and eventually I have Devastator. Sort of. He just didn't look right, and I'll admit I was dissappointed. So I take a breather, then come back to him and start over again. This time it "clicked" and everything connected like it was supposed to, and the proportions finally looked right, and more importantly, I understood the articulation he has so I could do some cool poses.

Surprisingly he has more articulation than you'd think. The head's on a balljoint and can look every which way. I expected that, but I was more impressed with the arm and leg articulation which I was expecting to be extremely limited to nonexistent. Demolisher's arms provides all the gestalt arm articulation plus you can twist the vehicles where they attach. You can turn the arms so they're either facing forwards or off to the sides, and you can also lift them upwards to the extent that the bucket arm allows. Some of the arm posing when you lift them upwards doesn't look quite right because of the hunched nature of Devastator, but I was still surprised all the same. The "feet" have ankles that have a little range that can tilt forwards or backwards, and there's also a "knee" joint that has that same limited range. Coupled together, it really helps. You *can* do a decent walking quadrapedal pose.

But getting back to how the figures merge together. Everything connects together very solidly. I'm especially impressed with the torso. It's pretty complex for a legends scale figure, but the best part is that it looks solid from *ALL* angles. There's no big gaping empty spot anywhere. The only negative in combined mode is Hightower. He's a little irksome as an arm because of that crane assembly always getting in the way until you learn the do's and don'ts.

Summary: I'm pretty pleased with him and very impressed with the engineering. I feel a little guilty paying as much as I did, but I think it was worth it to me to negate the wait and enjoy the figure from now until November.

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Re: Swerve

The deluze class Sideswipe is actually my favorite figure from ROTF, so I picked up Swerve too and think I actually like him better. Just seems to fit tighter and everything seems to line up better. I don't know if there was an improvement in the quality control between when the two figures were made, or if I just happened to get a better Swerve than I did Sideswipe, but, either way, I like him a lot.

Oh, I also just picked up Human Alliance Bumblebee and Sideswipe. I have to say that, while I love the huge size of both of these figures and the nice weight to them, the transformations just are much less fun than on the deluxe class versions. Biggest complaint: Human Alliance Sideswipe has so much kibble on his back in robot mode (virtually ever car component), he's probably second only to Jetfire's plane mode when it comes to pure kibble. The arms also look TERRIBLE, with a huge opening where the hands come out. The deluxe really does handle the transformation SO MUCH better. The car mode, on the other hand, is gorgeous! Gotta love the brake calipers.

Edited by RavenHawk
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Picked up the SW/TF Magnaguard droid last night. It does feature a bit of parts-forming in that the side guns and front cannons have to be removed, but the core robot remains intact so it's a bit more like a FASTpack situation than partsforming (except the fighter doesn't look good without the parts). The fighter mode is one of those newer designs that looks unique yet fits in wonderfully with classic/modern SW ship designs. And it's got folding landing pads!

Anyway, I really recommend this figure. It's so much better than the other SW/TF figures that it's like it belongs in a different line. The proportions are great and unlike most of the others there isn't a bunch of spaceship kibble hanging off him. The back half of the cockpit hangs on his back, but that's pretty much it. You've got a couple options with his feet, which is good. Each foot is comprised of two panels, and you can spread them out entirely (as many photos show) or you can fold the back panels up along the calves for a more standard foot look, which is what I prefer. Either way, his balance is fantastic and he's not going to topple.

Articulation is pretty good, but not great. He suffers most with the elbows as they are a little wonky and limited (and like to pop off sometimes) but he can hold his guns and his staff and look good doing it, so no complaints here. Ball hips, rotating and bending knees, hinged feet. Standard but enough to make him fun. A ball-jointed head would have been great, but that's a common issue on TFs. You'd think Hasbro could arrive a some kind of standard with neck joints, but they're pretty random.

I really like that his staff is made from the front cannons. You pull out the four cannons, peg them together and he's got an awesome looking staff. Really brilliant. His two guns look great as well and have fully sculpted grips instead of pegs.

This guy is an interesting color. I opened him in a low-light environment and he looked more grey/silver. When I got him under proper lighting I was surprised that he's actually a sort of platinumy-lavendar color. Not the same lavendar as Henkei Cyclonus, but something more muted and metallic. It's quite lovely.

Anyway, I now return you to your regularly scheduled ROTF programming. :p

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I gather you have to email them:

igear.toys@gmail.com

Apparently price is about $80 + shipping.

I'm interested but I would really like to hear a review first. And apparently articulated hands arn't so good for holding weapons.

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Re: Swerve

The deluze class Sideswipe is actually my favorite figure from ROTF, so I picked up Swerve too and think I actually like him better. Just seems to fit tighter and everything seems to line up better. I don't know if there was an improvement in the quality control between when the two figures were made, or if I just happened to get a better Swerve than I did Sideswipe, but, either way, I like him a lot.

I snagged a Swerve off of Ebay the other night for an "acceptable" ^_^ price, largely because just like Dead End to Sideways I just find the color and new head a little more appealing. If he fits together tight inthe same way Dead End does over his counterpart, I know I won't be disappointed.

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Quick question/poll:

What color should I paint the chest missiles on my MP TC? Or should I even bother since I never plan to open the covers. I'm thinking purple (canon for SS at least) or red (since the backside of the fans when the covers are opened is red). Factory did black. They're silver at the moment, since the whole piece was sprayed silver.

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Quick question/poll:

What color should I paint the chest missiles on my MP TC? Or should I even bother since I never plan to open the covers. I'm thinking purple (canon for SS at least) or red (since the backside of the fans when the covers are opened is red). Factory did black. They're silver at the moment, since the whole piece was sprayed silver.

I probably wouldn't bother (do you see yourself often displaying them with the missiles showing?), but if you do bother, for some reason red just seems right.

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If you seriously want to poll us, then my opinion is that you should remove the missiles, put in a spring, and on that spring put a miniature little yellow "pop out snake" with a red head, a uni-brow, and a few bits of hair on his head that goes "pfff!" and springs out at people whenever Thundercracker opens the missile bay hatch.

Pete

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I probably wouldn't bother (do you see yourself often displaying them with the missiles showing?), but if you do bother, for some reason red just seems right.

Yep, red.

If you seriously want to poll us, then my opinion is that you should remove the missiles, put in a spring, and on that spring put a miniature little yellow "pop out snake" with a red head, a uni-brow, and a few bits of hair on his head that goes "pfff!" and springs out at people whenever Thundercracker opens the missile bay hatch.

Pete

Good idea, but that seems like more of a Skywarp thing to do. :p

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Quick question/poll:

What color should I paint the chest missiles on my MP TC? Or should I even bother since I never plan to open the covers. I'm thinking purple (canon for SS at least) or red (since the backside of the fans when the covers are opened is red). Factory did black. They're silver at the moment, since the whole piece was sprayed silver.

Call me crazy, but I recommend yellow. There's no reason why his ordinance has to match his paint, and I think the yellow would look nice and stand out more.

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For those of you who own HA Bumblebee and Sideswipe: are they worth the $30 upgrade from the Deluxe versions?? I've seen the video reviews and they both look awesome in car Alternators-sized mode, but the robot mode ... meh, same as the Deluxes, no??

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For those of you who own HA Bumblebee and Sideswipe: are they worth the $30 upgrade from the Deluxe versions?? I've seen the video reviews and they both look awesome in car Alternators-sized mode, but the robot mode ... meh, same as the Deluxes, no??

If you already have one, then I think it's worth it, since they look gorgeous displayed next to each other. Just keep that in mind, you are likely going to display these, not really transform them a lot. Also, you'll probably display them in car mode, since the car modes look gorgeous. The robot modes are much worse, in my opinion, than the deluxes.

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I think Bumblebee is great in both modes. Swideswipe really is on a person by person basis. I love them both and prefer them over their dlx models. Plus they look better on a shelf than their deluxe versions.

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