mikeszekely

The Cyber series is considered an offshoot of Generations, developed by Hasbro's Global Development Organization. Don't hold me to this, but I think the intention was to develop larger figures cheaper than your standard Deluxes and Voyagers for some Asian and Latin American markets. TRU used to carry them, but presently Walgreens is the only place I know of that stocks them in the US. They started off as upscaled Legends-class figures. Newer waves featured new molds, but they still borrowed a lot of engineering from previous Legends-class figures. Prior to Siege, Cyber Battalion Shockwave was pretty popular with CHUG collectors because he was the first real Voyager-sized, G1-ish option for a Shockwave. The articulation on them is pretty poor, though, and aside from Grimlock and Bumblebee every character in the Cyber series has a Siege counterpart.

One more bit about Siege repaints, probably the last for awhile. I found the Walmart-exclusive Voyager-class Siege Soundblaster at my local store, and I gave up looking in stores but found the Walgreens-exclusive Deluxe-class Siege Ratchet at Walgreens.com. Soundblaster is pretty much a straight repaint of Soundwave, which is fair because that's pretty much what the G1 version was, too. In keeping with the G1, the only major mold change is that he's got a chunky, protruding chest door. The black looks sharp, though, and the reds are a brighter, orangier color than the pinkish hues on Soundwave. Plus he's got the red eyes I wish that Soundwave had. Ratchet, meanwhile, has a surprising amount of remolded parts. His head is different, his shoulders are different, his shins are different, his forearms are different, his pelvis is different, and while you can't really see it from this angle his bumper and his wheels are different. As far as accessories go, Soundblaster has the same accessories as Soundwave- a rifle, a shoulder cannon, and a gun that unfolds and can be used to connect his other weapons. Ratchet, meanwhile, trades Ironhide's hammer cannon thing for a boxy thing at the end of a multi-hinged stick, a wrench, and something that could either be a pistol or a medical tool. I covered articulation and 5mm ports when I reviewed Soundwave and Ironhide, so I won't get into it again. Suffice to say that you'll be able to arm up Soundblaster the way you'd want, and Micromaster Ravage and/or Laserbeak can fit into his chest. Ratchet can hold his tools, and the hinged stick is mean to go into his back and hold one of his tools over his head. Your mileage may vary, but I'll mention that the stick on the backpack box is badly warped out of the box on my copy. It leans to one side, plus it's kind of twisted, so if you try to plug it in straight it winds up a little toward Ratchet's right shoulder, aimed slightly to the right. Soundblaster's alt mode is is the same unconvincing "spaceship" that Soundwave got. I like the translucent red cockpit, but I kind of wish they'd done a little more with the repaint, like painting the molded missiles at the front of the ship. Ratchet turns into a space van, like Ironhide, with the same gaps around his biceps. I have to say, though, that I think Ratchet pulls it off a lot better. The fact that his shoulders are white lends the vehicle a cohesiveness that the random gray on Ironhide was lacking. The new bumper actually looks more like a bumper, and the new molded detail on his shoulders is evocative of an ambulance's light bar. Ratchet has an official third mode, although it's less a mode and more a "hey, if you only get halfway through the transformation it kind of looks like the sled the G1 toys came with." Basically his legs are pegged together, his head is tucked away and the torso swiveled into van mode, but that's about it. But you can plug in his accessories, and yeah, it is kind of like the G1 toy's sled or a mobile med bay. The new molding on the forearms even comes into play, as you can see that the molded details look like little tools laying on them. So there we go. Soundblaster looks good, but feels less necessary. I wouldn't lose sleep if you can't find one, but if you do see one and you like the colors he's no worse than Soundwave. But I do recommend you try to hunt down a copy of Ratchet. He pulls off the mold better than Ironhide does, and the new accessories and remolded parts show that they put some care into him instead of just cashing in on an obvious repaint.

In the official thread we were discussing the lack of a proper Legends-class Huffer or Pipes for use with Generations (as opposed to a Legends-class Huffer for a 3P Legends-class collection), and I said that I'd be exploring other solutions. I also mentioned that, while I liked the Legends Swerve a good bit that I didn't feel like the mold worked as well for Gears. Well, here's the solutions I came up with, from a brand called Mechanic Studios (which is apparently an offshoot of MechFansToys). This is Engineer, aka Huffer, and Rocke, aka Gears. Rocke's walking a fine line between G1 cartoon and toy. That is to say, it's mostly the cartoon Gears I remember, but with the toy's chunky, tire-laden arms. Engineer, meanwhile, has the visible tires of the G1 toy but is otherwise pure G1 cartoon. And you can see that they're very similar in size to the official Legends-class minibots, which is what I'm looking for. I'm definitely into what Mechanic Studio is doing here aesthetically, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that heavy Sunbow influence isn't a perfect match for the stylized Generations minibots or the greebly Siege figures from the official lines. Honestly, that's making me want Mechanic Studio to do more of these guys to replace my official minibots more than it's making me want to look for other alternatives, though. Do note that Mechanic Studios has released these molds as Pipes and Swerve, under the names Heikew and Spiale, respectively. I've got Heikew on the way; he and Hasbro's Power of the Primes Outback just about finish off my Generations minibots. I'm passing on Spiale, though, because I like the IDW influence of the official Swerve. Rocke comes with two guns, one with a cool metallic blue paint job, the other just black plastic. His instructions suggest that the blue gun is meant for him but the black one was designed for Spiale. Engineer comes with a blowtorch hand. Rocke also comes with a power suit and two attachments for the power suit. Engineer comes with a power suit, a storage box, two claw attachments, and a rifle for the power suit. They seem to be knock of Diaclone reboot things that don't have anything really to do with Rocke and Engineer, so I'm not going to get into them. Just letting you know what was in the boxes. Compared to other 3rd-party Legends figures the articulation on these guys is very basic and closer to a Hasbro Legends figure, which is fine since I'm putting them with official Hasbro Legends figures. Rocke's head scan swivel. His shoulders don't actually move; they're just posts with ball pegs at the ends that fit into sockets in his chest. This does allow them to rotate and provide him with limited butterfly joints, but it also means that his lateral movement is also limited. He does have bicep swivels, and his elbows can bend a little under 90 degrees. No wrist or waist swivels. His hips are ball joints that can go under 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees can bend maybe 45 degrees, although you can cheat and get more if you open the back of his legs for transformation. He has no ankle or foot articulation, but they're shaped to give him flat feet with a slight A-stance. Engineer's a little better. His head swivels, and his ball-jointed shoulders can rotate and extend laterally about 60 degrees. His elbows are ball joints that can bend slightly over 90 degrees as well as act as a bicep swivel. No wrist or waist articulation. The front of his pelvis is on a hinge and can move out of the way to get his hips a little less than 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally (but slightly more than Rocke). He has thigh swivels, but they're right above his knees, and swiveling them will actually hinder his knee bend. With his thighs nice and straight, though, he can bend his knees well beyond 90 degrees. Like Rocke, his feet have no articulation but the bottoms are slightly angled. Rocke can hold both of his guns, but the blue one is a little tighter. Maybe they didn't account for the paint. Engineer can hold his blowtorch. Note, though, that Rocke's weapons do not fit into Engineer's hands. Also note that standard Transformers weapons with a 5mm peg won't fit, as they're too large, and weapons from 3P Legends or the Diaclone reboot with 3mm pegs have handles that are too small for these guys. Both Rocke and Engineer have alt modes that are very Sunbow. The only big difference is that Mechanic Studio painted Engineer's lights, and he's got purple smokestacks where the cartoon actually had orange ones. Rocke, meanwhile, is just missing a small patch of gray on his hood. And the transformation for both figures is very simple and obvious, along the lines of a Hasbro Legends or even a G1 toy. Once again, I think they look great but I'm not sure the Sunbow aesthetic matches the official Legends very well. Both figures roll fine, and there's a peg hole on the top of Rocke's roof you can peg one of his guns into. There isn't such a place on Engineer, but his fists are technically available. Neither of these figures is going to end up on anyone's list of best 3P or best Legends-class figures. Many 3Ps working in this scale are churning out mini Masterpiece figures, while these guys are simple figures with very basic articulation. They are, however, inexpensive figures, at around $18-$20 each, and Engineer especially fills a niche in my collection that a better but smaller figure like Magic Square's Strong Man is a little short for. If you're looking for a Legends-class Gears or Huffer to go with your Magic Square or New Age figures then these guys aren't what you're looking for, but if you're looking for a Huffer or a more cartoony Gears to go with your official Legends-class minibots on your Generations/Siege shelf then these two should fit the bill nicely.

I'm curious how Strong Man looks with one of the official Legends. I have a few Magic Square figures, but 3P Legends are usually a different thing where the bigger bots are the size of Hasbro Legends, and then the minibots scale to that. As an example, my Magic Square Beachcomber comes up to about the middle of Hasbro Beachcomber's chest. So I get the feeling that MS Legends are too small for CHUG. I'm exploring some other alternatives, though. Stay tuned.

So DX9 released some pictures of their Motormaster and the combined mode frame, apparently due to release very soon. Since it's the most complete Menasor shown so far (Fans Toys still just has the renders, and X-Transbots is still showing painted prototypes) the reveal is generating some buzz. Is DX9 worth holding out for? If you've already started XTB or FT's should you switch? Well, I don't think anyone can definitively say yet, but there is one Stunticon that's been released by all three companies, and to give the fairest comparison possible after already looking at X-Transbot's Crackup and Fans Toys' Spoiler I decided to buy and review Montana, DX9's take on Breakdown, too. My initial impression is that Montana looks pretty good. The height is the same as Fans Toys and taller than XTB's or an MP carbot, which will please some and put off others. As I mentioned when I reviewed Spoiler, white isn't exactly accurate, but I do dig the clean look of the blue and white, and Montana is the purest white of the three. I also dig how his waist is a little narrower than the rest of his torso and hips. If we look a little closer, though, we start to see a few things that I don't exactly care for. From this front angle, you can see he's got a little kibble on the outsides of his biceps and forearms, and the car windows that make the outside of his legs don't sit flush to his shins. He's also got the cartoony rounded fingers, which I know some people like but I honestly hate. It's unfortunately that some visible screws are smack in the middle of his biceps. He's also got a few paint imperfections. Taking a look at the back and sides and the problems I have with him become a little more clear. His forearms are made from car kibble, and from the inside edge or the outside edge you can see weird gaps where the folded panels don't align. As part of the transformation his hips slide down lower in his pelvis, and without any side skirts there's a pretty visible gap there. The car doors that make up most of his shins leave gaping holes in his calves. It sounds like I'm being hyper-critical, and I suppose I am a bit, because I actually think Montana beats out XTB's in the looks department. I think the battle between DX9 and Fans Toys is a lot closer, though, and I'm leaning toward Fans Toys. Montana comes with just two accessories, his gun and that thing from that episode. Seriously, I'm not exactly sure what it is, I just know that in "The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 1," when Megatron is building the Stunticons out of the cars Rumble stole, that Megatron sticks this thing in the Countach's engine compartment. Whatever it is, it's totally hollow on the other side. As for the gun, the sculpt is similar to ones from XTB and Fans Toys, but the details seem a little flatter. Montana's head seems to be on a ball joint, so it can swivel, he can look down a fair bit, and up just little, but he can't really tilt his head sideways. His shoulders rotate, and because of the transformation hinges he can move his shoulders laterally over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows can bend nearly 180 degrees. His wrists can swivel, and because the rotating panel that they fold out on doesn't lock in place they can also bend in and out. His thumb hinge open and closed at the base, and all of his fingers are similarly hinged at the base with the index finger separate from the other three, but they're all molded into a curve. That's fine, I think, for smaller bots I think Montana should have had fully-articulated hands like FT's. His waist can swivel, and he's got about 45 degrees of ab crunch. His hips can go forward 90 degrees if you move his hip skirt, which unfortunately moves as one solid piece, and about 45 degrees backward. They move laterally over 90 degrees on really soft ratchets (kind of weird that every joint is a friction joint except the one joint I don't usually like to be a ratchet). His thighs do swivel around the hip joints, but they're very limited until his legs have spread out more than 45 degrees. His knee is a single hinge good for 90 degrees. For transformation there's another swivel below the knee. His feet can tilt down slightly, and he's got about 45 degrees of ankle pivot, plus his ankle swivels. All-in-all not bad, but still the worst of the three for articulation. I should also point out that, while not terrible, the joint tolerances on my copy of Montana are much looser than on XTB or FT's. Speaking of loose, you might notice that there's no tabs on the handle on Montana's gun. He holds it with the friction in his finger and thumb hinges, and yeah, it's a little loose. If there was one moment when people started committing to XTB over DX9 (Fans Toys wouldn't even announce theirs until Crackup and Montana were already available), it was when they saw the car mode. I've already covered how XTB's has overall dimensions that are very close to MP Sideswipe/Red Alert (and presumably Sunstreaker, although I never picked up MP-39). And despite being much taller in robot mode, Fans Toys managed to keep Spoiler's alt mode the same length and just a little wider. DX9 was unable to work the same magic that Fans Toys did. It's as wide as Fans Toys, but significantly longer with XTB and FT's front ends only reaching about halfway through the red hood on DX9's. There's other things I find off about Montana. The grills in front of the intakes aren't black like they are on the other two, and the intakes themselves are blue (because they end up forming his foot). The triangular indent for the door handle is also blue instead of black like the other two. Where we actually find black, ringed with blue, is on the rear of the car Well, at least Montana cleans up as well as the other two from the underside, and you can see that he does have rubber tires down there. And one point in Montana's favor is that he's probably the easiest of the three to transform. The handle on Montana's gun folds in to reveal a smaller tab that should, in theory, fit into his roof. In practice, the tolerance is a little off and it doesn't really want to fit in there all that well. And like FT's Spoiler Montana's doors do open to reveal some robot flank, and his headlights do pop up. His hood doesn't open, though. Montana is a pretty good figure. In another universe, where Montana was the only MP-ish Breakdown on the market I think a lot of people would have bought him and been satisfied. They may have grumbled that the car is out of scale with MP Sideswipe, but (especially when we start talking about the Combaticons and the Protectobots) we tend to be a little accepting of the fact that the needs of the gestalt and robot mode usually trump alt-mode scale. The problem is that we don't live in that universe, we live in the one where DX9 has two major competitors releasing Breakdowns that are also quite good. In one, X-Transbots, you have the alt mode that scales with the other MP cars (and the robot mode, if you think that the Stunticons should be the same height as the Autobot cars). In the other, you've got the extra robot mode size and a car that's much closer in scale with the MP carbots. In both you've got better articulation, better joint tolerances, and a better grip on their guns. Montana is cleaner in robot mode than Crackup, but not Spoiler. The only area where I think Montana has a clear win is ease of transformation, but I have to stress that Crackup isn't bad there, just a little inelegant, and FT's is one of the best, most intuitive transformations they've come up with in years. Reluctantly, I have to concede that Fans Toys and XTB have better options for various reasons, and as the third-best Breakdown I can't actually recommend Montana. However, I ultimately have to stress that this is based entirely on Breakdown and Breakdown alone. Maybe some of DX9's other Stunticons can win out over XTB or Fans Toys. What's more, a great Stunticon doesn't guarantee a great Menasor, and as far as I'm concerned the field is still wide open there. Truthfully, while I think I'm definitely on board for the rest of FT's Stunticons to display as the uncombined Stunticons I'm still very much undecided on an MP Menasor.

The sad thing is I'm not doing it to make a statement or anything. I just really don't want to install yet another client on my PC. Yeah, I'm at the 40 hour mark and if I had to guess I'd say I'm maybe at the halfway point. It's really good though! I'd rank it up there with DQVII.

Casual Vader is casual. "Don't underestimate the power of the dark chocolate."

I really want to play Outer Worlds, but I really want to play it on PC, and I refuse to install Epic's client. I did pick up Luigi's Mansion, though. I need to finish Dragon Quest XI first.

My order says "arriving by the 27th," so I've probably got until the 24th or so to save. EDIT: Or not. Amazon emailed me to day with an "actually, it'll arrive on the 26th" message.

I've been talking a lot about Siege lately. And I think I also mentioned once that I like to have symmetry between Studio Series and Siege/Generations wherever possible. So I'm looking at the 2007 movie characters, who are nearly complete now in the Studio Series line (Megatron and Bumblebee are both in the Studio Series line, but I guess I'm technically still waiting for 2007 Camaro Bee and 2007 movie Megatron). And then I look at Siege. We've got Siege Optimus, Ironhide, Ratchet, Megatron, Starscream, and Barricade. Combiner Wars gives us Brawl and Bonecrusher, and I've got both Power of the Primes Jazz and Reveal the Shield Jazz. Short of Hasbro Hasbro repainting Springer I doubt we'll get a Siege Blackout. So that just leaves Bumblebee from the first movie. I have to think that Bumblebee will get made in the War for Cybertron trilogy sooner or later, especially with Cliffjumper getting a Deluxe in Earthrise, it did get me thinking about there aren't any Legends-class figures in Siege or Earthrise (so far). However, if we look into the pre-Siege catalog of Generations toys just about every minibot has been covered. Now, this isn't meant to be a detailed review for any of these guys. It's just going to be a quick overview of what's available to pair with your Siege figures. Since all but one of the figures I'm going to talk about is a Legends-class you can expect head swivels, ball-jointed shoulders that may or may not be limited laterally, ball-jointed elbows pulling double-duty as bicep swivels, no wrist or waist articulation, ball-jointed hips, ball-jointed knees doubling as thigh swivels, and no foot or ankle articulation. Many of these figures came with no accessories, or they came with some kind of goofy Micromaster-esque contraption, and we're just going to ignore those for now. We'll start with Bumblebee and Brawn. Both seem like fine representations of the characters. A repaint of Brawn with a new head is also available as Outback. For whatever reason Hasbro skipped the obvious Cliffjumper repaint of Bee and went for Roadburn, aka Throttlbot Chase, instead. Brawn does have something like a shield, but if you don't want it on his arm it can tab onto his back. Instead of turning into a Beetle Bee turns into a generic hatchback. No big deal. Brawn looks a bit more heavy-duty than a pure G1 version, but it gets the job done. Note that the shield clips into his toes and hides the gab by turning into the rear vehicle roof. Also, as part of the Titans Return line, they both open up and have room for a Titan Master inside. Brawn's roof relies on friction to stay closed, which is a little annoying. Next we have Windcharger and Tailgate. Windcharger here is from Titans Return, Tailgate is pre-Combiner Wars, but I'll note that this version of Windcharger was redone as Tailgate for Power of the Primes, and this version of Tailgate exists as Windcharger as well. I'm showing them off this way, though, because Titans Return Windcharger has a more G1 Windcharger feel, while the pre-Combiner Wars mold is meant to give Tailgate a more IDW appearance. Which makes sense. Sure, Tailgate did appear in the third season of the cartoon, but everyone loves him from More Than Meets the Eye. That said, the Titans Return mold feels a lot better in hand, with less kibble on his back and hips. I'll probably pick up the PotP Tailgate. Both molds turn into sports cars. Neither is really a Firebird, again to avoid paying for a license, but Tailgate here is sort of evocative of a late second-gen Firebird, and Windcharger is a little closer to the third-gen Firebird the G1 toy is based on. You have to half transform him, but Windcharger's got that seat for a Titan Master. Both Gears and Swerve pre-date the Prime Wars, but I really like this mold as Swerve. As with Tailgate, they were clearly trying to capture the much more popular IDW version, where he was was a main character about the Lost Light (vs G1, where he's best known for getting stepped on by Trypticon). Since Gears and Swerve were the same mold back in G1, it made sense that Hasbro would repaint Swerve (yes, Generations Swerve came first), but painting Swerve as Gears and popping a new head on doesn't really work for me. He just doesn't look grumpy enough. The alt modes are fine, though. Again, they look a little heavier-duty than the G1 toys, but they work. Especially Swerve. If I'm not mistaken, Seaspray is part of Titans Return, and Beachcomber part of Power of the Primes. Both are adequate representations of the G1 characters, though. Seaspray's gut comes off, and he can kind of use it as a missile launcher or something. Despite being part of separate lines, both figures have the same gimmick where a Titan Master can ride inside. I guess it's up to you if you really need Seapsray's gut in alt mode or not. Cosmos here came with one of those goofy aforementioned Micromaster-esque figures when he was first released pre-Prime Wars. He was re-released in a slightly darker green without the Micromaster during Titans Return, though. Either way, he's not the tubby little guy from G1, but a fun little figure nonetheless. Powerglide was part of Combiner Wars. His landing gear works as a 5mm peg, and the idea was that he could have a third mode as a gun for Superion. Cosmos' UFO mode is pretty cool. Powerglide is definitely strongly influenced by the G1 version, but I wish his legs folded more like the G1 toy instead of just sticking together and leaving a gray section on the fuselage. Wheelie is... well, he's Wheelie. He sucks, but with all the other movie characters that appeared in the Titans Return line he was kind of inevitable. Warpath is the one minibot that I'm going to suggest not using a Legends-class figure for. Don't get me wrong, Legends Warpaths do exist... there's the 2008 version, when Legends were extra tiny (from a time that also included versions of Wheelie, Beachcomber, Brawn, and Cosmos, BTW). There's also a so-so release during Combiner Wars, but it was a repaint of Megatron and lacked the chest channon. Meanwhile, the Deluxe figure has help up fantastically. I don't know about you guys, but with a lot of the "good" Classics/Universe/Generations releases pre-Prime Wars I'm going back and thinking they're not as good as I remember, but that's definitely not the case with Warpath. Besides, despite being a minibot he was always animated closer in size to a carbot, so it still works. Both look good in vehicle mode, but I have to emphasize look in the case of Wheelie. He tabs together fairly poorly and is prone to coming apart. He does have the seat for a Titan Master, though. By my count, excluding toy-only characters like Hubcap or Bumper, that means the only Autobot minibots we don't have are Cliffjumper, Huffer, and Pipes. Cliffjumper, as we've already noted, will be released as a Deluxe-class figure in Earthrise. As for Huffer and Pipes, they were actually both released in the Combiner Wars line, but both are repaints of Legends Optimus with new heads. Sorry, sticking Huffer/Pipes' head on Optimus' body and painting it orange/blue doesn't really make for Huffer/Pipes to me. While we're talking Legends, let's take a moment to mention the Decepticons. For the most part, the Decepticons tended to be bigger than the Autobots. The smallest ones in the cartoon seemed like Soundwaves's tapes, Reflector, and the Insecticons. As we know, Soundwaves' tapes are turning up as Siege Micromasters, and we just got a Deluxe Reflector. So how about the Insecticons? It took awhile, but we got all three Insecticons. Shrapnel came first, pre-Prime Wars (although he'd be re-released during Power of the Primes), then Bombshell during Combiner Wars, and Kickback arriving last during Titans Return. Because of this, some elements like the shades of purple being used and the gold chests don't exactly match (they might have matched even less, but I actually repainted parts of mine to be a little more G1). They didn't come with guns. However, for around $10-12 you can buy this upgrade kit from Dr Wu that includes guns for each of them. Of the three, Bombshell is probably my favorite, partly due to being my favorite Insecticon in the first place, partly because I think he works pretty well. Kickback's the runner up, he's close to being great and his chest even opens to allow a Titan Master to stand in it, but the way his arms tuck under to form an abdomen the G1 toy never had is a little awkward. Speaking of awkward, Shrapnel suffers from having the biggest, least posable bug legs. If you buy the Dr Wu guns, they do have storage in alt mode. There's a slit on the side of Bombshell's gun that fits onto the black horn in front of his proboscis. Kickback's has a tab on the handle that fits into a slit on his arms/abdomen. Shrapnel's simply plugs into a 5mm port exposed on his middle after transformation. And that, friends, is that- all the official Legends-class figures you can use with your Siege collection. None of them are mind-blowing figures you're going to rate as one of the best in your collection, none are truly awful. They're all kind of adequate (except for Warpath, he's pretty great).

I got my preorder in at Amazon, and they're saying it's not coming until late November. Fine with me, I need the time to save up.

Cang Toys pretty much confirmed on Weibo that the people who designed this designed TFC's Seacons. Which doesn't necessarily preclude them from doing more Zoid-like ones for CT, but I'd be surprised if they did.

And for that third pack-in figure we have to delve into the depths of Transformers obscurity. It's time to talk about the Powerdashers. During the '80s Transformers packaging came with the tech specs everyone remembers, but also "Robot Points" that could be clipped off and saved. During the original G1 run there were a few characters that you could only get by sending some money and Robot Points in with the mail-order form that came with some Transformers. The most famous of these would probably be Reflector, as he/they were only one to appear in the cartoon. And at the other end of the spectrum we have the Powerdashers, the characters Hasbro couldn't be bothered to name. As I understand it you didn't actually pick which one you wanted, you just said you wanted a Powerdasher and got one back at random. And indeed, what little bio Hasbro came up with at the time was used for all three toys, and sort of implies that they're three different forms of one guy named Powerdasher. Some fans referred to them by their Diaclone names: F1 Dasher, Sky Dasher, and Drill Dasher. In Italy and France the Powerdashers were licensed before Transformers and were named Aragon, Cromar, and Zetar, and Zetar was the name used by Ultra Magnus when the Powerdashers appeared in a flashback during Roberts' run on More Than Meets the Eye at IDW. Apparently, Hasbro is making those names official as they see new life in the SIege line. Despite Hasbro managing to release new molds for the Jumpstarters, the Monsterbots, the Duocons, and both the Autobot and Decepticon clones in recent lines the Powerdashers get no such love in Siege. Instead, each one is a repaint of one of the three Weaponizers released so far. So first we have Aragon, the F1 Dasher. He's the one that came packed with Decepticon Impactor and Holo Mirage, and he's a repaint of Cog with a new head. The new head is a fair representation of the G1 toy. The red slab of a body, red arms, black shins, and silver feet work ok and aside from the silver bits on his shoulders and the two pylons flanking his head the shape isn't too far off. He's even got the wheels on his hips like the G1 toy did. I think maybe the silver around his knees should have stayed black, though, and it's actually his red thighs that should have been silver. The big problem I have here, and this will be a running theme, is the alt mode. As a repaint of Cog, his official alt mode is now a red, black, and silver whatever Cog is. He even splits into the separate Gasket and Grommet units. He's definitely not an F1 Dasher anymore. One of the advantages of being a Weaponizer, though, is that you can pull things apart and reconfigure them. So, can we reconfigure Aragon into something closer to his G1 alt mode? Actually, yeah. You can fold in his head like normal, but leave the waist attached the way it is in robot mode. Instead, just spin it 180 degrees, then pull his legs off, fold in his thighs, and peg the legs onto his robot-butt. You can leave his guns off- I'm ok with losing the guns for alt mode. Unfortunately, there's no good place to stash his arms, and no real way to fill in the gap between his collar pylons. Zetar, the Drill Dasher, is the only Powerdasher I really wanted. I mean, he's a repaint of Brunt, and I loved Brunt. Plus, I'm from the Pittsburgh area, and black and gold are kind of our thing. Apparently I'm not the only one; he's a Generations Selects figure, and sold out on Hasbro Pulse. I managed to find on on Ebay with minimal markup. Again, the only new part is the head, which is pretty cool because he's wearing a drill for a hat. Using Brunt for his base means he's not as blocky as the G1 toy, and he's got Brunt's crab claws instead of fists. But I still think it's a pretty cool aesthetic. Zetar transforms exactly the same as Brunt, except the drill comes off of his head and attaches to his chest. His instructions don't mention the shoulder gun that forms the tip of Brunt's barrel, but it's there. With it attached to the big tank barrel made of legs the drill seems too small to drill a hole big enough to move the tank through. I kind of thought it might be cool if the big tank cannon ended in the drill, but the drill has a hole, not a peg, so there's no way to connect them. Obviously, the G1 toy didn't have Brunt's big cannon. Can we make Zetar's alt mode more G1? Almost. For starters, ditch the shoulder cannon accessory, it's just not necessary. Now, both of his thighs have peg holes; it's what his back plate plugs into. And his lower legs also have peg holes on one side. I think a simple 3D printed part to replace his back plate, something with peg holes to attach to his back in robot mode and his thighs in tank mode, but something that has 5mm pegs on the other side instead of the swively dome and peg holes for mounted the legs as a cannon, would let you attach the legs laying flat in a manner that's similar to his G1 alt mode. Cromar, the Sky Dasher, is the one I was least interested in, but after picking up Zetar and the pack that happened to have Aragon I figured I might as well complete the set. Like Zetar he's a Generations Select figure, and last I checked he was still available at Hasbro Pulse. And I'm just not a fan. The new head, while fairly accurate to the G1 toy, reminds me of a clown. His torso, instead of being a nice, black slab, is broken up by too much molded detail and silver paint. The back guns are an unnecessary holdover from Sixgun. He just doesn't look all that great. Even if they weren't G1-accurate, Zetar and Aragon look visually interesting compared to their mold-mates. Cromar just looks bad next to Sixgun. Sixgun didn't exactly have the best alt mode in the first place. I could let it slide with him, though, since the G1 toy was literally a tower for Metroplex and six guns in alt mode, and you can still get six guns usable by other Transformers out of Siege Sixgun. Cromar is supposed to be a jet, though, so the un-aerodynamic amalgamation of guns and mangled torso don't quite fly for me. Unfortunately, of the three Siege Powerdashers Aragon is the only one I can't configure in some way that I'm more pleased with. It has a lot to do with Sixgun's design; for all the pegs and peg holes he's sporting none of them seem to be arranged in any way that lets you connect his back and hips except the default way, so no matter what you always end up with the cockpit over that large box. So, should you add the Powerdashers to your Siege collection? Probably not. The only way to get Aragon is to buy the $70 3-pack, and while that will get you the better version of Impactor you're still going to want a retail version of Mirage. Save yourself some cash, get the retail version of Impactor, and call it a day. Cromar is an ugly, inaccurate robot with an ugly, inaccurate alt mode, good only for pulling apart to arm up your other Siege figures. Zetar's the only one that I think is actually pretty cool on its own.

However tall Titan-class Fortress Maximus is, I think 23”. But I'm good with anything between Maketoys Utopia and Hasbro Fort Max in size. Anything bigger, though, and I just don't have room.

I've talked about Combat Megatron, the Seekers, and the Datsuns. But over the last couple of... well, months, actually, I've picked up a few other Siege repaints. As a kid I never owned an actual Shockwave. I did read the Marvel comics as kid, though, and I really wanted a Shockwave. I wound up getting the next best thing... a Galactic Man from Radio Shack. So when Hasbro announced they were doing a Galactic Man repaint as Generations Selects figure I preordered immediately. Nothing new here mold-wise, so if you had a hard time justifying paying a Leader price for what's honestly more of a Voyager, then Shackwave probably isn't for you (although Target seems to have marked regular Shockwave down to $30 online, so if you passed over the price before now's your chance to get him for a Voyager price). But to me the dark gray body and red mono eye look as good as they did in the '80s. Shackwave comes with the exact same accessories, and they function exactly the same as before. It's interesting, though, that his extra bits are actually black, and they have more silver paint. This allows Shackwave to have have a bit more color break up than regular Shockwave. That color breakup is especially noticeable in alt mode, where the his gun barrel... er, I mean, his bow is a silvery plastic. You don't have to go to Hasbro Pulse and buy Generations Selects to get repaints, though. Red Alert here is a mainline release. As was the case with the G1 and MP toys, Red Alert's body is a copy of Sideswipe's, just with a different deco. However, Hasbro did give him a slightly remolded head, with smaller ears than Sideswipe's. It's a nice little touch that makes him more animation-accurate, and Hasbro could have gotten away without doing it and most people probably would have been fine that way, so it's doubly-appreciated. In addition to the slightly different head, Red Alert comes with totally different accessories- a black rifle with a pair of 5mm peg holes on the butt, and a light bar. I say Sideswipe is a good mold, and Red Alert makes sense as a repaint, so go ahead and pick him up. Impactor and Mirage hitting shelves in the current wave of Siege figures is all well and good, but you might remember that their inclusion in Siege was part of a fan poll. And that fan poll listed them as "Mirage Vs. Impactor." Doesn't make sense if they're both Autobots, right? So while regular Impactor and regular Mirage are hitting regular retail, a "Fan Vote Battle 3-pack"* is available as an Amazon-exclusive containing Decepticon Impactor. Right away, the most obvious difference is that Decepticon Impactor has a different head, sporting the Spartan helmet design he wore in IDW, a look I greatly prefer. Of course, that's not the only differnce. It's hard to tell from pictures, but the yellow paint is a slightly different shade, and his knees are red. He's got caution markings on his chest and shoulders, silver accents under his pecs and on the sides of his shoulders, the venting between his pecs is now painted black, more of his shoulder cannon is painted purple, and some of the yellow is actually painted. Plus, while he's still got some of that Siege dirt on his legs, it's darker and not as thick. Oh, and his Autobot insignia is swapped out for a Decepticon one. Now, most of this stuff is done to make him look less Marvel and more IDW, which is fine, except for one thing- Marvel Impactor is a short-lived, UK-only character. However, by this point I think fans in general are much more familiar with Nick Roche's IDW series Last Stand of the Wreckers and would have greatly preferred this version of Impactor at retail instead of part of a $70 box set, and I'm sure Hasbro knew it but put him in the box set to get suckers like me to buy it. Or, put another way, this is the better version of Impactor, but you should probably just buy the retail one. BTW, he wasn't a Decepticon in the IDW comics, nor do I even recall him and Mirage appearing in the same story at any point during the IDW run. So Impactor as a Decepticon fighting Mirage still doesn't make sense. An Impactor Vs Mirage fan-vote multi pack with Impactor would obviously have Mirage, too. The box labels this one as Holo Mirage, and he's mostly made of a blue translucent plastic with some solid blue plastic for some joints. Presumably this is Mirage turning invisible. If we zoom in, though, we can see that there's some deco differences beyond simply being translucent. For starters, he's actually got a new head sculpt based on the G1 toy. It kind of makes me wish they'd just done a solidly-colored, toy-style Mirage, because then I'd have considered skipping the retail releases of both Mirage and Impactor in favor of this box set, but no, retail Mirage is still the one you want. In addition to the head, you can faintly see a "26" instead of an Autobot insignia on his chest, some letters on his left shoulder whose meaning escapes me, and "Visages" on his right shoulder (including the quotes). For those of you that don't know, when Mirage joined the crew of the Lost Light in the excellent IDW series More Than Meets the Eye he opened a bar called "Visages" (yes with the quotes) on the ship. Although not an exact match, the cursive font, use of quotes, and the three lines flanking the text is meant to be not just the word, but the bar's logo. It's a cool touch. Ultimately, I like Holo Mirage more than I thought I would, but still not enough to recommend you go buy a box set and skip on the retail release. One last final shot of some alt modes. Again, mostly what you'd expect. Mirage looks kind of neat, but his alt mode has the same issues as before. Impactor is still one of the better Siege figures, and the Decepticon version looks better, but most people should probably just stick with the regular retail release. Red Alert's as good as Sideswipe and worth picking up, although I wish he had more obvious "Fire Chief" markings instead of the Cybertronian. *Yes, 3-pack, that's not a typo. There's a third figure in the box with Impactor and Mirage, but we're going to talk about him next time.

I'm way too lazy to decorate, but we did put out a projector, and I got some pumpkins to carve with my wife and daughter tomorrow evening. When Halloween rolls around my wife will take my daughter trick-or-treating as Elsa and Olaf, and I'll sit outside with my neighbor and hand out candy. This year I'm going to be Casual Vader (Black Series helmet, gloves, a t-shirt with Vader's armor screen-printed on it, black sweats, slippers, a bathrobe, and a "Best Dad Ever" mug).

A long time ago Generation Toy announced a Defensor, and I reviewed the first member of that team, Sarge/Streetwise, over a year and a half ago here. And while they're still not done, they have released more figures, I just didn't buy them. Some of that was a quality thing; you may recall that I had some issues with Sarge, and while I liked their next non-Protectobot release (their Optimus Primal) better I felt like the materials GT uses simply aren't as good as what companies like MMC, Fans Toys, DX9, Maketoys, etc were using. Mostly it was a shift in my collecting, though. I was running out of shelf space, I made a choice to focus more on G1 Masterpiece-style figures, and started selling off anything that didn't fit that bill. Smaller combiners, like GT's Devastator and Warbotron's Bruticus, were being packed away to make room for larger ToyWorld/Zeta versions. Now, I'm sure I've talked about this before, but I was a fan of IDW's pre-reboot Transformers stuff, especially Roberts' and Milne's More Than Meets the Eye. Characters that I didn't care about (or perhaps was only dimly even aware of), like Tailgate, Swerve, Skids, Whirl, and Rewind become fan favorites. So naturally, when First Aid took over as the chief medical officer of the Lost Light he became my favorite Protectobot, and even though GT's IDW-ish, modernized designs and 15" combiners weren't really doing it for me anymore I went ahead and picked up Bulance, their version of First Aid. Discussing the aesthetics of these figures when they're not supposed to be purely G1 is always a little tricker because deviations aren't inaccuracies, they're stylistic choices. That being said, I dig this design quite a bit. He's got a good head sculpt and the wheels in his chest that G1 First Aid does, he's got good proportions, and he manages to avoid being super blocky or super kibbly. Even when you look at him from the back or sides he's got thinner calves and a smaller, tighter backpack than TFC's version, the Combiner Wars version, and arguably the G1 toy. I do have some notes, though, and it mostly comes down to me wishing almost all the silver paint was another color. His torso and pelvis should be almost entirely red. I don't mind a few accents to break things up, but so much of his chest is painted silver it looks more like silver with red accents instead of red with silver accents. And his waist and pelvis actually are silver instead of red. There's silver on his face and biceps, too, and while you don't often hear me saying this, I think this is one of the few times I actually do think white would have been a better choice. Heck, I think even red would have been better than silver on his biceps. Bottom line, whether you're talking G1 or IDW, First Aid is basically red and white, and the excessive silver on Bulance diminishes that. Bulance comes with a pistol that's pretty typical GT fare. He also comes with a trailer. Now, to be totally fair, I have seen mobile disaster relief/triage trailers before. This is a thing. It's just that the ones I've seen tend to be boxier, utilitarian affairs. Despite what appears to be a stretcher on the top this trailer really looks more like a camper than anything else to me, although I admit that I can't find a specific model for this. Bulance's articulation is a bit of a mixed bag. His head is on a hinged swivel and he can look up and down a fair bit. His shoulders can rotate on some horribly-tolerances, ultra squeaky friction joints, and they extend laterally a little over 90 degrees (at least they don't droop the way Sarge's do). His biceps swivel, but they're a little tight and there's a tendency for his shoulders to come untabbed from his torso. His elbow can bend over 90 degrees, and again it's a little tight and has a tendency to cause his biceps to start to collapse into the shoulders for alt mode). His wrists can swivel. His fingers are molded into a curl, pinned at the base like an MP carbot's, but the index finger is separate from the other three. His waist swivels, but the kibble tabbed into his back gets in the way a bit. His hip skirts, loose on my copy, can swivel a bit but he's still limited to about 45-ish degrees forward, 60 degrees backward, and just short of 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel around his hip joints. His knees are double-jointed and can bend about 120 degrees (just make sure you fold down the flap covering the lower joint). By design his feet can't tilt up or down, but he's got good 60-ish degree ankle pivots. However, there's a panel that tabs to a gray part that his foot is attached to. If you untab it he can tilt his foot down a little and his ankle pivot can reach 90 degrees. Theoretically Bulance holds his weapon the same way most MP and MP-style figures do. There's a tab on the bottom of the grip that should fit into a slot on his palm. Emphasis on "should," because the palm slot is probably 20-30% wider than the tab is. The tension of his fingers is enough to keep the gun from falling out of his hand, but you can tell that it's a little wobbly and loose because it doesn't actually tab in. I like Bulance's alt mode. Like TFC's version, it's a Mercedes Sprinter "Traumahawk," it's just a larger Type III version instead of a Type II. This specific Sprinter, with the more aerodynamic roof and large blue lights is pretty common in China and Hong Kong. I actually think it looks pretty good with TFC's version, but as you might guess from how it looks with the Combiner Wars version it's fairly smallish and would look out-of-scale with an MP car (or even his own teammate, Sarge). Of course, we've seen this problem with Maketoys and TFC's Defensors, too. It's just not reasonable to expect an ambulance, a car, a helicopter, and a motorcycle to form the limbs of a robot and still remain in alt-mode scale with each other (although, off the top of my head, choosing a smaller ambulance than a Type III Sprinter, and having the body stretched to expose the combiner elbow and adding whatever additional flaps to the outer shell necessary to cover it might have helped). I'm a fan of using real-world vehicles for alt modes, and Bulance is a pretty good representation of the ambulance he's supposed to be. He is a tad plain, though. I know G1 First Aid didn't have a ton of deco or markings on him, but I feel like some of the lights and the latches on the sides could have been picked out in paint. If only they hadn't blown their paint budget on all that unnecessary silver on his torso and biceps. His tires are at least a rubbery plastic, albeit a harder material than you might find on a recent Fans Toys or XTB figure. GT didn't have to do it, but some of his backpack unfolds and covers most of the bottom of the alt mode. I wouldn't say that what you wind up with looks like the real underside of an ambulance, but it is very clean and totally hides the robot parts. Just remember that after you unfurl those flaps but before you tab the nose in place and fold the flap along the bottom that you can smoosh his gun up and tab it just behind the bumper for alt/combined mode storage. You may have noticed a rectangular hole on the back of the ambulance. Although we don't have a hand yet that is where the hand will attach for arm mode. But it's also where the trailer attaches. Of course, the trailer is really less about having something for an ambulance to tow and more about GT striving to find a function for combined mode parts instead of having a large chunk of torso, hips, and thighs you leave sitting off to the side. If you split the trailer in half you can fold out the combined-mode feet and calves. Sarge and Motor (their Groove) plug into them, and there are connections at the top and back that will attach them to the gestalt's knees. Much like Sarge, Bulance is kind of a mixed bag. I like the alt mode, and although I wish there was less silver and more red on the torso I really like the robot mode's aesthetics. But GT is starting to seem like a relic of a bygone era, delivering MP-scaled robots that don't make MP-scaled combiners, that are made of inferior materials, that suffer from tolerance issues, and that sport flaps and kibble that doesn't lock in place. Bulance is a good figure, the best First Aid we've got, even. But, when I think about the stuff DX9, X-Transbots, Fans Toys, and MMC are delivering with their combiners Bulance is a definite step down in materials and engineering. This definitely isn't the G1 MP First Aid I'm looking for (although MMC will apparently be following their Bruticus up with a Defensor, so that's still coming). But even if we overlook the fact that Bulance isn't strictly G1, when I see Bulance's price tag and I think about what that'd get me from some of the other 3Ps out there the soft plastic and squeaky joints are getting harder to overlook. So I think that if you like the character, and you like this aesthetic, and you are aware of and can accept his flaws, then you may like this figure. But, generally speaking, I can't actually give Bulance a recommend.

Yeah. I mean, kudos to anyone who is getting him, but with the estimates ranging between three and four feet tall there's just no way. Shame. If they'd made it around the same size as the HasTak Titan I'd have bought it in a heartbeat. There's some talk that the head will be sold separately; I might still buy that to go with my MP Headmasters (assuming MT finishes theirs). I totally feel you here. It's like I swore off Hasbro, decided to focus on G1 MPs, got into Siege, and now I'm trolling ebay and B/S/T boards looking for stuff I had and sold. And yeah, FT has ranged from "good-looking robot with or without articulation issues I'll never transform again" to "I hate this figure so much I'm selling it because seeing it on my shelf gets me angry." That's pretty much every FT release post-Phoenix for me... except their Stunticons. I don't know if they hired a new designer or what, but for as much grief as I give FT I'm really happy with those two. Spoiler might even make my top five figures this year. EDIT: And yeah, I'm looking forward to Fans Hobby's Minerva and Armada Optimus, the rest of MMC's Bruticus and their Star Convoy, FT's Wildrider, possibly their Skydive, Warpath, and Astrotrain, and that's about it at the show. But I knew about all that stuff (and stuff that wasn't at TFCon that I still want) before today.

I'd have never noticed if you hadn't pointed it out, but now I can't unsee it. And yeah, it's baffling. Some of the stuff you've asked about, like the kink on Maverick's tail, turned out to be a necessity of the transformation. But I took another look at Spoiler's back, and no, the whole back of the car is there, and yes, they could have made the spoiler accurate and it wouldn't have affected anything.

You know, I was in the middle of typing a post about how yawn-inducing TFCon has been. I was ready to click "Submit Reply" but figured I'd check one last time for any news. And then, BOOM. Fans Toys Fortress Maximus.

No worries, it's one of those things where there was a ton of blood because the wound is wide, but it's shallow so it's healing fast. It's good enough that I took the bandage off while I grabbed a shower, and I'll get a review out before putting a new bandage on. So what do I have for you guys tonight? Fans Toys' Spoiler, their take on an MP Breakdown. Like a lot of people, I'd been buying up X-Transbots' Stunticons due to what I'd consider strong overall aesthetics, lower prices (especially Breakdown, whose first batch went for around $40), and scaling well with the official MP cars. Yet, I'd bought FT's Motormaster because it was the only one of the three that promised to turn into the whole cab, and based on how quickly it sold out so did a lot of fans. I figured I'd try at least one more of FT's, partly to see if their Motormaster was a fluke since I'm pretty cool on most of FT's stuff, partly to have a more direct A-B comparison before deciding to pay whatever price XTB ends up wanting for their Motormaster or to switch teams. My gut reaction after having the figure in hand is the same as when I first starting seeing pictures online... FT's sculpt is a little cold and lifeless. Like, just standing still, XTB's face looks more alive, and with the (cartoon-accurate) narrow waist section between his torso and pelvis and somewhat different proportions it looks more dynamic. I also like how its tires are actually part of the shoulders and not just sitting on the outside of the shoulders, and the panel lining on its pelvis. That's not to say, though, that it's a definitive win for XTB, though. I prefer the whiter color on Spoiler (which isn't as pure white as Clampdown, here), even if it's not as accurate. Same goes for the translucent blue panel in his chest. This might be more debatable, but to my eye I think silver on his torso is actually more correct than XTB's choice of white. There's been some fuss about how skinny Spoiler is. In hand, I don't find him to be all that bad. I mean, he's definitely got no butt, but from the waist up I don't have a problem with the thickness or thinness of his torso; I think we're just used to Transformers with a lot more backpack. For what it's worth, I think Spoiler cleans up a bit better than XTB's. His calves are more solid, and his tail doesn't have to bend up and around his front end just to get his spoiler on his back the way the cartoon's is. However, I do want to point out the red hood flaps on his calves and the fenders on the backs of his shoulders. They both rely on joint tension to just lay in place, and don't secure at all. The shoulder fenders aren't too bad, but I've heard of other people having looser ones than I seem to. The hood flaps are a mild nuisance. The other big, obvious difference between the two is the size. Spoiler, like DX9's version, is roughly the same size as an MP Seeker. Now, for a combiner I'm a bit more willing to overlook alt mode and even robot scale in service of the gestalt (it's the only way you can really reconcile stuff like Defensor and Bruticus). However, it's likely that I could end up with two complete sets of Stunticons, one to make Menasor and one to display as individual robots. Now, to my knowledge, the Stunticons do not appear on their own on any official scale chart, but my logic is that if the Autobots were able to impersonate the Stunticons in "Masquerade" then they should be similar in size, so I'd say that I kind of prefer the size of XTB's. Then again, that logic goes in the window in the face of a minibot like Windcharger as one of those Autobots, so I'm open to the Stunticons being bigger, as long as the alt mode isn't significantly larger than an MP Countach. Spoiler comes with basically the same accessories as his XTB counterpart's- a cartoon-accurate rifle and an alternate face. Now seems to be the case that for all three Menasors the combined mode will be a nearly-complete robot that the five Stunticons simply plug into. It also seems to be the case that XTB and DX9 are both going to form Motormaster out of just the cab or the cab and only a portion of the trailer, and that the gestalt's skeleton will be formed from the trailer. Since FT released Motormaster first, with the entire trailer integrated into the robot and no combined-mode parts in either his or Spoiler's boxes someone speculated that the combined-mode parts might be a separate purchase, which lead to the usual "the sky is falling!" posts from the community. The last word I've heard from Fans Toys is that all the parts needed to make Menasor will come with the last Stunticon, and that last Stunticon will be prices similarly to their Motormaster. I don't know if that's better or worse than selling it separately; anyway you slice I think that's going to make it one of if not the most expensive combiners to be released. You're getting good articulation for your money, at least. Spoiler's head is on a hinged swivel that can rotate, look up about 30 degrees, and even look a little bit downward. His shoulders rotate on ratchets and can extend laterally on a friction hinge just shy of 90 degrees. His biceps can swivel. It's not the prettiest sculpt, but his elbows are double-jointed and can curl nearly 180 degrees. His wrists swivel. His thumb is on a ball joint at the base for rotation and folding over his palm, and each finger is individually-articulated with a pinned knuckle at the base and middle. His waist can swivel, and he's got maybe 75 degrees of ab crunch. The thing is, you might not notice it. His abdomen locks into place for alt mode, and almost requires "oh crap I'm going to break this" force to unlock. His hip and butt flaps are hinged to allow his hips to move 90 degrees forward and 60-70 degrees backward on softish ratchets. They can also go about 75 degrees laterally, which yes is less than 90 but realistically I think that's still all you really need. His thighs swivel around the hip joints; no thigh cuts. His knees are double-jointed and can bend almost 180 degrees on friction joints. His feet can't really tilt up, but they can tilt down 90 degrees and his ankles can pivot about 45 degrees. So yeah, there are figures out there (including XTB's Breakdown) with better range in the shoulders and hips. But honestly, for actual posing I think Spoiler benefits more from the ab crunch and the great range in the knee joints than from pushing his adequate shoulder and hips those extra few degrees needed to reach 90. Sadly, he does have a little trouble holding his gun, at least on my copy. Could be FT not properly accounting for paint, but it uses the usual MP-style tab-on-handle into slot-on-palm, and it seems to take a bit of force to get it to stay in without popping back out. One of the things that impressed me the most with FT's Motormaster was that, like the G1 toy, it used the entire cab and trailer in its transformation but somehow delivered a cab that scaled with the various MP Primes/Ultra Magnuses, a trailer that wasn't much smaller than MP-10s, but a robot that was only about a head taller than the MP Primes and slightly shorter than MP Magnus. Fans Toys has that same sorcery on display here. Unlike DX9's Breakdown, which was noticeably larger in alt mode than XTB's or the official MP Countaches (with their tails lined up, XTB's Breakdown's nose wouldn't even reach DX9's headlights), Spoiler is almost the exact same length nose-to-tail as XTB or Clampdown here. You can see that details like the headlights, hoods, side mirrors, windows, vents, and spoilers are all basically in-line as well. That said, it's not perfect. Nose-to-nose you can see that Spoiler is a good bit wider than XTB's (which matches the official Countaches very well). Spoiler's also kind of puffier bottom-to-top. If you have Spoiler next to another Countach you're definitely going to notice that he's a little bit bigger, and a car (or specifically a Countach) enthusiast might see that the proportions on Spoiler are a little off. However, I'd venture that Spoiler is close enough that most laypeople will give him a pass. As long as we're comparing, we might as well look at the backs and undersides, too. Regarding the backs, my instinct was to criticize the bit of silver and blue from Spoiler's chest dangling under the the tail. Really, though, I'm not sure that it's actually that much more obtrusive than the hinged panels on both XTB's and Takara's Sideswipe mold. FT even made sure to include the quartet of exhaust tips (albeit a bit too high). I do wish they'd properly colored the taillights, though, instead of just slapping a translucent yellow bar across them. The underside cleans up nicely as well. Granted, it's a little easier to recognize Spoiler's pelvis, biceps, shoulders, chest, and abs than on XTB's, but they still don't look like obvious robot parts. The translucent bit on his chest and the detailing behind it are even a little evocative of engine bits. Given that we're talking about Fans Toys, a company that I've come to associate with horribly over-engineered transformations that at best I only feel like doing once for review and at worst put me off their stuff entirely, Spoiler's "mass shifting" is arguably less impressive than the fact that he's actually got a fairly straightforward transformation without any real clearance issues. While there are few spots where tolerances are a little too tight, especially turning his pelvis around, I'd go so far as to say that Spoiler is easier to transform than XTB's, and is perhaps the easiest FT transformation since Quakewave or their Dinobots. And when you're done, you get a car that can roll nicely on rubber tires. Spoiler's gun can be plugged into a hole just behind the roof. You can technically use that spot for robot mode gun storage, too, but the hole it pegs into is keyed to fit the tabs on the handle, so it can only go in with the barrel pointed down between his legs. Because this is apparently an important thing MP Countaches do since Sunstreaker, Spoiler's headlights do flip up, his hood does open to reveal some clutter under it, and his doors do scissor open even though there's no interior and the space inside is totally occupied by robot bits. Spoiler doesn't have the buttons for his headlights that Sunstreaker does, though, and FT doesn't leave much in the way of seams (not to mention that the doors tab into two different spots), so opening these things isn't exactly easy. You're definitely going to want to have a spudger handy. Of course, the flip side to that is that once you get everything lined up and tabbed in properly it's a very solid car. I could imagine that if you bashed someone in the head with Spoiler in his car mode nothing would be out of place after. But don't bash anyone in the head with Spoiler- FT's penchant for diecast means that Spoiler (314g) weighs more than double Sideswipe/Red Alert/First Aid (130g) and significantly more than XTB's Breakdown (192g). Which, as I brought up when I reviewed their Motormaster, might work against the combined mode. It's definitely still too early for a winner to be declared in the Menasor war. However, I can and will tell you that for Breakdown on his own, much as I do really like XTB's, I do prefer Spoiler. Yes, he's taller than XTB's or the Autobot cars, but most Decepticons are and I think that's going to make Spoiler look better next to your choice of Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Shockwave, and most especially with an MP-10-sized or larger Motormaster. Although the sculpt is a little lifeless that's easily overcome with good articulation that allows for some really dynamic poses. And the transformation is straightforward and enjoyable, and leaves you with a car that's close enough in size to the MP Countaches for my tastes. Really, it's possibly my favorite figure from Fans Toys period (with the caveat that I've never handled their Dinobots). Unless you're dead set on only one set of Stunticons and you're really worried about FT's ability to pull off the combined Menasor then Spoiler is a strong recommend from me.

Apparently there have been sightings of Siege Ratchet in DC. Good for those heading to TFCon, I guess. Meanwhile, a Walmart near Harrisburg PA set up an endcap display for Siege that's stocked with both regular figures and their exclusives. Those sorts of endcap displays are usually based on seasonal plan-o-grams (based on the stores' square footage), so don't be surprised if such a display turns up at a Walmart near you. No such luck at my local Walgreens or Walmart, of course.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I've never worked with any kind of CAD or 3D modeling software before, but I'd say I'm definitely more visual oriented ( haven't coded anything since grad school, and that was just HTML and Javascript). More mechanical than artistic... for now, I expect I'll be printing parts more than anything else. But they'll probably be fairly simple things. For example, I'm not a fan of the sword that comes with Siege Megatron, but part of it becomes his tank mode's main barrel. You can take the blades off and have him carry it as a rifle or a second smaller arm cannon, but I've thought that the most G1 thing would be to stick it on his back. Using the pegs and holes on the toy itself most of the barrel will stick up over his shoulder. I was thinking I might make a part that would basically be a 5mm peg to go into the hole on his back with a flat strip, maybe an inch long, that has a second 5mm peg on the other side, just so Megatron could carry that cannon barrel lower on his back. Still not sure what software I'll end up settling on, but you guys gave me some options to look into. And I'll see about grabbing some calipers this weekend.

Figures. I get some new stuff I want to talk about but accidentally cut a chunk of my index finger off while making dinner. I'm OK, but it's hard to type with my finger all bandaged up.

I started saving the studio Series boxes, because they have those backdrops, but after 40-some releases they were taking up too much room so I tossed them. Honestly, I don't really save 3P/MP boxes anymore, either. Unless I think there's a chance I'll sell it or unless it came with a lot of accessories I need to store is the same thing, they were just taking up too much room.