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mikeszekely

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  1. mikeszekely
    David- considering that Ares sucked (sorry, Dio), Prometheus sucked, Uranos sucked, and while for a minute their Seacons looked good, their combined Pirancon isn't working for me, I'm not going to hold on to high hopes that their Bruticus will be any good. I mean, if I can pick apart their combiners when (aside from Predaking) I didn't have strong feelings for the characters, you better believe I'm going to be picky about my favorite combiner. anime52k8, thanks, that's good. I have Generations Springer, plenty of Seekers, and MP Soundwave, so that actually helped a lot. And... well, it's a tad disappointing, because I'm more into CHUG-size figures and I think the ToyWorld Constructicons are just going to be too big for my collection, even though I think the ToyWorld ones mostly look better. I'm especially disappointed with GT's Bonecrusher... how hard is it to to fold his shovel up onto his chest, people? How is it that four different 3Ps have taken on Devastator (not counting the Legends-scale Hulkie) and only ToyWorld has done Bonecrusher right? Anyway, I take it you're going to go for the rest of the ToyWorld ones? VHD, I like Warbotron's Blast Off, Swindle, and Brawl a lot. They lost me with their Vortex and Onslaught, though. The combined mode isn't too bad, though. I wouldn't pay full price for it, but until something better comes along I'd consider it if I could get the whole set for $300 or under. Sort of like how I'm not entirely on board with Quantron's takes on the Technobots, but it's getting cheap enough...
  2. mikeszekely
    I'm glad you posted that pick, David. I was seriously considering Poseidon... I don't expect every combiner to be as good as Feral Rex, but after seeing colored pics of not-Skalor I expected better than that. Oh, and iirc, anime52k8 bought the Toyworld scavenger and the Generation Toys Scrapper. Anime52k8, can you post a size comparison with another Transformer? I don't have any Macross toys.
  3. mikeszekely
    Yeah... but gaming blows on Linux.
  4. mikeszekely
    No, it makes sense. It's got that quasi-hatchback look. But like I said, I care less about how it looks on the outside and more about how it drives. And sure, I'd love to have an S instead... but I can't justify the S's price tag. In my house (married, one kid, one income, still want money for savings/travel/toys/retirement/etc) $35,000 is already near the upper limit of my car budget.
  5. mikeszekely
    Tesla unveiled the new Model 3. It looks a tad off, but the older I get the less I care about looks and the more I care about how it handles and how comfortable a ride it is. It's starting at a reasonable $35,000. I'm thinking about putting down the grand to get on the list... they're so booked up on preorders already that by the time they get to mine it'll be close to 2020, when I planned on buying my next car anyway.
  6. mikeszekely
    And now *drumroll*... ORDIN! So yeah, Ordin is UniqueToys' Abominus, and so far the only Abominus besides G1 and the Legends-class Beast Hunters Abominuses (Abomini?). Now, a few months ago, if you wanted a modern Defensor you were pretty much stuck buying TFC's Prometheus. Today, though, there are better options in the Combiner Wars/Unite Warriors versions and probably MakeToys' Guardia (unless Vulcan sucks, which seems pretty doubtful). And, right now, if you want a modern Abominus Ordin's pretty much the only game in town. Could someone come out with something better? Maybe that one that MMC was rumored to be working on? Maybe. But I can say with confidence that Ordin is NOT a Prometheus situation. Ordin is actually pretty great. For starters, he has a great silhouette. If you ignore the bird and shark bits on his shoulders, I think he's got much more natural proportions than the only other 3P combiner I (mostly) own, Feral Rex. Like I talked about in Siegfried's review, the four guns he came with combine into one solid rifle that looks intimidating in Ordin's fist, and if it's not cool enough you can also plug in the scimitars that come with Siegfried and make it look like a crossbow. The chest and crotch plate combo scream Abominus. His big feet provide a sturdy base for him to hold some poses. Sometimes when posing him I'd find him leaning forward or backward more than I wanted, but at no point was he falling over, and nothing feels loose on him. Even his arm joints are strong enough to hold his arm in place even while he's aiming his gun. And, despite being a five-member combiner, he's got better articulation than most official Transformers. His head can look side to side and a little bit up and down. His shoulders can rotate all the way around and swing out to the sides about 90 degrees. Even better, because of the way the combiner ports fold out of Siegfried's shoulders, his shoulders can actually move back a click on the ports' ratchets. He's got two swivels in his arms, above and below the elbow joint, a wrist swivel, a waist swivel, and individually ball-jointed articulated fingers. His hips can move back and forth and about 90 degrees out to the sides, and the sides of the crotch plate are ball-jointed and can move out of the way. He's got limited thigh swivels at the hip as well, knees that can bend about 90 degrees, ankle titles, and toes that can bend up and down. In terms of size, he's a big dude with a lot of heft. He's just a little shorter than Combiner Wars Devastator, but weighs a lot more. He's significantly taller than the other Has/Tak combiners. I might have to look into a 3P Bruticus if Warbotron goes on sale. It's been almost impossible to talk about Ordin without bringing up Feral Rex. This isn't just because he's the only other 3P combiner I have; I think for a lot of people Feral Rex has been the gold standard for what a 3P combiner should be. And don't get me wrong, he deserves it. The Feralcons are well-designed toys made from quality plastic with strong joints and lots of interlocking tabs that keep everything together tightly. Each Feralcon is a good toy that, like Ordin, combines into a well-articulated larger robot with good joints that doesn't feel like he's going to fall apart. If you've heard other reviews say that Ordin is "MMC-like" there's a reason for that. These are definitely quality toys that combine into a solid combiner (I actually like all of Ordin's limbs better than Bovis and Fortis, but I still really love Tigris/Felisaber, and as far as torsos go I like Leo Dux's bot mode but Siegfried in alt-mode). It's really close as it is... I like Ordin's proportions, but the animal parts tab into Rex's limbs better, and in any case Predaking and Bruticus are my favorite combiners while the only reason I'm really aware of Abominus is because I had Hun-Gurrr as a kid. Still, if a few parts on the limbs secured just a bit better I'd be telling you definitively that Ordin is a better toy than Feral Rex. Speaking of... in a lot of reviews people were talking like Rex is bigger? He clearly looks shorter than me. Maybe those people are extending Leo Dux's legs all the way? I set them in the middle position. (Pardon my Rex, as he's still missing Tigris and Talon) Now, I've talked about the flaws with the individual members. Those flaws still stand, and are still something you should be aware of when deciding whether or not to drop five plus benjamins on this guy, but right now were talking about just Ordin himself, and I'm happy to say that Ordin is pretty close to flawless. Sure, you could complain that Troll's a leg and Hagen's an arm, but as I said before Abominus was a Scramble City combiner and Ordin's configuration was always possible for Abominus. That said, after handling Troll I can see why it was much easier to make a leg out of him. One might also complain that the mauve face, chest and crotch plate, and hands and the white head aren't accurate to the purple hand/head/armor and white face, but that's more of an aesthetic opinion than a flaw with Ordin, as his colors are perfectly accurate to the G1 toy (if anything, his mauve could stand to be a little more pink). I know that some people aren't a fan of the chest and crotch plates being separate pieces (yet, they're fine with Feral Rex's diaper?), but if we're being totally honest there's almost no way you could have gotten Abominus' armor looking as good as it does on Ordin and integrate it into Siegfried without a lot of compromises. Besides, as someone who had Hun-Gurrr as a kid, I'm used to it, and I'm used to Hun-Gurrr carrying it around as a shield. Which leads me to say that while perhaps Ordin's design choices might not be the way you'd like them to be, but they're not really flaws. No, the only thing I think is totally fair to call a flaw is the fact that Hagen and Alberich's arms don't tab in in limb mode, and Troll and Fenrir's shoulders peg in but their forearms are loose. I want to stress, though, that if you arrange them the way I described in their reviews it's not as bad as you might think. They're not just flopping around all over the place. I can play with Ordin and those arms stay pretty much how I arrange them. And if that (or the aesthetics) are a deal breaker for you, well, that's your call, but I'd hate for anyone to miss out on such a stellar toy over what are honestly pretty minor issues. TL:DR: Ordin is a stellar toy made up of good, if slightly flawed, member toys. He is absolutely worth your money. He looks and feels great, and I'm recommending him without hesitation.
  7. mikeszekely
    Hopefully, I'll have Ordin himself up tonight. Well, what can I say? It seems like you listed what's available, short of SD Grimmy, and you listed the cons of each. So, I guess go with whatever con bugs you the least, unless you can wait and see how Gigapower's offerings shake out. Personally, I'm looking at Grimshell, but then again I am sort of interested in the idea of a Dinobot combiner and, even though ToyWorld's combiner looks a little unstable I think he looks better than GCreation's. Then again, I'm strangely interested in 3P combiners in general, with my eyes on TFC's not-Piranacon, and MakeToys Guardia. Heck, if he drops to $250 again I'd consider Make Toys Quantron, and if FansProject ever does another run of him I'd really like to have Intimidator.
  8. mikeszekely
    And now, the final member of the Ordin team- Troll, UT's take on Blot. My first impression of Troll is that he makes for a pretty sleek, clean-looking bot. I mean, the original toy was a chunk, but Troll manages to retail some key details like the gray sides on his chest while having much more normal proportions. What's more, he does this with just a nondescript squarish backpack and some folded up alt-legs on his lower legs as his only kibble. The only accessory Troll comes with his one of Ordin's feet, which again splits apart into two guns and a missile launcher. The guns work pretty well, better than they did for Fenrir, either has a handheld weapon or as arm-mounted cannons. That said, Troll's still getting one of the guns that came with Siegfried. If you haven't figured it out by now, Troll is the same size as the other limbs. He's got the same articulation as the other limbs too, including the wrist swivels that Fenrir has. He even has a waist swivel, but it's a little lower than you'd expect. His feet are a little different, though. Instead of having true feet and ankle tilts like the other three limbs, just the little silver part on the front moves. He also doesn't have heel spurs, although he stays balanced on what he's got just fine without them, despite his backpack. One big knock on Troll's bot mode are these exposed, hollow spaces. The other three limbs had covers for where their fists folded in, so it's a shame that Troll doesn't. Likewise, Troll's legs could have benefited from something like Fenrir's where the alt legs could have tucked in there. The guys who designed Troll pulled off something pretty impressive here. Instead of taking the easy way out and going for the animation model, which looked like Blot hunched over a little, put on a mask, and replaced his hands with clamps, UT went for the toy's look, which means a big upper body with big arms and small lower body and tiny legs. And they really nailed it, with probably the most involved transformation of any of the Ordin team (including Siegfried). His backpack unfolds into beast arms almost magically swallow up the bot arms into his beast forearms, the inside of his waist makes his lower body, and his bot legs fold up into a new backpack while managing to leave his little beast legs behind. Of all the Ordin limbs, Troll is the only one I needed to consult the instructions on, which is good because the instruction sheets for these guys flat out suck and leave a lot out. Really disappointing if you're used to MMC's booklets. Troll's alt mode articulation is found almost entirely in his arms and legs, which are just as articulated as his bot arms and legs, right down to wrist swivels and ankle tilts. His claws are all ball-jointed and can be moved around as well. Sadly, he loses his waist swivel in this mode, and his head has basically no articulation. It can only look down a little before it starts folding into his chest, and unlike the rest of the Ordin team he doesn't have a working jaw. In fact, the bottom of his head is hollow, and if you turn him upside down you can see his bot head hiding in there. Troll's feet guns can peg onto his beast arms, and while pictures show him wearing the rest of the foot missile launcher I can't seem to get it to stay on his back. The peg holes on his back are too small for the pegs on the foot, and the pegs on his back seem too large for the peg holes on the foot. In alt mode, aside from the aforementioned lack of head articulation, his biggest flaw is that the combiner port is clearly visible on top. All the other limbs use their alt-heads to hide it. Also, Troll's beast-arms don't have the deepest of bends. They can't even make it to 90 degrees. You can actually get more bend if you turn the arms around, but that makes his folded up bot-arms clearly visible as chunks and gaps and spoils the cleaner look that the other side has. With Hagen as an arm, Troll moves down to a leg spot. Like Fenrir, he's a good leg. In fact, despite being very different overall, Troll manages to capture the same sort of look as Fenrir with a broad bot-torso that tapers toward the waist filled out by the parts behind it, Troll's beast head serves the spot of Fenrir's teal chest flap, they both have their beast legs pegged in near the ankle, and Troll's bot feet stick up like Fenrir's knees. Heck, there's even a screw hole visible that's analogous to the port on Fenrir's pelvis where a weapon can mount in his beast mode. From the back, Troll's a little cleaner as a leg than Fenrir, since his folded-up arms aren't showing. Like Fenrir, though, his shoulders do peg in back there, and his beast arms sort of dangle where Fenrir's beast heads do. Well... in some ways, Troll is perhaps the most-flawed of the Ordin limbs, with the hollow bot-limbs, un-articulated alt-head, hollow alt-chin with the bot-head showing, and visible combiner port in alt mode. However, his transformation is so interesting and the way his beast arms and bot legs become such clean backpacks also make him the most fun of the limb bots, so I can recommend Troll without hesitation as both a part of a set and as a standalone toy.
  9. mikeszekely
    Today, we're going to talk about Alberich, UT's version of Rippersnapper. Out of the box, Alberich has a lot going for him. I dig the white and dark blue of Rippersnapper more than the colors on the other three Terrorcon limbs, and Alberich tosses in a little gray to keep things interesting. And unlike his fellow arm Hagen, Alberich actually comes with weapons! This is undoubtedly to copy the look of Rippersnapper with the missile launcher that was his fin on the original toy. Instead of the entire fin detaching, though, the guns just pop off the sides of the fin. When you start to play with him, you quickly realize that Alberich shares a lot of parts and engineering with Hagen, although credit where credit is due UT has done a pretty good job masking that so Alberich and Hagen look and feel more different than, say, Bovis and Fortis or Tigris and Felisaber. But on careful inspection, you can see that aside from shins his entire body from the waist down is the same as Hagen, as are his fists, hands, and the panels that move his arms from his bot mode to his alt mode. I'd also assume some parts of the torso are probably the same, too. They have different shins, forearms, shoulder armor, heads, chests, shins, at least some of their backs, and their beast talons are different. Transformation is nearly identical with the way the legs fold up, the tail pegs into the feet, the arms swing down and spin around to become beast legs, and the way their torsos collapse. The only real difference is how their beast heads transform and fussing with Hagen's wings vs Alberich's little front arms. Alberich is about the same size as the other Orin limbs, only appearing a little taller due to his relatively thin appearance and his alt head jutting up behind his bot head. And since he shares Hagen's engineering, he's got the same articulation, which is to say that it's quite good but again is missing a wrist swivel. What makes a difference, though, is that Hagen's alt-neck, extended torso, and tail just make for kibble on his back, but Alberich's alt-head, extended torso, and tail make him look like a bot with a shark for a backpack. This is both kinda cool and fairly accurate to at least Rippersnapper's animation model. So my only complaints, aside from the lack of wrist swivels, is that it'd be nice if there was places to peg the alt-arms and tail into the back, although the way they fold they're not really going anywhere. Alberich's alt mode is still a sort of shark that grew some stumpy limbs and started walking around upright. In this mode, as was the case with Hagen, his rear legs are his arms pointed backward and have all the same articulation. His front arms can rotate at the shoulder and bend at the elbow, and that's it. His fin can rotate... perhaps to aim is weapons? and his beast head can look up and down and open its jaws. As with Hagen, he looses the waist swivel due to his transformation. A common complaint about Hagen, Fenrir, and Alberich is that their alt-bodies are too long, but I don't really feel that's the case here. Sure, the G1 toy was pretty stumpy, and the cartoon ran with that. But sharks are long and sleek, which Alberich not only captures but enhances with a more streamlined tail. The rocket booster detailing takes that sleekness and makes it seem fast and dangerous. And, despite his length, his joints are solid and he can hold himself in both a classic upright stance and while leaning forward. Needless to say, I like his alt mode a lot, although again like Hagen the forearm panels don't close all the way with the fists folded up. And, last and, I suppose, least, Alberich forms one of Ordin's arms. So, the pluses are would be that great hidden elbow joint, the fact that alt-kibble doesn't interfere with his function as an arm, and like bot mode the alt kibble looks less like kibble and more like Ordin's got a shark for shoulder armor. The minus here would be the lack of a good way to store his bot arms. As with Hagen, they weren't designed to peg anywhere. Unlike Hagen, there's not peg hole rim for this forearm armor to pinch onto, either. What works best for me is, as seen in the picture, tucking his elbow flap under his alt shoulder, then wrapping his alt claw around his forearm. This isn't a deal breaking issue for me... it folds up better than some of the Combiner Wars figures. Still, for a toy that nearly costs as much by himself as a whole Hasbro combiner you can't help but wish for better, especially if you're used to MMC's Feralcons where pretty much everything tucks and tabs together snugly. Despite the similarities, I think Alberich is definitely a better toy than Hagen, and the inclusion of weapons without relying on guns that come with another figure means that I can wholeheartedly recommend him as both a member of the Ordin team and as a stand alone figure.
  10. mikeszekely
    Again, in no particular order, here's Hagen, UT's Cutthroat. Hagen, like Fenrir, is a good bot that updates Cutthroat's G1 appearance without going overboard. That said, I don't really like his bot mode as much as Fenrir's. For starters, the only accessory he comes with is a hand for Ordin. I mean, Alberich has guns, and even if they sucked Ordin's feet break apart to give weapons to Fenrir and Troll. That's a big blow for anyone interested in collecting just Hagen, but again if you're going for the whole team Siegfried has four guns and two scimitars that the other guys can borrow. For two, Hagen's got a little more kibble, and it's a lot less necessary than Fenrir's. I'm not even talking about the wings, which are totally removable. No, he's got his alt neck, which isn't so bad, and his alt tail, which just folds up and hangs there. This was true for Siegfried, sure, but that was accurate for Siegfried. If you look a the G1 toy, Cutthroat doesn't have a tail. Even the animation model just has a little purple thing. Oh well. Hagen's about the same size as Fenrir, and slightly less articulated. He's still got the shoulders biceps, ankles, hips, ball-jointed neck, knees, elbows, and waist. He's lacking wrist swivels, though, which is a bit of a bummer, but considering my favorite 3P toy doesn't have them either I'll forgive Hagen. His alt mode is better than Fenrir's in some ways, but odd in some ways, too. I should mention that while Fenrir's transformation is blindingly obvious and stupid easy, Hagen's is nearly as easy and obvious but with a few tricks that make him a little more fun to transform. For instance, one major oddity is that the forearm panels that open to allow his fists to be folded in can't close all they way with the fists folded in. He's got that tail, which isn't G1 and fixed to boot, so no articulation there. Also, like Fenrir, his torso is a little too long in this mode. With Fenrir, though, you sort of felt like maybe they could have crunched his legs a little better, but there wasn't a lot they could do. With Hagen, though, if they'd had the beast legs attach just below robot knee instead of above the robot ankle, he'd be pretty much the same proportions as the G1 toy. From other angles, he looks fine, though, even with the new tail. Due to the way it covers his head his alt neck doesn't move. His alt head can look up and down and rotate, and even get a tiny bit of side-to-side movement. His beak can open and close. Also due to how he transforms he loses his waist swivel. His beast legs are his arms, just turned around, so he's got hips that can rotate and bend out, knees, and ball-jointed claws. Because of the way they fold up in bot mode, you can even bend his backward-pointing talon inward like he's going to grab something with his claws (although they're not curved enough to actually hold much). Despite limited articulation on his body, he can get some really dynamic poses almost entirely due to the wings, which can fold in and out and rotate where they're pegged into his body, extend in and out on a joint near that peg, extend in and out on a joint below his wing-claws, and he's got a two pins where the segment that's connected to the peg connects to the segment with the claw that can fold in and out but also allow part of the wing to slide forward or behind the other part. This same articulation can be used in bot mode to allow him to unfurl his wings or practically hide them. On Ordin, Hagen's an arm instead of the leg that Cutthroat was on the cartoon. A minor gripe, since Abominus was a Scramble City combiner and it's not like Cutthroat couldn't have been an arm. Anyway, I'd say he makes a pretty good arm. His beast parts don't tuck away as well as the Feralcons, but they're out of the way and don't interfere with his arm movement. It's true that his bot arms don't have dedicated pegs or tabs to hold them in place, but it's not as bad as you might think. See, what I've found works best is moving his wings from the holes on his sides to the holds on his back. This will help keep them out of the way and cover his alt-tail, but it has another benefit. The peg holes on his sides are raised a bit. Remember how his forearm panels don't close all the way when his fists are folded in? You'll notice on the side of the bot-arm that rests against his body in arm mode has a circular spot cut out. While this is intended to fit around a circular part on the other side of the bot-arm, it can be used to clamp the forearm panel and the rest of the forearm around the peg hole, holding the bot arms in place. Another thing I really like about Hagen's arm mode is that Hagen's torso extends to expose a hidden, dedicated elbow joint for Ordin. I think that gives Hagen more natural proportions as an arm than any of the Feralcons. Speaking of the Feralcons, Ordin's hand connects to Hagen pretty much the same way that Rex's hands connect. Ordin's thumbs are similar to Rex's and like Rex Ordin's fingers move where they connect to the hand and at one knuckle. Ordin's knuckles can get a little straighter, though, and the fingers are connected with balljoints. At the end of the day, I think Hagen's a little bit better than Fenrir, and possibly worth buying on his own if it weren't for the fact that he doesn't come with any weapons. He's still got a few flaws, though, that you should be aware of going in.
  11. mikeszekely
    Well, the rest of my Ordin team arrived today. Kind of surprised by the boxes... I'm used to MMC Feralcons' boxes, and Siegfreid's is about the same size, but the rest are in much smaller boxes. In any case, I piled them on the floor then grabbed one at random, so today I'll be talking about Fenrir, UT's take on Sinnertwin. In bot mode, Fenrir's honestly really great. He's got great plastic quality and UT did a fantastic job updating Sinnertwin's appearance from the simple G1 toy or animation mode without going overboard (*cough, TFC, cough*) or making a too that's too simple and G1 (like UT's earlier Warlord). He does a great job hiding his kibble, with the beast mode's rear legs tucking inside the back of his bot mode legs. The only real kibble are the beast heads on his back and the claws on his elbows. Even the combiner port is well-hidden. He's got very good articulation, too. His head is ball-jointed, although way it's attached means he doesn't have a ton of up-down range. His shoulders can rotate all the way around, and swing out to the sides a little under 90 degrees. He's bicep can swivel, and he's got a double-jointed elbow that will let him curl his arms until his forearm armor hits his shoulder armor. His wrists and waist can rotate. His hips can swing forward a little less than 90 degrees. They can swing back a bit, but not nearly as far (which, I guess is fairly human). They can swing fully out to the sides, so he can do the splits no problem. His knees can bend fairly deeply, until the backs of his calves meet his thighs. His feet are on a pin, so then can't really rock outward but they can rock inward a full 90 degrees, so not only can he do the splits but his feet can sit flat while he does it. His toes can point downward but they can't go up. He's got heel spurs that can go either up or down. Between his thick legs, heel spurs, and ankle tilt he's a very stable figure, even with the back kibble. His included weapons are, honestly, crap. He's got two... hooks... that are his alt mode tails, plus the included Ordin foot breaks apart into two guns and a missile launcher. Thing is, there's really no place to stick the missile launcher and his forearms kind of interfere with the guns if you put them in his hands armor side up. You can put them in the other way, but then there's a gap in the back of the gun. Luckily, if you have Siegfreid and the included big gun for Ordin, it splits into four smaller guns. Giving Fenrir one of those works A LOT better. Fenrir is decently-sized, shorter than Siegfried or Combiner Wars Optimus, but still taller than a Deluxe. I have just one complaint about Fenrir's bot mode, and that's the teal part of his chest. It's actually a panel. Moving it out allows the head to fold into his chest and to reveal the combiner port. The problem is that the panel doesn't tab in. It's like it was designed for the friction of it sliding against the yellow parts to hold it in place, but there really isn't any friction. So, if you're playing with him and you bump his head the whole thing is going to open. That's not a deal-breaker, but it's a shame because it's probably Fenrir's biggest flaw. Anyway, onto alt mode. So his alt mode isn't his strongest mode. It's kind of long, which I can forgive, but I wish the legs collapsed a little better. You can see a little bit of his robot thighs from the sides. His rear legs are similarly-articulated as Siegfreid's beast rear legs. Since his front legs are his bot arms they've got good articulation for making clawing poses. He retails his waist swivel, but there's not a lot of posing you can do with it since the rear legs can swing out. You can rotate the tails, and they're kind of bendy since they're made from a rubbery plastic, but they're not articulated. His beast heads have several ball joints, but the shape of the neck segments interferes with how much they can bend, plus you kind of need the base of the beast necks to cover the combiner port (although they don't peg in anywhere). I've found that this makes his beast heads harder to pose at different angles than Siegfreid's. The jaws on both heads can open and close. I think my gripe here his that Fenrir isn't as dynamic as Siegfreid. He sort of comes across as a brick with movable legs, although, to be fair, that's G1 accurate. And, to be fair, it's not bad, it's just not great, either. But, Fenrir's got one more mode... a leg! That's a pretty solid leg, yeah? It's very stable- I had it sitting on my bed, and it didn't tip when I sat on the bed next to it. I've heard complaints that the alt-legs don't tab in, but I can say that the beast legs by his ankles definitely do. If we peak around the back, it's not as neat (then again, neither are the Feral Rex legs, and everyone loves Feral Rex), but it's not as bad as you might think, either. His shoulders do peg into his back. Although his arms don't really tab in, the claws do slot into the gap in his shoulder armor which creates some solidity. The beast heads do kind of just hang there, but the base of the beast necks rest against the arms, so it's all fairly solid. I'll concede that it's not tabbed as neatly as Bovis and Fortis, but it's honestly not that bad. Oh, and if you want, you can stick the tails into the slightly exposed fist holes and store them even in leg mode. Well, this is a tough call. Fenrir is a good toy. If you're completing the Ordin team I don't think you're going to be sorry you bought him. He's a great robot and a solid leg. But, if for some reason you were just a Sinnertwin fan and only planned on buying Fenrir I kind of think good might not be good enough, especially with his best weapon being packaged with Siegfreid. EDIT: I plan to have reviews up for the rest of the Ordin team up this week, but a review of Ordin himself is probably going to have to wait, because Fenrir is probably going to have to go back to TF Source for a replacement since he came with two left hands.
  12. mikeszekely
    Decisions, decisions. No, not on MP Primal. That's an easy pass. It's Computron. I'd need to see more pics, but retooling Rook and Blast Off seems like a better idea than than retooling Brawl and Air Raid, plus the head's definitely better. On the other hand, the Hasbro one will probably be $30-$60 cheaper, and the Hasbro one has feet with ankles.
  13. mikeszekely
    Yeah, I don't often go with Reprolabels, since they more often than not are mimicking sticker details from the G1 toys that weren't on the animation anyway, but the Combiner Wars line is just really lacking paint. For a lot of figures in the line it's not that huge of a deal, but Wheeljack was missing way too much. The windows on his fake car chest weren't even painted! In addition to Wheeljack, I've also bought the labels for Smokescreen to spruce up his racing deco and to hide the unpaintable plastic, and then the labels for Streetwise and Prowl for better police deco. If I had to do it again, Wheeljack and Prowl's made the biggest difference, Streetwise wasn't as huge a difference but still worth it, and I'd say I could have probably skipped Smokescreen's.
  14. mikeszekely
    If you pick up a Combiner Wars Wheeljack, you really owe it to yourself to pick up the Reprolabels set for him. It's seriously a night and day difference. Before After Before After The set also came with bluish stickers for his ears and red for the wheels, but I left those off. As big an improvement as it is, I think I might still put some paint on him. Hasbro only painted the front of his ears, so I'm thinking I'll paint the back, and them maybe paint his forearms, hands, and crotch black.
  15. mikeszekely
    I seriously don't know jack about the Japanese cartoons. I tried watching Headmasters, thought it was awful, skipped ahead to Masterforce, and thought it was similarly awful. Never touched Victory or Zone.
  16. mikeszekely
    What'd they do to Maya?
  17. mikeszekely
    Liokaiser is one of those guys I had to look up on a wiki to even see who the heck he was, so I've got zero interest there. I'm still tempted by TFC's Piranacon. I'm worried the rest of the team could turn out to be a crap sandwich, but the test shots of the first three limbs looked pretty good. And the color shots of not-Skalor are ticking all the right boxes.
  18. mikeszekely
    Wha? Trailbreaker's beer belly is his most memorable feature!
  19. mikeszekely
    My thoughts on Siegfried (Ordin's not Hun-Grrr torso) are on page 71 of this thread. I'll talk about the rest soon, now that they're shipping. This is good to here! I've been playing with the other four for three months now, and a one-armed, wingless Feral Rex is... well, he's still pretty freaking cool, but I really do want to complete him. I got excited for a minute here, since I hadn't heard about this. I don't exactly have a ton of experience with third parties (just ToyWorld, Unique Toys, and MMC) and even I've already come to love MMC. But I saw that this is part of their OX series, not ReFormatted, and he's going to be MP scale. This is good for people who are into that sort of thing, but I'm more interested in CHUG-scale, so MMC's Defensor will be too big.
  20. mikeszekely
    Well, even though I said I wasn't going to, I bought CW Trailbreaker. I'd heard he had new arms (true!), and in the store he looked better than I'd thought. His head, which is all black except for his eyes, is very G1 cartoon, moreso than the IDW-ish figure we got, what, a year ago? Year and a half? Anyway, his body is also solid black, making no attempt to paint his chest like a window the way they did for Ironhide. His one forearm is silver with a black hand, ala the G1 cartoon, and his other arm is molded into a silver gun with a 5mm port barrel, which is also good for anyone who missed him not having a gun for a hand the last time around. His lower legs are black with a bit of painted silver, sort of like the old cartoon but with less silver. Instead of having red on his knees and silver thighs his whole thighs are red. Likewise, although the parts of the truck doors that clip around his shoulders are black, his upper bicep parts are red. Not 'toon or toy accurate, but visually striking. Almost all of his parts are the same as Ironhide and Offroads, but instead of just having a new head he has new forearms, as I mentioned. They look the same from the sides, blending in with the side of the truck and carrying a 5mm port on each arm. From the front, though, his left arm is is smoother and more blocky on the front. On the back, it's still designed to blending with the bed of the truck but it doesn't have those same bed ridges. His right arm, as I mentioned, is designed to look like a gun. The barrel is a 5mm port, so you can stick his combiner hand in there if you want, or steal a weapon from Wheeljack, Sunstreaker, or Mirage and pretend he's got a pop-out blade. The other side is left exposed, so in truck mode his got a silver cylinder embedded in the side of his black truck bed. One good thing about new arm parts? New slots for the pegs on his back, so when he's in arm mode his own arms actually stay pegged in place, perhaps better even than First Aid. Speaking of combiner hands, though... in gun or foot mode, Trailbreaker's combiner part looks identical to First Aid's and like a black version of Ironhide or Offroad's. In hand mode, though, we see that it actually has new fingers. Instead of having a part molded to look like four fingers the part is molded to look like two thick fingers, Ninja Turtle style, with little clampy ridges on the inside and, oddly, a coat of silver paint on the outside. Despite being a new part, it retains the groove in the middle so it can still slot onto the bed of Trailbreaker's truck. And what a truck! Offroad was sort of dull, a gray truck with red windows and a red squiggles on the side. His headlights, grill, and rims are silver, but that silver sort of blends with the gray. Ironhide was red, but again his metallic silvery-blue windows, yellow stripes, silver rims, and silver front end are kind of drowned out by the red. But Trailbreaker... he's an inky black truck, and against that black his bright blue windows, silver rims, silver headlights, and silver grill just pop, and the stripes on the side of the truck are much more G1 accurate than we got on the previous toy and deliciously '80s retro. TLDR; great colors and new-and-improved forearms make me glad I bought Trailbreaker after all.
  21. mikeszekely
    This. I don't know if they just got carried away with their re-imaginings or if they were afraid that they'd get sued if their transforming-toys-who-are-not-Transformers looked too recognizable, but Hercules was just off, and Ares, Uranos and Prometheus are way off. That said, I'm kind of waiting to see how their not-Piranacon shakes out, if only because no one else is doing one and Piranacon will be the only non-Micromaster G1 combiner I'll be missing after I finish Ordin and Feral Rex for Abominus and Predaking and after I get a Combiner Wars Computron. Depending on how disposable my disposable income gets, though, I'm open to replacing every one of the Combiner Wars guys with a better third-party product. Speaking of finishing Ordin, the four limbs I need to go with Siegfried just shipped. I have no idea what's up with the remaining two Feral Rex dudes, though. When I preordered them back in January, they were expected to ship in Q1 2016, and that what it still says on Talon and Tigris' pages, but we're running out of Q1.
  22. mikeszekely
    Robot Kingdom and Premium Collectibles were both taking preorders for Deluxe Groove. Too bad they both sold out before I could get an order in. Hopefully someone else, like BBTS or TFSource, will get some. Or Hasbro will sell him in the States already...
  23. mikeszekely
    Because they were robo-animals!
  24. mikeszekely
    I think that's a fair assessment... I think most of the MT figures look better in both modes than, say, the TFC guys, and I likewise think Giant's a better Devastator than Hercules. But MT's reinterpretations deviate too far from G1 for my liking, especially on their not-Long Haul and not-Bonecrusher. And while not too bad overall, I don't like not-Scrapper's chest, I loathe not-Hook's head, and why the heck is Giant's head not-Hook's foot? At the end of the day, the CW/UW Devastator is a lot cheaper and way more G1-accurate, even if it is missing a lot of the articulation and premium feel that many adult collectors crave. Mixmaster's the only real problem, and Dr. Wu is fixing that. I had hopes for Gravity Builder... their not-Scrapper, not-Scavenger, and not-Mixmaster were hitting the right notes, but their not-Bonecrusher is weird. If I were you, I'd totally go for Guardia instead! I mean, I have Combiner Wars Defensor (who is honestly pretty good for a mass-market, $85 toy, and I think better than TFC's version), and I'm super tempted by Guardia. Katana seems to have a few issues, and while he doesn't really do anything wrong Axle doesn't particularly excite me. But Rover and HiMed are darn sexy toys, and Vulcan and the combined Guardia are looking pretty darn good. I'd probably have ordered the four available members by now, but I just ordered the rest of Ordin and preordered Seraphicus, so I'm a bit tapped right now.
  25. mikeszekely
    Even if I were collecting MPs, I'd pass on Primal. Beast Wars was a good show, but I'm still not into the idea of robots turning into realistic animals. Robo-animals, like the G1 Predacons, are fine though.
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