mikeszekely

The impression I got is that Mark wants to do more Beast Wars, or maybe someone at Takara. But I guess if enough 8+ old children by Leo Prime... Me personally, I've never seen any of the Japanese Beast Wars stuff, and I can't say I'm particularly interested in getting more Beast Wars II/Neo stuff. I'm a sucker for Primes, though. I love Leo Convoy's design, and I wouldn't turn down a new Big Convoy. Then you can look forward to the Nemesis repaints...

So, I guess there's been some debate over the years that brontosaurus and apatosaurus might have been the same thing, and if so that apatosaurus is the technically correct name, and then later that maybe brontosaurus might be the same genus but a different species, and if they are different then Sludge's stockier body and shorter neck might yet mark him as an apatosaurus. The Diaclone toy that became Sludge, though, was "Dinosaur Robo No. 3 Brontosaurus." Short of Hasbro making a definitive statement on the matter I'm sticking with brontosaurus.

There was another one of those roundtable discussions. It wasn't really as interesting as the last one, no one even asked about Armada Prime or the potential for a Monstructor repaint of the Core Dinobots. Here's a few takeaways... -Yes, the team wants to do the rest of the G2 Stunticons. If they do they'll probably all be in Walmart's Velocitron line. -Crasher is an homage that Mark wanted to do. Licensing issues with Gobots and Bandai kind of limit what Gobot homages they can do. -They're claiming that the target audience for Legacy is 8+, and that kids still make up most of their sales. I say "citation needed." -Building on that, they know adult fans hate the new open boxes, but their research indicates that kids strongly prefer being able to see the actual toy in the package. So closed boxes are pretty much out, and eco-friendly window material is apparently expensive. -Alternate heads for potential repaints are done when the original figure is, so that Galaxy Shuttle head has been kicking around since Siege. Sometimes the alternate heads are never used. -The team does want to do more Beasts. Leo Prime is a test to see if the fandom might be interested in more Beast Wars II/Neo characters. -They insist that the addition of a 6th Core-class dinobot is so they could do the combiner with six cores instead of four cores and a Deluxe. I still say Monstructor is coming. -The team loves that more girls are getting into Transformers and that they love the fembots. Doesn't sound like anything is planned for sure, but Slipstream is a possibility in the future. -The team is looking into doing more of the DJD than just Tarn. -When asked about how the one Junkion on the bottom left of the Evolution poster looks like Lockdown, the team responded with "wait and see." -The team does seem to understand how messed up the Cosmos thing was. Apparently most of them didn't even get a copy. But it's not clear that they have any say on distribution. This seems especially true for store exclusives, as they said the revealed Velocitron Deluxes like Crasher and Shadowstrip's releases are up to Walmart, and that they'd like Minerva to release around the same time as Victory Saber starts shipping but that it's up to Walgreens. Oh, and don't forget about this: There hasn't been much in the way of leaks info on what they're actually going to announce. The consensus seems to be Generations Selects Magnificus for sure, possibly an Omega Sentinel repaint of Titan Omega Supreme, and an outside chance they show the recently leaked Buzzworthy Hound and Studio Series Hatchet.

One of the biggest complaints about Studio Series 86 Sludge was the way his robot toes hang under the body of the dinosaur. I mean, there's a gap in the dinosaur chest, how hard would it have been for Hasbro to hinge the robot toes so they could fold up into that space? Our own @M'Kyuun rolled the dice on a 3D-printed replacement foot with a hinged toe recently, but it seems that there's another option that isn't a 3D printed. Today, I'm taking a look at Nonnef's Sludge upgrade kit. As is the case with Nonnef's stuff, the kit comes on injection-molded sprues. We'll start with the easy stuff first. The red sprue has the parts to make a G1-accurate red sword for Sludge. At the time I ordered, red was the only color available but as of this writing you can get a kit that has a translucent orange blade and a black hilt, like his previous dinobot kits. Me personally, I wind up ordering an extra sword then swapping the orange blade into the red hilt and the red blade onto the black hilt, so I'm not pressing the sword together and won't be showing it in Sludge's fist. The black parts are halves of a toy-style rifle. You can also remove from the gold sprue the two parts to make a missile. The missile will have a 5mm peg to fit into the barrel of Sludge's stock weapon. I have mixed feelings here... I'll certainly never use the missile. As for the rifle, the narrower barrel is more like what Sludge used in the cartoon, but in pretty much every other way the stock weapon is more accurate. Still, it never hurts to have some extra guns around for the figures that either don't get one or get a sub-par one. While we're clipping the parts off the gold sprue, you'll notice this bit that looks like a tab on two of the parts. They're actually separate parts, so carefully remove them but don't lose them! Now, grab a screwdriver and open remove the inside of Sludge's thighs. You'll see the gray knee ratchet on the side of the thigh still attached to the lower leg. Take those tiny gold tabs you just cut off, and jam them into the gap inside the ratchet. This will prevent the nub on the ratchet from smooshing inward, making his knees feel much tighter. Close the thighs back up. While we're cutting stuff off of parts, start separating the gray parts. You'll find a pair that have two pegs on them. One of those pegs, sort of in the middle of the parts, belongs. The other, near the edges, needs to be removed. Set those pegs aside, though, we'll need them later. Take the rest of the parts from the gray peg and lay them out like I've shown above. These parts are going to make Sludge's new feet (along with the remaining gold parts). Take the parts labeled "B". You'll notice that they're actually two parts, a flat base with a trough on the edge and an armature with a peg on the end attached to the base with a rivet pin. Swivel the armature so the length of the peg is parallel to the trough, then take part "C" and plug into the hole on the base just under the rivet. Swivel the armature back up, then take part "D" and plug into part "C". There may be a little gap between them, but you'll squish it all together when you turn the whole thing on its side and plug part "A" into the other side of part "C". What you've got now should look like the third frame of the above picture; that's the bottom of the foot, so flip it over. The thicker gold parts without the taper (the parts the did NOT have the tabs you removed and stuffed into the knee ratchets) are the bottom of the toes, so we just plug the bottom of the peg on the armature into the hole inside. The tapered gold part will also have a peg hole, and you plug it onto the top of the armature peg, capturing the whole armature inside the now-completed toe. Technically, no glue should be necessary but for piece of mind I used a little glue to keep the halves of the toes together. I'll note here that the plastic itself is molded gold plastic, so it's not a match for the gold paint that Hasbro used on the original feet. That said, I think it's probably closer to Hasbro's paint than the coppery paint that BDT used on the 3D-printed feet from M'Kyuun's review. I suppose you could always paint the Nonnef toes yourself, but I wasn't able to find a paint that matched better than the bare plastic, so... To install your newly-built feet, pull Sludge's feet out like you're going to transform them. You'll notice that his feet are attached to a thin flap with a friction clip; just yank the original feet off, and jam the new ones onto the flap. And... yeah. Like I said, the gold plastic isn't a perfect match for Hasbro's paint, but it's not as bad as I was originally thinking because his toes (and, I suppose, some painted bits on his stock weapon) are all the gold that really shows up in robot mode. Well, unless you're looking at his back so you can see his dino head on his backpack, but if you're looking at his back you probably can't see his toes. And in dinosaur mode, you can't see the new toes dangling down like some kind of robot-brontosaurus udder, so again the mismatch between the gold plastic toes and the painted dino head and hump aren't obvious. The riveted armature the toes are attached to do exactly what I suggested Hasbro should have done in the first place- swivel the toes up into the gap under the dino chest. Removing the stock toe-udder does mean that the stock gun doesn't have a place to tab into the underside of the dino mode anymore, but that's not really the end of the world. There's still the 5mm ports on his robot shoulders/dino hips, and you can plug the handles of either the stock weapon or the Nonnef rifle right into them. And while we're in dinosaur mode, we can finally get back to those pegs I had you remove from the foot parts several steps ago. They're fillers for the two screw holes on the side of Sludge's dino neck. They're not perfect... they're not an exact match in color, they have a notch running down one side, and the end has a taper perpendicular to the notch. I guess you're picking your poison, though, between an imperfect filler or a gaping screw hole. End of the day, Nonnef's kit is slightly cheaper than the BDT one, but slightly more after shipping (assuming you even can have it shipped with Nonnef's limited options for international buyers). However, as I've noted the unpainted gold plastic is arguably a better color match than BDT's paint, you get injection-molded parts instead of 3D printed, and you get more for you money with the included sword, rifle, missile, ratchet fixes, and screw hole covers. If you've already bought the BDT feel you probably don't need the replace it with Nonnef's, especially if you're also planning on getting DNA's kit (which has fixes for ratchets and a better sword). Even if you're not getting the DNA kit and you still want a sword, you can buy Nonnef's sword without buying the whole kit. But if you haven't bought any upgrades for Sludge I'd definitely recommend this over the BDT feet.

Yeah. I mean, it's definitely more screen accurate than the Siege Micromaster, and I very much appreciate the new back guns, but end of the day it's still disappointingly similar to the Siege Micromaster. *sigh* Preordered. Hasbro's genius plan... release Studio Series 86 Frenzy (Red) later. Then, even more later, they release Gen Selects Rumble (Red) and Frenzy (Blue) as the toy-color variants... but the Gen Selects are actually the Studio Series figures with no changes except the names on the box.

How much you want to bet that's exactly what they're going to do?

Almost nobody is. Like Road Hauler, he's an early-aughts redeco of a G1 toy that exists only because Takara reissued said G1 toy but wanted to squeeze a little more out of the mold. Unlike Road Hauler, where they retroactively explained the fact that the yellow Diaclone crane appeared in and was referred to as "Hauler" in like the first episode of the cartoon, the thought process for Detritus seems to be "Jeep Willys, but in British SAS desert colors," followed by, "hey, tan and brown sorta looks like a Junkion." One imagines that he gets the mainline spot due to Legacy Evolution being (unnecessarily) stuffed with Junkions. Yes. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the overall improvements in design and articulation that came with Siege won back a lot of fans that were leaving the mainline for more-accurate G1 MPs and Legends, but within the last two or three years they've started squandering a lot of that interest with a series of increasingly questionable decisions- cancelling a Deluxe-class Gears, forced gimmicks like Fossilizers, releasing one main character of a mold (like Smokescreen, etc) in the mainline but making other highly desirable repaints store exclusives (Prowl and Bluestreak), making most of the Earth-mode retools of Siege molds store-exclusives (Sideswipe, Mirage, Prowl, Bluestreak, Barricade, Ironhide, Ratchet, Red Alert, Soundwave, and now Hound), giving mainline slots to G1-ified Prime characters like Arcee and Knock Out but making a new G1 mold a store-exclusive (Cosmos), making (apparently several) new Junkion characters for Legacy Evolution but failing to find the budget to properly remold Breakdown, and so on. Someone in charge needs fired. It's as simple as that. Whoever's making these decisions is making the wrong ones.

Well, over in the official TF thread I've been saying that rather than compete in the MP space dominated by Fans Toys, MMC, and XTB, or the Legends space dominated by NewAge and Magic Square, that it'd be great if a 3rd party would fill in some of the gaps and offer some alternatives to the missteps Hasbro's made since War for Cybertron and make CHUG figures. Then I figured I'd better put my money where my mouth is, so I picked up this unusual piece... this is Daban Model 9913. Some background... Daban is a company that is mostly known for making KOs of Gundam model kits. It's a little strange that they bothered to make anything Transformers-related, but they did, first with 9907. Like their models, 9907 was a knock off, this time of Generation Toy's MP-scaled Optimus Prime. So it's really odd that the only other Transformer they did was the same character (Don Figueroa's IDW Optimus Prime), not simply smaller but apparently a totally unique figure. And... it's OK. I mean, it's a pretty cheap figure- I got it for under $30 shipped from a store I've done business with many times, but I've seen AliExpress sellers list the figure for $15 or less. In a world where even Legends-sized 3P releases cost more than that you have to figure that what you're getting isn't going to be MP-quality. So I can forgive things like the not-quite-accurate knees, the too-large crotch, and the fact that the panels on his forearms and legs don't actually tab in, relying solely on friction to lie in place. I'll even overlook the fact that there's some unpaintable gray plastic on his lats, so he's got some gray that should be red, and he's missing the lights that should be molded in there. Fact is, they've done a pretty good job of capturing the broad strokes of Figueroa's design. There are some features that are a bit harder to overlook, though. His little baby hands are worse than Hasbro's standard fare. And his backpack is a little messy... if only the one panel could get a little tighter against his back. Oh, and I really wish the other panel split and stretched to give him his proper wings. I think my real concern, though, is the size. He's a little bit shorter than Siege or Earthrise Prime. I don't think he looks too bad next to most of the Deluxes, like Ironhide or the carbots, and might even be a bit favorable if you like Megatron to be a bit taller than Prime (G1 cartoon be damned). It's a little wonkier, though, when you have him next to guys like Soundwave or Grapple that you know should be shorter but are around the same size. It makes me wonder a bit why Daban made 9913 this size, exactly. While this isn't exactly a new new figure it did come after Siege, so why didn't Daban make him closer to Siege Optimus in size? As far as accessories go, he just gets this one rifle. It's fine. I think it's a bit stylized (despite the popularity of Don's Optimus, Don only drew Optimus with his rifle in The Transformers #6- the rest of time time he either didn't use a weapon, or he was drawn by someone else. In the actual issue, Prime's rifle was your bog-standard G1 rifle, so a stylized version of that is what Daban was probably shooting for. Still, I rather preferred the rifle Don drew for the cover of that issue, which is what GT used for their Optimus. Side note, see the screws in the above picture? Those screws aren't real, they're molded detail, but they mirror the actual screws on the other side just for symmetry. As you'd expect from a Prime in this price bracket, his articulation is OK-ish. His head's on a ball joint with some up, down, and sideways tilt in addition to the swivel. His shoulders rotate but get a little less than 90 degrees of lateral movement. Due largely to his transformation his shoulders do have some backwards butterfly, so we'll call it a wash. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivel. His waist swivels, though, and he's got 90 degrees of ab crunch. His hips ratchet a little under 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees backward, and friction 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on a single hinge. His toes can tilt down, mostly for transformation, and he's got a slight ankle pivot (but be could really use more). All-in-all, pretty on par with Hasbro- Siege and Kingdom both have more ankle pivot, slightly better range on the hips and shoulders, plus they have wrist swivels, but 9913 has the ab crunch, so... His rifle has the usual 5mm peg handle and it fits into his hands just fine. The instructions that came with 9913 are trash, but fortunately transforming him is pretty easy once you know what you're supposed to be doing. He's kind of a shellformer. The panels on the sides of his legs fold up to cover his thighs and part of the cab. The front of the cab is his actual chest and most of his back. The sides of the cab are filled in with the panels on his shoulders and forearms, with the rest of his backpack making the roof and windvane. Despite all the panels, I'm happy to report that they all line up and tab together very well, and the truck feels solid. That said, clearances can sometimes be a pain. Going from robot to truck, there's a gray piece that fills in his chest that needs to be pulled back, and I found myself grabbing a spudger to get it all the way. Likewise, that spudger was absolutely necessary for unhooking the front wheels and for folding out his hands while going from truck back to robot. Actually, despite the size, I dig the truck mode. Sure, the rear suffers from the usual lazy "it's just Prime's shins", and we've got some visible hinges (although one of them is actually accurate to Don's design). I dig the taillights molded onto his heels. The molded door is a little light, and kind of lost in the arm joints, but on the whole it's a very cohesive truck that's very faithful to Don's art (although, if I'm going to be pedantic, most of the blue from the hinge by his knees should be red, and the windvane should be blue, but he wasn't often seen in truck mode and when he was the coloring was surprisingly inconsistent). You may have noticed that there's a small gap in the back of the cab- no worse than Earthrise's own, but I'm pointing it out because it does have a purpose. If you undo his transformation slightly, you'll find that there's slots on his arms that face into the gap. There are tabs on the back of his rifle. You tab the rifle into one arm, then tab that arm into place against the roof and the side of the cab, then close the other arm so it tabs into the roof, side, and the other side of the rifle. Alas, there's no peg holes or anything to attach a trailer. So... how do we judge this guy? He's a little small, has some panels that don't lock in on robot mode, and his articulation is just adequate. I don't see too many people want to replace Kingdom Optimus with 9913, which I don't think he's really an aesthetic match for anyway. Still, I said we need more 3P CHUG stuff. So when I found an almost-WFC-sized version of one my favorite Prime designs for less than the price of a Hasbro Voyager I can't turn that down. 9913 is definitely good enough and cheap enough to be worth it for a one-off figure to keep on your desk or on a shelf with a bunch of other Optimus figures.

It does seem really weird that Hound is going to be a Target-exclusive, but Detrius (whom I assume with be the same mold) will be a mainline release.

Looks like it's going to be part of the Target-exclusive Buzzworthy Bumblebee line, and it's a retool of the Siege mold. Still... FINALLY. Do want.

Scuttlebutt around the industry is that the lower-spec 4080 was supposed to be the 4070, but when they realized how expensive it would be they decided to save the 4070 badge for something they could market closer to the 3070's MSRP.

Sadly, the closest show to me is still too far to manage on a Thursday night.

So, wait... Action Toy's not making Machine Robo toys anymore, Bandai is doing it themselves? I'm assuming that Bike Robo's not going to get the Gobots faces, but I think I might have to buy it anyway.

I'll leave it to the rest of you curmudgeons to pick this apart, I'm going to take my daughter to see it in the theater.

This. I want any reissues to be as close to the originals as possible. Combiners are good, but I honestly need a ton just to complete the cast of the first two seasons.

Well, Galaxy Shuttle went up on Pulse and Walmart for preorder... and already sold out on Pulse. So being a half-hearted repaint of a mediocre mold to make a more obscure JG1 character hasn't hurt demand. Weirdly, there's no word on the other leaked Velocitron stuff (Hot Rod with a toy deco, Crasher, and Shadow Strip). Instead they announced reissues of the original G1 Hot Rod and Starscream toys, but with repainted with decoes based on the '86 movie.

Better than the train. *shrugs* We really, really need a 3rd party to make Transformers at the Generations scale instead of five variations on Legends, MP, or OS MP, though. MFT made some Legends-sized Decepticon triple changers that'd absolutely rule if they were upscaled to Voyagers.

I'm sure I've done this rant before, but I'm tired of the lazy Mirage-as-Crasher repaints. Crasher was never a F1 car, and the one time Hasbro did make a toy with Crasher's alt mode (Power of the Primes Jazz) they didn't repaint it as Crasher. ...I'll probably get it anyway. But definitely NOT from TF-jack-up-the-price-once-BBTS-sells-out-Source. Tomorrow is Walmart's Fall Collector Con, so I'm guessing Crasher and the other wave 2 Velocitron figures will go up for preorder at Walmart and Pulse sometime around then. Speaking of, here's one you might not have seen yet... On the one hand, it looks like Galaxy Shuttle and more like Astrotrain in Galaxy Shuttle's colors and with Galaxy Shuttle's head. On the other hand, this is probably one of the only ways we're likely to get Japanese G1 characters like Galaxy Shuttle. The train mode is still horrendous, but it's easier to forgive on a character that's not supposed to have a train mode.

In addition to Ratchet, I also got my grabbed one Core-class Studio Series 86 Wheelie. My initial thought was that, in bot mode, Wheelie's not too bad. He's got the gray ball cap, the gray hexagons on his knees, and gray on his feet and boots... at least, on the front of his feet and boots. The rest of his legs are a nice orange, his face and hands are silver, and he's got peach on his head and down the front of his torso, including on a spot where a lot of other Wheelies have had gray/translucent. But, he's not perfect. There's wheels in his hands and heels. The gray on his feet and boots doesn't cover the sides or back. There's no gray on his hips. If we interpret the lighter color of his face and hands as silver vs the gray on other parts of him, then the insides of his knee hexagons should be silver. And some of the peach that's on his torso should also be on his arms. My first thought was that maybe peach on his arms would have made the alt mode less accurate, but no. Oh, and I'm just going to ignore the skirt on his butt. Dude's just a Core-class. Regardless, while there are some things I like better about the one that came with the DNA Grimlock upgrade kit, I do think Core-class Wheelie is edging him out, and he's a huge improvement over the Titans Return one. Another way he improves on those two is by actually including an accessory. He comes packaged with his trusty slingshot, molding the same same gray plastic as his wheels. As near as I can tell Wheelie's head is attached to a ball joint with a hinge in the torso, but the shape of his head doesn't really allow for much tilt. He can look up by using the hinge, and he can swivel, but he can't look up and swivel at the same time, and there's no sideways or downward tilt. His shoulders are on ball joints for rotation and 90 degrees of lateral movement. No dedicated bicep swivels, but his elbows are ball joints that have the swivel covered plus a 90 degree bend. No wrist articulation, and no waist articulation. His hips are ball joints that can only move backward a little, due to his butt-skirt, and fall a bit short of 90 degrees laterally. But he can kick forward well beyond 90 degrees. His hips have a limited swivel around the ball joints, and if you need some more well his knees are also ball joints, and they provide 90 degrees of bend. His toes can tilt downward due to his transformation, but he's got no upward tilt and no ankle pivots. In other words, it's the standard Core-budget limited articulation provided almost entirely by ball joints. He can hold his slingshot in either hand, no issues. And, if you're wondering, Core Wheelie can also hold the slingshot that came with Grimlock's Wheelie slug, and both of those slingshots can be held by the DNA figure. As a Core-class, Wheelie's transformation isn't anything particularly complicated There are some things I found interesting, though. Like, most Wheelie toys have used the front of wheelie's chest for the cockpit and his backpack to form the rear, with his legs making most of the front of the vehicle. That tends to make his shoulders the location for the rear wheels, and his hand near the front axle. Core Wheelie flips things around a bit... his chest is most of the front of the vehicle- only his feet are sticking out of the front, and they're turned sideways to present more orange. The front wheels and fenders are his calves, and his arms are actually turns around so the rear wheels are in his forearms instead of his shoulders. The butt-skirt is the rear of the car, which allows the backpack to be his cockpit. In a lot of ways, this works. Turning his feet hides most of the gray, so the nose is cartoon-accurate. The wheels are a cartoon-accurate gray, and the middle is accurately peach. The general shape is pretty close; the front could use a little more slope and a longer, cleaner nose. Personally, I'd have been fine even if that mean he wound up with slightly too-big feet in bot mode. But then we start to notice his issues, and honestly I think a lot of them come down to a lack of budget. Like, instead of taillights he's got hands. They're not even trying to hide, they're just jutting out the back of the car. And remember how I wondered if having some peach on his arms would have made the car mode less-accurate? If anything, painting the peach on his arms would have made him more accurate. Well, at least Wheelie has storage for his slingshot in car mode. You can plug it in under the rear of the vehicle. Matter of fact, that's under his butt-skirt in bot mode, so he can store it in bot mode too. Just note that, despite the butt-skirt being fairly deep, the hole itself isn't super deep and, due to the the sloping outer edge, is fairly shallow. So the slingshot will plug in, and it's secure enough that shaking him won't make it fall out, but also loose enough that bumping it is almost sure to knock it out. One last thing to note- It's possible to open Wheelie's cockpit while he's in his car mode. You won't find a seat inside, but you will find Wheelie's face. I don't know if it's intentional or not, but it's very evocative of the original G1 toy. Hmm... we've already had Cylconus, Galvatron, and Springer in toy colors, and Hot Rod is coming. Maybe a toy-colored Wheelie? Yesterday I made the comment that Core-class figures like Ratchet don't really make sense because if you want small toys 3P makes better ones, and if you're into the mainline you're probably getting the Deluxe/Voyagers. I also said that Core-class makes sense for smaller characters like Spike. And you'd think Wheelie would fall into that category, right? I mean, he's a tiny dude, and my single least-favorite Transformer, so you'd think I'd want to spend as little on him as possible. But, with guys like Warpath, Huffer, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, and Cosmos having been done as Deluxes I've come to realize that I'd rather pay for a higher parts count if it means proper articulation, if it means stuff like the hands can fold away somewhere, if it means a more accurate paint job, even if the figure itself winds up pretty small. This figure is so close, but he misses the mark in a lot of ways just because a Core budget doesn't get him across that line. Wheelie is just OK; taking scale and purpose out of the equation, I think his wavemate Ratchet is actually the better figure. But, he's the one most of you will pass on because having a Core-class Ratchet is largely unnecessary, while Core-class Wheelie happens to fill a gap in the mainline and manages to be just good enough to be better than Titans Return Wheelie. Reluctantly, I have to recommend him for that reason.

Got myself a Core-class Studio Series 86 Ratchet. Aesthetically-speaking, sure, we're still dealing with a Core-class and the budgetary limitation that go along with it. But, I can't help but think that Ratchet might be one of the better ones so far. I mean, in a lot of ways he's more accurate than the Earthrise version that came packed with the Paradron medic... no red stripes or vehicle panels on his shins, no red greebles on his shoulders, red-painted hands and pelvis without having to do it myself... heck, while trademark issues with the Red Cross prevent modern Ratchet toys from having the said red crosses on his shoulders, at least he has something there, which is again an improvement from the Earthrise version. Of course, you're not going to get perfection from a $10 Core-class, so we've got the stubby suggestion of feet, visible wheels on the sides of his legs, and if I'm being nitpicky I might have painted some silver on his abs and the rectangular lights on his chest. Sure, I expect that the inevitable Voyager-class SS86 Ratchet based on the upcoming SS86 Ironhide will have a lot of these same improvements over the Earthrise mold, and then some. I might also point out some hollow gaps on the backs of his legs you can see from the sides and a chest that just abruptly quits aren't necessarily the best. But compared to a lot of other Core-class figures, which have needed a lot more paint, and the fact that this little guy is more cartoon-accurate than a Deluxe with twice the budget, and yeah, I'm kind of impressed. Ratchet comes with two accessories, a pair of pistols he used in his brief appearance in the 1986 movie. Happily, while molded in white plastic (I'm pretty sure the entire figure is white plastic), they're sporting some nice silver paint. Ratchet's head is on a swivel, so there's not really much tilt. His shoulders swivel and have some backwards butterfly movement on ball joints that have the balls in his torso. A second ball joint at the top of his biceps with the ball inside his shoulder armor gives him both a bicep swivel and a little under 90 degrees of lateral shoulder movement. Hinged elbows bend just over 90 degrees, no wrist articulation. His waist swivels, but you have to move the backpack a little to get it to clear the bumper on his butt. His hips are (slightly loose) ball joints that give him just about 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally. Another ball joint at the bottom of the thigh acts as the thigh swivel and knee bend, which is unfortunately limited to about 45 degrees. The little peg handles on Ratchet's guns are ostensibly meant to go into his hands. However, there are holes in his forearms where they friction clip onto the elbow hinge. These holes happen to be just the right size to plug his guns onto the outside of his forearms, if you prefer. Ratchet's transformation is pretty basic and extremely intuitive; I didn't even bother with the instructions. What I really find significant here is that they've improved on the Deluxe-class Ratchet again, this time by transforming him into a fan without partsforming. And he looks pretty fine, too, if a bit bland. There's molded details, like the windshield wipers on the front and back, taillights, etc, that just aren't painted, which is kind of a shame because Hasbro had already used some blue on the front windows and some red on the light bar. Speaking of red, maybe some stripes along the sides would have been nice. There's also that hinge halfway down the side, but it feels petty to complain about it here when the Earthrise vans have it and the upcoming Voyager Ironhide has it. Honestly, my biggest complaint with the alt mode is actually that spoiler on the back. It throws off the vannette shape. However, it's necessary for bot mode, unless you want him falling over all the time. That spoiler is his heels. Ratchet's guns have tabs on the sides, and there's slots on his side windows you can plug them into. I'll note though, that for whatever reason there's a hole in his light bar, and you can plug one of his guns in there instead. Reviewing a figure like this is tough. Like I said, it's pretty good for a Core-class release, better in a lot of ways than the Deluxe mold. So, it's a definite recommend if you're collecting Core-class figures. But... why are you collecting Core-class figures? What is this figure's purpose? I mean, Core-class makes sense for doing important but smaller characters like Spike in his exo-suit, and it kind of makes sense for cramming in guys who might not rate taking up a Deluxe slot like Iguanus. But for a guy like Ratchet you probably are holding out for the Voyager. Heck, for other Core-class guys like Prime, Megatron, Shockwave, etc, you probably already have a larger figure that the smaller one was copying details from. So why do these exist? If you want a collection of smaller robot that take up less space you'll get much better figures from guys like Magic Square or NewAge. Hasbro's official reasoning is that you can display these guys with your Titans to make them look bigger, but Dr Wu is making figures that are arguably better and half the size, which makes you Titans seem even bigger. So while I really do like this figure, I ultimately have to acknowledge that there isn't a ton of reasons to actually own it.

Really? The first wave of Evolution is more interesting to me than the second two waves of Legacy. I guess a lot of that has to do with the fact that I'm more into Lio Convoy and Tarn than Jhiaxus, a repaint of Siege Soundwave, or Beast Wars Inferno. Armada Starscream might be my favorite Legacy Voyager after Blaster, but even he isn't as exciting to me as Tarn. I guess the Deluxes are more of a wash. The Stunticons cancel each other out, Scraphook is kind of the biggest loser, but I have about the same level of enthusiasm for Needlenose as I do for Elita-1, Knock Out, Tarantulas, Crankcase, and Skullgrin (although I'm really wishing that they'd given more of Skullgrin's budget to Breakdown, made Skullgrin a Core like Iguanus and Bomburst, and maybe used a more straight redeco like Crosscut for that Deluxe spot). Armada Hot Shot's slightly ahead of those guys (again, I hate the show, but I generally dig the aesthetic that blends fairly well with G1 out of the box), as is Pointblank (although I really wish they'd given him the toy/Headmasters head instead of the crappy Sunbow one). G1 accurate. Maybe less so for Breakdown, but that's the least of Breakdown's issues. In a word, money. Then planning that goes into each wave is very much on a budget, and not just "this figure is a Deluxe, so it must be within this amount." The budget is spread over the wave, so more money spent on one new mold can limit how much retooling can be done to another. This does NOT excuse them, though. As I've pointed out, there have been several other decisions like making a brand Deluxe-class mold for Skullgrin when the other Pretenders have been Cores, making a brand new mold for Elita-1 (that isn't even particularly cartoon-accurate), or having slots at all for lower-priority characters like Crankcase, Knock Out, Needlenose, Pointblank, and Scraphook (or the other new Junkions that are going to clog up a lot of slots in Evolution). Just cutting the costs on one of those figures a little (like, as I suggested, dumping the Skullgrin Deluxe and replacing him with a repaint or partial retool, maybe an Earth-mode Hound from Siege Hound) and simply making Breakdown's hood different would have made a huge impact. I don't know, I don't want to keep beating a dead horse about it, because it's clearly not something Hasbro's going to change before release and I'm not going to bail now. But it is super frustrating to me, and all the more so for all the people on TFW2005 acting like it's not a big deal and we're just big nerdy man-babies for complaining about it. For now, all I'll say is that if someone wants to get into 3P and they don't want to fill in the few remaining gaps in 3P MP or compete with Magic Square and NewAge's near-monopoly on Legends, I don't think the demand for 3P CHUG has been this high since TFC was making Hercules.

Sorry to keep bumping this thread, but a couple more things... First up, I was talking with Alex Milne today... For those of you who might not be aware, Alex Milne was the artist on Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye and man responsible for designing Tarn in the first place. He seems a bit less salty about Hasbro making toys based of his designs than Don Figueroa was... Next up, I'd been hearing some rumors, not from my usual sources but in a very "my uncle that works at Nintendo" sort of way, that Deathsaurus would be 2023's Commander-class. Don't count on it. I'm hearing from more reliable sources that if you look at the Evolutions poster carefully you'll find both the next Commander-class and the next Titan-class. I'm telling you now, the Commander is Armada Optimus Prime. Matter of fact, if you look at the original Armada Optimus, in both toy and cartoon, the lines across his grill are straight. The Armada Optimus on the poster, though, has a kind of zig-zags near the edges. You know where we've seen Armada Op with a grill like that? Harder to make out, but you'll also note that both Wonderfest Optimus and the one in the poster has the same chin cutout on their mask. I think it's finally happening. But what about the Titan? Well, believe it or not, I think it's staring you in the face. See that big purple head that looks like a Decepticon symbol? Bmac and Mark seemed pretty content to let you think that's Tarn- you see a robot with a face like a Decepticon symbol and that's just your go-to. But, if you really look at Tarn's mask, and you look at the head in the picture, they're pretty different. Well, you'll recall it wasn't that long ago that we got a Titan with a face modeled after The Last Autobot from the Marvel comics... and the Last Autobot's face was basically an Autobot symbol. Of course, that Titan was the Autobot's ship, the Ark. And up in the right corner there, we can see the Decepticon's counterpart ship, the Nemesis... I'm calling it now, 2023's Titan is the Nemesis, and that's the Nemesis' head, not Tarn's, in the middle of that poster. Lastly, it's been pointed out to me that the Core Dinobots are a bit curious. Like, why are their six? There are two obvious answers- one, because you can get a cheap remold of Sludge into Paddles and two, because if they're all Cores using two of them to make the torso will probably make for a more proportional gestalt. But, given that Volcanicus has Grimlock for a torso in both Prime Wars and Cyberverse, it's a bit curious that Slag is forming the upper torso and Sludge is forming the lower torso and thighs. But then people started pointing out a few things... like, there was a G1 combiner that was smaller than the rest. And it had six members. And, in Japan at least, the torso was made from two robots whose Pretender shells were a triceratops and a brontosaurus. And we do have an established pattern of making Core-class Pretenders with one mode based on their Pretender shell. Then it sort of all clicks into place. The Core-class Dinobots? They're pre-tools. While I expect that they'll use the American names (that is, Slog instead of Kakuryu) and possibly the American colors, I suspect we're going to get the Dinoforce with alt modes based on the Japanese Pretender shells. That'd make Grimlock the left leg, Snarl the right leg, and Swoop the right arm. The left arm of Dinoking (Gairyu, analogous to Bristleback) had an ankylosaurus for a left arm, which isn't super Paddles like. But, you'll recall that Evan never said Paddles, he said "we pulled from some of our history to make the 6th Dinobot." I'll refer you to RID 2015, which had a Dinobot named Scowl, who turned into (drumroll)... an ankylosaurus. Of course, if they use the American names G1 Scowl is a Pretender Monster. And RID Scowl is brown, which doesn't match the G1 Dinobot aesthetic... so I expect that they'll actually use Skar, a character from IDW's Monstrosity comic series, who didn't have a dino mode in the comics. He'll be an ankylosaurus now. So, yeah, long story short I think we're getting a Core-class combiner Monstructor/Dinoking, and the 6th Core Dinobot is an ankylosaurs named Skar. One more thing... here's some stuff that's rumored to be coming in future waves of Evolution Deluxes Shrapnel Prowl (it's probably the one that came with Ironhide in that Amazon box set) Crosscut Junkion 2 (possibly Detritus) Voyagers Ramjet (this is specifically mentioned as a package refresh, I fully expect it's the one from the Amazon boxset with Dirge) Metalhawk Nemesis Leo (emphasis for @Scyla) Junkion (I think another Wreck-Gar retool) Bludgeon Leaders Armada Megatron Prime Skyquake Prime Dreadwing TM Megatron* Laser Optimus* *Package refreshes, possibly the first wave leaders, likely what they were referring to when they said there weren't new leaders in the first wave.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention. Previously, Legacy wave 1 was announced around the time the last wave of Kingdom was hitting. Wave 2 was announced when wave 1 started hitting shelves, and wave 3 was announced when wave 2 started coming out. Even though that was just a month or so ago, we have Evolutions announced today. Could wave 3 be hitting sooner than expected? Apparently some of the Deluxes have already made it to retail in the Philippines. So, yeah, while the official date in Pulse is still January I'm expecting they'll actually start hitting before the year is out.

There's some similarities in that they're both long tanks with double-barreled main cannons. There's some big differences, too, in how Skullgrin's feet are the front of his tank, and Tarn's legs fold up over the back and lie across the top, and that's his arms at the sides of the back. If I had to guess, Skullgrin is lying on his back side in tank mode, with his back flipped up and his arms tucked into the space. I think Tarn's laying on his belly, with the chest flipped up and over his head to form the front, his legs folded over his butt, and his arms spinning 180 degrees at the shoulders then splitting to form the rear treads. Anyways... I updated my first post with pictures now.

I don't think so, Skullgrin is a Deluxe and Tarn's a Voyager.