The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[Hikuro]

7 minutes ago, davidwhangchoi said:

i don't remember deer stalker... is that the ultra magnus version of prime's roller?

 

i wonder if this is 200 dollars with tariffs 

on BBTS's site, it's 225 with a 25 deposit and that's after tariffs. Personally I won't be buying any overseas figures anytime soon because of the tariffs are changing left and right based on ol Trump's attitude. Just isn't worth it since its the consumer who gets the pinch. 

[pengbuzz]

25 minutes ago, Hikuro said:

on BBTS's site, it's 225 with a 25 deposit and that's after tariffs. Personally I won't be buying any overseas figures anytime soon because of the tariffs are changing left and right based on ol Trump's attitude. Just isn't worth it since its the consumer who gets the pinch. 

Right? I was lucky to get ML Sunstreaker through BBTS; they decided to NOT charge the tariff for those who had already ordered.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, davidwhangchoi said:

i wonder if this is 200 dollars with tariffs 

BBTS is taking preorders at $225.  They say that price includes the tarrif.

EDIT: Didn't see that this discussion went to the next page and Hikuro already mentioned that.

Edited September 8 by mikeszekely

[26662]

Got my ML Sunstreaker and Cordon today from ShowZ.  First impression: am I on crazy pills?  These guys are tiiiiiiiiiiiny!  For some reason, I expected them to be ~50% bigger than they are.  Time and unfamiliarity playing tricks on me.

[tekering]

24 minutes ago, 26662 said:

For some reason, I expected them to be ~50% bigger than they are.

Most of us were 50% smaller in 1984. 😉

[pengbuzz]

51 minutes ago, 26662 said:

Got my ML Sunstreaker and Cordon today from ShowZ.  First impression: am I on crazy pills?  These guys are tiiiiiiiiiiiny!  For some reason, I expected them to be ~50% bigger than they are.  Time and unfamiliarity playing tricks on me.

Mine just charged to my account; I should be getting it soon from BBTS.

 

[26662]

4 hours ago, tekering said:

Most of us were 50% smaller in 1984. 😉

😀 Phenomenological experience is my answer as well, but I think psychology outweighs stature here: in my memories, my 1980s TFs are magnified in scale simply because it reflects their relative importance to me. 

Edited September 9 by 26662

[Hikuro]

Got a few notifications recently, BBTS said Scavanger is set to arrive soon, so had to make some payment changes there to get him in my pile of loot.

Amazon is shipping out Fireflight and Skydive to complete the Aerialbots. A3 is set to ship tomorrow, I kind of wanna cancel him but at the same time, I guess he could actually TECHNICALLY sit in my season 3 display.

[mikeszekely]

I got several "your stuff is going to ship early" emails, too (weirdly for Skydive but NOT Fireflight), but until I actually get the "we shipped your stuff" email I'm taking their dates with a grain of salt. 

I'm a little cranky. People were saying online that they were finding Mixmaster at Target. I checked inventory online- none at my local Target, but in stock in the next town over. I made the half-hour drive after putting my kid on the bus only to find barren shelves. The girl working in the toy department checked her computer, they supposedly got him in yesterday, but after looking in the stockroom for awhile she couldn't find him and I went home empty-handed.

[M'Kyuun]

7 hours ago, 26662 said:

😀 Phenomenological experience is my answer as well, but I think psychology outweighs stature here: in my memories, my 1980s TFs are magnified in scale simply because it reflects their relative importance to me. 

I think a lot of us can relate to that; toys were always important to me as we were not well off so I didn't have a large or complete collection of anything, and I cherished what I did have. Transformers and building blocks were my two favorite things (not much has changed over the last 40 years except for the volume of my acquisitions. 13-year-old me would absolutely piss himself if he could see what I have now).  Oddly enough, the scale thing often hits me more when I'm out on a walk and encounter the odd LEGO piece that a kid has dropped on the sidewalk. LEGO has been an integral part of my life for most of it; I handle it or see it every day and yet when I encounter a random piece it in the wild it always seems so small, like it's smaller than it really is. It's a weird perception, but in that analogous comparison I can completely understand @26662's amazement at how small the G1 toys were compared to today's main line and SS86 figures, and all the more diminutive compared to MP.

[Hikuro]

5 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I got several "your stuff is going to ship early" emails, too (weirdly for Skydive but NOT Fireflight), but until I actually get the "we shipped your stuff" email I'm taking their dates with a grain of salt. 

I'm a little cranky. People were saying online that they were finding Mixmaster at Target. I checked inventory online- none at my local Target, but in stock in the next town over. I made the half-hour drive after putting my kid on the bus only to find barren shelves. The girl working in the toy department checked her computer, they supposedly got him in yesterday, but after looking in the stockroom for awhile she couldn't find him and I went home empty-handed.

Interesting I can’t even find him on the website listings. Otherwise I’d be searching so I can finish two combiners in one week.

[mikeszekely]

4 minutes ago, Hikuro said:

Interesting I can’t even find him on the website listings. Otherwise I’d be searching so I can finish two combiners in one week.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.target.com/p/transformers-studio-series-voyager-class-the-transformers-the-movie-constructicon-mixmaster/-/A-94733473&ved=2ahUKEwiYg4zJo8yPAxW1ETQIHSjhASgQFnoECCEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0xgWR4JJyXa0Tnauv1QvTw

[J.T. Silversmith]

Yes, essentially Deerstalker is Ultra Magnus' version of roller.  The Diaclone version of Magnus was called "Powered Convoy" was an upgraded Convoy unit with a new trailer, weapons, and a new transforming car called "Powered Buggy". Here is a pictures of the Japanese advertisements from tfwiki.  For some unknown reason there was never an official Transformer release of powered buggy with Ultra Magnus.

I am really hoping they do a Diaclone colors (Delta Magnus) in Missing link soon.

[mikeszekely]

15 minutes ago, J.T. Silversmith said:

Yes, essentially Deerstalker is Ultra Magnus' version of roller.

I knew that Powered Convoy came with a buggy that Ultra Magnus didn't, but how did the one they're adding to Ultra Magnus get the name "Deerstalker?"

[J.T. Silversmith]

They decided that the Powered Buggy Character was a great Detective, so they named him after Sherlock Holmes hat a deerstalker.  In one of the comic pages there is a picture of him with a magnifying glass.

Found the picture from the Generations Mook info.

[J.T. Silversmith]

He is also very nervous around girls Which is why he has such a bad reaction to Arcee touching his hand in the comic page.

[Hikuro]

Yeah well that’s very Japanese lol. Not sure why the manga culture is obsessed with that troupe.

 

Amazon told me they’re pushing firefight back to end of September now, not sure why when he was listed as paid.

so guess it’s just skydive now. 
I did end up canceling A3. The only one I care about was the 2 pack variant and I missed out on that multiple times now.

[tekering]

1 hour ago, Hikuro said:

Not sure why the manga culture is obsessed with that trope.

More often than not, it reflects the experience of the author, the artist, and the reader when interacting with the opposite sex.  Each successive generation is becoming progressively more shy and self-conscious, and the population is dwindling rapidly as a result. 🙁

[sh9000]

Mixmaster came in.  Time to complete Devastator.

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

Mixmaster came in.  Time to complete Devastator.

Oh, lucky! Scavenger showed up yesterday, so Mixmaster is the only one I'm waiting on now. I ordered him from Pulse and all my Pos have been showing up recently, sometimes just a day apart, so shouldn't be long now.

I'm happy to finally be getting a full official Devastator after 40+ years of fandom and collecting, but I wish they'd done a better job with the individual Constructicons. They're not as bad as the CW team, which I skipped entirely, but stuff like Bonecrusher's too-short forearms, Scavenger's lack of a rotating deck in excavator mode, Hook's weird arm proportions, etc erode the joy I was anticipating when these guys were announced. They're good, but not great, and I was kinda hoping for great. I am, however, looking forward to getting them all assembled for the first time. Devy was, I'm sure, the primary focus and from what I've seen in reviews, huge superfluous butt-flap notwithstanding, they did a pretty good job with him.

[mikeszekely]

Finally!  He's only a little over a month behind the rest of his wave, but I finally got my hands on Studio Series 86 Voyager-class Mixmaster.

Mixmaster's one of the tougher Constructicons to do if you wanna go full on Sunbow.  And, I think that Hasbro got closer than last time, as SS86 Mixmaster's got that all-purple torso and thighs, with just the single red rectangle and a few cartoon-accurate dark gray spots breaking it up.  There's molded details suggestive of the little nozzles on his hood, and it really looks like Hasbro did their best to give his shins the flat, feet-free look.  That said, his shins don't quite have that shape that looks like he's wearing booties, and he doesn't have the protrusions from his hips.

Of course, all the wheels are showing... they don't magically turn into green lumps.  I'll note that his shoulders kind sit higher than his torso; I wonder if they could have got them to sit lower, if they could have put the elbow between the wheels instead of below them to be more like the cartoon.  Big props for having the mixing drum on his back, though, instead of hanging off his butt like an insect abdomen the way the Combiner Wars version does.

One area where he differs from the G1 toy, but not necessarily with the Sunbow model (since it was so oversimplified), the roof the cab isn't his shins, and the front of the cab isn't in his knees.  Instead, the cab is on the back of his feet.  This will simplify things later when it comes to transformation.

Mixmaster's sole accessory is this pistol.  There's a definite sense that the team needed the budget of two Voyagers, two Deluxes, and a Commander to realize their vision for Devastator, so that's how they packaged them, but there isn't a lot here that makes Mixmaster specifically more Voyager than Scavenger or Bonecrusher.

Mixmaster's head is a little hard to get at, but it is on a ball joint with limited up/down/sideways tilt in addition to swiveling.  His shoulders swivel, but lateral movement is a bit limited by the bit that sticks above his torso.  Straight from his side it's just a bit under 90 degrees, but if you rotate the shoulder at all it's realistically more like 45 degrees.  He has bicep swivels, which is an improvement over the CW version, and elbows that bend 90 degrees.  No wrist or waist swivel.  His hips can move forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees, and he's got thigh swivels.  His knees bend about 90 degrees.  His "foot-less" design means no real up/down tilt, but he does have 90 degrees of ankle pivot.

Mixmaster can hold his pistol in either hand, or plug it into the 5mm ports on his forearms.  There's no other robot-mode weapon storage.

Mixmaster's transformation is very simple, and mostly in the legs.  Fold flaps out from under his feet, then tuck his heels in and open his shins.  Tab his legs and feet together, then bend first the wrong way at the knees.  Swing his hips backward, then use the transformation joint under his knees to fold the cab down into place.  Grab the bottom of his chest, lift up halfway up, then straighten his arms and lift his shoulders up.  Slots near under his hands should grab onto the sides of the cab, then fold the chest the rest of the way up to cover his face and tab into his shoulders.  Lastly, pull open the mixing drum where it tabs into the back of his hood, fold out the spout, then close it back up.

This time around, Mixmaster's a much more cartoon-accurate cement mixer than whatever they were thinking when they did Combiner Wars Mixmaster.  I think by having the correct alt mode Mixmaster's competing with Long Haul for the "most improved" award in the set.  I don't have any major gripes with his alt mode... I do have a few minor ones, though.  Both the G1 toy and the animation model left a gap between the cab and the rear, here though the forearm and fist bridge that gap.  The G1 toy and animation also had some rectangular panels on the roof of the cab that this toy doesn't.  Like I said, though, minor gripes.  I'll take this truck all day every day over the Combiner Wars one.

He doesn't do much in truck mode.  He rolls.  There's a 5mm port on the roof for storing his gun.  That's about it.  Kind of shame; I feel like they could have engineered the mixing drum to spin if they really wanted to, but it 100% doesn't.  

Mixmaster continues the trend established by the other figures in this set... it's definitely an improvement over the Combiner Wars toy, but the not-quite-Sunbow design, limited articulation in spots, and overly-simplistic engineering makes you think that they probably could have done better.  The fact that they got his alt mode right this time is a big win in my book, though, so I'd recommend him.

[davidwhangchoi]

Can you form Voyager class Devastator, do you have all the pieces now?

[mikeszekely]

41 minutes ago, davidwhangchoi said:

Can you form Voyager class Devastator, do you have all the pieces now?

I got all six.  Devastator review tomorrow.

[davidwhangchoi]

2 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

I got all six.  Devastator review tomorrow.

[sh9000]

I love this Devastator.

[mikeszekely]

Ok, time to put together Devastator!

Start with everyone in their alt modes.  For Scrapper, make sure the little clip on his shovel is in place and lift the shove up.  Pull out his arms, rotate them 180 degrees, then push them back in.  Bend the elbows to make the heel.  Now pull his right leg away from the left.  For Mixmaster, fold the heels down from the underside of the cab, then fold in the other flaps.  Unhook his hands from the cab.  Rather than shift the entire cab the way most Devastators do, just grab the front of the cab and double-hinge it into the top of the cab.  Open the mixing drum.

Get Long Haul's trailer and turn in into pants mode.  Slide the right thigh sideways into Scrapper's left leg, then close his right leg around it.  For Mixmaster, use the groove in back of the truck to slide him forward onto the left thigh, then close the mixing drum back up.

Speaking of Long Haul, fold his legs back, and fold the roof up.  Tab his heels into the roof.  Pull his arms out, rotate his forearms 180 degrees, and then curl his arms up.  His forearms will tab into the biceps, and then the entire arm will tab into the side of the truck.  On the underside you'll see a big gap with Long Haul's face peaking through it.  This gap fits over the purple block at the top of the pants.  Long Haul's knees will fit into grooves on the flap on the back of the pants.

On Hook, fold out the Devastator head part way, and pull out the feet/shin flaps.  Pull the to halves of the vehicle apart and fold them over, then lock them together by folding the head the rest of the way into place.  Fold his feet/shin flaps back into place.  Now the trick is to make sure everything you need to connect is oriented right.  Fold out the arm connector from the crane deck, and the torso connector from Hook's chest.  Open Hook's front cab, fold out the other connector, and close it up.  Bend Hook's right arm 90 degrees at the elbow, but leave the other one straight.  Now line everything up... the chest tab goes into Long Haul's cab, and Long Haul's smokestack goes into one of Hook's feet.  Tabs on Long Haul's arms go into Hook's other foot and a slot on his chest.  Hook's bent right arm plugs into a slot on Long Haul's roof flap.

For Scavenger and Bonecrusher, untab their leg treads.  Take the center block and fold it outward.  Now put the leg treads back.  They'll tab back into the combiner ports, but for extra stability there's a flap on the inside of one leg on each bot.  Fold it down, then bend the foot of the opposite leg up so that it pegs into the flap.

It should be pretty obvious that the ports on the arm bots slide down over the connectors we folded out of Long Haul- just make sure you push down until they click.  You're not quite done, though!  The rearward tread on each arm bot has a slot that fits into tabs on Long Haul's arms.  All of these connections make Studio Series Devastator feel much more solid than the Combiner Wars version.

Now we just gotta do the rest of the partsforming.  Fold out the fists, and spin them so the hollow side is the back of the forearm.  You'll notice a peg inside, and a tab on the lip near opposite the fist.  Line up the tab and peg with the slot and peg hole on the blocks dangling from Scavenger and Bonecrusher.  Note that it's obvious which side of Scavenger they plug into, but make sure you've got Bonecrusher's turned so the forearm pegs into the hollow side.

The easiest way to attach the chest armor is to first open the front of Long Haul and clip the shield onto the part you just opened.  Then close it back up, and the top of the shield tabs into Hook while the sides of the shield tab into the treads on Scavenger and Bonecrusher.

And there you have it, folks... the third official Devastator toy in 40 years.  Like his constituent parts I think it's very difficult to capture a truly Sunbow accurate Devastator... Bonecrusher's treads can't magically turn purple, Scrapper can't magically turn into a weird I-shaped block with a shovel and some scaffolding, and Mixmaster's grill can't magically vanish, after all.  But improvements have definitely been made.  His hands are now correctly purple, he's got the purple at the tops of his thighs and (subjectively) I think his overall proportions are better, even if he's much smaller than the Combiner Wars version.

Improved, but not without flaws.  Much has been made of how his lower legs don't really line up with his knees.  Officially, it was a design decision so he could stand straight up without Scrapper and Mixmaster banging into each other, but would it really have killed them to just make the hips slightly wider?  Or, so what if they bang a little?  Modders have already started whipping up knee parts that bring the legs back in line, and the slight A-stance doesn't look bad.  I think the next biggest complaint is the backpack.  I'm not sure why they didn't design Long Haul's legs to sit up a little higher, maybe hide some of those transformation joints on the back of Hook.  I also don't know why they didn't make the flaps on the pants part fold up a bit more.  It's not the prettiest, but ultimately not the worst thing ever.  It's not like Sunbow Devastator didn't have a (purple) backpack.

Of more minor complaints, there's a visible hole just above the shield where Hook's head is hiding.  Hook's head doesn't line up perfectly with the shoulder flaps, hence the gap.  I really don't know why a flap couldn't have been built into the shield, or onto Hook's shoulder flaps, to cover it.  I'm also not a fan of the way Mixmaster's forearms just kinda dangle off the back of Devastator's leg.

Unlike Menasor, who had a chunk of leftover trailer and Stunticon pistols, weapon storage was designed for Devastator.  Bonecrusher and Scavenger officially use their own alt mode storage for their own rifles, while Mixmaster and Scrapper's plug into the top of the backpack (just ignore that I mixed up Scavenger and Scrapper's rifles).  Hook's can plug into the side of his boom.  As for Long Haul, the reason part of his gun is green is because you're meant to plug it into Mixmaster's bumper, and you're supposed to the think it's the green toe seen in Sunbow art.  The problem I have doing thigs this way is that the toe is off-center, and Bonecrusher and Hook's guns are going to visible from the front (Scavenger's shovel kinda hides his).

Fortunately, there are more peg holes on the sides of Long Haul's legs, on Scrapper's feet, and on Hook's left arm.  It's possible to plug all of the Construticon's guns on the back of Devastator and out of sight.

Devastator's head swivels, no tilt.  His shoulders can swivel, and his right arm can move 90 degrees laterally (his left is just a little short).  His biceps swivel.  Both elbows can only bend about 45 degrees.  His wrists swivel, and his fingers (which are molded as a single, permanently curled part) can open.  His waist swivels, but only about 45 degrees in either direction before his back kibble hits his waist.  His hips ratchet forward 90 degrees, backward about 45 degrees before his butt flap gets in the way, and laterally (on a friction joint) just under 90 degrees.  His thighs swivel, and his knees ratchet 90 degrees.  Ratchets in Mixmaster and Scrapper's waists give him about 45 degrees of ankle pivot.  All-in-all, I don't think his articulation is that much different than the Combiner Wars toy, but because he's smaller and so much more solidly built I find that he's much easier to get into dynamic poses.  That being said, I think Scavenger and Bonecrusher also really needed ratchets in the shoulder swivels.

Devastator can hold his own gun by plugging the 5mm handle into ports built into his hands, though on my copy (and others, I'm hearing) the connection is pretty loose.

One last thing to discuss is scale.  I hate to open that can of worms, but I know a lot of people who are happy that Devastator is now closer in size to Legacy Menasor and the old four-Deluxes-and-a-Voyager combiners from Combiner Wars and Power of the Primes, but I know just as many people who think that the Combiner Wars toy scaled better with individual characters.  So, here's Devastator with a few Optimus Primes (SS86, Devastation, Dr. Wu, NewAge, and Hasbro's Core-class).

Now, here's the official scale chart copied right out of The Ark (so, not any of the various fan-made charts out there).  On the very bottom line we have Prime roughly crotch-height to Devastator, and wouldn't you know it SS86 Prime is roughly crotch height to Devastator.  But, on the first line, Megatron is only about knee-high to Devastator.  Assuming Prime is the same size as Megatron (though, if you compare Megatron to Shockwave on that same line then Prime to Shockwave on the third line you might expect that Prime is half a head taller than Megatron), then Devastation Optimus or a 3P Legends-scale figure might scale better.  When you actually played the Devastation game, though, Devastator seemed even bigger still.  Which makes me think of the episode "City of Steel," when Devastator was climbing the Empire State Building while clutching Prime in one hand.  I think you could make a case for the Core-class toy being the right size for that.  All of which leads me to a somewhat unorthodox conclusion... scale is whatever you want it to be.  Personally, I never liked Devastator being so much bigger than the other combiners, so much so that I actually bought a downsized KO of CW Devastator.  SS86 works better for me.  And if I want Devastator to loom larger over Prime than SS86 Devastator does over SS86 Optimus, then I have other options for Optimus.

So, yeah.  Ultimately the gestalt follows the same pattern as his constituent parts.  SS86 Devastator still has plenty of flaws, but enough improvements were made in aesthetics, scale, and especially stability that I think it's well worth replacing the older Combiner Wars version.  Just remember that it's ultimately still a mainline toy, not a mini-Masterpiece.

[Hikuro]

I tried my hand at getting Mixmaster at Target yesterday, it showed 4 were available, sadly, looks like all 4 were taken. It even says today, limited stock 3 available but it just doesn't seem to be updating correctly and no one would look in the back room. Could confirm though there's a peg and a tag for him! I'm not gonna worry about it though, I have him on pre-order on BBTS, he'll be apart of my loot and I"m sure available in the coming weeks. 

My Skydive did show up, so that makes Superion's legs finished. I guess I'll take the win on that one.
 

[sh9000]

I never was able to get their Optimus so I probably won't even try to get this one either.

 

[Scyla]

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

I never was able to get their Optimus so I probably won't even try to get this one either.

 

I will try to get one, since the prices to ship to the EU are not outrageous.

 

Nice Devastator review @mikeszekely. To me the biggest criticism would be the black hole in Devastator’s chest. It is very unsightly to me.

The upsides is that DNA has a lot to do and Hasbro can improve over the Studio Series one.

With only three data points it is hard to determine but assuming the releases of new Devastators is getting faster and faster I predict that the next one from Hasbro will be in 2029. 

Edited September 13 by Scyla

[davidwhangchoi]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Ok, time to put together Devastator!

Start with everyone in their alt modes.  For Scrapper, make sure the little clip on his shovel is in place and lift the shove up.  Pull out his arms, rotate them 180 degrees, then push them back in.  Bend the elbows to make the heel.  Now pull his right leg away from the left.  For Mixmaster, fold the heels down from the underside of the cab, then fold in the other flaps.  Unhook his hands from the cab.  Rather than shift the entire cab the way most Devastators do, just grab the front of the cab and double-hinge it into the top of the cab.  Open the mixing drum.

Get Long Haul's trailer and turn in into pants mode.  Slide the right thigh sideways into Scrapper's left leg, then close his right leg around it.  For Mixmaster, use the groove in back of the truck to slide him forward onto the left thigh, then close the mixing drum back up.

Speaking of Long Haul, fold his legs back, and fold the roof up.  Tab his heels into the roof.  Pull his arms out, rotate his forearms 180 degrees, and then curl his arms up.  His forearms will tab into the biceps, and then the entire arm will tab into the side of the truck.  On the underside you'll see a big gap with Long Haul's face peaking through it.  This gap fits over the purple block at the top of the pants.  Long Haul's knees will fit into grooves on the flap on the back of the pants.

On Hook, fold out the Devastator head part way, and pull out the feet/shin flaps.  Pull the to halves of the vehicle apart and fold them over, then lock them together by folding the head the rest of the way into place.  Fold his feet/shin flaps back into place.  Now the trick is to make sure everything you need to connect is oriented right.  Fold out the arm connector from the crane deck, and the torso connector from Hook's chest.  Open Hook's front cab, fold out the other connector, and close it up.  Bend Hook's right arm 90 degrees at the elbow, but leave the other one straight.  Now line everything up... the chest tab goes into Long Haul's cab, and Long Haul's smokestack goes into one of Hook's feet.  Tabs on Long Haul's arms go into Hook's other foot and a slot on his chest.  Hook's bent right arm plugs into a slot on Long Haul's roof flap.

For Scavenger and Bonecrusher, untab their leg treads.  Take the center block and fold it outward.  Now put the leg treads back.  They'll tab back into the combiner ports, but for extra stability there's a flap on the inside of one leg on each bot.  Fold it down, then bend the foot of the opposite leg up so that it pegs into the flap.

It should be pretty obvious that the ports on the arm bots slide down over the connectors we folded out of Long Haul- just make sure you push down until they click.  You're not quite done, though!  The rearward tread on each arm bot has a slot that fits into tabs on Long Haul's arms.  All of these connections make Studio Series Devastator feel much more solid than the Combiner Wars version.

Now we just gotta do the rest of the partsforming.  Fold out the fists, and spin them so the hollow side is the back of the forearm.  You'll notice a peg inside, and a tab on the lip near opposite the fist.  Line up the tab and peg with the slot and peg hole on the blocks dangling from Scavenger and Bonecrusher.  Note that it's obvious which side of Scavenger they plug into, but make sure you've got Bonecrusher's turned so the forearm pegs into the hollow side.

The easiest way to attach the chest armor is to first open the front of Long Haul and clip the shield onto the part you just opened.  Then close it back up, and the top of the shield tabs into Hook while the sides of the shield tab into the treads on Scavenger and Bonecrusher.

And there you have it, folks... the third official Devastator toy in 40 years.  Like his constituent parts I think it's very difficult to capture a truly Sunbow accurate Devastator... Bonecrusher's treads can't magically turn purple, Scrapper can't magically turn into a weird I-shaped block with a shovel and some scaffolding, and Mixmaster's grill can't magically vanish, after all.  But improvements have definitely been made.  His hands are now correctly purple, he's got the purple at the tops of his thighs and (subjectively) I think his overall proportions are better, even if he's much smaller than the Combiner Wars version.

Improved, but not without flaws.  Much has been made of how his lower legs don't really line up with his knees.  Officially, it was a design decision so he could stand straight up without Scrapper and Mixmaster banging into each other, but would it really have killed them to just make the hips slightly wider?  Or, so what if they bang a little?  Modders have already started whipping up knee parts that bring the legs back in line, and the slight A-stance doesn't look bad.  I think the next biggest complaint is the backpack.  I'm not sure why they didn't design Long Haul's legs to sit up a little higher, maybe hide some of those transformation joints on the back of Hook.  I also don't know why they didn't make the flaps on the pants part fold up a bit more.  It's not the prettiest, but ultimately not the worst thing ever.  It's not like Sunbow Devastator didn't have a (purple) backpack.

Of more minor complaints, there's a visible hole just above the shield where Hook's head is hiding.  Hook's head doesn't line up perfectly with the shoulder flaps, hence the gap.  I really don't know why a flap couldn't have been built into the shield, or onto Hook's shoulder flaps, to cover it.  I'm also not a fan of the way Mixmaster's forearms just kinda dangle off the back of Devastator's leg.

Unlike Menasor, who had a chunk of leftover trailer and Stunticon pistols, weapon storage was designed for Devastator.  Bonecrusher and Scavenger officially use their own alt mode storage for their own rifles, while Mixmaster and Scrapper's plug into the top of the backpack (just ignore that I mixed up Scavenger and Scrapper's rifles).  Hook's can plug into the side of his boom.  As for Long Haul, the reason part of his gun is green is because you're meant to plug it into Mixmaster's bumper, and you're supposed to the think it's the green toe seen in Sunbow art.  The problem I have doing thigs this way is that the toe is off-center, and Bonecrusher and Hook's guns are going to visible from the front (Scavenger's shovel kinda hides his).

Fortunately, there are more peg holes on the sides of Long Haul's legs, on Scrapper's feet, and on Hook's left arm.  It's possible to plug all of the Construticon's guns on the back of Devastator and out of sight.

Devastator's head swivels, no tilt.  His shoulders can swivel, and his right arm can move 90 degrees laterally (his left is just a little short).  His biceps swivel.  Both elbows can only bend about 45 degrees.  His wrists swivel, and his fingers (which are molded as a single, permanently curled part) can open.  His waist swivels, but only about 45 degrees in either direction before his back kibble hits his waist.  His hips ratchet forward 90 degrees, backward about 45 degrees before his butt flap gets in the way, and laterally (on a friction joint) just under 90 degrees.  His thighs swivel, and his knees ratchet 90 degrees.  Ratchets in Mixmaster and Scrapper's waists give him about 45 degrees of ankle pivot.  All-in-all, I don't think his articulation is that much different than the Combiner Wars toy, but because he's smaller and so much more solidly built I find that he's much easier to get into dynamic poses.  That being said, I think Scavenger and Bonecrusher also really needed ratchets in the shoulder swivels.

Devastator can hold his own gun by plugging the 5mm handle into ports built into his hands, though on my copy (and others, I'm hearing) the connection is pretty loose.

One last thing to discuss is scale.  I hate to open that can of worms, but I know a lot of people who are happy that Devastator is now closer in size to Legacy Menasor and the old four-Deluxes-and-a-Voyager combiners from Combiner Wars and Power of the Primes, but I know just as many people who think that the Combiner Wars toy scaled better with individual characters.  So, here's Devastator with a few Optimus Primes (SS86, Devastation, Dr. Wu, NewAge, and Hasbro's Core-class).

Now, here's the official scale chart copied right out of The Ark (so, not any of the various fan-made charts out there).  On the very bottom line we have Prime roughly crotch-height to Devastator, and wouldn't you know it SS86 Prime is roughly crotch height to Devastator.  But, on the first line, Megatron is only about knee-high to Devastator.  Assuming Prime is the same size as Megatron (though, if you compare Megatron to Shockwave on that same line then Prime to Shockwave on the third line you might expect that Prime is half a head taller than Megatron), then Devastation Optimus or a 3P Legends-scale figure might scale better.  When you actually played the Devastation game, though, Devastator seemed even bigger still.  Which makes me think of the episode "City of Steel," when Devastator was climbing the Empire State Building while clutching Prime in one hand.  I think you could make a case for the Core-class toy being the right size for that.  All of which leads me to a somewhat unorthodox conclusion... scale is whatever you want it to be.  Personally, I never liked Devastator being so much bigger than the other combiners, so much so that I actually bought a downsized KO of CW Devastator.  SS86 works better for me.  And if I want Devastator to loom larger over Prime than SS86 Devastator does over SS86 Optimus, then I have other options for Optimus.

So, yeah.  Ultimately the gestalt follows the same pattern as his constituent parts.  SS86 Devastator still has plenty of flaws, but enough improvements were made in aesthetics, scale, and especially stability that I think it's well worth replacing the older Combiner Wars version.  Just remember that it's ultimately still a mainline toy, not a mini-Masterpiece.

Great write up!!!🔥

[M'Kyuun]

On 9/12/2025 at 12:27 PM, mikeszekely said:

Ok, time to put together Devastator!

Start with everyone in their alt modes.  For Scrapper, make sure the little clip on his shovel is in place and lift the shove up.  Pull out his arms, rotate them 180 degrees, then push them back in.  Bend the elbows to make the heel.  Now pull his right leg away from the left.  For Mixmaster, fold the heels down from the underside of the cab, then fold in the other flaps.  Unhook his hands from the cab.  Rather than shift the entire cab the way most Devastators do, just grab the front of the cab and double-hinge it into the top of the cab.  Open the mixing drum.

Get Long Haul's trailer and turn in into pants mode.  Slide the right thigh sideways into Scrapper's left leg, then close his right leg around it.  For Mixmaster, use the groove in back of the truck to slide him forward onto the left thigh, then close the mixing drum back up.

Speaking of Long Haul, fold his legs back, and fold the roof up.  Tab his heels into the roof.  Pull his arms out, rotate his forearms 180 degrees, and then curl his arms up.  His forearms will tab into the biceps, and then the entire arm will tab into the side of the truck.  On the underside you'll see a big gap with Long Haul's face peaking through it.  This gap fits over the purple block at the top of the pants.  Long Haul's knees will fit into grooves on the flap on the back of the pants.

On Hook, fold out the Devastator head part way, and pull out the feet/shin flaps.  Pull the to halves of the vehicle apart and fold them over, then lock them together by folding the head the rest of the way into place.  Fold his feet/shin flaps back into place.  Now the trick is to make sure everything you need to connect is oriented right.  Fold out the arm connector from the crane deck, and the torso connector from Hook's chest.  Open Hook's front cab, fold out the other connector, and close it up.  Bend Hook's right arm 90 degrees at the elbow, but leave the other one straight.  Now line everything up... the chest tab goes into Long Haul's cab, and Long Haul's smokestack goes into one of Hook's feet.  Tabs on Long Haul's arms go into Hook's other foot and a slot on his chest.  Hook's bent right arm plugs into a slot on Long Haul's roof flap.

For Scavenger and Bonecrusher, untab their leg treads.  Take the center block and fold it outward.  Now put the leg treads back.  They'll tab back into the combiner ports, but for extra stability there's a flap on the inside of one leg on each bot.  Fold it down, then bend the foot of the opposite leg up so that it pegs into the flap.

It should be pretty obvious that the ports on the arm bots slide down over the connectors we folded out of Long Haul- just make sure you push down until they click.  You're not quite done, though!  The rearward tread on each arm bot has a slot that fits into tabs on Long Haul's arms.  All of these connections make Studio Series Devastator feel much more solid than the Combiner Wars version.

Now we just gotta do the rest of the partsforming.  Fold out the fists, and spin them so the hollow side is the back of the forearm.  You'll notice a peg inside, and a tab on the lip near opposite the fist.  Line up the tab and peg with the slot and peg hole on the blocks dangling from Scavenger and Bonecrusher.  Note that it's obvious which side of Scavenger they plug into, but make sure you've got Bonecrusher's turned so the forearm pegs into the hollow side.

The easiest way to attach the chest armor is to first open the front of Long Haul and clip the shield onto the part you just opened.  Then close it back up, and the top of the shield tabs into Hook while the sides of the shield tab into the treads on Scavenger and Bonecrusher.

And there you have it, folks... the third official Devastator toy in 40 years.  Like his constituent parts I think it's very difficult to capture a truly Sunbow accurate Devastator... Bonecrusher's treads can't magically turn purple, Scrapper can't magically turn into a weird I-shaped block with a shovel and some scaffolding, and Mixmaster's grill can't magically vanish, after all.  But improvements have definitely been made.  His hands are now correctly purple, he's got the purple at the tops of his thighs and (subjectively) I think his overall proportions are better, even if he's much smaller than the Combiner Wars version.

Improved, but not without flaws.  Much has been made of how his lower legs don't really line up with his knees.  Officially, it was a design decision so he could stand straight up without Scrapper and Mixmaster banging into each other, but would it really have killed them to just make the hips slightly wider?  Or, so what if they bang a little?  Modders have already started whipping up knee parts that bring the legs back in line, and the slight A-stance doesn't look bad.  I think the next biggest complaint is the backpack.  I'm not sure why they didn't design Long Haul's legs to sit up a little higher, maybe hide some of those transformation joints on the back of Hook.  I also don't know why they didn't make the flaps on the pants part fold up a bit more.  It's not the prettiest, but ultimately not the worst thing ever.  It's not like Sunbow Devastator didn't have a (purple) backpack.

Of more minor complaints, there's a visible hole just above the shield where Hook's head is hiding.  Hook's head doesn't line up perfectly with the shoulder flaps, hence the gap.  I really don't know why a flap couldn't have been built into the shield, or onto Hook's shoulder flaps, to cover it.  I'm also not a fan of the way Mixmaster's forearms just kinda dangle off the back of Devastator's leg.

Unlike Menasor, who had a chunk of leftover trailer and Stunticon pistols, weapon storage was designed for Devastator.  Bonecrusher and Scavenger officially use their own alt mode storage for their own rifles, while Mixmaster and Scrapper's plug into the top of the backpack (just ignore that I mixed up Scavenger and Scrapper's rifles).  Hook's can plug into the side of his boom.  As for Long Haul, the reason part of his gun is green is because you're meant to plug it into Mixmaster's bumper, and you're supposed to the think it's the green toe seen in Sunbow art.  The problem I have doing thigs this way is that the toe is off-center, and Bonecrusher and Hook's guns are going to visible from the front (Scavenger's shovel kinda hides his).

Fortunately, there are more peg holes on the sides of Long Haul's legs, on Scrapper's feet, and on Hook's left arm.  It's possible to plug all of the Construticon's guns on the back of Devastator and out of sight.

Devastator's head swivels, no tilt.  His shoulders can swivel, and his right arm can move 90 degrees laterally (his left is just a little short).  His biceps swivel.  Both elbows can only bend about 45 degrees.  His wrists swivel, and his fingers (which are molded as a single, permanently curled part) can open.  His waist swivels, but only about 45 degrees in either direction before his back kibble hits his waist.  His hips ratchet forward 90 degrees, backward about 45 degrees before his butt flap gets in the way, and laterally (on a friction joint) just under 90 degrees.  His thighs swivel, and his knees ratchet 90 degrees.  Ratchets in Mixmaster and Scrapper's waists give him about 45 degrees of ankle pivot.  All-in-all, I don't think his articulation is that much different than the Combiner Wars toy, but because he's smaller and so much more solidly built I find that he's much easier to get into dynamic poses.  That being said, I think Scavenger and Bonecrusher also really needed ratchets in the shoulder swivels.

Devastator can hold his own gun by plugging the 5mm handle into ports built into his hands, though on my copy (and others, I'm hearing) the connection is pretty loose.

One last thing to discuss is scale.  I hate to open that can of worms, but I know a lot of people who are happy that Devastator is now closer in size to Legacy Menasor and the old four-Deluxes-and-a-Voyager combiners from Combiner Wars and Power of the Primes, but I know just as many people who think that the Combiner Wars toy scaled better with individual characters.  So, here's Devastator with a few Optimus Primes (SS86, Devastation, Dr. Wu, NewAge, and Hasbro's Core-class).

Now, here's the official scale chart copied right out of The Ark (so, not any of the various fan-made charts out there).  On the very bottom line we have Prime roughly crotch-height to Devastator, and wouldn't you know it SS86 Prime is roughly crotch height to Devastator.  But, on the first line, Megatron is only about knee-high to Devastator.  Assuming Prime is the same size as Megatron (though, if you compare Megatron to Shockwave on that same line then Prime to Shockwave on the third line you might expect that Prime is half a head taller than Megatron), then Devastation Optimus or a 3P Legends-scale figure might scale better.  When you actually played the Devastation game, though, Devastator seemed even bigger still.  Which makes me think of the episode "City of Steel," when Devastator was climbing the Empire State Building while clutching Prime in one hand.  I think you could make a case for the Core-class toy being the right size for that.  All of which leads me to a somewhat unorthodox conclusion... scale is whatever you want it to be.  Personally, I never liked Devastator being so much bigger than the other combiners, so much so that I actually bought a downsized KO of CW Devastator.  SS86 works better for me.  And if I want Devastator to loom larger over Prime than SS86 Devastator does over SS86 Optimus, then I have other options for Optimus.

So, yeah.  Ultimately the gestalt follows the same pattern as his constituent parts.  SS86 Devastator still has plenty of flaws, but enough improvements were made in aesthetics, scale, and especially stability that I think it's well worth replacing the older Combiner Wars version.  Just remember that it's ultimately still a mainline toy, not a mini-Masterpiece.

I'll add my kudos for your customary extensive writeup and pics.  I've made a few poor efforts towards doing minimal reviews, so I appreciate all the work you put into your elaborate efforts. As to the thing itself, I think we the fandom at large recognize that both the individual bots and the final gestalt are good, but certainly not perfect by any stretch, and as always, it leaves one hoping that the next installment, b/c there's always another installment, will be further improved. I skipped the CW team entirely b/c they left far too much to be desired. On this go round, the figs were markedly better, and I bit to my general satisfaction. Of course, I have the same complaints as everyone else, mostly, but on the whole I think it's a much better collection of figs. I'm still waiting on Mixmaster to complete my team and assemble Devastator, but thanks to this and other reviews, I'm well informed on what to expect and what to do, so a sincere thank you, Mike.

I do have to say that, with all the extra effort and higher price points for these guys, I'm a bit disappointed that Devy's elbows don't even achieve the standard 90 degrees. C'mon Takara, you can do better.  One more thing for third party add-on kit makers to fix, I guess.

Edited September 14 by M'Kyuun

[Hikuro]

I got my hands on Mixmaster and went to cancel it on BBTS and somehow canceled Scavenger even though I know I paid for him......not sure what happened there. 
Didn't see much of anything exciting though besides Mixmaster. Neither of my closest stores have carried much, they're just getting shelf warming figures left and right. I mean Target DID have a Gamer Edition Thundercracker, but I'm not all that excited over game stuff....I feel like their WFC Figures are to odd of a size and not all that exciting. Optimus was okay, but man the other figures were so gappy and weird looking that I had to pass on all of those. 

[mikeszekely]

The next wave of Age of the Primes is hitting... at least online (local stores seem to have Devastation Optimus, TFOne Bumblebee, and maybe a few Bonecrushers, and that's it).  I'd prefer to write reviews on weekdays, since a lot of you seem to read them at work, but we're going to have a lot to cover.  So let's jump right into it with Deluxe-class Skydive.

In keeping with the rest of the AOTP Aerialbots so far, Skydive is definitely a case of two steps forward, one step back.  Like, sure, he's a bit closer to the animation model than the Combiner Wars toy.  His head has less of the almost Bayverse-esque extraneous mechanical details, his limbs are blockier, and his pelvis is red.  That said, aside from the head and the jet parts on his back and the backs of his legs, he's pretty much a cut-and-paste of Air Raid.  Same arms, same feet, same fronts of the legs, same pelvis... even the front of the torso is basically the same, except the left side of his chest is filled in to better match the cartoon.

Hasbro probably figured they could get away with it since Skydive and Air Raid do have pretty similar animation models... it's certainly not the crime that Legacy Breakdown was.  But it does mean that crotch bulge with the line and triangle that Air Raid does, instead of the three squares his animation model has.  His forearms are entirely gray with black hands, instead of gray with black cutouts at the wrist and gray hands.  The black part of his chest is missing a protrusion, and his shin details are a bit off (to be fair, they're a bit off from Air Raid, too, almost like they were planning this from the beginning and split the difference.

Air Raid comes with, surprise, a pair of guns.  Note that, out of the box, his vertical stabilizer is not attached.  Since it just uses a 5mm peg to connect, it can technically be held like a weapon if you're into that.

It probably won't surprise you to hear that a toy that's 75% Air Raid has the same articulation as Air Raid, but I'll go over it again real quick.  Ball-jointed head swivels, can look up and tilt sideways slightly, no real downward tilt.  Shoulders swivel and move 90 degrees laterally.  Biceps swivel, elbows bend 90 degrees, no wrist swivels.  Waist swivels.  Hips go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees.  Thighs swivel, knees bend 90 degrees.  Feet tilt up due to transformation, but not down, and the ankles pivot 90 degrees.

He holds his guns fine, and they plug into the wings for storage.

Transformation is, for better or worse, also the same as Air Raid.

Now, I know the jet lovers in the audience already hate this alt mode, but as it's NOT a licensed F-16 I see no real point in comparing it to one.  I'm just looking at it compared to the animation model.  And, well, the stubby wings and single vertical stab with the lightning bolt designs are certainly more accurate than the Combiner Wars toy.  His arms are still just chilling there in the open, which isn't worse than the Combiner Wars toy but still sucks.  You can argue that the the entire block of robot under the jet sucks, but frankly that's mostly accurate.  Less accurate are the two exhaust nozzles, another unfortunate side effect of recycling Air Raid's parts, and I maintain from my Air Raid review that they really should have come up with a better way of stowing the feet.

Weirdly, though, I think the thing that's actually bothering me the most is just how flat the fuselage is.  Like, yeah, you want the F-15 to be flat, but the F-16 is much more curved along the spine, and it's one of the F-16's details that the animation model did retain.  The jet parts on his backs and the backs of his legs, aka the parts that form the bulk of the fuselage, are some of the only parts that did get new molds, so why not get that detail right?

Anyway... same as Air Raid, the chest opens up to reveal a front landing gear.  And his guns plug into the undersides of his wings.

Through the first three releases Air Raid was the worst of the Aerialbots, and I could tell you that Fireflight would instantly be better than Air Raid even if he were just a new head and red paint on an otherwise unchanged Slingshot.  But to me, Skydive is worse.  He fixed none of the things I disliked about Air Raid, and I think that has more to do with keeping them interchangeable as legs and saving money than an inability to do so.  I mean, folding the head into the chest and folding the arms up above the torso, like Slingshot, would have not only solved the arms just hanging out on the sides but could have created the illusion of the F-16's big intake.  Changing the legs could have ditched the dopey underbelly feet and giving him the proper single exhaust.  And even when they did mold new parts it still seems like they got stuff wrong that they just didn't need to, like the overall shape of the fuselage.

Despite Skydive being a bit of a disappointment, he is still better than the Combiner Wars version.  And for a lot of collectors, I don't think it'll ultimately matter how how good or bad the individuals are, it'll come down to how good Superion is.  We'll get to Superion later in the week, after I have Fireflight in hand.  But if you don't mind the spoiler, yeah, you're probably going to want to pick up Skydive.

[mikeszekely]

Skydive is the only AOTP Deluxe to show up so far, so I guess we'll skip up to the Voyagers.  Hmm... one of those is a repaint, so we'll save him for another day.  That leaves us with Alpha Trion.

Unlike the other Primes, Alpha Trion is the only one that's actually had a previous, recent release as a retool of Studio Series Scourge.  In a lot of ways, the new toy, which is purpose built to be Alpha Trion, is more cartoon accurate.  His forearms better capture the layered look, the blocky legs have a more accurate shape, and his pelvis is a bit more accurate with (most) of the silver and blue on his belt.  But the rounder chest, smaller shoulder pads, and reddish feet are more accurate on the earlier figure, as is the silver/white in the biceps.  And I get that Hasbro wants this to be the Trion that existed with the other Thirteen, so a younger one (hence the "War Dawn" face, but I think more collectors who may not even been in on the other Thirteen probably wanted the more "present" face with the longer mustache and beard, which the older figure has.

Neither figure has an accurate backpack, BTW.  His cape should be two long segments extending from the backs of his shoulder pads, that's it.  Like the prior toy, this one's got a bit of alt mode kibble he's wearing like a cape.  It's at least a bit more compact this time.

AOTP Alpha Trion has some unique accessories, though, instead of a repaint of Scourge's gun.  First, you've got this sort of shield thing.  But more importantly, you've got his relic, the Covenant of Primus, and his Quill.  Note that the spikes on his shoulders are just pegged in and can be removed if necessary.

I think Trion's head is on a ball joint, but the shape of his head only allows it to swivel.  A transformation hinge allows him to look up and down, though he can only look up so far before his head starts getting lost in his collar.  His shoulders swivel and can move 90 degrees laterally.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend about 90 degrees.  His wrists do not swivel, but his fingers are hinged so his hands can open and close.  His waist swivels.  His hip skirts are hinged, so his hips can go 90 degrees forward or laterally, but his back kibble limits him to just a little backward motion.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt downward slightly, but not up, and he's got nearly 90 degrees of ankle pivot.

Trion's shield can plug into either forearm, or, if you're feeling saucy, you can remove one of his shoulder spikes and plug it into his shoulder.  If you'd rather just stow it, you can plug it into his his butt where it becomes part of his cape.

Because reasons, you can pull the Autobot badge off of Trion's tummy, where it's ultimately just pegged in place.  The instructions show him holding the badge, but it's more like carefully wedging it between his thumbs and fingers and praying it doesn't fall out

The real stars are the Covenant of Primus and the Quill... though I wish there was a more natural way for him to hold them.  The Covenant simply has a peg on one corner, while the Quill is meant to fit into his fist like a two-year old with a crayon.  The Covenant is pretty cool, though.  It doesn't just open, there's a pair of translucent red pages you can turn inside.

To store the Quill and the Covenant in robot mode, first you fit the narrow slot on the Quill's handle onto a thin tab on the shield.  There's a cutout on the shield for the top of the "feather" to poke through.  Then you can close the rest of his cape back up, and just plug the Covenant into the peg hole on Trion's back.

Despite having a sort of similar alt mode to the previous figure, the transformation is quite different.  Fold his wrists in, and angle his arms so that they're almost straight out behind him.  Lean his head back as far as it'll go.  Lift his cape, then open the cockpit section and feet the blue part behind it through and over his head.  Spin the waist, then turn his thighs so his toes are pointing outside.  Fold in the heels, then fold the toes down and tab the legs together.  Grab his knees and kind of pull them out.  Now, fold his waist backward; is arms should lock in place at his knees, and once you fold out and rotate the ball jointed bits the cab should lock into place over his legs.  The shield, which doesn't have to be removed for transformation, has the sides double hinge out to form little winglets.

Considering that Trion never transformed in the cartoon (it was actually implied for a bit that, aside from Amalgamous, the Thirteen had no alt modes and did not transform), this is fine.  While it is, as mentioned, vaguely similar to the Scourge's alt mode (and the Trion toy remolded from it), this spaceship-esque design is actually based on an unused concept for Trion's alt mode in IDW by artist Casey Coller (note that when Alpha Trion did actually transform, the artist on that issue drew him as the Tumbler from Batman Begins).

Whether intentional or simply an artifact of his transformation, you can open Trion's cockpit.  There's not much to see inside besides his thigh gap, but there's apparently just enough space to stuff a Titan Master inside.  As with the robot mode, the Quill is stored by plugging into his shield, under what's now one of his wings.  Meanwhile, the Covenant as a slot on either cover.  If you look at the underside of Trion's alt mode, you'll find that one of his legs has a tab near the knee joint that the Covenant can slot into, wedged into a space between his knee pads.

Alpha Trion's a solid figure who looks good with the other members of the Thirteen released so far, but the elephant in the room is definitely the Scourge retool.  Despite the more kibbly cape and Scourge-shaped bits, I think for a lot of collectors it's accurate enough that they may not feel a need to replace it.  This is especially true if they want Sunbow G1 and not the entire lineup of Thirteen, one the longer beard seen on "present day" Alpha Trion (and makes me wonder if we'll eventually seen another version of this toy with the older face).  I'd say if you have the "Hero is Born" version already or, better still, the EX Gōkin toy, you might not need this figure.  If you really prefer the older head, you can wait if you don't mind the risk that it never comes.  If you're into the Thirteen, though, the unique alt mode and excellent accessories make Alpha Trion a figure worth checking out.

[26662]

Deja vu.

 

Figured I'd go for 3 - one for each mode: Car, Bot, Retirement Fund.

 

Color me surprised.  Maybe Mattel realized they left gobs of money on the table with the Prime release and decided to produce more units this time?

Edited September 16 by 26662
Full "Nemesis Prime Purchase" story arc.