The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[Negotiator]

Is the buzzworthy cliffjumper out in the wild yet?

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, Negotiator said:

Is the buzzworthy cliffjumper out in the wild yet?

Theoretically. I picked one up a few weeks ago, but that was the only copy I've seen in the wild. Kup seems more common.

[mikeszekely]

Well, I went back to my local Target today to buy Easter candy that I forgot to get.  I saw a Silverstreak on the shelf... figures, after Pulse finally shipped one.  One Blaster in Legacy packaging, and a TON of Bulkheads... but not a single Deluxe to be found.  This was the case last time I was there; either they sold out incredibly fast (they had to have moved the remaining Kingdom stuff and put out the Legacy stuff between Wednesday afternoon when I was there and Saturday afternoon when I stopped again to pick up a prescription), or there's a case of Deluxes in a stock room they haven't put out yet.  Either way, no Kickback for me.

Even as I scour my local stores for Legacy figures, though, I have to point out that Kingdom is technically still wrapping up.  I haven't seen him in stores, but Amazon just sent me Kingdom Core-class Hot Rod.

Since it's introduction, Hasbro's been impressing me with the Core-class.  Sure, they're not on par with similarly-sized figures from Magic Square or NewAge, but given the realities of Hasbro's price-point-focused, mass produced, US child safety regulated business Rattrap and Vertebreak were solid enough, it was interesting to see how much of the Earthrise aesthetic went into Core Optimus, and Megatron and Starscream were surprisingly intricate for the their small size.  Hot Rod, though, is a giant step backward.  His small, rounded thighs and flat, tapered chest remind me more of Titans Return Hot Rod than the Studio Series toy.  And he's missing a ton of color.  This stems from the fact that, aside from the black wheels, he's entirely molded in reddish plastic, so all that you see that isn't red is paint.  And they didn't even do a good job!  They knew Hot Rod's thighs should be orange, so they painted the molded panel on the front and left the bulk of his thigh red.  Hot Rod has an orange chest?  They painted the whole chest orange, when they probably should have left the outer edge with his headlights red.  Is Hot Rod supposed to be toy or toon here?  The red shins with the molded chevrons suggests toy, but they didn't paint the inner part of the shins or the chevrons on them.  His feet are red, too, when they really should be black.  His hands are missing the orange, and his shoulders don't have any molded chevrons, just the indentations.  Which are left unpainted.  If it's cartoon Hot Rod, then orange near his wrists, gray on his shoulders and hands, and his shins could be black along with his feet.  It wouldn't affect his alt mode.

A quick peak at his sides and back.  Aside from molding a general Hot Rod-ish shape to his shins they really didnt' do anything to get his legs looking very Hot Rod-esque... which I kind of don't mind.  The pipes and wheels on the side just remind me of the G1 toy.  His back's kind of devoid of detail, especially because his wings are actually sandwiched between him and his back instead of on his back.  There is the 5mm port there, so you can pull his wings off and plug them into his back, but the thing is there's a small peg on the front of the wings and a small hole in his torso, so leaving the spoiler sandwiched inside him kind of holds his back together.

Although Hasbro has stated that the intention of releasing larger characters like Optimus and Megatron in the Core-class is so that you can pose them with Titans and make the Titans seem bigger, I could suggest another use for Core-class Hot Rod.  You see, the original G1 Star Convoy came with a Micromaster Hot Rod as an accessory.  This is something that neither the Gen Selects Star Convoy or MMC's unofficial Star Convoy came with.  While I'm sure better 3P Hot Rods exist (and I may even pick up a potential Magic Square or NewAge one in the future), for $10 I see Core-class Hot Rod as less a decent Transformer on his own and more like an accessory pack for Star Convoy.

Unless you count the fact that his spoiler comes off, Hot Rod's sole accessory is a sword.  Kind of like Rodimus' sword, but not colored the same.  Funny, Rodimus gets a sword for like two issues in an obscure IDW continuation of the old Marvel G1 comics and now swords are Hot Rod/Rodimus' thing, I guess.  Like Hot Rod himself, the sword is made from red plastic with blue paint on the blade.

I think Hot Rod's head is on a swivel; if it's a ball joint, it's cut in such a way as to allow for not even the slightest tilt.  His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and, if his arm is raised 90 degrees, has a pretty good butterfly joint, but his lateral range is borderline nonexistent.  His elbows are ball joints, giving him 90 degrees of bend and doubling as a bicep swivel.  His hips are ball joints that'll get you 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally.  His knees are ball joints, acting as his thigh swivels and bending just under 90 degrees.  He's got no wrist, waist, foot, or ankle articulation.

Although Hot Rod's sword has a 5mm peg for a handle, the pommel is a smaller peg.  This is good, because Hot Rod himself doesn't have 5mm pegs for hands, so he holds his sword by plugging just the pommel into his hand.  The same small peg exists on his wings, as I mentioned earlier.  You can have him hold his wings like a crossbow, then, and his sword can actually plug into the 5mm port on the bottom of his wings.

Hot Rod's transformation is, at least, different.  It starts off kind of normal; his arms tuck into his sides, and his back folds down with the spoiler instead of spinning 180 degrees like the G1 toy.  But instead of his legs collapsing they bend out and back at the knees.  His calves unfurl and tab together to form the roof and the hood.

Aside from the lump in the middle of his spoiler, the fact that the pipes on the sides don't pass the rear tires and go all the way to the back of the car, and is generally lacking in details, Core-class Hot Rod's alt mode does a pretty good job replicating the G1 toy.  It's narrower than the Studio Series toy, taller in the back and tapering toward the nose like the G1 toy, with the the rear widening a bit and the pipes bending out to follow.  Again, though, it's really the missing details that spoil it.  The headlights are molded on, but they're not painted orange.  And although they took the time to paint the hood orange and to add the yellow flames, they didn't put an Autobot insignia on it.  

I mean, even the Micromaster that came with Star Convoy has the Autobot insignia!  Then again, the Micromaster doesn't have any silver on the engine or pipes, so...

While sticking the handle of the sword into the 5mm port on the front of Hot Rod's spoiler is still an option in alt mode, there's another alternative.  The small peg that allows Hot Rod to hold his wing as a weapon, or helps hold his backpack together, fits into a corresponding hole on the sword.  This allows you to stack the sword on top of the spoiler instead of sticking it into the front.  I should also point out that if you move the spoiler from it's usual spot to the peg hole on his back in robot mode that you can plug the sword in like this while he's in robot mode, allowing him to carry it on his back.

Y'know, it's kind of a shame... Legacy comes in firing on all cylinders (I mean, while I think Arcee is the worst of the line so far, my complaints are mostly related to how generic they made her and I think the mold itself will be better appreciated when they do the repaint).  And at the same time, Kingdom is going out on an absolute dud.  Due to the way most of them have been scaled-down larger bots just for displaying with Titans they're already kind of a hard sell.  The thing that's kept me buying them anyway is that they've been pretty solid on their own merits, and that's not really the case here.  Hot Rod has the weakest sculpt, minimal details, floppy ball joints, and poor articulation.  He just feels cheap.  Cheap can be an asset if, like me, you're just looking for an accessory for a Star Convoy, but for everyone else should pass on this one.

[sh9000]

I just bought Buzzworthy Cliffjumper earlier from Target.  He was surrounded by movie Bumblebees, Origin Bumblebees, Kups, and Silverstreaks.  Cliffjumper is either shortpacked in a case or people are buying them all up.

[Negotiator]

hmm, ya i see all the others you mentioned but never cliffjumper.

[mikeszekely]

It's doubly frustrating because, unlike a lot of previous Target exclusives, they don't seem to be selling Cliffjumper online.  But you can pop your ZIP code into Brickseek and see if another store in your area might have one.

[Negotiator]

ah thanks, i'll keep checking everyday

[sh9000]

Here's the Target link just in case it goes in stock online as well.

https://www.target.com/p/transformers-buzzworthy-bumblebee-studio-series-deluxe-class-86-13bb-cliffjumper-action-figure/-/A-83762402

[mikeszekely]

👀 

[Wolf-1]

Box art looks promising!  The lack of smoke stacks is a bummer but in many ways par-for-course with the current line.  I really hope that's not Deadend or Wildrider just above Dragstrip on the front cover toward the bottom; that looks nothing like either a Porsche or Ferrari. More like an 89' Pontiac LeMans or the Suzuki equivalent. 

[mikeszekely]

G1 Motormaster, be it toy or cartoon, didn't actually have smokestacks.  Don't get me wrong, I'd rather he did, but their absence is accurate.  It's hard to tell from just box art and one photo of the truck at a weird angle, but that's a heck of a lot closer than Combiner Wars.  I'm pretty excited!

Looking at the art a little more carefully, and knowing that Hasbro is going to make the cars "legally distinct" enough to not pay anyone for licensing, I think it's probably Wildrider with Dragstrip on the bottom left, and Breakdown on the road above Motormaster.

[sh9000]

Motormaster looks good.

[M'Kyuun]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

G1 Motormaster, be it toy or cartoon, didn't actually have smokestacks.  Don't get me wrong, I'd rather he did, but their absence is accurate.  It's hard to tell from just box art and one photo of the truck at a weird angle, but that's a heck of a lot closer than Combiner Wars.  I'm pretty excited!

Looking at the art a little more carefully, and knowing that Hasbro is going to make the cars "legally distinct" enough to not pay anyone for licensing, I think it's probably Wildrider with Dragstrip on the bottom left, and Breakdown on the road above Motormaster.

Considering they've already done neo-Lamborghini figs with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, it follows that Breakdown will likely resemble those two in his alt mode. I'm down with the 'close enough'  approach to avoid licensing fees, which would only impact the costs of these things. They're already getting expensive enough.

As to the big guy himself, from the box art, he looks like G1 Motormaster. I'm thinking that the two-piece theory is correct- the cab will be separate from the trailer.  I'm guessing that's the groin and tops of the thighs of the combiner frame visible at the top of the trailer behind the cab.  I'm guessing the cab will just fold into a cube and insert into the gestalt frame, and he'll have both the regular head and the gestalt head built into him. For stability's sake, I guess it's a better way to go, but honestly, I much prefer it when the various bots actually form the limbs of a combiner, as they did in CW.  If they go on to do Bruticus and Devastator, I hope the bots themselves form the limbs on those gestalts.

[mikeszekely]

52 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

For stability's sake, I guess it's a better way to go, but honestly, I much prefer it when the various bots actually form the limbs of a combiner, as they did in CW.  If they go on to do Bruticus and Devastator, I hope the bots themselves form the limbs on those gestalts.

Yes... and no.  Like I said in my Dragstrip review, I don't think partsforming is an absolute necessity- MMC's Bruticus was fantastic, and their Defensor looks just as good or better.  But I also know Hasbro's working with a lot tighter restraints that are going to affect the level of engineering they can stuff into a Commander-class toy.  So, yes, like you I'd rather the limbs of future combiners be formed from the individual robots instead of having them be stick-on bits to a nearly-complete robot, especially when other combiner teams don't have a neat little trailer to transform into their gestalt frame.  But, it doesn't really bother me if they use partsforming for the hands, feet, head, chest shield, or even "pants" like ToyWorld's Constructor, and I don't mind if those parts are packaged with a Voyager-sized figure and sold as a Commander.  At this point, I just really want good-looking robots with good-looking alt modes that turn into a gestalt that doesn't have the goofy proportions and difficulty supporting it's own weight that this thing does-

[sh9000]

Here’s how I had my Menasor configured a while back.  Looking forward to the new Menasor.

[Wolf-1]

19 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

G1 Motormaster, be it toy or cartoon, didn't actually have smokestacks.  Don't get me wrong, I'd rather he did, but their absence is accurate.  It's hard to tell from just box art and one photo of the truck at a weird angle, but that's a heck of a lot closer than Combiner Wars.  I'm pretty excited!

 Just went back and rewatched the scene in King of The Road where Prime and Motormaster play chicken. My memory played it out with both of them getting a "torquing up" shot with the "coal rolling" before setting off for each other; completely not the case.  In fact not even Prime has stacks in the scene.  Guess I've been mixing in the scene in More Than Meets the Eye, when they are rolling up to stop the Decepticon launch, which was also used as part of the ending credits as well. 

A pleasant surprise was noticing that the visible kibble just behind the cab is cartoon accurate. 

[M'Kyuun]

22 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Yes... and no.  Like I said in my Dragstrip review, I don't think partsforming is an absolute necessity- MMC's Bruticus was fantastic, and their Defensor looks just as good or better.  But I also know Hasbro's working with a lot tighter restraints that are going to affect the level of engineering they can stuff into a Commander-class toy.  So, yes, like you I'd rather the limbs of future combiners be formed from the individual robots instead of having them be stick-on bits to a nearly-complete robot, especially when other combiner teams don't have a neat little trailer to transform into their gestalt frame.  But, it doesn't really bother me if they use partsforming for the hands, feet, head, chest shield, or even "pants" like ToyWorld's Constructor, and I don't mind if those parts are packaged with a Voyager-sized figure and sold as a Commander.  At this point, I just really want good-looking robots with good-looking alt modes that turn into a gestalt that doesn't have the goofy proportions and difficulty supporting it's own weight that this thing does-

Same thoughts as you, Mike; if the hands, feet, head, and possibly groin/thighs are separate bits for future gestalts, that's acceptable. I don't expect Hasbro/TT to start rolling out all-in-one combiners like MMC given the restraints they're working under. But I do hope that they're able to sort out a way to combine the actual bots without requiring whole frames for them to basically just snap on to. Not sure how they'll do that without resorting to some form of the CW combining peg, but they've got a lot of smart folks working on these on both sides of the pond, so hopefully they'll come up with good solutions that result in good looking individual bots that combine into good looking gestalts.

I have all the bots to form CW Menasor, and I probably did combine them at one point, but not for a long time. My CW Bruticus, OTOH, has been combined with the aid of some 3P add-on feet and hands since I've owned the whole lot of Combaticons. Shame Hasbro didn't imbue the core bots for these things with stronger hip joints, as they tend to be a bit floppy. Hopefully the Legacy/SS86 combiners will fare better. I don't have much faith that they'll do good Aerialbots, especially with toon accuracy at the fore, but if they go on to do a new Devastator or Bruticus, I hope they turn out great.

[mikeszekely]

Legacy aren't just Deluxe, Voyager, and Leader classes.  While there's no Commander or Titan-class figures yet, we have gotten some Core-class figures, starting with this guy: Iguanus.

It's always interesting when Hasbro decides to do a new version of a Pretender.  I mean, while the idea that a Transformer would, in keeping with the whole "robots in disguise" thing, take one a human form could make for some interesting fiction the execution back in 1988 left much to be desired.  For one, the outer shells were chunky affairs with poor articulation- something we'd maybe accepted in a toy robot that had to turn into a car, but G.I. Joes were humans and they had articulation, so not a ton of appeal here.  For two, only the Autobots (and, for some reason, Stranglehold) were human.  How is a purple lizard man a disguise?  But the thing is, for the Decepticons at least the monstrous Pretender shells were far more visually interesting than the simple, generic robots inside.  If I say "Bludgeon" you might recall that he turned into a tank, but you're thinking of the skull-faced samurai in orange armor, not the brown and green dude inside.  So when Hasbro did Thunderwing for Generations in 2010 and Bludgeon in 2009 for (of all things) Revenge of the Fallen, they kind of ditched the robot in a disguise gimmick.  Bludgeon was a tank that turned into a skull-faced samurai.  Thunderwing was designed to look like his Pretender shell and to turn into jet that looked like the shell's alt mode, with a non-transformable drone that looked like the inner robot's alt mode.  

When next we saw some Pretenders, they turned up in Power of the Primes as "decoys" for Prime Masters.  These were probably worse in execution than the original Pretenders, as you had what were basically Titan Masters from the previous line, except instead of turning into interchangeable heads they turned into blocks with designs, stuffed into tiny shells that looked like G1 Pretender shells and had about the same amount of articulation.

Iguanus is a return to the Bludgeon/Thunderwing model, albeit on a smaller scale.  This lizard man is his robot mode; there's no inner robot.  And I dig it!  The look of him is very close to his G1 Pretender shell, but with more dynamic proportions and slightly less organic shapes.  The only thing I'd really criticize is that they painted his forearms black but not his shoulders, otherwise his colors are spot on.

OK, also his tail is purple instead of off-white.  But really, the main difference, visually, is that Legacy Iguanus has larger backpack instead of the fins the original toy had.  Which, I think, is fine.  I don't need him to look exactly like a shell designed to hold the real toy.

Iguanus comes with this lone accessory.  It's... I guess some kind of weird gun.  I don't hate it, but I'd have preferred something close to his G1 gun.

Legacy Iguanus has far more articulation than his G1 counterpart.  I think his head is on a ball joint; it swivels, and it has the slightest bit of up/down/sideways tilt.  His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and give him about 90 degrees of lateral movement.  His elbows are ball joints, bending 90 degrees and doubling as his bicep swivels.  No wrist articulation.  He does have a waist swivel, though.  His hips are ball joints.  Due to the shape of his hip armor they can go forward about 90 degrees, backward 45 degrees, and about 75 degrees laterally, but that lateral range is only if his hips aren't moved forward/backward.  Moving the hips forward or backward will cause his hips to collide with his waist, limiting him to more like 30 degrees of lateral movement.  HIs knees are ball joints, good for a little over 90 degrees of bend and doubling as thigh swivels.  And his ankles are also ball joints, which allows them to tilt up slightly, down a good bit, pivot nearly 90 degrees, and even swivel.

Iguanus can hold his hand using the smaller peg in either fist.  The 5mm peg on the other side can be used to store the weapon on his back.

Iguanus' more boring inner robot turned into a futuristic motorcycle.  Legacy skips the inner robot and goes straight from lizard man into a motorcycle.  The engineering isn't too complex, and you can see how he scales with another Core-class vehicle as well as the only other motorcycle in the Legacy line (so far).

So, it's not the best-looking bike in the world.  He's got visible hands and feet, and there's weird gaps visible between his legs and tail and the armature with the rear wheel.  Honestly, though, a mostly-purple bike with reddish-pink wheels and a white windshield is closer to the G1 toy than you'd think.  And, in some ways, the narrower profile of Legacy Iguanus' bike mode is actually an improvement.  The G1 toy had his arms sticking off the back, his face visible under the seat, and his legs running along the sides and dragging behind the bike.  It wouldn't look like a motorcycle at all if it weren't for a partsforming chunk that had both the wheels on it.

Iguanus doesn't have a kick stand, but his wheels are thick enough that if you're careful you can balance him so he's standing. The wheels do roll.  His weapon can mount over the windshield via the 5mm port.

I have some mixed feelings about this guy.  On the one hand, I think a Deluxe of this guy would have been better than reconciling the notion that Iguanus (and maybe other Pretenders) are much smaller than most other Transformers.  On the other hand, when guys like Gears, Windcharger, Brawn, Cosmos, Seaspray, and Powerglide could use the same Deluxe treatment that Bumblebee and Huffer got I do see where the Core class is a better solution for riskier, G1-but-not-cartoon characters, and I'm kind of glad to have him at all.  But still, why Iguanus?  Iguanus was never released in Japan, so why not start with Bomb-Burst, Skullgrin, or Submarauder, who were released as Blood, Dauros, and Gilmer in Japan and featured heavily in early episodes of the Masterforce anime?   Whatever their reasoning, I really do enjoy this figure.  I like the approach of skipping the inner robot, and I'd love to see Hasbro do more Pretenders like this... at least for Decepticons.  For the human Autobot Pretenders maybe it's better if they did just update the inner robots.  Oh, and while I'll accept Core-class for most of the Pretenders I think I would prefer more popular guys like Bludgeon and Thunderwing to be Voyager or larger, but I digress.  The point is Iguanus is a pretty cool update on a character from one of the worst of the G1 Transformer lines (only Action Masters and Micromasters are worse, IMHO).  If you're only into the characters from the cartoon you're not missing anything by skipping him, but for what he is I'd recommend him.

[sh9000]

Legacy Galvatron is showing up at Targets.  If I see him again I might pick him up with other toys.  Target Circle currently has $25 off $100 and $10 off $50 toy offers.

[mikeszekely]

Did you miss out on Golden Disc Terrorsaur?  You might not be totally out of luck.  Care of Youtuber Chefatron, we have what appears to be a Gen Selects Terrorsaur in his original toy colors.  Maybe not ideal for people who want cartoon accuracy, but it's better than nothing, right?  And I know I buy up all the toy-style and Diaclone redecos of G1 stuff, I have to assume that there are a generation of fans a little younger than me who might be into toy-colored Beast Wars figures...

[mikeszekely]

Hey, remember I said there's a Fan First event tomorrow at 11:00 ET?  And, remember I said we'd probably see Wave 2 of Legacy?  I got some of the marketing images that usually start going up after the event.

First up, we have Blitzwing, which isn't really a surprise at all as images have been leaking for awhile.

Nothing really we haven't seen already.  The bot looks good, I think the tank looks good (I know people are complaining about the cockpit sticking out, but that's cartoon accurate), and the jet... well, it's looking a bit rough.  I mean, it looks like a cartoon-accurate jet perched on a bunch of extra tank kibble, like they couldn't figure out what to do with the treads.  These pictures don't show his sword, but expect that he will have it, in addition to two rifles (when one would be enough) and some Hulk Hands (that nobody asked for, but hey, they gotta hit that Leader budget somehow).

More interesting for most of you will be Wildrider.

Wildrider's bot mode is a lot like Blitzwing's jet mode... 80% of what you see is cartoon-accurate, but there's a lot more kibble than I expected.  That backpack is messy, and frankly it's kind of embarrassing to see when they've had three 3P MP versions and one Legends version to copy off of, and none of them had backpacks like that.  The car, though, is looking about as much like a Ferrari as you're going to get without giving Ferrari money, and looks very good to my eye.  And since the car is basically the combined mode, and the combined mode is the mode a lot of people are going to care the most about, so I guess I'll hold off criticizing the backpack too much for now (but I really hope they do better by Breakdown, since he's my favorite Stunticon).

I'm taking note of where the peg holes visible on his robot mode are, and where they'll likely end up in alt mode.  Doesn't look like they'll line up with Dragstrip's, so scrambling the limbs is looking doubtful- looks like Dragstrip is destined to be an arm, and Wildrider is destined to be a leg (I'm ok with that).  The holes on his abdomen suggest that, like DX9 or XTB, the legs will plug onto Menasor's calf.  It's cartoon accurate, I suppose, but a system like Fans Toys showed for their OX configuration where they attach to the front of the legs, roof in, with clips that wrap around the rear and nose of the car would have been cool.  I wonder if they might try a thing like Magic Square did, where the lower legs can rotate so the cars on the shins, but I wouldn't bet on it.

[mikeszekely]

Got a quick Repaint Roundup to finish off the first wave of Legacy (at least until I find Kickback), before the Fan First stuff starts tomorrow.

First up we have Buzzworthy Silverstreak (who, despite the Target-exclusive Buzzworthy Bumblebee packaging, does have Legacy logos), which I've put on your right for some reason.  He's got the Prowl/Bluestreak head, but he's actually sporting the Barricade/Smokescreen body.  Same accessories as both.  Not the end of the world, but I'd have preferred he better matched Bluestreak.  Speaking of, I never had Bluestreak as a kid, and while he was in the cartoon sporting his Earthrise colors, he wasn't as featured as Prowl.  Meanwhile, the catalogs that came with the toys that I did have as a kid had the blue Diaclone version.  Plus, despite the actual Bluestreak toy being almost entirely silver with some red and black robot bits, the blue version was used on the box art.   And the character's name was BLUEStreak!  So for years my memory of the character was actually of the blue toy that was never actually sold as Bluestreak.  This memory was so strong that I nearly grabbed the MP version, but $80 is a bit harder to swallow for a Diaclone repaint than $20.

Anyway, Silverstreak mostly does it for me.  I wish the blue was a little lighter, and that he maybe had some of the green and red sticker details (Toyhax?).  His hands should be blue, too.  But my biggest complaint is that his legs, abdomen, and biceps are white.  Silverstreak wasn't a cartoon character where, like Prime or Soundwave, you could color him white because "it's cartoon accurate" even when you know that white is supposed to be silver.  This is a Diaclone toy-only deco, and those parts should definitely be silver.

Alt mode, nothing really to report.  The rims could have used some paint, and again I wish the nose of the car used the Prowl/Bluestreak mold, but it is what it is.  I'm going to go ahead and recommend Silverstreak, just because blue Bluestreak is such a part of the Transformers zeitgeist and this is a relatively inexpensive way to have him in your collection.

From Pulse we have Gen Selects Legacy DK-2 Guard.  The DK-2 is a reference to "Diakron DK-2", the Diaclone toy that would be later recolored in red to become the Ironhide we know and love.  It's Earthrise Ironhide, with no mold changes.  I find it amusing that the this is the fourth time the Earth-mode van has been released, and not a single time at regular retail.  Anyway, given how different the Diaclone/G1 toys were from Ironhide's animation model it might not be totally fair to be be picky about the colors, but I'm going to anyway.  His hands and biceps should totally have been red, and I'd have liked to see some of the toy's sticker details on his thighs.  It's also dumb that Ironhide had a gray hinge on his chest for the window, and now Guard has a red one.  Why couldn't the red have been on Ironhide?  Then I wouldn't have to paint it.  And I'm guessing I'll wind up painting Guard, too.

Guard comes with the same accessories as Ironhide, just with a black roof instead of red and some extra silver paint on the gun.

The Siege feet are the worst thing about this mold, but the Nonnef feet I used on Ironide, Ratchet, and SG Ratchet were already available in black (I guess in case you wanted them for the Deseeus drone).  I ordered up a set as soon as I had my preorder for Guard in.

So when you see the alt mode here, I've already got the Nonnef feet installed.  That addresses one huge complaint about the alt mode.  I dig the silver bumper and I wish that Ironhide and Ratchet had silver, too.  While I'm admiring the silver, I'd also say that I wish they'd painted the rims.  I'm not surprised they didn't; the silver on my Ironhide was painted myself, and I'll do so again with Guard.  Or maybe I'll do red... Guard's not a Vandura, the stripe's different, and there's no gray, but the striped black van is giving me A-Team vibes.  His black shoulders blend on the sides better than Ironhide's.  The stripes along the side are a little short, but otherwise Diaclone-accurate.  Gotta do something about that Rudolf-red panel on the nose, though.  All-in-all, I think Guard's less interesting than Silverstreak, but I'm down for all these Diaclone repaints.

Finally, we have Legacy Core-class Skywarp.  Skywarp is a repaint of Kingdom Core-class Starscream, just in Skywarp colors.  He winds up with the same color issues that Starscream has; no colored details on the shins, and his pelvis is the same colors as his legs.  At least the silver on his chest doesn't go all the way to his pelvis; I didn't bother trying to fix Starscream because I'm not confident I could find an off-white paint that matches, but with the black gap already there it'll be a simple matter to paint Skywarp's pelvis.

Color aside, the big difference between Starscream and Skywarp is that Skywarp is missing his null rays.  Instead, Hasbro saw fit to give him... a slingshot?  There's a small peg on the the side, too, if you'd rather he held it like some kind of a gun-claw.  Chinese groups have already started releasing 3D-printed null rays for him, but with a lot of the cost being built-in shipping fees I'm not going to bother, as they're likely to cost more than the actual figure.  Maybe Nonnef or JRC Designs will do some.

Alt mode's pretty much what you'd expect- Starscream in black and purple.  His slingshot/claw can be mounted on the underside of his nose.

Believe it or not, there's a reason for Skywarp (and Iguanus') goofy accessories.  And it actually goes back to Kingdom Core-class Hot Rod (which probably should have been in Legacy... Hot Rod is released concurrently with these guys, has a shared gimmick with these guys, and features heavily on Legacy artwork, but he comes in Kingdom packaging).  Basically, you plug Hot Rod's sword into one end of Iguanus' weapon, then plug the handle of Skywarp's slingshot into the other.  The artwork makes it look like the the tines on the slingshot should sit 90 degrees off from the red bits on Iguanus' weapon, but the peg on Skywarp's slingshot is actually a bit too long, forcing the slingshot to be off-centered.

Skywarp's slingshot has a small peg on a 5mm peg between the tines.  The small handle makes the combined sword usable by the Core-class figures, while the larger peg allows it to be wielded by larger figures, like Deluxe Arcee here.  And... it's a stupid gimmick.  I mean, really stupid.  If they wanted to give Hot Rod a sword, like the Sword of Primus that was in ReGeneration One and they gave to the Commander-class Rodimus Prime, ok.  Sure.  But I'd have rather they gave Iguanus a G1-style gun and Skywarp his null rays than these goofy weapons that look ridiculous on their own and somehow worse combined.  As for Skywarp himself, Starscream was one of the better Core-class figures, so if you liked him you'll like Skywarp (and I wouldn't mind if they did Thundercracker, too).  But, remember that Hasbro's reasoning for releasing Voyager-class characters like Prime, Megatron, Soundwave, Starscream, and Hot Rod in the Core-class in the first place is to have smaller representations of those characters to pose with your Titans and make them look bigger.  But here's the thing, we have Dr Wu doing unlicensed Micromaster-sized Transformers for the same reason.  They're smaller (Dr Wu's Prime is around half the height of the Core-class toy), and therefore make the Titans seem even bigger still.  Plus, while I don't have any Dr. Wu Seekers yet, I'd argue that Dr Wu's Prime was actually better than the Core-class toy.  The paint on Dr Wu's Seekers looks more accurate, plus Dr. Wu is definitely doing all three while you have to wait and see if Hasbro ever does a Core-class Thundercracker, and all of Dr. Wu's have null rays.  So honestly, I couldn't really recommend Core-class Skywarp.  I think if you want a Skywarp in this scale because you have a Legends collection you'll be happier with something like NewAge's, and if you want a small Skywarp as a Titan accessory you're better off with Dr. Wu.

Edited April 11, 2022 by mikeszekely

[sh9000]

Wildrider looks good in car mode.  Robot mode looks good except all the parts on his back.  Maybe they can still be folded or be removed.

[mikeszekely]

Motormaster.  Not too bad.

Considering what it turns into, the trailer seems smallish.

He has a base mode.

Hard to see from the packaging, but yes, Motormaster himself is the cab.  The trailer turns into a base, and, as expected, Most of Menasor's body.  What's interesting is that it looks like the lower legs detach.  Maybe the arms do, too.  

[mikeszekely]

The Fan First thing is up.  I sat through a reveal of a trailer for Robosen Prime, news about the Forged to Fight game, and news about the comics.  Finally we're getting to the toy reveals!

Wave 2 of Legacy. Preorders go up at 1:00.

Deluxes

Wildrider.  I'm hoping that just because they tried to make it look like his backpacked transformed that you don't actually have to transform it.  Pictures are posted here.

Prime Knockout.  Partial retool of Studio Series Jazz.  Alt mode is evocative of the Prime cartoon, bot mode is a little chunky.  Comes with a spear, like he did in Prime, but it splits into a rifle and dagger.

Tarantulas.  No comments from me, I need more time to digest this one as I'm not totally up on Beast Wars.

Elita-1. I mean, I was good with the Arcee retool, but now she's got her own body and and he own alt mode.

Voyager

Jhiaxus.  Unlike previous toys, where he was a retool of some existing figure, this one looks designed first to look like the Marvel G2 comics, what with the the yellow and white body and the bat wings on his legs.  Might not be for everyone, but it makes me want better toys for other prominent comic-only characters like Straxus and Emirate Xaaron.

Soundwave.  It's the stupid Siege toy, not even the Netflix one.  There's no weathering this time.  They're going on about how clean he is, and how "this is the one you want to display with Blaster."  No, no it's not.

Leader

Blitzwing.  Nothing really to say that I haven't already, bot and tank looks good, jet less good, I just needed a sword and rifle but he's got the sword, two rifles, and those stupid Hulk hands.  Pictures already in this post.

Commander

Yep, Motormaster, who leaked just before the show. Robot height is the same as Earthrise Optimus.  They do show off the Menasor mode, and I dig that the arm part of the trailer actually has a tab mechanism that splits the car as part of the transformation.  They didn't show a size comparison for Menasor, but it doesn't look particularly huge, similar to Combiner Wars or Jetfire maybe.  You can look at the post right before this one for robot, truck, and base.  But I thought I'd add these to show how the legs and arms connect.

Pulse-exclusive Shattered Glass is continuing.  First up will be Ultra Magnus, based on the Earthrise mode.  The interesting thing here is that Shattered Glass Ultra Magnus is basically Delta Magnus with an evil head, so Hasbro is including both heads.  He comes with the same rifle, but "new" Energon weapons (basically Laser Prime's weapons and Matrix, but in red).

 

Pics coming later.

Edited April 12, 2022 by mikeszekely

[M'Kyuun]

14 hours ago, sh9000 said:

Wildrider looks good in car mode.  Robot mode looks good except all the parts on his back.  Maybe they can still be folded or be removed.

Nope- they're his "cape". Mark the designer did his best to justify all the kibble, but it looks like the fenders can simply be pushed back into place for a more compact backpack. It's still a pretty big chunk on his back, but personally, I think it would look better all together as opposed to being spread out. Shame they didn't show it all together as an option.

I think their Menasor solution is good. I don't like the snap-on body part direction for a combiner; I'd rather the individual bots became the limbs themselves. However, they're going full toon here, and ultimately what they came up with works very well. I particularly like that the arm bots can be snapped onto the arm frames which automatically unlocks the arm bots' bodies so they can separate. That's a cool bit of engineering. I dig stuff like that. As to Motormaster himself, he's a commander class fig, where the core bot is a voyager scaled to ER Prime in both cab and bot modes. He certainly fared better than UM, who desperately needs a completely new fig where the cab doesn't look like hammered crap. Too, there don't seem to be any superfluous add-ons to justify the commander class price; instead, you get a MM fig that looks pretty darn good and a trailer that does double duty as a battle station, of course, and forms the Menasor frame.  As I said, the snap-on solution works for this particular combiner, and perhaps for potential Protectobots and Aerialbots down the road, but I don't think it'll work for either Constructicons or Combaticons, should they make them as well.  I definitely don't want the snap-on solution for them, so I'm curious to see how they'll approach them if indeed they do.

Tarantulas looks incredible.  Glad they gave him a new, larger mold than Blackarachnia.  Colors aside, his spider mode looks more realistic than BA's- a little creepy. Love it.

Not the biggest fan of Elita-1's car mode, BUT she's not a shellformer; she actually does transform, and her bot mode looks good to me. As an earth mode iteration, she works. I passed on her WfC Arcee recolor, and now I'm glad I did.

Knockout. The Prime figs really had a distinctive look, heavily inspired by the Bayverse designs, but toning down a lot of the extemporaneous detail and smoothing out their body parts to look less fragmented. I didn't care for it at first, but it grew on me, and the toys, especially First Edition, were pretty amazing both from an aesthetic and engineering POV. So, trying to G1-ize those designs kinda diminishes them of what really made so many of the original designs so striking.  That said, I'm a sucker for this plastic crack, and honestly, I think this is one of the better translations thus far. The SS86 Jazz mold serves it pretty well. I wish they'd tried to capture more of the Prime bot mode cues, but I get what they're going for, and it turned out better IMHO than Arcee. That original Prime Arcee design is beautiful and hard to top.

No interest in Shattered glass or G2- I generally don't like the color/mold changes that either of these bring to the table.  Glad that they're doing them for those who like G2 and follow the comics, though.  It's a big fanbase, and everyone deserves toys.

[M'Kyuun]

Got my POs in for Motormaster, Tarantulas, Knockout, Wildrider, and Elita-1.  Hmmed and hawed over Blitzwing (my favorite triple changer), but ultimately, I passed due to his subpar alt modes, especially that inexcusably awful jet mode.  For now, I'll remain content with the TR fig.

That Robosen Prime and now trailer are pretty cool, but it's both big and really expensive, and I don't own a cell phone, which makes controlling it from the app impossible. I'll enjoy it vicariously. I do like the direction it portends, though.  Sad, though, that we'd never be able to get a G1 Megs like that- the scale thing, for one, not to mention all the gun laws that prevent it.  I guess a tank alt would work, but just not quite the same is it?

[Wolf-1]

So I've seen Blaster in both Twincast colors and SG; are they doing both or just one or the other?  

 

[mikeszekely]

I preordered everything but Soundwave at Pulse- the dirt-covered Siege version was already superseded by the Netflix one that actually turns into a tape deck.  I preordered everything but Blitzwing* at Amazon, too... I used to just preorder with Amazon, but the last time I did that Pulse got everything first plus they canceled one of my preorders.  I figure I'll just cancel whichever comes last... or both, if they start showing up at Targets before either start shipping again.

*I have no idea why I can't find a listing for Blitzwing on Amazon.

Dorkside Toys is having a sale on in-stock Transformers.  Titans are too expensive to buy the Gen Selects repaints, but I wound up getting Black Zarak for $136.

[mikeszekely]

1 minute ago, Wolf-1 said:

So I've seen Blaster in both Twincast colors and SG; are they doing both or just one or the other?  

 

Blaster came out in his regular colors in Kingdom and the first wave of Legacy.  Twincast is rumored to be in the fourth wave.  SG Blaster will be part of Hasbro's Pulse-exclusive SG line, same as Magnus.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

I thought Robosen was going to make another self transforming bot, but it was actually Prime's trailer they were teasing:

[sh9000]

8 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Nope- they're his "cape". Mark the designer did his best to justify all the kibble, but it looks like the fenders can simply be pushed back into place for a more compact backpack. It's still a pretty big chunk on his back, but personally, I think it would look better all together as opposed to being spread out. Shame they didn't show it all together as an option.

I’ll be fine if I could just unscrew the entire backpack for robot mode.

I’m getting 2 of each Stunticon.  Ordered Wildrider x2 and Blitzwing from Dorkside.  Ordered Motormaster x2 from Target with their toy discount.  That Soundwave is a major pass.  I would love a Netflix Soundwave reissue in the Studio Series TFTM packaging.  If they wanted to include only one cassette then I’d be ok with it.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

That Soundwave is a major pass.  I would love a Netflix Soundwave reissue in the Studio Series TFTM packaging.  If they wanted to include only one cassette then I’d be ok with it.

Awhile back right before Blaster hit some Hasbro guys were saying that they were hearing from the fandom that they wanted a Soundwave to go with him.  And now they give us another copy of the Siege toy... that's some real monkey's paw BS.

[Magnus]

I get the sense that Hasbro isn't allowed to reissue store exclusive molds.  We've never seen any of the Netflix figures reissued right?  

[sh9000]

Netflix Optimus Prime and Earthrise Optimus Prime are the same mold but in different colors.  Hasbro could just rerelease Netflix Soundwave in slightly different colors.