The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[M'Kyuun]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I mean, I'm in for Decibel, but I guess you haven't seen this yet?

Ooooh! I had not seen those, but I'm totally down for a set. Where did you find these guys and are they available for PO yet? I've been on Showz and TFSafari all week and haven't seen them there.

 

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

Ooooh! I had not seen those, but I'm totally down for a set. Where did you find these guys and are they available for PO yet? I've been on Showz and TFSafari all week and haven't seen them there.

 

Dr Wu put them up on Weibo. They're not ready for pre-order yet. They might be available end of the year.

[Negotiator]

On 3/22/2024 at 12:16 PM, mikeszekely said:

After DK-43 comes DK-44, so... here's DK-44, the DNA upgrade kit for Studio Series Rise of the Beasts Optimus Prime.

I mentioned yesterday that the kit for Gamer Edition Optimus was mostly filler parts not replacement parts, and that was unusual for DNA.  Well, we're back to form with this kit.  Nothing is filler, really, and we're going to need our screwdrivers for this.  But before we go replacing parts, let's take a look at some of the stuff we don't need a screwdriver for.

Up first we have new swords and axes.  They're pretty close in design to the sword that came with Prime and the axe that came with Primal, but they have a nice coat of gunmetal paint with exposed translucent orange edges.  You also get two of each.  They don't feel super necessary, but they're nice to have if you wanted Prime dual-wielding, especially if you skipped Primal but still wanted Prime to have an axe (or two).  One thing to note, all four weapons don't have tabs.  Rather, they have a hole, and there are two long tabs that are separate pieces that can be used with either an axe or a sword.

The new weapons work pretty much exactly like the old ones.  Prime can hold the swords in his hands or use the small pegs on the bottoms to plug into his wrists.  The axes are only slightly different in that they have pommels on the bottom, and you have to remove them to slide the handle into Prime's hands.  The tabs that hold the pommels on aren't the same shape as the peg on the bottom of the Hasbro axe, so the DNA axes do not peg into Prime's wrists.  Using the included tab you can store the DNA weapons on Prime's back, either separately or by running the tab through the hole on two weapons at a time.

The replacement guns are a major upgrade over the dinky original (which was so small that I can't even find it right now).  Where the original was just the barrel and plugged into a peg on Prime's wrist, the DNA guns are molded more-accurately and cover over Prime's whole forearm.  They're not without faults, though.  If you looked carefully you might notice that they're not mirrored, there isn't a dedicated left arm cannon and right arm cannon.  There's simply two of the same cannon.  There are differences on the sides, and it really looks like it was designed for his right arm.  That said, I looked at the cannons for the ThreeZero DLX figure, and they're more symmetric.  Ultimately I think the DNA cannons are passable enough on either arm and you're unlikely to really notice unless he's dual wielding and you're really paying attention.  And the included blast effect parts fit into the barrels, although their small relative size and blue color makes it look like he's wearing squirt guns.

Like the melee weapons, the DNA cannon can be stored on Prime's back using a peg on the underside.  The thing is, even though Prime's back has two holes it can fit it the cannons are too big and the holes too close together for both cannons to fit on Prime's back at a time.

Alright, now it's time for surgery.  Begin by taking the flaps with the Autobot insignias and pulling them off Prime's shoulders.  Set them aside, you'll need them later.  Turn him over, remove the pair of screws on the back of the shoulders, and carefully pry them apart.

You're going to separate the arm into four parts- the front of the shoulder with the smokestack still attached, the back of the shoulder, the gray trapezoid, and the rest of the arm.  Keep the trapezoid and the rest of the arm, but you can ditch the front and back of the shoulder.

Open the DNA shoulders by removing the pair of screws on the back.  You'll find this red part in the front half; take it out and fit it onto the mushroom peg sticking out of Prime's torso as shown.

Now, you can fit the front half of the shoulder back over the red part.  Take Prime's arm and the gray trapezoid and fit it into the back half of the shoulder, then fit the two halves of the shoulder together and replace the screws.  Be sure to make sure the screws are nice and tight.  Take the flap with the Autobot insignia from the original shoulder and snap it into place on the front of the new shoulder.

Let's take a moment to figure out what we've accomplished here.  For starters, the new shoulders have painted smokestacks with rotating tips, so they can angle backwards like they do in the movie (although the rotation is a bit loose).  More importantly, though, we added a joint.  This gives Prime's shoulder lateral movement outside of the rotation, where the originals only had lateral movement inside of the rotation.  In other words, with the DNA shoulders Prime can now raise and spread his arms at the same time, addressing one of my biggest complaints with the figure.  DNA's red plastic is an excellent match for Hasbro's, and you'll notice that they used red plastic for the part on top of Prime's shoulder instead of gray, which is actually more movie accurate.

Moving down to the legs, lift Prime's shins so you have access to the blue calf parts.  Yank them off the pegs, and replace them with the DNA parts.

The immediate robot mode-benefit of doing this is pretty simple.  We replaced the stock tab and slot that hold his legs together for alt mode, because the original ones stuck out pretty far from the insides of his legs.  DNA's parts have hinges, allowing them to fold flat into the legs.  It's a minor aesthetic upgrade, and it does come at the cost of making his calves flat and taking away that more organic (and movie accurate) curve.  There's a reason for that, though, that we'll get to in a minute.

One last thing to replace here.  Pop his stock feet off the ball joints, and replace them with the feet in the kit.  The immediate benefit here is that instead of being a single solid part there are a pair of hinges in the DNA feet, allowing Prime to bend his toes up and down.  But there's an alt-mode reason for doing this.  It's probably worth noting here that unlike the GE Prime kit, this time the blue plastic is an excellent match for the stock plastic.

About that alt mode... from the front there's not a lot of difference.  The DNA shoulders transform basically the same as the stock ones.  The only differences is that you can swivel the tips of the smokestacks so that they're still correctly angled backward.  Plus, the red tops make for red roof.  Too bad we still have the stock gray flap Prime's head is on, eh?  The big difference is in the back.   Instead of folding Prime's shins up and leaving a huge honking mess stuffed against the back of the cab, DNA asks, "what if we just folded up his feet, like most other Prime toys?"  And so we tab his legs together using the new fold out tab and slot, we spin his feet around 180 degrees, and we use the double hinges to fold his toes flat against his heels.  And... yeah, the back of the truck is super obviously robot legs that don't look like the actual back of a truck... just like almost every other Optimus.  And it still looks a lot better than stock alt mode.  But this is also why the new calf parts are flat.  The stock ones spun around, but without moving Prime's shins there's no room for the DNA parts to rotate.  So they need to be flat to give him the clearance to still roll.

Now, you could simply stop there.  It's a bit gappy, but again no worse than the original.  But DNA did include a pair of these parts, which provide a few uses.  We can attach them by using the smaller inner slots and sticking them onto the tabs on Prime's shins.  Right away, it secures his legs a bit tighter and fills in the gap between his shins a bit.  But there's more!

This part provides storage for the DNA weapons in alt mode, using the tabs through a pair of weapons into the larger slots, and the peg on the cannon into the 5mm port closer to the cab.  The instructions even suggest that you can plug one cannon into the other, but I can't figure out how to do it securely.  But the fun doesn't stop there!

The other 5mm port on the blue part allows you to connect Prime to a trailer!  This is a feature that Earthrise, Volvo, Laser, and previous Studio Series Primes (including Bumblebee Optimus) had, but was sorely lacking from this figure as he came stock.  While you're technically free to use the Earthrise trailer, Laser Optimus' trailer, or Studio Series Dark of the Moon Prime's trailer, I'd argue he looks the most correct with an Earthrise trailer.  Besides, if you use the Earthrise trailer the use for the spare blue part comes into play.  You can attach it to a peg inside the trailer, allowing his new DNA weapons to ride inside.  With the upcoming Studio Series 86 Optimus potentially replacing Earthrise for a lot of people this could leave the old Earthrise trailer free to be reclaimed by ROTB Optimus anyway.

I guess there's one last part in the kit, but it's almost not worth mentioning.  There's a slug figure of Noah Diaz.  Sure, it's got more accurate proportions and better scale than the Studio Series Core-class figure, but it has zero articulation.  He's permanently stuck in the three-point Iron Man pose.  And for what?  You can stick one of the included effect parts into his back.  he can sort of ride on the back of Prime like that, but he doesn't actually lock into place anywhere.  Frankly, he's a waist of plastic.

I wouldn't say that this kit is perfect... like I said, Noah's a waste of plastic.  It'd have been nice if Prime's cannons were mirrored instead of duplicated.  Or, maybe just include one blaster, one axe, and one sword.  Ditch the blast effects.  Because this kit actually runs a bit more than the figure it upgrades.

That said, I'd highly recommend this kit anyway.  It addresses as best as could be the three main complaints I had with this figure.  The shoulders fix Prime's lateral articulation.  By moving the transformation from the shins to the feet they've cleaned up the absolute mess that was the stock alt mode.  And they made the figure compatible with trailers.  The fact that they also included a much better cannon, melee weapons with minor improvements (included an axe you had to buy a whole different figure to get stock), added toe articulation, and cleaned up the inner legs a bit is all icing on an already excellent cake.  Without the kit, ROTB Optimus was a good but seriously flawed figure.  With the kit, he's probably the best live-action movie Optimus Prime that Hasbro's released.

Somebody needs to mix all the different upgrades to make the perfect prime.  Still waiting for TW-1030 to arrive.  It’s too bad the shoulders weren’t fixed on that one.

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Dr Wu put them up on Weibo. They're not ready for pre-order yet. They might be available end of the year.

Thanks, Mike. Welcome news, indeed. At least now I know so I can keep an eye out for them. Much appreciated.

[M'Kyuun]

I saw this in a thumbnail advert this morning and thought it was a new take on Shockwave. Turns out it's a Bandai Spirits kit called GIG R01Provedel Type-Rex 01. Wouldn't take much customizing to make him more Shockwave-y though. 

 

[26662]

5 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

I saw this in a thumbnail advert this morning and thought it was a new take on Shockwave. Turns out it's a Bandai Spirits kit called GIG R01Provedel Type-Rex 01. Wouldn't take much customizing to make him more Shockwave-y though. 

 

He’s got an impressive cock-pit.

[M'Kyuun]

7 hours ago, 26662 said:

He’s got an impressive cock-pit.

That he does.😄

[JB0]

On 4/29/2024 at 2:53 PM, 26662 said:

He’s got an impressive cock-pit.

Doin' his best Zone of Enders impression.

[26662]

2 hours ago, JB0 said:

Doin' his best Zone of Enders impression.

Hahaha!  I had to look that up.  You're not wrong!

[shazam]

 

[Spark-O-Matic]

I've got this big guy being shipped to me by snail mail. hopefully he makes it intact

Will update with photos once he arrives.

 

[mikeszekely]

On 4/18/2024 at 9:36 PM, mikeszekely said:

but I still need Dr. Wu's version of Slamdance.

EDIT: Found and ordered from TFSafari.

So about that...

Here, in the middle, we have Sword Dancer, Dr. Wu's take on Slamdance.  My first thought would be that the G1 toy used a darker gray- here it's light enough to mistaken for white, the way Streetwise often is.  His face is also a bright metallic pink, where the G1 toy was simple the same shade of red plastic used elsewhere.  To be clear, I think Dr. Wu did release Sword Dancer with a darker gray and an unpainted face, but I dragged my feet so long that I was happy enough to find any color available, and frankly, this is close enough.  Although, even if I had got the more accurate one, there's still a big difference in that Sword Dancer has gray hips and blue thighs, and the G1 toy was the other way around.  On the other hand, his torso is filled out a lot better and he seems less skinny than the G1 toy.  And he scales nicely with Dr. Wu's own version of Squawkbox, just a bit taller than Rewind.

The back view is a bit less put-together than the front, but to be fair, it's not worse than the G1 toy.  And to be totally fair, I should mention that the one flap dangling on the back of his head actually can be folded up, I just forgot to and didn't feel like reshooting these pictures.  Sorry!

I'm going to say that Sword Dancer comes with these three gun accessories.  You could argue that he actually comes with five; the missiles on the sides of his head are just pegged in and can come off.  In theory, though, they don't have be removed for transformation while the above three do.

Sword Dancer's head is on a ball joint, but due to the shape of it you're not really going to get tilt, just swivel, and even then there can be clearance issues.  His shoulders have hinges that give him over 90 degrees of lateral movement.  Those hinges are on ball joints, with the socket in his chest.  The ball joints give him shoulder swivels and forward butterfly joints.  His biceps and wrists swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  No waist swivel.  Ball-jointed hips go 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally.  And while he does have some swivel around the ball joints, he's got dedicated thigh swivels just above his knees, which bend 90 degrees.  His feet are on ball joints, with the socket in the leg instead of the foot.  This gives him tremendous upward foot tilt, but nothing really down.  It also provides an ankle pivot, but a fairly limited one.  Still, I'm not inclined to complain too much when it's all far more articulation than Hasbro gave to any of their cassettes, even the Studio Series Core-class ones.

Sword Dancer's hands don't have any way to hold accessories, but the finned guns plug into his forearms.

Meanwhile, the other gun has a tab on it that fits into a slot on either shoulder, then the barrel folds over the top of his shoulder.  This is fairly similar to how the G1 toy worked.

Speaking of how the G1 toy worked, Slamdance was the combined form of two other cassettes, Raindance (a jet) and Grand Slam (a tank).  And so, too, is Sword Dancer made up from Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank.  Here we're getting a bit more departure from the G1 toy.  Traveler Plane is probably the easier to get from legs to jet; bend the legs backward at the knee, then correctly the actual knee.  Slide his toes in, turn the feet 180 degrees, and fold them up onto the shins.  Turn his legs at the thigh swivels so that the feet are touching, then take the gray chest and swivel it 180 degrees so you can tab it onto his legs.  Then you just fold out the wings and stabilizers.  The two guns that were on Sword Dancer's arms plug into each other first, then they plug into the top of the jet. 

Patriot Tank isn't much more difficult.  Fold the bulk of his head over his face, then unfold a few flaps from it.  You have to twist a few joints in his arms to get the treads all lined up, then you use the ball joints to swing the arms in front of his chest, using one of the flaps from his head to tab everything together.  The shoulder cannon slides onto a tab to form the turret and barrel.  As I mentioned before, in theory the missiles on the sides of his head don't need to be removed for transformation.  In practice, though, they'll pop off the minute you start manipulating him, so it might be better to set them aside and put them back on when you're finished.

Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank have a bit more liberties taken than Sword Dancer.  Traveler Plane's gray hips mean the intakes are gray instead of blue, and he's got actual vertical stabilizers instead of raised edges on the chest piece.  The wings have a white stripe, and there's no cassette holes.  The lack of holes means that they're not available for the guns to plug into, so he can't carry one under each wing the way G1 Raindance can.  As for Patriot Tank, he's got visible, painted treads along the sides.  And where G1 Grand Slam had a raised section with his weapons piled on top of it haphazardly, Patriot Tank's raised section has the turret attached to the front and the missiles on the sides.  As @M'kyuun noted, their individual modes are better executed than the Dr. Wu Squawktalk and Beastbox, but I'd go one step further and suggest that they're a bit more coherent than the G1 toys as well.  Traveler Plane reminds me a bit of a Gundam Core Fighter, and Patriot Tank looks more like a tank than a pile of boxes with a bunch of guns on top.

Going from jet to tape is super easy for Traveler plane.  Put his feet back into their robot mode position, but leave the toes pushed in.  Instead, flip out some tabs on his heels.  Straighten his actual knees, fold in his wings, then make him do a split at the hips.  Swing the chest panel back around and it'll latch onto those heel tabs, then just fold the vertical stabs over the chest.  Patriot Tank isn't actually more difficult, you just have to take a bit more care to make sure you've lined everything up right.  Swing the arms back out to his sides and lift the turret back up halfway, so it's sitting above his face instead of behind it.  Rotate both arms 180 degrees at the ball joint.  Now, fold his entire head back, and his arms forward at the ball joint.  That'll give you the clearance you need to bend the arms 90 degrees at the shoulder hinges, then 90 degrees back at the ball joints.  If you did it right, the arms should tab into the guns on the sides of his head, most of the treads lined up on the side with his exposed face.

I don't know if there's much a point for me to mention that Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank's "tape" modes don't much resemble G1 Raindance and Grand Slam's.  To be fair, I don't think Hasbro's own Siege/Legacy/Studio Series tapes are going to pass for microcassettes, either.  The important thing is that, yes, either of them can fit into Kingdom/Studio Series Blaster or Twincast, though only one at a time, of course.

Dr Wu is definitely doing us a service here, releasing Siege/Legacy/Studio Series-compatible cassettes for Blaster and Soundwave that Hasbro seem unlikely to ever get to, especially since Slamdance and Squawbox weren't in the cartoon.  And Sword Dance is a pretty good value, too- he's made of two tapes, and cost only a little more than two of Hasbro's Studio Series tapes, and better articulation too boot.  And, as mentioned, Sword Dancer is a definite improvement over their Squawkbox.  If you want a complete set of tapes, I can definitely recommend Sword Dancer as a stand-in for Slamdance.  However, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that they feel a bit delicate compared to the official tapes, with a few annoying tolerance issues that I'd find unacceptable in larger, more expensive figures.  All-in-all, good enough that I'll definitely pick up Dr Wu's Slugfest and Overkill when they come out, but flawed enough that I'm more excited for the Doctor's other upcoming Micromaster-sized Transformers like Wheeljack, Cyclonus, Bumblebee, and Megatron.

[M'Kyuun]

12 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

So about that...

Here, in the middle, we have Sword Dancer, Dr. Wu's take on Slamdance.  My first thought would be that the G1 toy used a darker gray- here it's light enough to mistaken for white, the way Streetwise often is.  His face is also a bright metallic pink, where the G1 toy was simple the same shade of red plastic used elsewhere.  To be clear, I think Dr. Wu did release Sword Dancer with a darker gray and an unpainted face, but I dragged my feet so long that I was happy enough to find any color available, and frankly, this is close enough.  Although, even if I had got the more accurate one, there's still a big difference in that Sword Dancer has gray hips and blue thighs, and the G1 toy was the other way around.  On the other hand, his torso is filled out a lot better and he seems less skinny than the G1 toy.  And he scales nicely with Dr. Wu's own version of Squawkbox, just a bit taller than Rewind.

The back view is a bit less put-together than the front, but to be fair, it's not worse than the G1 toy.  And to be totally fair, I should mention that the one flap dangling on the back of his head actually can be folded up, I just forgot to and didn't feel like reshooting these pictures.  Sorry!

I'm going to say that Sword Dancer comes with these three gun accessories.  You could argue that he actually comes with five; the missiles on the sides of his head are just pegged in and can come off.  In theory, though, they don't have be removed for transformation while the above three do.

Sword Dancer's head is on a ball joint, but due to the shape of it you're not really going to get tilt, just swivel, and even then there can be clearance issues.  His shoulders have hinges that give him over 90 degrees of lateral movement.  Those hinges are on ball joints, with the socket in his chest.  The ball joints give him shoulder swivels and forward butterfly joints.  His biceps and wrists swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  No waist swivel.  Ball-jointed hips go 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally.  And while he does have some swivel around the ball joints, he's got dedicated thigh swivels just above his knees, which bend 90 degrees.  His feet are on ball joints, with the socket in the leg instead of the foot.  This gives him tremendous upward foot tilt, but nothing really down.  It also provides an ankle pivot, but a fairly limited one.  Still, I'm not inclined to complain too much when it's all far more articulation than Hasbro gave to any of their cassettes, even the Studio Series Core-class ones.

Sword Dancer's hands don't have any way to hold accessories, but the finned guns plug into his forearms.

Meanwhile, the other gun has a tab on it that fits into a slot on either shoulder, then the barrel folds over the top of his shoulder.  This is fairly similar to how the G1 toy worked.

Speaking of how the G1 toy worked, Slamdance was the combined form of two other cassettes, Raindance (a jet) and Grand Slam (a tank).  And so, too, is Sword Dancer made up from Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank.  Here we're getting a bit more departure from the G1 toy.  Traveler Plane is probably the easier to get from legs to jet; bend the legs backward at the knee, then correctly the actual knee.  Slide his toes in, turn the feet 180 degrees, and fold them up onto the shins.  Turn his legs at the thigh swivels so that the feet are touching, then take the gray chest and swivel it 180 degrees so you can tab it onto his legs.  Then you just fold out the wings and stabilizers.  The two guns that were on Sword Dancer's arms plug into each other first, then they plug into the top of the jet. 

Patriot Tank isn't much more difficult.  Fold the bulk of his head over his face, then unfold a few flaps from it.  You have to twist a few joints in his arms to get the treads all lined up, then you use the ball joints to swing the arms in front of his chest, using one of the flaps from his head to tab everything together.  The shoulder cannon slides onto a tab to form the turret and barrel.  As I mentioned before, in theory the missiles on the sides of his head don't need to be removed for transformation.  In practice, though, they'll pop off the minute you start manipulating him, so it might be better to set them aside and put them back on when you're finished.

Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank have a bit more liberties taken than Sword Dancer.  Traveler Plane's gray hips mean the intakes are gray instead of blue, and he's got actual vertical stabilizers instead of raised edges on the chest piece.  The wings have a white stripe, and there's no cassette holes.  The lack of holes means that they're not available for the guns to plug into, so he can't carry one under each wing the way G1 Raindance can.  As for Patriot Tank, he's got visible, painted treads along the sides.  And where G1 Grand Slam had a raised section with his weapons piled on top of it haphazardly, Patriot Tank's raised section has the turret attached to the front and the missiles on the sides.  As @M'kyuun noted, their individual modes are better executed than the Dr. Wu Squawktalk and Beastbox, but I'd go one step further and suggest that they're a bit more coherent than the G1 toys as well.  Traveler Plane reminds me a bit of a Gundam Core Fighter, and Patriot Tank looks more like a tank than a pile of boxes with a bunch of guns on top.

Going from jet to tape is super easy for Traveler plane.  Put his feet back into their robot mode position, but leave the toes pushed in.  Instead, flip out some tabs on his heels.  Straighten his actual knees, fold in his wings, then make him do a split at the hips.  Swing the chest panel back around and it'll latch onto those heel tabs, then just fold the vertical stabs over the chest.  Patriot Tank isn't actually more difficult, you just have to take a bit more care to make sure you've lined everything up right.  Swing the arms back out to his sides and lift the turret back up halfway, so it's sitting above his face instead of behind it.  Rotate both arms 180 degrees at the ball joint.  Now, fold his entire head back, and his arms forward at the ball joint.  That'll give you the clearance you need to bend the arms 90 degrees at the shoulder hinges, then 90 degrees back at the ball joints.  If you did it right, the arms should tab into the guns on the sides of his head, most of the treads lined up on the side with his exposed face.

I don't know if there's much a point for me to mention that Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank's "tape" modes don't much resemble G1 Raindance and Grand Slam's.  To be fair, I don't think Hasbro's own Siege/Legacy/Studio Series tapes are going to pass for microcassettes, either.  The important thing is that, yes, either of them can fit into Kingdom/Studio Series Blaster or Twincast, though only one at a time, of course.

Dr Wu is definitely doing us a service here, releasing Siege/Legacy/Studio Series-compatible cassettes for Blaster and Soundwave that Hasbro seem unlikely to ever get to, especially since Slamdance and Squawbox weren't in the cartoon.  And Sword Dance is a pretty good value, too- he's made of two tapes, and cost only a little more than two of Hasbro's Studio Series tapes, and better articulation too boot.  And, as mentioned, Sword Dancer is a definite improvement over their Squawkbox.  If you want a complete set of tapes, I can definitely recommend Sword Dancer as a stand-in for Slamdance.  However, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that they feel a bit delicate compared to the official tapes, with a few annoying tolerance issues that I'd find unacceptable in larger, more expensive figures.  All-in-all, good enough that I'll definitely pick up Dr Wu's Slugfest and Overkill when they come out, but flawed enough that I'm more excited for the Doctor's other upcoming Micromaster-sized Transformers like Wheeljack, Cyclonus, Bumblebee, and Megatron.

Nice review, Mike. 'Preciate the shout-out. As you and anyone who 's been reading my posts for a while knows, I'm a cassette bot fan. I love your wording: Dr. Wu is most certainly doing us a service, as most of these non-main character cassette bots wouldn't see the light of day under Hasbro, and moreover, not at the levels of articulation that Dr. Wu gives them. They're not perfect; most of them lack the reel holes that are the signature feature of a cassette as well as any cassette deco. However, they are rectangular wafers resembling the basic shape of a mini microcassette (since Hasbro made the stupid decision to make the Legacy cassettes smaller than the real-world scaled microcassettes from G1 and the MP line) that, as Mike demonstrated, can fit in either the most recent mainline Blaster's or Soundwave's chest cavities. Given their scales, and the fact that most of us generally keep our cassettes in their bot/vehicle modes, it's forgivable. Moreover, there's a dearth of options here, so for now it's Dr. Wu or bust if you desire to have these other cassette characters in your collection. For my money, they could certainly be worse (ahem Hasbro's official cassettes) so I'm glad that these exist and I vehemently hope that Dr. Wu will continue to work his way through all these peripheral cassette characters and eventually get to the core cast of Ravage, Rumble, Laserbeak, Frenzy, Buzzsaw, Ramhorn, Steeljaw, Rewind, and Eject. I will say, however, despite my criticism of Hasbro's cassettes thus far, Eject was done well and I hope the upcoming SS86 Steeljaw turns out well, too. Regardless, at this point I feel that Wu's would be superior to Hasbro's takes.

On the flip side, I've been collecting MMC's full-sized cassette bots and I've been pretty impressed with most of them (their condors were so-so, mostly b/c of the way the outer wings are overlapping panels that hold together via magnets). One of the coolest aspects of these figures is that the old chrome add-on weapons are generally integrated into the cassette mode either by transformation engineering or just tucking away seamlessly. Articulation is excellent, presentation in cassette mode holds true (they all have their requisite reels) although some are a little light on deco. The most recent release was their take on Steeljaw, which once again cemented MMC's reputation as masters of plastic origami at this scale. I'm hopeful for a Ramhorn to follow, and honestly, all the cassette figs from core to peripheral. The only drawback to these guys at this scale is the lack of a Soundwave or Blaster that can accommodate them in cassette mode, but that would require those figs to be larger than current MP scale. However, for what MMC brings to the table in the form of these detailed, transformable, highly-articulated versions of the old G1 cassette bots, which scale well with current MP figs in their bot modes, the lack of a similarly scaled Blaster or Soundwave is easily overlooked.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

On the flip side, I've been collecting MMC's full-sized cassette bots and I've been pretty impressed with most of them

It's funny, but as I was writing my review for Sword Dancer I kept imagining an MMC version of Slamdance and Squawkbox.  I think they'd be pretty epic, but their output has been pretty slow.  I think they only put out maybe three new molds in all of 2023.  Sadly, we're a long way from an MMC Slamdance... I know that they're still working on Ramhorn and Ratbat, but they seem pretty focused on their combiners right now.  And why not?  They seem to be pretty big hits for MMC, with Bruticus going through something like three runs.  And they're quite good!  But I digress.

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

The most recent release was their take on Steeljaw, which once again cemented MMC's reputation as masters of plastic origami at this scale.

I really liked Steeljaw, but he's not the most recent.  Just last fall MMC released their take on Rewind and Eject.

[M'Kyuun]

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

It's funny, but as I was writing my review for Sword Dancer I kept imagining an MMC version of Slamdance and Squawkbox. 

That makes two of us. And from there it's easy to extrapolate to so many other cassettes. I want them all.

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

 I think they'd be pretty epic, but their output has been pretty slow.  I think they only put out maybe three new molds in all of 2023.  Sadly, we're a long way from an MMC Slamdance... I know that they're still working on Ramhorn and Ratbat, but they seem pretty focused on their combiners right now.  And why not?  They seem to be pretty big hits for MMC, with Bruticus going through something like three runs.  And they're quite good!  But I digress.

I was going to mention the snail's pace of MMC releases, but it got lost in the shuffle of my thoughts. But yeah, unfortunately their releases come at a trickle rather than a deluge, and as you mentioned, their success with combiners overshadows the cassettes, which I assume are probably seen more as novelties by comparison. I think the same for Dr. Wu comparing his mini-takes on the mainline characters and his mini-micro-cassettes. In either case if I was to hazard a guess on which are the more popular products, the cassettes would finish last. That sucks for cassette fans like me, but hopefully in the case of both companies they're seeing enough sales of their cassettes to warrant continuing production. 

Mentioning MMC's Bruticus, my favorite of the combiners, I put up a strong resistance to getting them, as I love the all-in-one direction they took and I thought they all turned out looking pretty good; Onslaught suffered the most IMO, but considering everything he has to do without the amelioration of add-on parts, he's more than acceptable. Moreover, if I did get the team, I have no idea where I would put them as I have so little space for stuff in my house. Eventually I want to install a decent sized building in my backyard for storage/shop/ and display, but I'll probably have to wait a year or two.

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I really liked Steeljaw, but he's not the most recent.  Just last fall MMC released their take on Rewind and Eject.

I stand corrected. I got my copies of Eject and Rewind well before my Steeljaw, as I had the version with chrome gold paint POed from showz for a long time and finally FOMO made me settle for the regular gold painted version instead. The time lapse between acquisitions owed to the disparity in my mind.

I wasn't aware that MMC was working on Ramhorn or Ratbat, but that's favorable news indeed. Perhaps we'll see at least one of them release this year. I'm still happy that they led with Ravage, my all-time favorite cassette. Still brilliant and still gives me the warm and fuzzies when I see him in my Detolf.

[sh9000]

Looks cool.

[shazam]

CS-02 Little Red Figure by Collection Space

[mikeszekely]

I guess, before the flood of Springers I ordered for some reason arrives, I should get this out of the way.  Dr Wu has released new versions of Destroy Emperor, his version of Galvatron.

Now, I have the original version of Destroy Emperor, as seen on the right.  I opted to get the new release in toy/Marvel colors, but it's also available in a lighter Season 3 purple color and a clear purple scanning version.  All three versions feature a new a new improved head sculpt, and the first batch is going out with a replacement head for the original release, which I've already installed here.

The robot mode is fair enough, but the alt mode was always a bit iffy on this figure.  It's hard to hold it against Dr. Wu, though, giving that this was one of the first Extreme Warfare releases, it's tiny, and it's relatively inexpensive.  I mean, inexpensive enough that I didn't mind picking up the toy/Marvel colors.

Now, it's worth pointing out that the original release of Destroy Emperor came with Dr. Wu's Soundblaster.  This time, regardless of the color, you're not getting Soundblaster.  Instead, you're getting Destroy Planet.

Destroy Planet is Grand Galvatron, a character that never actually existed.  In The Headmasters anime, Galvatron came up with a scheme to use the energy the Decepticons had been gathering to turn the entire Earth into a new Unicron-sized body for himself.  When Sixshot realized that Galvatron planned to incorporate his lieutenants into that body he left Galvatron alone to fight the Autobots, and Galvatron wound up defeated and buried in ice.  Despite never realizing his dream, an image of Grand Galvatron did appear in the series, and I dig having a toy representation of it.

The toy itself uses the head, arms, and legs of Destroy Emperor, but attaches them to a new spherical body.  Purchasing the toy or translucent versions of Destroy Emperor gets you a Destroy Planet that matches the colors of the original Galvatron release.  If you skipped that one and want to get the anime-colored Destroy Emperor don't worry, the purple on that Destroy Planet matches the toy it's packed with.

In robot mode, Destroy Planet's articulation is similar to Destroy Emperor's due to using the same limbs.  The real difference is the transformation.  Actually, the limbs transform fairly similarly, with the arms curling up and the legs folding over the thighs and tabbing into each other.  The trick is getting the limbs stuffed inside the new spherical body.  The arms are simple enough to fold it, but the legs are attached to a swiveling base that has to be turned just right to get the legs to line up inside the ball.  There's also technically no official storage for his cannon, but if you have everything lined up right you have just enough room to toss loose inside Destroy Planet's body.

I don't recall that Grand Galvatron had an alt mode... just the one shot of his spherical, Unicron-esque body with his head and limbs dangling off of it.  But the Dr. reasonably assumed that if Unicron had a planet mode, so would Grand Galvatron.  And, yeah, it's just the spherical body with the limbs and head folded inside, but what else would it be?  I dig it, anyway.

So, should you pick up Destroy Planet?  If you don't have Destroy Emperor, then I'd say yes, I strongly advise picking up the anime-colored version of Emperor and Planet.  If you do already have Destroy Emperor, though, Destroy Planet is more of a novelty, and you've also got to be in for either the toy or translucent repaints of Destroy Emperor.  For me, I really enjoy the novelty of Destroy Planet, and I'm a sucker for Galvatron in his Megatron-esque toy colors, and at just around $25 this set was an easy purchase for me.

[mikeszekely]

So if you also follow the official Transformers thread you might have noticed some discussion about Studio Series 86 Springer, and how he's still missing the horizontal stabilizers on his tail, and how all the 3P Springers pulled it off.  And you might have caught the part where I randomly decided to increase my collection of 3P Springers.  Now, for the record, I already owned Open & Play's Big Spring, MMC's Saltus, and even Toyworld's Spanner.  Feel free to read (or re-read) up on those... and then immediately forget about Spanner, because as much as I really do like that figure he's most definitely not a cartoon-accurate, MP-style figure.  Now... is Saltus safe on my shelf?  Tonight's competition comes from Fans Toys, and the brand alone is enough to make up the minds of a lot of collectors.  This, then, is Apache.

I mean, the first impression isn't a bad one, especially given that at the time of Apache's release only Unique Toys' Allen and Big Spring were on the market yet.  And right away we do see Fans Toys playing to their strengths.  The sculpt is solidly G1 cartoon, but with the slightly more heroic proportions Fans Toys was using at the time before everyone started going a little too hard after those Sunbow three-quarter control drawings.  And the materials are solid, with sturdy plastic, lots of diecast, and plenty of paint.  I can't find my postage scale, but I'd guess that Apache weighs at least as much as Saltus, and double Big Spring.  And if you give him a gentle shake none of his joints even budge.

Things get a little messier when you start looking around the sides and back, though.  The yellow on the front of his shoulder pads is doubled, because reasons.  Tires are prominent on the backs of his forearms.  His backpack is fairly accurate, as long as you ignore the butt flap.  Likewise, the legs are pretty accurate, and even have details like the fins on the backs of his legs and the rotor and vents at his ankles, but you have to overlook some wheels poking out of his shins and some flaps (his horizontal stabs in copter mode) just chilling against the sides of his legs, not even locked in place.  And that's just the gray part!  His calves are absolutely dominated by some helicopter bits that certainly aren't present on the animation mode... or Saltus or Big Spring.  Let's be honest, though... most of us do pose our figures with their backs to the wall.  A butt flap, arm wheels, and some messy calves can be overlooked.  Apache, perhaps, offers value elsewhere.

Elsewhere probably isn't accessories, though.  What we've got here is pretty basic... a rifle, painted silver, and two swords.  The swords are nearly identical; the only difference is that one has the blade painted silver, as that seems to be the "standard" way to do Springer's sword, while the other is painted entirely green to better match the green rotors on Sunbow's control art.  Seems a bit skimpy... Saltus and Big Spring both came with the catapult missile thing, plus Saltus came with a lance and two alternate heads.  That said, I guess a gun and a sword are really all you need.

Articulation is a more serious issue.  Head's a hinged swivel, which can look up/down about 30 degrees, no sideways tilt.  His shoulders rotate.  They can also ratchet out about 90 degrees laterally, but here's the kicker- he's got "Hot Rod shoulders."  That is, the joint for lateral movement is in his chest, on the wrong side of the rotational joint, so he can't raise his arm and move it laterally at the same time.  I get annoyed enough to see that on a Hasbro Voyager, but on a MP-style figure it's pretty inexcusable.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend slightly over 90 degrees.  While that's what I consider to be the minimum "standard," it's worth pointing out that Saltus and Big Spring both have double-jointed elbows.  His wrists swivel, and each finger is individually articulated with a hinged ball joint at the base of the thumb and each finger having a hinged knuckle at the base and middle- better than Big Spring, and slightly more finger articulation than Saltus, though he lacks Saltus' tilting wrists.  For whatever reason, he's got a ratcheted waist swivel, but not Saltus' ab crunch.  The front of his hip skirts fold up so his hips can ratchet 90 degrees forward, but only a single click backward.  Laterally, they get a little under 90 degrees.  For those keeping score, that's a bit worse than Big Spring and significantly worse than Saltus.  Thighs swivel, and knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets (same range as Big Spring, worse than Saltus.  His feet tilt down a bit, arguably slightly up (similar to Big Spring, worse than Saltus).  The front of his foot swivels, giving him 90 degrees of faux ankle pivot.  That's technically more than Big Spring or Saltus, but (a) their whole feet pivot, not just the toes, and (b), to get the clearance to swivel his feet have to be angled slightly downward.

Apache does a good job of holding his weapons, using the standard MP-style handle tabs and palm slots.

Maybe the transformation is better?  Wait... you guys did remember that this is Fans Toys, right?  They're not exactly known for their smooth engineering.  Now, to be fair, by Fans Toys' standard this one wasn't too bad.  Some of it, like making the tail boom out of most of his legs and collapsing the arms is fairly intuitive.  Where everything goes horribly wrong, though, is transforming his torso.  At first it seems like it should be easy enough... you lift his chest up, and there's a hatch so that it can get up over his head... but there's no enough clearance.  Then you realize the chest is on sliders, and they are insanely tight.  I wound up using a silicone lubricant to even get them to budge, and even then I was sure I was going to break it.  Ok, I finally get the chest up over his head.  Smooth sailing from there, right?  Nope.  His sides collapse toward his spine, and guess what?  Those sliders are also way too tight.  After manhandling the thing, afraid of breaking it the entire time, I finally have the torso done.  Then I realize I'm connecting the arms to his sides by plugging them into flimsy flaps, swinging his shins and feet around to the underside of the helicopter where some armatures loosely tab into the underside of his arms then wrap around so the "wings" with the landing skids can tab even more loosely into the sides of his arms.

At least I can say that the effort was probably worth it, because once you get it there I can't complain about that helicopter mode.  Between Apache, Saltus, and Big Spring Apache is the clear winner.  The proportions are better than Big Spring with half-sized tail, or Saltus with his just plain wrong tail.  The wings with the yellow ends (not just the spike of the landing skid) is correctly yellow, and a good portion of the tail boom is green like the animation.  The wings are even angled a bit, the way the cartoon was drawn.  Apache's got bigger horizontal stabs than Big Spring or Saltus, and more prominent engines than Saltus.  My only real nitpicks are that the back of the engines are entirely yellow, instead of yellow-striped gray, and the vents on the backs of his wings are also yellow instead of green.

As is typically the case, the main rotor is Apache's sword, split and splayed down the middle and plugged into a socket to form the main rotor.  Once installed, the rotor will spin.  As for his gun, you can store in on the helicopter by folding then handle in to reveal a tab that plugs into a slot on the helicopter's chin.  Other than that, there's not much to talk about.  The canopy does open, but all it reveals is a screw.  No seat like Saltus or Big Spring.  And Apache is completely lacking the flip-out headlights Saltus and Big Spring have.

Transforming Apache to car mode is honestly worse than the helicopter mode.  I mean, you still have to deal with the too-stiff sliders in the torso, but then rather than shift the shoulders the way pretty much every other Springer does to slide the fenders up past the nose, Fans Toys thought it'd be better to rotate the arms 180 degrees, then open a flap to turn the 180 degrees the short way around the shoulder joint before closing a similar flap on the other side.  Clever, except that there really isn't enough clearance, making that maneuver decidedly uncomfortable.  Oh, but that's the easy part!  Despite the fact that his legs are mostly just in their robot-mode configuration, you do have to open the sides of his legs to shift some things around to shorten his thighs.  But as you're extending the wheels in his shins and folding up his feet, you realize that said feet have to lined up just right so that a tiny peg can fit into a tiny hole.  You got that part?  Cool, now take the helicopter wing kibble and make sure it's also lined up just right, so it'll lock into the fins.  If you finally managed that without popping the feet back out, you then get to tab the legs together at both the inside of the lower legs and the helicopter wing kibble, this time without popping out the feet or the kibble.  Once you finally do that (and it'll take you more than one try, trust me) then you can lock the whole thing together by tabbing the butt flap into the backs of his thighs, all the while praying that that doesn't cause the kibble or feet to come undone.

Unlike the helicopter mode, it's not even worth it!  I mean, it's technically a bit more cartoon accurate than Big Spring's car mode, and a lot more accurate than Saltus', but it's way too stretched out, thick at the front and thin at the back.  And it's loaded with out-of-place kibble between the fins.  Big Spring's car mode was a bit unfinished at the back.  Saltus' car mode wasn't accurate, but in way that was like "the Sunbow car looks kind of dumb, what if we changed it up a bit to make it look more purposefully like a land vehicle?"  Fans Toys looks like they were trying to make a Sunbow-accurate car but failed in ways that just emphasize what was bad about the Sunbow car in the first place.

Apache's sword has a small peg on one side of the hilt.  This peg plugs into a hole under the front of the car, so they blade runs along the length of the bottom.  Good storage in theory.  In practice, the weight of the figure will cause the rear wheels to slide back into his shins, causing the sword to scrape along the ground and potentially scratch the paint on the blade.  Storing the gun is worse.  There are long, thin tabs just above the handle.  You can use those tabs to sandwich the gun between the yellow helicopter kibble on the back of the car... but to do that, you need to undo the butt flap and spread his legs apart, which you most definitely NOT doing without undoing the copter kibble and and feet.  The cockpit still opens, but despite flipping the arms around the headlights don't open on that side, either.

There's a part of me that wants to say again that, at the original time of Apache's release, the only other cartoon MP Springers on the market were Unique Toys' Allen and Open and Play's Big Spring.  I can't comment on Allen (yet), but I can see why someone would prefer Apache over Big Spring.  The head sculpt is far better, and the paint and materials are far better.  The helicopter mode is still one of the best.  If all you were looking for was a figure that looks excellent in a stoic robot pose for your MP shelf, Apache does that better than Big Spring.  However, Big Spring is more poseable and far more fun to transform and play with.

But also, it's not like Apache happened in a vacuum.  Apache's articulation is pretty sub-par, period.  And while they wouldn't come until later, MMC and X-Transbots had both announced their Springers and shown prototypes.  Fans Toys could have delayed Apache, maybe try to rework some of the design, to get better articulation and a car mode that wasn't trash.  Instead, they rushed to be first and banked on their brand, ultimately delivering a figure that feels very phoned in from a company with their reputation.  Do I, in 2024, recommend Apache?  Frankly, no.  Because today the competition isn't just Big Spring.  Today we also have Saltus, and objectively Saltus has equally good paint and materials, better articulation, better transformations, and more accessories.  I'd add that I subjectively think Saltus has a better car mode, and quite frankly a better bot mode that more accurately captures the stocky build of the Sunbow art, so even if you just want a good-looking robot and don't care about accessories/articulation/transformation/alt modes Saltus is still king.  The only point I can give Apache over Saltus is the helicopter mode; as much as I love Saltus, his helicopter mode is kind of trash while Apache pretty much nailed it.  I think that, short of buying multiple figures to display in multiple modes, most collectors care more about the robot than the helicopter, though.  So today, my official recommendation is to pass on Apache, go with Saltus.

Tomorrow, though...

[mikeszekely]

Yesterday, when talking about Apache, I mentioned a few times that at the time of its release Saltus and Virtus weren't out, that the only real competition was Big Spring and Allen.  Of course, I'd reviewed Big Spring and included him in the photos with Apache.  But I still felt like we were missing some context, so silly me, I went and got a copy of Unique Toys Allen.

I think you can't talk about Allen without first talking about Unique Toys.  They were one of early names in the 3rd party scene, breaking into the market with a collection of Predacons that kind of fit with what Hasbro was doing at the time, but was also not as good as what MMC was doing with their own Predacons.  They put out a few more Generations-style figures like the well-regarded Mania King and their Terrorcons, but the market was already changing.  Fans Toys had released Quakewave the same year that Unique Toys put out their Predacons, and by the time they completed their Terrorcons Fans Toys had done Bombshell, Perceptor, and several Dinobots, KFC had done their Blaster, MMC put out their first Ocular Max release, X-Transbots had put out Wheelie, Huffer, Scourge, and Megatron, and Badcube had put out their Huffer, Brawn, Warpath, Sunstreaker, and had started on their Insecticons.  The market was clearly shifting toward more MP-style releases, and Unique Toys was kind of already dipping their toes into that water under their sister company, DX9, as they'd released a Mirage, Rodimus Prime, Galvatron, Astrotrain, and Blitzwing.

Those last two are really where I want to focus, because they, along with Unique Toys' versions of Octane and Sandstorm, set the template for Allen.  They're all big figures, clearly meant to fit scale with other Masterpiece and MP-style 3P figures, but they're also from an era when the ultra-Sunbow aesthetic hadn't been fully established yet, and Unique Toys/DX9 were offering more stylized designs as in afraid of risking Hasbro or Takara's ire.  And we definitely see that in Allen.  He's a very bright green, with spots that would be G1 Springer's darker olive coming across as barely a different tone.  There are extra flourishes, like yellow stripes on his shoulders, some gunmetal accents added to his abs, shoulders, and forearms, molded vents on his shins that aren't present on the Sunbow sheet, and a bright, clean white used on his thighs, hands, and neck.  He also has some weirdly puffy proportions.  The thing that's the most out-of-place for me, though, are his bright yellow feet.

Looking around his body there are some other things that I'm going to talk about more when we do his alt modes, and some more more gunmetal accents.  I want to draw special attention to the piston details on his elbows, though.  It's a detail not not on the Sunbow model, but one that UT added that actually serves a purpose beyond simply looking neat.

Anyway, like Apache Allen is a little light on accessories.  He's just got two, a gun and a sword.  The gun as a sculpt that definitely seems Springer-esque, but I'm not sure about it being entirely green save for the white handle.  The sword is a bit more stylized than we've seen on other Springers, with a thick blade, round hilt, and prominent pommel.  It, at least, has some painted bits and does look pretty cool.

Allen's head can look up slightly, but not down, on the hinge in his head, but his neck is on a double joint for transformation that you can also employ to kind of stretch his neck up and forward, improving his upward tilt and giving him actually good downward tilt as well.  His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and move laterally a little over 90 degrees on ratchets (no Hot Rod shoulders, either).  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  His wrists swivel.  His thumb is fixed, and his middle, ring, and pinky fingers are molded as a single curled piece with a hinge at the base.  His index finger is separate from the other, hinged at the base and an addition middle knuckle.  His waist swivels.  His hip skirts do NOT move, which unfortunately limits his ratcheted hips to about 45 degrees forward and just under 90 degrees backward and laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets.  His feet can tilt up but not down, and a set of double hinges for transformation gives him about 90 degrees of ankle pivot.  So, a bit lacking in the hips, but if I'm being fair the hips still have enough range for some dynamic poses and honestly cost him less than Apache's abysmal shoulders.

Allen can hold his gun and sword in either hand, using the time-honored method of plugging tabs on their handles into slots on his palms.  The large peg on the middle of the sword's hilt can also be plugged into Allen's back, allowing him to store his sword in robot mode.  I can't find any storage for the gun, though.

Here's where things get fun, and you can see shades of the "turn it inside out" engineering that UT would later use to great effect on their Bayverse figures.  You see, the front end and grill?  That's not his chest.  His chest is under the vehicle, and when it folded down it provided the clearance to pull a whole second version out from the inside of his torso that covered over it and his head.  His backpack pulls away, then instead of forming the fenders his arms fold straight out behind his back and the backpack tabs into them to form the top half of the vehicle.  The entire top of his body rocks back, then his legs turn inside out.  some of it winds up turning, but otherwise staying mostly in place to form the rear with the wheels and fins.  But the front of his legs spin around and stretch out, filling in the bottom of the vehicle but also carrying his feet up to the front of the car where they form the fenders and front wheels.  It can be a little daunting the first time you do it until you figure out what goes where, but once you learn it it's honestly one of the easier and most fun transformations I've encountered on a Springer toy.  And, trust me, by now I've done a lot of Springers.

Now, going into this I was aware of the liberties Unique Toys had taken with their Octane.  Their Sandstorm traded a dune buggy mode for an enclosed-cabin that was referred to by some as "the Wienermobile".   And, given the liberties taken with Allen's robot mode, I think I kind of dismissed him at the time as being too stylized for my collection and just assumed that applied to his alt modes, too.  But, actually having Allen in hand, I'm a bit surprised to note that his car mode is fairly Sunbow accurate.  I mean, yeah, they added some gunmetal accents to the engines on top, and for whatever reason they cast his fins in green plastic and added some yellow accents when they'd traditionally be as gray as the part they're attached too.  But the colors are pretty good, otherwise, and the proportions are more correct than Apache or Big Spring.  With the caveat that I like the liberties that MMC took with Saltus, one could argue that Allen's actually the best car mode we've seen so far when it comes to capturing the Sunbow art.

Like most of the other MP Springers, Allen's got rolling rubber tires and a cockpit that can open.  There's not much to look at in there but the molded suggestion of a seat back, though.  The handle on his gun can fold it to reveal a tab, and that tab fits nicely into a slot on either side of the vehicle.  As for his sword, you can either plug it into the top of the roof, or the peg on the hilt happens to fit into the rotors outside the rear wheels.  Sadly, just like Apache, there's no flip-out headlights.

Getting to helicopter mode isn't terribly different than going to car mode.  Much of the difference is simply turning his legs further inside out, stretching them into the tail boom, then you twist the bits with the translucent plastic around so that they can tab into the boom instead of the folded stabilizers that were on top of the boom.  The fenders slide back into their helicopter position by sliding the shins that they're attached to backward.  The front wheels fold down and allow for the wings to fold out from under the fenders.  The only trick to remember is that there are bits on sliders that fold out from Allen's robot sides to fill in the gap vacated by the wings under the fenders to keep everything nice and solid.

One again, the helicopter is honestly more Sunbow accurate than I gave it credit for.  There's some gray on the sides where his shin panel forms the body of the helicopter that's really green on the Sunbow art, but better than then green shins in bot mode, eh?  The landing skids don't have quite the right shape, but they're appropriately yellow (with a touch of that gunmetal accent).  We could bemoan the fact that the rudder is green instead of gray again, but that's kind of offset by the fact that the entire tail boom and the horizontal stabilizers are green.  This is the only Springer I've looked at that that doesn't have some gray on the boom, and that doesn't have gray stabs.  Indeed, you've probably seen so many Springer toys with gray on the boom and gray stabs that you might think that's correct, but look at that Sunbow model sheet again.  Green is Sunbow accurate!  Aside from green on the rudder and a few yellow and gunmetal accents, it's the propellor that has the most liberties taken simply because it's angular, thick, and gray instead of basic thin green rectangular blades.

About that, of course the sword forms the rotor, but the transformation is more unique than I'm used to.  Rather than splay the blade out and use the handle as the connection, the entire sword splits in half, then one half turns over and you push it back together.  This allows you to use the big peg from the hilt as the connection point.

Allen's cockpit still opens if that's your thing, and you can still plug the rifle into the side.  But Allen's got one more thing to talk about, something none of of the other Springers have had thus far.  Actual fold out landing skids!  That's right, he's not just resting on his tummy and tail.  Green skids are part of the stuff that unfolds with the wings from out of the foot fenders, and a white one is stored under the tail rotor.

I have to be honest... I'm not entirely sure what motivated me to buy Apache and Allen.  I just sort of realize that I wasn't super familiar with them, despite owning a few other Springer toys, when we were talking about the upcoming Studio Series version.  I figured I'd play with them a bit, get that experience, take a few pics and write about them, then sell them off again.  I mean, with Apache's articulation issues and Allen's unique aesthetic neither were really a threat to Saltus in my MP display, right?

Right.  Kinda.  I mean, yeah, I told you flat out yesterday that I don't recommend Apache, that Saltus is the better MP Springer.  And I will indeed be listing him for sale soon.  And yeah, Allen's bot mode is definitely far enough removed from Sunbow G1 to disqualify him from most people's MP displays.  Indeed, as a display piece, Apache is a more accurate robot, and it does sort of help to see why so many people jumped on that train at the time.  I'm not going to give Allen a recommend.

But, I've decided against selling Allen, and that's because Allen brings something to the table that even Siege Springer didn't... Allen is a really fun toy.  He's chunky and sturdy.  It feels good to move his joints and pose him, and he's actually fun to transform.  Saltus gets to stay in my display, but Allen gets to stay on my desk where I can play with him.

[M'Kyuun]

Enjoying the Springer reviews, @mikeszekely. Saltus is my MP Springer of choice as well, primarily b/c of the car mode's non-canonical but IMO better looking wide rear end. That said, his chopper mode leaves somewhat to be desired, but his bot mode looks really good, and since that's how I display (like most TF collectors I assume), I remain happy with the choice.

I remember when Allen came on the scene, but I think the chunkier proportions left me cold. Anyway, I passed on him. This review is a nice retrospective, and I'm glad you shone a light on him b/c, for its time and despite the creative liberties taken, it's a pretty good take on the character and the alts are some of the best-executed of any of the 3P Springers, including Saltus. Hats off, too, to Unique Toys for living up to their name with such a creative transformation. Everybody else's takes, including Hasbro's, are fairly boilerplate insofar as the shoulders and arms form the front fenders/wings, legs form the aft hull and tail of the chopper or rear section of the car, and the chest forms the hood and grill. Furthermore, those retractable landing skids are just a wonderful touch that's so lacking in all the others. I love that little feature and wish it was more prevalent on other Springer figs.

I'm hoping you'll eventually take a look at XTB's Virtus. Judging from pics, it looks to be another really good representation of the character. The heli form suffers the most concession with the shaping of its aft hull leading into the tail, but in terms of car and bot modes, weapon storage, accessories, and just overall capture, it's a respectable effort that IMHO ranks among the best thus far. I will point out, however, the fallacy of releasing this guy with two small human figs who obviously can't fit in the tiny two-seater cockpit (with steering wheels no less!).  Ah that old pickle, mass shifting.

[mikeszekely]

8 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

I'm hoping you'll eventually take a look at XTB's Virtus.

I dunno... he might be in the queue...

[M'Kyuun]

1 minute ago, mikeszekely said:

I dunno... he might be in the queue...

Wow, that's a lot of Springers. Eh, what's one more? 😉

[mikeszekely]

12 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Eh, what's one more? 😉

I have to get more?  Because Virtus is in that picture, between Saltus and the G1 toy.

*sigh*

OK, MFT Springer on the way.

In the meantime, here's X-Transbots Virtus.

By showing up last, XTB definitely found themselves in an interesting position.  As I'd covered in my previous reviews, despite numerous options all of the Springers we looked at had some flaws... Spanner and Allen weren't Sunbow enough, Big Spring was cheaply made and had an ugly face, Apache had a PITA transformation and poor articulation, and Saltus had some interpretative takes on Springer's alt modes (including probably the worst helicopter of the bunch).  But at the same time, this is X-Transbots we're talking about.  Could a company with their spotty track record really unseat offerings from fan-favorites like MMC and Fans Toys?

Well, out of the box I'd say that Virtus is a tad skinnier than I picture in my head when I think of Springer, and the gray used for his legs is a tad light, but he definitely makes a strong showing.  Green elbow joints, a more proportional head, and better molding on his yellow belly button are technically improvements compared to Saltus (left), and the shape of his chest (although a tad too narrow) has more Sunbow-esque proportions.  And, while I don't often talk about stuff like paint and diecast because I don't think it's the be-all-end-all the way some collectors do, I feel compelled to point out that XTB almost seems to be deliberately 1-uping Fans Toys.  Almost every surface is painted, and he's borderline overloaded on diecast to the extent that Virtus appears to weight more than Apache or Saltus.

Virtus has what's probably the largest backpack among the Springers, but I don't think it's all that terrible.  And, XTB's still going to XTB, as one of the quirks that you can see in this side view is a small gap in his torso.  It's like somehow XTB just didn't get the parts that they designed to line up right, and it's somewhat compounded by the fact that the front of his torso doesn't actually lock in.  Rather, there are flaps that overlap to make his collar, and Virtus sort of relies on the tension of the overlapped panels to hold everything in place.  Still, I think we can agree that aesthetically Virtus is a very good Springer.  Personally, I think Saltus looks just a tad better, but Virtus definitely beats out Apache and the rest.

One area XTB was determined not to lose on is accessories, because Virtus has a ton.  You get not one but two guns, each with slightly different sculpts and very different paint jobs.  I am too lazy to dig through Season 3 to see if either gun is cartoon-accurate.  He's got the missile from the '86 movie, and his sword.  He's got a pair of blast effect parts, an entirely alternate IDW-style head, five alternate faces for his Sunbow head, a flight stand, a reasonably well-painted but totally un-articulated human figure from that one episode with Cobra Commander, a round translucent part, and eight (only three pictured) trapezoidal clear parts.

About those faces... I'm not a huge fan of the default face.  There's something that's just off about his Mona Lisa smile.  But, as noted, options.  You have an IDW face for the G1 head, a more neutral face with a narrow jaw, a slightly different neutral face that's a bit fatter, a happy face, and a... I dunno, disgusted? face.  I think the fatter neutral face might be the most Sunbow, but the face is a bit fat for Virtus' leaner frame, so I'm personally going with neutral face with narrow jaw, and I think that works pretty well for me.  As for the entire IDW head, the face on it doesn't appear to be swappable.  It's nice that XTB is giving us options, but without the IDW body to match it just kind of looks out of place.

Anyway... Virtus' articulation is pretty good.  The neck is double-hinged, so he can look up and down a good bit and crane his neck forward, but there's no sideways tilt.  His shoulders rotate and move laterally 90 degrees.  He technically has butterfly joints, too, but you have to untab the shoulders from his sides to use them as they're actually transformation hinges.  His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows curl until his hands touch his shoulder pads.  His wrists swivel, and his hands are fully articulated.  Each finger is pinned at all three knuckles, while the thumb has two pinned knuckles but is connected to the palm via a ball joint.  His waist swivels, and he's got a ratcheted 45 degree ab crunch.  His hip skirts open on the front and sides, so the hips can ratchet about 60 degrees forward, 45 degrees backward, and over 90 degrees laterally.  A note here, I've heard a lot of complaints that the spaces between the teeth on the lateral ratchets are too big.  So, those complaints aren't wrong, but what those complaints tend to leave out is the fact that there's enough friction between the clicks that I haven't actually found it to be a problem.  You're choices aren't stock straight or click out to a wide A-stance; the friction between clicks will get you a nice, natural A-stance.  Anyway, the thighs swivel, and the knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets.  The feet don't tilt down, but they can tilt up a good 90 degrees, and they have around 45 degrees of ankle pivot both inward and outward.  All-in-all not quite as good as Saltus' articulation, but on par or better than every other Springer.

As far as his accessories go, he can cradle the missile, but that's about it.  I don't know what you'd even want to do with the human slug.  They're both going back in the box.  The guns and the sword work, in theory, using the standard MP-style tabs on the handles into slots on his palms.  In practice, the pale gun with the green trim doesn't seem to fit too well.  I'm not too bothered; if he's holding his sword he only has one hand free for a gun anyway, and I prefer the gray one.  I don't have any trouble with him holding those.  The blast effects can be plugged into the guns' barrels.  And everything else isn't for bot mode.

Oh, but one feature he's got that doesn't require any accessories?  He's got the little arm blaster from the '86 movie.  For those keeping score at home, that's a feature that only Saltus has had so far.

XTB's transformations aren't usually as straight-up bad as Fans Toys, but they're rarely good and often full of questionable design choices and bits that wind up flopping around on too-delicate armatures.  So it's with some surprise that I'm saying that Virtus' transformation is actually pretty good.  As you'd expect, his chest lifts up and his head tucks into it to form the nose, and the backpack unclips and hinges out, but you'll find that the inside of his torso is actually hollow.  Instead of turning his arms into his wings and landing skids, they scrunch up and fold into the hollow space in his torso- that scrunching of the arms is probably the least intuitive part of the transformation, as it involves collapsing his biceps into his shoulders, bending his elbow the wrong way, disconnecting his wrist, spinning it around, and plugging it into the inside of the elbow, then using his actual elbow joint to bend the arm around so his fists are now resting under his biceps, and there's not a ton of clearance for stuffing his arms into his torso.  Once you get it, though, it's pretty smooth sailing.  His legs open up to extend the tail boom, then wrap back over his thighs; be mindful of these little bits that fold out of the boom and tab in behind his knees.  With the boom in place, the rest is simply sliding the wings out of the backpack and unfurling the landing skids, tabbing the top of the helicopter in place, then using a pair of hooks to secure the fuselage to the tail boom.  Minus the arms, it's all fairly easy and intuitive, though there are a few of those XTB-style quirks.  The obvious ones I already touched on, the hooks that hold the fuselage to the tail boom, and the lack of clearance for stuffing his arms into his torso, but another one that kind of bugs me are the landing skids.  They're on sliders, and kind of scoot out these crevasses under the wings.  I don't get why XTB though sliders were were a better idea than simply pinning the skid and having it unfold from the crevasse like a knife.

Minor engineering quirks aside, it's hard to argue with the results.  I might again point out that the Sunbow art actually uses green for most of the boom and the horizontal stabilizers, but almost nobody does it because then the robot would have green legs.  Green for the rotor might have been nice too, but I can live without it.  If I'm being very picky I might suggest the wings are a tad small, and I wish those flaps that are just laying on the wings found a way to fold out of the way.  On the whole, though, I'd say it edges out Allen and Apache as the most Sunbow-accurate helicopter mode.

And XTB is bringing the gimmicks, too.  Of course, the sword splits in half to form the rotor.  The cockpit opens, and rather than nothing or a hint of molded detail Virtus has a cockpit with tons of molded details and a pair of seats with steering yokes... though it's too small for his slug (which couldn't sit anyway) or the human figures that came with MP-44 or anything like that.  Like Saltus and Big Spring, Virtus does have the flip up headlights, and in a step up from those two Virtus' lights actually light up.  Each light takes a pair of AG-0/LR521/SR521 batteries, and there's a little button on the side that turns them on or off.  Of course, I couldn't test that feature because, despite years of accumulating different-sized button cell batteries for my toys, the manufacturers keep finding sizes I don't have.  Anyway, one last gimmick that Virtus uses to stand apart from the pack is that he has actual landing gear with little rolling wheels.  One is in his chest, under the nose of the helicopter.  The others are his robot heels.'

You might have noticed a little rectangle on Virtus' crotch.  It has a spring to push back out, but the rectangle does slide in to make a slot.  That slot allows you to mount Virtus to the included flight stand, which is a fairly elaborate piece of kit.  There's a sliding bit to lift the main arm up and down, with a tab that locks it into place.  Meanwhile, a pair of flaps on the sides open and close to lock/unlock a hinge near the tip so you can angle the helicopter according to your desires.  Aside from the stand, the blast effect parts can be plugged into his engines.  And, in a kind of neat gimmick, instead of using the sword to form the rotor you can assemble the eight trapezoidal clear bits around the circular one, and plug that into the top of the helicopter instead.  The idea is that this now-massive disc creates the illusion of rapidly-spinning rotors without actually spinning the rotor.  But wait a second... if you use this massive disc, where do you put the sword?  Or his guns, for that matter?

XTB does actually have that covered.  Under the stand, there's slots that fit into tabs on the sword's handle and the sides of the guns, plus a pair of clips for the blast effects, allowing you to store it under the the stand.  Too bad there's no storage for the missile or the extra faces, though.

Oh, and if you'd rather leave all the accessories but one gun and sword in the box, that's fine too.  I found that you can stick the barrel (of the gray rifle, anyway) into a gap under his chest with the handle fitting between Virtus' fists, under the helicopter.  It's not super secure, which is why I don't think it's intentional, but it's secure enough that I gave him a little shake and it didn't fall out.

Transforming Virtus into his car mode is 75% the same transformation as helicopter.  The chest is still flipping up, the arms are still stuffing into the torso, and the fender are still coming out of the backpack.  The simply use the sliders they're on to move up further, extending past the nose, and you leave the rest of the wings stored inside the fenders, deploying his front wheels instead.  With the fenders slid forward you have room to fold the flaps that were laying on top of them in helicopter mode onto the sides.  Most of the difference is in the rear.  You still have to open the legs up and wrap them around the the thighs, but you have to turn the thighs 180 degrees.  You kind of start to unfurl the tail boom, but you wind up turning the rear rotors around and then collapsing them back up against the legs.  While you have the legs open, you'll want to fold out the rear wheels, and use them to tab his legs together.  The roof should just clear his feet, and tabs on it will grab into slots on the legs.

Now, Springer's car mode has always been kind of stupid.  I'm not sure whether the toy came first, or Floro Dery's design, or maybe if we even started with Dery's design, made the G1 toy from it, then refined the design before animating the movie, but across the board it's sort of like they designed a robot that would turn into a futuristic helicopter, decided after the fact that they wanted a triple changer, so they added wheels, scrunched his legs back up, shifted his arms a bit, pulled the rotor off, and said, "space car?"  And I did praise Saltus for trying something a bit different to look like it was more purposefully designed as a ground vehicle and not a smushed helicopter on wheels.  The fact remains, though, that Saltus' car mode is not Sunbow-accurate.  But Virtus?  Well, technically the rims on the wheels should be green, and his rear is a touch gappy, but Virtus has far and away the most accurate car mode.  I mean, I really don't have much else to say about it, because it nails the colors and proportions so well that the color of the rims and the gappy rear end are really they only deviations from the Sunbow art to even remark on.

You can plug a gun into the rotor hole on the roof; the rotor's rotation is actually on the sword itself, so the gun won't spin or anything.  It can also be stored in the back of the car by sticking slots on the sides of the rear of the gun into tabs near Virtus' toes.  The instructions also tell you that you can store the sword underneath the car.  I assume that was part of the plan at some point, and one I wish they would have included in the final product, because there's a loose sheet that tells you, "hey, ignore that bit in the instruction book because you can't store the sword under the car after all.  And hey, I wasn't about to let a piece of paper boss me around.  I really tried to get the sword in.  It looks like the handle was supposed to go into a gap in his chest (the same gap I stuffed his gun's barrel into in helicopter mode), then the blade would run along the bottom and between the rear wheels.  But, it seems like XTB had to add that page because there simply isn't room to do that.  Trying to get the blade between the wheels will just push them apart and start untabbing his legs.

On very final thing to note.  You might have noticed in my pics that the faux fenders on Virtus' shoulders are entirely yellow, which isn't accurate- they should be yellow in the front, but mostly green.  What's more, they're solid diecast chunks painted yellow, and basically everyone winds up chipping the paint trying to get his arms in and out of his torso during transformation.  That's no good!  But XTB picked up on the issue right away and began manufacturing replacement parts, which my retailer included with my order without me even having to ask.  The replacement shoulders aren't diecast, they're green plastic, with just the fronts painted.  So in addition to (hopefully) not suffering from chipped paint, they're the correct colors!  Swapping the parts is easy, just pull the fake headlight covers off and you'll find a screw.  Remove it, and the front and back halves just slide right off.  Slide the new parts on, screw them in, and then shove the replacement fake headlight screw covers into place and you're good to go.

And now, the moment of truth... with all the Springers in hand, did XTB pull it off?  Is Virtus the new best Springer?  Do I recommend this figure?  Actually, yes!  But technically, more like a "yes, but".  See, I think that Virtus is the best all-around version of Springer.  In a rare win for XTB, I have no complaints about the build quality or QC (after replacing the shoulder pads).  The materials are solid, the joints are solid, the paint is excellent.  If you didn't know any better you could almost mistake the paint and materials for something Fans Toys put out.  You get tons of accessories, decent articulation, and the transformation isn't bad at all.  The robot mode looks great, if a little thin, and if you care about cartoon accuracy Virtus pulls off both alt modes better than anyone else.  I think, if you're not sure which Springer is the one to get, that Virtus is probably the safest/best choice for most people.

Now here's the but... as good as Virtus is, with a better head sculpt, a proper stocky body, and better articulation, I feel that Saltus is still edges out Virtus in robot mode.  And that's kind of the rub- I've often said that if you have to make some concessions, you make concessions to the alt mode for the better robot mode.  If you're not transforming your figures much or at all, and you really just want the best-looking, most posable robot to put into a cool action pose on your display shelf then you might still be better off with Saltus.  But no matter what, it's Saltus or Virtus.  If you've been thinking about picking up Apache, don't, and if you already did consider upgrading.

[mikeszekely]

On 5/30/2024 at 3:01 AM, mikeszekely said:

I have to get more?  Because Virtus is in that picture, between Saltus and the G1 toy.

*sigh*

OK, MFT Springer on the way.

Well, @M'Kyuun requested it, so even though I reviewed all the MP-style options for Springer, I guess we're breaking into Legends.  But none of the big three (Iron Factory, NewAge, & Magic Square) have done a Springer that I'm aware of.  Instead, we're looking at MechFansToys, who have done a few 3P Legends-class triple changers by now.  But this one would be their first, a figure that many stores have labeled as Samurai.

For the record, I don't know where the name "Samurai" comes from.  Nowhere on the box does it say "Samurai."  Rather, it says things like "Mech Soul," "Lost Planet," and "Assault Soldiers."  As near as I can tell, "Mech Soul" is a designer or sub-brand of MFT, and "Lost Planet" or "Assault Soldiers" (or both!) refer to the product line/universe.  Either way, here he is with two other MFT figures for scale.

Aesthetically, I'm not sure what Mech Soul was going for.  His fenders are his entire shoulders, rather than moveable shoulder pads, so they're always straight up.  They can't angle forward OX-style, nor do they wrap around Sunbow-style.  There's no yellow on them, either.  For that matter, while the vents in his chest are painted yellow, there's not quite enough as it's surrounded by green.

His legs have quite a bit of kibble on them.  You expect that there's going to be helicopter parts jammed up on most takes on Springer, but here it's a bit low-effort, hanging off the sides of his legs while his calves are pretty hollow.  I'll also note that his backpack, while somewhat typical at first glance, does hang down past his butt.  It's going to be a factor later.

Samurai comes with a ton of accessories... but they're mostly not his.  There are two swords that are for him, though the second is pretty superfluous.  The two guns at the bottom of the picture of for him.  But the rest of the accessories- a container, a little mecha, two claws, two shoulder guns, and a hand gun- speak to what MFT was really doing at the time.  They were KO-ing Takara's Diaclone reboot toys.

I couldn't tell you which Diaclone toy specifically MFT is KO-ing here... MFT may have even made some original parts for it, but it's definitely based on the Power Suit designs that were sprinkled between larger releases.  The shoulder guns mount onto holes on it's back, the claws can either be held or plugged onto its legs, and it can hold its hand gun.  The front opens and you can stuff a Dianaut in there.  And his pelvis can slide up its back along a track, allowing you to scrunch up its legs and fold its arms back so you can stuff it inside the container.

But enough about Diaclone, we're here to talk about Springers.  So, Samuari's head is on a ball joint.  It swivels, it can look up, and it can tilt decently sideways, but there's not a lot of clearance for tilting downward unless you push the top of his chest in, as you would for transformation.  His shoulders rotate, and they can move laterally about 60 degrees before his shoulders hit his head.  They are, unfortunately, "Hot Rod" shoulders that can't move up and laterally at the same time.  He's got a ball joint for a bicep swivel, and it pairs with a hinge to give him double-jointed elbow that bend a full 180 degrees.  His wrists swivel.  His waist swivels, but it's limited by the fact that his backpack hangs down over his butt.  It gets caught on his hips.  Speaking of hips, they're ball joints.  Because his hip skirts don't move, they get a bit short of 90 degrees forward and about 75 degrees laterally.  His backpack is once again a hinderance, as there's little room for any backward movement on the hips.  He's got thigh swivels, and his knees bend nearly 180 degrees.  His feet are on hinged ball joints, which give him good up/down tilt but a pretty limited ankle pivot.

He can hold his swords or guns in either hand.  He doesn't have storage for the extras on his body, though.

Samurai has pretty simple engineering.  The top of his chest collapses inward to create a gap for his head to fit through as you fold the rest of the chest up and over it.  His biceps rotate 45 degrees so the fronts of his forearms are facing outward, then his hands rotate back so that the green backs of his hands are still facing outward.  You can push his arms in so that they're a little closer to his body, but the problem is that they don't tab or lock into place at all.  You line them up with his sides and just trust friction to keep them there.   Hinges fold his feet out of the way, then you tab his legs together and fold them over his thighs.  Clips on the backpack will grab his shins, locking them into lace.  His feet, meanwhile, sort of rotate so the toes are pointing forward, but again they don't actually lock into place.

The car mode is a mixed bag.  There's that distinct lack of yellow we talked about in robot mode.   The fenders do not come up in front of the nose.  The fins on the rear are green and angled the wrong way.  They kind of draw your attention such that, if you follow that line down the edge of the fin and imagine that's where the rear ended you might think the car mode looks pretty good.  But a more careful examination reminds you that there's a ton of stuff hanging out back there, well past his rear wheels.

In car mode, Samurai isn't meant to work with any of his own accessories, which is kind of a bummer.  However, if you rotate his forearms back to their robot mode positions, you can take the Diaclone shoulder guns and push their pegs into slots on the backs of his arms.  I guess, if you wanted an armed car mode, that's one way to do it, but it's just weird that you have to use KO Diaclone accessories to do it and not the actual guns made for him.

If you have Samurai in car mode, you're already close to having him in helicopter mode.  Turn his wrists so that the green part is facing up, then curl his elbows.  Slots on his arms will lock into tabs on his shoulders.  Take the fins and fold them away from his legs, then use the double hinges to line them up and form his tail boom.  Take one of the swords and, rather than pull them apart and splay the blade open, realize that the sword actually two parts pinned together and scissor them apart.  Jam the end of the pin into Samurai's back to make the main rotor.

Samurai's copter mode has a lot of the same issues.  While his arms do lock into his shoulders, there's nothing locking his shoulders so they can still rotate freely- but they're really in the same position as they were for car mode.  His tail is still green instead of gray, and he lacks horizontal stabilizers.  There's not enough yellow on the front, and his feet are just sort of flopping against his sides.  Still, with the tail boom folded out the rear seems more purposeful, and the shoulders were in more of what you'd think of as the helicopter position already, so I think I prefer this mode to his car mode.

Since it forms the main rotor, Samurai is using one of his swords in helicopter mode.  You can also use both of his guns in this mode.  They have tabs on one side, and those tabs fit into slots on his arms, essentially forming gray (still not yellow) landing skids.

My recommendation is that you don't buy Samurai.  I don't want to judge him too harshly- this figure is around seven years old, and one of MechFansToys' early releases.  But I have to be honest, it's not very good.  The aesthetics are just off, and while I suppose his bot mode might be passable the engineering is a little too basic, even by 2017 standards.  There's no excuse for not securing his arms better.  His helicopter mode looks OK, but the car mode feels unfinished.  And the thing is, I've reviewed MFT's Astrotrain, their Blitzwing, and their Octane.  All three are figures I've held up as examples for what Hasbro should be doing, and are figures I've wished would get upsized to Voyagers.  I know MFT can do a much better figure than this.  Maybe if they took another crack at it..?😉

[M'Kyuun]

3 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Well, @M'Kyuun requested it, so even though I reviewed all the MP-style options for Springer, I guess we're breaking into Legends.  But none of the big three (Iron Factory, NewAge, & Magic Square) have done a Springer that I'm aware of.  Instead, we're looking at MechFansToys, who have done a few 3P Legends-class triple changers by now.  But this one would be their first, a figure that many stores have labeled as Samurai.

For the record, I don't know where the name "Samurai" comes from.  Nowhere on the box does it say "Samurai."  Rather, it says things like "Mech Soul," "Lost Planet," and "Assault Soldiers."  As near as I can tell, "Mech Soul" is a designer or sub-brand of MFT, and "Lost Planet" or "Assault Soldiers" (or both!) refer to the product line/universe.  Either way, here he is with two other MFT figures for scale.

Aesthetically, I'm not sure what Mech Soul was going for.  His fenders are his entire shoulders, rather than moveable shoulder pads, so they're always straight up.  They can't angle forward OX-style, nor do they wrap around Sunbow-style.  There's no yellow on them, either.  For that matter, while the vents in his chest are painted yellow, there's not quite enough as it's surrounded by green.

His legs have quite a bit of kibble on them.  You expect that there's going to be helicopter parts jammed up on most takes on Springer, but here it's a bit low-effort, hanging off the sides of his legs while his calves are pretty hollow.  I'll also note that his backpack, while somewhat typical at first glance, does hang down past his butt.  It's going to be a factor later.

Samurai comes with a ton of accessories... but they're mostly not his.  There are two swords that are for him, though the second is pretty superfluous.  The two guns at the bottom of the picture of for him.  But the rest of the accessories- a container, a little mecha, two claws, two shoulder guns, and a hand gun- speak to what MFT was really doing at the time.  They were KO-ing Takara's Diaclone reboot toys.

I couldn't tell you which Diaclone toy specifically MFT is KO-ing here... MFT may have even made some original parts for it, but it's definitely based on the Power Suit designs that were sprinkled between larger releases.  The shoulder guns mount onto holes on it's back, the claws can either be held or plugged onto its legs, and it can hold its hand gun.  The front opens and you can stuff a Dianaut in there.  And his pelvis can slide up its back along a track, allowing you to scrunch up its legs and fold its arms back so you can stuff it inside the container.

But enough about Diaclone, we're here to talk about Springers.  So, Samuari's head is on a ball joint.  It swivels, it can look up, and it can tilt decently sideways, but there's not a lot of clearance for tilting downward unless you push the top of his chest in, as you would for transformation.  His shoulders rotate, and they can move laterally about 60 degrees before his shoulders hit his head.  They are, unfortunately, "Hot Rod" shoulders that can't move up and laterally at the same time.  He's got a ball joint for a bicep swivel, and it pairs with a hinge to give him double-jointed elbow that bend a full 180 degrees.  His wrists swivel.  His waist swivels, but it's limited by the fact that his backpack hangs down over his butt.  It gets caught on his hips.  Speaking of hips, they're ball joints.  Because his hip skirts don't move, they get a bit short of 90 degrees forward and about 75 degrees laterally.  His backpack is once again a hinderance, as there's little room for any backward movement on the hips.  He's got thigh swivels, and his knees bend nearly 180 degrees.  His feet are on hinged ball joints, which give him good up/down tilt but a pretty limited ankle pivot.

He can hold his swords or guns in either hand.  He doesn't have storage for the extras on his body, though.

Samurai has pretty simple engineering.  The top of his chest collapses inward to create a gap for his head to fit through as you fold the rest of the chest up and over it.  His biceps rotate 45 degrees so the fronts of his forearms are facing outward, then his hands rotate back so that the green backs of his hands are still facing outward.  You can push his arms in so that they're a little closer to his body, but the problem is that they don't tab or lock into place at all.  You line them up with his sides and just trust friction to keep them there.   Hinges fold his feet out of the way, then you tab his legs together and fold them over his thighs.  Clips on the backpack will grab his shins, locking them into lace.  His feet, meanwhile, sort of rotate so the toes are pointing forward, but again they don't actually lock into place.

The car mode is a mixed bag.  There's that distinct lack of yellow we talked about in robot mode.   The fenders do not come up in front of the nose.  The fins on the rear are green and angled the wrong way.  They kind of draw your attention such that, if you follow that line down the edge of the fin and imagine that's where the rear ended you might think the car mode looks pretty good.  But a more careful examination reminds you that there's a ton of stuff hanging out back there, well past his rear wheels.

In car mode, Samurai isn't meant to work with any of his own accessories, which is kind of a bummer.  However, if you rotate his forearms back to their robot mode positions, you can take the Diaclone shoulder guns and push their pegs into slots on the backs of his arms.  I guess, if you wanted an armed car mode, that's one way to do it, but it's just weird that you have to use KO Diaclone accessories to do it and not the actual guns made for him.

If you have Samurai in car mode, you're already close to having him in helicopter mode.  Turn his wrists so that the green part is facing up, then curl his elbows.  Slots on his arms will lock into tabs on his shoulders.  Take the fins and fold them away from his legs, then use the double hinges to line them up and form his tail boom.  Take one of the swords and, rather than pull them apart and splay the blade open, realize that the sword actually two parts pinned together and scissor them apart.  Jam the end of the pin into Samurai's back to make the main rotor.

Samurai's copter mode has a lot of the same issues.  While his arms do lock into his shoulders, there's nothing locking his shoulders so they can still rotate freely- but they're really in the same position as they were for car mode.  His tail is still green instead of gray, and he lacks horizontal stabilizers.  There's not enough yellow on the front, and his feet are just sort of flopping against his sides.  Still, with the tail boom folded out the rear seems more purposeful, and the shoulders were in more of what you'd think of as the helicopter position already, so I think I prefer this mode to his car mode.

Since it forms the main rotor, Samurai is using one of his swords in helicopter mode.  You can also use both of his guns in this mode.  They have tabs on one side, and those tabs fit into slots on his arms, essentially forming gray (still not yellow) landing skids.

My recommendation is that you don't buy Samurai.  I don't want to judge him too harshly- this figure is around seven years old, and one of MechFansToys' early releases.  But I have to be honest, it's not very good.  The aesthetics are just off, and while I suppose his bot mode might be passable the engineering is a little too basic, even by 2017 standards.  There's no excuse for not securing his arms better.  His helicopter mode looks OK, but the car mode feels unfinished.  And the thing is, I've reviewed MFT's Astrotrain, their Blitzwing, and their Octane.  All three are figures I've held up as examples for what Hasbro should be doing, and are figures I've wished would get upsized to Voyagers.  I know MFT can do a much better figure than this.  Maybe if they took another crack at it..?😉

First off, I must confess that when I said , "What's one more?", I meant Virtus, as I didn't realize he was in that lineup of Springers. So, I feel a bit guilty for the insinuation that @mikeszekely needed to get MFT's Springer. However, it made for a neat review and I appreciate the expenditure of money, time, and effort involved. I concede your opinion on this fig- def a step down from their other triple changers. "Another crack at it". Hmmmm😉

Despite my initial reluctance to delve into the legends rabbit hole, the quality of these figs compared to even MP offerings is pretty doggone amazing, and their small size makes display a far easier task, especially when space is at a premium, as it's rapidly becoming for me. One other thing of note is the options in the legends landscape: of course there are New Age and Magic Square leading the charge, and I find that one or the other does this fig or that fig "better" to my preference. Every now and then I'll get both companies' takes, but usually one or the other. Iron Factory has their own style which is cool but doesn't mix with the uber toon stylings of NA and MS. Mecha Fans Toys (MFT) are relegated to fourth party status on TFSafari. Nonetheless, as Mike has shown us in his various reviews, they're no slouches in the TF legends game; one must note that they've tackled most of the triple changers, some of the most challenging and complex figs to design, and they have acquitted themselves quite admirably. Thanks to Mike's and other fans' reviews, I felt compelled to add a number of MFT's triple changers to my ever-expanding collection of legends figs, and I've not been disappointed. To that end, I'm looking forward to the next review.

[mikeszekely]

25 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

First off, I must confess that when I said , "What's one more?", I meant Virtus, as I didn't realize he was in that lineup of Springers. So, I feel a bit guilty for the insinuation that @mikeszekely needed to get MFT's Springer.

Oh, you have no idea how far down the rabbit hole I've gone now.  Let's just say I was pricing Botcon Springer a little bit ago...

[M'Kyuun]

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Oh, you have no idea how far down the rabbit hole I've gone now.  Let's just say I was pricing Botcon Springer a little bit ago...

Ok , I feel better.   I didn't even know Botcon Springer existed. Wow, all the way back to 2007!  Kinda crappy, though, when they repaint a fig with a single alt mode as a triple changing character. Both Cybertron Hot Shot and Cybertron Evac, each having a single alt, were repainted as Springer.

[mikeszekely]

3 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Ok , I feel better.   I didn't even know Botcon Springer existed. Wow, all the way back to 2007!  Kinda crappy, though, when they repaint a fig with a single alt mode as a triple changing character. Both Cybertron Hot Shot and Cybertron Evac, each having a single alt, were repainted as Springer.

And Tomahawk, from the 2010 Hunt for the Decepticons movie line, was done as Springer as part of the GDO line for Asian markets.  Who also only had a single alt.

Yeah... I might have been looking at Botcon Springer because, by this point, Botcon Springer might be the only Springer toy I don't have.  Period.  (And, even though I don't have Botcon Springer, I do have Roadbuster from the Autobot Ambush pack that was being sold at Targets around the same time as the pack that gave us Evac Springer.)

BTW, please excuse the less-good lighting for awhile.  Like I said, I usually do my photography in the guest room, but my wife's parents are visiting from China... until September. 😩  Of course, I'm still buying stuff, so I needed to do something.  I wound up buying smaller, cheap folding table at Walmart, with the same posterboard I normally use for the background.  But I only have half the lamps with this setup, and I'm working out of my bedroom which has worse lighting to begin with.

[M'Kyuun]

10 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

And Tomahawk, from the 2010 Hunt for the Decepticons movie line, was done as Springer as part of the GDO line for Asian markets.  Who also only had a single alt.

Yeah... I might have been looking at Botcon Springer because, by this point, Botcon Springer might be the only Springer toy I don't have.  Period.  (And, even though I don't have Botcon Springer, I do have Roadbuster from the Autobot Ambush pack that was being sold at Targets around the same time as the pack that gave us Evac Springer.)

BTW, please excuse the less-good lighting for awhile.  Like I said, I usually do my photography in the guest room, but my wife's parents are visiting from China... until September. 😩  Of course, I'm still buying stuff, so I needed to do something.  I wound up buying smaller, cheap folding table at Walmart, with the same posterboard I normally use for the background.  But I only have half the lamps with this setup, and I'm working out of my bedroom which has worse lighting to begin with.

Oops, I missed the Tomahawk repaint when I was perusing the TFWiki. No worries regarding the lighting; at least you have a photo setup. I usually ad-hoc by propping up a piece of foamboard on my kitchen table or counter and hoping that the overhead lighting/sunlight from the slider door is sufficient. I just got my first cell phone, and its photo capabilities far surpass my old Kodak point & shoot, so hopefully my pics will turn out better from now on.

[mikeszekely]

19 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Maybe if they took another crack at it..?😉

Surprise!  They did!  This time we've got Falcon, the 29th release in their Mech Soul line that began with Samurai, though I think this one was worked on by Mechanic Studio, who have also collaborated with Dr. Wu.

In any case, what we have here is a robot that's roughly the same size as Samurai, but significantly more cartoon accurate.   The gray on his legs is a bit bluer, and (from the front) free of kibble.  The face, hands, and thighs that were white the first time have that greenish tinge now.  His shoulder pads, with their yellow fronts, wrap around his shoulders as you'd expect.  The yellow chest vent is more than just a small cutout.  And though the face sculpt is a little mushy (forgivable at this scale), the shapes and proportions are tweaked to be that much more Sunbow.

The sides of his legs have the wheel well seen on the Sunbow art, and his backpack has the little engince nacelles the previous version omitted.  You may also note that the backpack sits a bit higher and doesn't hang down over his butt.  His calves aren't hollow.  My only real complaint is the folded fins on his calves, but it's a minor complaint on what is clearly a huge improvement on Springer's robot mode.

Falcon doesn't have as many accessories as Samurai, but he's got what he needs without stuffing the box with Diaclone knock-offs.  You've got a sword, and this one is more solidly built and works more traditionally than Samurai's.  You've got a rifle that's similar in sculpt to the G1 toy's.  You've got the catapult missile, because apparently it's very important to include that thing from the movie even though there's no real way for the toy to interact with it, and you've got a flight stand adapter.

Note that the gun and missile are silver paint over green plastic.  The silver coat is a bit thin, so the green plastic winds up giving the silver paint a bit of a gold tint.  In person it is NOT as bad as my camera's processor is making it out to be.

I'm happy to report that aesthetics are not the only improvement here.  Falcon's head is on a ball joint that has ok-ish up/down/sideways tilt in addition to swiveling.  His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move 90 degrees laterally- no Hot Rod shoulders this time.  His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows could bend 180 degrees if his shoulderp ads weren't in the way.  No wrist swivels, though.  His waist can swivel, and this time it's unobstructed- he can swivel his waist a full 360 degrees.  His hips are ball joints, and they can go about 90 degrees forward and backward, though the lateral movement is limited to about 60 degrees.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little short of 90 degrees.  His feet can't really tilt up, but they can tilt nearly 90 degrees downward, and his ankles can pivot over 90 degrees, plus he has ankle swivels.

He can hold his sword and gun just fine by sliding the handles into his static fists.  He doesn't appear to have any storage for them aside from holding them, though.

Falcon's transformation is a bit more involved than Samurai, but still simpler than any of the MP options or even the Siege toy.  Begin by pulling the entire front of his torso away and opening up his backpack.  That will allow you to free a little sliver of the cockpit window, tuck his head into his torso cavity, and lift his chest up to become the front of the vehicle.  His shoulder pads unfold, then the front wheels fold out from his chest and tab into the underside of the shoulder pads.  The sides of his legs open up, allowing you to slide them up over his thighs as well as folding out the rear wheels before closing them back up.  The smaller fins near the tops of his legs remain folded flat, but the large ones angle outward, and his feet spin around and fold onto the backs of his legs.  Once his legs are set and tabbed together, the backpack can hinge down and back, sliding over some tabs on this thighs to lock into place, then his arms simply peg into the backpack to finish it all off.

Falcon's car mode is pretty solid, and fairly Sunbow accurate.  My biggest complaints are that the fenders don't really reach in front of the nose the way they should for this mode, and that the fins on the back are pointing in the wrong direction.  I'll also note that the back is a bit messy, but that's almost par for the course on Springers, even for the big MP-style ones, and that I'm not a fan of his visible fists, but if Hasbro can't manage that on a $50 Leader why should I expect MFT to do it on a much smaller $30 figure?

The wheels roll, but on this size we're not getting gimmicks like headlights or a cockpit that can open.  Honestly, I'm not even sure if the car mode has intentional weapon storage.  That said, both of his fists are still accessible so you can plug his weapons in there... although the sword will look kind of stupid, as it's sticking straight up.

Like with Samurai, the gist of the helicopter mode is to unfurl the tail boom from his legs, curl his arms up alongside the fenders, and split the sword to make the rotor.  In practice, there's a bit more going on this time.  The wheels tuck back under the nose, which leaves space for the shoulder pads to fold up a bit, shortening them to sit well behind the nose.  While his arm curls up, the inside of it folds back out, and futher allows you to fold out the landing skids.  While unfurling the tail boom, you have to rotate his waist and then rotate his thighs 180 degrees, which brings them close together so they can tab in properly.  Finally, in a step I missed for these photos, his feet do swivel around and still tab into each other.

Falcon's helicopter mode is a definitely improvement over Samurai's- better colors, engine nacelles on the top, landing skids that don't require partsforming, horizontal stabs on the tail, and they did work in a way to change the geometry of the fenders/wings.  However, I think it's probably his weakest mode.  We've still got the visible fists.  There's a little gap in the fuselage, where his chest vacated his torso that's not being hidden by his arms anymore.  There's a larger gap on the back of the tail (and under it), and the entire tail boom seems a bit too large for the fuselage.  My biggest gripe is one that actual returns from Samurai, and that's that there's nothing locking the fenders/wings in place; they can rotate  and move freely on the shoulder ball joints.

While we can trust the sword to form a nice rotor, again there doesn't seem to be any deliberate storage for his gun.  Of course, there's still the visible fists, if you don't mind the asymmetry.  As for the flight stand, it plugs into a screw hole on Falcon's butt, currently on the underside of the helicopter.

Like I said yesterday, Iron Factory, Magic Square, and NewAge haven't done a Springer.  So, by virtue of being better than Samurai, Falcon is the Springer I'd recommend for your Legends collection.  And for your money you'll be getting an excellent robot mode, a decent car mode, and an adequate helicopter mode, as well as the knowledge that if Iron Factory ever gets around to doing a Springer it'll certainly be too stylized for a Sunbow G1 Legends collection anyway.  The real threats will be Magic Square and NewAge, who I imagine will almost certainly do a better Springer, but at the cost of being more complex and more expensive.

[M'Kyuun]

28 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Surprise!  They did!  This time we've got Falcon, the 29th release in their Mech Soul line that began with Samurai, though I think this one was worked on by Mechanic Studio, who have also collaborated with Dr. Wu.

In any case, what we have here is a robot that's roughly the same size as Samurai, but significantly more cartoon accurate.   The gray on his legs is a bit bluer, and (from the front) free of kibble.  The face, hands, and thighs that were white the first time have that greenish tinge now.  His shoulder pads, with their yellow fronts, wrap around his shoulders as you'd expect.  The yellow chest vent is more than just a small cutout.  And though the face sculpt is a little mushy (forgivable at this scale), the shapes and proportions are tweaked to be that much more Sunbow.

The sides of his legs have the wheel well seen on the Sunbow art, and his backpack has the little engince nacelles the previous version omitted.  You may also note that the backpack sits a bit higher and doesn't hang down over his butt.  His calves aren't hollow.  My only real complaint is the folded fins on his calves, but it's a minor complaint on what is clearly a huge improvement on Springer's robot mode.

Falcon doesn't have as many accessories as Samurai, but he's got what he needs without stuffing the box with Diaclone knock-offs.  You've got a sword, and this one is more solidly built and works more traditionally than Samurai's.  You've got a rifle that's similar in sculpt to the G1 toy's.  You've got the catapult missile, because apparently it's very important to include that thing from the movie even though there's no real way for the toy to interact with it, and you've got a flight stand adapter.

Note that the gun and missile are silver paint over green plastic.  The silver coat is a bit thin, so the green plastic winds up giving the silver paint a bit of a gold tint.  In person it is NOT as bad as my camera's processor is making it out to be.

I'm happy to report that aesthetics are not the only improvement here.  Falcon's head is on a ball joint that has ok-ish up/down/sideways tilt in addition to swiveling.  His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move 90 degrees laterally- no Hot Rod shoulders this time.  His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows could bend 180 degrees if his shoulderp ads weren't in the way.  No wrist swivels, though.  His waist can swivel, and this time it's unobstructed- he can swivel his waist a full 360 degrees.  His hips are ball joints, and they can go about 90 degrees forward and backward, though the lateral movement is limited to about 60 degrees.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little short of 90 degrees.  His feet can't really tilt up, but they can tilt nearly 90 degrees downward, and his ankles can pivot over 90 degrees, plus he has ankle swivels.

He can hold his sword and gun just fine by sliding the handles into his static fists.  He doesn't appear to have any storage for them aside from holding them, though.

Falcon's transformation is a bit more involved than Samurai, but still simpler than any of the MP options or even the Siege toy.  Begin by pulling the entire front of his torso away and opening up his backpack.  That will allow you to free a little sliver of the cockpit window, tuck his head into his torso cavity, and lift his chest up to become the front of the vehicle.  His shoulder pads unfold, then the front wheels fold out from his chest and tab into the underside of the shoulder pads.  The sides of his legs open up, allowing you to slide them up over his thighs as well as folding out the rear wheels before closing them back up.  The smaller fins near the tops of his legs remain folded flat, but the large ones angle outward, and his feet spin around and fold onto the backs of his legs.  Once his legs are set and tabbed together, the backpack can hinge down and back, sliding over some tabs on this thighs to lock into place, then his arms simply peg into the backpack to finish it all off.

Falcon's car mode is pretty solid, and fairly Sunbow accurate.  My biggest complaints are that the fenders don't really reach in front of the nose the way they should for this mode, and that the fins on the back are pointing in the wrong direction.  I'll also note that the back is a bit messy, but that's almost par for the course on Springers, even for the big MP-style ones, and that I'm not a fan of his visible fists, but if Hasbro can't manage that on a $50 Leader why should I expect MFT to do it on a much smaller $30 figure?

The wheels roll, but on this size we're not getting gimmicks like headlights or a cockpit that can open.  Honestly, I'm not even sure if the car mode has intentional weapon storage.  That said, both of his fists are still accessible so you can plug his weapons in there... although the sword will look kind of stupid, as it's sticking straight up.

Like with Samurai, the gist of the helicopter mode is to unfurl the tail boom from his legs, curl his arms up alongside the fenders, and split the sword to make the rotor.  In practice, there's a bit more going on this time.  The wheels tuck back under the nose, which leaves space for the shoulder pads to fold up a bit, shortening them to sit well behind the nose.  While his arm curls up, the inside of it folds back out, and futher allows you to fold out the landing skids.  While unfurling the tail boom, you have to rotate his waist and then rotate his thighs 180 degrees, which brings them close together so they can tab in properly.  Finally, in a step I missed for these photos, his feet do swivel around and still tab into each other.

Falcon's helicopter mode is a definitely improvement over Samurai's- better colors, engine nacelles on the top, landing skids that don't require partsforming, horizontal stabs on the tail, and they did work in a way to change the geometry of the fenders/wings.  However, I think it's probably his weakest mode.  We've still got the visible fists.  There's a little gap in the fuselage, where his chest vacated his torso that's not being hidden by his arms anymore.  There's a larger gap on the back of the tail (and under it), and the entire tail boom seems a bit too large for the fuselage.  My biggest gripe is one that actual returns from Samurai, and that's that there's nothing locking the fenders/wings in place; they can rotate  and move freely on the shoulder ball joints.

While we can trust the sword to form a nice rotor, again there doesn't seem to be any deliberate storage for his gun.  Of course, there's still the visible fists, if you don't mind the asymmetry.  As for the flight stand, it plugs into a screw hole on Falcon's butt, currently on the underside of the helicopter.

Like I said yesterday, Iron Factory, Magic Square, and NewAge haven't done a Springer.  So, by virtue of being better than Samurai, Falcon is the Springer I'd recommend for your Legends collection.  And for your money you'll be getting an excellent robot mode, a decent car mode, and an adequate helicopter mode, as well as the knowledge that if Iron Factory ever gets around to doing a Springer it'll certainly be too stylized for a Sunbow G1 Legends collection anyway.  The real threats will be Magic Square and NewAge, who I imagine will almost certainly do a better Springer, but at the cost of being more complex and more expensive.

Good review, Mike. I was messing about with my copy last night in anticipation and was a little bummed that the wrists don't rotate, a should-be must on any fig that wields a sword. Anyway, though he has his flaws, at this scale he's a pretty good take, especially his bot mode. I, too, wish his wings tabbed in somewhere, as the ball joints seem to have different resting points leaving mine a little asymmetrical.  Too, the back wheels on mine don't rotate freely; the pins were installed too tightly on them, I think, although the front wheels rotate just fine. As you say, Springer's car mode is generally his weakest (by design) regardless of what version of Springer you have (except MMC's Saltus whose stylistic take was the main reason I got him as my MP Springer); however on Falcon I think it turned out better than his helicopter whose aft fuselage and tail boom aren't properly shaped. Personally, as an aviation fan, I wish the opposite was true, but as you said, eventually New Age and Magic Square will likely get around to doing their own versions which will in all likelihood be superior given their pursuits of toon accuracy, for whatever that's worth.

[mikeszekely]

Did you think we were done with Springer now that we've covered the MPs and Legends?  I'm afraid we still have one more unlicensed third-party Springer, though this one may be one of the most important 3P figures ever to be released.  This one is Fansproject's Warbot Defender.

Defender is an old figure, from the long ago days of 2010.  I think the dated engineering on him would leave him out-of-place in a modern collection even if he weren't so stylized, and boy howdy is Defender stylized.  Details we've come to accept as "iconic" elements of Springer's design like his shoulder pads are missing, while new elements like the busy shins and the yellow cannisters on his hips and forearms are Fansproject originals.  And yet, I do think the design is recognizably Springer.  Sure, maybe the predominantly gray arms, yellow chest, and green thighs hearken a bit more to the G1 toy than the Sunbow art, but that's fine.  There's the square chest, and the hint of what could be his tummy vent.  The helmet is more aggressively angular, but has the general shape you'd expect.

His backpack is still mostly his cockpit and roof, and while they're black and stylized he's even got the engine nacelles.  His calves flare out and curve in slightly, but the impression is very akin to the fins on the backs of Sunbow Springer's legs.  And, again, it's important to remember the the era this was released in- in 2010, Hasbro was just transitioning from from Universe to Generations, and most of what we got that year was either from Animated, Revenge of the Fallen, or the then-current War for Cybertron game.  The stuff that wasn't, like Reveal the Shield Jazz, Darkmount/Straxus, and Blurr was at least as stylized from their G1 incarnations as Defender is from Springer.

So, accessories.  I had to double check this one, but Defender comes with a sword and two pistols.  The definitely-used copy I was able to pick up also came with these little translucent bits.  I thought that they might be adapters for a flight stand- the instructions even mention using one.  But no, I don't have any flight stand adapters and I can't find any reviews from back then that talk about them.  What they actually seem to be are 3D-printed heels that plug onto tabs on the backs of his feet.  So, I'd say that if you were to track down a copy of Defender today you shouldn't expect to have them with yours, but you might want to look at getting some if you're going to display him in bot mode, as he is a tad back heavy.

With the extra heel support, Defender's head is on a ball joint that doesn't have a ton of room to look down, but he can look up a decent amount and can tilt his head sideways more than you'd really need.  His shoulders rotate.  They can move laterally 90 degrees, but they're a bit weird.  They move out on what feels like friction to 45 degrees, then they click through three detents on the way from 45 to 90.  His biceps rotate on soft ratches, then he bends his elbows 90 degrees on ball joints.  His wrists swivel.  His waist swivels, but due to his backpack we're talking a bit under 45 degrees either way.  His hips go forward or backward 90 degrees on very soft ratchets, then laterally 90 degrees on tighter ones.  He's got ratcheted thigh swivels, and soft-ratcheted knees that bend over 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt up on more ratchets, largely due to his transformation, but nothing really down, and he lacks ankle pivots.  A chunk of his lower leg (from the yellow details down) is hinged to provide him with a too-slight ankle pivot.

The pistols fit snuggly in either of Defender's hands.  Despite being ridiculously thin, he holds his sword well, too.

Three weapons for two hands leaves at least one as the odd one out, but Fansproject considered that.  There are cavities just to the side of Defender's knees where his pistols can slide into, like a holster.  Meanwhile, a pin coming off one side of the sword's hilt can fit into a small hole on the right side of Defender's backpack.

The transformation to car mode isn't particularly difficult.  Honestly, I think it's probably easier than Siege Springer.  A flap on his chest opens so his head can pass through as you lift it up.  His shoulders use a double hinge mechanism to line up properly with the front of the car, his shoulders turn in so the wheels face down, and his arms tuck into the void his chest left.  His sides open, his waist turns 180 degrees, his feet fold up to his shins, and his legs fold back over his thighs.  Some of the backpack double hinges to fill in the rear, and little flaps near his ankles fill in a gap between his feet legs and shoulders.

I actually really dig Defender's car mode.  The sides of his legs have a flow to them that blends nicely with his roof in such a way that it looks very purposely like some kind of ground vehicle, and not a helicopter cosplay as a car.  The extra wheels in the back combine with the cockpit to suggest more of an armored military-type vehicle than a literal car.  Heck, paint it black and I could buy it as a post-Nolan Batmobile (and Defender's release puts him right between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises).  My only complaint would be the visible fists on the sides.

That complaint, mind you, is mitigated somewhat by the intended weapon storage.  See, Fansproject tells you to attach the pistols to the car by simply plugging them into his fists.  The sword can stow on the car, too, or rather, under it.  There's a slot on what is actually Defender's butt, and gaps between his knees and tucked-up arms.  The hilt, pin and all, jam between his knees, so that the blade runs through Defender's butt crack and into the gap between his arms.

Going to helicopter is a bit more frustrating than the car mode.  To be clear, I don't think it's that much more complicated; the shoulders shift on the double-hinged mechanism so they're behind the nose of the vehicle, his arms stuff into his torso in different configuration, the backpack folds up and a flap folds off of it over the cockpit, his hips shift a bit and the sides of his legs swing around to form the tail.  The catch is folding the arms up.  Things need to be angled a certain way, and even when you kind of got it the instructions make things look more flush than you can actually achieve due to molded details on his arms pushing them out slightly.

The helicopter mode is the weaker mode, I think.  His feet and forearms leave some gaps that the car had filled better, and there's pretty obvious tires sticking out of his wings, one of which on my copy is a little droopy due to the joint tolerance getting a little loose in the last 14 years.  His tail's a little thigh, and a little short, and the flowing lines that worked so well for the robot mode don't really come across as effectively as horizontal or vertical stabilizers, to say nothing of the fact that there's not even any molded detail that suggests a tail rotor.  I'll tell you what, though, I love how the backpack gives the top of the helicopter a different shape than the top of the car, and how it changes the look of the cockpit.  In all the years and all the Springers since, I think only Open and Play's Big Spring made the effort to make the car cockpit and the helicopter cockpit visually distinct from each other.

In copter mode, Defender's sword splits entirely in half and one half swivels on the pin (oh, so that's where MechFansToys got the idea), then the pin plugs into the top of the helicopter to form the main rotor.  The guns plug into ports that are revealed when you swing the wheels out to become the wings.  The ports angle the guns, and I suppose they're trying to pass the guns off as the landing skids.  I'm not sure it works for me.

In 2024, I don't think anyone would actually recommend Defender over Siege Springer (or the upcoming Studio Series version) for your Generations/WFC/Legacy collection.  The ratchets are a bit wonky, the materials feel a tad brittle, the engineering and articulation are dated, and the aesthetics are too far removed from Sunbow G1.  However, Defender is an extremely important figure whose legacy can't be understated.  Prior to Defender, the unlicensed 3rd-party market was almost entirely upgrade kits.  Fansproject themselves had cut their teeth on a trailer for Classics Optimus that was pretty much just a stylized version of the G1 toy's, a trailer for Classics Hot Rod that armored him up into Rodimus Prime, and a trailer for Classics Ultra Magnus that armored him up into something more akin to the character we saw in the cartoon and not simply a white Optimus.  Defender, while not actually the first entire 3P figure, was the first major one, the release that really cemented the idea that these companies could get away with selling unlicensed original designs of Hasbro's characters.  You might considering owning Defender for the history he represents.  At the very least, Defender deserves respect.

[Scyla]

@mikeszekely it‘s good to see that these early 3rd party figures are not crumbling to dust almost 15 years later. It gives me some hope for the longevity of my collection.

[Axelay]

Ah, Warbot Defender! I still have mine. I still quite appreciate the APC-style car mode which didn't rely on an unsightly thin rear chassis/wheelbase. (Now that I think about it, this is also why I like Saltus so much.) If memory serves, that was the very first "whole" 3rd party bot I ever purchased. It truly started a domino effect which carries on today...