The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[technoblue]

BBTS sent out my replacement for Sever last week and it arrived today. This is the first return that I've had to process with them, and it was quite painless from start to finish. The new toy is in great shape, unlike the first copy that I received which had a bum shoulder. Next to MMC's Hexatron, Sever is also one of the larger 3P Transformers that I own. Given that I sold off MP Star Saber, and will soon sell my last copy of MP Ultra Magnus, the only other transforming things that I have which match Sever in height are my Yamato/Arcadia Macross Zero Valkyries. I had Nora's SV-51γ out on display in Battroid mode, for instance, and her Valkyrie was staring down Snarl.

Yeah, he's tall, but not bulky like Guttur is in robot mode. I know some prefer that hulked out look for the dinobots, but it is not for me. I prefer Sever's look and I like how he still transforms into a robo-stegosaurus. The short story is that there are options, and everyone can pick up something fun.

I'm in for the X versions of Sludge and Swoop. I'm still debating whether I should complete the team with Fans Toys' version of Grimlock and Slag.

Edited June 15, 2016 by technoblue

[dizman]

Spark Toys WW Optimus is looking pretty good.

[Swoosh]

no, the rails were super tight but I just kind of forced them til they worked. I'd like to figure out how to get apart the side pieces though. the springs that hold them in are WAY to strong.

You need to sand all the contacting surfaces BEFORE combining them, those spring are too strong but does not brings as much trouble as those rails.

[technoblue]

Speak of the devil...pre-orders are up for the X releases of Stomp and Soar. I placed my Stomp order immediately, but I have a conundrum with Soar: Do I take the red or blue pill?

Edit: I decided to go with FT-05XT. Not only does this scheme look like the toy box art, but it also looks closer to the art from the old comics.

Edited June 16, 2016 by technoblue

[Scyla]

So today I received MMC Seraphicus Prominon and.....

he is missing one of his biceps armor pieces. Hope BBTS can provide me with a replacement piece.

Onwards to the toy itself.

The core bot is a good toy. I agree with Vangelus that it is pretty clear that this design was done a few years ago and thus he has not the finish of recent MMC toys when it comes to its engineering. Especially the transformation is a tad finicky and you end up bending so of the piece to get everything situated. It is not as smooth as I came to be accustomed to when it comes to toys from this company especially with their recent Ocular Max stuff.

Talking about the the transformation Seraphicus has e few cool tricks up his sleeve. For example the whole platform where the head is mounted moves around to give him a sleeker silhouette in car mode which looks like a speedy sneaker. There are a pair of hinged doors to fill up some of the hollow areas in the lower legs but they are not flush with the rest of the leg so it could be done better I feel. The toy has lots and lots of locking tabs which result in a alt-mode that holds together very well. The transformation feels akin to their Azalea mold or Cyclops rather than Commotus and Sphinx.

Once you have him in robot mode the articulation is solid. He has all the joints he need including double jointed elbows and knees. The head is on a double ball joint which offers great movement but the connection and tension inside the joint is not equally strong so you can get into some poses where the joint becomes loose. On my copy it is not as bad compared to other copies. The shoulders have a butterfly joint but the movement is limited due to the sculpture of the shoulder pauldrons. He has a waist swivel (that works) and the feet have all the degrees of movement you need but are limited because the lower legs are massive bulks of armor. The clicks of the outward hip ratchets are a bit too far apart but you can get them between the dedicated stopping points for a more natural pose.

The fit and finish is the standard high quality you came to expect from MMC. Paint is copious and applied cleanly with minimal overspray. MMC really pulled out all the stops to make the toy not look bland with all the white color. You have translucent blue piece over white plastic, yellow, turquoise metallic, dark blue, silver, yellow paint all over it. They even picked out some or the ornate lines on his body with silver paint which looks great.

Accessory wise he has two translucent, glow-in the dark swords that are much more bendy than I would've liked. They can store in bot-mode in two sheaths on his back that are quite cleverly formed by the backpack. No storage in alt-mode though (boo). I've you are thinking about buying him you might invest in a set of die-cast recasts of the swords by eness which are might nice and fit into the sheaths as well. He also comes with a Matrix accessory that fits in his chest. It is just a translucent piece with the outer casting painted silver. The nice thing is the door to the compartment has clips so it closes up seamlessly and you don't even notice it. No loose doors on his chest! (I'm looking at you MP-01).

Now lets come to the bad parts..... The head is terrible. While the sculpt is stunning most of the details are lost because of the white base color. I think MakeToys did it much better with their Hypernovae release. The face needed at least a painted cranium and black outlines around the eyes and mount piece. Secondly even if MMC tried to break up the white color still looks boring in a few spots. I think any toy company that plans to release a white mecha should take a look at MG and RG Gundams to get an idea how a white toy could look good. The Bandai kits with the dark frame and different colored gray and white plastics looks stunning. White plastic often looks a bit translucent which makes the toy swallow details and looks cheap (in my opinion). I think having some armor pars picked out in a different tone of white would have helped.

I would say I can agree the core bot because he is fun to mess and is overall a quality piece and well worth the money. The trailer on the other hand is a totally different story.

Everything about the white plastic that is true on the core bot is amplified in the trailer. here you have much more completely white parts that don't speak to my aesthetic preferences. Especially the leg armor is one of the offenders. The same goes for the forearm gauntlets (make sure to rotate the hands 180 degrees so they are not visible in armored up mode). Same goes for the head. Because the helmet has no additional face plate with new eyes the toy has the same issues as any other toy that comes with a removable helmet (Star Wars pilot figures, etc.). You cant make a helmet so thin that he looks appropriate. The white color is not helping as well. Again a darker face would have helped. I think the best solution would be a Star Saber like helmet.

For the price of the gantry ($140) alone it does not enough to value the high price. I would have at least expected that you can place the core bot inside the gantry so it looks like he is getting armored up. It is also massive so I think a majority of collectors will armor Seraphicus Prominon up and leave the rest of the trailer in the box.

Included accessories are a gun with a spinning barrel that needed more paint and a spectacular two-handed sword. Both can be stored in trailer mode. While the sword hides quite well the gun pegs onto the top of the trailer. In gantry mode you can't store the sword in its sheaths in the trailer because it will get bend during transformation and in the finished gantry itself which seems to be a massive design oversight on MMCs part. The gun can store nowhere in this mode (boo).

What the armor does really well is its attachment to the core bot. It is a very enjoyable process and reminds me of my childhood when you would dress up your dolls.... I mean your action figures like G.I.Joe, Mask, MotU or the Lego knights. Everything attaches firmly. No flimsy pieces. The articulation is limited but not due a degree of a FansProject City Commander toy. All the joints work but offer a few degrees less range of movement. The paint is also superb. The chest vents are silver paint over dark blue plastic with highlights picked out in white paint. The orange/yellow paint is painted quite well so you get minimal bleeding through of the underlying plastic color. Takara take notes!

The wings itself have picked out dark blue highlights on the ends of the translucent orange plastic which I is rare to see on a toy that isn't manufactured by Bandai or Sentinel. On the negative side I wish the backpack would offer more hinges. The wings can do all the positions you could imagine but for my likings I would need one or two additional joins to bring the wings closer to the body when standing in a natural pose.

So final assessment. I think for what you get the price is too high. I know it is probably not that unreasonable if you take into account the number of parts and paint applications that are present on and inside the toy. I also can see that the long delays of the toy (it was first seen in the comic of Terminus Hexatron I believe which is from mid 2013) did factor into the price. While the toy has some cons I don't regret my purchase especially after the long wait. There is a lot to enjoy from quality plastic over fun play patter to good articulation. The only thing that really sticks out like a sore thumb is the head and especially the helmet. I hope MMC will offer an addon set some time down the line thad comes with a new head to solve this issue. There where rumors about a black Nemesis repaint but I don't know if the will come to fruition because I don't think the toy sold as well as MMC anticipated.

Overall due to the long development time and the exuberant coverage of the toy before I held it in hand many of my opinions manifested upfront. Having the toy in hand don't invalidate them but some are not as noticeable in person. Especially the look of the white core bot was a nice surprise when messing with him for the first time.

Sorry for the wall of text. I probably should include some images but all the ones I take look crappy. Here is one of the missing arm armor:

[mikeszekely]

Would some of the sculpted detail look better if you tried panel lining it?

[technoblue]

I completely agree with you about the head, and the head armor, Scyla. Maketoys did a better job with those out-of-the-box details. It may be a long shot, but it would be cool if MMC offered an alternate head at some point like they have done for the Feral Rex bots.

I had no idea where to put the bicep armor. I left those pieces on the trailer, which is why they are missing in my pictures.

[Scyla]

Would some of the sculpted detail look better if you tried panel lining it?

Maybe but it would look out of place with since most other toys don't have them. I'd say the inside of the helmet/head would definitely benefit from that. I would prefer if the area behind the faceplate and below the eyes would be painted in a dark gray tone.

Here is how Maketoys did it:

I think also the leg armor would benefit from more paint.

[sh9000]

Added Sunsurge to my stack at TFSource yesterday.

[David Hingtgen]

TFC BigBite/Skalor review:

[mikeszekely]

Got Burden and Allocater today. Right out of the box I've got cracks on both real wheel hinges. On one side they're slightly worse than hairline cracks, but they run through both the black and green plastic. On the other the black plastic is cracked the whole way through with a little gap separating the edges. Not cool.

[M'Kyuun]

Got Burden and Allocater today. Right out of the box I've got cracks on both real wheel hinges. On one side they're slightly worse than hairline cracks, but they run through both the black and green plastic. On the other the black plastic is cracked the whole way through with a little gap separating the edges. Not cool.

Sorry to hear that, Mike. Can you return it, or do you plan to deal with TW directly? At this point, with TW accepting emails for replacement parts and such, I think TW would be the better option. Sounds to me like those parts all need to be die-cast or much beefier plastic. Good luck.

I already have Unearth PO'd with Captured Prey, who don't do cancellations, but I'm holding out for the revised versions of the rest once TW sorts them out and makes fixes.

Edited June 19, 2016 by M'Kyuun

[mikeszekely]

Welp... time for another review. Tonight we'll be looking at Fansproject's Function-X2, their take on Weirdwolf.

Aesthetically... well, he doesn't hide his alt-mode parts as well as Code or Smart Robin. His shins are clearly wolf legs, his hands are clearly wolf claws with the dewclaw making for a thumb, and he's clearly got a wolf head jutting from between his shoulder blades. He's a little off from the G1 version as well, with green shins, a green crotch, green abs, and yellow hips. The very organic shape of his legs fits the Function-X line, though, and despite a few color changes his primary colors are mostly correct and he's got some callbacks to the original, including the gray on his chest and the molded missile on his high shoulders. His head even shows as mostly gray with a red face and red visor, although like Sigma L he's got painted eyes under the visor that are yellow on black. The head's little bot mode (not pictured, sorry) is blacker than I remember Monzo being, though. For the most part, I dig the aesthetic, although I wish they'd filled the gap between the rotating dewclaw and the rest of his forearm.

Size-wise, he's a little taller than CW Deluxe Prowl, but definitely closer to Deluxe-sized than a Voyager.

That means he's right in line with Code and Smart Robin, and it's looking more likely that Sigma L is the lone tall not-Headmaster in the group.

As with the Code and Smart Robin, his articulation isn't super great by 3P standards, but it's not bad. He's got the same disc for his Headmaster port that the others do, allowing his head to swivel, and he's got the same hinged piece to give him a little downward tilt. Make sure the wolf head is tilted backward and not pointing straight up, or it'll hinder his head swivel. His shoulders are on ball joints, which gives him his shoulder rotation, a slight butterfly joint, and his lateral movement, which isn't any better than Smart Robin's but in this case seems to be because of the tall shape of his shoulders as much as the joint. He's got a bicep swivel just below his shoulder, which makes sense, but he's got another swivel just below his elbow. It's a tad far from his wrist, but I'm calling it a wrist swivel because that's really the function that it provides. His elbows are single-jointed and get just under 90 degrees of bend. His hip swivels, and his hips are on ball joints that can swing forward, backward, and give him an adequate A-stance but he's not going to be do doing the splits. Below his hips he's got thigh swivels and single-jointed knees that get a little more than 90 degrees. His toes can point downward a little bit, and his ankle is a hinge but it's actually more for transformation. His inward ankle tilt is actually pretty poor, and further limited by the way the wolf legs peg onto his shins.

Accessory-wise, he's just got the sword. It's not a bad sword, but I wish he had a gun like the G1 version did.

It's kind of a neat thing, but Quadruple U has storage for his sword in bot mode. Posts can fold out of either shoulder or thigh and the handle of the sword opens up to peg and clip on the post. Like I said, it's kind of neat, but if you peg it on his shoulders the sword is always pointing straight down, parallel to his upper arm. If you put it on his hip it's always 90 degrees from his thigh, straight backward. Either way looks extremely awkward and could have been avoided entirely if the holes through the posts were angled, allowing him to wear the sword in a more natural position between straight back and straight down.

His alt mode, is, of course, a wolf. Aesthetically, he's got all the right colors in mostly the right places. His wolf head really could have done with being all white, but the white claws on his paws are nice touches. He's got other G1 touches, including the sword for a tail, the red cockpit on his back, and the round wolf shoulders and hips. I really like how lithe the wolf mode is, although the dewclaw looks sort of too high up and upside down, which I really don't care for.

He's got kind of odd articulation in wolf mode. The head can look down, but it can't really look too far up and has no rotation or swivel. His jaws do open and close. His robot hips give his torso a little sideways give, but that's it for the torso, including the tail which has no articulation at all. His front wolf legs are his bot arms, so they have basically the same articulation. The only real difference is that the dewclaw blocks the pseudo wrist swivel, and the paws are hinged for up/down tilt. His back legs are where things get weird, mostly due to the transformation. His hips are ball-jointed, so they can rotate all the way around. The way his hips are shaped means they've got a little forward/backward butterfly action, but not much in the way of lateral spread. Then we get to his knees. The yellow part can bend a little less than 90 degrees. Now, I'm not familiar enough with dog anatomy to tell you if that joint is really a knee or just for transformation, because it needs to be fully straightened for robot mode and if it isn't fully bent for wolf mode then his wolf butt is going to be sticking up. The lower wolf legs are actually attached just above the bot foot on a ball joint. It's easy for them to bend backward, then, but they'll collide with the yellow joint if you try to move them too far forward. Now you could try turning his hips so that the whole knee is more forward, but now you can't get the lower leg on the ball joint too far backward, and the result is still a wolf with his butt in the air. Like the front legs, the paws are hinged and can tilt up and down.

When it comes to recommending Quadruple U, I find myself thinking along the same lines as Code and Smart Robin. Like those two, Quadruple U is a figure with flaws. But, again like those two, he's got a neat transformation that makes him a lot of fun in hand, and that's again why I'm going to recommend him. Actually, I find it kind of funny that the first Function-X toy I picked up, Sigma L, is actually the odd one who's bigger and has a more straightforward transformation when it was his aesthetics that got me into the Function-X line. In any case, I'm pretty much sold on the line now, and I'm probably going to look into getting Crox (Skullcruncher) and Browning II (Highbrow) relatively soon while also hoping they do the rest of the Headmasters.

[mikeszekely]

Sorry to hear that, Mike. Can you return it, or do you plan to deal with TW directly? At this point, with TW accepting emails for replacement parts and such, I think TW would be the better option. Sounds to me like those parts all need to be die-cast or much beefier plastic. Good luck.

I already have Unearth PO'd with Captured Prey, who don't do cancellations, but I'm holding out for the revised versions of the rest once TW sorts them out and makes fixes.

I thought about it, but with ToyWorld still "testing" their shipping and all, I figured I'd give TFSource a first go at it. They've handled every other issue I've had with stuff I'd ordered from them fairly quickly. Best case, I either get replacement parts or a replacement figure from them and all is good. Worst case, the replacement is bad too and then I got to TW.

TW said something about the issues with Burden being caused by misaligned pins. While a lot of the "experts" at TFW think there's more to it than that, I've heard of people getting copies of Burden from a restock or later shipment and not having that issue (the knee connector for Shovel, though, is still not toleranced right). Way I see it, I took a gamble on getting a good one and lost, but one way or another it'll get resolved.

As for the rest of the set, by now you're probably safe getting anyone BUT Burden. There's always going to be bad copies out there, but AFAIK Unearth and Bulldozer are shipping with the revisions TW came up with, while Allocater, Shovel, and Concrete didn't have any widespread issues. I'm not convinced that there will be any major changes to future runs (besides the fact that they're going to announce a G2 yellow one with a new head at TFCon, but you didn't hear that from me). In any case, if you do have issues between the retailer and TW themselves I'm sure it'll get corrected. Waiting or not, the end result is you have a good Devastator, right?

[David Hingtgen]

I had Quad-U on order, up to the point that BBTS actually moved him to the pre-shipping stage before I cancelled it. Basically 3 reasons (I'm a huge Weirdwolf fan, he was my first headmaster, and my only non-Horrorcon headmaster):

1. Wolf snout is ridiculously long and flat. This was pointed out early on by many people, and I think even FP acknowledged it during the grey proto stage--but never changed it. With some skilled mods, it looks so much better, see here: http://bbs.actoys.net/read.php?tid-1704578.html

Interstingly, the early drawings showed a shorter more sloped snout. They LENGTHENED and flattened it, of all things.

2. Front paws/hands. Just look weird. True, giant robots don't need to have human-esque hands, and many, especially 'cons, have claws or guns instead. But his just look odd, especially with the swordsman motif. If you're gonna wield a sword, you kinda need normal fairly normal hands...

3. Colors. They're wrong, which is VERY uncharacteristic for FP/MT. They have the best paint and color matching of ANYBODY, surpassing even Bandai. (it's not hard to beat Hasbro...). So for them to get BOTH main colors wrong? Strange. There's a bunch of yellow TF's, but very few mustard-maize ones like Weirdwolf was. And they just made him lemony-yellow like a cheap KO. The blue is just as far off, it should be close to navy, not teal.

[mikeszekely]

Well, the snout genuinely doesn't bother me. The paws look ok in wolf mode, sans the dewclaw, but I agree about the hands. However, as I said in my review, he is flawed (the whole line is), but the clever transformation and the "fun" factor trump those flaws. I mean, if he were more expensive I might not be as forgiving, but you should be able to find him for $60-$70.

As for the colors... I mean, I see what you're saying, and you're not wrong. The yellow is a lighter yellow, and the green-tinged blue is a lighter green-tinged blue, but I'm not as picky about colors as you are. No offense intended, but I don't know anyone who is as particular about colors are you are. If they made him orange and lime green, sure, I'd have issues, but we're in the right ballpark.

[JB0]

Now, I'm not familiar enough with dog anatomy to tell you if that joint is really a knee or just for transformation, because it needs to be fully straightened for robot mode and if it isn't fully bent for wolf mode then his wolf butt is going to be sticking up.

I had to study it for a minute. The kinda unfinished look threw me off, but... yeah, that's right where a dog knee belongs. Dog legs are WEIRD.

[M'Kyuun]

I thought about it, but with ToyWorld still "testing" their shipping and all, I figured I'd give TFSource a first go at it. They've handled every other issue I've had with stuff I'd ordered from them fairly quickly. Best case, I either get replacement parts or a replacement figure from them and all is good. Worst case, the replacement is bad too and then I got to TW.

TW said something about the issues with Burden being caused by misaligned pins. While a lot of the "experts" at TFW think there's more to it than that, I've heard of people getting copies of Burden from a restock or later shipment and not having that issue (the knee connector for Shovel, though, is still not toleranced right). Way I see it, I took a gamble on getting a good one and lost, but one way or another it'll get resolved.

As for the rest of the set, by now you're probably safe getting anyone BUT Burden. There's always going to be bad copies out there, but AFAIK Unearth and Bulldozer are shipping with the revisions TW came up with, while Allocater, Shovel, and Concrete didn't have any widespread issues. I'm not convinced that there will be any major changes to future runs (besides the fact that they're going to announce a G2 yellow one with a new head at TFCon, but you didn't hear that from me). In any case, if you do have issues between the retailer and TW themselves I'm sure it'll get corrected. Waiting or not, the end result is you have a good Devastator, right?

Thanks for the info, Mike. I was aware that Burden seemed to be getting the lion's share of attention as far as issues, but I wasn't certain about the rest of the team. G1 Scavenger and Long Haul are the only two Constructicons I own (I don't count the crappy Energon ones), so I was looking forward to getting Unearth and Burden before snapping up the rest. I guess I'll revise that plan and wait for TW to make whatever improvements need to be done. I hope they get it resolved soon; I absolutely love the look of Burden.

Oh, and good luck with your replacement Burden.

[technoblue]

Great review. The third picture is my favorite.

I've been reconsidering the supersized Headmasters that I have. With Maketoys, my fun factor is 50/50. I would say that Cupola and Iron Will are also not perfect, but on top of the usual niggles, I think the supersizing works against them creating more annoyances. For instance, Cupola uses ball joints in odd spots, limiting articulation in critical load bearing areas (like the feet). Iron Will has better execution overall, but includes an odd factory defect out of the box with the little Headmaster figure. It makes things looser than I would like when he is transformed into head mode.

For a newbie, would you say that it is safe to jump right in on the Function X line or is it better to pick up a particular figure first? I do like how Fansproject seems a little more dedicate to releasing as many characters as they can as toys. Maketoys is already moving on to different things.

[anime52k8]

I feel kind of weird now because I have the wheel issue with burden on mine too, but I just totally didn't care because it didn't affect the toy.

[mikeszekely]

I feel kind of weird now because I have the wheel issue with burden on mine too, but I just totally didn't care because it didn't affect the toy.

If it was just stress marks or something, sure, but I'm not sure how these cracks couldn't affect the toy. I'm not exaggerating when I say at least one of my wheels is in danger of breaking off completely.

Great review. The third picture is my favorite.

I've been reconsidering the supersized Headmasters that I have. With Maketoys, my fun factor is 50/50. I would say that Cupola and Iron Will are also not perfect, but on top of the usual niggles, I think the supersizing works against them creating more annoyances. For instance, Cupola uses ball joints in odd spots, limiting articulation in critical load bearing areas (like the feet). Iron Will has better execution overall, but includes an odd factory defect out of the box with the little Headmaster figure. It makes things looser than I would like when he is transformed into head mode.

For a newbie, would you say that it is safe to jump right in on the Function X line or is it better to pick up a particular figure first? I do like how Fansproject seems a little more dedicate to releasing as many characters as they can as toys. Maketoys is already moving on to different things.

Well, I don't have any of Maketoys' Headmasters, so I can't give you an honest comparison. Fansproject likes ball joints a lot, too, but since they're Deluxe-sized it doesn't seem like as big a deal. I was also under the impression that Maketoys was going for more of a Masterpiece thing. The Function-X line has sort of an action-figure feel, and since they're not trying to be MP they're not so slavish to G1 they have a sort of unique aesthetic that you either love or hate. Personally, I love it.

The other thing to remember is that every figure in the line has its flaws, usually in the form of limited articulation. If you're trying to get a cool pose for a display, that might irk you (especially Code's lack of ankle tilt). If you play with your toys, though, they mostly have clever transformations and are fun to handle.

Personally, I'd suggest trying Code. He's not the best figure in the line, but I think he most clearly demonstrates both the strengths and weaknesses of the Function-X line, and you should be able to find him on Ebay for around $60, so it's not a major investment. If you like him, I think Quadruple U and Smart Robin are similar in the "really cool transformation, articulation suffers" group, while Sigma L has a very straightforward transformation but has some very cool aesthetic touches (like how the cockpit for the Headmaster looks like a coffin).

Edited June 19, 2016 by mikeszekely

[anime52k8]

one has a crack, but the part doesn't have any real load on in. I'm just being careful while transforming and if it does break I can fix it.

[mikeszekely]

Yeah, my one tire looks like this:

I'm not one for telling other people what they should or shouldn't do. If you're ok with yours the way it is, great. Me, I paid $100 and got this straight out of the box even after following TCP's advice about taking everything else out of the foam first, and I think that's kinda bull so it's going back.

[CoryHolmes]

Is anyone going to do the Decepticon triple-changing Headmasters? Apeface and Snapdragon?

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

Great review. The third picture is my favorite.

I've been reconsidering the supersized Headmasters that I have. With Maketoys, my fun factor is 50/50. I would say that Cupola and Iron Will are also not perfect, but on top of the usual niggles, I think the supersizing works against them creating more annoyances. For instance, Cupola uses ball joints in odd spots, limiting articulation in critical load bearing areas (like the feet). Iron Will has better execution overall, but includes an odd factory defect out of the box with the little Headmaster figure. It makes things looser than I would like when he is transformed into head mode.

For a newbie, would you say that it is safe to jump right in on the Function X line or is it better to pick up a particular figure first? I do like how Fansproject seems a little more dedicate to releasing as many characters as they can as toys. Maketoys is already moving on to different things.

Yeah, Maketoys has been quiet on any future Headmaster releases so far. I will say though that Iron Will is an excellent figure and in my head canon, goes well with FP's Code since he's a big 'ol tank. Everybody back in the day had Hardhead it seemed, and I was no exception. He was one of my faves as a kid, so I took it real hard when he was lost during a move. To get him back in a fully articulated form while still retaining all his blockiness is a joy. AND he has working treads. WORKING TREADS!! So if you feel like getting a particular figure first, Iron Will is a great place to start.

[mikeszekely]

Is anyone going to do the Decepticon triple-changing Headmasters? Apeface and Snapdragon?

Nothing on Snapdragon, but Fansproject showed off their designs for Apeface back in 2014, along with their designs for Highbrow, Hardhead, and Skullcruncher. Since then, they've only released Skullcruncher last year and Highbrown like a week ago. They're pretty slow.

[sh9000]

I'd probably buy their Snapdragon.

[David Hingtgen]

Yup, their Snapdragon so far looks better (though less intricate) than their Apeface. I personally hope their Apeface is undergoing a massive redesign during all this time. I (and many others) did not like the ape mode. (because it was way more oozaru-troll, than ape)

[technoblue]

^That's a nice prototype. I wonder where it is in the schedule or if Fansproject intends to release the Horrorcons close together?

I also took the advice posted here and found Code. Action Robo had a nifty deal on the Code:Virus repaint, and I'm often tempted by those alternate dark-color paint schemes so I started with that and Combes Robin. I'll let everyone know how things go. I'm looking forward to both.

[anime52k8]

Yeah, my one tire looks like this:

I'm not one for telling other people what they should or shouldn't do. If you're ok with yours the way it is, great. Me, I paid $100 and got this straight out of the box even after following TCP's advice about taking everything else out of the foam first, and I think that's kinda bull so it's going back.

eww...

[mikeszekely]

Alright, it's time for another review, and this time I can't even pretend Headmasters heads combining with their bodies counts as a combiner. Tonight we're looking at Fansproject's Function-XV M.A.D.L.A.W. I have no idea how they came up with the name, or why he's the only one that gets a roman numeral (he's the X5 release), but I digress. You may know him better as Quickswitch... but probably not, since Quickswitch hasn't appeared in fiction or toy form since his original G1 days, and even that was limited to a toy release outside of Japan, a brief appearance in Marvel UK run, and a bit part in one of those cheesy bookends with GCI Powermaster Prime and that live action kid. So anyway...

Maddie's a big boy, dwarfing the other Function-X releases and standing taller than a Hasbro Voyager like Brainstorm here. Aesthetically... well, I don't have a lot to compare him to. His blocky original toy that looked like he was wearing a diaper? I'd say he looks a lot better than that. And mostly everything looks correct... red head with crest that looks sort of like the top of the Decepticon symbol, yellow face, gray and white torso, check. He does have a little more of the teal added to his chest, but that's not bad. Teal shoulders with angled slopes at the top and red circles above silver-outlined red rectangles, check. White forearms, red hips and thighs, teal lower legs with some white and some red accents on the knees? Slightly different, but basically check. I could have done without the white paint on his thighs, but I guess it's not hurtful, and overall I think we can all agree that he has much, much better proportions than the G1 toy. Indeed, he's very much in line with how a lot of the newer Transformers comics are drawn, which makes it all the weirder that he really hasn't had much in the way of fiction. I could totally see him having adventures with the crew of the Lost Light.

Before I get into the figure, I want to briefly talk about his accessories. He comes with four guns. The smaller ones have handles that can move, and the barrels can collapse. They are the good guns. The larger guns are more G1 accurate, but you can basically leave those in the box. You'll see why as we continue.

"Hey Mike, what's he doing with a visor? Quickswitch didn't have a visor!" you might be saying now, assuming that you didn't get distracted by the guns, and that you were familiar enough with Quickswitch to know that he didn't have a visor. Well, Quickswitch wasn't released in Japan. In Japan, there was a dark repaint of him called Sixknight. Although the toy was identical except for the colors, Sixknight appeared in the Masterforce cartoon with a visor. Well, SPOILERS! Function-X6 is the Sixknight repaint of M.A.D.L.A.W. To make everyone happy, Fansproject included a sliding visor gimmick. Move the switch on top of his head, and Maddie's got blue eyes underneath.

Moving right along, articulation is as follows: ball-jointed head can rotate and has a pretty good tilt range in both the forward/backward and left/right directions. His shoulder is on a hinge in his torso that gives him nearly 90 degrees of lateral movement before his shoulders bang into his head. He's got bicep swivels where the white meets the teal, and although the molding on his elbow looks double-jointed there's just the one hinge that gets you better than 90 degrees. No wrist swivel, which isn't good by 3P standards and seems worse on a figure this size. His waist swivels all the way around, but you have to be mindful of kibble on his butt colliding with kibble on his back. His hips are on ball joints, which is fine for a Code-sized toy but I'd have preferred universals on a toy this size. He can swing his legs forward and backward all the way, but only gets maybe 45 degrees of outward range. It's good enough for a good A stance, but no splits here. He's got thigh swivels and single-jointed knees that go well past 90 degrees. Then we get to his feet. I'm not a fan of his feet. Basically, there's a ball peg on a hinge at the bottom of his shin, and a flat squarish piece on the ball peg. That's his foot. You might think of it as just the toe, but his leg is basically hollow and there's not much behind it. You can kind of use the beast-mode paw as a kind of heel, but it's safe to say that if you're not careful about how you pose him he will fall over.

To be fair, between the hinge and the ball joint, his toe/foot can tip up to an extreme degree, tip down to a similarly-extreme degree, and give a pseudo ankle tilt.

He can hold either the big guns or the smaller guns in bot mode. The are little tabs on the small guns that fit into holes on his hips for storage. There didn't seem to be any way to store the larger guns. Strike one.

Speaking of beast modes, Quickswitch was a six-changer, basically the less-cool Autobot version of Sixshot. In addition to bot mode, he's got five alt modes. So we'll talk about each mode briefly, but I'll collectively say that none of them bears much resemblance to the G1 toy.

The first alt, per the manual, is his beast mode. It's probably the worst mode. The beast head is weird-looking, and since its neck is made from wing panels there's a large gap in the middle that's only partially hidden by the little guns mounted on top. No place for the big guns- strike two. The jaw can open and close, and the ears can move up and down, but that's it for articulation in the head and neck. The beast shoulders, bicep swivels, and elbows are the bot modes, and the paws are on hinges that can move up and down. The rear hips are also the bots, with the rear beast legs on a hinged knee with a hinged paw. The large chunks of bot legs hanging off its butt and the guns hanging off its hips are just awkward. Let's just say I hope you're not interested in this toy for beast mode and move on.

Next would be his space ship mode. Visually, it's not too bad, even with halves of the beast-mode head acting as fins on the wings. What stops this mode from being one of the better ones, though, is that there's nothing really locking it together. The beast mode's hip guns lay over the robot torso, but they don't really stop the waist from swiveling. The bot arms and wings are on an assembly that's still free to rotate. The arms themselves are not tabbed to the wings and can move. It just feels fiddly and loose.

The instructions have you place the small guns as shown You can move them to the front if you want. If you do, you can kind of fit the bigger guns in there.

Now we come to gun mode. The gun mode has some nice touches, like how the small guns make the barrel, how there's a fold-out part that makes the trigger that isn't used for any other mode, and how it's got sort of a scope on top. The handle, while small and gappy, does fit into my hand. I'm not a fan of Transformers that turn into guns, though, unless they can be wielded by other Transformers. And there's no place for the big guns, so strike three.

Drill tank mode is pretty good. I mean, at first I was thinking that a drill tank with a big command deck on top was kind of silly, but that got me thinking that unless the drill is bigger than the whole front of the vehicle it couldn't actually dig, so it's really no worse than, say, Nosecone's alt mode. Or G1 Quickswitch, for that matter. Everything is more secure in this mode, too, than space ship mode.

The instructions have you put the small guns in the backs of his fists. I suppose you could do that with the big guns instead, but not all four at once.

Lastly we come to my favorite alt mode. I think on G1 Quickswitch it was referred to as "hovercraft mode," but I'm totally calling it a boat. And it's not a bad boat! It could do without some of the kibble from the other alt modes, especially the drill on the back, but the shape is definitely very boat-like and it locks together pretty well. Almost too well, as it's a pain to lock the legs in around the flap that serves as the gun mode's sight. Again, the instructions have you put the little guns in like that. I didn't try with the big guns, because I think the fins on them would look kind of awkward. Now, for those of you keeping score, that's intended storage for the small guns in all six modes. The big guns can be used but not stored in bot mode, may be used in place of the small guns one mode, and can't be used in two modes. Or, looked at another way, five out of six modes have no intended use for the big guns, and they can be held but not stored in the sixth. So, like I said, back in the box. Only the smaller guns are needed.

Well, I think M.A.D.L.A.W. is certainly an interesting figure. His bot mode is pretty good, and he's got two alt modes that aren't bad, two meh, and one that sucks. I'd certainly be interested in Fansproject doing Sixshot in the Function-X line, since that'd scale better with most of my collection than MMC's version. But he's not really a great figure, and he's not as fun as the Function-X Headmasters. Now, I happened to get him for $52 or $53 dollars in a recent TFSource sale, and since I had him shipped with my ToyWorld Constructicons it didn't cost me for shipping. At that price, I think he's worth a look. At $70-$80 I'd probably caution you to think twice, though. And although you can get him for that price, his actual retail price is normally over $100. I think there's a reason he goes on sale for less, because he's an easy pass at that price.

[mikeszekely]

Yeah, I don't know what happened to the pics in my previous review. If you guys want I'll see if I can fix it, otherwise I'm kind of lazy.

Anyway, those Function-X releases were a fun little diversion, but let's get back to proper combiners. Tonight, we're having a look at ToyWorld's Allocater, their version of Hook and the only member of Constructor whose name is a misspelled English word.

After the first two I reviewed, I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that Allocater is taller than his Voyager-class Combiner Wars counterpart and fairly on par with most 3P combiner torso-bots.

Aesthetically, I think Allocater is a great representation of Hook. It'd be nice if his biceps and hands were green, and if we wanted perfect accuracy his wheels would be integrated into his arms, but that kind of integration would have ruined his articulation. A little more silver on his abdomen might have been nice, and depending on whether you were going for toy or 'toon you might want some gray or some colored detail instead of the translucent purple chest. You might also take offense at the red line on the top of his "hat". But honestly, we're mostly nit-picking here. He's got the flat "hat" look, the red visor, the (mostly) green arms, the purple torso, and silver thighs you'd expect for a Hook. ToyWorld even worked in the green shoulder pads, and his legs are just like the original toy's, but with feet (I think getting the all-silver legs of the Sunbow model would have been nearly impossible, so I won't even go there.

Some people have complained about the head. In a lot of pictures, it looks like he's got a sort of smirking smile, which people contend isn't appropriate for the character. In hand, you can see it's just the way the lighting plays off of his cheeks, and he's actually got more of a disgusted sneer... the kind of sneer one might have when forced to work with their "lessers," and wholly in line with the Hook I remember.

As with Concrete, the translucent piece can be popped off his chest to reveal some molded details. There's no extra color here, though, so removing the chest plate seems less worthwhile than it did with Concrete.

As I'm starting to expect with this line, articulation is excellent. Head's on a hinged swivel for all the rotation you want, great upward tilt, and minimal downward tilt. His shoulders can rotate all the way around and move laterally about 90 degrees. You can squeak a few extra degrees out by working the transformation joint as well. The wheel flaps are on a rotating double hinge and can be adjusted to your heart's content. You'll have no problem keeping them out of the way, and I'm kind of sorry they didn't use this style for Concrete. His elbows can bend 90 degrees, and make sure it's the actual elbow! There's a transformation joint at the elbow that bends the forearm inward towards his body. He's also go bicep and wrist swivels, and the same hands with the individually ball-jointed fingers that the rest of the team has. Moving downward, he's got a waist swivel, and friction universal hips that can swing forward, backward, or laterally at or near 90 degrees with thigh swivels built in. His knees are ratcheted and can bend more than 90 degrees. Finally, his ankles are a series of hinges that give you some forward and backward tilt and plenty of inward and outward tilt. Plus, there's a hinge in the middle of his foot, mosty for transformation, that allows you to bend his toes up. All-in-all, his feet are big and articulate enough that he can hold some stable poses while supporting the weight of the crane on his back instead of using the crane as a third leg.

In typical Constructor fashion, Allocater comes with a gun for himself and a part for combined mode. The gun is keeping with the style of the others, and the combined mode part is the head, which we'll talk about more when we talk about combined mode.

Moving on to alt mode... although it's probably not fair to compare it to a Voyager, I can't help but be reminded of the ongoing debate about Takara MPs striving too hard to capture the look of the Sunbow animation models. Voyager Hook looks like cartoon in three dimensions. Allocater looks like the sort of vehicle that a simplified animation model is based off of, and the result is that Hook looks like a Happy Meal toy next to Allocater. Allocater's got molded and painted headlights, taillights, and outriggers. He's got rubber tires. He's even got a little chair inside of the crane operator's cab. And since he's not hiding the combined mode head, he does it all without a big purple box in the middle.

He doesn't just look good, mind you. The crane can rotate the full 360 degrees. The boom is on a ratchet with four stop points ranging from flat on the truck to almost perpendicular. The boom has one extension, and the hook at the end is hinged with about 180 degrees of movement. My only real complaint here is that the gray and yellow caution stripes on the outside of the boom aren't on the inside part, and that there are no screws on the boom so the seam between the halves is a tad gappy.

Allocater's gun can store in the peg hole on the back of the crane, or if you prefer (as I do) you can stick it next to the driver's cab in one of the holes mean for attaching the head.

Look, I'm going to level with you guys. Hook is probably my least favorite Constructicon. As a kid, dump trucks, shovels, and bulldozers were just cooler than cranes, and Mixmaster beat him because he shot acid. And, as I said before, Scrapper was my favorite Constructicon. I'm informing you of my bias, because I want you to know that bias might be the only reason I still kind of prefer Shovel. Allocater is a fantastic toy, a shining example of everything that ToyWorld did right with this set. I highly recommend him.

[slaginpit]

So today I received MMC Seraphicus Prominon and.....

he is missing one of his biceps armor pieces. Hope BBTS can provide me with a replacement piece.

Onwards to the toy itself.

The core bot is a good toy. I agree with Vangelus that it is pretty clear that this design was done a few years ago and thus he has not the finish of recent MMC toys when it comes to its engineering. Especially the transformation is a tad finicky and you end up bending so of the piece to get everything situated. It is not as smooth as I came to be accustomed to when it comes to toys from this company especially with their recent Ocular Max stuff.

......

SAM_5368.JPG

I was really excited for this piece. But Like Bobby Skullface said. After so long I just forgot about it. And there is the price. ...

[David Hingtgen]

I fixed your MADLAW review. Don't know what happened exactly---the links and pics were still there, I basically just shuffled back and forth between regular and full editor until things started working again.

[mikeszekely]

Alright, last one until my credit card has a chance to cool off. Tonight we're looking at Burden, ToyWorld's take on Long Haul.

From head to toe, Burden is about the same height as the other guys in this set. However, mostly due to his legs, he's the least massive (barring me discovering later that Bulldozer or Unearth are smaller). All the Constructicons were about the same size in the show, and I guess that's what ToyWorld was going for. You can see, though, that he's not much taller and actually less wide (minus the arms) than Combiner Wars Long Haul. Also, as I'm running low on torso bots to compare him with, these guys are bigger than a Maketoys torso like Metalstorm.

Burden seems to take most of his visual cues from the toy, which has been normal for this set. The silver thighs and purple arms I can live with, as even Combiner Wars Long Haul has them. But as someone who grew up with the cartoon and didn't have the toys I do really wish that more of his head was silver, and his abs were green. Ideally, his purple crotch and hips would be green and his arm would be dark gray or black, and some of the gray detail on his crotch and hips as well as the the yellow on his knees would be red. I'm not huge on modifying my toys, since I'm not very good at it, but I'll almost certainly be painting his head.

Beyond the colors, Burden's a pretty good Long Haul. He's got a pretty accurate shape to his head, MUCH better proportions than Combiner Wars Long Haul, and his legs are actually made from the bed of the truck, ala G1. I miss the cab and smokestack on his shoulders, though.

Burden's articulation is what you'd expect by now from this set. Hinged swivel for the head rotates and has good range up, not so good down. Shoulders rotate and have ratchets for the lateral movement... which is actually the first of Burden's problems. There's a transformation joint that swings the arm up and out from the torso. It's just a friction hinge, and it doesn't lock in the extended position. So when you move the arm you are going to move that joint, not the shoulder ratchet, 100% of the time unless you take time and care not to. Moving right along, we've got bicep and wrist swivels, ratchets in the elbows that get you 90 degrees, and the same hands as the rest of the set. He's got a waist swivel... here's problem two. Burden's actual waist is really thin. The truck's bumper folds down and folds around it to bulk it out, but it sticks out over his hips and crotch in a way that just looks off. That problem is exacerbated when his waist is turned. Anyway, continuing down we've universal hips that can go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally, thigh swivels built into the hips, and ratcheted knees. If you use the actual knee joint you'll get 90 degrees, but there's a second joint for transformation. If you use it, you can go until the tires on his legs bang into his thighs, or if you move the tire you can fold the legs all the way up. His feet are his third problem, and my biggest fault with this design (besides QC issues). It's not that they're not articulate... there's a hinge for ankle tilt that'll have his feet flat even if he's almost in the splits, a pin for rotating his feet, and two more hinges for enough foot tilt to point his toes straight down or straight up. The problem is that his feet are too small and most of his weight actually comes down behind his foot. If anybody needed heel spurs, it's this guy, and the irritating thing is I can think of at least two ways it could have been done. Instead, you have a toy that has a very difficult time standing straight up. Fortunately, putting him into action poses to redistribute his weight actually helps him stand.

Burden might just come with the most accessories of the set. In addition to his gun, we have the combined mode's hips and thighs, some silver screw hole covers, and a number of parts that I think are to fix problems with the initial runs of Bulldozer and Unearth, but I'm not entirely sure since I don't have those two yet. I can identify elbows, that's it.

Indeed, the hips and thighs take up more room in the box than Burden himself.

Part of that reason is because, when he's all folded up in his alt mode, Burden's kind of smallish. He's smaller than CW Long Haul, and utterly dwarfed by Allocater, Shovel, and Concrete. While I certainly respect the opinions of "Burden should be the same size in bot mode as the others" crowd, I personally feel like he'd look better all-around if he were upscaled 10% or so. He wouldn't look so tiny in alt mode, you could put him in the sort of bent-kneed, splay-legged pose you need to to have him stand and his head would be even with the others when they're standing straight, and (as we'll see later" it'd give Constructor better proportions.

Size issues aside, I've got a few other minor complaints. I feel like, toy or 'toon, the bumper should be green, the lip of the bed extends too far over the cab, and the green support on the other side from the cab should be a black smokestack. The silver grill isn't exactly toy or 'toon accurate, either, but I can let that slide as it and the headlights are more like adding missing detail than replacing G1 detail with something else.

Like everyone but Shovel, Burden's got a working peg hole for his gun in alt mode.

In a vacuum, I'd want to tell you to pass on Burden. There's a few issues I have with the design that make me think that this is Generation Toys' chance to do one that is genuinely better than ToyWorld's, and that's to say nothing of the QC on this guy. ToyWorld's saying that problems are due to misaligned pins, armchair toy designers are saying that the rear wheel hinge is a bad design in the first place. I don't know who's right, but I do know that cracking on the rear wheel hinges is a widespread issue. That said, I don't think anyone's buying this guy in a vacuum, and with ToyWorld winning on at least four of the remaining five Constructicons I know that a lot of people are eyeing up this set. To that end, I think Burden's issues can be overlooked; he's certainly miles better than CW Long Haul. He certainly looks good standing with the other three I have. And ToyWorld's acknowledged the issues with Burden and are working on some kind of fix. So, as long as you know what you're getting into and can either wait for the wheel issue to be fixed (or trust that if you get a bad one it will get fixed), then I don't think Burden's bad, just not as good as the others. And I certainly don't think Burden's missteps are enough to give up on what is otherwise a fantastic set.