Shits Given (by me):
Rubber Tyres: -3
Clear/Opaque Windows: 0
Featureless/Actually Good: Infinity & Beyond

@CigarJackal, I am with you on the explanation for the lack of a slanted cab. Probably interfered with and/or made less economical their cab transformation.

Seriously.

Even more seriously.

I got both Huff and Piper in from Bababobo today. After the relentless negativity I was expecting to shrug and just check off the boxes. But surprise surprise, they are both quite nice! Many things that seemed troubling are less so in person. Huff has BC's least depression-inducing transformation. I do wish the shade of orange was a bit more intense but it is pretty toon accurate, and the paint is lovely. Plastic and color do not seem thin or translucent as it appeared in photos. Very nice articulation.

Piper is much better than I thought. Pipes was a favorite toy as a kid; Piper really evokes him well and more resembles the character than the XTB Stax (granted, made in the 3P equivalent of the Jurassic era). He is very blue, and could have used a little bit of paint detailing to break it up, and I'm not a fan of the white panel on the back of the cab. But for better and for worse, both these figures are much more toon centric than previous BC releases, and though I don't care for that they did it pretty well. His limbs are nice and tight and he poses well. The bar that attaches his cab is unsightly but honestly not as heinous as I feared. My eye is not really drawn to it much. Probably his biggest defect. The toy head is well done. He is an improvement over their Swerve as all his tires tab in well and do not hinder posing. People complain about the backpack but c'mon, that's what Pipes looks like. Part of his charm. It is hollow so does not weigh him down.

All in all, while these are not my favorite BC figures, they are nowhere near as dire as has been painted. They aren't perfect but are not mere placeholder either, which puts them a notch above XTB Windcharger/Tailgate. Get them from a Chinese seller so you're not paying full price and I doubt you'll regret the purchase.

 

I think you convinced me to get Piper  

 

Nothing more to really add other than they're awesome !!!
Bigger issue is probably Piper being a chicks name, but hey, who am I to judge, I'm a mid-thirties dude collecting a toyline most "mainstream" (or brainwashed) men and women laugh at !!
But seriously, alt mode aside, both really are levels of serious awesome !!!

 

Man, this thread has begun to decay.   Now there are complaints of the tires not being rubber? Really? Is this a thing now? I admit, I do prefer rubber or rubber-like tires over plastic, but by no means is it a deal-breaker for Huff/Piper! How many official MP's have rubber tires? Not many.

The other issue I see is NOW the Sunbow animation is "not accurate" so therefore it's okay for Huff to not be animation accurate? This totally contradicts the screams from members who DEMAND the MP line and 3rd Party MP's BE more animation accurate. Which is it? Either you DO or you do NOT want MP's that are heavily animation accurate? You can't have it both ways. I'd prefer to have it the old way where it was a blend of both G1 toy and animation accurate. And Huff 2.0's cab mode is so far away from both! I HATE the way the cab looks, and wish they had gone more in the direction of the toy look. That said, there are so many positive things about Huff that I can overlook the things that bug me on it. I can't wait to get mine from the slow boat from China. Or is it Korea?

Piper, on the other hand, I just can't bring myself to get one. I LOVE g1 Pipes, but the way BC's version transforms and looks with that cab in both modes is just too drastic for me. It pains me to say this.

 

Or, you know, maybe you CAN have it both ways? Like, oh I dunno, toon accurate in bot but real world accurate in alt? Like the so-called "Real Car" Masterpiece line was originally meant to be? (MP Bumblebee anyone?) Huff portrays this perfectly, it just lacks the glossy paint that was ALSO part of the real car line.

 

LOL Now I'm sweating a bit! I hope you like him!  

 

If she doesn't, she'll just smack you over the head with him....



.....repeatedly.....   

 

Just once or twice  

Nah, i already know what will bug me when I get him, but I think I can overlook the backpack support as I'll never see it when he's posed in the shelf. And if the lack of paint REALLY bothers me, I'll add some myself.

But I'm going to get him regardless because of the fun factor. You reminded me that when I was a kid, little things like that weren't a big deal... It was all about the transformation and playability... And he definitely looks like he has that since he's Huff's mold-mate.

Worst case scenario, he'll be a desk toy instead of being on my MP shelf, and I'll be happy either way  

 

I just wanted to break up the negativity with my thoughts on these guys. My copies arrived today and I love them. I have been patiently waiting a long time for this reissue a Huffer and I'm so happy to finally have him in my collection. I'm not going argue with you guys over which version is better. I never owned the first version so I don't know what I'm missing but I'm very happy with this version and that's all that matters. I am taking pipes a lot as well. Yes his backpack is unfortunate and I wish they could've collapsed it somehow but the way I have him posed on my shelf doesn't expose it so it doesn't bother me. Again I am very happy to have these guys in my collection. Great job Badcube.

 

^ Congratulations!   I can't wait to get my Huff 2.0 as well.

Nope, at the moment, you can NOT have it both ways because no one has made one that way. It doesn't exist. IF one is made by another company, whether it is from 3rd Party or official, you can't have it both ways. Your options are V.1 or V.2 from BC, or the XTB offering. Should another company make the "perfect" Huffer, then we'll have cake and it'll be everyone's favorite flavor.

 

Amen. I also received Huff yesterday and he was the last of my Season 1 Ark Crew Autobots that I needed for my collection. Achievement unlocked - So satisfying!

I love Huff's overall presence among the S1 cast. It more than makes up for the nitpicks I have.

I'm thankful BadCube released this bot.

 

Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying? I was responding to this comment of yours:
"Either you DO or you do NOT want MP's that are heavily animation accurate? You can't have it both ways."
Which is clearly false as that's 100% what the MP line was about for a very long time. To me, Huff works great as a Takara style MP'ish figure - great looking, toon accurate bot mode, nice realistic looking truck mode (looks like a real truck not a toy OR a cartoon). It's very much in-line with MP-Bumblebee, the Datsuns, even MP-10. They were striving to look toon accurate in bot mode, but sticking incredibly tightly to a real world, licenced alt mode. That was the MP line from MP-10 through to around MP-31 or so. All that's missing on V2 Huff is a better paint job.
Huff V1 missed the mark due to the unrealistic happy meal, toy-like alt mode.
Huff V1 vs V2 (to me at least) is akin to TW Bii vs MP 21 Bumblebee.
People complaining that they want Huffer's alt mode to look like the toy or like the toon, what do you want from Bumblebee? Or Cliffjumper? Because Huff V2 is very much following the guidance of MP-21, MP-27 etc XTB Cliffjumper is following the same route.

 

I was responding to the general complaints stating that the animation look doesn't really matter because it wasn't done well. This contradicts what I've been hearing, which is people WANTING the animation look in the MP lines of TF's (both official and 3P). Just because Huffer may have been poorly animated, doesn't mean we should ignore it. I think it's contradicting support a standard, and then break it. Perhaps I am simply having a hard time making my point clear? If so, I'm sorry about that.

I think BC did a good job with the bot mode. I'm happy with it. And I also like the realistic truck mode. I do wish BC came up with a realistic truck mode that looked a bit more like the G1 toy in cab's overall shape, but I am okay with it. I tend to be more lenient with the mini-bots because they were never accurate in proportion or with real world vehicles like regular bots were like Wheeljack, for example. And the bot mode is toon accurate, but also has enough detail to make it more "real" to me. It's a good blend. I think we are pretty much in agreement here.  

 

Ah sorry. Understand now. Yeah I don't really understand folks who spend a fortune collecting this line but at the same time criticise the toon for looking crap and saying they don't want the toy to look like that. That's what Hasbro's CHUG stuff is for, new takes on the character. MP is about the G1 (and now the BW) character looking as as good as possible.
I actually wouldn't mind a whole collection along the line of ToyWorld Bii, that has very toon accurate alt modes as well, but that's not what I've spent tens of thousands on. The rest of my collection has realistic alt modes so that's what I want. I just can't stand V1 Huff, never could, as the truck doesn't fit into my collection. V2 does a lot better. I'll probably buy it on discount and spray a nice glossy lacquer coat on the cab.
Piper though... I just don't know what to think. That backpack is painful to look at. Yes he had a big back in the toon, but not that big. I'm disappointed that BC didn't adjust the mould more to make Piper's backpack collapse horizontally the way Huff's collapses vertically. It's TB and Hoist all over again.
So many companies just took the easy way out with reusing one mould with minor tweaks and paint, rather than putting in the time to do it right. That's why XTB won the Hoist war's. They're the only one (so far) who went the extra mile to change up the moulds enough to do both characters justice.

 

After watching/reading few more reviews and seeing more pics, I think I’m in on Piper as well. He looks like a fun, well made figure. The size of the backpack is a bit unfortunate but the way it will be displayed on my shelf, it won’t matter. He really does do a good job evoking the toon and unless Takara attempt him I think he’s be hard pressed to be beat.

 

Opened my Huff today. Actually quite pleased with it in-hand in robot mode. Alt mode looks kind of weak but the bot mode is quite all right by me.  

All the joints are nice and stiff, the paint is clean, free of blemishes, and while it could have used another coat on a few places like the "toes" of the feet, overall it's done well.

 

The negativity here is astonishing! We've had a great run of really solid MP minibot releases of late but I'd certainly rank v2 Huff at the top. By far Badcube's best Transformation, and the bot is tremendous. I do like the alt, too, though I would agree it's his weakest mode - certainly compared to the v1. But in every other way - build, finish, transformation, bot - the v2 is the easy winner. If you're going for one of the two, definitely go v2.

 

Got my Huff today, and honestly this is not my favorite BC figure. I'm a fan of BC, and I like this guy, but this doesn't feel like their best effort. My main gripes (aside from the new cab shape - which I'm past at this point):

• The painted orange parts aren't a match for the orange plastic. This isn't a huge deal, but it's easy to notice that the painted top half of the cab doesn't match the orange plastic of the bottom half. Nor do the painted feet match the orange plastic legs. It's close, and I know it's a tough thing to do. I just think they could have done better. It could be my imagination, but it looks to me that the orange plastic on the bottom of the feet is a closer match than the plastic used elsewhere. Or it could just be because the feet aren't letting as much light through because they're attached to die cast.
  
• Might just be my copy, but that slider on the cab is incredibly stiff. Like, I had to use the shaft of a screwdriver and push on both ends to get him back into alt mode. I tried loosening the screw, but it didn't seem to help. Hopefully this is something that will loosen up over time.
• The front wheels are different than the back wheels. This one just baffles me. It wouldn't have affected the transformation to have the front wheels in the same style as the rear. For some reason, they decided to mismatch them.
• Almost the entirety of the bot mode is visible on the underside of the alt mode. OK, the above three gripes are what I would call minor. They're little irritants that honestly probably won't bother me now that I got the complaining out of my system. But the underside of the alt mode is just lazy. There is so much open space in that cab that they could have worked out a hinge to pull the head into the cab or behind the chest or something to try and clean him up a little more. Yes, I'm aware it's on the bottom and will rarely be seen. But a clean alt mode is one thing I really appreciate on a TF. And I know it's not always easy to engineer stuff like that, but there's just so much wasted space in alt mode, I feel like more could have been done.

All that being said, I really like this guy more than I thought I would. He's sturdy and looks great in bot mode. A nice, clean bot that screams Huffer. I like the fact that they left in the option to hook up MP-10's trailer without having to jump through hoops like on V1. And even though I would have preferred the slanted front cab, this design is growing on me. Hopefully I'm not coming off too negatively, because I'm glad I picked this guy up.

 

I think Huff 2.0 is awesome!