> people like a figure

>people are taking crazy pills

Good ol' TFW.

 

You love it.  

 

I was under the impression that Alpha Bravo was kinda hated. I like it too.

 

That's weird, I got AB very recently and these top tabs just slide in very softly.

However, one of the tabs that peg Dragstrip's legs to his torso when collapsed for car mode came broken out of the package somehow. Doesn't really matter since the other peg and dragstrip's arms keep the whole thing together anyway.

 

Yeah while I understand that people wanted Slingshot from the get go I don't think Alpha Bravo himself was a bad idea same with Off Road and Rook. They're there to present the idea of mixing different limbs for the line and this perfectly shows that. It's not like we're not going to get Slingshot and WildRider from Hasbro at all either since they showed up at the TRU listing. I think had Slingshot being announced as a TRU exclusive along with the first news of CQ came out last year maybe people wouldn't be as hostile. Not to mention he has fiction in IDW so far to better develop him as a character in his own right.

Some people are also saying that he's just filler garbage because he's basically Vortex in Slingshot's colours and that he's just a thoughtless product to get more money from us. So I guess by that logic that means G1 Ultra Magnus without his armour,the G1 Seekers who aren't the coneheads and Metrotitan are just as stupid and thoughtless as Alpha Bravo because they're just repaints of someone else to get money.

 

Hmmm...

His robot mode looks too scrawny and his helicopter mode looks too civilian despite the missile pods.

Should have been a chunky Apache attack helicopter ; that would have made a tougher Vortex as well as a potential Spinister redeco.

 

I dunno if anyone else posted a fix for AB's "misaligned" ratchet joint, which causes Superion to lean back if AB's used as a leg, but I decided to try my hand at it.


Left is the modded AB, Right is stock


Sorry about the crappy paint pic, forgot to take a pic of the modded piece until after I reassembled both ABs.  

After disassembling AB's torso, I shaved down one side of the channels underneath the tooth piece (highlighted in red) and glued thin strips of plastic on the opposite side (highlighted in green). The tooth piece only uses two of the channels to lock into AB's chest, so only those two were modded.

The joint is just as sturdy as it was before and now my Superion won't end up leaning back whenever I use AB as a leg. Yay.

 

This actually does sum up how I feel about this. If we KNEW from the get go we'd get a Slingshot, I wouldn't still be angry about this.

Alpha Bravo being Alpha Bravo aside, I also agree with this. Although the Dauphin helicopter AB is based off of does have a military role, it isn't in a combat role. It's an S&R helicopter and the missiles feel very, very out of place. An actual attack helicopter would've been better.

 

He's hated because he's not Slingshot. Even if he was a Masterpiece level figure, he'd still be hated because geewun.

 

I just don't like the transformation (too simple with awkward kibble) and basically everything about the arms (too protrusive and very contributory to problem A). The fact that he's not slingshot doesn't really factor in for me.

 

His transformation has very little difference from the other deluxe Aerialbots.

How much military action does a Concorde see?

 

None, I don't think, but that's not the point. AB's a search and rescue helicopter with MISSLES. That's like putting tattling guns on an ambulance.

 

And some of us actually like a bit of realism to our alternate modes.

 

I havent got him yet,but is this a pretty bad issue?

 

I've seen it brought up in other threads before, but I'm not sure how widespread the issue is. I got my ABs months ago, so it could just be a "early wave" QC problem with the joint fixed in later figures, not entirely sure about that. If you do end up getting a AB, it's only an issue if you use him as a leg and the lean depends on whoever you have as the other leg.

AB + Fireflight, slight lean but Fireflight keeps Superion straight; AB + Skydive, my Skydive isn't as solid as Fireflight so Superion leans back a bit more; if you use two ABs as the legs, the lean is pretty bad. I don't have Air Raid, so I dunno how he compares to Fireflight and Skydive in leg mode yet.
He's fine if you relegate him to arm duty, but I like switching the limbs around often so that's why I went ahead with modding him.

If you're comfortable with modifying figures, the fix is pretty easy, the hardest part is getting the pin out. I ended up having to heat it up with a soldering iron to get it out. Just gotta take your time shaving down the plastic and test fitting to make sure the joint's lined up right.

The issue can be annoying, but I don't feel it ruins the figure.

 

Not really into modding my figures especially when it comes to pins. Id hate to break it and make things worse and then have to start all over again. Thanks for the info tho.

 

Do those fire a continuous stream of tattle-tales?

 

Alpha Bravo: The most maligned Aerialbot



Alpha Bravo is a new character introduced to the Aerialbots to give them some variety. His name comes from the first two call letters in the NATO alphabet, used by militaries and pilots worldwide. Originally, the team was composed of five Autobots whose alt modes were fixed-wing aircraft. Alpha Bravo is an attack helicopter (“helo”, not to be confused with “halo”) on a team of jet aircraft, so he’s naturally on odd duck. As such the figure and character have gotten a ton of flack and fan-boy rage from purists who wanted new figures of all of the original Aerialbots. It was something to the tune of, “You put a helicopter in my airplanes!” like a disgusted diner patron who has found a fly in his soup.



Now that we are getting a figure if Slingshot in the form of Quickslinger, the Aerialbot Alpha Bravo initially replaced, maybe this poor guy can stand on his own.



The good:
Alpha Bravo (AB) looks great in robot mode. He is mostly white with an orange chest and head. There is some blue, but it doesn’t show up in this mode very much. AB is armed to the teeth, with a gun that has a sculpted belt of huge bullets feeding into it, and a combiner accessory that looks like two Gatling chain guns. He also has three missiles sculpted onto the outside of each forearm. He has all of the standard points of articulation, including a turning waist, which is needed for a combiner’s arm mode.



He has the most interesting transformation of all of the Aerialbots, though much of it is shared with his teammates and is nothing new. Having to turn his waist 180 degrees is the main thing that sets him apart.





He makes an excellent combiner limb for Superion or any Combiner Wars torso you want to attach him to. I suspect that with the release of Quickslinger, a lot of AB figures are going to be stuck on Ultra Prime. He makes a great arm if you make sure that his feet are on the underside of his wrist. If this is the case, he can hold any weapon you want to give him, or you can just have him point the chain guns sticking out of the knuckles at a marauding Decepticon. His rotor blades fold up and can be stashed between his tail stabilizers so they don’t get in the way. He also makes a good shin (lower leg), which is my default position for him in Superion.





The bad (and mediocre):
AB’s feet transform exactly like Classics Astrotrain’s do, which strikes me as rather uninspired. He also shares the same leg conversion that all of the other Aerialbots have, which I find annoying. It isn’t so much that they all transform the same as it is the mechanism by which they do so. The legs have to be opened up at the shins before they can be collapsed for helo or combiner leg mode, and extended for robot and combiner arm mode. You have to get everything lined up and tabbed in just right, otherwise the legs won’t close. This can be tricky to do without breaking something like the swinging struts that attach the thighs to the calves. The mount that the helo’s rotor is attached to swings out, but doesn’t fold up and can get in the way during conversion.

In arm mode, AB's arms have to be bent at the elbows so that they are out of the way and he can bend at the waist, which is the combiner's elbow. If you leave the arms straight like the instructions tell you, they get in the way of elbow articulation.



The helo mode is very white, with some blue to break it up, and gold-ish missiles which cover up his hands in this mode but which look a bit out of place. Like Air Raid and Skydive, he lacks any sort of landing gear or skids, which seems to more glaring omission here. The helo just sits on the underside of its hull, which would not be good for an aircraft in real life (especially when landing!), but this is a toy, so I’m nitpicking. You can mount his chaingun combiner accessory on the helo’s underside, but then his hand gun has to go on a hardpoint on one side of the fuselage just before the tail section, which looks lop-sided with nothing in the other hardpoint. I usually stick Firefly’s flamethrower gun in there for some symmetry, and put his combiner accessory on Firefly’s underwing hardpoints.






The verdict:
Alpha Bravo is a neat toy that doesn’t really deserve most of the flack that it’s gotten. He makes a good arm and a decent leg for Superion, and has a cool robot mode that fits with the rest of the Aerialbots. The downside is that the helicopter alt mode, which doesn’t fit as well, feels incomplete and a little uninspired. Still a recommended buy, though, as is his repaint Blades, and the eventual Vortex we’ll get with the Combaticons.



In my head canon, Alpha Bravo is a tough yet eager Marine, who puts duty to Cybertron and the Autobots above all else. However, he secretly wants to prove himself as good as, or superior to his Aerialbot teammates. Since he can’t keep up with the jets in alt mode without a space bridge, he uses his superior maneuverability and endurance to blast as many Decepticons out of the sky as he can. He gets into trouble since he tries to draw fire away from the more fragile jets, and also makes bots like Air Raid and Slingshot jealous and a but resentful, since he’s honing in on “their” turf by trying to be the tip of the spear.

 

I found an Alpha Bravo in a small shopko store in a town.

the Alpha Bravo figure's card was broken into where the missing hand or foot piece for the Combiner stuff was stolen.

Bunch of thieves in that small town where you just cant have nice things even in a store.

 

Already have this mold as Blades but I can’t wait to get Alpha Bravo as I love Helicopters