The alt mode comparison to Zeta’s is why I decided to go Fans Toys, and now that I’ve got him transformed it absolutely doesn’t disappoint. Pretty straightforward transformation and is exactly what I want out of a Silverbolt figure.

And, most importantly, the paint is as strong as you’d hope it to be. I had to change out a symbol and got it off without any paint coming with it, unlike Hoodlum.

 

I had a lot of issues getting everything tabbed and flush. It turned out I didn't realize the fuselage has a double hinge joint in diecast that is easy to miss as its small and mine was stiff so it wouldnt bend the other way without using a spudger or eyeglass screwdriver.

 

My replacement Maverick part has arrived!

 

Needle nose pliers worked for me. There was enough grab to twist the stem out. The screw itself is pretty standard, stole one out of an old TV remote and all was good.

 

Not for mine, alas. There was nothing of the old screw to get hold of. Now that the old chest part is loose and spare, I've tried a bit more violently to get the broken screw out, but it won't budge.

 

Dang, guess I was lucky. There are screw extractor sets you can get (search Amazon), not sure how well they work - but they exist.

 

I'd be more sympathetic to this argument if Maverick's red chest bits had something to make them look more like intakes, like in the picture you posted. Otherwise, just hide the things, so that at least the top-down silhouette looks fine? (And do something about those ugly-ass floppy pins on the sides. Like ... quality control aside, there's no reason they had to look like that? They could've literally just flipped a joint to hide those seams?)

The thing about the FT combiners is that they're most likely going to be (or in the case of the Stunticons, definitely going to be) Zeta-style with a giant exoskeleton. They don't combine so much as glom onto another robot. So the arguments about the individual bots needing to be severely compromised in order to engineer 3 modes don't make sense, because these aren't Scramble City combiners. If anything, Roadking was a proof-of-concept of what they can do when they just focus on making the individual bot and vehicle modes better.

(It's worth mentioning that I'm not sold on either of the teams yet. I own Roadking, because FT said "hey, what if we made a perfect transformation tractor trailer" and I went "HERE IS ALL MY MONEY NOW". Even if I don't buy any of the other figures, I still think Roadking was worth it on his own.)

I'm not expecting "perfection". I just want this expensive thing I just paid for to look and feel like it's actually worth the money.

-XCN-

 

Same here. I kinda feel bad for those that missed out on Roadking. FT needs to reissue it.
My Maverick will finally be delivered tomorrow.

 

Agreed on it being worth your money and those red tabs are annoying

The arms still contain the elbow joints and turn into the whole arm but the main thing is that rectangular flat robots doesn’t translate well into curved planes. I definitely think it could be better than even what FT is doing but perfection is definitely impossible

 

As quick as Roadking sold out I’m of the opinion that it’s like Apache (or was it Koot) where the first run was tiny and sold out quickly but the second run was out like three months later.

 

That could be the case.

I know that the other limbs have already sold out on Taobao except for one seller there. Could be the case there as well, especially given the popularity of Roadking.

 

I don't know the numbers on it, but I know stores sold out then got another shipment of them that lasted a little while. RoboToyBase still had them a couple of weeks ago (I checked today and they are sold out now). If it was like Apache/Koot they may have already had the "second run" out.

 

@backhawkdown Don't worry man. I'm sure there's a warehouse full of Roadkings that FT is waiting to "Reissue/Restock" and yes this isn't suppose to be in blue but I actually think they do that. Now the old FT stuff is outta production but Roadking is still fairly a new figure and it's old how fast their Products sellout fast nowadays. Just my $0.02 

 

My Maverick from Taobao seller Darkmount finally arrived MISB earlier today. Grand total came to $129 shipped just like Roadking.

 

Wow that's really cheap. Might try that one sometime. Does he ship to Europe?

 

At the moment Taobao only ships direct internationally to
Hong Kong
Macau
Taiwan
Singapore
Malaysia
United States
Australia
Canada
New Zealand
Japan

For an additional fee you might have to use Taobao middleman/agent service like Superbuy or 42agent (formerly Taobaoring) to ship to areas that Taobao doesn't ship to.

 

Ahhh hamburgers   I wish my country was also next to the Pacific haha.

 

Having had this for a couple of weeks, it's quintessentially FansToys... best by default but not on the merits. Like, it's the most show-accurate robot and jet mode. But it's not FUN. The transformation just isn't worth the pain for what you get (although the jet is admittedly cool, and HUGE, and they did a good job minimizing the profile and making it show-accurate). But there are so many compromises causes BY the engineering it bothers me. The basically hollow rear of the robot (they have some flaps to make it not egregious but it's still HELLA hollow), the overabundance of die-cast bits and rail/pin combos... it's not FUN. And to top it off... it's too damn big! I could live with Road King because it had to turn into an MP-10 sized tractor trailer. But given the exoskeleton nature of Ethereaon itself, I have the exact same beef I had with Zeta's Silver Arrow: HE DIDN'T NEED TO BE THAT BIG. (With Zeta Onslaught I feel the same as Road King: It turns into a whole tractor trailer. And Road King's size makes it more acceptable to me)

Road King felt like they might have turned a corner: it was BY FAR their most impressive feat of engineering, EVER. For the first time I felt like every step had purpose. The look, in both modes, was perfectly show-accurate but understated in a way I'm not used to from them. What's crazy is, these figures kind of don't even LOOK like each other. Maverick is so much... brighter. More metallic, unpainted die-cast bits everywhere, plus it's mainly hollow. Road King is much more muted, color-wise, and is solid as a brick (I still can barely believe they transformed an entire tractor trailer into that robot mode).

 

I'm cool with Maverick's size. He's supposed to be that big.

 

Surprisingly stable!