Officially at Maketoys, but weren't the designers involved with Fansproject's Intimidator?

 

yes

The same designer worked for both companies

and is doing stuff for Action Toys Machine Robo "line" now too

 

Since they’re doing a re-run of the figures, I hope they also make more replacement parts for Axle.

 

The set always looked great to me.

Were there issues with their Groove or others?

Curious if these are fixed on this re-release

 

Even though it says sold out or whatever on the MakeToys site, throw them an email. I emailed them around xmas time last year and they still had the parts available and were able to send them to me.

I bought Axle (Groove) when it first came out, transformed it once to alt-mode and then back to bot mode and left it on my shelf. Didn't have any issues except the kick stand broke off, not a big deal. Fast forward to xmas last year, I decided to move most of my TFs into storage to make room for my Macross collection, tried to transform him from bot mode to alt-mode and that's when it fell to pieces. The handle bar broke off, but I had the replacement that came with Vulcan?, and installed it and that was fine. Then the hip broke and I had to email Maketoys to get a replacement. Got my replacement hip in, installed it, tried to finish the transformation, boom, one of the legs breaks off, just threw the damn thing in my storage box and left it there. They used some brittle ass plastic on this guy. I'm debating whether to bite the bullet to get the whole set again since I like all 5 of the individual bots (despite the crappy QC on Axle), or get just Axle, but I really hope they've made it more durable.

 

One step at a time! Let them catch up  

 

They're 2/5 of the way there with Shattered Glass Quantron. They need to finish THAT first.

 

Question. Can you tell me if MakeToys Defensor is the best 3rd party Defensor out there or should I check other options?

 

There aren't many out there, TFC Prometheus, Guardia, and GenerationToys figure. Guardia though seems to be the less cumbersome of the choices.

 

Thanks. How is the quality on this guy? Is it better than Green Giant?

 

Shrug?
I never had a chance to get Guardia to know for sure. The only Maketoys Gestault I have is Quantron. Though if I had to guess, they should be about the same.

 

Question about preordering at TFsouece, do you pay when you preorder immediately or do they charge you when it ships?

 

Charged when it ships. Or around when it comes in stock, I don't remember. Either way, it's not up-front payment.
I ordered mine through them.

 

Green Giant is what all other CHUG combiners wish they could be. Guardia is not bad by any means, but is far more fragile. Stable in combined mode, but moving some of the limbs can be scarey.

 

So Green Giant is better in terms of build and quality? If Guardia is fragile, that can be scary.

 

Yes on both.
As long as you are careful (with Groove in particular), you will be fine. Rule of thumb, if it doesn't move fairly easily, stop, watch one of the transformation videos and make sure you didn't miss any tabs and such.

The plastic quality on GG is the same as Gaurdia, just a bit thicker. I assume you have the official GG and not the KO? I don't have the KO, so i can't speak to the quality.

 

Yeah I have GG. Loving it. Original

 

So Axl just disintegrated on me. It started
with the axl part - as if poetic. In the process of supergluing it together, the kickstand broke at the swivel. I glued that together, then the foot part again at the swivel... then the exhaust part cracked and then the handle bars... I lost it and took a hammer to the fuckin thing. I bashed it into plastic dust. Basically all the silver parts of Axl age poorly. This coming from a display only collector. I will not sink another 70 on a replacement. But Lord, this was a real dogshit design in terms of an adult collectible. A reeeeal Munson.

 

I feel your pain. I got my axle a couple of years back and all the metal parts broke on me one by one.

 

Why didn't you guys get the free replacement parts from MT? Only had to pay for shipping. ($6)