Haul arrived

 

That is handy. Hope it heals up quickly buddy! And I agree, Dial certainly is the nicest of the four.

Totally jealous of your Multiforce. I had the KOs as a kid and had endless fun with them. Would love to see modern updates in the style of POTP Battletrap.

Teensy. MMC Megs is between Voyager and TR/CW style leader sized (from what I remember when I had him) and Flame Megs is shorter than Siege Prime. But the lack of a decent fusion cannon on MMC Megs was certainly a factor in me selling it on.

Ironworks must be Ironfist right? Cause Hasbro don't have the trade mark  

I think Weaponizer Micromaster bases would work well. Like @Seeaich points out at the deluxe price point they could make for decent little towers and the like? Would be interesting if they could combine with each other? Voyager scale would an interesting experiment.

Lovely Springer write-up Mr Barry

Feel better soon dude. I picked it up too, my stomach was killing me Sunday and Monday, and last night my nose was leaking like a tap. Feeling better now though, so hopefully tomorrow shall bring better health for you too.

Good luck dude! May all the assignments be easy, and the students union well stocked!

 

I’m jealous of whomever had them before me. They must have had all the bits to form Landcross!

 

I am not a big fan of the movies, but the jet mode on Studio Series Starscream is something else.

 

With the explicit Sunbow aesthetic, an MP Cliffjumper changing into more or less the same car as Jazz could be a thing, I suppose.

Or they could cop out and do a "Red Bumble" release.

Or he'll be a Mini Cooper  

I *really* hope that Ironworks is a Siege Ironfist. I would be super happy. MechFansToys' version was on Ebay a few weeks back for £50 and went unsold... but it's a bit too small for my liking and the legs look off.

 

That actually makes a lot of sense with Ironfist. And like @Rotorstorm has done, make him a siege hound remould.

And thanks. Currently sat here at my desk, doused up on medicine and with my jacket on trying to sweat the bugger out.

 

Was watching the Bumblebee movie with my kids the other day. My eldest loved it and wanted to see more. So the next day we watched the first movie. Which he also liked. He was absolutely astonished when Brawl transformed to Robot mode in the final battle  

 

I'm about, just haven't had anything to post, really. I've mostly been active on Instagram posting Gunpla stuff. I'm also a founding member of a new Gunpla building team called Casual Grade Builders, who you can also check out on Insta.

 

Cool pics

Oh ok

 

Great review (as they always are) I do find the clipping together gets better and easier with time, and i've gone from the point of not being that impressed when i first got him to seriously impressed.
I also prefer putting the guns in the little holes by his tail fin in chopper mode, and gives a more satisfying chopper outline (ooh-err) for me at least.

 

Even the box is gorgeous.



And that's all there is to it right now, because transforming him and assembling the translucent bits is tomorrow's job!

 

That sound you can hear isn't me grinding my teeth in jealousy. Honest.

Epic score, mate.

 

Evening all

I hear talk of a MP Cliffjumper; any ideas where the rumour came from? Couldn’t see anything elsewhere when I went looking...

 

An image purported to be from some stock listing somewhere I believe posted in the News thread by this fella:

And reposted in Siege speculation by Lazerwave:

In less senses-shattering news as usual my impulse Toyhax order arrives when least expected, i.e., yes, I had totally forgotten about it.
The gamble on G1 Grimlock stickers didn't quite pay off BUT G1 Sludge's provided two or three characteristic details including the bullseye of, well, his bullseye!


And a frankly ridonkulous amount of the POTP Snarl set turn out to be entirely transferrable and still look pretty great! SCORE!

Yep, both essential bullseyes were entirely on target!

 

Someone posted a list of rumour upcoming. Mp49 is cliffjumper, and a couple of potential siege stuff. But nothing more than a random list from japan as of yet.

Took these two off the shelf for a transform. The only pcc guys to survive the cull.

 

So yesterday I blithered on about ROTF Ransack, a Seeker In Name Only, so today I'm going to flip that on its head and talk about a bot who really ought to be a seeker, but isn't: G2 Smokescreen.

It's weird looking at this guy today, 25 years after his release. Chronologically the figure is closer to the original 1983 Diaclone range than Generations, but physically? Aside from a few trivial inconveniences Smokescreen is essentially built to modern standards of articulation, detail and deco, and could almost pass for a modern release, despite being a quarter-century old. Ball joints, double-axis shoulders, light piping, decent proportions... Smokescreen is a statement of intent, Hasbro and Takara laying down a vision of what Transformers would one day all become.

It would make a better story if you could trace a straight line of evolution through the years, but Beast Wars interrupts the line of succession, taking on ball joints but abandoning the aesthetic almost completely (Machine Wars aside). Still, as a piece of history, Smokescreen is pretty spectacular. Practically every Generations figure you own, the jetformers especially, owe a massive debt to this guy, their patriarch and progenitor.

Shame about the name though. Along with his partner in crime Dreadwing, Smokescreen sports an off-the-shelf name that happened to still be in copyright, but not being used by their original G1 selves. And he's not Smokescreen. Smokescreen is the gambling addict NASCAR racer Autobot, not a sleek, jaggedy-nosed Deceptijet. It kinda speaks to the apathy that dragged G2 down, where rather than developing the stories, characters and identities of the toys like they'd done the decade previous, Hasbro just minimum-efforted their way through and were surprised when G2 was ultimately a flop.

Still though, them colours. They're pure 1994 with the indigo and teal offset with a couple of cheeky bright red highlights. I'm pretty sure I had a school rucksack in those colours. Or at least a lunch box. It's bright and eye catching without being obnoxious, and considering the fashion disasters that the first half of the decade was so known for, it could have been a whole lot worse. He comes with a pair of heavy-duty shotgun-like missile launchers that look infinitely better with the missiles removed, but are still so huge that he constantly looks like he's dancing around like Reaper off of that Overwatch. But with his slender proportions and enigmatic faceplate you just know he's more of a cheeky backstabbing henchman lad that only hangs around with Dreadwing for protection.

Transformation hasn't quite got to grips with the engineering that the future generation of bots would need, as the plastic is seriously stressed out by some of the contortions. There's even a worrying crack emerging in one place that I'm terrified is going to have the whole thing snap in half one day. But when you do, you end up with...

...well, less of a plane, more of a dart. There's barely any wings to speak of, something that would be corrected a decade later when he was retooled into Energon Starscream, who is a retool of G2 Smokescreen. The guns slot into the sides of the jet to bulk it out a bit, but the lack of surface area is in service to his bigger buddy, with whom he combines in vehicle mode by jamming himself up Dreadwing's bum end. It's not a pretty sight, but the overall effect is decent. But on his own, the sleek pointiness of Smokescreen makes it painfully obvious that he's built for speed, not for manoeuvrability, which is a shame because disengaging for a dogfight and protecting Dreadwing from interceptors seems like it's his main job. Oh well, power of imagination says that he can turn as well as go forwards.

And his name's Dartwing from now on. I have spoken!

 

I've had 2 packages arrive in the past 2 days, so more figures for me and some fresh bubble wrap for the ferrets to play with...they actually bite the bubbles which gives my fingers and toes a break  

1st package was Marvel Legends 80th Anniversary Iron Man yesterday who's a bit good, so much so that Hasbro sold me on it despite the fact that I ended up disliking the MCU version so much I cheered his demise.

But this figure is a whole different kettle of fish, or indeed man in armour, this is THE classic design for for Iron Man in shiny red & gold tones and not the flatter comic colours so it looks fantastic!

Posability is decent and it has the best assortment of extras in the 80th line eg,

1 helmet based on the classic look ( Not sure who drew him first )
1 Alex Ross helmet which has a nose sculpted into the mask
1 Alex Ross Tony Stark head which is based on Timothy Dalton....so he's totally a cosplaying Simon Skinner  
1 set of fists
1 set of repulsor blast hands with holes for the blast effects
Various blast effects that can fit in either the hands or the feet and that have various configurations ( As is normally the case with similar pieces I find them to be very hit & miss and think they would have been nicer in a translucent plastic but the smaller ones are OK.)

I don't have another ML Iron Man to compare the articulation but posability is good enough for a variety of dynamic or more relaxed poses.

If I was to be extra picky I'd have liked one more set of hands that made it easier to hold either of the helmets when displaying the figure with the Tony head but overall it's a fantastic package.

So I now have a quandary over whether to take a chance and see if I can get an 80th Anniversary Cap that doesn't have dodgy paint on the eyes or wait for the next time they release that mould.

2nd package was X-Men vintage wave Silver Samurai who's a chunky, yet posable monkey that can pull off some very cool poses. The hands have hinges so that he can point his swords properly and some of the armour pieces are soft enough plastic that it doesn't get in the way of the leg articulation.

The old Toybiz line this wave is homaging had a chromed up Silver Samurai but I'm guessing Hasbro steered clear of doing that to avoid flaking related QC issues and they've gone with a mixture of silvery plastic and paint which works pretty well, it certainly looks nicer than if they'd just used grey for everything like they tend to with Transformers.

Will do some pics over the next couple of days.

 

I got these guys for Christmas when I was a kid. Telling me that was a quarter of a century ago makes me feel old. Please stop.  

 

I mean, sure, but if anything the fact that they're so modern (Smokescreen in particular) makes those 25 years seem a lot shorter. To me at least.

I would have been 10 at the time, and had 'grown out' of Transformers by then in favour of Lego (my mother approved as it was creative). I don't remember G2 at all, which is telling for what a non-event it was culturally. I'm kinda fascinated by Hasbro's approach. They seemed to want to market the line as being something new, something separate from your older siblings' G1 toys, something that a younger generation of kids could claim as their own. The strap line on the comic was even "This is not your father's Autobot". And then they just rereleased a bunch of 1984 toys again with lousy decos. And rereleased the original 1984 cartoon with lousy CGI in between scenes. So any kid trying to get into Transformers is constantly reminded that this is an OLD toy from YEARS ago and not modern or up-to-date like Power Rangers or whatever. Amazing job in shooting themselves in the foot.

 

Yeah, I was 10 when I got Dreadwing and Smokescreen. I remember the G2 toys being mixed among G1 toys in the classics gold packaging on toy store shelves. It wasn't until Beast wars bit that they became unified. But by then I was into Zbots, as they had transforming ones. Well, if you count a robot laying down and hiding it's head a transformation