Received my Marek today. My luck with third party purchases keeps getting worse. Fresh out of the box he is missing a claw on one of his grabby arms. No fault of the retailer at all just unlucky me. Solid figure though and can’t wait to finish the set on Monday!

 

He was being referred to as Poochie when he was first introduced. He wasn’t well received like the DJD was.

 

Not while he was a prat's Mary Sue, no. Later on, when other (better...) writers got hold of him, then people started to take to him. Still don't see what's so amazing about him, but he's pretty popular now.

 

Goddammit, never fails.

Was forced to ship my PoL. Was trying to hold out for the tardy Merak, but I ultimately got the final notice that I'd have to ship some stuff immediately.

Merak (and the new SS Deluxes, which I'd have loved to ship at the same time as well) just hit my PoL, 3 days later.

Guess I'm shipping again soon, but probably wait until after Christmas.

 

Finally transformed Merak and tried out the combine mode. As some have said here, in hand the combine form isn't bad. Still prefer the team as separate figures.



Tarnation using his claws on Megatron and Optimus Prime while defending himself from SG Optimus Prime and Skywarp.



Tarnation with War Giant and Huge Dragon.

 

I finally got around to opening the big dude and I'll tell you what, they look real cohesive as a group. Well done IF, I know nothing about the fiction of these guys, but I do know good action figures, and these are that.

 

In Soviet Cybertron, gulag go to you

 

Alkaid finally came in thanks to a fellow TFW member. And minus Merak not having a claw, this set is so fantastic.

 

Iron Factory might as well release a Pet and Nickel to go with these guys. At least the pet.

 

While I would like a Pet and Nickel I think if they do them in scale, Nickel is going to be a very tiny bot.

 

Scale can be fudged. If Nickel was accurate in design and roughly as massive as, say, Arcee, I think that would be a fine size. Small enough to get the idea across

 

They could even do something simple, the size of their Ravage or Ramhorn bots...

 

Basically what I was saying, just different examples.

 

Well, Arcee is considerably more advanced than Ravage.

 

Mass, not complexity.

 

Finally got Merak from BBTS today but I guess I just wasn't feeling any magic with the camera. Took a few pictures but none of them turned out real well. If I weren't on third shift this week I might have tried a little harder. Oh well, I got a couple worth editing anyway.




Been messing around with the combined mode. Currently I have Merak's legs in his vehicle mode configuration so the combiner is slightly taller, and I took the buttflap off. Didn't see much point in putting in on and taking it off leaves more room for the claws to come forward.

I am definitely glad I picked up Tarn on a whim earlier this year. Otherwise I would have missed out on this wonderful set.

 

I’m interested to see how big they make minimus ambus. I honestly wouldn’t even care if they didn’t transform.

 

I like using the claws to hold the sniper.

 

Finally got my Helex, he was stuck in the post office for 12 days.
He can definitely play a piano.