For SPringer I think MMC are also a contender.
For me, where Springer is differentiated is in the various alt modes. They each seem to do something better than the others, so it's prioritising which is important. For me, being a triple changer (painful for an alt and bot mode collector) I actually grabbed a Big Spring for (I think?) copter mode, which he does well, MMC is in bot mode, and I have a UT Allan in car mode... and that ones a stinker and is definitely gonna be replaced. If XTB ever does release their Springer I'll pick one up. If not, FT can take the third spot.
But some of these characters get so confusing remembering which ones which!!

 

Holy shit.... this was well worth the wait.

 

Holy cow! It's finally coming!!!!

 

Another thing that is sucky to see is an crunch while Magnum doesn't have one.

 

Top bottom/ bottom top comparison


Older

Redesign

 

Those fingers look great!

 

You should grab Outrider also. I'd hate to see you miss out. I have v1 Aegis but there's no way I'm gonna miss out on Outrider.

Yes, Outrider meets FT's height and size requirements for fully articulated hands.
Looks like it comes with a gun modeled after v1 Takara MP Bumblebee. I'm guessing the gun is a bit larger.

 

Wow, that's a clean back.
Does this still qualify as an MP figure without a huge messy backpack?

 

Damn, FT is hitting it pretty hard with the number of releases.

Christmas 2020 at my house:

Family: How come we don’t have any presents?

Me: My gift this year was the amount of time we got to spend together. Love is the only present you need.

Family: We’re stuck here because of COVID. And how come you got a bunch of new toys hiding out in the garage?

Me: Busted. Got to be socially distant. I’ll be working in the garage.

 

Looks nice. Was never really dead set on any particular Trailbreaker. The idea was always I'd get Takara's offering to go with a 3P Hoist--which ended up being Artifex. But that was before the days of Sunstreaker on, where a TB might have been gotten for around $65 to $70 if that had been a part of their planned releases back then (and to be fair, I probably would have been just fine with his not-up-to-today's engineering he likely would have had).

And to that point. Question is now, what's the new price tag on this guy?

 

Man, I was -> this <- close to ordering X-Transbots Aegis. Wonder if FT will go grey/white or black/silver, also wondering how this looks next to Ironhide as I always think of TB being the same height but no taller and Aegis is a little tall.

The alt-mode looking as close to the actual vehicle as possible is also a factor - without being a licensed product, obviously.

The MP-Hound styled hip joints are a nice inclusion.

 

That's one hell of a compromise to achieve an otherwise sleek toon look. There's no chance that's mistransformed, is there?




As a side note, I saw TF-Direct post on Facebook last night stating that he's only going to be $100?

 

$140 is a more reasonable price point, but ok.

 

It's very possible they low balled it.

 

I wasn't getting this since I have XTB's reissue preordered, but since I also preordered their hoist, I figured I'll get this instead of Aegis since I don't want to have the same mold, or to be accurate, the same transformation process.

 

As if I didn't have enough on pre-order already.
Hell, I've not long placed the Aegis re-release on pre-order  

 

Hmmm, XTB announces a re-release, FT shows 'updated' promo renders of yet more vaporware. It's the circle of life...

 

pointed that out earlier looks really bad from this angle... if it rains outrider is going to become a mobile water trough  

 

it's obvious ft were already working on this and they didn't do this on the last release of xtb's when they released the cartoon deco of aegis .... it could be that xtb pulled the re-release out the bag because they knew ft where going to show their redesign