Bit belatedly, but I'm glad to hear all the above. @Insurgent hope the next steps go smoothly!

To be fair, so do I. So I shouldn't judge.

Recently we watched 'Anaconda' and 'Midnight Cowboy' not quite back to back, but within a few enough number of days to really make me sit back and wonder...what the fuck happened to Jon Voight.

Happy birthday, man. Treat yourself. You really fucking deserve it!



Look, I'm going to be straight with you here. The only reason I ever got the Micromaster Stations was because I had incredibly fond memories of the Micromachine Travel City playlets. Those things were the shit, man! You could connect those bad boys up and make yourself a little city for your Micromachines to tootle around in. Who wouldn't love that?

So, it's no surprise that Hasbro decided to steal not only the 'micro' concept but the best play pattern too. And get this. The fucking things transformed. I know. I'm as shocked as you are.

Of course, Ironworks and Greasepit weren't the name of the stations. Rather these were the wee Micromasters that came with the base. Ironworks was a repaint of Powertrain and Greasepit a repaint of Mudslinger. And the stations took the flashy titles of 'Construction Station' and 'Gas Station'. Who says all the good names have been taken.

I was really, really checked out on the franchise by the time Micromaster's came around. A friend had Skystalker but I don't remember paying it much attention. So, like much of my G1, I didn't actually get to check these guys out until I was an adult.

Full disclosure; I was ready to pass these guys by. They never appeared in the comics, they weren't toys I had in my childhood or had pined for back then. Zero significance means no purchase. Usually. But then I saw a picture of them all connected up in glorious city mode and I had to get them. So thanks to whichever enabler took those photos.

Individually none of these bases are any great shakes. They're chunky, single colour, blocks of plastic with stickers attached to try and bring them some life. Sure, they're cute. But they're all so basic that it's kind of hard to believe they've got any relationship to the complex detailed toys of 1984.

But then you connect them up and they all come alive. Suddenly they're an environment. I believe the toy people use the term 'ecosystem' these days. You can just connect the four bases together, or you go all in and get Countdown, Skystalker, Groundshaker, or Skyhopper's bases and make yourself a l'il city! There's something utterly delightful about getting your Micromaster patrols and setting them up to move round the city. Stories just happen. It's the definition of play value.

And that's the reason I tend not to transform them into their 'battle' modes. They're charming enough, but the stand-alone nature of them doesn't excite me as much. Now, if they'd kept the connectivity in these modes as well, I'd be ALL over them. If I could connect up Airwave's Rocket launching station with Greasepit's armed comms station I'd be having a party.

After seeing Ironworks released in a 10-pack Target exclusive, along with a bunch of other non-Patrol Micromasters, I was rather surprised to see leaked listings for the first of Earthrise Deluxes and see Ironworks name there. Were we going to get Weaponizers that turned into Micromaster bases in WfC:II, I wondered.

Turns out I was actually right for once. Well, ok...they were called 'Modulators', but same deal. It was a lot of fun to see they'd created a new robot mode for the 'construction station' and given it the name of the wee guy that used to man the crane, or whatever he did.

Somewhat inevitably, we only got two 'true' Modulators (come on, Fasttrack is Weaponiser in all but name), with two repaints released via Selects. And Ironworks and Airwave (I almost typed Hairweave. I blame @Bob Schoonover ) got the honour of getting the mainline release.

Ironworks makes for a satisfyingly chunky little generi-bot. There's something about him that just screams 'drone', and I love it. He's surprisingly well done, with buckets of articulation and engineering solid enough to help him pull off a host of poses.

Where he loses points, kind of ironically, is in the modes that the original 'construction station' had. I have to squint at both modes to see something that resembles the original modes. In fact I have to squint at both modes to see than as anything other than a bunch of bits stuck together. AND you have to steal Grapple's claw to make the 'radar station'. Much like the original, the saving grace is the connectivity. As a stand-alone unit, Ironworks makes for a lame base, but connected between Omega Supreme and Sky Lynx's base modes he becomes essential.

Weirdly, his redo as Greasepit works a lot better for me. I know, when it comes to redo's, it's rare that someone is developed 'first'; everything is co-synchronous these days, but it's hard to shake this feeling that Greasepit is actually the primary. Both base modes resonate a lot better, with the petrol station achieving verisimilitude through an advertising sign and some gas pumps, and the colours just make the robot mode pop so much more.

Hairwe...AIRWAVE is the real star of this whole Modulator thing. He's just such a lot of fun. His 'bot mode is absolutely full of bonkers character, from his little but large chest, his nigh ecstatic colour scheme, to his brilliantly weird headsculpt. He's got a lot of the same energy as last years Brunt, with whom he happens to share some hips. To be honest, his whole waist and thighs section looks like an adaption of Brunt's. I believe we're calling this a 'partial' these days, though I still prefer the suggestion of one @Bob Schoonover for 're-cad' (two shout outs in one post? This is bad nepotism , Starscream).

Ironworks lent himself well to fan modding base modes, but Airwave took it to new levels. So much so that Hasbro themselves couldn't resist advertising a third mode for him. Yes, as well as the 'airport' and the 'rocket launch station', we have an official aircraft carrier mode. And all of them work pretty well. Certainly much more so than Ironworks.

And finally, we get Hot House from Airwave. Unlike Greasepit we don't get any new parts, but he makes some sort of sense of Airwave's most incongruous feature; why does an airport have tracks? Suddenly the 'aircraft carrier' mode feels more like a pre-fit for a more Hot House-y alt mode. Maybe they shouldn't have bothered, because even my best effort to make something along the lines of the of the 'battle tank' looks a little absurd. Sure, you can make a tank barrel, and you've got your tank tracks, but it feels like there's too much mass in the middle of this mode. Oh well, at least his deco looks suitably mad in 'bot mode. I'm sure I saw this the last time I took mushrooms.

They're a funny sort of dead end, these Modulators. I could have imagined them developing the idea in all sorts of exciting ways, but instead we're getting a couple of them before moving hastily on to Kingdom's Fossilizers. For those of us that love building up their TF cities, it's kind of a pity. But I'll make the most of what I have. Here's to you, you bunch of freaks.

 

@barry, Oh, Mister B, what did ma bois ever do to you?  

Speaking of Hothouse and MOAR GEEWUN, sure, there's overhang at the back and a rather immobile bit of artillery but it's there!


Or as Shaun Ryder would say, "Dere!"

 

Is that multiple hot houses for the parts or just one?

 

Happy birthday dude! Enjoy your mooching!

Yaar-harr. Good a reason as any to have jolly rodger flag in the garden.

 

I've only got one Hothouse, the kinked front & thigh treads pegged into the fistless arm sort of 'stilt' the midsection, creating a hollow section between the treads and the lower leg section that makes it look like there's more of him.

 

It’s just one, I can do the same with my Airwave too.

had another fiddle with the Duocons, absolutely love them. Battletrap may be my favourite pair of CHUG figures ever. Wish the add on pack for him was still available somewhere.

 

Anyone selling these three legends scale munchkins? or any of them?

 

You might want to wait and see what the Kingdom ss looks like first.

 

are there gonna be Kingdom core seekers?

 

Happy Birthday @Insurgent enjoy as much as you can.

 

Hi again all.

Selling the following, with a couple of additions. All complete with instructions and accessories (Exhaust has box)

Siege Red Alert £14 posted
ER Wheeljack £15 posted
ER Hoist £15 posted
Gen Selects Exhaust £18 posted
Netflix Mirage £18 posted

 

I think with videogames and movies part of it is the media becoming more widely/easily produced. Optical discs of various stripes became very widespread and probably cheaper to make as they don't have all the moving parts a VHS tape does but with much greater capacity, meanwhile because optical discs are/were so widely used it became less of a hassle to mass produce them, even if proprietary disc formats, than cartridges which of course had unique setups to each console and was only used for that console so probably cost more to make. Meanwhile current game formats are either digital - no physical production required, DVD, Blu-ray, whatever the heck X-Box uses, and a glorified SD card for the Switch which we did see a bit of a cartridge like bump early on but I think Switch game prices have settled down to similar to other consoles now? I'll admit I've not studied them  

As for the figures, I can totally see it. I looked them up and they just look so... plain, and they don't even transform. I feel like you're paying a big nostalgia tax for them along with the license fee? I think it's easier to justify paying more for a transforming Transformer than a comparable action figure because by their nature they are far more complex figures as as well as hopefully good figure articulation they have all the engineering to facilitate the transformation itself.
My Mum had a similar mentality with LEGO compared to other toys when I was growing up, because both I and my brother could and did get a lot of play value out of it beyond just building it out of the box. And probably all the building and stuff is good for growing brains or some such  

I think that mentality has stuck with me as I'm not keen on spending a lot of money on like a collectible statue that can't actually DO anything other than stand their and look nice. Not to say I don't have a few but like I wouldn't drop a large chunk of change on it but might drop the same amount of money on a Transformer of a similar size or a highly posable figure with multiple optional extras and the like as it's something I can DO stuff with.

So when will you be able to do this?

Grumble?  

Reading this whole chain was hilarious and my friend I shared it with also found it hilarious  

Thanks, I saw that this morning and was quick to put in an order. Between this and a kind fellow UK Threadizen I'll soon have a trio of Air Vehicons  

This thread is love indeed <3

 

 

So says the prophet @Apollux

 

hopefully there are some reveals! I'd be pretty interested to see if they jacked some 3p engineering.

I'm always wary of collecting legends size seekers though. Cos its 3 or nothing and all too often Screamer gets a solo release, then fingers crossed for the rest. Unlike Voyager sized seekers, which is just a way of printing money

@Insurgent Happy birthday good man. I hope you and Mrs Insurgent have a lovely day.

 

Happy Birthday @Insurgent! I hope you have a great day, you sure do deserve it!
 

 

Thanks for the birthday wishes. Wanted to pick up the mcu phase 3 part 2 bixset to finish my mcu films. They had all the other ones but not that one. Hahaha. Oh well. Guess I'll grab it off amazon at some point. Was nice to get out of the house and just have a mooch, even if it was raining all the time. And was chatting with my wife most of it who seems in better spirits. Gonna take her food tonight. Little victories. This afternoon will be a mix of ducktales and tf animated. Started them both so can alternate and make sure i don't get tired of marathoning one.

I loved micro machines. Never saw the micro masters when i was younger or would have loved them to bits. Certainly would have been adding them to the micro machine cities. Those g1 bases look like they'd be a ton of fun with a few of them together.

 

Does anyone know a good way to clear blocked nozzles on paint spray cans? Or preventing them from getting blocks

 

Best I can think of is rubbing Tamiya glue (or a similar solvent) on the nozzle, in my experience it liquifies the paint a bit and you rub it off with your finger/tissue. Or, use a pen/hobby knife to scratch it off if the paint is dried.

DM’ed you about Red Albert!

 

Not sure about declogging but when I finish spraying a short spray upside down clears the nozzle so it doesn’t block

 

Happy birthday @Insurgent - hope things are going a bit more your way now.

Rotorstorm is back up on Kapow if anyone needs one.

Surprised at just how quickly Hot Rod and a couple of the others have gone out of stock on the usual Sites. So much for there being plenty of stock, unlikely to sell out and having time to think about a purchase if even the mainline stuff is going to be gone in three days. Ah well I do at least get mine in in time.

@Large - good luck with that plan Mon Ami - your brain probably won't thank you