You would be the first person to receive a part. Hasbro's policy is not to give out replacement parts.

 

I experienced similar issues on my copy. I think it worked well on the prototype since it may have used unpainted resin.

I’m okay with the blade facing sideways as I can just have it facing forward by swiveling the sword in Star Saber’s hands while also utilizing the horizontal wrist hinges. So glad it can be held securely unlike the long sword handle for the MP version.

 

They sent out replacement parts for other Haslabs, including Unicron. Brian Kilby from Radio Free Cybertron only just received his Unicron replacement parts, so it can take a while.

 

That is new and actually good news. I remember early on that Hasbro wasn't giving out Unicron parts to people here who contacted them.

 

There is a disconnect between what Pulse says Hasbro will do and what Hasbro will actually do. Pulse phone support assured me that I would get a replacement box and replacements for the poor paint aps. Consumer Care won't say that at all, and in fact only uses vague non committing language. A supervisor is reviewing and will address my concerns. It sounds like I'm not the only one to recieve a copy with sloppy paint aps. Both Star Sabre and Victory Leo have paint where it's not supposed to be. My box was mangled by FedEx.

I'm not being picky. I have bought Transformers for over 20 years, and this is the worst paint I have seen then use. It's thick to the point that the detail on the greebling is lost. That aside, I have blue paint smeared on the white part of one leg, and gold overspray on Victory Leo. This is the opposite of what one would expect from a Haslab. Diaclones are also made in China and have absolutely stellar paint aps. We are getting the short end of the stick.

 

TF figures shifted to Vietnam. There's been a noticeable degradation in paint apps after Prime Wars Trilogy.

 

Does Star Saber have ankle tilt? Looking at the bottom of the feet, there seems to be an ankle tilt, but I can't get it to budge.

 

Yeah, but it’s limited.

 

I had mine displayed that way too overnight. I was thinking the same thing, as long as its attached to the crotch piece it won't go anywhere, but ya, it does just seem very wobbly than I think it should.

 

Waist swivel on my Saber seemed stuck but I was able to free it by twisting with a bit more force when the ab crunch was enabled.

I did notice a faint stress mark starting on the hilt if I insert the blade perpendicular to it. There’s a lot of tension there likely due to the silver paint and very tight clearance. I can see how it may have been designed to insert that way, but this may have worked better on the unpainted prototype.

 

As someone who had stands on a lot of different larger figures, I can say that the wobble is pretty common. Even though it looks like something worrying, you're going to have to literally throw it to unseat the figure.

In Star Saber's case, you have a hard point on the figure to mount it as well as a solid slot-in construction on the base. The wobbling just comes from the material and thinness of the strut.

The biggest worry I have is the transparent nature of the base. If this material gets too brittle, you may see it break in the future.

 

Fingers crossed it holds up to being displayed on the stand. I have only ever had one transformer to break while on display. The right hip on my mp01 Optimus Prime broke while standing on its own two feet, after about 7 years on display.

 

Im really happy with the set qc aside. But i do feel Victory Leo is the weaker one. I dont even mind the size. But the proportions are a bit.. lacking? The legs look weird short the lower legs are compared to the thighs and the arms are a bit scrawny. Robot head is a bit too big (cos of lion mode?) But lion head looks kinda dull compared to the g1 toy or the anime. Overall still glad i backed this set. Very fun to transform back and forth and givs me a taste what a modern non collector focused Brave combiner would feel like.

 

The two foil stickers are a joke, right? I tried to apply them, but they look like crap so I ripped them off. Lol

 

Toyhax will eventually make labels.

 

Someone on Cybertron.ca received an entire New Victory Leo figure (minus the big cannon) because one of the shoulder cannons was missing a part.

 

I'm hoping whatever Toyhax put out that it's not gonna be an expensive and OTT set, I'd be interested in a few stickers to bring out some details, and would be interested in decent foil stickers for the gold on the chest incase mine fade or get scratched up in time (lucked out with pretty decent gold foil on SS and VL) but if its gonna be an over £30 set that takes too many artistic liberties I will probably pass.

Some of their sets recently have too much going on and cost a lot considering I'm only interested in less than half the included stickers usually.

 

I found a quick and easy way to connect the V-Lock Rifle to the center of Victory Saber's jet mode, so that it is more cartoon accurate.

 

So the shield doesn't actually connect to anything, right? It just floats? (Not that the shield was ever part of the set prior to the Haslab figure.)

It's a neat hack either way, and I like it.

It's funny. I'd never gotten around to watching Victory, so I decided to start just to see how Star Saber was depicted. One of the things you very quickly notice is that they keep playing clips of the hilt of the Saber Sword going into a compartment on the back and drawing the blade. That's ... obviously not the case here. You had 1 job, etc ... though to be fair, that's kind of physically impossible with the Haslab design; I think even the MP could only fit the smaller blade for Saber (based on vids I've seen).

Also, Star Saber walks around without a helmet a lot, outside of battle. That's ... not a good look on this guy.

To be clear: neither of these things are actually complaints. It's more like insight into what the priorities were with the design. In the case of the head, you're asking for something physically impossible outside of a cartoon (having Saber's head physically blow up in size to fit the Star Saber body.) But all of that, plus the V-Lock cannon being offset by default on the V-Star tell you that cartoon accuracy was a secondary priority.

This is unfortunately correct, and for the dumbest possible reason.

So, if your intention is to chrome any part on a figure that's going to be covered by the transformation, your first priority should be to make sure that nothing actually touches the chrome, right? Unfortunately, if you feel around the chest cavity on Star Saber/V-Star, you'll notice a bunch of extra molded ridges in the back.

Do they functionally do anything? No! They're just there for aesthetics, I guess ... and to gradually scratch off the chrome whenever you insert or remove Saber in jet mode.

This kind of makes me think the original intention wasn't to chrome anything, because if it was, this is such an obvious mistake that it's worth shaming people over.

There's honestly no good way to get Saber in there without physical contact either, due to the way the connectors work. The least bad way is to hold down the red release button on the back, carefully insert the red latch dead center into the notch on the legs, then push up into the jet. Even then, it's 50/50 whether you'll get it in there straight.

This weirdness seems to be par for the course with this figure. As other people have said, it's a mainline-quality figure with a Titan price tag. The fit and finish simply aren't there for what they're asking, and they likely won't be for Deathsaurus or any other future Haslab project. None of this should be a surprise if you've been paying any attention to what's happened to mainline and MP since the 3rd movie.

Is it a bad figure? No, it's just solidly mediocre. The ratchets are fine, but the friction joints are all over the map -- the lion legs on Victory Leo are ridiculously loose. People talk about the ridiculous mold lines on Victory Leo's cannons, and I feel like that and the chrome scratching on Saber are lodestones for the quality of the entire figure. He works, he looks semi-decent, and if you expect anything more you're going to be disappointed.

 

I managed to put a nick in SS's gold chest deco, and tried covering it with a gold ink pen, but when I next put him in Victory Saber jet mode, that fix came right off. If I could find some reflective gold sticker material I'd try to make my own, instead of hoping Toyhax makes stickers that cover the gold deco.