The boat sank...

 

Got one for $290 this morning from heattoys.com! I had lost all hope of getting this too.

 

Damn. Glad I didn't take that bet. I'd be looking at a fedora full of gravy tonight.

 

Probably more like they got this guy to unload it, he has bad luck with getting locomotives off of boats:

 

The misaligned back of the train must be due to the knee ratchets

 

Got mine yesterday. I'll be honest, for what I paid and all the problems I had to look out for, I massively underwhelmed. Hopefully he'll grow on me in the coming days and he is the best looking option out there but a stack of cash looks a lot better than Thomas right now.

 

So I transformed him, but I wonder: how can this guy possibly roll with that purple shell sticking out?

Did I do something wrong?



Man I'm going nuts as well with the train mode. All the reviewers say you have to accordeon the legs all the way out, but then the front piece is way too far away.

I really like this bot, but I hate his legs. It's really poorly done and way too tight. Does anyone have any tips?

 

Watch Paik’s videos? Should give you what you need.

 

I will try his vids then.

Edit: I think I got him. Thanks @f0cus. Wonder why all those other reviewers went past the sliding mechanism in his legs. Or maybe I just missed it haha.

He looks amazing!

 

Gotta love that on point train mode. In fact, every mode just screams his cartoon self. Love it.

 

It sure does. Even a bit more mature and better than the cartoon, but never different. If you get what I mean.

 

"Thaaat's it, easy. Nice and easy .... to me ... to you ... to ............. shit."

 

Yes, him at his mature movie pinnacle I feel, but not so far removed from earlier appearances.

Astrotrain, as you prob. already know, was one of those S2 bots whose look/proportions were occasionally quite inconsistent. I.E: the colouration here, where they give him a grey helm for some reason. Half the time it's grey, the other half it's purple.  








Ditto with his wings. That said, I'm glad FT went with the S2 coloration of grey with purple trim for their take rather than the movie one in reverse:





More than any other Decepticon, he really is one grey/purple shifting motherf*cker.  

 

Is there a good summary somewhere of the QC issues & "fixes" for this guy?

I want to be ready to do any necessary fixes when mine arrives, but it's hard to find the right info buried in a 300+ page thread! If someone knows of a good link, video, or page number in this thread that summarizes the info I should know, let me know.

 

when its shuttle mode there's a little tab on the double hinge you want to angle the fron so it goes in first then push it down

 

You are missing a little silver piece.
It was there on your shuttle pic but not the train.

 

I woke up this morning and the pre-order was back open for Thomas at BBTS! Then I noticed the price jumped from $209 to $299. That is very disappointing. I know the price is still much better than what TF Source was trying to gouge for late comers and better than the $450 on e-Bay, but the frustration folks are having with knees and other issues makes me feel that there shouldn't be a huge premium added to this 1st run right now. I think I've scoured most sources and there isn't anything close to the original $219 MSRP out there anymore.

I hit F5 to make sure there wasn't some kind of glitch and the one BBTS pre-order was still active. Everything was still there, but my heart was sinking at the price increase. Clicked F5 once more and the pre-order had been scooped up. Just couldn't pull the trigger fast enough when hit with an unexpected increase of nearly 50%. This seemed to be my last chance at a reasonable price gone.

I'm about ready to give up on this guy for now. When I started out this collection I thought $100 for a single figure was a huge premium. Now I seem to be willing to go $150 on a premium single bot without cold sweats. $179 BBTS pre-order for Omega Supreme was even okay since he's the size of a combiner. Is this figure on my shelf really worth $300? I started this collecting for fun, not as an investment.

Wait 2 years and see if FT does a second, improved run? I unexpectedly managed to snag FT-10 Phoenix this way a couple weeks ago, but he's a much bigger bot at only $259.

 

Scene start

Manufacturer: Seems people don't like it if we sell our product for "X" price... We'll just have to release a limited stock then.
Market: Limited stock of Manufacturer product, so we'll have to sell it for "Y" price...
Product sells out.

Buyer: I hope Manufacturer releases more of the product, I'll buy it for "X" now.
Manufacturer: Well, they want more. Okay, we can release our product.

End scene.

LOL. I hope this is not the new norm in marketing. LOL

 

How to get people to pay Takara's prices for FT's product.

Maketoys should make a comeback to the MP game. Truthfully I enjoy MT's products more than FT's. The fandom loves diecast too much.