Mr. "Do you think you can HIDE!?" for today.

 

"I am a warrior."

 

Constructicon Cavalcade

Day 6: Scavenger

 

So lately I have sold… ALOTTTT, been considering quiting all together but I think this is just gonna be a extension of my long break, mainly Bc I am tired of buying figures for crazy prices sometimes and ones I buy that end up getting a better iteration down the line

was gonna sell him and his mates but now I think I’m gonna stop here, only have 2 titans now and have dwindled down to 3 shelves

 

Today's favourite is also my newest...Kingdom Tracks





Stunticon Hunters...



"I'm just looking for my brother."
"I don't care!"

 

Maximize! Roaaarrgghh!

 

In a weird way Rodimus was kind of 'my' Prime. I knew him before he was a Prime, saw him triumph over Galvatron and Unicron, watched him struggle with the mantle of leadership and make lousy choices (Wanted: Galvatron. Dead or Alive). Optimus was infallible and, like an arsehole in a job interview ("I think my biggest weakness is my work ethic, oh and I'm a perfectionist"), all his supposed flaws were really incredible strengths. I love Optimus, but I relate to Rodimus.

And he looked great. Optimus dressed like your dad but Rodimus dressed like Marty McFly. the cover to TF:UK #113 is one of the greatest, and it wouldn't have worked if Rodimus didn't have such an impressive design. Those colours man!

So it's a bit of a pity the toy is such a dog. Of course I was so into the character that I'd tell myself the toy was cool. I didn't own it, but my friend did. He lived in the next town over so I only ever got to have a go on ol' Rodimus on the odd occasion. I think somehow that made it easier to build the toy up into something it wasn't.

In many ways the robot mode is bloody basic that it'd be easy to believe it was some kind of knock off Transformer toy, rather than the real deal. Even the Battlechargers and Jumpstarters feel more substantial and involved. And the facesculpt makes him look like Jimmy Page c.1983. Once seen it cannot be unseen.

The vehicle mode is a bit better, but only when you combine the two parts together. Compare this to Optimus, who works well in both modes as a combined unit or independant parts. The vehicle mode is rightly derided as a 'space winnebago', but I must admit that I actually kind of like it. It's dumb and goofy as fuck, but I'd still drive one if it was real. If I could drive.

So, I admit I had serious reservations about Rodimus. From the early days on Seige I’ve been expecting a new take on Rodimus to drop. What I didn’t expect that it’d be the Commander class offering for the year. Like, what’s so bad about Leader class all of a sudden? And don’t say ‘they’re all Voyagers’. That’s not helpful, even if it is true.

So look, I’m totally ok with these ‘shorter’ Leader class figures. Most of them have been excellent, and far better than they would have been if they’d been produced at the Voyager price point. But £80 for a ‘tall’ Voyager?

I told myself I didn’t need a pre and post matrix Hot Rod in my collection and that this wasn’t going to provide bang for buck. I was resoloute, even as the first pictures dropped and he looked magnificent. But £80? For a big old trailer I’d never use? Come on, man.

So of course I bought it. I held out until literally a couple of weeks before he was released before putting my pre-order in. I can’t quite remember what made me flip, but I flipped. and now the only question is do I regret it.

Yes/no? He’s fantastic. He’s on a totally different level to whoever his next nearest peer is. From the smallest of details, like that very precise tone of orange on his thighs and the two different tones of red on his head and crotch, to the big things, like the care and attention in giving him an alt mode that works well apart from the trailer, he’s triumph. He’s way more like a kind of Masterpiece than your typical CHUG fare. Someone put a lot of time and thought into this toy.

It’s definitely the bot mode where, for me at least, all the joy lives. He’s genuinely stunningly handsome and poseable. Within minutes of getting him out of the box I had him in the light box, exploring all the different things I could with him and just admiring his sheer radiance.

The headsculpt is stunning. Hand on heart, I would not have gone for the bags-under-the-eyes look, but they’ve pulled it off so well, and it actually does the job of imbuing him with more character. I looked at that face and suddenly my head filled up with stories of a weary leader, forever having to the right thing no matter the cost to himself. That’s a hell of a trick to pull off.

His proportions are as a good as the best of the WfC offerings, but then I take that as a given at this price point, and I’ve talked about how good the paint job is (but it is worth noting that of all the amazing photos I’ve seen of Rodimus none have captured how good this paint job is), but his articulation is the third part of that holy trinity that really sells this figure.

And I think the best complement I can give it is that the articulation is…inviting. I find myself contantly wanting to give a dozen micro tweaks in any pose, not because I’m searching for some sort of perfection that I need to constantly need to adjust for, but rather because you just see lots of extra fun options; a twist of the wrist and a tilt of the fingers here, a shift of the thigh and ankles here. It’s not perfect. I found the shoulders, while very wel engineered, had some clearance issues, but I didn’t lose any crucial poses due to that.

The transformation is maybe just a little bit too fiddley for my tastes, veering just a little too close to MP ‘it won’t work unless that’s 0.5mm thataway’ terriotry. It’s admirable, as there’s clearly been a lot of thought put into how to make this work well without compromising either vehicle or bot mode, but sometimes you just want something to tab in nice and smoothly first time round. Your mileage may vary.

So, I love the fact they’ve given Rodimus an alt mode that works seperately for his trailer that’s distinct from Hot Rod’s car mode. I mean, obviously it’s Hot Rod’s alt mode just beefed up in the same was as Rodimus’s bot mode is just Hot Rod’s beefed up. But it’s the way it’s beefed up that makes it. All the proportions have changed and we’re left with something that actually does feel like….a winebago tractor cab? I need to give this another think through.

Perhaps a little ironically, where the alt mode falls down is when you combine it with the trailer. I love the ambitons for this, but for me the execution is a bit iffy. It’s cool. I love that they committed competely, but the end result looks wrong. It’s too long, and the ‘car’ sticks out too far. Maybe these seem like trivial complaints when we’re getting something as neat as this, but you. £80? I took a look at this and the old MP Rodimus and was struck by how well they’d got the campervan on that evrsion. It’s all about the width. Madame.

The battle platform has always been a hard sell for me. I don’t remember getting much play value from it in the ’80’s and I’m not getting much now either. Now, I can’t hate it (and maybe that’s the key point about this whole Rodimus project; I can’t hate the bits I don’t love), but I look at this big chunk of well designed, well thought through chunk of plastic that I didn’t want but I had to pay extra for. Of course it’s neat that the cannon is now seperate and beautifully articulated (the handles are seriousl extra). And woo! blast effects galore and and a sword I never wanted from a comic I’d be happy if it didn’t exist. This how they justify the price for the best possible Rodimus and I have to make my peace with that.

There’s no point comparing this to the PotP version. That was a lovely, fun, charming toy. This is the definitive take on the character. And, like much of those other near perfect takes on G1 characters we’ve had in WfC, one is left asking the question ‘do I ever need them to take another go at this one’. I can’t ever see myself wanting a Shockwave, or a Grapple, or a Rodimus that’s even more accurate. The downside to that is that I, and anyone else in the same boat as me, is going to have make thier peace without whatever flaws exist in these figures. And as awesome as he is, Rodimus does have enough flaws and question marks to make me wonder if I will just sell him on.

But I’ll just take a few more photos first. And then maybe a few more after that. And then…

 

Screecher today

 

The introduction of purple to the Nemesis color scheme via Nemesis Primal is good and welcome, but it does retroactively make G2 Ramjet a Nemesis guy, I don't make the rules.



Arise, today's favorite... Nemesis Jet

 

Today

 

Siege Soundblaster

 

More red ones today.

 

A pair of Primes...

 

Rex Fingertite today.

 

Jazzy.

 

Interesting figure... too bad that ape mode lacks paint and details as it's hard to see the face and such. Looking at the upper arms, sucks that they do the same for his thighs.

But what I'll always consider "funny" is the "technical data" and the numbers given that have never made any sort of sense.

"Fireblast" (I gather firepower) for example, at 10 would be the same as who? Omega Supreme? Megatron? I really wish they'd at least try to do some sort of scale that would work so to compare every character properly.

But anyways.. what does the surfboard do? it appears to be able to transform.

 

It's feels like quite a while since your last review so I'm delighted to see you do a review of my favourite Autobot. I always preferred Rodimus to Optimus.

I saw Rodimus Prime for the first time in Smyths yesterday but I can't justify the €100+ price tag. It's not that I can't afford it, I just can't justify the price on a single figure especially since his fellow Commander Sky Lynx recently dropped considerably in price lately but that took 8 or 9 months.

That said, I'm dying to pick up the figure. One think I like about the trailer is it can accommodate a deluxe vehicle when the cannon is removed, something the original toy couldn't. Mind you, the G1 figure had a solid little truck mode.

A lot of people bemoan POTP Rodimus but he gave us something I waited 3 decades for, a Rodimus Prime that scaled with G1 Galvatron which is why I'll be keeping him whenever I pull the trigger on the Kingdom figure.

Anyway, I digress. Today's favourites are updates of three of my favourite Autobots...

 

Constructicon Cavalcade

Finale: Devastator

 

So yeah, Inferno! Got him on sale a while back. The figure does what it sets out to do and it's got a very easy transformation and tons of little accessories to sort of bring it all together.