Override got that drip

 

Junkion, Here We Come!

 

1) Gift from a friend, so no matter what I'm gonna like it.
2) It's good! Glad the MPG line isn't readily available in Ireland, since it's otherwise the kind of gift that would have put me hundreds of euros in the hole as I fiddled with it and went, "ah shit guess I gotta buy the rest of these assholes."
3) Good robot mode, but the alt mode is the main event. One of the better alt modes that's trying to look like a real thing I've seen in a while. That's a cool friggin train, boys. (Not done justice by the photo)

 

Nemi Prime today.

 

Bring on deathsaurus

 

It's an epic today.

At last! The rightful victor of the Power of the Primes fan vote!

Ok, let’s not go there. This ramble is going to go on long enough without needless digressions. Well, actually let’s go there for a little.

How dumb was that Power of the Primes fan vote? When your senior design manager looks awkwardly surprised when someone other than Star Saber wins the vote, you know you’re watching some form of car crash. As everyone and their Cadbury’s parrot has noted, the whole PotP ‘evolution’ gimmick was almost certainly conceived the Star Saber in mind, and they should have just avoided the vote, made the figure they thought they were going to, and stopped tickling our trouts.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. And ranting. Let’s go back some.

It’s 1989. I’m getting psyched for the Batman film, lapping up Slaine: The Horned God, Zenith Phase III. Chopper: Song of the Surfer, and some classic Judge Dredd in 2000ad, and reading Time Wars in the TF:UK comics before dramatically losing interest in the entire franchise. Over in Japan, the franchise was getting reinvented (for what, the 3rd time?) with ‘Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers: Victory’ (I think ‘Victory’ will suffice from here on out), and Star Saber was the star of that there show.

I first chanced upon Victory in a rather muddled way. My ex-girlfriend bought me DVD of Japanese TF cartoons, featuring Star Saber on the cover. How exciting. Can’t wait to find out what this is all about. I put it on, watch the zany intro featuring Star Saber, and the other Brainmasters, think to myself about how far removed from what I knew, then watch the abysmal but hilarious dubs of the first few episodes of Headmasters.

Years later when I finally watched the real thing, I found it impentrable. Apart from the weird body horror of Ginrai getting killed and getting remade as Victory Leo, there was little about it I remembered well. Tothe potential chagrin of many, my abiding memories of Star Saber in fiction were of the religious zealot in James Robert’s More Than Meets the Eye. Hardly the most essential character in my TF pantheon.

And yet there was something really compelling about the guy.It’s probably the utterly amazing design. When I get out the G1 figure it just gets so much of the brief just right.

The red, white and blue (I can’t type that without hearing ‘when Captain America throws his mighty shield’ go through my head) colour scheme gives him the spot on and instantly felt ‘heroic Autobot’ presence. We have this fantastic headsculpt which evokes Optimus with it’s faceplate and wise Autobot blue eyes, but goes off to other places with it’s distinctive helmet. Just check those ears out. We’re talking Kelley Jones Batman length ears. And the dimensions of the helmet, which has a very long profile, aren’t something I’ve seen on many TF’s.

With the rear end of the ‘Saber’ space jet forming his breast plate he’s got a fabulously striking torso. I even love his ‘flared cuffs’ on his arms (which are a little short, and that may be my only real criticism of the ‘bot mode). He’s even got the de-riguer big boots that lend the biggest, toughest bots thier heft. Articulation is limited to his shoulders and elbows but it’s G1. As for his accesories, the Saber Blade is pretty neat and utterly goofy, and the Saber Cannon (seriously? Saber Cannon?) is kind of undistinguished.

And of course, because things can only escalate, it’s not enough for Starsaber to just be a cool big ‘bot. He has to follow the tradition of Fortress Maximus and Super Ginrai, and have part of himself turn into a smaller robot (which in turn will have some sort of smaller robot/person). ‘Saber’ is where things get a little lame for me. We have a ‘bot who looks so bland I’d almost expect him to be a background character. Everything that dinstinguishes him are the things that suck, from the utterly generic headsculpt, to the bizare proptions, with his gangly legs and stubby arms.

And I forgive this when I transform him into the aforementioned spacejet. It’s fucking gorgeous! I actually think it must be one of the most successful post-Diaclone G1 jets. not least as it doesn’t suffer from ‘brick with tiny wings’ syndrome. All red with a few white highlights and a translucent blue cockpit window, and a beautifully contoured cockpit at that.

And inside the cockpit lives THE BRAIN OF COURAGE, which is just a little guy like a Headmaster of Powermaster, but when you push his legs a face pops out of his torso. Christ. For a tubby little fellow, THE BRAIN OF COURAGE doesn’t look half bad, and they’ve got some admirable detail on his face.

The rest of Star Saber’s body turn into the V-Star, which is a not particularly convincing independant flying thing which only really makes any sense when you attach the Saber to it. It’s play pattern gold, of course. Now we’ve got a souped up super jet. But it’s interesting to see how bigger isn’t always better as we’re suddenly back in ‘brick with tiny wings’ territory. It’s kind of cool in a crazy spaceship soirt of way, it might have been better if they just skipped the little blue wings altogether. And because too much is never enough you can also turn the V-Star into the ‘Fire Base’, which is even worse than the Powermaster Optimus base mode.

Christ, I’m exhausted. Thank fuck there’s no more to write up on the G1 toy before I get to this Haslab thing.

Oh god. Victory Leo…

Back in those sweet, innocent, pre-Haslab days I didn’t think I’d need Victory Leo. I was here for Star Saber and didn’t need the extra power up armour bot. But then, back in August 2021 when I was still wearing a mask on public transport, they announce that we’re not just getting Star Saber but we’re getting Victory Leo too. So I figure I might as well complete the set.

I’m genuinely happy I did complete the set, because Victory Leo is a lot of fun. Daft fun, admittedly, but undeniable fun. On first glance, Victory Leo cuts a peculiar figure. Unlike Star Saber’s eye catching elegance, Victory Leo seems a lot busier, even messier. The black and yellow deco would work so much better if there wasn’t the dashes of white (and his big red toes), and if they’d cut back on a little detail – like the hip guns – or integrated the leg kibble a bit better he’d be a little more sympathetic to the eye.

But the detail is a lot of fun, especially on the ‘bot mode headsculpt, which has a touch of blank faced innocence to it. It freaks me out too, as I’m suddenly thinking of them cutting up a dying Ginrai to make him. Yow! but with the big horned sabre tooth tiger (what do you mean it’s meant to be a lion?)helmet looking so good I can forgive him giving me the body horror heebie jeebies.

Those big guns he comes with also walk the fun/going overboard line. The two ‘V-Lock’ rifles are kinda neat, if a little long, but the ‘V-Lock’ cannon is fucking ridiculous. It’s frigging huge! Unreasonably so. In an utterly unwieldy way. The very idea that I’m meant to hang this thing that’s bigger than the ‘bot of his hip is ludicrous. Good thing it’s so fantastic looking.

The ‘winged lion’ mode looks a lot better without all these V-Lock things. Once again I kind of lose the feel of the actual thing underneath all these honking great guns. Sometimes you really just want the volume turned down a little. It’s an incredibly goofy looking beast mode, but actually works well. It’s one of the those rare late G1 robo-beast modes that looks good straight on and in profile. I definitely think a third colour on the face could have worked well, if only to provide some releif for all that yellow but the lovely articulated lower jaw soon makes me forget about that.

I love the combined vehicle mode, but I’m not convinced that it actually works. It hangs together in a nice solid way where you can feel conmfident picking it up and flying it around in hand, but once again there’s just so much cobbled together that i’m not sure what I’m looking at. Sure, it’s a fun incoherent mess, but if you get past the ‘and…and…and…’ wow factor of it, then it really is just an incoherent mess.

And that just leaves us with the final form; Victory Saber! When I first got Victory Leo and combined them I thought this thing just looked a bit dopey. The old Transformer wearing platform shoes problem. But it has undeniable presence. I mean, it’s got almost no play value. You can barely even move the arm to point the ‘V-Lock’ cannon forward. I suppose when you’re that tall you only need to point at the ground, right? It’s more over the top cocaine madness, and feels so far away from even what we were getting in ’86, but it looks cool in a wonderfully mad way, and it feels very special. And maybe that’s plenty!

So, our second Haslab Transformers release is, as you’re most likely well aware, is Victory Saber. At a far more accessible price than Unicron, I found myself with less reason to say no. Plus it was Star Saber. I felt that if we were getting him as a Haslab project then the prospects of getting a mainline release were zero. FOMO had me in a choke hold. And man, did I resent it. I found myself really wishing hard that he’d won the PotP vote.

Then the more and more I saw of the renders and prototype, the more I unclenched. He looked fantastic. More than fantastic, he looked exactly like he should do. And looking exactly like he should do did not look possible on a Leader class budget. Commander class? Maybe, though I think I’ll be able to answer that question better once the leaked upcoming Armada Optimus is revealed. Even then, I’d think we’d be looking at ‘just’ Star Saber, with no Victory Leo and thus no Victory Saber. While I’d have been ok with that, it’s safe to say many others would be seriously fucked off.

And in the bitter winter of 2022, people started getting their copies in hand. Misassembled copies. Copies with feet that didn’t work. Copies missing a blade or, even worse, the Brainmaster. Copies with damage to the paintwork. It was woeful that such a high ticket, exclusive item had such poor quality control. The early indications are that Hasbro Pulse are being responsive and assuring people that they’ll get replacement parts, but I’m not sure what that means when we’re talking about getting Victory Leo with two left hips.

After a fraught couple of days, where Yodel had emailed me to say that mine was delivered, but it wasn’t, but it was a few days later, I got my hands on the guy. And as I opened up the box, opened up the other box, and then slid off the slip case (which un-tabs to show off some quite fancy box art on both sides), I saw the empty gap where the blade should be. Shithammer! The QC bullet gets me in the goolies! Missing blade aside, I seemed to come out with only a few minor issues, namely a floppy antennae and some blemish on Victory Leo’s chromed chest. I’d count my blessings, but blessings shouldn’t come into it at this sort of £$£$£$£.

So, even though the great swordsman is missing his sword, and he’s got a floppy ear, what’s he like?

So, starting with Star Saber himself, he’s an impressive and imposing looking ‘bot. He stands about half a head taller than yer Prime Wars Leader (I had Dai Atlas to hand), but with the chunky profile of your WfC Leader (I had Ultra Magnus). The paint work is vividly gorgeous (on mine, at least), and while it feels like a problem in waiting, I do like the chrome on the chest. The detail is spot on. Not as blandly simple as SS:86 has tended to be, or overly greebled like as the Siege stuff (they really ironed this out by the time they got to Kingdom figures, like Galvatron). And the headsculpt is, I think, perfect. The articulation is great, and all nice and ratchety, but he’s really suffering for a lack of outward shoulder tilt. I’m also not a fan of the (hopefully) unintended side effect of revealing the top of Saber’s noggin when you tilt Star Saber’s head to look up. I feel like I’ve slit his throat and revealed an act of cannibalism.

With the minimum of fuss, Saber pops out of the torso, unfolds in a neat and tidy fashion and stands more or less head to head with Kingdom Warpath. He’s a dinky little guy, but in a quite appealing way. I’d seen the size comparison shots of him with Hound, so I knew what to expect, but was still surprised when I actually had him in hand. But boy, he don’t suffer for it. All the detail is there, with a particularly striking clear blue visor (turns out his entire face is clear plastic, and it’s just metallic paint below the eyes) and the articulation quite striking. I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but he’s actually got a ball jointed wrist. He’s got the shoulder tilt that his big version lacks (much easier with arms this size; I can’t see a ball joint handling the weight of the big lad’s arms), and even has a little ab crunch, even though it seems to be more of a byproduct of transformation than anything else. My absolute favourite bit of articulation is his neck swivel. At first I didn’t think he had one, as I thought that’d surely knacker the Brainmaster, but lo and behold…it swivels! I popped his chest open to take a look and see how it worked and was delighted to see the entire cavity where the BM sits turns.

And man, that there BRAIN OF COURAGE is incredibly tiny. He comes up to a Titan Master’s hip. And even them he has finely detailed moulding, metallic paint, and shoulder articulation. He’s brilliant! The only downside is looking at him has made me feel it’s more and more unlikely we’re getting the Brainmaster cars. Or at least unlikely that we’re getting them based on this BM design. To keep in scale with this, we’d wind up with some very small Deluxes that I feel would struggle to justify the price point. But hey, maybe they’ll come with combiner engineering and kibble and we’ll finally get Big Motorvator (or we riot!).

The Saber Jet is one of the tidiest looking Transformers jets I’ve seen in some time. The arms maybe stick out a little too far from the sides, but I wasn’t expecting perfection. It’s even got a fairly clean undercarriage, with the robot kibble being fairly discrete. As is often the case with modern updates, the lovely curve of the original canopy is a little squared off, but that feel like a trivial complaint when the whole thing is so…tasteful. I was particularly taken by the fact that the piece where the BM sits in bot mode also has the engineering for the sword handle to attach to. How elegant! And once again, we get no shortage of detail, with nicely done vents and well sculpted rear thrusters. Of all the comparable attendants, like Full-Tilt, Cerebros, and Zarek, I think Saber might be the king.

So, I remain not much of a fan of the ‘V-Star’. I know some people would hate it, but I almost wish they’d taken some more creative license and made the wings a bit more substantial. Fidelity to an awkward source is always a funny thing, though I’ll grudgingly admit that the awkwardness is subjective. One thing I will say for it, is that having a shield that can tab onto the back does help make the whole thing seem more substantial, though it does make the jet section look particularly tiny. I was also pleasantly surprised by how solid the whole thing feels when it’s all put together, which I think seems remarkable considering how many component parts are tabbed together. Nice engineering, son!

Despite having some serious QAnon shamen vibes, yer Haslab Victory Leo is a very pretty boy. Even as I looked round for that blade, my eye was being drawn to this figure. Somehow they’ve managed to cut down on the business that hindered the original and make the striking bits that much more striking, mainly – I think – by tightening up on those white areas. They’re still there, but they don’t….get in the way of that black and yellow colour scheme . While we’re spoilt for striking yellow Transformers, I don’t have that many who feature this yellow on black style, and I really like it.

Deco aside, Victory Leo boasts a very handsome and sombre headsculpt, fantastic detail (I’m a sucker for the little red belt by his hip guns), and great proportions. But his articulation is…unusual. There’s something that feels a bit weird about his elbows. At first I thought he had some sort of CW Constructicon thing, but his elbow joints are visually superior to, for instance, Kingdom Cyclonus. There’s just something weirdly weak feeling about them. And rather than an ankle tilt he has…toe tilt. I get how that’s a necessary compromise considering the design and function of his lower legs, but one can’t help but notice how odd it is. He also lacks any sort of waist articulation, though again putting this in would hinder his compatibility with Star Saber.



I’m less enamoured with the lion mode. The head feels so hunched that I wondered if I’d forgot to extend his neck or something. And even then, the head feel utterly obscured by all those guns. As a lion it doesn’t feel very convincing, particularly in profile where the division between upper and lower body almost makes it seem insect like. The lion head seems to lack some character too. It’s another area where I wish they’d taken some more artistic license, if only to make the eyes bigger. And I think the way the sides of the head fan out to imitate mane is…very weak.

Unsurprisingly, I’m not a fan of the combined vehicle mode. It’s just as ungainly and incoherent as the original. There’s not one angle I think it looks good from. It tabs together very securely, so it is actually very woosh-able, but that’s pretty much the only positive I have to say about it.

And then Star Saber makes his mate disassemble and wear him as a pair of platform slipper and a snazzy backpack. Lovely stuff! I honestly feel that the Victory Saber modes looks like Ripley when she’s in the loader in Aliens. Except far less cool. I don’t get the sense that this is a robot wearing power-up armour. I just think it looks like a guy teetering around in platforms. With the platforms feet being such solid and simple parts, any sort articulation beyond the arms becomes very limited (though I was glad the waist was still free to rotate fairly easily), and thus pose-ability suffers. I’m almost back looking at a G1 brick in the pose department. All he really has going for him in this mode is the WOW factor, and if you don’t buy into that WOW then there’s not much to cling onto here.

Despite the wide variety of grumbles in the above, I do think this guy is value for money. We get two very good, but not flawless, bots who look very extra. While it’s not for me, the play patterns have had real thought and consideration put into them, and those folk who truly love everything I consider goofball about JG1 are bound to be utterly delighted by Victory Saber. For me, I get a truly fantastic version of Star Saber, who will stand proud amidst my Lost Light shelf, waiting for Tyrest. I do think the QC issues are utterly unforgiveable and it’s definitely put me off backing another Haslab project (I’d already backed out of Deathsaurus before I’d got Star Saber, but mainly due to him just being too big for the shelf I’d want him on). While I’m sure I’m in some sort of minority, I truly wish we’d have just got Star Saber, on his own, at Commander price point, but that’s me.

Ok, so now I’ll just sit and wait for that fucking blade to show up.

 

Counterpoint: it was extremely funny.

 

The two are, of course, not mutually exclusive.

 

Missing pieces, some parts broken, but just picked him up for cheap so here’s todays transformer of the day while I wait for Xmas to open the haslab! Battle up!

 

Dinobots today.



Galvatron isn't having it. Deceptions get today or they fight.



The Dinobots choose to fight!

 

Today

 

Battle Core Optimus is such an impressively bad but fun mold

 

That alt mode is sweet.

 

It's the repaint (slight remold) of Motormaster, which I was myself impressed with it (MM) when I got it a little while back. Even the transformation is more involved than I expected.

The biggest annoyance with it is the combined mode (which I know that you don't care for anyways) as I just don't get why it, like so many others, didn't get a very simple locking mechanism to hold some of the parts properly together which would improve it so much.

 

Man, if that isn't the embodiment of TF collecting, I don't know what is

 

Megatron today.

 

G2 Dreadwing

 

Haslabs Star Saber and Victory Leo