I finally completed this set yesterday and am really happy with it. I'm all in for the G2 version, as that slowly dribbles out over the next few years. My only two complaints are that the sword is tiny in combined mode, and that the guns of the limb bots don't really do anything. There's enough 5mm ports to plug them all in, but I guess I was expecting some kind of combined mega-gun or something. I enjoy looking back on the last few years of combiners and seeing HasTak slowly iterating their designs. To be fair, it's not the fairest comparison as CW and POTP stuff didn't have the benefit of the extra mass from Motormaster's trailer, and needed the limbs to do more than plug on. A big part of why I like this set is that in combined mode it feels very solid, but then that is in part down to every single one of the combined mode joints being set up specifically for that mode. A lot of why I didn't like the CW combiners that much was because a lot of the engineering that had to pull double duty (limb robot mode waists having to be combiner mode elbows, and the actual combiner port joints needed to be shoulders and knees) was a mess. Those factors aside, this is massively helped by a few things from a design perspective. 1. Big, broad feet with solid ankle tilts. Compared to the first wave of Combiner Wars stuff (tiny feet with no tilts) and the later POTP stuff (still tiny, some ankle tilt), its night and day. 2. The chest and shoulders are set up to stop the arms from bowing inward at the shoulder. 3. I think the idea of having dedicated roles and engineering for each limb helps. I got absolutely fucking nothing out of CW and POTP's "everyone can be either a leg or arm" play pattern, and the hand/foot/guns actively made me like the figures less. The parts having to pull triple duty made them worse. You get a tiny foot the size of a hand that has gun barrels for toes, you get a hand that has gun barrels hanging off the front that can't actually extend fingers, or you get a gun with a thumb. This set benefits from each figure having a set role.
Same. Then the first time I put breakdown in I could not get him back out. I pushed a popsicle stick into the crevice next to each hole to get it out one side at a time. Worked surprisingly well with the leg panels swinging open and nothing getting stressed or chipped. Side note, anyone thinking of touching up the menasor legs with some color for a bit of toy accuracy?
Difficulty getting Breakdown off Menasor's leg? The culprit is all the paint inside the holes. I used a needle file (pic 1) and just a few minutes of scraping to get most of it off. Doesn't have to be 100% clean and at that point you might be taking off too much plastic and making the connection loose. Just get the majority of it out like I've done. A less destructive to the plastic method would be Q-tips and rubbing alcohol (90% or 99%), though that might take you awhile depending on how thick Hasbro layered it on.
Instead of filing down the paint in the holes, file down the pegs themselves. End result looks a lot cleaner since you aren't scraping paint off, not to mention way easier to do.
You can see my post in the Breakdown thread, but I ended up having to resort to acetone to get the paint off. After about an hour struggling with 99% alcohol, I wasn’t really getting out anywhere, despite stripping off a ton of paint. The acetone is what made the difference. But you have to be incredibly careful, since that stuff strips paint on contact.
Acetone?! Goddamn. I applaud your determination but I'm glad I just went straight for needle file lol.
If I have issues when I receive mine I'm just going to drill out the holes like I did with my earthrise grapple. If you do it with just slight adjustments it works great.
I had them in Menasor mode for a few weeks. I was thinking in putting them back into the Stunticons but now I’m weary of prying wild rider and break down off the legs. Hopefully it’s not too hard where I need grease or anything
Shouldn't have any problems with Wildrider. The peg issue with Breakdown is literally because the peg holes have paint on the insides. If you get rid of that paint you'll have no issues.
Man reading up on this thread, such drastic and over dramatic replies and techiques. lol Got mine over the weekend. First thing I did before anything. Took an Exacto knife, put the tip into the hole until it wouldn't fit anymore and just spun the knife 360 degrees a few times with barely any pressure. Took it out. Breakdown goes on and off with zero effort; identical to Wildrider.
I had to pry breakdown off with some considerable force. I’m going to use the knife method, I don’t have an exacto knife but ima get one before I combine them again. Wild rider came off pretty easy…
Hardly dramatic. The culprit is clearly the paint inside the peg holes. Remove it and you're fine. Needle file is safe and easy and a minute or two with each hole.
thought about that, but I'll take the nail polish remover (acetone) approach. I'd rather not wreck my figure in any way. I've done your method before and it does mess up the peg holes not to mention shred the plastic around them. I always try and take the most gentle approach just in case we got no choice but to sell it down the road. It's all good though, we can all do whatever we want. Nobody's way is wrong so long as it fixes the issue, right?
Scraping off paint is fine if you want the figure to look like shit. Why is no one just filing the pegs? They don't do anything other than hold the figure on to menasor, so it's not like you are risking the fitting of anything else.
Can't speak for anyone else, but given the option, I always opt for removing paint over altering plastic. Filing is permanent, whereas paint I can always potentially reapply (with effort, of course). Additionally, in this case, the paint is inside of a peg hole, so removing it doesn't alter the look of the figure in any appreciable way, whereas filing Motormaster's pegs do. Well, I suppose it DOES alter the look, in that he now has some white visible inside those pegs, but it doesn't alter the overall aesthetic in a way that feels out of place or draws the eye. Filing pegs potentially does, unless one has an incredibly even hand and can make it not look like it's been filed.
The gray plastic pegs don't show any marking at all from being filed on mine. It's gray unpainted plastic, marks are practically invisible. We're talking about a fraction of a 1/10th of a mm of material being filed off, not hacking them to bits. Unless you use a chainsaw you aren't going to notice it - not to mention you don't even SEE the pegs in combined mode, or any mode for that matter. What IS noticeable is the roughly filed out white holes on a part that is supposed to be blue. It would make me cringe if I had to look at that on my figure, but people gonna do what people gonna do to their own stuff.
So, rather than acetone or a file, the set actually comes with the perfect tool to re-gauge Breakdown's 5mm ports: Motormaster's turret. The individual gun handles are all too short to do the job and butt against the adjacent tabs, but the main turret handles are long enough to be inserted and spun around. You can pop them in, spin the gun around a little bit, and it'll quickly wear down all the thick spots on the paint that make Breakdown's ports extra tight. Took me about fifteen seconds, and he's already much easier to pop on-and-off Menasor's leg.
Yooo thank you. This just saved me a headache of trying to figure out how to shave down the plastic without ruining the toy. Works perfect now.
