ROTF Soundwave takes the cake for me as the most underrated SS Deluxe in my opinion. People always seem to only bring up his off-screen robot mode and never the satellite mode that actually was in the film. What if I judged Shockwave only by his tank mode? Wouldn’t that be unfair? Well, that’s how I feel about Soundwave’s being judged so far.

I’m not saying the robot mode ain’t bad. But seeing as it wasn’t in the film, there’s no way to “measure” how accurate he actually is. SS was created with a goal to be as accurate as possible on a modest mainline budget, not to have the most playability. So while he isn’t the most playable guy, you gotta give credit where’s due to the accuracy Hasbro tried to replicate with him. Albeit, for his satellite mode only.

IMO the satellite mode looks okay, a whole lot simpler than the original Deluxe but not necessarily worse because of how different both of them are. In my SS Deluxe ranking he’d be on par with Stinger or Crowbar. He doesn’t deserve to be grouped with “Crankcase”, helicopter Dropkick, or car Shatter. No way.

 

Little hot take a personal biased (Soundwave might be my favorite transformer. What a surprise). I think this figure is the best mold of the new wave of deluxes. I think transforming him back and forth is super fun and addicting. I have Cliffjumper and Topspin and I like them but not as much as I like this new Soundwave. I didn’t really like the previous Studio Series Soundwave mainly because of the face and I disliked the transformation a lot.


Oh I finished him and he looks a lot better paint wise now. I mixed elements from the original toy and how the painted prototype looked back in February.

 

Finally got my OS ironhide. No comparison to the fiddly mess that the official was. The shoulders are really shitty, they aren’t floppy, but the front of the truck being the shoulders with the weird spindly little arms... I’m getting a 4 tier glass shelf for my movie stuff and a detolf for everything else on Thursday. I’ll fiddle with the shoulders again when I put it back on the shelf.

Not pictured are my 07 deceptions. I have an OS 07 megs on the way and then I will be 100% done with movie 1 bad guys. Hopefully my ratchet preorder drops in mid October to give me a break after Tigatron.

 

"I live to serve you, Lord Megatron!"
"Where is the CUBE?!"

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After being blown up, Blitzwing is back with a vengeance! ...and Hulk Hands.

 

Can this be done with CW/POTP hands?

 

It absolutely can! His wrists are connected with 5mm ports so anything with a 5mm peg can go in there.

 

Optimus: Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.

Also Optimus: You work for me otherwise I'll kill you.

  

I need to look into getting this Grimlock

 

I see what you're saying now. I agree for sure.

Wait did they win by that large of a percentage or is that the percentage of the overall vote they won with?

I think it's more like judging Shockwave for his robot mode alone, since that was the one that was in the film. And going by that measure, he is a complete success, so not the best comparison. SW's satellite mode was the only one shown in the film, so that is the mode they should have tried the hardest to replicate, and it seems they kind of failed at that, so having a decent robot mode is a plus but not what people will mainly be judging him on.

Keep in mind I'm still excited for this figure and I think I'll have fun with it, but I feel the disappointment many people have been feeling seems justified. But if everyone is wrong and this is a super fun and cool figure then I will be very happy!

Haha I know right? Optimus was a little...traumatized at that point I guess...

There there big guy, I was only kidding about the "or die" part. I just know that you need a little push sometimes to achieve your full potential!

 

It's a gorgeous piece, and I believe the best representation of Grimlock.

How's transformation? Complex?

 

This guy is everything I wanted SS Grimlock to be.

 

If you don't mind me asking, why don't you enjoy the SS line?

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that opinion.

 

Haven’t transformed mine yet, probably not for several days as I love the dino mode so much, but going by the videos online I’ve seen it’s not difficult at all. Only complex part is the mace, since the head of the mace is formed by detaching a chunk of the dino back (does that count as partsforming?) and flipping a bunch of panels around.

 

"Hide Sam!"



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Great work on those two! How'd you do the flames on Optimus?

 

That’s the percentage that they won with.
(Overload and Scavenger example)