A belated happy birthday to @Ottertron and @Maz, hope you had the best of days despite the circumstances!

On the opposite end of the spectrum, my condolences to @MyTea Boc and @Lothar Hex. Losing a loved one is never easy, be they human or canine.

 

You're a Yumnut!

Is it weird that the highlight of my day has been driving up and down the motorway to get bloods taken at the hospital... 'You can go out and see the world if you get stabbed with a needle...' Still I think the car needed the exercise.

 

Yeah, I totally caved snagged 2 of the wee buggers, the GFL03 (the KO Diaclone moon buggy/bike/wheeled kit thing) with might come in handy for...something? Plus the SAT-09 ("Special Forces" Black recolour of the DA28 transforming Mech Suit) because, well...

Have you seen how totally AIRWOLF the wee, MASK-ish, gerwalkable bugger looks?

If only they'd done a deep blue version of it or the DA27 I could've paired with Max as a Heavy Support Drone!

 

Really, I was in a super positive mindset as I opened the book, ready to jump in a new world as Rubble does and see where that takes me. Problem is, it kinda take me nowhere ?
I'll say that it's not bad, as in stupid writing or pseudo artifices to make up for plot, no it's not that at all, in that regard it was way more satisfying than others TF comics I've read before.
Not even the slow pace is a problem by itself, but reaaaaally sure you can do that all the while injecting actual events in the pages ? That's my issue. The narrative is badly arrange.
I can feel everything the author wants to say but never, ever, I felt the excitement to find the voin, or to know what Meg is really up to etc... Things like Froid (he's here, great !) and Cyclonus got me intrigued at the start but that defuses really quicly because there's not much for me to keep this interest up. Dialogues are interchangeable, as are the characters in some regards, and that would be fine for a while but after 12 issues this is kind of problematic. 12 issues.
Even the references to the past of Cybertron or the universe at large didn't excite me after a while because for that to happen I need to feel for the present. There's already a lot of lore but I kinda don't care about who is Termagax or what Pyra Magna did because the consequences of all those things don't moist me up for now.
Issue 12 was way more satisfying, I suspect it's Pitre-Durocher art ? That helped. But not only that but it's a stand alone, allowing focus, which in turn allows the lore to be more intriguing.
I was focus on what was going on (not the 13th times Orion says "Hey Meg, please be nice." with Meg being "I am nice, it's you who aren't." "What ? But I'm the nicest !" "Yeah maybe so but that's not nice enough, I want freedom !" "You are free." "Not enough ! I demand haircut ! I demand Tesla to re-open !" "You don't have hairs." "Ah, see ! And you said you're nice !")
(seriously, I'm still unsure of why Megatron isn't happy here ? Apart being a total dick I mean). Aaaaanyway, so yeah Issue 12, i'm focus on the present, so easily the lore got echo for me. Road Rage and Nautica talking abot others races or why it's better to talk to Novastarr over Hound etc... There it's interesting.
So I'll be there for what follows. I'm not in a despertate need of knowing what will happen (at all), but let's see. Not a stupid comic, not a good one neither, but things I'm curious about and well, funny to see all of those (characters yet to be really defined) in toys mode.


Quake tho'

 

Long man the trip last!

Thanks guys.

Ahhh. Fair enough. You are right though. Best we can hope for isn't it, having the people we care about with us at the end!

Oooh purty.

 

IDW 2.0 is really showing as a novelist's first foray into comics, there's obviously a lot of thought gone into this take on Cybertronian society, with some intriguing ideas and a rich history but could more things actually happen each issue, please? A very 90s comics decompression vibe.
I think Ruckley's missing a good Barber-like Editor to get him punching up the pace a bit. Yes, stories need space to breath but a 22-page comic needs a certain rhythm and tightness in plotting IMHO.

Innit though? Also fond of the design of this lad, like a steriod-jacked up Black Hole droid with his peeking out a dustbin lid head.

In his case though I'd like some colour other than basic black, and besides the desert & woodland decos of the other KO options.

 

@Convoy,
Good call on that Gobot line, I came very close to getting Leader-1 at one point but other stuff took priority. Not sure what it's present status is.

@Insurgent,
So there's a possibility then? I'll keep an eye out during my sorties in the 3rd party thread.

@Napalm,
Great Turtle pic. The 1990 movie was the first ever bootleg VHS I got as a youngster and I have good memories of the arcade game as well as the NES and SNES games. Never actually owned a figure of any kind though, which is potentially bad news for the future  

@MyTea Boc,
There's been so many stories of people not getting that chance and it's horrible from both perspectives. I've often been at odds with my parents during this situation but if the worst happened I'd still want to say goodbye and make sure they knew that I cared. And my niece being only a few miles away but not able to travel is "so near and yet so far" but staying safe has to take priority.

Your little one sounds like she's developing some handy skills, I can't do stealth so I'll get the ferrets to do my stealing, Rebecca's great at it as she's lightning quick and doesn't make a sound, Oreo's a bit too noisy with his sniffing and assortment of cute chuntering noises.

One possible drawback is that they're somewhat random in what they steal in the house so would require training for more specific items  

Thanks for the recommendations, the modular nature of Ironworks is definitely intresting and being compatible with Legends helps as I could have him lifting Rattrap with the crane hook or something  

I think the F-15 mode for Starscream looks fantastic but I'm probably staying Iron Factory only for Seekers....the key word there being "probably"  

 

Over here* its been up and down. We had one of the first cases outside of China, near the end of January, and the government here responded aggressively, contact tracing, quarantines, limiting people coming in. And it seemed to have worked. By the end of March we have only a couple of hundred cases and about 3 deaths..... Then the virus hit Europe, and all the people who had run there to escape it came back to Asia. Then it got into the dormatories for cheap labour workers, mostly people from other parts of the world like Bangladesh where the workers are paid almost nothing and housed about 12 to a room. Right now, we are at about 24,000 cases (in a very small country) and up to 20 deaths, which is incredibly low considering. We are on 'circuit breaker' here - started as 'stay in and only go out to exercise and slowly got more restrictive. But, the numbers are down and the current lockdown is due to end on 1st June. We are starting to ease up the restrictions.

I also have a set of the Tamashii Nations Stage Act 4 stands and they work quite well. I found that some of the older figures are too heavy for the stands - Classics Drift is dense! - but modern Deluxes should be fine with these.

 

Pics of this thing is requested once it's up and running. I love seeing Lego cities. When I went to legoland (denmark and windsor) when I was little, the city and scenes they had were among my highlights.

What about Omega? Paint that green middle bit yellow and have him as a repair drone for when the rocket is in deep space and Omega can't transform easily. He can live in the command module compartment (if it's big enough?) when hes not in service. Also keeps continuity of the Autobots using these little drones whereas the cons just don't bother servicing their titans during operations.


Decided to touch up the paint on my ER Optimus's face today. Accidentally made him a pirate. Que frantic scraping of the wet paint off his eye with the edge of the tweezers. Managed to salvage it though one eye does have a bit of a silver sheen to it now. It should be a fine job, but as we all agreed a while back, a customiser always tries to perfect their own work that they would happily accept from Hasbro. Eyes aren't metallic so may try to repaint the eyes with blue.

Woke up at 6:30 today. It's being a long day. Feeling confused about everything. Cie la vie.

 

The Cliff by Brendan Mitchell, on Flickr

"War, it's fantastic"

I'm having the same quandary over whether to plonk an Autobot badge on his chest that others have had but am leaning towards doing so as it feels a bit empty.

Got a shipping e-mail from Comics & Cocktails for the Vintage Collection Cara Dune I ordered a few days ago so that'll be my first 3.75" Star Wars figure in just over a decade with Mando to follow once the 2nd run ships in a couple of months.

I'm planning to keep them MOC and put them at the back of the Detolf shelf where I'll be putting the Figuarts Beskar Mando and The Child and eventually IG-11 as well should they ever get round to doing a pre-order.

Black Series Child will be a Marvel Legends accessory  

 

Only recently grokked that the Brian Ruckley I know from his natural history / zoology podcast, The Wild Episode (a calming experience; he has a voice like a Womble with University tenure) is the same Brian Ruckley as the lead TF writer!

 

Thanks, that's a neat idea, as Omega too is a big lad but to me he's a base rather than a cityformer. Despite there now not being much in it I think of him as a Guardian, a size class down from the massive metropolitan Titans. I think these guys (postal gods willing), or at least one of 'em might end up booting the rather more civilian/submersible DA-08 from Max's forearm as the newer model of Medevac Drone compared to DODG-R's more blocky "older model". The sort of field camo deco is a main part of their appeal for me.

 

Seconded!

I really wanna build a lego city. I just got all my old lego down from the attic (thanks for nothing @Siege Fan ) and am going through it. Its mainly vehicles, but Robin hood's hideout is there in pieces. Does anyone know where to get instructions from for old kits? can they be found online?

Also, I googled lego trains, but it's a bit confusing. Are there different types (gauges or whatever?) and is there a recommended one? Even better, is there a KO one? I have an old motor from the 90's but I'm guessing it'll be tricky to get the right pieced to train it up.

Also who was it building that pirate ship a couple of weeks ago? how is that going?

 

Whilst not a big collector of Lego ( too many other collections on the go ) I love seeing folk's pics and watch a lot of YouTube videos from Lego conventions as it's always fun seeing the insanely big SW vehicles and some of the dioramas.

I saw an amazing Indiana Jones scene with Indy being chased by the boulder that had a mechanism that returned the boulder to the starting point so it was on a loop. There was also a mechanism to move Indy out of the boulder's path just before it hit, so clever!

If I had space and cash to do a city the theme would be "Attack Of The Giant Ferrets"  

 

Both great summaries. I think this series will be a great foundation for future stories and spin offs (the Galaxies issues have been pretty good so far). There's clearly been a lot of thought gone into the lore, but Ruckley doesn't seem to focus on any one thing/character long enough for it all to sink in, so it just feels like we're continually scratching the surface.

 

Definitely. They've shown off a tri-plane Starscream that is a build a figure with their other releases, but there's only two guys out at the moment, so a few spots open. And since tankguy that they did already was in the same place as the spitfire guy in the movie, it would be daft not to do him.

 

@MyTea Boc my sympathies

 

Thanks v much Bert it was indeed yesterday.

 

Will do!

Ha! And go on to Lego's site, get the model number of the current train and parts and then YouTube it (Jangbricks on there might be handy).

 

And because I was really happy to see her in the comic, this one again.