Looking at my shelves I just want to thank ALL of these 3P companies out there doing what they do. Thing don't always work out perfect, but I see these companies doing great things and improving as well. This thread is asking you which toy would you nominate as being the best piece of work for each 3P company, the pinnacle of their work. Try just one for each company and maybe even only 1 part of a combiner team if possible? Use whatever criteria you think is important to decide and let us know why did you choose one over another? *** Like someone mentioned below add pictures. *** Here is a list of the companies I thought of with multiple releases for your convenience. If there is another company you'd like to mention go ahead. BC DX9 FP FT GC GP GT IF IG KFC MI MT MMC PE PX SXS TW TFC UT XT WB I'll give it a try in another post.
BC - Sunsurge AKA Sunstreaker - This guy has grown on me since I got him in hand and the omni bot crashed and burned. I can go either way on the chest, but this dude does a great imitation of the toon model and is solid with great paint and chrome. DX9 - Rock Solid Carry AKA Rodimus Prime - I gave hime the Mp's rifle and target master and he looks damn near perfect in my eyes. So what if he is missing the spoiler in Winnebago mode. I'm not worried about it, that's for sure. FP - Smart Robin AKA Brainstorm - One of my favorite characters with an awesome Jizai design and transformation, great color, quality, what more could you want? I would probably give this award to his whole line of work if I could. I think its the only thing I am still buying from FP. FT - Stomp AKA Sludge - I wish every purchase felt like this one. GC - I think their Swoop might be the best as an individual bot. Though it threw me off he would be so large compared to Slag and Snarl. As a stand alone bot he might be the best. GP - WOW Snarl - I am glad I went in on this guy, chrome of course. I love the FT bots, but I eagerly anticipate others in this set. What can I say, I love solid bots. I also appreciate nods to the g1 toon design, so I guess this guy was right up my alley. IG - I would like to thank iGear for making the Coneheads when they did. They actually started me on my way to an MP scale focused collection. Got a great deal from iGear as well with a free Golden Bee I flipped when I bought the set. (Honorable mention Sunstorm - I am glad someone made him in the color deco I was looking for. HasTak Blew it there for me.) KFC - Transistor AKA Blaster - Sometimes I forget this guy is not an official MP. I have the shiny version and he is pretty blingtastic. MT - Tough call. So many awesome bots here... Their Hound, though a little large, really knocked the design out of the park in my book. Just the toy/toon combo look I love. I have the toy and toon colors. I Couldn't decide which to get. I think the toy colors are wining at the moment as my favorite. I am a sucker for chrome. MMC - Sphinx AKA Mirage. This dude looks bloody brilliant. PE - Scouting Force AKA Reflector - I love both toy and toon deco. They really did a great job making these guys accurate and fun in such a tiny scale. The weapons are unique and awesome too. TW - Hook? Scrapper? Which of these beautiful Constructions will I choose. Scavenger is also very nice. Possibly the best. I do wish his scoop arm could turn around. I need to fiddle around with them all some more to decide but it could be any one of these three. TFC - Hellbat - TFC is knocking these guys out of the park. Hellbat is a great design, so is Leozack. Can't go wrong with either one here. UT - I think Troll AKA Blot is my favorite of the Abominus set. I was a little disappointed with the others when they came out. They are a simple set, I think Troll pulls that off best. Hun-Grrr had to many design problems with all the scary bulging screws I had to cut down so he doesn't get it. XT - Andras - Kinda hard to believe XT made this thing. Solid and awesome. WB - For this one I'm going to give it to the Computron set over the Bruticus set. The bots are rock solid and I love the attention to G1 detail. *** I reserve the right to change my mind based on your arguments that follow. *** *** I haven't taken pictures in a long time so I am missing most of the new stuff. ***
I can only comment on figures I currently own, so not everyone will agree… for example, I gather that DX9’s Carry is pretty well thought of, but as I have no interest in the character or figure, my choice will have to go to Chigurh, who although is a really good figure, I’m sure will be eclipsed by Gewalt once I get him. BC - Wardog DX9 – Chigurh FP - Assaulter FT - Grenadier KFC - Transistor MT – Gun Dog MMC - Sphinx XT - Apollyon GC – Don’t own any IF – Don’t own any IG – Don’t own any PE – Don’t own any TW – Don’t own any (yet) TFC – Don’t own any UT – Don’t own any WB – Don’t own any And how about some of the other companies you missed? Generation Toy – Scraper Mech Ideas – Apex/Geminus SXS – Overclocking
I have a strong preference for G1 MP, and emphasis on aesthetics, not so much against hard/annoying transformations. My choices for BEST: BadCube - Sunsurge/Sunstreaker. Not as complex as Wardog, accurate car windows for car mode, and toon accurate chest windows for botmode thanks to the faux chest. Looks great with MP carbots. DX9 - Gewalt/Blitzwing (only based on looks, I've experienced none of their work firsthand) FansProject - Assaulter/Broadside if I had to choose. Nothing definitive jumps out to me. FansToys - Stomp/Sludge for obvious reasons. IGear - Delicate Warrior/Arcee. I don't care much about their other figures. KFC - Reflectrons (based on looks and reviews) MakeToys - Cupola/Chromedome or Ironwill/Hardhead. Based on looks and reviews. The best MT figure I own is BattleTanker Upgrade. MMC - Sphinx/Mirage. Both modes are superb. Great attention to detail. FeralRex is more awesome, if you count that as a singular piece. PerfectEffect - Aranea/Black Arachnia. I just love the bike mode, the fan-modes, and the creative spin on taking a BW character and making it g1 Generations-like. ToyWorld - Constructor/Devastator is just badass. TFC - Hercules/Devastator. Having the treads as the forearms, I love it. (Hades seems cool though) UniqueToys - Maniaking/Galvatron (although Pandinus/Scorponok looks mighty impressive) X-Transbots - Apollyon. Build quality is below average, but he makes up for it in looks, and well... being Megatron (I really like the upcoming Eligos/Cyclonus' design)
BC: i don't care what they say about fans toys. The insect icons they put out are a great deal and absolutely amazing engineering. Some of the best transformations I've ever experienced. DX9: Chigurh is astounding. Best triple changer MP we've gotten? Octane is pretty impressive but Chigurh has an easy transformation done without having to, as Vangelus put it, go from one section to another and back again with lots of fiddliness, instead you work on one 'chunk' and move on. It's brilliant engineering, super clean bot mode and great use of parts forming. FP: i love their headmasters. Great paint, detailing and just really creative designs aesthetically. Simple but involved transformations. These will never be confused with 'toys'. They look the part of top quality collectibles. FT: Their insect icons are good but quake wave started the 3p masterpiece craze if you ask me. That's in the hall of fame for sure. The insect icons are a bit dull if you ask me. Maybe their dinobots are better but I don't have any of em. GT: People love their TW, I've got all 6 of theirs, but GT made a superior product in terms of sheer quality. Few to no QC issues, dead on paint where it is, super solid transformations and figures. TW designs with GT quality would have made something to behold but you're stuck making a tough choice here with the TW bots. IF: Evil Lord is good but Blitzwing is just an awesome figure. Quality 3p legend scale. Shows that with love an attention, something that small can trump deluxe, leader, voyager figures from hastak. KFC: every negative thing I've read about them makes me want to never purchase a thing from them and I won't. I know people are happy with them sometimes but I just refuse to bend over for these guys. MT: Their foray into 3p masterpiece set a new standard. Good stuff, but I don't think anything too outstanding recently. Not for my tastes, but still one of the best companies. MMC: So solid it hurts. They're the best out there if you ask me. They care about their product. Before hitting the market at a savvy time economically, they'd rather delay, delay, delay to make sure their figure is top quality. QC is off the charts good. Tolerances always feel great. Amazing paint where it is. Just great, great, great. Something about this company man, I trust every release to be good on some level. Which 3p cares most about its own product and vision? These guys. TW: I'm all in on their devy but I don't like them as a company. Their qc issues are starting to remind me of KFC/XTB. There's not a lot of misses but their misses are just really off base problems that shouldn't have existed in the first place. Like straight up "how did they miss this" stuff. Having completed their set, I'm very pleased with what I got for the most part but extremely wary going forward. TFC: Great solid bots? Questionable transformations? A bit iffy on their aesthetic. XT: Same as KFC. I don't care how good apollyon looks, he's in my closet collecting dust. WB: Wow! Set a new standard for chugsterpiece combiners. Kind of boring but solid transformations. Great G1ish aesthetic with updated aspects. Had growing pains but I expect nothing but great stuff moving forward whether as GT or TFM or whatever. A good set of people working behind the scenes that cares about their product. There were a lot of WTF things with TW's devy that I don't expect from these guys and their combiners in the future.
Right on.... it's a tough call for me because most of those companies i own zero of their product. And TBH, I'm not a stickler like most. For example, Spinout, I absolutely love that guy.
I can't really comment on most of this because I only own one or two releases from each company. I'm very selective about what I buy, and my budget and space is also limited. I own Badcube's Evil Bug Corps. and they're my favourite of their releases so far. I like the clean bot modes and the cartoon look. Also really like the energon cubes. Stomp is FT's best offering so far. Fun transformation and excellent QC. I hope this is a sign of even better things to come.
I'd like to give a special thanks to Fansproject for continuing to do things their own way and for enlisting Jizai's beautiful design work on their F(x) line. Even though most of my favorite toys aren't made by Fansproject, I have massive respect for their artistic integrity. Who else would release something as crazy and as masterfully done as Glacialord?
I don't really have a lot of 3P, heck I don't really have that many Transformers, but I can comment on the ones I own: DX9 - Tyrant. That thing is amazing. I hear good things about other works such as Carry, but I have Tyrant and it is amazing. Hard to imagine anyone making a better Galvatron. FP - Thundershred. The not Shrapnel is still my go-to. I love Shrapnel for some reason and the others by BC and FT are too big, plus this little guy is super-cool, but he does need some work to get those pincers on him. Must have the pincers. KFC - Badbat. In many ways it's a better toy than MP Ratbat, but the MP just looks more like his on-screen appearance. MT - GunDog. I have a few from this company and they're all pretty awesome, and Ironwill looks amazing and may very well be their best but I don't have it. But I am more than happy to put GunDog on the top of the heap for them. It is so very very cool its hard to see why anyone would want Willis, but different strokes and such. The toon version is slick and goes so amazingly well with the other MP carbots. PE - PA-02 Add On Kit for ROTF Bludgeon. Yeah, this add-on kit is so good and makes such a huge difference I'm gonna push it to the top for PE. I didn't want that Bludgeon until I saw this kit. MMC - Feral Rex looks sweet, and I'm trying to pick up a Bovis at some point, but really can't say. I may pick up Kultur because it looks sweet. Truly there is some really great work being done out there and a lot of it is super-impressive.
BC - Brawny (cute little fella) DX9 – Tyrant (could have been perfect, if only he had better hands...) FP - Thundershred (fun posing with his blades) FT - Stomp (already now the best figure of the year) iGear - Lightning (spot on toon colors in the best seeker mold) IT - Quintesson Judge (he's got the five faces of darkness) KFC - Transistor (metallic Autobot pimp) MT – Wrestle (loving his proportions) MMC - Bovis (he really looks badass) TW - Hegemon (the real Classics Megatron) TFC - ??? ( the single bots are all too similar...) UT - Provider (transforming him is so much fun) Warbotron - not-Swindle (his face sculpt captures his character very much) XTB - Andras (he's got the look AND the quality) Companies who have only produced one toy should not be in this list. They still gotta earn their place. (I don't own any figures from the other companies so I can't judge their products.)
First off I'm not going to pick from any companies that I have fewer than three toys from, but I have to say something about X-Transbots. Right now I've got Ollie and Apollyon, and I'm deffinately not impressed with the build quality on either. I have been keeping tabs on they're projects though, and I'm probably get Andras soon. Honestly if he was released by another company I'd probably have bought him already. I really do hope they can learn how to put out great toys consistently, because I like the look of a lot of what they do. Badcube - Wardog - Just an amazing transformation. The trick of big alt-mode little bot is something few people attempt and he does it better than any so far. I love the detail in atl-mode, and his robot mode is just badass. There's a lot of good toys from this company, but he's my clear #1. DX9 - Carry - An all-in-one Rodimus Prime, now that hits the spot. A great all-around toy, interesting and intuitive transformation, great articulation, solidly built, great sculpt. He may not match everyone's idea of a Masterpiece( in fact he doesn't quite work for me in that line up ) but if you aren't as picky about looks, or like great one-offs, pick this guy up. Fansproject - Smart Robin - A very clever transformation, this guy is great fun just going back and forth between modes, and to top it off, he's got almost no kibble in either mode. There really isn't much to nit pick on this one, a little better range of motion in some of the joints is the only downside I can think of. Fanstoys - Sever - Stomp is a great toy, but I still slightly prefer this guy. He was always one of my favorite Dinobots and Fanstoys gave him the toy he deserved. KFC - Transistor unpainted version - I don't like this guy as much as the other toys on this list, but he's still a good toy. Definitely better than my stack or other cassettes, and enough for me to continue to take the company seriously in the future. Maketoys - Trash Talk and Cogwheel - This was the hardest company to pick a favorite from. Trash Talk, Cupola, Ironwill, and the Visualizers are all damn near perfect. In the end though, Trash Talk just puts a smile on my face more than the others. He's got one of the best sculpts out there, great articulation, a simple and well done transformation, and great accessories. Love that little guy. MMC - Sphinx - I hear lot of people say "I can't see Takara or anyone else ever doing better" a lot on this board. This is the only time I'd agree with them. Sphinx isn't just great, he's perfect. Okay, his face sculpt could be better, but that is really the only thing I think could be improved. He excels in every area, but what makes him truly one of the all-time best is he has no kibble. Even from the back his robot form looks great. How many toys can you say that about? Toyworld - Evila Star - This is a really great transformation. All three of his modes look great, but it's his two alts that really impress. Even the color scheme changes drasticly between them. I haven't been able to put him down since I got him. Unique Toys - Provider - Oh my god do I love this guy. His transformation is joyous. Not just impressive, but very clever. So many little touches, like the fact that the warning lights on the wing tips become the tail lights, they just never get old. It's not even that complex, and that's what makes it so damn fun to transform over and over. He's got a great sculpt, good articulation, well built, I can't recommend him highly enough.
Badcube - Brawny – I’ve never really even liked Brawn enough to want a toy but this thing is pretty amazing. It’s a nice balance of solid build, fun transformation and an articulated bot mode filled with character. DX9 - Carry – A masterpiece from top to bottom, in both modes. Absolutely brilliant and fun transformation, some of the most robust build quality around and it just looks killer. I even like the little gun guy, which I understand most people hate. Fansproject - Glacialord – Honestly my personal favorite FP toy is probably Code but Glacialord will always win my vote for their best product because of how insane it is. It’s a wholly original design, it took them like 5 or 6 years to get it released, it features retro packaging that is already ‘worn’, it had a phony story tied to it about how one of the shipments was lost at sea and had to be substituted with the Korean version, and to top all of that off they really put their all into the product itself. It’s solid, it’s fun, it’s an artistic statement and I love it to death. Iron Factory – Evil Lord – An IDW Overlord that fits in your pocket. Sweet. KFC - HiFi (unpainted version) – *cough* *glances at user name & avatar* Maketoys - Rearend – he’s a perfect little 3D representation of his MTMTE self, and he comes with some bonus bits to snazz up his buddy Cyclonus. What’s not to love? MMC - Anarchus – Looks like he stepped out of the pages of MTMTE, features MMC’s standard premium quality, fun to transform, enjoys being the only bot in my collection that transforms into a torture chair. All he is lacking is a little Spoiler Dominus Ambus pet on a leash. And a Spoiler removable head. Perfect Effect – Warden – The overall finish and quality of this toy may even surpass that of Bandai’s Soul of Chogokin toys. It’s really amazing. Plus it’s a MTMTE style Fort Max and it turns into a giant head that works with G1 Fort Max. Tasty! TFC – Rhadamanthus – I sit here looking at Rhad and I still can’t believe I’ve got a modern updated Leozack sitting on my desk. Quality is pretty good (not as good as DX9 or MMC, but nothing troublesome or worrying) and he’s fun and easy to transform. Plus he’s the heart of Liokaizer! TFC done good with this set, and with Rhadamanthus in particular. Toyworld – Bii/Infinitor – Bii because I always prefer Takara’s MP toys to 3rd Party versions, except this time. Bii just works for my tastes so much better than MP Bee. It’s mostly the chibi little alt mode that does it for me, but I also genuinely love the transformation, the bot mode and how he can pose. Infinitor is tied with Bii, he’s a perfectly bite-sized (albeit the height of MP10) recreation of G1 Fort Max, only with tons of articulation. Wei Jiang – M01 Commander – Some may not count Wei Jiang but I certainly do. While this toy, like their oversized MP10, is a KO at it’s core, it is so much more. Rather than just simply being a run of the mill ‘sorta crappy but sort of OK’ oversized KO, this is a fully redesigned toy with many mold changes, improvements and new elements. The overall finish and quality is remarkable, surpassing Takara’s Masterpiece toys. On top of that it manages to be very sturdy, something you can actually play with. Nestled lovingly in Styrofoam with a slew of weapons and an extra head and this thing almost turns into something you’ll want to leave work early to spend extra time with. Their MPP10 is just as good, and I’m not a Bay movie fan, but I just think this set offers a more interesting experience.
Ok. From stuff I own. Badcube: Sunsurge DX9: Carry Fansproject: Madlaw/Combes Robin Fanstoys: Sludge IGear: Rager Iron Factory: Everything. That's not a joke, their Legends line is my fave series ever. Their Magnus is the best Magnus bar none and their Datsun boys my fave representations of those guys. Best QC on any line constantly out of the box too - not one of their products have had to be altered, futured or excuses made for it. As you can tell, I like them. KFC: Amputare (my God, they had one!) Maketoys: Trashtalk. MI: Both Jumpstarters are brilliant. MMC: Hexatron. Fuckng hell they pulled off a Six-Changer that well!! Perfect Effect: Warden/Guardian. An astonishing achievement in every way. Shapeshift: Sky Snake TFC: Minos. Toyworld: Aurora. The best of their brilliant Nottlebots. Unique: Buzzing. That's MP Blurr Warbo: That Grimlock Kit. XTB: mostly awful but I have a sentimental attachment to Arkose.
I am in love with the FP Headmasters line and will continue buying a many as they do. Good idea. Done. (I need to take more pictures.)
First off, great thread. I've learned to reduce my hoarding and actually appreciate what I got on my shelves. So here's my list to add to everyone else's: MMC: Stealth Azalea FansProject: Shadow Scythe Perfect Effect: SFX MakeToys: Hyper Novae Mech Ideas: Bluster and Trench TFcon Iron Facotry: Windsaber
BC - Sunsurge DX9 - Carry FP - Quadruple U FT - Sever (though I just got Stomp in so we'll see!) GC GP GT IF - Tactical Staff (Datsuns) IG - Patrol Specialist KFC MI MT - Tie between cupola and ironwill MMC - Tie between Azalea and Zinnia PE - Warden SXS TW TFC UT - Buzzing XT WB - Vortex or Slystrike And we can't forget Planet X! I just got their Grimlock and it's amazing.
