Ninth Anniversary

Starting off this post was actually really easy once I actually found the time (in January of this year, I decided to try to take one Friday off work toward the end of every month, just to have a short, regular break and - hopefully - actually take advantage of my full allocation of holiday time this year, and these long weekends turned out to be good blogging opportunities) and I acquired a few very cool toys very soon after the last Anniversary post...

So, without futher ado, here are my top nine purchases since last year, inevitably featuring some figures I haven't yet posted about individually...

1. TransFormers Legends LG-35 Super Ginrai
I remember how excited I was by the idea of PowerMaster Optimus Prime back in the day, and
how disappointed I was by the figure when I got my hands on him. There was a similar excitement
when Hasbro released the first images of their Titans Return PowerMaster Optimus Prime,
but the combination of a typically muted red and a truly vile beige as the dominant colours, plus
the comical re-sculpt of the front of the cab versus CW/TFL Ultra Magnus, put me right off.
I expected that Takara Tomy's version would at least have a more full-bodied red in its
colourscheme, but the full-on redesign they came up with was better than I could have hoped for.

2. The Last Knight Premier Edition Nitro
One of the biggest surprises of The Last Knight's pathetically small toyline, Nitro
(aka Nitro Zeus) is a surprisingly complex toy for the current Voyager pricepoint.
Transformation is close to Revenge of the Fallen levels of complexity and both modes
look fantastic, even though Hasbro have, yet again, used black paint instead of a silver or
gunmetal finish. My only question is why it had to be a new character, when -
in Starscream's absence - Skywarp or Thundercracker could have made an appearance...

3. RiD(2015) Bisk
There's really nothing special about Bisk's transformation - it's perhaps a little more
involved than some RiD(2015) figures at the front, but the back end is very simple - but I
love the fact that he transforms from an almost Vehicon-esque, very low car... into a weird,
semi-beast robot with giant lobster claws and googly eyes. That his name is a pun on a
lobster soup ('Bisque' - while his repaint, Thermidor, is named after a dish made of lobster
meat, egg yolks, brandy and cheese) is the icing on the cake of a very fun figure.

4. TransFormers Legends LG-25 Blurr
Actually my very first figure from the Titans Return counterpart line, and the only one I'd initially
planned on getting, this prompted me to bite the bullet and actually pick up a few of the figures
I had beenvery ambivalent about. The colourscheme is far superior to Hasbro's, and the figure is
recognisably Blurr. The HeadMaster-style gimmick isn't entirely appropriate to Blurr...
but it's certainly nothing to complain about when it's done this well.

5. TransFormers Legends LG-EX Black Convoy
For no particular reason, I find myself collecting black repaints and, in particular,
Nemesis Primes/Scourges so, when I saw images online of a limited-run, event exclusive repaint
of the lacklustre, triple-changin' Titans Return Optimus Prime mold, I was instantly hooked.
I love the Car Robots/RiD version, which I picked up second hand on eBay, and this version
is an excellent update, without the wasteful (albeit very cool) separate trailer/battle base...
and even has an unofficial base mode thanks to the comic included in the box!

6. Titans Return Six Shot
Like G1 Trypticon, Six Shot didn't appear in UK shots back when I first started collecting
TransFormers toys so, when I got older, I started wondering about trying to pick one up
on the secondary market - more likely the 2002 Encore or the 2012 Asian-exclusive,
on prices - but he was never a 'Holy Grail' figure for me. When he was announced as a
Leader class figure in Titans Return, I figured I could easily make do with that, particularly
with its improved articulation.

7. The Last Knight Premier Edition (Leader class) Megatron
While I think this is a fantastic toy with a beautifully realised sculpt, and easily the best
Leader class Megatron the movie franchise has produced so far... nothing about it really
fits the TransFormers aesthetic. The movie CGI clearly cheats his transformation from a
deadly-looking jet to an armour-clad robot and the 'robot' looks like he'd be more at home
in a Saturday morning cartoon about King Arthur in space, facing off against the armies
of an alien robot who, coincidentally, looks like a kind of 'Black Knight'. That, or DLC armour
for Skyrim and/or Dark Souls...

8. TFCC Subscription Service 5.0/Generations Lifeline
Being a sucker for Femme-Bots generally, and quite a fan of the Generations/Legends Arcee
mold, it was inevitable that I'd scrabble to acquire the Club's take on the Paradron Medic
from their final Subscription Service set. Actually about the only figure in that set that was
of any real interest for me, I picked this up - entirely on its own, but with its weapons,
instructions and bio card - on eBay, not long after it was released.

9. The Last Knight Optimus Prime
While I can't stand the new-look truck or CGI robot design, and the toy has shortcomings
both in design and decoration, it's a huge leap forward from the Leader class
Age of Extinction figure and probably the most satisfying toy from the first wave of
'Premier Edition' The Last Knight toys. On the downside, it did not merit the ridiculous
£9-10 increase in price tag for a Voyager class figure

Honourable Mentions:

Combiner Wars Sky Lynx
Deeply flawed, but actually slightly better than I'd expected, in-hand. While it hasn't quite
satisfied my desire to own the original G1 toy, but it's a reasonable update considering
the requirements of being a Combiner Wars torso.

The Last Knight Berzerker
Despite having no discernible character in Dark of the Moon, Crankcase deserved a better
toy than he originally got. Not sure if this character fared any better in The Last Knight
because I refused to watch it, but the toy is a massive improvement.

Combiner Wars Groove
Hopelessly out of scale, but pretty much a required purchase given that I never quite
completed G1 Defensor, and wasn't entirely satisfied with CW Rook

Titans Return Scourge
One of those figures which I didn't really think was in need of an update considering the
excellent Generations version, but which turned out to be quite fun. Seriously lacking in
paintwork, as usual with Hasbro's output, but with at least some of the G1 toy's stickers
replicated in tampographs. And at least this version looks like a spaceship of some kind,
rather than a hovercraft

Iron Factory IP-EX16N Night Assassin
Pink Assassin was an honourable mention last year, and this is basically the same - only the
chest, head and weapons are different - but in an excellent silver and dark gunmetal
colourscheme, as a homage to Nightbird

So, that's it for another year... There are actually a few other figures I could easily have added to the Honourable Mentions list, but then it'd end up being just as long as the main list. Titans Return (and Takara Tomy's continuing TransFormers Legends counterpart) has turned out to be quite a fantastic line from the Deluxe pricepoint up and, while I'm not entirely keen on the adjustments to the pricepoints, a few of the toys just about manage to justify it... and where they don't, it's often possible to find them (marginally) cheaper online.

I'm not convinced by some of the early reveals of the final chapter in this trilogy, Power of the Primes. While my predictions weren't entirely accurate, they weren't very wide of the mark either, but the new Orion Pax/Optimus Prime 'evolution' set has a lot of potential.