TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2013 (Timelines) Thundercracker

One interesting byproduct of my acquisition of some BotCon boxed sets is that, once in a while, they introduced me to molds I'd not experienced from the main Hasbro toylines. One such example was Revenge of the Fallen Dirge, in the retooled and repainted form of Skywarp in the Machine Wars: Termination set from BotCon 2013.

While the figure from the extended movie universe didn't appeal - its interpretation of the 'Conehead' style looked pretty ugly to me - FunPub's idea of a Machine Wars Skywarp was very well executed, and showed that the mold itself was actually great... and, as a result, I decided to pick up the Thundercracker repaint. He was originally made available with yet another repaint of the Classics Mirage mold which FunPub had already used for the BotCon 2007 hologram figure - this time with a colourscheme taken from the original Machine Wars toy. Having no interest in that, I ended up buying Thundercracker separately, on the secondary market.

So, let's see how this version compares to the toy from the boxed set...

Legacy On Clearance - AKA Not An Unboxing Post VI

Aside from occasionally voicing my disdain for the enervated mess that is TransFormers Legacy, I've not had a lot to say about the toyline because I'd bought just two products featuring Legacy branding, and one of those had it playing second fiddle to the Buzzworthy Bumblebee brand.

Nevertheless, there have been occasional announcements that have piqued my interest... at least until I apply a cost/benefit analysis and decide that I don't want to pay Hasbro's current prices for the quality of product they're pushing. One of these announcements was the Deadeye Duel 2-pack, featuring a retooling of the Bumblebee movie Arcee toy. Unfortunately, the other figure in the set was an extensive retool of the Power of the Primes Moonracer/Novastar and War For Cybertron: Siege Lancer/Greenlight figures (or, more accurately, a minor retool of Siege Chromia/Nightbird) which made its £50 price tag far less appealing. That mold was bad enough back in Power of the Primes... that they're still using it more than five years later is just embarrassing.

Once in a while, I'll pop back to the Hasbro Pulse website and have a quick look at the new offerings and, on one such visit, I noticed they now have an 'Outlet' section... which appears to be where their shelfwarmers go to die. I think, by now, the majority of my Pulse purchases have been discounted, either with the help of one of their coupon codes or in a seasonal sale, so finding Deadeye Duel on sale for £22.99, I figured I might as well put some birthday money toward it... After all, that's two Deluxe class toys for less than the current price of a single Deluxe class toy.

Granted, I already knew one of them was going to be crap, but that's still a (small) discount on the figure I actually wanted.

I'm still not convinced that the mixture of figure styles really works for Legacy, but we'll see when I do the full write-up.

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2007 (Timelines) Alpha Trion

Galaxy Force Vector Prime was one of those TransFormers toys that, even for its era, had a simplistic transformation, but which transcended this shortcoming through the sheer detail and the extravagant intricacy of its sculpting. The fact that he was an 'ancient Cybertronian' meant that he was effectively an alternate universe Alpha Trion analogue from the outset, so it seemed inevitable that, sooner or later, he would be repainted as G1 Alpha Trion.

What is perhaps a little strange is that BotCon got there first, releasing Alpha Trion as an accompanying figure to their Games of Deception boxed set from BotCon 2007, despite the character not actually featuring in the included comic...

...Because the whole thing was part of the Collectors' Club's own game of deception: the reveal of Alpha Trion was held over for their ongoing multiversal Timelines story in the bimonthly magazine... and was (spoiler warning!) one of the first Shattered Glass characters introduced! Of course, since then, Hasbro has release Alpha Trion toys with almost monotonous regularity, and in a variety of forms.

So, let's take a look at this primary repaint, and see how well it works as this deceptively familiar character...