TransFormers Adventure TAV28 Ground Vehicon General

I have to confess that I bought this figure by accident. I was having one of those days where I wasn't really paying attention, and somehow got it into my head that what I was looking at was actually the TransFormers Prime Arms Micron AM-34 Jet Vehicon General and, considering it was substantially cheaper than I'd seen it before, hastily snapped it up.

Of course, by the time it arrived, I realised my error... but the original TFPrime Vehicon mold is still one of my absolute favourite TransFormers toy, so another iteration of that - repainted with the idea of it being a higher-ranking version of the Decepticon cannon fodder - can hardly be too great a disappointment, can it?

TransFormers Adventure TAV03 Strongarm

(Femme-Bot Friday #60)

When I wrote about the Prime of Micron version of Strongarm, last year, I noted that I didn't think Hasbro's Deluxe was worth considering and that the cost of importing Takara Tomy's was prohibitive given that it's the same toy, just with a slightly improved paint job. Of course, that was before I realised that PoM version was smaller than a Deluxe and so not really the Strongarm figure I wanted either.

So, you know what that means, right..?

Masterpiece MP26 Road Rage

(Femme-Bot Friday #58)

I've more or less given up on the Masterpiece line, as it slips ever further down the slipperly slope of 'animation accuracy', but I'm still a huge fan of Generation 1 because of the range of cars it turned into awesome alien robots. While I only had a handful of the Diaclone-derived G1 Autobots at the time, I've filled in a few of the blanks over the years with both Hasbro and Takara/Takara Tomy's reissues, even managing to grab some of the e-HOBBY specials along the way.

One of my particular favourites was the Corvette Stingray and, while I own the Hasbro Commemorative Series version of Tracks, the Femme-Bot repaint released by e-HOBBY was never available at a price I was happy with... The Masterpiece version was available at TFNation this year, and, after much consideration, ended up being my final purchase of the show...

TransFormers Adventure VS04 'Joint Struggle' Sideswipe & Stepper

Having bought one of Takara Tomy's TransFormers Adventure 'Versus' packs - Drift Origin Mode & Jazz Battle Mode - at the first TFNation, I had a quick look at the others, but didn't see much that tickled my fancy. It helped, in a way, that there just weren't that many RID2015 figures that I'm at all interested in - TAV VS01 was Bumblebee and Steeljaw, VS02 was Grimlock and Gregevor (the latter, aka Greejeeber - a reference to the G1 Combaticon repaint Rollbar/Jeeber who formed part of RID/Car Robots' Baldigus/Ruination - being a Decepticon repaint of Strongarm), VS03 was Strongarm and Phantomjaw (a police-type repaint of Steeljaw), none of which lit my candle in the least, and there were only four unique molds across the three pairs. VS04, however, was a two pack of figures I knew to be tolerable, one of which was a rerelease of Takara Tomy's more screen-accurate Sideswipe, while the other was the almost inevitable repaint of Jazz into Stepper/Ricochet.

Having been grossly disappointed by Hasbro's version of Sideswipe, and being curious to own at least one version of Stepper/Ricochet, I dug this set up on eBay more or less on a whim... But was it a good move..?

Iron Factory IF EX-05 Windsaber (aka Miko for IronTitan)

(Femme-Bot Friday #50)

You know a new character has made it in the popularity stakes when the Third Parties start churning out their own versions, and it didn't take long for the 'fan-built bot' Windblade. It actually also made a lot of sense for Iron Factory to produce their own, diminutive version of Windblade since none of Hasbro's own output really scales properly with the likes of Metroplex. After all, one of the character's defining characteristics is that she's one of the few able to communicate with these city-sized robots, despite being ant-like in comparison.

Since 50 Femme-Bot Fridays is a bit of a milestone, I'm going to celebrate it by kicking off a short run on the remaining Windblades in my collection. This will include a comparison between a Hasbro version of the character already covered in my FBF series and the Takara Tomy version I've picked up more recently, as well as a direct Titans Return/Legends comparison of the most recent model... but the first will be Iron Factory's takes on the original, and concluding part will be the SDCC2015 Combiner Hunters-inspired repaint...

TransFormers Adventure VS05 Drift Origin Mode & Jazz Battle Mode

There are two main reasons I picked up this two-pack of Takara Tomy's repainted RID2015 toys. Firstly, I bought my niece Jazz as a birthday present a few years ago, in a failed attempt to get her interested in TransFormers and was actually reasonably impressed with the model, just not with the paint job. Secondly, this package also comes with new head sculpts for both characters - Drift's being more like the original Shane McCarthy/Guido Guidi design, the toy featuring a colourscheme to match, Jazz's new head simply features his traditional visor.

I was able to pick these up at a reasonable cost at TFNation 2017, so let's see if a new paint job and a new head sculpt makes all the difference to these two toys...

Perfect Effect PE-DX05 'Beast Muscle' Leonidas

Every so often, a Third Party release comes along that has my attention from the very first images. There's no real pattern to it, but there's frequently a connection to my earlier collecting habits.

One of the stranger examples is this - Perfect Effect's pre-Beast Wars reimagining of Lio Convoy. Granted, I'm a fan of the original, and I love the Collectors' Club's 2015 Membership Incentive version, but this is a version of the character who transforms into a robotic lion... which basically doesn't make sense in the context of Beast Wars... or, really, any TransFormers continuity.

But when has that stopped me buying something potentially awesome?

NB: This post has been sitting in my drafts for well over a year... Nothing unusual for me, in the grand scheme of things but, in this case, there's a very good reason...

Unite Warriors UW-06 Combiner Haunt Leader Grand Galvatron

Combiner Wars and Unite Warriors have both had a very strange approach to some of their characters. One of the earliest releases was a very G1-styled standalone Leader class Megatron, followed by a Voyager class Optimus Prime who could combine with four other Autobots to become 'Ultra Prime'. We later got a standalone Leader class Ultra Magnus and 'Galvatronus', a gestalt whose limbs could be whichever mind-controlled Autobots or Decepticons he cared to subjugate... neatly removing any need for Hasbro to provide Cyclonus with his armada, or even a ramshackle team of his own. Hurrah for Hasbro and their amazing talent for never releasing enough Decepticons!

As a result, while I had high hopes for Takara Tomy's take on Bruticus, I had been all set to get through Combiner Wars with no other Decepticon gestalts aside from this year's Collectors' Club Subscription Service combiner, Thunder Mayhem. Then Takara Tomy announced their Unite Warriors Grand Galvatron set, with a positively opulent repaint of CW Cyclonus as its centrepiece, and a rag-tag team of cross-continuity limb-bots of his very own, which combined to form a version of Galvatron based heavily on the G1 toy and, as is my wont, I put through a preorder almost immediately because my hypocrisy knows no bounds.

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2015 (Timelines): 'The Boss' Megatron

BotCon 2015's boxed set - Cybertron's Most Wanted - was an interesting concept, but only really had a couple of actual figures I was interested in. One in particular was the inspired - in my opinion - repurposing of the TF Prime/Arms Micron Breakdown mold (specifically the zombie/'Silas/CyLAS' version Takara Tomy put out) as a cross-continuity Dark of the Moon Megatron.

MorphBots Final Battle Megabolt vs Hell Cat (aka Flamefeather vs Carroll)

Like most collectors, it's a rare occasion (and/or a special case) that I will intentionally buy a knockoff, but some seem too good to pass up. It was a few years ago that I first saw Meng Badi's 'AlteraTion Man' Carroll, knockoff of the first live action movie Arcee mold, released both in the original colours and in blue, possibly in reference to the newer TransFormers Prime incarnation. I was never able to find the individual versions, but recently discovered that the blue version was repackaged in a two-pack with a knockoff of live action movie Swindle, a mold I never bothered picking up because it looked a bit crappy.

Then, more recently, I found the 2-pack (which turned up in Thew Adams' Knockoff Beatdown IV) was available on Amazon and on eBay. Finding a suitably low price (£16 including shipping!), I ordered the set hoping that at least one of the figures would be of reasonably decent quality... but that's the thing with knockoffs: however low your expectations, there's always room for disappointment.

TransFormers Legends (Takara Tomy 30th Anniversary) LG17 Blackarachnia

(Femme-Bot Friday #35)

Completing Takara Tomy's second triumvirate of Legends femme-bots, Blackarachnia may seem like a strange late addition to a 30th Anniversary line, considering Beast Wars turns 20 years old in 2016, but I'm certainly not going to hold it against them.

Blackarachnia has always had rather weird-looking toys simply because getting a robot to transform into a spider is a tricky thing to achieve. To date, the best is (arguably) the TransFormers Animated mold, not least because the animation model drew so much influence from the Beast Wars TV show rather than the toys. No surprises, then, that Takara Tomy chose that mold from which to create a new Beast Wars Blackarachnia figure.

TransFormers Legends (Takara Tomy 30th Anniversary) LG16 Slipstream

(Femme-Bot Friday #34)

Whenever a new mold is introduced, it's pretty much guaranteed to be reused in new colours at some point down the road. The 'Fan-Made Bot' Windblade had already been repainted as part of a San Diego Comic Con exclusive set not long after its initial release, but it fell to Takara Tomy to provide it with a new head and weapons to create a whole new character.

Except that Slipstream isn't a new character, having been sort-of introduced by TransFormers Animated as some kind of unexplained feminine aspect of Starscream and, while the Collectors' Club created a Slipstream for the TransFormers Prime subsection of their Timelines continuity, Takara Tomy apparently consider this to be TF Animated Slipstream appearing in their Legends continuity.

Weird enough for you?

Perfect Effect Perfect Combiner PC-01 Combiner Upgrade Set Black Version

When Perfect Effect first introduced their Combiner Wars upgrade sets, they came in only two colours - black and purple, the latter being tailored toward Hasbro's Menasor. Black would seem to be aimed at Defensor but, at the time, the only CW gestalts available were Superion and Menasor (the latter never completed in Europe), and it was only later that Perfect Effect released the white version, specifically coloured for Superion. I ordered both versions of the set at the same time, so now I can reveal how awesome it looks on Defensor...

Combiner Wars Defensor

Well, it's taken me long enough! I think Defensor was actually the first Combiner Wars gestalt I managed to complete, thanks to that whole issue of Wave 2 not getting a European release but, since I'd already started writing up Superion and his constituent parts, it felt as though Defensor sort of had to wait until I got my hands on Air Raid.

I'd originally thought that Superion was a little lacking and that Defensor seemed, on balance, to be the better prospect... But, with both complete and Superion being so good, has my opinion changed at all?

Combiner Wars Hot Spot

The leader of the Protectobots is another of the G1 combiner torso bots I wasn't able to acquire back when I started collecting TransFormers. I believe my best friend had the full set as I distinctly remember seeing Defensor up close... but that didn't really help me, because I had three out of five in the team and, for whatever reason, wasn't able to get my hands on the remaining two.

After Hasbro released the Combiner Wars Aerialbots in two separate waves, one of which never made it to these shores, they have thankfully adopted more sensible tack with Wave 3, and made it all Protectobots. Even then, while I managed to buy all the limbs in regular toy shops (a couple in Smyths at Friern Barnet, the rest at either the Brent Cross Toys'R'Us or the Uxbridge branch of Smyths), I still found myself having to order Hot Spot online. Whether impatience got the better of me, or he just didn't turn up on the shelves of my usual toyshops (hell, I even went looking in Lincoln!) for an inordinately long time, I'm still not sure.

The important thing is that I got him, right?

Generations Platinum Edition Trypticon

Back in the 80s, the idea of a giant alien robot that transformed into a city seemed quite cool, even moreso after the bit in the 1986 animated movie where Ultra Magnus orders Springer and Arcee to "transform Autobot city" (even though that didn't actually involve Omega Supreme, Metroplex or Fortress Maximus, all of whom had appeared in the Marvel comics by that point) because that was a pretty exciting sequence early on in the story, and showcased some of the most impressive, intricate animation in the entire movie, surpassed only by Unicron's transformation toward the end of the movie.

Sadly, the UK tended not to get the larger, more complicated TransFormers toys in those days so, while Metroplex got released on this sceptred isle (and made his way into my collection), we didn't get Trypticon (similarly, we later got Scorponok but not Fortress Maximus).

At least, we didn't get Trypticon back in 1986. For whatever reason, Hasbro have seen fit to grant him a re-release as part of their 2015 'Platinum Edition' line... I thought I'd given up on buying Generation 1 toys after completing my G1 Seacons by finding a Snaptrap in reasonable condition on eBay... But when I found Trypticon on Amazon at a vastly reduced price, I ended up taking the opportunity to grab one of my few remaining 'Holy Grail' G1 toys.

But how does a nearly 30-year-old model stand up against today's TransFormers toylines, and does it really have a place on the shelves of a 40-something collector?

Combiner Wars Groove (Legends class)

Hasbro caught a lot of flak for this one. Not only were fans upset that Groove - officially one of the worst G1 toys, as his robot mode was basically a motorcycle stood up on its back end - had been relegated to a Legends class supplemental role but, rather than forming a weapon for Defensor, he - like Blackjack and CW Rodimus - serves no truly useful purpose pegged into Defensor's chest.

Still, it's Groove, right... and since he's been released, you might as well complete the team...

...Right?

Combiner Wars Rook

OK, time to address the elephant in the room: While I'm sure we all wanted a Deluxe class Groove for the Protectobots (Takara Tomy certainly did - they created one as a new mold for their Unite Warriors boxed set), there is no way a motorcycle can adequately scale with a police car and an ambulance, let alone a helicopter, and transform into a limb of the same size as his team-mates. Whether or not that was Hasbro's reasoning, they've changed the character line-up one way or another for all of the gestalt teams so far, so it was no real surprise to find Groove relegated to Legends class as a supplemental part of the team - as Powerglide was to the Aerialbots and Blackjack to the Stunticons.

Of course, this left a space to be filled as one of Defensor's limbs... and the solution presented by Hasbro is another whole new character invented for Combiner Wars... Rook!

Combiner Wars Streetwise

Back in the days when Generation 1 toys were available in the shops, Streetwise was the only one of the Protectobot limbs that I was unable to acquire. Looking at that toy now, it's a complete mess - most of the gestalt limbs showed terrible signs of the compromise between vehicle, robot and limb modes, but the way Streetwise was built left him perpetually leaning forward, with his chest and shoulder line about level with his 'toes' and his back stepping gradually backwards as it dropped toward his legs due to the weird transformation jointing. He also had a weird collapsing-bonnet-belly-flap (seemingly quite fragile, given how many on the secondary market are without it) making the torso look very awkward, though it's not entirely clear whether it's meant to be collapsed for robot mode, or just when Streetwise is functioning as Defensor's leg.

Let's hope there's none of that with this new Combiner Wars version...

Combiner Wars First Aid

It always puzzled me, back in Generation 1, that there was technically only one Autobot medic - Ratchet - despite the ever-increasing character roster of the toyline and TV show. When a new medic eventually joined the team, he was one of the Protectobots, and transformed into a smaller, less detailed version of much the same so-called ambulance as Ratchet. He also got lumbered with the most boring and obvious name in the history of the brand.

With Defensor being the second Autobot gestalt in the Combiner Wars series, Hasbro granted First Aid his official return as one of the limbs of the Protectobot behemoth, but how does this update shape up?