TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2006 (Timelines) Buzzsaw & Laserbeak

The pattern with me and TransFormers toys appears at times to be "the weirder, the better". The Beast Wars figures I picked up tended to be rather strange (Lio Convoy, Mach Kick, Longrack, Break, etc.) and I often appreciate a robot mode more the further it is from standard human proportions.

That said, the Superlink/Energon Shadowhawk/Divebomb mold really ticked my fancy because it managed to do both its avian beast mode and its robot mode in a convincing, innovative way, without wasting the bird's wings as the robot's backpack the way so many other avian TransFormers have.

BotCon 2006's Dawn of Futures Past boxed set was one of the things that got me into the idea of joining the Collectors' Club and possibly, eventually venturing across the pond to a BotCon. While the boxed set was awesome in and of itself, I did also covet a couple of the attendee-exclusive souvenir packs. Since I wrote about the boxed set and one of the attendee figures, Tigatron, almost nine years ago and I still haven't found an affordable Megatron/Waspinator (the former appearing every so often for something in excess of a thousand pounds, while the latter has recently turned up on eBay for over £500), I figure it's about time I wrote about the other bagged pair I currently own...

Masterpiece Soundwave (& Buzzsaw)

This is another one I teased ages ago, and meant to write about more fully soon after but, for whatever reason, didn't get round to. Part of that, I guess, was that it was a rather daunting prospect to write not only about Soundwave and his accessories, but all five of the cassettes packaged with him and all their accessories too.

I'm going to make life (slightly) easier on myself and deal here with Soundwave and Buzzsaw only, since they were packaged together in Generation 1. The remaining cassettes will be dealt with according to their G1 pairings as well: Rumble (red) & Ravage, Frenzy (blue) & Laserbeak.

G1 Soundwave & Buzzsaw (My First Decepticons!)

Because, yes, even though Laserbeak was Soundwave's favourite in the TV show, he was packaged with Buzzsaw. And, curiously, while Laserbeak was the spy in the TV show, he was an interrogation specialist in the toyrange, and Buzzsaw was the spy. Honestly, that TV show was constantly screwing things up, wasn't it?

And, for the record, Rumble is red. The TV show got that wrong, too.

But anyway... With Masterpiece Soundwave now available in the UK (though Toys'R'Us seem reluctant to put him on their shelves), how about a look at the original, my first ever Decepticon toy?