TFNation 2018 Round-up & Haul

And so, another TFNation has been and gone. This year, for the first time, my girlfriend Courtney accompanied me (and will be writing a little bit about her own experiences of TFNation, as an 'outsider' to the fandom), and a lot more pre-planning went into the weekend, based on my experiences over the last couple of years: not only did I book travel and accommodation, we also booked tables for dinner on both the Saturday and the Sunday, and agreed to take advantage of the comparatively sparse schedule to potentially go out and have proper lunches rather than just make do with the 'street food' on sale within the venue, the Hilton Birmingham Metropole.

TFNation 2017 Round-up & Haul

I'm not going to split this into two parts, as per last year, simply because TFNation 2017 felt more like one experience split over two days, rather than the one horrendous day and one slightly better day I had last time (for reasons which had little or nothing to do with TFNation itself). It's also far more convenient, as I don't have to remember and write about things in any particular order.

TFNation 2016 - Day 2 & Toy Haul

Sunday got off to a better start despite not sleeping especially well again, but at least I didn't have another anxiety dream to ruin my day. I didn't bother with breakfast that day as I wasn't feeling at all hungry, but equally didn't make a beeline for the day's only purchase - the two-pack of DX9's War In Pocket G1/TransFormers: The Movie homages Leah and Toufold (aka mini-Arcee and mini-Kup). In fact, I ended up taking a walk around the hotel grounds and the nearby lake before even heading in to the main hall. After that, and having checked the day's scheduled panels, I decided to deal with checking out of teh hotel straight away, rather than risk missing the noon deadline sitting in one of the halls or wandering around the retail area.

TFNation 2016 - Day 1 & Toy Haul

The first indication I had that there was such a thing as TFNation was a somewhat cryptic business card-sized card on a table at Roll Out Roll Call. At first, I didn't even look into it and, had I known it was a convention rather than, say, a webstore selling TransFormers toys (which had been my initial assumption) I probably wouldn't have bothered with it. If I'd been told it was happening in Birmingham, specifically at one of the hotels in the NEC complex, I wouldn't have been keen because getting there would involved a train journey (I have terrible luck on trains - the first time I go anywhere is invariably a disaster) and paying for accommodation (albeit simplified as TFNation had made a deal for much-reduced rates with the hotel that was hosting the event).

In the end, I only properly found out about TFNation because of a posting on DaimChoc Reports' Facebook timeline, about Mastermind Creations' event-exclusive boxed set release of what had previously been an April Fool in their Reformatted line, Feral Queen, and its partner figure/repaint Nero Queen. It was created for a Canadian TransFormers convention but was also being brought to the UK - and TFNation - by Kapow Toys.

Roll Out Roll Call 2016 - Day 2 & Toy Haul

Yes, you read that correctly - there's a toy haul for today, after I'd essentially decided I'd bought everything I wanted to yesterday.

Except with caveats:

Roll Out Roll Call 2016 - Day 1 & Toy Haul

I was completely thrilled when Roll Out Roll Call announced they bringing their show to a hotel near Heathrow in 2016. Just about every other TransFormers convention in the UK has been either way up north (Birmingham, for AutoAssembley) or way down south (Southampton for previous RORCs), involving lengthy journeys in either direction and, frequently, the necessity to stay overnight.

But Heathrow is basically in my neck of woods - way out West London. Heathrow Airport is best accessed by taking a train toward the City, changing part-way, then heading back out again in a slightly different direction, which tends to take about an hour or so. The Radisson Blu Edwardian, meanwhile, is a mere 45 minutes away by bus. Of course, this being a new route for me, I decided to leave a little over an hour before the show was due to open, to give myself some leeway in case of traffic problems. Getting there turned out to be simplicity itself - easier, in fact, than TfL's Journey Planner made it look. Pretty much bang on 45 minutes, and I was bumming around the hotel's atrium, waiting for registration to start.

MCM London Comic Con 2015 Haul

Just a quick post - I was hoping to do some photography today (once I'd done the dishes - Real Life FTW!) but the weather has turned rather grey - to list the things I did and didn't get at the MCM London Comic Con yesterday. I'd taken the day off work especially for the event as my best friend told me Fridays are calmer than the weekends (probably because many folks are at work), which made it seem the best opportunity to introduce my girlfriend to the wonders of full-size conventions, after taking her to Hyper Japan towards the end of last year.

The MCMLCC tends to be very variable when it comes to availability of TransFormers. Some have been brilliant, some have been terrible... this one was not bad. There were plenty of Combiner Wars toys from the waves that involved Superion, Menasor and the CW form of Optimus Prime, but that didn't make for any complete combiners (that I was interested in, at least). I'd mostly planned on skipping everything until Defensor, but have recently decided than Superion actually looks OK, so one of my first purchases was CW Silverbolt. Along with him, picked up FansProjects' Function-X2 Quadruple-U (aka Weirdwolf). I'd been considering this model since it was first announced, but never felt strongly enough about it to order it online... So basically, that was a couple of impulse buys.

Next up was Age of Extinction Drift. I had been considering ordering the Premium version (available on its own via eBay) because that is truer to the character's appearance in the movie but, having not done so for however long it's been available now, I just caved in and bought the basic version. Further up the list of things I actually definitely wanted to buy was any version of the Deluxe class Soundwave from Dark of the Moon and, as luck would have it, the same stall had one left... the Age of Extinction re-release as 'Darkside Soundwave').

Other than that, my money went on a couple of new Genki Gear t-shirts, a portable speaker thing that works by attaching itself to things that can carry sound by vibration (examples on the stand included a large polystyrene container, which offered excellent sound!), a small print of a Japanese painting/poem, a 4-pack of Flying Cauldron 'Butterscotch Beer' (actually labelled 'Butterscotch Cream Soda' in smaller print, because it's non-alcoholic), a 10-minute massage, the complete series of Cowboy Beebop on DVD, a CD from the crew behind Weebl's Stuff and some food.

Things I didn't buy included lots of other Combiner Wars stuff (including no less than 2 heavily overpriced Leader class Megatrons), Generations Doubledealer, Brainstorm, Roadbuster and Whirl, the Play Arts Kai Catwoman, Variant Batgirl and Wonder Woman, Kotobukiya's Bishoujo Batwoman, a whole bunch of Gundam model kits, and The Eyes of Bayonetta 2 artbook. Some of this I'll probably buy online - PAK V-Batgirl I've already ordered - because either it was sold out by the time I got back to the stand, I couldn't find the stand again or just forgot to go back... By the end of the day, we were all pretty tired... and this was the first time I'd ever stayed at one of these events much beyond lunchtime.

Last Weekend's Haul

The last weekend of March saw the Spring Memorabilia Show appear at the NEC in Birmingham. As usual, I was in attendence but, being the Spring show, I wasn't expecting much. Indeed, at first glance, it seemed a little sparse and widely spaced.

Thankfully, it turned out to be a real treasure-trove - and not just for TransFormers. Of course, nothing else is relevant to this 'ere blog, so feast your eyes on these upcoming treasures:

Auto Assembly 2010 Haul - Photos Edition

The entire haul - just over £300 worth of plastic (and die-cast metal) crack...
Some very cool stuff, all told.

Limited Edition/BotCon stuff: TF Universe Special Edition Drag Strip, BotCon 2010 Sky Byte and Air Sharkticon

Alternity Bumblebee, Starscream and Skywarp

Energon Bruticus Maximus, standing in front of RotF Bludgeon, and JustiToys MP5 Upgrade Package

Believe it, kiddies - this is not a real weapon. The stock, however, does include a spring-loaded launcher, so the free-standing Particle Beam Cannon and shoulder-mounted Telescopic Laser Cannon can actually fire the hard plastic pellets included. I dare not try, though, for fear of breaking something...

Auto Assembly 2010 Haul

Full details and photos to follow (honest!), but here's the list:

Alternity:
Starscream, Skywarp (hello OCD necessity to get Thundercracker) & Bumblebee

Revenge of the Fallen/NEST Global Alliance:
Bludgeon (!)

Universe:
Special Edition Dragstrip

Energon:
Bruticus Maximus, aka Barricade, Blackout, Blight, Kickback & Stormcloud. Now all I need is the FansProject Munitioner & Explorer packs...


TFCC/Botcon:
2010 Skybite & (Air) Sharkticon

Unofficial:
MP-5 Upgrade Package (stock & silencer for Masterpiece Megatron)

Overall, Auto Assembly today was a much better experience than the times I've been on a Saturday. Organisation still isn't perfect - for example, the Simon Furman/Nick Roche 'Creating a TransFormer' workshop was scheduled to start at 2pm, but they hadn't even started setting up at that time, and Scott McNeil was allowed to get so hammered on Saturday night that he didn't return to the show till Sunday afternoon - but it was a much more civilised experience this time round. Not so much yesterday, from what I heard...