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...

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2007 Exclusive (Timelines) Airazor

I'll be perfectly frank here - there was one reason that I joined the TransFormers Collectors' Club, and that reason is this model. The moment I saw it, I thought it was awesome. It takes one of the quirkier molds from the Energon line and turns it, quite successfully, into one of the coolest characters from Beast Wars.

Slugslinger may not have been the obvious choice for this accompaniment to the Dawn of Futures Past BotCon set (made, as it was, largely from Galaxy Force/Cybertron models), but it was one of my favourites... surely this is ideal stuff for an exclusive?

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2006 (Timelines) Unit-2/Tigatron

Since I still haven't got myself to over BotCon, all of my exclusives either came via the Collectors' Club (in the unlikely event that any were left over after the convention) or eBay. Tigatron is one such figure, bought as a companion piece to the Dawn of Futures Past set that I picked up at a show in the UK. He's a straight redecoration of the boxed set's Cheetor figure in Tigatron's traditional white, black and minty green.

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2006 (Timelines) Boxed Set: Dawn of Futures Past

For the most part, being a UK resident, I really didn't see the point of joining something like the TransFormers Collectors' Club. It's expensive, and it's run from the United States. Anything ordered from them would be hit by Customs and VAT charges, plus whatever extra ParcelForce decided to add on top as their 'handling fee'. If Hasbro UK don't see the point of forming an official UK or European branch of the club, then I'm just one more member they don't have. I didn't even really follow BotCon, even after getting back into TransFormers for the 20th Anniversary. That all changed in 2006, though, due to that year's pre-Beast Wars theme, and the boxed set 'Dawn of Futures Past'.