Titans Return Overlord & Dreadnaut

While I felt a little deprived over the likes of Fortress Maximus never appearing in UK toy shops (since he actually appeared in the Marvel comics, albeit at the same dubiously variable scale as he seems to have used in the cartoon), I wasn't even aware of the likes of Overlord until I became an adult collector, because I'd stopped collecting by the time he was released over here... and, these days, the lustre of most G1 toys has faded somewhat.

Overlord, being one of the 'playset' TransFormers toys, may yet have had a place in my collection, alongside my original G1 Metroplex, Scorponok and (2015's Platinum Edition) Trypticon as well, because he's unique in that he's a triple-changing dual-Powermaster with a fairly decent, quite sprawling base mode, but the lack of articulation in the robot mode is more of a sticking point for me these days than it would have been only a few years back.

But then Hasbro decided to update him for Titans Return, and a widespread release was more-or-less guaranteed (the 'less' part being dependency on Hasbro's increasingly dodgy distribution). As usual, I umm-ed and ahh-ed about whether or not to get him, more or less deciding against based on a couple of YouTube video reviews... but then caved in and forked out £60 for him at TFNation 2017.

So, was he worth it..?

CW Sky Lynx Addendum

Or

Several Subtle but Worthwhile Adjustments to a
Flawed but Fun Figure

Straight out of the box, there were several issues with Sky Lynx. First and foremost, not one of the white hip-caps had been properly attached in the factory, so I had to remove and reseat all of them. Next up, I couldn't understand why the two angled fins had been attached backward (ie. angling forward) compared to the main upright fin, so I switched both around. It has a negligible effect on the look of the Sky Reign torso, but nothing serious and, frankly, both vehicle mode and robot mode look far better with all the fins angling backward.

TransFormers: Prime Arcee

(Femme-Bot Friday #9)

I've already raved about the First Edition version of this character, but that was rather harder to come by than the mass market 'Robots in Disguise' version. Naturally, this is a smaller, simpler model - cheaper to produce, that is - to fill what was to Hasbro, apparently, an unexpected demand for toys based on their new TV show.

Leader Class Starscream Stop Press #1 - GERWALK mode

Saw a couple of photos of this fan mode for Leader Class Starscream turn up in the forums, and thought I'd give it a go...

The term 'GERWALK' comes from the Macross, and is possibly the most awkward acronym in the history of anime: Ground Effective Reinforcement of Winged Armament with Locomotive Knee-joint. I mean, come on... there's acronyms and there's trying to shoehorn an explanation onto a cool-sounding name.