Binaltech BT05 Dead End

And here's where Binaltech really started to upset a certain kind of fan. Having released Sideswipe as a Dodge Viper, the announcement of a second Viper - this time based on the souped-up 'Competition Coupé' version of the car as opposed to the street version - brought with it certain expectations. When the head sculpt was revealed, it looked as though Sunstreaker was on his way...

...And yet, instead of a bright yellow Viper, we got a black Viper with silver stripes, and the Binaltech line's first Decepticon: the former Stunticon, Dead End. Deprived (for a time, at least) of Sunstreaker and instead lumbered with a Decepticon who wasn't even released in the right colourscheme, the only ray of hope seemed to be that the line had already repainted molds, so a later repaint of this figure as Sunstreaker was surely inevitable (and arrived about a year later).

So let's take a look at this bonkers entry in the series...

AM32 Arms Micron (TFPrime) Stunt Wildrider

And there was me, thinking I was done with the TFPrime Wheeljack mold after picking up the TFCC's Subscription Service 2.0 Chromedome. Frankly, most of the other reuses - and particularly the Beast Hunters remolds - were of no interest to me, but Takara Tomy's Arms Micron Stunt Wildrider and its amazingly cute Micron, Ozu, were definitely appealing... just harder to obtain.

Thankfully, sooner or later, almost everything ends up on eBay... occasionally even at a reasonable price... and so, I came to order Wildrider, a repaint based on the eponymous G1 Stunticon.

TransFormers Collectors' Club Botcon 2011 (Timelines) Boxed Set: The Stunti-Con Job

While I was - obviously - going to get around to this sooner or later, I've re-prioritised this for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it's a sort-of celebratory post. I don't tend to harp on about the number of views this blog gets, as it's not usually foremost on my mind, but I did note the first time I got more than 1,000 views in a month (June 2013), and January 2016 saw the count pass 5,000 for the first time, so thanks to all you visitors for that!

Secondly, this is probably an appropriate time to tackle this old BotCon set, considering I've done two complete Combiner Wars gestalts now, and currently have no intention of trying to get any of the CW Stunticons (though the Perfect Effect upgrade kit including the new head may eventually change my mind as it does make a decent-looking Menasor out of the CW Stunticons). This boxed set from BotCon 2011 was designed entirely around the Stunticons, who were the first and the coolest of the G1 combiner teams that I picked up. For a contemporary version of Menasor, I'm happy with FansProjects' Intimidator... which is just as well, I suppose, as this team of Stunticons don't even combine!

So... what's the point of a combiner team that doesn't combine?

FansProject CA-13 Causality: Diesel & Military Multiplexer Kit

I teased this a good couple of months ago and really can't think why I didn't write it up closer to the time I received it... other than the 100-odd post backlog I have, many of which include photos still hosted on PhotoBucket... But, still, here we are - just over a year after I picked up the first component - with the final component of FansProjects' homage to the Stunticons, and the means by which they become Menasor Intimidator.

While FansProject are no strangers to gestalt components, this Causality set (comprising this model plus CA-09, -10, -11 and -12) was their first attempt at a full team comprised of four interchangeable 'limbs' and a central 'torso'. Considering that the Stunticons were the first G1 gestalt team I managed to complete until only a few years ago, I felt compelled to pick this guy up to complete my Stunticon homage set... and, thankfully, his availability to buy coincided with an improvement in my cashflow...

FansProject CA-12 Causality: Last Chance

The penultimate component of FansProject's homage to the Stunticons is Last Chance... kind of a strange name, considering the original was 'Dead End'... Still, what's in a name, eh?

This is the one I was looking forward to the least, because photos of the robot mode looked rather awkward and, unlike the rest of the team, his vehicle mode is not only physically nothing like the G1 original - a Porsche 928 - it's not even a car by the same manufacturer.

FansProject CA-11 Causality: Down Force

The final two limb components from FansProjects' unofficial Stunticons were a long time coming. Not sure quite why that was, considering their initial announcement wasn't that far behind Car Crash and T-Bone. Both were entirely new designs - an absolute necessity for their Drag Strip analogue at the very least - and, unlike CA-09 and CA-10, not clever re-shells of essentially the same transformation scheme.

Of the group, Down Force was always going to be the most contentious because his official G1 counterpart disguised himself as a Tyrell P34 racing car, a unique and rather radical design. I seem to recall quite a few complaints when images of Down Force first turned up on the fan sites simply because he only had four wheels rather that Drag Strip's six.

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2013 (Timelines) Breakdown

So far, the output from the TFCC Subscription Service has been variable. On the whole, I've basically got what I expected, though the last one, Circuit, was a pleasant surprise.

Breakdown, meanwhile, is a bit of a sore point. Most of the figures in the set are straight repaints, with a couple of remolded heads, but the molds delivered thusfar have all been fairly new and interesting (at least to me). Breakdown is not just the billionth re-use of the Sunstreaker/Sideswipe mold from 2008, it's been used for two Club Exclusives already, one of which was the G2 version of Breakdown, so his inclusion in the 2013 Subscription Service seems very cynical.

Still, it can't be all bad... can it?

G1 Stunticons/Menasor (My First Gestalt!)

The arrival of gestalt teams in the UK back in 1986 felt like something of a triumph. We'd missed out on the Constructicons/Devastator for no obvious reason and suddenly combining robots were 'the big thing' in both the TV series and the Marvel comics. This was back in the days when Hasbro's UK marketing and distribution made gaffes like releasing Metroplex without Trypticon, and then Scorponok without Fortress Maximus, so it was also rather surprising that all four of 1986's teams were released in good numbers.

One rather obvious point of interest was that this was the first time the Decepticons got a truly significant ground presence, and the first time the Autobots gained some air power, so much was made of this in the associated fiction of the time. With most humans thinking all giant robots were evil invaders from another world, and only a select few aware that Autobots tended to disguise themselves as cars and trucks, while Decepticons tended to go for jets and spacecraft, this turnaround threw everything into doubt...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you... The Stunticons!

FansProject CA-10 Causality: T-Bone

Having bought CA-09, the first component of FansProject's mammoth interpretation of G1 gestalt Menasor, pretty much the first thing I did was look up the other components. While I now have CA-11 and -12 on pre-order, this one was a pleasant surprise, arriving rather earlier than expected.

How does FansProject's take on Wildrider measure up?

FansProject CA-09 - Causality: Car Crash

Regular readers may have picked up on the fact that I'm a bit of a fan of FansProject. Their City Commander set, the Warbots and the Crossfire set were awesome and, when the latter pair were re-released with new heads and new paint jobs as the first two entries in their Causality series, I snapped them up at the first opportunity - they are far too good to just be components of an old Superlink/Energon combiner. I'll get to them individually eventually, but my latest acquisition, from the MCM London Comic Con recently, kinda takes precedence for reasons of nostalgia... See, the Stunticons were the first G1 gestalt set that I completed... and Causality-09 (aka Breakdown) could well be the first step toward completing my first wholly third-party transforming robot gestalt.

Revenge of the Fallen Brakedown

Or Breakdown, to give him his true name. Not quite sure why the name change - for some strange reason, I thought it was due to the particular car alternate mode 'Brakedown' had been applied to in one toy line or another but, after G1 Breakdown, the next character to use the name was Brakedown from Cybertron (named Autolander in Galaxy Force)... I thought there had been some kind of deliberate avoidance of the suggestion that whatever type of car would 'break down'... but it seems I made that up!

Out of all the Generation 1 references thrown into the Revenge of the Fallen toyline, Breakdown - yes, I'm going to settle on using his real name - is the most blatant. He's approximately the same type of car (just a little squashed), with an almost identical colour scheme to the original. Thankfully, his transformation has moved on in the last 25-odd years, the better to keep to the movie series aesthetic.