POST YOUR NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Figures, collectables, customs and collecting.
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Denyer
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Denyer »

The Aoyi Mech Sai Star Commander KO of SS 38 Bee Prime, which adds die-cast and was less than twelve quid shipped... had to straighten and reinforce with glue antennae as it was shipped unboxed (should've spent the extra quid, but it pulled through). Excellent quality. Currently facing off against Thundernock.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alnbMh7R5S0
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HeavyArms
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by HeavyArms »

Received my copy of the Cybertronic Spree Kickstarter album, it's actually more techno-ey than I thought it would be.
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Tantrum
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Tantrum »

I've had some good luck finding exclusives this week.

Siege Ratchet (Walgreen's) - A bit underwhelming. The bot mode looks good, except for the bland panels on the sides of the legs, and more battle damage dirt than most figures. It wouldn't be so bad if the battle damage was on the leg panels as well, so they blended in better with the rest of the figure.

Vehicle mode is a bit of a let down. Mine doesn't roll very well. There's no effort to conceal the upper arms. It's a case where cybertronian alt mode just means you can still see robot bits. The medical bay is just bad.

The weapons are good, though. He's got a wrench, a gun, and a cannon thing with two hinges based on the weapon mounted to the sled of the G1 toy. That weapon's two 5 mm pegs are spaced so they fit in the shoulder and forearms holes in veicle mode.

Siege Bluestreak (Walmart) - I haven't opened this guy yet. The Walmart I found him at had a 35th anniversary display with Bluestreak, Soundblaster, cel shaded Optimus, cel shaded Megatron, and a few regular releases by the clearance section, nowhere near the toy section. If you're looking for any of these guys, you might want to wander the store a bit.

Kreon Animated Sentinel Prime - From a comic shop in a bag with 7 other, mass-release kreons missing their microchanger parts, 7 HFGs including all of UW Menasor's, a Deluxe Prime armor, CHUG Ravage that came with Hound, several other CW weapon, 2 Titanmasters, and 2 weapons tha Titanmasters can sit in.


I also bought Rust Dust and some Energon era blue motorycle at the same comic shop. I finally picked up Siege Sixgun to go with Red Alert, since they share a color scheme.
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Skyquake87
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Skyquake87 »

TLK Berserker
Horrible looking robot mode with some nice paint apps, and a right royal pain to transform. I can't get any of the panels to properly peg in, or get the robot limbs folded up underneath to behave. It's got all the tabs in the world, but none of them in the right places. A frustrating figure.
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Denyer
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Denyer »

HeavyArms wrote: Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:12 am Received my copy of the Cybertronic Spree Kickstarter album, it's actually more techno-ey than I thought it would be.
Cool. Never heard about it, but hopefully there'll be a general release now it's out to backers.

Looks pretty cool --
https://www.outrightgeekery.com/2019/09 ... ckstarter/

Currently listening to -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McW-oYPdHtA

More enthusiasm than anything, but fun.
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ganon578
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by ganon578 »

Siege Ratchet (Walgreens): Ordered this one online and paid the $6 for shipping since I didn't feel like traversing around to several Walgreens to grab one. I have the same sentiments about him like Tantrum mentioned. Mine doesn't roll terribly well either, but my Ironhide was about the same. A little bland, so Toyax may be in order to spice him up. It's good to have a Ratchet on the shelf again - the last one I had was the Universe SUV one.

Siege Galaxy Upgrade Optimus: As a gift. Nice figure, and something I wouldn't have bought on my own. Magnus wears the mold better, but this one is still pretty fun. The trailer is a bit wonky getting fiddled into place. The smaller bot mode is a bit chunkier than Magnus, but still works pretty well. There's quite a few options for the armor to play with, which I think works just a bit better than on Magnus. All in all, this is a pretty great toy that I'm glad to have.
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HeavyArms
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by HeavyArms »

Siege Ratchet & Bumblebee Movie Promotional Cassette Tape - A mate sourced for me a the Ratchet from Hong Kong, I believe, and when he shipped it to me I asked if he could send me the cassette as well.

The cassette was a free promo that could be found in kiosks near some Australian train stations, some were also sent to specific people in the Australian Transformers fandom.
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Skyquake87
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Skyquake87 »

Siege Sixgun
Saw Sixgun in Smyths and thought he looked to be the best of the bunch (my choice was between him and Barricade. I should be more excited by the Impactor toy... but I'm not. Probably in part due to Hasbro's confused marketing and a lsightly rubbish alt mode. He's a Decepticon now???). His robot mode is fantastic. I love how... roboty he looks. Lovely bunch of colours too - all cheesecakey with white, red and black.The alt-mode is decent, if not terribly exciting. Dug out Sideswipe and he makes a superb set of armour for him. I didn't think I'd be in to these weaponizer figures, but they've easily been the figures I've most enjoyed out of the line. The only problem I have with them is wanting to use them with figures with simialr colour palettes, otherwise they just look wrong to me.
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Denyer
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Denyer »

Yeah, really like Sixgun as the Siege representative in a line of CW Strafe, TR Hardhead, and POTP Ricochet (although the latter-most needs a TM to have a purpose). He's the only one out of the mixed two waves of deluxes on the shelves at that point I'd not got and would have regretted a bit not picking up. Earthrise is going to be that Micromaster base guy.

:up: :up:
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Skyquake87
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Skyquake87 »

Animorphs Marco / Gorilla
Heh. This guy is pretty neat. The gorilla mode is fantastic and looks great. I love the paint and texturing. The transformation is clever, although pretty basic. The human mode itself is pretty boxy looking and is improved by the mid-morph sculpt the toy has. For a line I've had pretty low expectations of, I've really gotten a kick out each of the figures I've picked up. They're good fun!
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Skyquake87
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Skyquake87 »

Studio Series Rampage
A lovely angry red pogoing bulldozer lad. He;s gloriously bonkers and ugly. I love the whip-like treads dangling off his arms and the stand that makes him look like he's landed heavily in the ground. Transformation is extremely simple for a such a hefty figure, but I've noticed that about all the SS Constructicons - there's an eye on the monstrous gestalt so there's short-hand taken with the transformation designs to keep them sturdy when pulling double-duty as body parts.

35th Anniversary Siege Soundblaster
I've been cooing over this figure for ages and finally decided to get one. I like him. The alt-mode's a pile of ugly nonsense with a tape deck door on the back. Bit of a shame the premium price point didn't include at least one of the tape chaps (Buzzsaw would have been nice), but the slick colourscheme and cool looking robot mode are just enough off a sell to make this feel worthwhile. He says. Convincing no-one.

Generations Select Siege Redwing
The only Seeker I was interested in because a) he's not one of the 6 herberts we've seen before b) he's not in a silly box set with a bunch of others I'm not interested in c) he gets a head sculpt that's made the unimaginative wail that "this should have been used for Starscream!". No it shouldn't. I don't know who or what Red Wing is all about, but he's a nice bright fellow with some spots of black and white to make him interesting. The smirking face gives him a nice touch of character. The transformation is pretty clever until you realise they got stuck with where to put the arms and legs and just decided they should crumple up underneath the wings. As with Soundblaster, the robot chest being on show at the back is not a good look, and shows the pitfalls of trying to make the more obviously earth-bound design cues of the robot mode work as a Cybertronian alt-mode. It's good, but the Cybertron line did the Tetrajet better. Doesn't feel particularly premium either, so that's made me think twice about getting anything else from the Selects line.

Power Of The Primes Swoop and Slug
Bit of an impluse buy in Home Bargains and I like the blue body Swoop has. You can tell these have been a labour of love for someone at Hasbro. They're very faithful to the original 1980s toys in terms of the detailing and touches like the gold parts and smoked plastic housings. The paint applications are all nice and neat too. In robot mode, Swoop feels a bit mis-proportioned with his big fat legs and flat paddle feet. His waist seems a bit too narrow and a really wish the wings had a further hinge to get them away from his back a little more. Beast mode is fantastic and looks great. Slug looks tremendous, but I really miss his 'wings' in robot mode. The beast mode is good, but I don't like how the frill is flat against the back of the figure. All in all, these are nice - if slavish - updates of the originals. And much more fun to play with too - I love my original Dinobots, but there's times I'm worried I might break them.
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Denyer
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Denyer »

Up-to-date with Micromasters, and the combiner, 'Con cars and off-road 'Bots are more interesting than the first three pairs. The utterly shite distribution makes them difficult to support, though.
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Skyquake87
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Skyquake87 »

I've still not seen any Micromasters at retail :( Probably a good thing as I'd likely be disappointed, as the originals I have are still great (rusty screws notwithstanding).
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Warcry
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Warcry »

I'd say that the new Micromasters are generally pretty good, and mostly do a good job of updating the gimmick. But at the same time, they're so tiny that it's hard for them to do much more than the originals did. They're nice but not essential.

Siege Apeface: Very much a throwback to Titans Return-style figures, with all the good and bad that implies. Bad because he falls into the same trap that a lot of TR's more disappointig entries did -- the materials and the production standards just weren't up to realizing what is, on paper, a very elegant design. That makes transforming him a chore, because a lot of parts that in theory should slot or tab together smoothly don't quite line up right. Hasbro's solution seems to have been to cast all his white parts from a milky, flexible plastic, which probably keeps his tabs from snapping off but doesn't make it any easier to actually transform him. And that's really a shame, because once you actually manage to massage him into any of his three modes, you'll find that they're very solid. That's where the positive comparisons to TR come in, because all three of his modes do a great job of capturing the blocky 1987 aesthetic while also being a lot of fun to play with.

Oh, and another TR throwback? Just like Weirdwolf's cockpit liked to self-destruct, it seems almost inevitable that the peg for Apeface's shield is going to break off in the port it fits into in jet mode. :( I decided to save myself the trouble and snip half the peg off as soon as I realized how tight the connection was, and that seems to have fixed things.

All in all Apeface is a pretty seriously flawed figure, and what's frustrating is how easily he could have been so much better.
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Skyquake87
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Skyquake87 »

Aww, that's disappointing. I've got a pre-order in for Apeface. I watched Baltmatrix' review of him and his thoughts are the same. Apparently the white plastic is a nylon based material with a lot of flex in it. I wonder if this the upshot of trying to move away from oil-based plastics..?
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Warcry
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Warcry »

I figured the nylon was for the sake of durability...a lot of those parts take a lot of stress when you transform him. I don't think it's the first time I've seen plastic like this used in a Transformer but I can't think of where else I encountered it.

After playing with the figure for a few days I still can't decide if I like it or not. Each of the three modes are lots of fun but going between them hasn't gotten any easier. Once he stops getting all the new toy attention I suspect he'll more or less live in beast mode forever.
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HeavyArms
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by HeavyArms »

Cyberverse Scraplet.

Studio Series DOTM Megatron.

Siege Refraktor.

I bought both Megatron and my second Refraktor from Amazon AU with Megatron being about 20% off and Refraktor being 5% off.
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Tantrum
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Tantrum »

That's too bad about Apeface. I was looking forward to him. I saw one at a comic shop and was dissapointed in how much splotchy gray weathering there was.

Visiting family for Tanksgiving, their K-Mart's going out of business 30% toys clearance didn't conflict with the chain's BOGO 50% sale on TF, so I was able to combine deals and get Siege Shockwave and Hound for about $40. I've only opened Shockwave so far. The bot is impressive, the addons less so. I'm glad there are extra tabs to hold them in place for their official configurations But, that just serves to highlight how poorly the 5mm connections work.

The overly dark shade of purple makes it a bit hard to see what goes where the first time transforming him, though that does make the too dark to read purple instructions more accurate. It helps the light piping stand out. The upside-down-gun ship has an extra eye and little wings in the handle to help it look like the space ship mode is on purpose.

Siege Mirage - not opened yet.

TLK Leader Megatron from Ollie's for $20. I got 2, and plan to open 1. If it's not defective, the other gets donated to a toy drive.

Cyberverse Jetfire - the bot mode's a bit plain, but the use of th rockets as a jetpack that folds into shoulder cannons is sweet. The alt mode is compromised by Hasbro's utter refusal to put plane bots arms anywhere except under the wings, and a lack of mass under the nose and cockpit. From above, it looks like a decent homage to the G1 figure.

Nitro Barricade, Helicoper Dropkick, and Blitzwing from various TJ Maxx and Marshall's stores. I've only opened Barricade, and am happy with him. After seeing several attempts to give Datsuns their shoulder cannons (parts forming, folding into the passener compartment, skipping them) and make the head come out of the hood (large panel behind the head, long neck), it's nice to see the elegant solution here, of having the center hood panel fold utward to reveal the cannons and make room for the head. Maybe they should start reworking Barricade into Datsuns istead of the other way around.

The nitro motor didn't work very well in Barricade or little car mode Dropkick, but works great in Megatron. since Megs otherwise has a large square gap in the back of his tank, I'll probably just give him Barricade's engine permanently.
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Skyquake87
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by Skyquake87 »

Hasbro Reissue Starscream
Bought this as it's been reduced to a slightly more reasonable (ha ha) £29 pretty much everywhere. The silver colouring surprised me. And is very nice and spruces up what is otherwise a quite plain figure.

Siege Barricade
I wasn't sure I'd like this figure, given that the colours on the test shot on the back are much nicer (black Y-fronts and forearms that have been changed for boring grey on the actual product), but he's actually really nice! I like the swish looking space-pebble that is his alt-mode and the robot mode is good. Poses well and looks good. Just wish they'd kept the black forearms and pelvis.
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HeavyArms
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Re: NEWEST ACQUISITIONS!

Post by HeavyArms »

Siege Sideswipe - Wave 5 was recently released and Sideswipe was included as a re-pack.

Beast Wars: Transformers (PS1) - Was fairly cheap on eBay from the UK.
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