Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Figures, collectables, customs and collecting.
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Unicron
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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All this talk of Misfire is reminding me I have him and a bunch of other Titans Return stuff still in it's packaging sitting in a box or two because I have nowhere to put them. I really need to go through that stuff and see what I have and if I can make room for it anywhere
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Skyquake87 wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 6:38 pm A lot of the toys I've had the most fun with over the last year have been things like Universe Countdown (I'm still staggered this guy clutters up ebay - he's a fantastic toy!) and some of the Energon figures I picked up. Rather undermines the point I was making, but chunky fun things like Towline (a sort of Ironhide homage) and Scorponok have reminded me how brilliant Transformers can be, when Hasbro are making fantastic stuff for kids and aren't so beholden to the noisy older bumberclarts in fandom.
Yeah, I know I've mentioned it before, but aside from the live action movies, Cybertron was really the last great wave of new characters and designs. That's not to say that everything was great, and a fair few of them lack the kind of articulation that we've gotten used to, but basically the whole line was new designs with little or no regard for homage.

As Denyer and Warcry have both stated, the Cyberverse line does this too, but it seems to have a different design ethos than the mainline stuff and gets ignored by folks like us (myself included).
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Skyquake87 wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 6:38 pm ...I did the same...and then didn't care for him so much! So I've sold him. I don't know why, because I love Slugslinger's design. I guess it was a bit of retool/repaint fatigue.
I think if Slugslinger had come out first I'd be a lot more fond of him, but Triggerhappy was great and Misfire was basically perfect. Slugslinger's pretty good too, but "pretty good" felt a bit underwhelming when it shared a mold with the two best Generations Deluxes we'd gotten since 2010.
Skyquake87 wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 6:38 pmA lot of the toys I've had the most fun with over the last year have been things like Universe Countdown (I'm still staggered this guy clutters up ebay - he's a fantastic toy!) and some of the Energon figures I picked up. Rather undermines the point I was making, but chunky fun things like Towline (a sort of Ironhide homage) and Scorponok have reminded me how brilliant Transformers can be, when Hasbro are making fantastic stuff for kids and aren't so beholden to the noisy older bumberclarts in fandom.
Countdown never came out around these parts. If he's available on eBay for a decent price I should look him up. Always kinda wanted one of those.

I've definitely had more fun with the Beast-era and Prime figures that I've picked up in the last year than with most of the new releases. I think partly because they're different and surprising in a way that a toy of an 80s or 90s character done up to look like the TV show just can't be. But I also think it's because they do something beyond just transforming and posing. Too many modern Transformers feel like they're meant to be shelf-fodder rather than TOYS, so they look great and they pose great but they don't actually do anything fun. No gimmicks, no missile launchers or spring-loaded features or things like that. Out of WFC, only the Weaponizers/Modulators/Fossilizers have been all that much FUN, even if the regular figures are really pretty and technically impressive.
Unicron wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:13 pmAll this talk of Misfire is reminding me I have him and a bunch of other Titans Return stuff still in it's packaging sitting in a box or two because I have nowhere to put them. I really need to go through that stuff and see what I have and if I can make room for it anywhere
I've got a lot of time for TR stuff! Or the Deluxes and Legends, anyway...the Voyagers were all pretty wobbly and the Leaders were kind of hit or miss. The Headmaster gimmick really works out nicely as a line-wide play pattern, too. It's definitely worth at least making a bit of room for the better ones.
Clay wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 9:37 amYeah, I know I've mentioned it before, but aside from the live action movies, Cybertron was really the last great wave of new characters and designs.
Prime brought a ton of new designs and characters too! Even the ones that were reimaginings of classic characters were usually very different. Optimus, Megatron and Bumblebee were based on the movie designs and Shockwave was fairly G1-esque, but everyone else felt very distictive. And Beast Hunters in particular was pretty nuts.
Clay wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 9:37 amAs Denyer and Warcry have both stated, the Cyberverse line does this too, but it seems to have a different design ethos than the mainline stuff and gets ignored by folks like us (myself included).
Cyberverse is where Hasbro is willing to play with new designs, at least, but even then I'd say about 80% of it is G1/BW/etc. designs done up in the art style of the day, sort of like Animated was. RiD felt a lot more creative, with its cast of "vehicle to beast" Decepticons in particular. Though I think the problem with both is that the toylines just aren't up to "mainline" quality like Prime or Animated were. Bisk or Springload or Filch or Hammerbyte or Thunderhowl are awesome designs that never have (and likely never will) get decent-quality figures, because Hasbro decided it's okay to make the "kiddie" lines with substandard quality and lazy engineering (which, to the surprise of absolutely no one except for Brian Goldner, has ensured that I never see anyone under the age of 25 browsing Transformers toys anymore...).
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Warcry wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 6:44 pm
Unicron wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:13 pmAll this talk of Misfire is reminding me I have him and a bunch of other Titans Return stuff still in it's packaging sitting in a box or two because I have nowhere to put them. I really need to go through that stuff and see what I have and if I can make room for it anywhere
I've got a lot of time for TR stuff! Or the Deluxes and Legends, anyway...the Voyagers were all pretty wobbly and the Leaders were kind of hit or miss. The Headmaster gimmick really works out nicely as a line-wide play pattern, too. It's definitely worth at least making a bit of room for the better ones.
I've already had some parts of the line open and mixed in with the other stuff I have out currently. I just ran out of space to work with (and to a lesser extent time to make the room) and thus a good chunk of the line was sidelined.
I'm actually planning to hang a new shelf this week as part of a bigger room reorganization project so I should have the space to set things out finally. Shame it still won't let me properly display my most recent acquisition though.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Warcry wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 6:44 pm Prime brought a ton of new designs and characters too! Even the ones that were reimaginings of classic characters were usually very different. Optimus, Megatron and Bumblebee were based on the movie designs and Shockwave was fairly G1-esque, but everyone else felt very distictive. And Beast Hunters in particular was pretty nuts.
Yeah, but with Animated and Prime, they were a mixture of new designs vs legacy designs translated to the style. Cybertron, taken as a whole, was basically all new.
Cyberverse is where Hasbro is willing to play with new designs, at least, but even then I'd say about 80% of it is G1/BW/etc. designs done up in the art style of the day, sort of like Animated was. RiD felt a lot more creative, with its cast of "vehicle to beast" Decepticons in particular.
Shows how much attention I pay. I was unaware that those are separate toy lines :o

Anyway, I got TFC Poseidon a week ago when it looked like the US was going to collapse into sectarian political violence! I figured that if the country was going to rend itself apart, I might as well have my fishies, dammit.

I've started to rearrange the shelves accordingly. I wanted to work in the Sharkticons I have on the bottom shelf, but there's no room left. I've also got a junker set of vintage G1 Seacons to put in with the reissue, but they smell like motor oil. For the curious, the shelf has the G1 reissue Seacons, Kabaya gum kit Seacons, Takara Generations selects, TFC Poseidon, and the full Kreon set, along with Sharkticon Megatron. linky
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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So... having added a 6ft stretch of shelving to a wall, I now have room to open and put out stuff I've had sitting around in boxes. Stuff that's been piling up since at least as far back as Fall 2017. I still need to figure out what gets priority for hitting the shelf, what gets skipped for now and (in a rare thing for me) what gets to stay in it's box.

And because I'm a madman, I went through and catalogued all the things I've been sitting on. I'm a little amazed at how big a list it is, especially as some stuff has made it on display since the pile started.
I would have thrown a copy of that list here, but after previewing it, tis a bit too long.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Unicron wrote: Fri Jan 22, 2021 4:47 am So... having added a 6ft stretch of shelving to a wall, I now have room to open and put out stuff I've had sitting around in boxes. Stuff that's been piling up since at least as far back as Fall 2017. I still need to figure out what gets priority for hitting the shelf, what gets skipped for now and (in a rare thing for me) what gets to stay in it's box.
Oh, there's lots of ways to do it. Obviously you could do the usual subgroups or toyline groupings, but the sky's the limit, really. I tried color coding this summer, which is a neat effect. If the shelf is six feet wide, you could order them from shortest to tallest. If you've got multiple copies of the same figure, you could do the inter-transformation stages from robot to alternate mode.

I'm actually giving myself ideas.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Clay wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:11 pm Oh, there's lots of ways to do it. Obviously you could do the usual subgroups or toyline groupings, but the sky's the limit, really. I tried color coding this summer, which is a neat effect. If the shelf is six feet wide, you could order them from shortest to tallest. If you've got multiple copies of the same figure, you could do the inter-transformation stages from robot to alternate mode.

I'm actually giving myself ideas.
It's not really an organizational issue I'm facing. Generally I split things out by faction, occasionally with subgroups clustered together. Tallest stuff at the back of the shelf, descending in height to the front so that things can be seen and/or more easily extracted for fiddling with.

The 'problem' is the quantity of stuff and deciding which I want to make sure ends up on display. It's a 6 foot by 1 foot shelf, which I figured would be more than enough but I kind of underestimated just how much I had built up. Only counting Legends-size and up, I've got about 50 still in packaging waiting to get opened.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Ooooohhh, okay. I completely misunderstood.

How long has this pile been accumulating?
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Clay wrote: Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:23 pm Ooooohhh, okay. I completely misunderstood.

How long has this pile been accumulating?
A little over 3 years, at least. It's not everything I've acquired in that time span though. For completely arbitrary reasons, some things have been opened and found space for.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Alright, after giving some thought as to what I consider "top ten of the decade" and then subsequently procrastinating on taking actual pictures, I've decided to skip photography and just use links.

I've picked these not just for their own sake's, but also to give a sense of the variety of things have bloomed from 2011-2020. If I were just going to list figures that are my favorites if not remarkable in a larger sense, most of Titans Return and Power of Primes would be on here. So, just assume that they are and that we're past having to list the Monsterbots and Decepticon head-target-masters.

In no particular order, here are ten-ish things I like from Hasbro and Takara over the past decade, plus one third party figure:

Springer and Sandstorm (2013-14)

I think Warcry already noted Sandstorm, but I'll mention them again as a pair. It's not just that it's the most coherent triple changer mold ever made for the mainline offerings, but that it's also one of the best examples of how thoughtful remolding can yield two figures from the same base that's not even immediately apparent. Extensive retooling has since become the norm, more or less, but usually just for figures with two modes, not three. Titans Return saw the same idea with some of its triple changers (Broadside and Alpha Trion, I think), but no other pair of figures fights the same war on three fronts and wins like Springer and Sandstorm do.

Steelbane (2017)

A non-entity and a bit of a shelfwarmer, but easily one of my favorite figures. A big part of the appeal is the aesthetic of a medieval knight for the robot mode contrasted with the dragon mode. It's a thematic relationship that works well on paper, and the design itself is neat. Particularly, the dragon mode has a great deal of articulation and expressiveness to it, from being able to fold up its wings to stand on the ground four-legged to being able show mood by rotating its little antlers. It's the kind of figure that really needs a display stand to fully appreciate. Also, I do like how the wings simply do double-duty and are incorporated into the robot mode. All that praise aside, it would really benefit from being a size class larger to give it the part count to fold away and hide some of the glaring bits, namely the robot feet hanging off the neck and tail. Even so, I like it in spite of, or maybe because of, that kind of compromise. It really shows off the compound of ideas that they can do at the deluxe price and size point when they're not trying to adhere to existing design.

Cosmos (2014)

For reasons similar to Steelbane, I think pretty highly of Cosmos. He's made of only two dozen-ish parts, and yet transforms from a cute little flying saucer into a nicely articulated robot. It's the simplicity and efficiency that impresses me the most. He's basically a disc, which is a simple geometric shape, and yet he turns into a very nicely proportioned humanoid while using a small number of parts to do so (just look at other versions of cosmos to see where this can go wrong). They even thought of how to get the engines to make a little jetpack for the robot mode! Anyway, this version of Cosmos has always stuck in my mind not just because of how well it uses the basic shape of a disc, but also the comparative lack of practice they had to build on. Most transformers are either cars, planes, or four legged animals, all of which roughly have the same oblong rectangle shape which isn't too far from the human form. A disc is not as complementary to the challenge, so I like it all the more that it succeeds while being so simple and clean.

Waspinator (2014)

HE IS GREAT AND I LOVE HIM, THE END.

TFC Hercules (2011-2012)

Though completely outdated now (in fact, we have five six different third party Devastators, plus the official one from Combiner Wars), Hercules needs a mention for just how impactful he's been for the third party market. Before Hercules, third party stuff was limited to add-on kits and small-ish individual figures like the Fansproject Insecticons. What TFC did with Hercules was to expand the third party market boundaries in price, scale of the project, and length of time for completion. With one set of figures, they showed that there was a buying audience for larger, more expensive figures over a fairly lengthy release schedule (roughly ten months for the full set, if I remember right). Considering most of the third party figures now take full advantage of that market territory cleared by Hercules, and I have to give it some kudos even if the figure set itself is quaint and sub-par compared to other combiners (heck, even other Devastators!) since. As such, he's the only figure I can list with confidence as being notable in the last decade while at the same time recommending not buying today.

Exhaust (2015)

The past decade has seen the explosion of the masterpiece line, so rather than try and list impressive feats of engineering and have them dominate the list, I'll just pick a few that broadly represent the different ways they've struck out into new territory. The first that comes to mind is Exhaust. Not just that it's hilarious (he's a decepticon mobile advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes named Exhaust that's based on a real supercar that was destroyed in a fire. Ha.), but also because he was (I think?) the first new character invented for the masterpiece line as an excuse to use an old Diaclone deco. Inasmuch, Exhaust was the first of the real oddball masterpiece figures. I appreciate the eclecticism and variety that the MP molds are usually offered in, and Exhaust was the spearhead for that.

Masterpiece Megatron (2017)

For reasons similar to Cosmos, but at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I'd pick MP Megatron. Handgun Megatrons, practicality of the alternate mode aside, are always interesting engineering challenges. As I said above, most transformers are either cars, plans, or four-legged animals because the rough shape already has loose analogs to the humanoid form. Usually, the designers can take the easy route and have symmetrical robot emerge from that alternate mode (aside from the asymmetrical weirdos like the RID car brothers and lots of the BW figures, which are interesting because of that weirdness, but anyway). In the case of Megatron, it's an uphill battle from the start as a handgun is not analogous to a humanoid robot to begin with, and on top that he has the asymmetrical challenge of reorienting what becomes the robot's chest from the chamber.

It absolutely shouldn't work, even if they were to use cheating and fake parts (which they didn't!), and yet they pulled it off anyway, and the robot is great. And it still all starts with sketches with pen and paper. I am in awe, even now. Of course, I can't assign all that praise without acknowledging that transforming it to-and-fro isn't a nightmare, but it's a nightmare that's justified by what it accomplishes, which is the impossible.

Sharkticon Megatron (2014)

Completely different flavor than the above Megatron, the Sharkticon Megatron from Beast Hunters is one of my favorite Megatron figures. I enjoy... its whimsy. It's just so goofy and fun. It's as if a G2 figure had its over-the-top graphic stickers actually be the alternate mode. Ultra-realistic alternate modes, scale model cars, or strict adherence to animation models can make for interesting engineering challenges, but it's also good to remember that these things can just be good silly fun. Plus I like saying SPACEFISH, which is what it is.

Earthrise Optimus Prime (2020)

A recent figure, but I think it'll end up being regarded as the best mainline G1 Prime figure we're likely to get. It just hits all the right notes, from making an interesting-though-not-convoluted transformation, to a great looking and articulated robot, to a 'complete' truck mode with trailer. It's a minor annoyance that it doesn't have the battle axe or Roller, but whatever. It's been carried over into the Kingdom line without any changes, so that means it'll be on the market shelves for 12 or 18 months, and honestly it deserves to be. He's a banner figure for collectors, kids, and everyone in between.

Studio Series Devastator (2019-2020)

You knew this was coming. He's just so remarkable in ways other combiners aren't. The gorilla robot mode, the asymmetrical combinations, the weird-ass individual robot modes, the span of sizes of the figures... and they pulled it off with only minor compromises (mostly extra parts or visible robot bits). Compare it to any other combiner, and note how ROTF Devastator and the component Constructicons are so far out of the design 'comfort zone' of the G1 template that the subsequent success of the whole party is basically overwhelming.


Movie Masterpiece Optimus Prime (2017)

For reasons of engineering, and for reasons that are personal. The robot mode was designed first with a sense of visual language without much regard for how what part would end up where (drive wheels in the thighs, steering wheels in the ankles, fenders and fuel tanks in the back, etc.). So, having to work backward from the robot into the truck was going to take a lot of percolating. In fact, they pretty much nailed the mechanism in 2009 with the ROTF leader mold, but the masterpiece version is a refinement of that, does away with the few fake parts the previous figure used out of convenience.

And, for me personally, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the movie version of the character, even going so far as to present an essay about him at an academic conference a couple of years ago. I worked how impossible a physical toy of this design should be into the essay itself, and brought him along to sit on my pile of books about populism and film theory as I gave my reading, so yeah... this figure is pretty significant to me.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Clay wrote: Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:20 pmI think Warcry already noted Sandstorm, but I'll mention them again as a pair. It's not just that it's the most coherent triple changer mold ever made for the mainline offerings, but that it's also one of the best examples of how thoughtful remolding can yield two figures from the same base that's not even immediately apparent.
Agreed. The most impressive thing about Sandstorm and Springer isn't that they're great toys, it's that they're two almost completely different great toys. You can pick up on the shared molding pretty easily in robot mode, but both alt-modes are so different I don't even think a casual observer would be able to tell.
Clay wrote: Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:20 pmSteelbane (2017)
Why am I only learning that this exists now? I feel like I need one. Even with the feet just hanging out on his neck and tail.
Clay wrote: Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:20 pmFor reasons similar to Steelbane, I think pretty highly of Cosmos.
I picked Outback as the Legends figure to heap praise on as a proxy for the class as a whole, but if I'd done it on a different day it easily could have been Cosmos instead. It looks great and it's really nicely engineered. Sadly, it seems to get shat on by a big slice of the fandom nowadays for not being GEEWUN enough. It's too bad really, because this is one of the best "remixes" of a character design they've done since...maybe 2010 Seaspray? I adored the original Cosmos when I was a little kid but I can't imagine wanting a toy that looked like that after owning this one.
Clay wrote: Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:20 pmExhaust (2015)
I can never untangle in my head just how much of my affection for Exhaust comes from him actually being that good vs. how much of it comes from him being an early fandom legend brought to life, or the perverse pleasure that comes from him basically being contraband in most countries outside of Japan. The second of those got him some consideration for my own list, but Blue Bluestreak just plain has him beat on that score. But he's definitely one of the prize catches of my collection.
Clay wrote: Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:20 pmSharkticon Megatron (2014)
I've never stopped kicking myself for not buying one. Just a gorgeous figure. I'll have to add that to my list of things to look out for this year.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Warcry wrote: Mon Feb 01, 2021 3:46 am Why am I only learning that this exists now? I feel like I need one. Even with the feet just hanging out on his neck and tail.
Here, I took some pictures. https://imgur.com/a/ZokoLKe

He absolutely has his flaws - the feet hanging off the neck and tail, the robot hands just sort of sticking out the dragon legs, the flimsiness of some joints, etc. But that both modes can be so emotive, that both modes are thematically linked, and that the overall design is quite efficient overrides all the shortcomings for me. He's the exact kind of design that would clean up extremely well if they made another one for a larger size class with a higher part count. Even so, I liked the deluxe enough to buy up all I could when they went on clearance and use them holiday and birthday gifts. I don't think I have any spares left, though :(
I picked Outback as the Legends figure to heap praise on as a proxy for the class as a whole, but if I'd done it on a different day it easily could have been Cosmos instead. It looks great and it's really nicely engineered.
I thought about mentioning Masterpiece Ravage or Studio Series helicopter Dropkick for similar reasons. They both are nearly two dimensional in their alternate modes, being so narrow when looked at edge-on, but pop into fully three-dimensional little robots. I picked Cosmos instead because of the aforementioned "out of comfort zone" shape of a disc.
Sadly, it seems to get shat on by a big slice of the fandom nowadays for not being GEEWUN enough.
This is why we don't get nice and new ideas very often anymore :nonono: .
I can never untangle in my head just how much of my affection for Exhaust comes from him actually being that good vs. how much of it comes from him being an early fandom legend brought to life, or the perverse pleasure that comes from him basically being contraband in most countries outside of Japan. The second of those got him some consideration for my own list, but Blue Bluestreak just plain has him beat on that score. But he's definitely one of the prize catches of my collection.
I actually have the completely silver Bluestreak because it reminds me of the Binaltech :o. But yeah, same fruit, different slice. I think Exhaust is the more noteworthy because of the character debut, though.
I've never stopped kicking myself for not buying one. Just a gorgeous figure. I'll have to add that to my list of things to look out for this year.
SPACEFISH.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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So, carrying on from my prior comments about having a backlog of stuff, here's the list of stuff that I remembered existed by virtue of finally opening them.

Combiner Wars
Skywarp

Titans Return
Brainstorm, Chromedome, Highbrow, Hot Rod, Mindwipe, Misfire, Perceptor, Sergeant Kup, Slugslinger, Topspin, Triggerhappy, Twinferno, Twin Twist, Windblade, and Wolfwire. Also Broadside.

POTP
Blackwing, Dreadwind, Optimal Optimus and Optimus Prime.

Seige
Brunt, Hound, Impactor, Sideswipe and Soundwave

Earthrise
Airwave and Fasttrack

Now to figure out what of the remaining too much gets opened next.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Unicron wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 8:10 pm Titans Return
Mindwipe, and Wolfwire.
Careful with these. Weirdwolf's basically guaranteed to have a part break around the cockpit, though it's mostly cosmetic because the piece is made of two different materials.

Mindwipe's wings may also become very fragile over time, though it's not clear what percentage of the figures are affected.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Clay wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 8:38 pm
Unicron wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 8:10 pm Titans Return
Mindwipe, and Wolfwire.
Careful with these. Weirdwolf's basically guaranteed to have a part break around the cockpit, though it's mostly cosmetic because the piece is made of two different materials.

Mindwipe's wings may also become very fragile over time, though it's not clear what percentage of the figures are affected.
Weirdwolf was broken there right out of the package, so no surprise there. No problems with Mindwipe so far, though I did suspect his wings could be a thing given the different material.
Random oddity: My Topspin has 2 right feet.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Oddly enough with Mindwipe, it's not the soft rubber parts that make the wing tips. It's the hard plastic on that hinge that's fragile. I know mine broke on one wing, but not other.

It is, however, quite fixable at least.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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That's weird. Just gave mine a look and the wing hinges appear fine.
I wonder if Convobat has the same potential problem. I'll have to look if/when I get to cracking that one open.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Carrying on from the previous comment, Convobat looks like he'd have the same potential wing issue. It's got the same material clash as Mindwipe. And both my Convobat and Mindwipe have the same loose ankles, so I expect that's endemic to the mold.

And I have also opened my Legends Black Convoy. The deluxe one that's the same mold as the RTS G2 Optimus. Little more fiddly than I expected but a nice mold.
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Clay wrote: Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:20 pm Alright, after giving some thought as to what I consider "top ten of the decade" and then subsequently procrastinating on taking actual pictures, I've decided to skip photography and just use links.
Looking around the room, I realise most of my picks come down to "looks cool", "strong nostalgic connection" or both. Some of these are probably only roughly within ten years, I haven't kept track.

Earthrise Titan Scorponok
https://hasbropulse.com/products/transf ... nok-figure

The citybot I had most interest in and they did last.

CW/POTP "Guard City"
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Inferno_Combiner

Inferno, Alpha Bravo, Groove, Prowl and Rook. A mostly white set that gives a cohensive look and fairly close to the classic scans of a half-arsed Defensor repaint.

POTP Dreadwing (Dreadwing+Blackwing)
https://hdtfblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/p ... kwing.html

It barely stays together, but it's the perfect complement to whichever version of PM OP it's displayed with.

(3P) Fansproject Bruticus
https://www.seibertron.com/transformers ... awl/19354/

Has a boxy charm that's halfway between the originals and modern engineering.

(3P) Maketoys Quantron (Technobots/Computron)
http://www.tfmatrix.com/2018/04/06/make ... al-review/

Retro futuristic alt modes and characters I particularly liked as a kid. Ended up with a spare set -- I'm not going to get a third now to have them in every possible configuration -- so if anyone's interested get in touch after this pandemic.

(3P) Fanshobby Megatooth (Repugnus)
https://sixotransformers.blogspot.com/2 ... mb-02.html

A fave from the Marvel UK profile.

(3P) Fansproject Dinoichi ("Slog")
https://tfsource.com/fansproject/dino-ichi/

Also a favourite character.

(3P) Planet X Triton ("Paddles")
https://tfsource.com/planet-x/triton/

Because plesiosaur.

(3P) Fansproject Comera ("Slash")
https://tfsource.com/fansproject/ler-05-comera/

Because velociraptor. Dinobots are one of the few TF subgroups that usually display in alt modes.

(3P) Mastermind Creations Anubis
https://tfsource.com/mastermind-creations/r-18-anubis/

As good as representation of Death's Head as I think we're likely to get.
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