A Transformers Thread

Anyone have any good pictures of Aligned Ultra Magnus in his vehicle form?

I just realized you don't get many good looks at it (and he doesn't transform that often either, so that makes it harder.

I imagine it's probably because it's just a slightly modified version of Optimus' Season 1-2 form (just like Magnus himself shares a body type with Optimus) but I'd still like a good look at it. I know it has some kind of weird trunk in the back (what the Transformers Wiki calls a Dyson-esque cargo hold) but it's hard to get a good bead on it.

Edit: Here's a Production Report Video from the dude who did that Starscream Video and the Dreams of Diacon Arcee Video, with another little Arcee animation at both the beginning and end:

Nightbird feels like she's being pushed as Arcee's opposite, or at least, G1 Arcee's opposite. It's funny when you remember she's not even a Cybertronian.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Jan 13th 2024 at 8:46:20 AM

And a new post from me. Rodimus Primal has a new video on Perceptor:

Percy is one of the toys I had as a kid. Good times.

Shame he never got that Animated Toy. I think it's one of his best looking forms. But then again, it's animated. That line just banged out some really good designs.

Apparently a lot of other people are having the same problem I'm having where the waist connection on mini-Predaking (Kingmini to Thormini) isn't secure at all.

I'm annoyed. Bought Beast Wars Tarantulas off Amazon, but realized right away I wanted to return it. But the seller doesn't do free returns and the return price through UPS is almost half the cost of the figure itself.

Nevermind, the refund was free after I changed the return reason. I didn't even know that was a thing they did.

Edited by wanderlustwarrior on Jan 23rd 2024 at 11:34:53 AM

Haslab released a cryptic announcement for their 40th anniversary figure. Mentioning "Fire up the engines" "Ride the Lightning" and the word "Omega"

The popular theory atm is we're getting Omega Prime / God Fire Convoy from Robots In Disguise / Car Robot, an admittedly weird and niche pick for the 40th anniversary. If it turns out to be true it'll be interesting. Fire Convoy in particular is one of the best toys Takara ever made, it's aged like fine wine. It'll be interesting to see a Legacy take on that and how they can manage to not make it feel like a downgrade.

So you think they'd make both toys so they could combine together.

I've always liked the Fire Convoy / Car Robots In Disguise Optimus look, especially his Super mode.

Never cared as much for God Fire Convoy / Omega Prime's look....but I gotta admit, the name GOD Fire Convoy always rocked.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Jan 25th 2024 at 7:22:46 AM

If the guess is right, that's presumably the plan, hence "Omega" on the announcement, for Omega Prime (the Us version of God Fire Convoy). Presumably a Fire Convoy and a Ultra Magnus/God Magnus

Really curious how a legacy version would turn out. Coz frankly, the OG is almost closer in quality to a masterpiece and a masterpiece Fire Convoy would be such a glorious figure. Magnus is the weaker of the pair but still a decent figure.

Edited by Ghilz on Jan 25th 2024 at 10:09:27 AM

I still have the Fire Convoy base cab. Not all of the pieces of the rest, though. I don't regret not buying Ultra Magnus as a kid (limited funds, decreasing interest in the show, and didn't like the character), but it was a good set.

The last piece of Mini-Thunderking came in the mail literally minutes before I left for the airport to go out of town this weekend. I still opened it to make sure it was right, though. Also finished combining the weapons, and turned the two hands into the crab. I'll actually transform and combine the figure itself when I'm back, give my thoughts, email the seller and manufacturer for some support with issues I already had, and take pictures, including disassembled and posed fighting the WFC:Kingdom Maximals, on Sunday/Monday.

New video from Chris Mc Feely on the Golden Age of Cybertron:

You know, I've said it before, but it was nice that the second IDW continuity showed us a Cybertron that wasn't completely and utterly corrupt. After years of that, seeing something different was nice.

IDW 2's idealized Cybertron was great. Basically what the planet's supposed to be.

Helps that we get to see the decepticons as bad guys for screwing that up.

A new video from Rodimus Primal on Shadow Striker:

Considering she's seemed to eclipsed her sister since Cyberverse, it might not be such a bad idea to disassociate her from Roulette and bring back their unnamed third sister as Silhouette, the name Shadow Striker was supposed to have.

The new TF HasLab just got revealed and...

Anybody a big fan of Car Robots?

Because the next HasLab is 2001 OMEGA PRIME!

Comes with Optimus Prime, his command center, Ultra Magnus, his double-barreled cannon thingie that's now a Weaponizer called Bluebolts, and for tiers, we have 23.5-inch Matrix Blade Accessory for the first one and 2 combinable Global Space Bridge display base pieces for the second tier!

It needs 10,000 backers to begin production, will run from January 30, 2024 until March 14, 2024 at 11:59PM ET

...and the only downside is that the asking price is $250 USD.

Hoo boy...

It'll be interesting to see the comparison with the original toys.

Magnus' new proportions look a bit weird to me. Fire Convoy/Optimus looks nice. No light/sound gimmick this time it seems.

EDIT: The more I look at Magnus, the weirder he seems. Like the original he has weird knees. His torso looks hollow, along with the much smaller shoulders.

I wonder if this will make the backer numbers. RID is a bit niche. The original toys are already pretty stellar and this doesn't seem to have much in the way of improvements. at 250 USD it might be a tough sell. Then again Deathsaurus got funded and he's even more niche.

Edited by Ghilz on Jan 30th 2024 at 11:10:48 AM

Already 25% of the way to funded. Looking promising.

RID Ultra Magnus always did feel like he was meant to combine with Optimus first and foremost, with everything else being a relative afterthought. Not nearly as clean or proportionate of a robot mode, kind of cobbled-together looking.

Edited by Chortleous on Jan 30th 2024 at 12:24:47 PM

The figure will 100% make the backer numbers. If only for retailers filling the gap because this will be guaranteed money for them down the line.

I'm a bit torn. Magnus looks better. Prime looks completely lateral. Omega Prime is presumably more stable. I don't have Magnus. So do I $250 want these guys when I have half of it that I already like a lot? Does the fact I already have an Optimus Prime that I like more mean I should be more on board since this means I can get a combined version without sacrificing my Optimus?

Completely unrelated, the EnsembleDarkhorse.Transformers page is a complete mess. I brought it up in the Ensemble Darkhorse thread and in an ATT but I figured I'd get some feedback here. Some of the issues need to be hashed out wiki-side (ie, is a character too major to be an Ensemble Dark Horse), but some need to be hashed out here as to whether they're actually popular as the writeups overall are really bad, largely not even saying whether the character is popular and just saying "This character exists".

Edited by Larkmarn on Jan 30th 2024 at 1:30:05 PM

Welcome back 2001 RID.

The figure will 100% make the backer numbers. If only for retailers filling the gap because this will be guaranteed money for them down the line.

You say that but I can think of far more notable Haslab figures that failed. The Haslab Rancor comes to mind.

That said the figure looks well on track.

RID Ultra Magnus always did feel like he was meant to combine with Optimus first and foremost, with everything else being a relative afterthought. Not nearly as clean or proportionate of a robot mode, kind of cobbled-together looking.

Yup, it's a big criticism of the original too. Fire Convoy is amazing but Magnus clearly exists for the sake of the combined mode.

Speaking of which, Hasbro just had a stream showing the prototypes. I'll just copy from TFW 2005 for the main points

The stability thing is a big improvement. the OG Omega Prime cannot stand up unsupported.

Seeing the prototypes in hand as won me over. Optimus looks way more dynamic and Omega Prime looks so stable, it's a hell of a difference.

Edited by Ghilz on Jan 30th 2024 at 2:21:00 PM

Fanstream's here

@Larkmarn: What do you recommend? A big purge?

Omega Prime looks interesting. Never saw Car Robots, but I never saw Victory either and I got both Victory Saber and Deathsaurus. I'm on the fence, but I'm glad it's not Primus.

I thought there'd be more reveals in the stream than just the Haslab, oh well.

The figure is getting backers faster than Deathsaurus did, putting it in line to make it the fasted funded Pulse Transformer figure. It's pretty insane. Glad it's doing so well.

Hiroyuki Taiga, one of the animators for Car Robot, was talking on twitter about designing Fire Convoy for the show. Having visited fire departments at the time to look at truck but not being allowed to tell them what franchise this was for, yet the firemen guessed it was for Transformers, which he had to coyly act like it wasn't. He's really happy the fire truck says "Fire Department" in Japanese on the side.

Seeing the figures side by side with the original won me over, decided to back this. Like the solo pictures dont showcase all the improvements, but the side by side presentation in the live stream show what an insane improvement this is.

Edited by Ghilz on Jan 31st 2024 at 4:49:40 AM

I'm backing for sure, since the original Fire God Convoy figure is A. Even more expensive than this anyway, and B. Fragile. I'd much rather get this than drop 4 bills on the Encore release.

This one can stand up on its own! Something literally impossible to do with the original god fire convoy!

@Larkmarn: What do you recommend? A big purge?

More or less. I'm working on Sandbox.Transformers Ensemble Darkhorse and putting in bold my recommendations.

I'm completely stalled at IDW. With its Loads And Loads Of Characters it's really tough for me to say who has enough Character Focus to be disqualified for Ensemble Dark Horse status, and I don't have my ear to the ground quite enough to be certain of who is and isn't popular.

... except for the DJD who is very much a Base Breaker group.

Honestly, most of the writeups just... kinda suck as if they were written by people who don't know what an Ensemble Dark Horse is and half the writeups seem to think "got a toy" is sufficient context that they're an Ensemble Dark Horse.

Edited by Larkmarn on Jan 31st 2024 at 10:31:32 AM

It's a YMMV page. It's frankly not worth the effort to break one's head over. Purge anything that isn't an obvious example. It's not worth agonizing over.