Summer hauls!

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
User avatar
Ursus mellifera
Supreme-Class
Posts: 765
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2011 8:07 am

Re: Summer hauls!

Post by Ursus mellifera »

I got Pounce and Wingspan yesterday, and I'm disappointed in Pounce, especially. He just kind of seems like this loose collection of limbs in panther mode (which looks like a wolf, anyway, but that's beside the point). Like, his back end doesn't clip or lock together at all. Am I missing something?
Check it out, a honey bear! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkajou
User avatar
Shockwave
Supreme-Class
Posts: 6205
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2009 4:10 pm
Location: Sacramento, CA

Re: Summer hauls!

Post by Shockwave »

Maybe. I'll check mine, but I don't recall any pegs or locking points either. I on the other hand, actually like this set and enjoy fiddling with them. Sure, they don't look like the animals they're supposed to, but did anything in later generation G1 (no, no it didn't)?

Anyway, got Siege Rumble and Ratbat and the 3rd unit four pack. This completes my G1 Soundwave minions (at least the ones they made, might have to customize a Buzzsaw but that's going to be a HUGE pain in the ass). When the 4 pack was announced, the blue guy's name was listed as Rumble. This struck me as hilarious since the red and black one was also Rumble and I really wanted that to continue and be official that they both have the same name. Apparently Hasbro caved and the blue one is listed as Frenzy :roll: :| . Out of all of the tape bots, Ravage and Lazerbeak are the best, Rumble is the next better one and Ratbat, Wing Thing, and Skar are... ok. None of these are up to the level of the MP bots and I know they're not supposed to be, but the lack of some of the articulation is disappointing. Rumble, Frenzy and Knok all should have at least had elbow joints. Even their G1 counterparts had elbows. Ratbat and others are on par with their G1 counterparts so I guess... I don't really know where I'm going with this. Anyway, another thing that struck me as odd, and I'll admit my G1 knowledge falls off a bit here, wasn't Doubledealer's powermaster partners supposed to be one from each side? Like Knok was an Autobot and Skar was a Decepticon? Or do I have that wrong? I thought it odd that Knok is listed as a Decepticon. Knok doesn't have a faction logo so I put him in with post movie Autobots and Skar is in with my post movie Decepticons. And I'm rambling again.

TL:DR: I actually do like these, they are fun to fiddle with and being micromasters or minicons or what ever you want to call them, I can forgive the lack of articulation. Paint in alt mode is bit bland which is why I did order reprolabels for them but other than that, I do think they are worth tracking down. Right now, Amazon is the cheapest option by far and the only place that seems to have them in the US (at least for Rumble and Ratbat, other dealers have the 4 pack, but at higher prices). My only real complaint is that it seems like only Ravage and Lazerbeak fit properly in Soundwave, the others all see slightly too big. They fit, but not well and I have to use my fingernail to get them out. Still good though.
User avatar
andersonh1
Moderator
Posts: 6323
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:22 pm
Location: South Carolina

Re: Summer hauls!

Post by andersonh1 »

Massive summer haul: we have been house hunting for over a year, made a number of offers and finally had one accepted. We're moving next week, so we've been packing everything we own and there are stacks of boxes all around the house. It will be very nice to finally get this process over and done with and be able to relax in new place. We've been in the current house for 15 years, and I think the change will be good for everyone.
User avatar
Ursus mellifera
Supreme-Class
Posts: 765
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2011 8:07 am

Re: Summer hauls!

Post by Ursus mellifera »

Nice. We just moved 2 months ago, and it was brutal, and completely worth it. Good luck!
Check it out, a honey bear! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkajou
User avatar
Shockwave
Supreme-Class
Posts: 6205
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2009 4:10 pm
Location: Sacramento, CA

Re: Summer hauls!

Post by Shockwave »

Congratulations!
User avatar
Shockwave
Supreme-Class
Posts: 6205
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2009 4:10 pm
Location: Sacramento, CA

Re: Summer hauls!

Post by Shockwave »

Commander Class Sky Lynx. This is my first Commander Class figure, I never found Jetfire. And I'm pretty impressed. He looks good in all modes, my only complaint is that the shuttle doesn't sit very sturdy in base mode. But, the shuttle mode looks awesome, the lynx mode is awesome, the bird mode is awesome, the combined dinobird mode thing is awesome, the articulation is awesome, the paint is awesome, the "blooshing" effects parts are awesome... yeah, it's just awesome. The only problem I had with mine was that the lynx head had come off it's ball joint in the packaging, so I had to snap it back into place, but as is true with all ball joints, that was easy enough to fix. I've been getting a lot of reprolabels for some of my figures lately, but I don't feel any need for any with this one. I seriously can't imagine where they would put them. Everything tabs and locks into place in all modes. I really have no complaints on this figure. I honestly can't imagine how the could have made it better. It's awesome and if you can find it, you should definitely get it. You will not be disappointed.
User avatar
Ursus mellifera
Supreme-Class
Posts: 765
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2011 8:07 am

Re: Summer hauls!

Post by Ursus mellifera »

I second that opinion of Sky Lynx. I genuinely can't think of a way to make this toy better other than the shuttle connecting more securely with the base-thingie. He's great.
Check it out, a honey bear! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkajou
User avatar
JediTricks
Site Admin
Posts: 3849
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:17 pm
Location: LA, CA, USA

Re: Summer hauls!

Post by JediTricks »

andersonh1 wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 5:13 am Massive summer haul: we have been house hunting for over a year, made a number of offers and finally had one accepted. We're moving next week, so we've been packing everything we own and there are stacks of boxes all around the house. It will be very nice to finally get this process over and done with and be able to relax in new place. We've been in the current house for 15 years, and I think the change will be good for everyone.
Congrats! That's awesome.


Lotta stuff since my birthday came and went, some preorders came in, and Ross had Siege on clearance...

SW Black Series ESB Vader - really, really good.

SW Black Series Mando Stormtrooper - excellent, very well designed, fantastic articulation, and shiny armor.

GI Joe Classifieds Snake Eyes deluxe - outstanding boxed set, next-level design for the price. You can get all the accessories aside from the long spear and the weapon rack with the Red Ninja though.

Ant Man & The Wasp blu ray

Danger Diabolik blu ray

PS4 Hitman 2

Star Wars Bandai 1:12th Artoo Deetoo model kit

PS4 Doom 2016 - outstanding game, aside from a little aggressively stupid platforming.

Overwatch Hanzo, Genji, Pharah, Mercy, and Zarya - These feel a little dated for Hasbro's 6" design team, they are very 2013 articulation and paint. For full price, never, but for $3.50 each at Ross on double-clearance, they make decent villains for my GI Joe Classifieds and MCU figures. I'm glad I'm not a fan of the game, these are ALMOST good enough but never quite there.

Snap Ships Sabre - I like all 3 instruction designs, the main one being my favorite. It's a fun system, never gonna be as robust as LEGO but the ships are good whooshable things.

Snap Ships Scarab - decent, not as good as the Sabre because all 3 designs are pokey and a tiny bit droopy.

Jurassic Park Amber Collection Dilophosaurus - decent but not worth $30 with this paint and sculpting, needs a little more finesse.

Star Wars Galaxy's Edge Cookbook - a very nice gift

SW TVC Poe's X-Wing - excellent new design, the pinnacle of X-wing toys

WFC Rotorstorm - preodered this and it's finally here. I passed on Spinister because I didn't like the colors, somehow these garish near-G2 colors aren't as bad to me. Great new headsculpt, lots of personality in that face. Good figure although getting it locked into alt mode requires some careful adjusting of the lower facade cockpit's inner systems to get it to tab right.

WFC Earthrise Astro Squad - not a bad little set, some weird compromises in vehicle mode with an odd slant to the shuttle wings and a clearance issue with the back arms not letting the wings in the back sit flat, but I like that they paid lip service to each bot having its own separate vehicle mode. Decent little transformations.

WFC Combat Megatron - a free make-good for my problems with Snake Eyes and Exhaust, Combat Megatron is silly and woefully G2 for an unproduced item. The white is more prevalent than the original, and that includes pointless white paint on the fists that gets sloppy to avoid painting the hole. Doesn't have the ankle problem, but the mold overuse is showing with very sloppy ankle and heel spur joints popping out during transformation. The miner Megatron-inspired head sculpt looks good, but you can barely see it with the white plastic and black face. I'm using it to bolster my Decepticon numbers for my WFC figures, treating it like a dumb-dumb Megs clone.

WFC Earthrise Coneheads Dirge & Ramjet - I don't like these that much, the material is thinner than the Siege figures, the figure design is somehow WORSE than the CHUG Seekers with a bigass gap in the side of the torso that you can see through to the back, there's unchanged slots from Starscream that just don't get used, the brick under the vehicle mode is offensively large, and there's so much less detail and articulation than the Siege Seekers it's almost painful.

WFC Siege Ultra Magnus - $18 at Ross. Pretty good figure with a compromised vehicle mode both the truck itself and the "trailer" (it's an RID UM homage so it's not a trailer) that can't store anything without some serious creativity. Not remotely worth $50, although better than voyager-class figures in this line.

WFC Siege Astrotrain - also $18 at Ross. Better than expected train mode and bot mode, unacceptable as a leader-class when it's shorter than most voyager-class without the add-on shoes. I love the train mode, don't care for the shuttle mode as it's obvious there was supposed to be something covering the back half that's missing. The backpack is lame in every mode except train tender, and even that's not great. Weapons are cool at least. If they had done more with the backpack and added some lift-off thruster blast effects, maybe it would be worth it, but it woefully needs that shield for shuttle mode.

WFC Siege Shockwave - $36 from HTS ebay store. I like this figure a lot but it's also not passing as a leader-class, although its additional supplies are much better than Astrotrain's. The base figure has some stuff in common with MP Shockwave and a nifty enough submarine/spaceship/gun mode, though the spaceship is way better with the add-on parts. Fantastic light piping in bot mode, decent alternate light piping in vehicle mode. Hover platform instructions aren't included, which is a shame because it's neat and part of what sold me.

WFC Siege Air Strike Patrol - $4.50 from HTS ebay store. A little overhyped, only my second Micromasters from WFC at all and they're only fine, not impressive in any one mode, and neither rock solid nor totally sloppy in any of the modes.

WFC Siege Springer - $13 at Ross. Better than expected but with a few really awful instruction choices that nearly tricked me into breaking the figure by how confusing they were. Cockpit in both modes is too small merely to accommodate a hinge that could have easily done the same job with a bigger cockpit by having the hinges inside rather than out. Excellent weathering paint, the best of the ones I've seen by far. Decent in all 3 modes, chopper mode should have worked harder to hide the front wheels and lock down the front winglets. Worth getting if you're a Springer fan.

WFC Cog - $8 at Ross. Easily the worst of the 3 Weaponizers, there are things to like about this set as a bot, even the vehicle mode as Gasket and Grommet are passable aside from the robot head peeking out. Weapons are weak sauce though, and there's huge gaps in the back of Cog's bot mode behind the head and lower legs.

WFC Mirage - $8 at Ross. Not quite as bad as I expected, a decent G1 Mirage in bot mode but feels like it needed more sculpted and painted details, and in vehicle mode the arms just being there could have been moved back so easily to cover the facade chest that it's disappointing. Likable but not worth full price.
Image
See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
User avatar
andersonh1
Moderator
Posts: 6323
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:22 pm
Location: South Carolina

Re: Summer hauls!

Post by andersonh1 »

Arrived yesterday: Batman the Golden Age Omnibus volume 8, which collects stories from Batman, Detective Comics and World's Finest Comics from August 1951 through March 1953. It's a shorter volume than the previous seven, at just about 700 pages instead of 800. I've read that the next volume will be the final with Golden Age branding, and that DC will start the Silver Age line around the time the Comics Code starts appearing on the books, so it's probable that they split the remaining material between two slightly smaller volumes rather than have a very thin volume 9.

DC should pick up the pace on these books. I got volume 6 in Dec. 2018 and volume 7 in June 2019, so it's taken over a year to get volume 8. It's still better than 18 months between Superman volumes though.
User avatar
JediTricks
Site Admin
Posts: 3849
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:17 pm
Location: LA, CA, USA

Re: Summer hauls!

Post by JediTricks »

With all the Siege figures, it was time to get Siege Optimus on sale since he's not going to be easy to find on clearance. My first copy arrived with a an assembly error in the eye, luckily Amazon replaced him fast. He's a pretty good figure, the backpack has jetpack energy and you don't notice it much overall. The robot mode has great articulation and nice presence, there aren't hollow parts everywhere, he's just well-detailed and "whole". His weapons are fair but not amazing. His transformation is pretty complex, there are homages to G1's transformation and a real sense of puzzle play where parts trap other parts, but it's also a bit finicky and has a lot of panels covering things. Vehicle mode, I thought I wouldn't like the truck "hat" but I don't mind it or the wheel covers in the back, it gets the beats right.

WFC ER Direct-Hit & Power Punch - these are as good as it gets with Micromasters, and that's not saying much. I like them for having independent alt modes and a combined alt mode, but their weapon mode is lame. Power Punch's head turns but it's hard to get to, so you need patience with fingernails or a tool, and it's part of his official transformation. They're the same figures as Siege.

WFC Centurion Drone - I got in on it at $20 so it's a decent deal that way, at the normal $30 it'd be a rougher sell. The drone itself is a nice silvery repaint of Brunt, who I think is a great figure. The accessories are ok, it's fun that there's so many, but most are shot in gray plastic that is slightly too big for 5mm posts that are meant to hold them, some have painted grips which is stupid, Optimus' ion blaster is nearly as big as MP-01's, Unicron-scaled Optimus is smaller than the vent holes in the bag so mine came loose in the little black and white box.
Image
See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
Post Reply