November Hauls!

[Dominic]

Yeah, and then stuff like the Movie, TFPrime, and WfC designers went and screwed Hasbro over by going and designing Transformers that flat-out wouldn’t work properly in toy form, the company’s wishes be damned. For one, this speaks to a problem with supporting media taking precedent over the toys in general, and for another, is yet again something you can’t really blame Hasbro for. Hell, they made a couple of tries with some of those TFPrime designs to get them to work in toy form!

If Hasbro cannot manage their own damned IP and control their license holders, whose fault is that? Blame for this is still on Hasbro.


That said, it is good that AnnHell is back up and about. If you get the chance AH, I would not mind more detailed reviews of the Soundwave/Soundblaster and the disk troops. Specifically, how easily can they be broken down in to components? (I plan to get at least Soundwave and a few of the carded guys. And, at the very least I plan to make Garboil and Howlback.)


Dom
-edit: just got NetworkMiner.

[BWprowl]

Man, if we're counting freeware hauls, then I'll just mention that I downloaded the first costume pack for Dead or Alive 5 last night, which it turns out Tecmo/Team Ninja were being total bros with and distributing for free. It's got some stuff I really wanted, like Zack's alien costume and Bayman's classic look, plus cool stuff like new costumes for the Virtua Fighter characters (who don't get extra costumes, otherwise), and Tina's DOA1 costume (I'm a sucker for classic references like that). On the other hand, it also has...Christie's contemptable DOA4 costume, which I'd previously been ecstatic that she *didn't* have this go-around. *sigh*...

[annhell]

That said, it is good that AnnHell is back up and about. If you get the chance AH, I would not mind more detailed reviews of the Soundwave/Soundblaster and the disk troops. Specifically, how easily can they be broken down in to components? (I plan to get at least Soundwave and a few of the carded guys. And, at the very least I plan to make Garboil and Howlback.)

Will try to do something on this over the weekend, if Guild Wars 2 doesn't suck me back in.

Anyway, quick answer for now on how easily the disk troops break down - not at all.
Almost everything on these figures is held together by metal pins. Also, many of these pin-held hinges have springs behind them to facilitate the "pop into robot mode" gimmick, and are liable to "explode" out when you try to disassemble the figures. Also, these figures are rather tiny, and some of these pins you'd be trying to pull out are surrounded by rather thin plastic.

The bird mold has 2 screws securing the top and bottom halves of the torso together, and you can separate the head and wings assembly from it that way. Once, again, you'd want to watch for the springs.

Ravage's hind legs are just snapped on, so those may be easily removed as well. But the rest of it is springs and pins.

In fact, I'd like to add that i find Ravage's mold to be the most disappointing of the 3, though not necessarily the worst. 4 limbs are just too complicated for the "pop-up" gimmick, difficult to reset into disk form, and tend to obstruct the pop-up transformation. Beast mode's body proportions look off, and despite having 4 legs, only the hind legs have any independent poseability, and the only pose I found for him is the quadraped peeing one.

[Shockwave]

Wow. That sounds like an epic pile of fail right there. I have an epic hatred of pins. I recently found on TFW a way to remove them a little easier, but I'm still having an awful lot of trouble with the classics seeker chest section and a couple of pins on the legends scale seeker. I did successfully get all of the pins out of the classics Prowl though. Diaclone Bluestreak, here I come!

Shockwave
-Still really hates pins.

[Dominic]

As annoying as pins are from a customizing point of view, I cannot blame Hasbro for using them. They are less visually offensive than screws and often make more engineering sense. There is also the fact that Hasbro may not want their toys to be easily broken down for safety reasons (flying springs and such being dangerous) and to keep people from being able to easioy reverse engineer said toys.


Dom
-but, yeah, pins suck to remove.

[Dominic]

I grabbed another Vehicon the other day. I am likely going to touch up the paint or recolour it as the red one (that showed up in one of the video games). I dunno yet.


Dom

[BWprowl]

Got a box from AmiAmi on Friday. Should be getting another one soon, actually.

SH Figuarts Kamen Rider Zeronos Altair Form – Kamen Rider Den-O was just okay as far as Rider shows go, in my opinion, but Zeronos was seriously one of the coolest Second Riders ever. So much so that I eagerly pre-ordered his new SHF despite already owning his older Souchaku Henshin figure. Glad I did too, this new toy blows the old SH out of the water. The detailing on this is razor sharp, the articulation is everything you expect from an SHF, and the accessories are pretty much everything you could want. Not only does he come with the requisite buttload of hands, letting him hold both versions of his weapon and recreate each stage of his signature post-henshin pose (“Let me say this to start…I am pree~eety strong!”), he also includes a singular Zero Card, a hand to hold it, and a spare ‘empty’ driver part, representing him having removed the card. This is great, it was the major piece I’d been disappointed the SH didn’t have, and this one nails it. Tamashii really delivered on all fronts with this figure, and I’m glad, since I like Zeronos that much. The Souchaku Henshin is just going to stay in Vega Form from now on, I guess…at least until an SHF Vega Form comes out…

Figma Yukiko Amagi – The turnout for Persona 4 figmas has been…disappointing. Chie and Yukiko are still the only ones they’ve shown they intend to release at all (well there’s also Labrys, but she only kinda counts), and Chie was pretty meh as far as figmas go, small and under-accessorized. Yukiko fares a bit better. She still seems rather undersized for the line, but…carries it better, I guess? She also actually comes with a full set of hands (unlike Chie, who couldn’t even do that), and actually has a weapon! The fan she wields is a nice accessory, and the ‘effect’ version with the molded ‘slashing’ effect is really cool. Plus she also includes two pairs of her glasses (why these things include doubles of the glasses, I still don’t understand), plus her own set of the wacky glasses, which proved to be the redeeming feature of Chie. Oh, the retarded antics they’ll get up to now that I have both of them… Now come on Max Factory, give us the rest of the cast (or at least Naoto and Kanji)!

Figma Karen Araragi - …or maybe not. Dang, no sooner did I get this one out of the box that I realized the left shoulder joint had been fused by an excess of weirdly applied paint, and moving that shoulder had caused the *joint* to bend, leaving the part hanging on by a thread. So now I’m working with AmiAmi to see if they’ll exchange me for a new, not-messed-up one. Man, I was really looking forward to this figure too (especially since her brother will be coming in the next order I’ll be getting soon).

[andersonh1]

Got Big Lots Legends Optimus Prime today. Nice little version of G1 Prime, and almost the same transformation as the original, with the addition of a waste swivel. I like it.