The Energon Pub

[Evil Eye]

But X, Alpha Bravo has ALWAYS been part of G1!

How can you say the G1 cartoon is diluted when it is the original basis for the character? What I mean by "diluting" the characters G1 bio is by changing parts of his story to accomodate their laziness.

Technically-speaking, the cartoon itself did water down Blast Off's personality from how it was described in the original extended bio that Bob Budiansky wrote for the character:

Profile: Removed from the type of close-quarters combat his fellow Combaticons engage in, Blast Off soars through the vast vacuum of outer space feeling literally and figuratively above the other Transformers. He exudes an aristocratic air, believing that the problems of others are too petty and foolish for him to be concerned with. He appears quite happy in his role, orbiting hundreds of miles away from his comrades. But his happiness is an act, a disguise he uses to hide his long-distance loneliness. His aloof and superior manner is a front that prevents the other Decepticons from knowing his true feelings. None of this interferes with his performance - From his perch high above, he is cruelly efficient at raining destruction down on the world below. Perhaps because of the remoteness of his targets, perhaps because that's just the way he is, Blast Off feels not the least trace of remorse about his actions.

While shades of Blast Off's posh nature did mildly surface in the cartoon, the depth of his personality being rooted in loneliness that he hides under a facade of superiority and aloofness never really came about in the show. Most of the time, Blast Off was depicted as just an ordinary Decepticon with little personality beside "generic bad guy".

And unfortunately, such personality dilution was commonplace in the cartoon for a lot of the characters who weren't the regular main focal characters.

I remember that bio. It is true many characters were given generic personalities in the G1 cartoon. But in reality, the whole "loner lost in outer space" concept doesnt work well for the idea of a combiner team that needs to be ready to form Bruticus at any given moment. Mabye Bud was smoking some good "Bud" when he wrote the original toy bios.

TL;DR: IT'S OK WHEN THE CARTOON DID IT

[Va'al]

DM, we don't always agree, but right now, I love you.

[Evil Eye]

Indeed. Alpha Bravo is love. He's also easily the best deluxe Aerialbot (though I don't have Air Raid yet so I can't comment on that...Mutter mutter Forbidden Planet...) and a damn fine figure in his own right. I am somewhat annoyed by how much overuse the mold has gotten though, with so little retooling between releases. For Blades (when I get him) I'm going to get the Shapeways upgrade kits that give him his arm-skis and rocket launchers, but as for Vortex, I'm not sure. He needs new forearms for certain, preferably with weapon pylons or something, and I'd like a new head for him too. Best get cracking on Blender I suppose!

Anyway, what would you guys like to see the Bruticus team redecoed into (preferably after Takara fixes Brawl, which I imagine they will)?

There's Battle Gaia (seen here being awesome despite having precisely zero characterization)...



And obviously, there's Ruination, but the question is, which version of Ruination should they do?

Cartoon/Japanese toy colours?



American toy colours (AKA exactly the same but with oddly recoloured combiner kibble and a pretty awesome sand-blue Armourhide)?



That unbelievably awesome urban-camo Walmart exclusive? (Please this one Takara)



Or that considerably less awesome desert camo Walmart exclusive that shelfwarmed pretty hard? (Please NOT this one Takara)

[D-Maximal_Primal]

Think I'll leave these here. They look pretty cool.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

Couple more here. all of these are pretty neat customs. What we could have got

[william-james88]

[steals_your_goats]

Couple more here. all of these are pretty neat customs. What we could have got

If Hasbro or Takara could make these that would be great.

[Evil Eye]

Seconded. This is how an Optimus Prime combiner should have been done to start with.

[Hellscream9999]

Seconded. This is how an Optimus Prime combiner should have been done to start with.

Can't argue with that Especially as there are two amazing fire truck based o/p's to pull from: rid and cybertron... They could even pull some funny business where rid o/p combines to form cybertron super prime

[D-Maximal_Primal]

This is awesome and appropriate

[Zeedust]

Why are their five Takara toys included on that predominately Hasbro (and Fun Pub) image if the rest of all the Takara versions are excluded?

Well, the club store sold Grand Scourge, so if you REALLY stretch it, that could be considered an official US release.

What's worse is all the limb molds are really similar to each other. If you want something other than a generic stocky robot with a crumbled-up car/aircraft on it's back, you're out of luck.

Isn't that what most of the G1 combiner limbs were? This is the result of remaking those.

If it helps, I think you might find Rook suffers less from this than most of the others.

I like Blast Off the way he is because it pisses off whiny Geewunners with entitlement complexes.

You. I like you.

Aww, shucks...

maybe you could have change the name to "Jump"off? He's now a Harrier VTOL.

What about Take Off?

At least gave the Blastoff mold the Alpha Bravo head.

I'll avoid all the speculation on the usual suspects like mold sprues and such for now. First question is if the two heads use the same size ball joint.

Anyway, what would you guys like to see the Bruticus team redecoed into (preferably after Takara fixes Brawl, which I imagine they will)?

I'd like a cartoon colors or American toy colors Ruination, but I'm not so sure how likely this actually is. Hasbro seems to be moving onto Headmasters after Sky Reign, which makes me think TakaraTomy will also be shifting gears soon.

[Hellscream9999]

First question is if the two heads use the same size ball joint.

Hasbro seems to be moving onto Headmasters after Sky Reign, which makes me think TakaraTomy will also be shifting gears soon.

I'd imagine so, as they are universal, and need to fit into the same area, and the heads all seem to be in scale (strictly the aerial-bot version, since this is what we are discussing)

And not necessarily; they have to first wait for hasbro to finish with the molds, and ship them over to them (I assume) and then they have to decide what they're going to do for them deco-wise, and if they are going to remold anything - they would then need to design the new parts.

[Nemesis Destron]

Can anyone weigh in, is there a possibility that Takara may push out Legends Rodimus and Battle Core OP? My thanks in advance.

[Mindmaster]

Can anyone weigh in, is there a possibility that Takara may push out Legends Rodimus and Battle Core OP? My thanks in advance.

Rodimus in the Adventure line, maybe. Not sure about Battle Core Optimus Prime...

[Hellscream9999]

Can anyone weigh in, is there a possibility that Takara may push out Legends Rodimus and Battle Core OP? My thanks in advance.

It's possible, but, very difficult to tell. They evidently want to get all the main retools out, and as their o/p had fixed ratchets already, they may not feel the need to rehash it - and their fans may not want it - just for a new head. And at the slower pace that they're going, it's entirely possible that they may just hit all the voyagers with teams and leave it at that; they may do a computron, if there are enough pre-tooled parts lying around for them to use. Funpub have shown this to be the case with ramhorn already, so...

As for Rodimus; they haven't released viper yet, but did release his wavemate groove already, so I'm not sure what this tells us, but I would stick with hasbro's release to be safe, if you really want it that badly. I would look for it to be included in the TAV line, like runabout and the others were. With the release of o/p they may do a repaint of him to go with - unofficially, of course.

[Zeedust]

Another nice touch in this wave is that the deluxes' instruction manuals now have both the arm and leg transformation steps in the same manual. I thought that was pretty cool.

Wait there were seperate manuals for those transformations before?

Not for the ones I got.

[padfoo]

So besides Smokescreen and Trailbreaker, are we getting any other repaints?

Smokescreen is a straight repaint, Trailbreaker has a new head and arms, Hound has a new head and paint job, and Wheeljack has remolded car and chest parts with the head and paint

Yeah all those guys are retools or repaints. If you count trail cutter, then count wheeljack and especially hound who is a repaint of Swindle. And there is also this thing coming that is all repaints (and maybe retools): http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/ ... nus/34314/

And then there is all the G2 stuff + Victorion. So the short answer is yes, we are getting plenty of upcoming repaints and retools (granted, some are obviously warranted).

Hound and Swindle don't count because they're awesome

(and not only warranted, but we would never hear the end of it if the G2 stuff was never released; people were begging for them before the cw figs were even released...)

Here's a thing.

Wow that's amazing talk about mold reuse, this chart really lays it out! I really don't collect combiner wars, but I feel the molds are different enough through paint apps and head re-sculpts to not get too tiring.

[Hellscream9999]

Hound and Swindle don't count because they're awesome

(and not only warranted, but we would never hear the end of it if the G2 stuff was never released; people were begging for them before the cw figs were even released...)

Here's a thing.

dumb, long image removed to placate Burn

Wow that's amazing talk about mold reuse, this chart really lays it out! I really don't collect combiner wars, but I feel the molds are different enough through paint apps and head re-sculpts to not get too tiring.

Well, if you take off the 11 from tfcc and botcon, it's not that bad. They (predacus and mayhem) are limited exclusives (nearly exact to order in the case of mayhem), and really shouldn't be on the charts exaggerating what is being released to retail. I'd even hesitate to put scourge and the runamuck 2 pack on there, as they are bascially the same thing (an $90 voyager, that's the same as tfss bludgeon essentially)

[steals_your_goats]

Wow that's amazing talk about mold reuse, this chart really lays it out! I really don't collect combiner wars, but I feel the molds are different enough through paint apps and head re-sculpts to not get too tiring.

This is pretty much my exact thinking toward the line. I also think it's fun to play who wore it better

[steals_your_goats]

Hound and Swindle don't count because they're awesome

(and not only warranted, but we would never hear the end of it if the G2 stuff was never released; people were begging for them before the cw figs were even released...)

Here's a thing.

dumb, long image removed to placate Burn

Wow that's amazing talk about mold reuse, this chart really lays it out! I really don't collect combiner wars, but I feel the molds are different enough through paint apps and head re-sculpts to not get too tiring.

Well, if you take off the 11 from tfcc and botcon, it's not that bad. They (predacus and mayhem) are limited exclusives (nearly exact to order in the case of mayhem), and really shouldn't be on the charts exaggerating what is being released to retail. I'd even hesitate to put scourge and the runamuck 2 pack on there, as they are bascially the same thing (an $90 voyager, that's the same as tfss bludgeon essentially)

Exclusives are still part of it since they use the molds. Just because YOU can't/won't get them doesn't mean they don't exist.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

So many molds, so many characters....

[Hellscream9999]

I also think it's fun to play who wore it better

Hound and swindle. Better than all previous incarnations

Onslaught's clever backpack just barely puts him over defensor and his clever backpack (but seriously, they are both a joy to behold ).

Prowl > Streetwise > Dead-End and Neckbrace

Offroad > Ironhide

Cyclonus > Silverbolt

Sunstreaker > Breakdown

Dragstrip > Mirage

Nearly anything > scattershot

[Mindmaster]

^ Lmaoooooo @ that last one.

[william-james88]

via Imgflip Meme Maker

[Hellscream9999]

via Imgflip Meme Maker

HA

Joke's on you, I totally don't mind many of the repaints, just wish they balanced the sides a little better.

They're solid, enjoyable figures, that combine into amazing, poseable combiners. I honestly never thought I'd see this day, where the scramble combiners were done correctly, now I get 6+ waves worth of them; As it stands, I really wouldn't feel the need to keep collecting after this line ends