Part II of my graduation haul!
Saw
Age of Extinction yesterday morning/afternoon, and it was
thrillingly awesome! Was so pumped about them, I stopped on by at my local Target to see if there were any Dinobots there (I didn't want them to begin with, but the film, goddamn it, made me want at least the on-screen four). Walked into the Transformers section, and it was a literal gold mine there: so many of the Silver Knight Optimus Prime and Grimlock sets, as well as the first time seeing
Generations Shrapnel Skrapnel and Whirl! I ended up leaving the place with a Silver Knight Optimus and Grimlock set, Shrapnel, Whirl, and Scoop (since I've been itching to get him for a while now).
I got the OP and Grimmy set purely to repurpose Grimlock into the
Classics shelf (you
can not tell me that you wouldn't, either. That thing was
made with the
Classics shelf in mind), and now I'm itching to get a couple of the third party sets to make him the ultimate
Classics Grimlock. I was also surprised at how much I liked Optimus, too: with the pack-in
Generation One Rampage sword and Grimlock's shield, he looks really awesome. When this set was first revealed, I was thinking about just ditching him, but now I've changed my mind. He's here to stay for a while.
I knew I'd like Shrapnel and Reflector, but I didn't think I'd like them
this much. He's much bigger, chunkier, and bulkier than I thought he'd be, and his insect mode is pleasingly semi-Deluxe sized. Reflector is freaking adorable, though I wish the handle was on the bottom of the camera as opposed to the top. They're not the
Generations Deluxe figures I've always wanted done, but they tickle my yes-please button just as well as Springer has. Bring on Bombshell and the possible inclusion of Kickback into the
Generations Legends scale!
Whirl is awesome. I heard horror stories about the black joints that enable him to do his chicken legs, but thankfully, mine doesn't have that issue (though these joints are worryingly tight). Wish he didn't have so many of these dull black weapons, but beyond that, I really like him. Only thing I didn't like was the sticker sheet: though fun to stick them on him and have that feeling of "Hey guys, I did that", the stickers were really hard for me to get off the sheet. All in all, I guess now I'm pretty much obligated to get Roadbuster whenever he comes out so he can chill out with Whirl.
Scoop and friends are... okay. They're not as great as I thought he'd be, but he's still pretty nifty. Though there were some quality issues on his head: though the face is mostly painted, there's just a little sliver underneath his optics that they missed, so it looks like
Generations Metroplex and his visor, but on a much smaller scale. Also, there's no screw that holds his head together, so I accidentally popped it open and snapped off his right eye, which fell to the carpet, never to be seen again. I'm not going to return it over that, since it looks super inconspicuous unless you bring a torch right next to his head, but that sure was a shame that it happened.
So yeah... today was a good day for me.
MP-11 Starscream is en-route from TF Source's warehouse in Minnesota. It'll be several days before he arrives. Several long, tantalizing, agonizing days...
Now I have to look for a loose Mini-Con Triceradon since getting the TRU 2-pack is out of the question 
They also had Bumblebee, but I already have so many of him!
[ Click to attempt signal recovery... ]
