The Energon Pub

Awesome shots Cobo!

DANG! It's been a minute since I posted anything in here, and some pretty cool stuff has happened between my B-day and the Holiday season.

First up, I had some sweet birthday cash burning a hole in my pocket. With a tip off from our very own carytheone, I was hipped to a crazy sale on something I had been eyeballing for quite some time.

Fansproject Retro-Future Glacialord.


The set normally sold for a whopping $250, but it was either Black Friday or Cyber Monday at TFSource, and the whole set was priced to move at $60. I couldn't resist!

What always attracted me to this set was that even though it is a 3rd party product, it's an original idea. Not their take on a preexisting TF character. And having one other FP toy, I knew it would be high quality.

Surprisingly, what ended up being the most fun about this toy was the whole weird retro experience of simply unboxing them.

We'll start with the packaging.


The package design is amazingly executed. From the get go it helps build this fictional idea of these being an actual vintage haul. As I unboxed them, I started to imagine I had miraculously discovered 4 out of 5 of these guys at a flea market in Arkansas. And through a stroke of luck I had found the Japanese release of the 5th member for a doable price on Mandarake. Of course all of this is a farse and just a story I made up to entertain myself.
But the package design has these great derpy G1 style paintings all over the boxes, and to enforce the retro feel, they are printed with wear, tear, and distress. Even Tusker's box is "sun faded". As if it sat in the window of the toy store for too long.







They even came packed in styrofoam inserts, like the old days!


Some more packaging.







The Japanese release to complete the team.






Each figure employs a "Master" type gimmick. The "Masters" even came packed on tiny blisters inside the box.


And of course to add to the vintage feel, there were stickers.



The toys inside were just as vintage rad as the packaging. They are a combiner team made up of prehistoric mammals. Each has a beast and bot mode, and of course combine to make a giant robot. And if that's not old school enough for you, they each include a little "Master" guy! The transformations are G1 simple, and they all have a vintage G1 charm that is undeniably awesome!!!

The "Masters" are most akin to a Power Master idea. They fold up to become some kind of power cell and their heads become the heads of the individual robot modes.





Each one can also ride his respective beast. (You guys know I love that ****, right?!)






This saber tooth tiger is called Fangro.



Let's run through the other 4 bots, shall we?

Razorspike, the wooly rhino




Tailclub, the armodillodon (I made that up. I don't know what these beasts were called.)




Probably my favorite, Megazero, the giant stag.




And the big boss, Tusker, the wooly mammoth.







The whole squad in robot mode.

And then there's the BIG SHOW!!

COMBINE TO FORM GLACIALORD!!!





Comparisons with actual G1 Combiners.





Such a fun and weirdly retro experience with this team. The show completely surpassed the heavily discounted price of admission. Not only was it fun just to play with the toys because they're neat, it was super fun to pretend there had been some awesome zany time machine situation that facilitated their acquisition.

That's so awesome, glad I gave you the tip off. I didn't know there was faux box damage, that's turduckhen sweet. I'm loving your real life head canon, that's amazingly rad. Kinda sad I passed, maybe if it drops again, I really miss the smell of styrofoam. Everytime I get a whiff I'm teleported back to childhood.

Good stuff, good show

Yes! Glacialord! I bought this team, too, under the same circumstances, and I love them just as much. Some of mine were clearly used, because they had some or all of the stickers already applied, but that was fine because they were otherwise in good shape. The retro, aged look of the boxes tickled me enough that I kept them, which I rarely do. In my mind they're probably Autobots (Anibots, anyone?), but no matter which side they'd be on there would be a serious rivalry with the Dinobots.

My kids thought they were cool, but didn't play with them too much. I usually warn them about being too rough with my third-party products, so that may have tempered their reaction. The figures do feel about on par with actual G1 toys, so it does make me wonder if they'd pass US safety tests.

Glarryg

I completely forgot that this toy existed Though I can fully get behind third parties when they do this, something that takes ode from Hasbro/ Takara but is completely original!

Glarryg!!! What up Dude?!
Awesome to hear from someone else who has this. I figured I'd be one of the few. I don't think yours were used. Mine also came with about half the stickers applied. I think that's just the way they come. I also suspect they did this because they didn't have instructions for the stickers. That way you just have to mirror what was already applied.

glad to hear you like it so much, and I doubt it would pass safety tests.

ZeroWolf wrote:something that takes ode from Hasbro/ Takara but is completely original!

Yes! This! I love this and I wish we'd see more of it. Fansproject are good toy designers, period. whether it's their own idea or someone else's.

Here's another haul. I use the rest of that afore mentioned B-day scratch to cover this pre-order.

Diaclone Trivers, Trijeter




These guys are proving to be some of the best Diaclone releases to date. Still need to take some time time to run them through their other more modular modes, and to try the mix and match feature.
The drill dude releases soon. He looks rad too. Not long before I have two different reboot/reduex versions of the Power Dashers in such a short window of time.

The Trijeter looks so good! I'm insanely jealous that you have these I make do with all your fantastic pictures

Trijeter is rocking some serious Gundam colors. Looks cool. What makes it so good?

carytheone wrote:What makes it so good?

Well his jet booster bloomers of course!
No, these two are just really neat little packages. Their designs are rad, and a breath of fresh robo air just in that they are sweet Takara robots that aren't Transformers. These two, and I'm guessing the drill dude too, have the best non partsforming all-in-one transformation to date. The size is really nice. Just a tad bigger than a Deluxe TF. They are Masterpiece level quality but way less of a chore or intimidating to play with.

But really I just love the way they look.


More stuff!!!!

Xmas haul!

Rubber boots for winter readiness. Omega Supreme for battle readiness. Bumble Bee ornament. Rad Medal of Yavin 4 ornament. And some really rad Dark Crystal figures.


Defender of the Great Tree!


Sweet haul from the in-laws. Black Series Trooper helmet, and that awesome book!


On the 26th I ran out to target to get some batteries for one of the kid's toys, and I struck gold! Notice Singe is in Spinister's hand.


But back to Omega!
The first night I did this.


That was pretty good, but I had been waiting to do this!!




To populate Omega's base mode with Iron Factory and a few other random Legends scale dudes.









Omega is quickly fighting his way to the top of my best Titan class figure list. He IS supreme!!!

It was a pretty great B-day/Holiday season!

I'm starting to get that Omega FoMo Supremely ... The set just looks so damn fun and awesome in all the modes.

Ah, seems like your Diaclone is my Mega Man I've been avoiding the rabbit Dia-hole, but damn you make 'em tempting. Gotta stay strong

When we gonna get some pics of them DC figs?

carytheone wrote:When we gonna get some pics of them DC figs?

Ooooooh?! I didn't think you botnuts would care.

Fun story, also on the 26th I ran back to the store where Wifey found those to see if they had the other 4, and the entire store was 50% off, AND they had them. Needless to say I snatched them up lickity split!

I'll snap some pics as soon as I open the rest!

damn Cobs, that is some massive hauling!

Omega is a fantastic titan, and he looks even better with all your Iron Factory dudes!

Triverse guys look fantastic, can't wait to see the drill guy!

I saw that glacialord and was tempted, but had a hard time justifying a 3P G1 styled figure. Glad to see it is so good and you really enjoy it!

I'm gonna be very happy when Omega hits Ollies.

Ironhidensh wrote:I'm gonna be very happy when Omega hits Ollies.

You and me both Cap'n!

New Decade. New outlook. I have decided to begin a major overhaul on the Collect-O-Tron.I need a little more Star Wars in my life. I have a pretty large 3 3/4 collection in storage, and it's time to free it from it's prison. I will be pairing down the TF displays to make space on the shelves.

And so it begins.

Good night Transformers Prime.

When you say "pairing down", are you selling, or just putting into storage? Just curious. regardless, you should make a post in CP's thread in toy discussion.

Ironhidensh wrote:When you say "pairing down", are you selling, or just putting into storage? Just curious. regardless, you should make a post in CP's thread in toy discussion.

At the moment, just storage, but I'm thinking real hard about selling off some stuff. Prime might be a candidate for selling. But we'll see.
CP's thread? Not sure I know which one. As in Cyberpath? Counterpunch? Got a link to it?

Counterpunch

changes-to-your-collection-habits-t113839.php

I was eyeballing them Prime figures, for you know ... reasons. I'm kinda shocked your putting away the Dread Pirate Lion-o I don't consider that dude Prime, just just a fun one off.

Dread Pirate Lion-O?

ZeroWolf wrote:Dread Pirate Lion-O?

Ah Thunderton was tempted by him a few times but I'd heard bad things about the mold so was put off

ZeroWolf wrote:Ah Thunderton was tempted by him a few times but I'd heard bad things about the mold so was put off

I can't say it's the best, but I can't say anything bad about it either. There are several color variations to choose from. I think I got Thundertron from BBTS for half price

I'm thinking about moving Beast Wars to another shelf. A bigger shelf. Maybe if there is room he could party over there. He is a terrible transformer, but a rad character with kickass character design. The concept of him was awesome, the execution not so much.

It was fun to run all those figures through their transformations again. Some neat techniques were employed in that line.

Cobotron wrote:It was fun to run all those figures through their transformations again. Some neat techniques were employed in that line.

Prime still has some of my favorite figures to date. MPM-7 Movie Bee reminded me just a little of Prime Bee.