The Energon Pub

Definitely using spare HFGs for her hands... her stock hands are extremely underwhelming. The feet are great though.

It's also nice to see that the final product toned down the bright teals of the prototypes revealed at NYCC/Toy Fair. A marked improvement.

Ryan, I'm not sure why you're not a fan of the Nightbird head in this set. I think it's nice they'd pull a Japanese head sculpt to this side of the Pacific (although it was almost certainly to save on costs). I get that you'd prefer all new everything, but I think that's a tad unrealistic. For a quasi-exclusive box set, they pulled out plenty of stops.

Seibertron wrote:

Dr Va'al wrote:I do wonder why they changed Torchbearers to Rust Renegades though, that was not something I had been expecting.

If I recall correctly, Counterpunch or ScottyP mentioned on the podcast at some point that the term "torchbearers" wasn't an appropriate term, but I can't remember exactly why they said it was inappropriate.

There is an international religious organisation, I suppose. Hm.
Oh well. I know their names, and IDW keeps it in the stories too, so I'm not bothered.

Seibertron wrote:

Dr Va'al wrote:I do wonder why they changed Torchbearers to Rust Renegades though, that was not something I had been expecting.

If I recall correctly, Counterpunch or ScottyP mentioned on the podcast at some point that the term "torchbearers" wasn't an appropriate term, but I can't remember exactly why they said it was inappropriate.

Torchbearer is essentially a position in the Caminus heirarchy, and they either quit or were cast out in the comics. I can't recall which. There's a group of Torchbearers who took their place.

Mr Skram wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Dr Va'al wrote:I do wonder why they changed Torchbearers to Rust Renegades though, that was not something I had been expecting.

If I recall correctly, Counterpunch or ScottyP mentioned on the podcast at some point that the term "torchbearers" wasn't an appropriate term, but I can't remember exactly why they said it was inappropriate.

Torchbearer is essentially a position in the Caminus heirarchy, and they either quit or were cast out in the comics. I can't recall which. There's a group of Torchbearers who took their place.

Oh I'm aware of that part - though Pyra Magna still uses the term when we encounter them once or twice - it's the marketing of the set that puzzles me. I do think it's something about international brand, rather than IDW loyalty, given Hasbro's precedents.

Dr Va'al wrote:

Mr Skram wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Dr Va'al wrote:I do wonder why they changed Torchbearers to Rust Renegades though, that was not something I had been expecting.

If I recall correctly, Counterpunch or ScottyP mentioned on the podcast at some point that the term "torchbearers" wasn't an appropriate term, but I can't remember exactly why they said it was inappropriate.

Torchbearer is essentially a position in the Caminus heirarchy, and they either quit or were cast out in the comics. I can't recall which. There's a group of Torchbearers who took their place.

Oh I'm aware of that part - though Pyra Magna still uses the term when we encounter them once or twice - it's the marketing of the set that puzzles me. I do think it's something about international brand, rather than IDW loyalty, given Hasbro's precedents.

I suppose that could be. The briefest of internet searches turns up a few games by the name, and indeed a religious group.

It fits well enough with the comic fiction that it wouldn't bother me much. Since there are technically only 6 torchbearers at any given time, and the head of Caminus has already chosen new ones.

Who are the rust renegades?

megatronus wrote:Ryan, I'm not sure why you're not a fan of the Nightbird head in this set. I think it's nice they'd pull a Japanese head sculpt to this side of the Pacific (although it was almost certainly to save on costs). I get that you'd prefer all new everything, but I think that's a tad unrealistic. For a quasi-exclusive box set, they pulled out plenty of stops.

It's not a Japanese head sculpt. It's an entirely new mold which is why the head choice is baffling to me.

[BW] Rainmaker wrote:Who are the rust renegades?

[BW] Rainmaker wrote:Who are the rust renegades?

As the news post says, it's the collective name of the members of the set: http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/ ... des/35247/

I thought they were called the Torchbearers...

[BW] Rainmaker wrote:I thought they were called the Torchbearers...

That's what we're discussing just now, scroll back and read!

Got my Victorion cars on the shelf now. Stoked to finish the CW cars collection soon! Everything missing is either in route or on pre-order.

Lovely photos. The more "in hand" photos I see, the more I like it despite the difficult color combo. Seriously, all the renders and official photos look nowhwere near as good.

It still lacks highlights that would do wonders. The breakdown mold has some nice silver highlights in robot mode, which the dead end mold sorely lacks. Magna looks very nice. The choppers are fine. Wish a bit more was done to distinguish between the two. The unified color scheme comes together well in combined mode. I will probably forgo the "official" combo for two choppers as arms. Both for aesthetics, and I find the choppers have a slightly "off" default positioning in terms of the connector port - slightly forward compared to other limbs. Also I think it will look better.

I plan to buy a sheet of Autobot stickers. A large-ish insignia on the plain hood of breakdown, a few little bits here and there, should help break up the decos a bit. If repro jumps on this I'd like to see more silver highlights on waist, little details on all the red red body parts. Some more vehicle mode detailing.

Now just waiting for a sale price. ^^

The colours are a vast improvement over what was originally shown, I'll give it that. But those hands are appalling, and I still don't like the fact they're all essentially bare bones retools.

That Jumpstream headsculpt is adorable though.

From what it sounds like, the hands fit inside the feet for storage. Where do the feet go when they are not in use. Pyra Magna has them on her back in one of the images, but what about in vehicle mode.

Hopefully they will do something similar with Computron's hands and feet. If they are going to get rid of the HFG for all of the limbs, at least make it so those cool feet and hands can go somewhere when everyone is in vehicle mode. If they attached under Scattershot's vehicle mode as sort of fuel tanks, I would be happy. I guess Victorion's feet/hands could plug in under the helicopter modes the way the HFGs do for the other helicopter limbs.

This "Torchbearers vs. Rust Renegades" talk makes me realize that I forgot to mention here that I asked John Warden about that name discrepancy at the Hasbro booth at BotCon, to which he said that "Rust Renegades" is the name Hasbro came up with for the team while "Torchbearers" is what IDW came up with, so the two companies were simply on different pages than each other at the time that each came up with their own names for the group, and each of them (Hasbro and IDW) had since simply stuck with their own names rather than trying to reconcile the two.

In response to this answer, I suggested to him that a way one could reconcile the two would be that, since there seem to be more Torchbearers in the comic beyond the specific six individuals who form Victorion, one could say that while the six Victorion bots are among the many Torchbearers in the comic, those six specific Torchbearers are the ones also known as the Rust Renegades, while all other Torchbearers are not, making those six a group within a group. His answer to that suggestion was that it sounded neat.

Huh, there's actually a lot more retooling on these than I'd initially realised (admittedly, I'd not looked that closely at the individual figures before). I really like the copters having fins rather than missiles, helps to distinguish them from the other outings of the superb AB mold. There's still something slightly off about Victorion's head to me though, I think it's a smidge too tall and not quite round enough to match the comics, but I guess that's a product of the transformation- eh, it's no dealbreaker anyway, I still definitely want to grab the set if I can ^^

Thanks so much for sharing this gallery. She still looks like hot slag to me . What a waste of an opportunity with all of the combiner molds available. Total pass.

They only things I like about this set are the new feet, the sword, and the Victorion head. Too bad you can't just get those parts separate.

megatronus wrote:Definitely using spare HFGs for her hands... her stock hands are extremely underwhelming. The feet are great though.

It's also nice to see that the final product toned down the bright teals of the prototypes revealed at NYCC/Toy Fair. A marked improvement.

Ryan, I'm not sure why you're not a fan of the Nightbird head in this set. I think it's nice they'd pull a Japanese head sculpt to this side of the Pacific (although it was almost certainly to save on costs). I get that you'd prefer all new everything, but I think that's a tad unrealistic. For a quasi-exclusive box set, they pulled out plenty of stops.

I dont get it, arent they different heads? They sure look different to me:



Of course if I am looking at the wrong head, let me know.

And I totally agree Megatronus, those hands are really not great. They look so off compared to the giant forearms.

So Ryan, do you recomend this set overall?

Oh and dumb question guys but seriously where did all the white from the colourchoice (option c) go?

i've seen ugly but that's like circus ugly

philswitch engage wrote:i've seen ugly but that's like circus ugly

Nothing like the gorgeous color scheme of Devastator, Computron, Piranacon and those G2 combiners amirite?

Deadput wrote:

philswitch engage wrote:i've seen ugly but that's like circus ugly

Nothing like the gorgeous color scheme of Devastator, Computron, Piranacon and those G2 combiners amirite?

Devastator is iconic in his neon green and purple scheme.

Computron is kinda meh. I do enjoy the blue, brown, and gold colors of his animated face.

Piranacon is a late 80's neon nightmare that only works well if you have a nostalgia for that sort of thing.

The G2 combiners lack any real uniformity for my tastes.

So I just noticed this morning that the top of Victorion's forehead crest was broken and missing in the package. You'll notice in the picture below that the top of the crest is angled, where it must have sheared off at the factory. Urgh.



Here's what it is supposed to look like (and what it looks like on my 2nd Victorion that I'm about to photograph) ...



Fortunately, I've got a spare Victorion for the time being where its not broken.

Seibertron wrote:So I just noticed this morning that the top of Victorion's forehead crest was broken and missing in the package. You'll notice in the picture below that the top of the crest is angled, where it must have sheared off at the factory. Urgh.



Here's what it is supposed to look like (and what it looks like on my 2nd Victorion that I'm about to photograph) ...



Fortunately, I've got a spare Victorion for the time being where this is not broken.

Can you confirm it is not broken on other Victorion figures? I'm wondering if this is another case of clipping something long and sharpish for toy safety guidelines, like they did for a movie figure, I think. I don't remember which one it was....