The Energon Pub

It’s been almost three years since the first release of FansToys’ first Iron Dibot, Scoria, but the series is finally completed with Iron Dibot No.5, FT-08 Grinder. The leader of the group has been probably the most contentious as there already exist a few options that collectors have been using to display a full collection of five heroic transforming dinosaur robots. The original Takara Masterpiece is still a beauty and has been reissued a number of times. Then there’s the oversized and arguably improved 3rd party re-tool of it called Reximus Prime. Is there still a place for a $200 figure that’s so close to what’s already on the market?

FansToys FT-08 Grinder – The Source Report











All the best
Maz

wow 3 years in the making
never realized that

So here's a dumb little question: aside from of course the much more in-scale size, what's the advantage of this over MP Grimlock?

I'm serious. In the robot mode they seemingly have the same accessories and look almost exactly the same - Grinder's practically an up-scale aside from a few differences like the 'wings' being lower and the hips being thinner. ... which kind of work against the Grimlock aesthetic they're going for.

Kurona wrote:So here's a dumb little question: aside from of course the much more in-scale size, what's the advantage of this over MP Grimlock?

I'm serious. In the robot mode they seemingly have the same accessories and look almost exactly the same - Grinder's practically an up-scale aside from a few differences like the 'wings' being lower and the hips being thinner. ... which kind of work against the Grimlock aesthetic they're going for.

hes still not in scale
not much just design changes ddifferent engineering
just fanstoys fanoys

Kurona wrote:So here's a dumb little question: aside from of course the much more in-scale size, what's the advantage of this over MP Grimlock?

I'm serious. In the robot mode they seemingly have the same accessories and look almost exactly the same - Grinder's practically an up-scale aside from a few differences like the 'wings' being lower and the hips being thinner. ... which kind of work against the Grimlock aesthetic they're going for.

The articulation is a bit better, I think, the scale is better (not 100% correct, but Transformers and scale do not go well together), the engineering is a tad more refined and so he cleans up a bit better (especially the robot legs), the sword still lights up but the light is in the sword rather than the hand so the hand is fully mobile, and with the exception of the dino head the sculpt is overall more refined. Also, AFAIK the later releases of MP-08 suffer from horrendously floppy joints and shoddy plastic, whilst this release has nice tight joints and good plastic.

There's no doubt the main appeal is that he's actually the right size, so one can have an in-scale Grimlock without resorting to buying knockoffs, but there are subtle things they've improved on over MP-08. There are some things that are neither improvements nor downgrades (dino head is subjective, as is the fact the eye colour is now changed by swapping parts rather than an internal mechanism) but overall I'd say he's a better bet than trying to track down an original run MP-08.

Black Hat wrote:

Kurona wrote:So here's a dumb little question: aside from of course the much more in-scale size, what's the advantage of this over MP Grimlock?

I'm serious. In the robot mode they seemingly have the same accessories and look almost exactly the same - Grinder's practically an up-scale aside from a few differences like the 'wings' being lower and the hips being thinner. ... which kind of work against the Grimlock aesthetic they're going for.

The articulation is a bit better, I think, the scale is better (not 100% correct, but Transformers and scale do not go well together), the engineering is a tad more refined and so he cleans up a bit better (especially the robot legs), the sword still lights up but the light is in the sword rather than the hand so the hand is fully mobile, and with the exception of the dino head the sculpt is overall more refined. Also, AFAIK the later releases of MP-08 suffer from horrendously floppy joints and shoddy plastic, whilst this release has nice tight joints and good plastic.

There's no doubt the main appeal is that he's actually the right size, so one can have an in-scale Grimlock without resorting to buying knockoffs, but there are subtle things they've improved on over MP-08. There are some things that are neither improvements nor downgrades (dino head is subjective, as is the fact the eye colour is now changed by swapping parts rather than an internal mechanism) but overall I'd say he's a better bet than trying to track down an original run MP-08.

of course mp-08 is cheaper but not worth it.
im still debating wether to gigapower or fanstoys for my dinos