The Energon Pub

News Credits: 3 · Mon Sep 17, 2018 8:56 pm

I’ve been playing with mine all day and I don’t have this problem. I haven’t taken him apart at all and I can transform him just fine. Sadly the people throwing the fits are people who don’t even have one yet.

Honestly before you start demanding crap, wait till you get it. Transform him, if everything lines and is secure like mine don’t do anything. If you feel you need to take it apart, be careful and do it. That’s all it takes.

Like I’ve said. It’s not broken, just has a slight problem. Maybe. Mine has the “assembly issue” if that’s what we’re calling it or “QC” issue but I can’t use him just fine.

There are no screws and I’m not willing to just a small screwdriver and start prying mine and chance damaging mine. I bought one because that’s all I needed and I wanted other people to be able to get him.

But for gods sake, before you start demanding anything and throwing a fit and pointing fingers. Just. Wait.

Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:32 pm

I pre-ordered mine back on July 15th, still hasn't shown as shipped and I haven't been charged. What's determining who gets their order firsts? Are AmazonPrime users and those that paid for faster shipping getting priority? I think that's a bit unfair to those who didn't want to pay the extra and ordered him way in advance like myself if that is the case. I'm going to be angry with Amazon if I don't get mine soon..... or if I have to wait for the next batch. Grr! :BOOM:

News Credits: 8 · Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:43 pm

Got my Punch/Counterpunch. Definitely needed the shoulder fix, which went pleasantly quickly and with no issues.

QC check aside, this is a fantastically engineered Toy. Although different, the leg transformation reminds me of the Prime Deluxe Vehicons that hid so much of the car in their thighs. Popped the Thumbs off the Prime Master Armor. I love it as a jetpack and it looks better without them TBH, although I d miss the weapon storage. Looking for a gun for CP now. Might use one of the Null Rays from the Legends class Acid Storm mold that came with Venin, if I can find one.

Toy of the year? I dunno yet, we’ll see what makes it out for Siege, but for my money he’s at least in the Running.

EDIT: I just gave Counterpunch the rifle from TR in Convoy, its the same mold as TR Astrotrain. Blue is wrong, but the shape looks sooo right.

Mon Sep 17, 2018 10:59 pm

Flashwave wrote:Got my Punch/Counterpunch. Definitely needed the shoulder fix, which went pleasantly quickly and with no issues.

QC check aside, this is a fantastically engineered Toy. Although different, the leg transformation reminds me of the Prime Deluxe Vehicons that hid so much of the car in their thighs. Popped the Thumbs off the Prime Master Armor. I love it as a jetpack and it looks better without them TBH, although I d miss the weapon storage. Looking for a gun for CP now. Might use one of the Null Rays from the Legends class Acid Storm mold that came with Venin, if I can find one.

Toy of the year? I dunno yet, we’ll see what makes it out for Siege, but for my money he’s at least in the Running.

EDIT: I just gave Counterpunch the rifle from TR in Convoy, its the same mold as TR Astrotrain. Blue is wrong, but the shape looks sooo right.

Forgive me if you already knew this, but you can store the weapon he comes with on the bottom of the front of the car. You don't need the holes on the fist/jetpack to store the weapon.

News Credits: 65 · Tue Sep 18, 2018 12:14 am

Okay, I did get to open up my Punch-Counterpunch figures this evening, and I'll give my thoughts on "the fix." First, it isn't necessary to do this fix to transform the figure successfully. However, doing so does make transforming it "easier." The biggest reason is that turning the shoulder ball joints upside down makes for a nice natural "stop" when you move the shoulders upward and together for vehicle mode. This happens to let the arms line up exactly where they should be to peg into the robot torso. You can still peg the arms in with the shoulder joints in the "factory" position, but you have to use a bit more fineness to line them up just right. If the shoulders aren't lined up correctly, you'll have a hard time tabbing the arms in. If you tab the front end together first, it makes it easier getting the arms to tab into the torso.

As an aside: definitely flip down the Decepticon sigil when converting into vehicle mode. It makes snapping everything together MUCH easier up top.

I've transformed the figures back and forth a few times, with and without the fix, and it doesn't impact how well the panels all line up in vehicle mode at all. It's really all about ease of transformation. For me, reducing the "fiddliness" is worth it. It's an easy fix if you're careful. I would recommend that, if you stick something in between the torso halves to pry them apart, unfurl the car front end from inside the torso first to reduce the risk of scratching the plastic inside, as it will show up in car mode otherwise.

Is this a real factory error? It's hard to tell, and we may never really know. The way it comes assembled looks better. The whole shoulder area is rounded, so having the round parts of the shoulder joints pointing up makes aesthetic sense. Turning them around does look a little funny. You get this angular protrusion in the middle of two rounded pieces. It's not terrible, though, and most people probably wouldn't notice it as a problem if they didn't know to look for it specifically.

Again, I recommend giving this modification a go, because it is easy, not likely to damage your figure, and completely reversible if need be. It makes life a little easier and the drawbacks are minimal if not completely negligible.

News Credits: 8 · Tue Sep 18, 2018 12:26 am

IronMagnus wrote:
Flashwave wrote:Got my Punch/Counterpunch. Definitely needed the shoulder fix, which went pleasantly quickly and with no issues.

QC check aside, this is a fantastically engineered Toy. Although different, the leg transformation reminds me of the Prime Deluxe Vehicons that hid so much of the car in their thighs. Popped the Thumbs off the Prime Master Armor. I love it as a jetpack and it looks better without them TBH, although I d miss the weapon storage. Looking for a gun for CP now. Might use one of the Null Rays from the Legends class Acid Storm mold that came with Venin, if I can find one.

Toy of the year? I dunno yet, we’ll see what makes it out for Siege, but for my money he’s at least in the Running.

EDIT: I just gave Counterpunch the rifle from TR in Convoy, its the same mold as TR Astrotrain. Blue is wrong, but the shape looks sooo right.

Forgive me if you already knew this, but you can store the weapon he comes with on the bottom of the front of the car. You don't need the holes on the fist/jetpack to store the weapon.

Actually, I had not found that little nugget yet, so thank you for sharing. I was referring however more to stoage in Robot mode.

Since I planned to give CP a seperate gun and use the "thumbless" Prime Armor as a straight backpack, I was hoping for a convienently placed 5mm peg hole. In Counterpunch mode, its possible to shove the Punch Gun handle through the Car Mode's roof peghole from the inside of the leg, effectively giving Counterpunch an inside-leg ankle Holster while he holds whatever spare gun I give him (currently the rifle from TR Lio Convoy, eventually the same gun but from Sentinel Prime) but in Punch Mode, the only handy 5mm peg hole is the one occupied by the jetpack. And again, this is only an "issue" because I am adding to the toy, not because of some inherent design flaw, its just the compromise I must reach: Have a "clean" looking jetpack, or leave one or both thumbs attached to the Prime Armore so I can hang the unused gun off the Prime Armor.

News Credits: 17 · Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:37 am

TheForgottenTaxi wrote:I'm well aware that demanding a replacement is not feasible. I'm saying that this should be viewed as unacceptable by the community and by Hasbro, and it's galling that there's nothing we can do to really hold Hasbro accountable unless we want to give up on the figure entirely.

(Assuming it's as bad as reported; mine has for some reason not shipped yet, so I can't comment on that.)

You do you, but my life is way too short to be mad at a toy company because the modern update of one of my favorite 30-year-old hunks of plastic might have a minor factory error.

Tue Sep 18, 2018 1:36 pm

If you have an automatic center punch its super easy to just disassemble PCP and do this without the risk of stressing any plastic.

obviously pop out the pin that holds on the windsheild chest. Then take off the legs and the second pin is hiding in the side of the balljoints.

Then its as simple as popping the crotch in half, then popping the torso in half, switch the shoulder joints around, and then do everything in reverse order. Took me about 5 minutes total.

You can also take this opportunity to put clear nail polish on the leg balljoints since they seem to be a little loose on this figure.

News Credits: 8 · Tue Sep 18, 2018 2:36 pm

reluttr wrote:If you have an automatic center punch its super easy to just disassemble PCP and do this without the risk of stressing any plastic.

obviously pop out the pin that holds on the windsheild chest. Then take off the legs and the second pin is hiding in the side of the balljoints.

Then its as simple as popping the crotch in half, then popping the torso in half, switch the shoulder joints around, and then do everything in reverse order. Took me about 5 minutes total.

You can also take this opportunity to put clear nail polish on the leg balljoints since they seem to be a little loose on this figure.

You really dont neex to go to the hassle of popping the pin put and putting it back in. The Back half of the torso will tilt back on that pin just as easily and you srent stressimg on anything, unless you are really cranking on it I got it aprt just with my (young, stable) fingers.

News Credits: 42 · Tue Sep 18, 2018 7:24 pm

So there is definitely at least 1 assembly error in the run of these figures. Mine came with one shoulder the "wrong" way that almost everyone else has and the other one the "right" way. Does that make it half wrong, or half right?

I ended up fixing the other shoulder to match, which was super simple. Happy with it, espeically that mine having 2 different shoulders was a definite error and I was able to fix it with ease.

Tue Sep 18, 2018 7:46 pm

well i just got mine today and checked it out changed him to car with no problems with panels lining up :-?

News Credits: 2 · Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:06 am

I got mine yesterday. I had problems transforming him (or would it be them in this case) into car mode, so I did the modification and it worked better for me. Sounds like the problem varies a bit. It was a bit of a pain to do, but I felt it was worth it.

News Credits: 17 · Thu Sep 20, 2018 9:11 am

I had a lot of trouble getting the arms to line up during the transformation, so I applied the mod. It's definitely a lot easier now. I did warp the front panel a little -- I un-modded and re-modded on one side -- but it's barely noticeable.

I am calling this a mod rather than a fix because I don't think we'll ever know the designer's intention. I also think it's worth noting a posing consequence of the mod. As originally assembled, the flat side of the pin allows the robot mode shoulders to rest at a firm 90 degree angle. With the mod, the shoulders can dip lower, especially in Counterpunch mode. It's not a big deal, but it does suggest to me that the factory build is intentional.

My personal recommendation: if you like regularly fiddling with your figures, apply the mod. If you primarily use them for display in robot mode, don't.

News Credits: 1 · Tue Oct 23, 2018 8:55 pm

So I just got my Punch, and I had real trouble transforming to car mode. The arms just wouldn't fit properly. Figured I'd have to take apart the shoulders and reassemble.

Then I noticed something: the instructions show Punch to car steps...I was going from Counterpunch to car...it couldn't be that simple, could it?

Lo and behold, switching from Counterpunch's closed Decepticon fists to Punch's open Autobot fists allowed me to get the arms to fit properly for a smooth car mode.

I'm sure that can't really be the solution to everyone's issues, but it worked for me!