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Sabrblade wrote:

Kurona wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Kurona wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:This Windsweeper bio is like if someone wrote a bio for BW Cartoon Dinobot and somehow managed to completely avoid even hinting at his key character trait of being an honorable warrior.

Perhaps, but considering Windsweeper is pretty obscure... I think it can be excused.

Since when is obscurity an acceptable excuse for misrepresentation?

It's fine if you don't care about the character. I've no affections for him either. But this bio undeniably missed what made Windsweeper Windsweeper. It's disappointing that it didn't represent how the character is known to be when it's not meant be a new incarnation with a new personality.

Probably the fact that it's just one bio, which a lot of people won't use as their basis for the character anyway.
And I mean, this isn't exactly new. Tech specs and on-box bios for characters almost always misrepresent or simplify characters; just look at a ton of the Transformers Prime box bios.
I'm not saying it's great, but it's not exactly a big deal nor is it a unique new problem

This is Fun Pub we're talking about, though. They're sticklers for making things all tie together with their fiction (bios included).

The bios for thunder mayhem arent written by funpub but by freelancers picked by hasbro. One of them is Protoman, you could ask him on cybertron.ca

william-james88 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Kurona wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Kurona wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:This Windsweeper bio is like if someone wrote a bio for BW Cartoon Dinobot and somehow managed to completely avoid even hinting at his key character trait of being an honorable warrior.

Perhaps, but considering Windsweeper is pretty obscure... I think it can be excused.

Since when is obscurity an acceptable excuse for misrepresentation?

It's fine if you don't care about the character. I've no affections for him either. But this bio undeniably missed what made Windsweeper Windsweeper. It's disappointing that it didn't represent how the character is known to be when it's not meant be a new incarnation with a new personality.

Probably the fact that it's just one bio, which a lot of people won't use as their basis for the character anyway.
And I mean, this isn't exactly new. Tech specs and on-box bios for characters almost always misrepresent or simplify characters; just look at a ton of the Transformers Prime box bios.
I'm not saying it's great, but it's not exactly a big deal nor is it a unique new problem

This is Fun Pub we're talking about, though. They're sticklers for making things all tie together with their fiction (bios included).

The bios for thunder mayhem arent written by funpub but by freelancers picked by hasbro. One of them is Protoman, you could ask him on cybertron.ca

But isn't it the case that FunPub is providing info/direction for the points covered in the bios? It seems safe to assume that details such as the voices, Matrix of Malice etc were requested by FunPub to support their Thunder Mayhem plotline.

So, other than Windsweeper's "used to be an Autobot" thing, Spinister allegedly told Hairsplitter/Shrute that he used to be Targetmaster (context implies he meant the gun, not the wielder) and Ruckus/Grabuge is "no longer top of the mountain like his past", which may or may not be a reference to Ruckus's short-lived sting as Mayhem leader (anyone know who to ask?). I'm wondering if there's a reference in Needlenose's bio too and I'm just missing it.

Sabrblade wrote:I mean, isn't describing what the specific character is supposed to be like that a bio comes packed with the entire point of a Transformers toy's pack-in bio in the first place? It's a simple job, really.

I've seen much worse. Take a look at Animated Sunstorm's sometime.

Sabrblade wrote:

Zeedust wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:I mean, isn't describing what the specific character is supposed to be like that a bio comes packed with the entire point of a Transformers toy's pack-in bio in the first place? It's a simple job, really.

I've seen much worse. Take a look at Animated Sunstorm's sometime.

That one got reconciled later.

I must have missed that. How?

Sabrblade wrote:

william-james88 wrote:The bios for thunder mayhem arent written by funpub but by freelancers picked by hasbro. One of them is Protoman, you could ask him on cybertron.ca

They're still counted as Fun Pub product due to their coming with Fun Pub toys.

And regardless of whether the bio ties in with "Of Masters and Mayhem" or not, and regardless of whether it was written in-house by Fun Pub or not, this is G1 Windsweeper's first new toy since his original. Would it not stand to reason that the bio ought to describe the basic personality of the character it is meant to reflect, instead of barely reflecting the kind of character that G1 Windsweeper is?

I mean, isn't describing what the specific character is supposed to be like that a bio comes packed with the entire point of a Transformers toy's pack-in bio in the first place? It's a simple job, really.

well sure. But they only have aome much room on the cards. However, the impression I got from the bio was a Slob out to make the universe a messier place, not an OCD Chaosmaster. Mind you, I was still coming off my anesthetic, so I an't thinkin straight. And I am NOT rolling over to get him right n9w, too much ow involved.

Toy questions
The vertical tailfins on mine are loose enough ai can ley tham down, instead of folding the wings up. I don't remember Skydive doing that. They are mounted on the same pins though. Are they supposed to do that? Or did I get one that was a touch loose in the right place?

Podcaster extraordinaire Scotty P has written to us to let us know that TFSS 4.0 Bludgeon is shipping and should arrive any moment to American residents. He probably even arrived already to some. This is the voyager who acts as the torso for Thunder Mayhem.

Scotty P wrote:Just a heads up to those who have subscribed to the service and do not know yet- FSS 4.0 figure 5 should be arriving today for many, my tracking # indicates this as well. It's Bludgeon as expected (assumption was that Bluestreak would ship with Impactor)

Nothing to do for now but be on the lookout later this afternoon.

Mine arrived in Erie, PA this morning.

Looks like Bludgeon has the same assembly error that Pyra Magna had with the knee triangle peg facing the wrong direction.

Ebonyleopard wrote:Looks like Bludgeon has the same assembly error that Pyra Magna had with the knee triangle peg facing the wrong direction.

So far I've only handled Hot Spot. Is this error a serious problem and/or easily fixable?

For that matter, not having handled Onslaught yet either (sick of double-dipping, so I'm saving up for UW) my biggest concern upon opening Bludgeon is whether it's possible to configure the turret assembly so I'm not constantly worried about chipping the yellow paint off his vestigial light bars when I rotate it, without revealing the Thunderhead. Any way besides just bending his legs down a tad?

I had shared the opinion that they should've given Cyclonus or Scattershot Thunderwing's inner robot head for the torso instead, but the instant I transformed Blood-slaught, I warmed up to him. His head sculpt is the perfect balance of his G1 robot and shell heads. The MofM even goes right in his chest! Sure, you have to shake it out to transform him out of robot mode, which means even further nerve-wracking, but that's part of the fun!

ya know, I thought thunder mayhem would look dumber than he does in person. The main thing that honestly annoys me about him, overall, is he suffers from flat headback. Otherwise I kinda enjoy him. Also, you can make a pretty wicked looking scissor weapon by putting the swords forward pegs into the holes in each side of one hand. You have to twist the fist a bit to get it to fit because of the long handles, but it looks badass. The misassembly is relatively easy to fix, there's only one pin on the outside to worry about (the one holding the foot on) and then you just need to punch out a second one on the inside. hoping someone comes up with an insertable matrix chamber to keep it nice and snug in bludgeon and easily removable.

durroth wrote:ya know, I thought thunder mayhem would look dumber than he does in person. The main thing that honestly annoys me about him, overall, is he suffers from flat headback. Otherwise I kinda enjoy him. Also, you can make a pretty wicked looking scissor weapon by putting the swords forward pegs into the holes in each side of one hand. You have to twist the fist a bit to get it to fit because of the long handles, but it looks badass. The misassembly is relatively easy to fix, there's only one pin on the outside to worry about (the one holding the foot on) and then you just need to punch out a second one on the inside. hoping someone comes up with an insertable matrix chamber to keep it nice and snug in bludgeon and easily removable.

Popping pins is so damn scary for me.

william-james88 wrote:

durroth wrote:ya know, I thought thunder mayhem would look dumber than he does in person. The main thing that honestly annoys me about him, overall, is he suffers from flat headback. Otherwise I kinda enjoy him. Also, you can make a pretty wicked looking scissor weapon by putting the swords forward pegs into the holes in each side of one hand. You have to twist the fist a bit to get it to fit because of the long handles, but it looks badass. The misassembly is relatively easy to fix, there's only one pin on the outside to worry about (the one holding the foot on) and then you just need to punch out a second one on the inside. hoping someone comes up with an insertable matrix chamber to keep it nice and snug in bludgeon and easily removable.

Popping pins is so damn scary for me.

I'm not a modder so this scares me, too. So I'm more than a little disappointed.

kurthy wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

durroth wrote:ya know, I thought thunder mayhem would look dumber than he does in person. The main thing that honestly annoys me about him, overall, is he suffers from flat headback. Otherwise I kinda enjoy him. Also, you can make a pretty wicked looking scissor weapon by putting the swords forward pegs into the holes in each side of one hand. You have to twist the fist a bit to get it to fit because of the long handles, but it looks badass. The misassembly is relatively easy to fix, there's only one pin on the outside to worry about (the one holding the foot on) and then you just need to punch out a second one on the inside. hoping someone comes up with an insertable matrix chamber to keep it nice and snug in bludgeon and easily removable.

Popping pins is so damn scary for me.

I'm not a modder so this scares me, too. So I'm more than a little disappointed.

Most people who purchased this arent skilled with those tools neither. Most have chosen to just live with it. But just be aware of this since if you force things you will end up with stress marks.

william-james88 wrote:

kurthy wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

durroth wrote:ya know, I thought thunder mayhem would look dumber than he does in person. The main thing that honestly annoys me about him, overall, is he suffers from flat headback. Otherwise I kinda enjoy him. Also, you can make a pretty wicked looking scissor weapon by putting the swords forward pegs into the holes in each side of one hand. You have to twist the fist a bit to get it to fit because of the long handles, but it looks badass. The misassembly is relatively easy to fix, there's only one pin on the outside to worry about (the one holding the foot on) and then you just need to punch out a second one on the inside. hoping someone comes up with an insertable matrix chamber to keep it nice and snug in bludgeon and easily removable.

Popping pins is so damn scary for me.

I'm not a modder so this scares me, too. So I'm more than a little disappointed.

Most people who purchased this arent skilled with those tools neither. Most have chosen to just live with it. But just be aware of this since if you force things you will end up with stress marks.

Ha, snailman came earlier than I was expecting! The knee joints are much tighter than Hot spot, so no issues with him being wobbly. I can live with him being a little taller. BIG GIANT SWORDS!

You do not need to hassle with the pins. I followed this guide for both pyra magna and g2 onslaught. Shaved off the little nub/triangles. Clicks in perfectly on robot mode and no apparent effect on torso mode.

It did end up cracking the little posts but it doesn't even seem to matter. Might put in a tiny bit of glue later but whatever.

Note that hot spot and normal onslaught don't have this problem.

I'm a little leery of doing it to a high-level collectible like bludgeon, but I need to be able to click those knees in.

http://brickonator.tumblr.com/post/1440 ... a-knee-fix

For the record, neither of my G1 CW or UW Hotspots and Onslaughts have the misassembly. I just got Victorion the other day and Pyra Magna had the problem as did Bludgeon today. For Pyra Magna I unscrewed the legs and shaved the problem piece down and all that happened was the small, seemingly useless glued peg between the light bar broke but that's it. The screws hold everything together anyway so there wasn't a need to glue that tiny peg or to have it at all for that matter. For Bludgeon, I just stuck my exacto knife in and cut the piece off without taking the legs apart and nothing happened other than the removal of the little piece that was cut off.

I've heard of people just clipping the piece off with a toenail clipper too so removal of the problem piece isn't that difficult and doesn't require popping out any pins unless you don't want to cut the piece off and would rather keep your figure completely intact. I personally like transforming my figures over and over so to me, having completely working knees was a must. For those of you that just keep them combined and displayed, this may not be necessary to do at all.

I guess I'll have to do this again when I get a G2 Onslaught. Lets hope that G2 Hotspot won't have this problem even though it's an easy fix.

The Master of Mayhem has arrived. Soon Thunder shall shake the world.

Bludgeon was worth the wait, especially since I don't have Onslaught (I had vastly more disposable income last year than I do now, sadly).

I do wish there was somewhere to stash the swords in vehicle mode, but them's the breaks when it comes to putting in extra accessories.

Alpha Weltall wrote:Lets hope that G2 Hotspot won't have this problem even though it's an easy fix.

Why do you think there's even going to be a G2 Hot Spot? Liokaiser's slated to be the last Combiner Wars release.

Alpha Weltall wrote:For the record, neither of my G1 CW or UW Hotspots and Onslaughts have the misassembly. I just got Victorion the other day and Pyra Magna had the problem as did Bludgeon today. For Pyra Magna I unscrewed the legs and shaved the problem piece down and all that happened was the small, seemingly useless glued peg between the light bar broke but that's it. The screws hold everything together anyway so there wasn't a need to glue that tiny peg or to have it at all for that matter. For Bludgeon, I just stuck my exacto knife in and cut the piece off without taking the legs apart and nothing happened other than the removal of the little piece that was cut off.

I've heard of people just clipping the piece off with a toenail clipper too so removal of the problem piece isn't that difficult and doesn't require popping out any pins unless you don't want to cut the piece off and would rather keep your figure completely intact. I personally like transforming my figures over and over so to me, having completely working knees was a must. For those of you that just keep them combined and displayed, this may not be necessary to do at all.

I guess I'll have to do this again when I get a G2 Onslaught. Lets hope that G2 Hotspot won't have this problem even though it's an easy fix.

You're little peg broke too (Glad I'm not the only one that had that happen. Seems like they glued the peg in because it won't separate easily on it's own. I just super glued it back once I used and Exacto Knife and just cut the little triangle peg off (Goes through real easy). I'm not even sure what the page is on there for anyway, since there's not lost functionality once it's gone.

Ebonyleopard wrote:

Alpha Weltall wrote:For the record, neither of my G1 CW or UW Hotspots and Onslaughts have the misassembly. I just got Victorion the other day and Pyra Magna had the problem as did Bludgeon today. For Pyra Magna I unscrewed the legs and shaved the problem piece down and all that happened was the small, seemingly useless glued peg between the light bar broke but that's it. The screws hold everything together anyway so there wasn't a need to glue that tiny peg or to have it at all for that matter. For Bludgeon, I just stuck my exacto knife in and cut the piece off without taking the legs apart and nothing happened other than the removal of the little piece that was cut off.

I've heard of people just clipping the piece off with a toenail clipper too so removal of the problem piece isn't that difficult and doesn't require popping out any pins unless you don't want to cut the piece off and would rather keep your figure completely intact. I personally like transforming my figures over and over so to me, having completely working knees was a must. For those of you that just keep them combined and displayed, this may not be necessary to do at all.

I guess I'll have to do this again when I get a G2 Onslaught. Lets hope that G2 Hotspot won't have this problem even though it's an easy fix.

You're little peg broke too (Glad I'm not the only one that had that happen. Seems like they glued the peg in because it won't separate easily on it's own. I just super glued it back once I used and Exacto Knife and just cut the little triangle peg off (Goes through real easy). I'm not even sure what the page is on there for anyway, since there's not lost functionality once it's gone.

If you take a look at Hotspot or CW Onslaught in torso mode, you can see that the triangle nub seems to almost act like a brace within the thigh assembly.

But it also doesn't really seem to lose any stability or ... anything when not there.

With the misassembly, the nub isn't doing *anything* properly as it is, so shaving it off doesn't change anything on Magna, G2, Bludgeon...

Got mine today too. Now, if only I knew where all their HFG modules went... Just call my Combiner Stumpy!

Ergh...

Anyone out there willing to pop the pins on my figures for a reasonable fee? I haven't decided, but I am considering trying to get that done to Bludgeon and my Pyra Magna once it arrives (even though, obviously, these will stay in combined mode most of the time.)

In vain, I emailed the collectors club about it. No luck on getting them adjusted as the joints, as they are, don't "adversely affect the toy aesthetic nor its ability to convert from robot to vehicle." Though, I'm guessing they haven't really played with a Hot Spot without locked knees...

Why would the Club adjust anything for your Bludgeon?

It's annoying, I agree. I don't like how it looks or holds without the knees locked in as they do on the retail of Hot Spot and Onslaught; that's why I fixed Magna and G2 Onslaught.

But it's Hasbro's fault. Whatever happened with the assembly process for the past three versions of the mold, it's been assembled backwards. It's not FunPub's fault. They received the toy as assembled, and it's not exclusive to them. Give FB all the flak in the world for when they make bad decisions, but this one isn't really on them. =)

Just shave off the plastic triangles, man. You don't need to go all the way to doing the pins to fix it.