The Energon Pub

Hi,

I just come back from a Toy Hunt in our little french shops.

Nothing special , but Deluxe BH are half-priced till the end of the month.

Here are the figures available : Bulkhead, Autobot Ratchet, Bumblebee, Shadow Bumblebee, Soundwave, Vertebreak, Laserback Dragon, heelJack, Dreadwing and Starscream.

Are some of them more sought after/rare than others ?
What would you buy ?

I'd recommend Ratchet. I was a huge fan of the original tooling, and okay, the BH version is wacky Mad Max styled in alt mode and definitely not an ambulance, but the bot mode is lots of fun. All over he's covered in cool details and some interesting paint apps. I use him as a Junkion medic/scrap dealer.

Laserback was one I was initially quite disappointed in. He's very hollow, with his entire chest being a shell. Transformation is the worst parts of super simple and stupidly finicky. BUT, he's got really nice colours, and his weapon gmiicks are pretty neat. His head sculpt, bot mode arms and torso give a good impression of a tough wee hard man. He reminds me of the Slag/Slug of the Preds.

out of that lot the only other one I have is Bulkhead, who, for half-price, is probably fine. I quite like the design of both modes, and although the transformation isn't much to write home about he's pretty poseable if you can look past the bicep-curl/monkey arms. He and Ratchet have also got spinny weapons. mmm...spinny.

partofmelp67 wrote:Hi,

I just come back from a Toy Hunt in our little french shops.

Nothing special , but Deluxe BH are half-priced till the end of the month.

Here are the figures available : Bulkhead, Autobot Ratchet, Bumblebee, Shadow Bumblebee, Soundwave, Vertebreak, Laserback Dragon, heelJack, Dreadwing and Starscream.

Are some of them more sought after/rare than others ?
What would you buy ?

Huh, kind of the same that the Netherlands have. I have quite a few of them, here are my thoughts:

Vertebreak
He's a diamond in the rough in all honesty. His transformation is so simple it may be insulting to some, just straighten out the legs and arms, fold the dragon head into the torso and you're practically done. The simplicity and him looking like a dog (according to my wife) adds to his charm IMO. Lazerback is the same mold, but his colors reach more into Fantasy in contrast to the real-world inspired colors of Vertebreak.

Dreadwing
Out of all the Decepticons, this guy has the most animal-inspired features in the shape of bird feet, the wings opening up like a peacock's and the brows kind of resembling that of a horned owl. He's pretty decent, but the jet mode suffers from the usual undercarriage junk. and visible arms and feet. The combining weapon is nifty, then again, I have a thing for staff weapons

Starscream
He's one of the better figures to get, if it weren't for two problems: the yellow looks out of place, and the ankle joints are looser than they should be. Aside from those problems, he's cool to have. His slender arms and legs minimize the junk on the bottom of the jet and the robot mode looks like the original on TV, just upgraded. If possible, I'd say hunt down the Japanese version, which is in a more pleasant silver and blue. But you can never beat half price, am I right?

Autobot Ratchet
I have the green Japanese version, because, in all honesty, the colors on Beast Hunters Ratchet are just a mess. I get what they're going for, using the colors of the original on the unchanged parts, while giving the new parts a different color to make them stand out. For most figures it works, but for Ratchet, not so much. At least the new parts look great, including a jet exhaust in the back. The weapon is good, but again, the colors... If you've seen Beast Wars and like the Dinobot character, pick him up as he's a callback to that character.

The only one that I see being wanted later in that batch is Soundwave because he actually introduces a new classic character update and mold in the form of Ravage, who replaces Lazerbeak in the Beast Hunters line of toys.

You cant get ravage anywhere else and he works better with Soundwave than I feel Lazerbeak did because his shape is more distinctive and he looks more like Ravage than Lazerbeak looked like Lazerbeak.

I would also recomend Ratchet just because they totally changed him up. The head sculpt is not even close to the old one giving a whole new look to the character. The head sculpt actually reminds me of Dinobot Transmetal 2 while the weapon reminds me of BW Dinobot so its a cool double homage. Plus he has that same great and slightly complex transformation the original Prime ratchet had.

And this is a good way of getting the ones you didnt get before at a cheap price like Bumblebee.His transformation is simple but stylish. Same goes for Starscream

I dont recomend any of the Dragon molds, and neither Bulk Head which just seems odd at that class size. He will surely not be more collectable than the others in the years to come (first Edition Bulkhead took care of that).

Anyways, thats just my opinion, if you just want something to play with and transform, you cant really do anything wrong by getting these at a discount.