The Energon Pub

Once you buy one figure. You are committed to buy all of them. I don't think anyone here just buys one team member toy.

I don't think most here love every single combiners team members persona. A big chunck of them barely get any persona. The team leaders are the ones who get the most fleshed out personas. When a toy gets barely any persona in the fiction it seems less special & more of a empty toy. At the very least when you commit to buying a non-combiner 3rd party toy,its because you love the sculpt,character & scale. Buying combiners commits you to buy all of the team members regardless if you like all the sculpts or not.

Since you need to complete the Gestalt. You take the changes of not liking one or a few sculpts of the team members. I only like Three out of Five of the MMC Preadcons sculpted toys. I don't like the MMC Tantrum & Ramhorn sculpts,as they share the same mold. I don't like the head sculpt on MMC Predaking.

I noticed some of the gestalt add on parts like the feet,hands and other parts might be a bit oversized. Mostly I notice the feet. I think all the 3rd party Predaking's feet & hands are oversized. They needed to be scaled a bit smaller.

It's a big investemt. As most completed 3rd party gestalts can cost anywhere from $400 to $600 depending on the company. I bought FP Menasor & MT Giant because they were both priced very low. I think the TFC Combiners are too exspensive.

You take the chance of HasTak releasing their TF combiners toys for a fraction of the cost.

Or you could just not buy 3rd party combiners if you don't like 'em and don't think they're worth it.

I don't understand the point of this post... What discussion is this intended to generate? The negatives you list are inherent in what they are. It is like saying, "The negatives in being stabbed are a sharp pain, bleeding, and potential death." My response would be, "No ****." Fortunately, unlike being stabbed, there are also positives to many of these items that you seem to be ignoring. Like, "I have this awesome set of toys on my shelf."

You say they are expensive. You don't think third party combiners are worth it? Simple solution. Don't buy them. But being expensive isn't exclusive to just combiners. It is something inherent in all third party products. True, with combiners you have to face that this expense will be multiplied, but that isn't really a negative as much as it is just a realistic fact. "Oh my, I am buying five figures. Somehow, this makes them five times more expensive then a single figure! How unexpected. Worst thing ever!" See? Doesn't really work.

You say you may be stuck with some molds you like more then others. This isn't really a negative only specifically towards third party combiners, but is true of all combiners. Also, it is highly subject to opinion. Different people like different molds. But let us say you're not as fond of one mold in a particular combiner... Well, either don't buy that one mold and go without the combining functionality, or buy that mold specifically for that functionality. Again, this is a thing of all combiners, so hardly a negative specifically of third party ones.

If it isn't the mold so much as well as the character, again this is hardly specific to third party combiners. And also, I fail to see why you are portraying this as a universal negative. One of our forum members is extremely fond of Swindle and seems quite happy to buy any Swindle, regardless of if he is planning to get (or, in some cases, regardless of weather or not there even is) the rest of the team. Except in cases like Giant Type-61 which was sold as a set of six, no one forces you to buy them all. Only buy them all if you are interested in the character of the gestalt form.

Again, I fail to see what conversation you were trying to generate. Unless your point was, "I just want to bitch about the things that I personally don't like." In which case, mission accomplished.

theres good and bad with every figure, combiner or not, third party or official. dont like it, dont buy it.

and as for the swindle fan, i get it. i have a combined hercules on my shelf, and ive been toying around with the idea of getting a second scrapper to stand alone. i love the character and the mold. same with some of the FP menasor guys.

saying that combiner characters suffer from lack of personality is somewhat true, but really... how much character development was there is the G1 toons? story wasnt as highly valued at the time to begin with, and theres like 4601 transformers on either side. try and focus on one combiner limb when you have a cast like that. this is partially why (imo) that beast wars was so great.

you want focused G1 character development? read IDW comics.

I think the problem isn't that sometimes some of the individual team members don't look as nice as others, it's that we don't often get to see all 5 (or 6) and the combined mode before the pre-orders go up. Sometimes we can be halfway through the bots being shipped before seeing pics of a completed team.

That's what's put me off any way. I'd rather not commit to buying a gestalt at 3rd party prices without knowing that when the 4th member of the team is revealed he'll look terrible, and the combined form will be nothing like how I'd imagined the character to look. At Hasbro prices I don't mind if a character has a few changes from the one I grew up with (or am currently enjoying in other fiction) but at 3rd party prices my standards go up a bit, I get far more picky, because I have to. I can't afford everything.

Of course, there is also the issue of gestalt team members often being underdeveloped in fiction. Swindle, First Aid, Silverbolt and Dead End are the main ones I can think of who have any sort of character other than Generic <Insert Faction Here> Warrior. Hot Spot did at least have a cool voice. I'd probably buy those guys as singles, but again, probably not for 3rd party money, unless they absolutely nailed them.

Then again...I'll totally throw down the cash for any of the 3rd Party companies Tantrum's repainted as Stampede.


edit: Also, where's my Ambulon?!

craggy wrote:I think the problem isn't that sometimes some of the individual team members don't look as nice as others, it's that we don't often get to see all 5 (or 6) and the combined mode before the pre-orders go up.

Okay. This I will agree is quite annoying. Fortunately, I've only really been hit with it once. Of the three gestalts I have, one is Fansproject's augmented Bruitcus, for which I have the reissued version (along with the Asian Exclusive Combaticons), and one is Giant Type-61 which came out after the yellow version. The one that I was hit with this on was the Stunticons, for which I was on the fence for quite a while hoping they might reveal Motormaster. I finally bit the bullet and began ordering them anyway, and fortunately I've not been disappointed with the end product.

But still, one might not always be that lucky. And when committing to a series of expensive products, it might be nice to have some idea what the final end result will be before committing to buy the first one with some or all of the others as complete unknowns.

I dont see your point. For someone who focuses on vintage toy accuracy, why would you even care about their cartoon personas ? If you dont like the figure, dont buy it. If you dont like the price, wait for it to go on sale or snag it later on ebay from a collector who is selling his collection to pay bills. If you dont like the 2nd figure after you bought the first, nobody is forcing you to commit. Sell the first figure on ebay and take a 10-20 dollar hit to make it sell quicker. And if youre waiting for hasbro to make a decent combiner for collectors instead of kids, keep waiting. Its not gonna happen. FOC bruticus and BH abominus is what youre gonna get every time.

I've got the same Bruticus. It's so very nice!

I'm still in theory looking to get Giant in green. It's good enough for the money, but it's just so much money to put down at one time on something.

Yeah, I HATE the recent trend of speculative buying in regards to combiners. Hate it. I wasn't disappointed in Bruticus (or MMC's Predaking for that matter), but I hate speculative buying for a very pricy set.

The rest of the complaints, though, seem inherent in all combiners. If you want a really nice Superion, well, you're gonna have to deal with all these issues. No way around it.

craggy wrote:I've got the same Bruticus. It's so very nice!

I'm still in theory looking to get Giant in green. It's good enough for the money, but it's just so much money to put down at one time on something.

It's no more (and probably actually a bit less) then you might spend on a similar combiner's separate pieces in the end. I guess it is the difference between spreading out the cost, or throwing it down all at once.

Given that Giant's not exactly a new product anymore, if the "all at once" thing was too scary for you, I'd think you'd have had had plenty of time to set aside a bit here and these to save up for it by now. Given that he's already suffered at least one bought of "sold out everywhere then restocked," I wouldn't wait forever to get him. No telling how long the current stock will last (could last for ages, but then again might not!) and once it is gone, I'd be surprised if there is yet another restock.

Yotsuyasan wrote:

craggy wrote:I've got the same Bruticus. It's so very nice!

I'm still in theory looking to get Giant in green. It's good enough for the money, but it's just so much money to put down at one time on something.

It's no more (and probably actually a bit less) then you might spend on a similar combiner's separate pieces in the end. I guess it is the difference between spreading out the cost, or throwing it down all at once.

Given that Giant's not exactly a new product anymore, if the "all at once" thing was too scary for you, I'd think you'd have had had plenty of time to set aside a bit here and these to save up for it by now. Given that he's already suffered at least one bought of "sold out everywhere then restocked," I wouldn't wait forever to get him. No telling how long the current stock will last (could last for ages, but then again might not!) and once it is gone, I'd be surprised if there is yet another restock.

I know. I save the cash, then I get something else, something cheaper and save up a bit again. and so on and so forth.

craggy wrote:I know. I save the cash, then I get something else, something cheaper and save up a bit again. and so on and so forth.

Here's some temptation for you to help encourage you to save:





Sure looks good hanging out with that Bruticus, eh? (And Menasor.) Bet you'd like to have them together on your shelf, eh?

What ever happened to that KO Green giant that some peoples are waiting for? did that every happen?

one problem i just thought of....

everyone remember toyworlds throttlebots? well they combine. theres six of them (right?) and theres only three released so far.

i DARE anyone to try and find a grind rod. i recently decided to go all in on the TW-T's and couldnt find him for the life of me. not a single web store had him in stock and no ebay listings in over a month. only reason i finally found one was because of a local toy fair.

will they reissue him when the sixth is released? dunno. if they dont though, anyone late to the party is F'd.

shajaki wrote:one problem i just thought of....

everyone remember toyworlds throttlebots? well they combine. theres six of them (right?) and theres only three released so far.

i DARE anyone to try and find a grind rod. i recently decided to go all in on the TW-T's and couldnt find him for the life of me. not a single web store had him in stock and no ebay listings in over a month. only reason i finally found one was because of a local toy fair.

will they reissue him when the sixth is released? dunno. if they dont though, anyone late to the party is F'd.

I just found 2 one ebay right now. Theyre not cheap, but this is one of those rare cases where it paid to commit. People who want to complete Throttler will have to pay high aftermarket prices.

e-bay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Transformers-To ... 3cdf6088d4

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toy-World-Grind ... 2a3aacf10e

Yotsuyasan wrote:I don't understand the point of this post... What discussion is this intended to generate? The negatives you list are inherent in what they are. It is like saying, "The negatives in being stabbed are a sharp pain, bleeding, and potential death." My response would be, "No ****." Fortunately, unlike being stabbed, there are also positives to many of these items that you seem to be ignoring. Like, "I have this awesome set of toys on my shelf."

You say they are expensive. You don't think third party combiners are worth it? Simple solution. Don't buy them. But being expensive isn't exclusive to just combiners. It is something inherent in all third party products. True, with combiners you have to face that this expense will be multiplied, but that isn't really a negative as much as it is just a realistic fact. "Oh my, I am buying five figures. Somehow, this makes them five times more expensive then a single figure! How unexpected. Worst thing ever!" See? Doesn't really work.

You say you may be stuck with some molds you like more then others. This isn't really a negative only specifically towards third party combiners, but is true of all combiners. Also, it is highly subject to opinion. Different people like different molds. But let us say you're not as fond of one mold in a particular combiner... Well, either don't buy that one mold and go without the combining functionality, or buy that mold specifically for that functionality. Again, this is a thing of all combiners, so hardly a negative specifically of third party ones.

If it isn't the mold so much as well as the character, again this is hardly specific to third party combiners. And also, I fail to see why you are portraying this as a universal negative. One of our forum members is extremely fond of Swindle and seems quite happy to buy any Swindle, regardless of if he is planning to get (or, in some cases, regardless of weather or not there even is) the rest of the team. Except in cases like Giant Type-61 which was sold as a set of six, no one forces you to buy them all. Only buy them all if you are interested in the character of the gestalt form.

Again, I fail to see what conversation you were trying to generate. Unless your point was, "I just want to bitch about the things that I personally don't like." In which case, mission accomplished.

He got you guys lol!

shajaki wrote:one problem i just thought of....

everyone remember toyworlds throttlebots? well they combine. theres six of them (right?) and theres only three released so far.

i DARE anyone to try and find a grind rod. i recently decided to go all in on the TW-T's and couldnt find him for the life of me. not a single web store had him in stock and no ebay listings in over a month. only reason i finally found one was because of a local toy fair.

will they reissue him when the sixth is released? dunno. if they dont though, anyone late to the party is F'd.

The big difference in ToyWorld compared to the other companies is that the other companies are usually offering regular releases of their products so one can actually build a combiner. I hope I'm not exaggerating, but it really seems like TW releases a Throttlebot once a year. So far (thankfully), no other combiner product took over a year from 1st to last release to finish (even though it DID seem that way with FP's Stunticons). There's usually some hint of a timeline with other companies.

TW seems contempt releasing whatever they want, when they want. I guess you could say they have "leader" figures (Megs, Prime, UM), Throttlebots, and Headmasters all competing for release. They even hinted at their own set of Dinobots, yet no prototypes or teasers other than the first have been shown.

I actually waited on getting Aurora and got him on sale a few months back. I'm sure I'll pick up Trace once there's a decent sale for him.

necr0blivion wrote:

shajaki wrote:one problem i just thought of....

everyone remember toyworlds throttlebots? well they combine. theres six of them (right?) and theres only three released so far.

i DARE anyone to try and find a grind rod. i recently decided to go all in on the TW-T's and couldnt find him for the life of me. not a single web store had him in stock and no ebay listings in over a month. only reason i finally found one was because of a local toy fair.

will they reissue him when the sixth is released? dunno. if they dont though, anyone late to the party is F'd.

The big difference in ToyWorld compared to the other companies is that the other companies are usually offering regular releases of their products so one can actually build a combiner. I hope I'm not exaggerating, but it really seems like TW releases a Throttlebot once a year. So far (thankfully), no other combiner product took over a year from 1st to last release to finish (even though it DID seem that way with FP's Stunticons). There's usually some hint of a timeline with other companies.

TW seems contempt releasing whatever they want, when they want. I guess you could say they have "leader" figures (Megs, Prime, UM), Throttlebots, and Headmasters all competing for release. They even hinted at their own set of Dinobots, yet no prototypes or teasers other than the first have been shown.

I actually waited on getting Aurora and got him on sale a few months back. I'm sure I'll pick up Trace once there's a decent sale for him.

MMC is taking forever to release all of the Predacons. The time the last team member is released. Some of the earlier ones might be sold out.

At least TW Has a excuse. The trottlebots are mostly likely late. Because TW is releasing other projects in between the Trottlebots releases.

I suspect MMC & Import sites wanted more toys get made for the Predacons. While TW & Import sites wanted less toys made of the TW Trottlebots. Because lets face it,Predaking is in more demand from buyers.

If TW was smart,They'd release a 2nd shipment of the Trottlebots in a gift set box.

Tsutsukakushi wrote:MMC is taking forever to release all of the Predacons. The time the last team member is released. Some of the earlier ones might be sold out.

At least TW Has a excuse. The trottlebots are mostly likely late. Because TW is releasing other projects in between the Trottlebots releases.

At least MMC is being more transparent about the delays than most companies. We know they are going back and working on various issues to release the best product possible. They do update the expected release dates when possible. If the last member of the Ferocicons makes it out by Sept, then it would've been a full year for the set. I think there is more than enough of the previous 3 figures for anyone who is sitting on the fence to be able to pick up after the fact. They might not get the discount that those of us who preordered early got, but I'm sure the product will be readily available.

I wonder which Throttlebot gets released this year... so far there's been no clue as to which one it will be, much less an estimated time frame.

Rated X wrote:I just found 2 one ebay right now.

*sigh*
well... ok i did dare you. but ill say that neither are MISB and will be much higher than retail was. my point stands: theyre very hard to find.

necr0blivion wrote:I actually waited on getting Aurora and got him on sale a few months back. I'm sure I'll pick up Trace once there's a decent sale for him.

i got aurora on sale as well, and glad i did. im sort of waiting for a similar sale on trace too... but chimung has him for $55 if you dont want to wait. s'not a bad price.

The only negative I could see with any of the combiners is QC. I too am on the fence and haven't decided whether I will get Green Giant or Not-Menasor. I have my Bruticus and E-Superion helper arts but I want another combiner set. Currently I have been on a Wrecker run and I finally snagged an Assaulter. Green Giant is tops then I heard that Menasor is not as much fun to play with...other than that you get what you pay for. You can't go wrong with Maketoys or FansProject I think there quality is awesome.

What you're faced with is the HasTak vs 3rd Party price points. To be honest HasTak isn't making combiners worth are while. They can't get their head out of their ass to make a quality set of combiners since the 80's. Car Robots was about as good as it gets because Energon and PCC just don't cut it. I believe they have a hatred for limbs. There was no need for FansProject to have to make parts and figures when HasTak could have done that with ease. However after owning a bevy of FansProject stuff as well as Maketoys, if you have the scratch the positives far outweigh the negatives. Or you can wait on HasTak to come through....maybe....in the far far future.

bvzxa wrote:The only negative I could see with any of the combiners is QC. I too am on the fence and haven't decided whether I will get Green Giant or Not-Menasor. I have my Bruticus and E-Superion helper arts but I want another combiner set. Currently I have been on a Wrecker run and I finally snagged an Assaulter. Green Giant is tops then I heard that Menasor is not as much fun to play with...other than that you get what you pay for. You can't go wrong with Maketoys or FansProject I think there quality is awesome.

What you're faced with is the HasTak vs 3rd Party price points. To be honest HasTak isn't making combiners worth are while. They can't get their head out of their ass to make a quality set of combiners since the 80's. Car Robots was about as good as it gets because Energon and PCC just don't cut it. I believe they have a hatred for limbs. There was no need for FansProject to have to make parts and figures when HasTak could have done that with ease. However after owning a bevy of FansProject stuff as well as Maketoys, if you have the scratch the positives far outweigh the negatives. Or you can wait on HasTak to come through....maybe....in the far far future.

I would highly recommend the MT Green Giant & FP Menasor toys.

I actually felt the Energon Five teams combiners toys were HasTaks best combiners toy work to date. Even minus the duplicate limbs negatives.

The 2000 Car Robots JRX Train & Quadro Construction combiners toys. I felt were HasTak inferior combiner toys.

Also,Thought HasTaks recent attemps at combiners toys was their worse efforts yet. Those Kreon combiners are just the worse of them all. FOC Combaticons toys,I felt had more negtives & less positives. BH Abonimus team members needed to be all Deluxe scale not Legends scale.

Staying away from TFC combiners toys. Due to oversized scale,Simplified wrong sculpts. Too many QC issues & High price tags.

landfill & railracer > anything in energon

Negative in buying 3rd party toys? Expensive and darn near hard to replace. It seems the post primary focus has meandered again.

bvzxa wrote:The only negative I could see with any of the combiners is QC. I too am on the fence and haven't decided whether I will get Green Giant or Not-Menasor.

Well, I have both of those and have had no problems with either QC-wise.

bvzxa wrote:I heard that Menasor is not as much fun to play with...

Don't know who you heard that from, but they were dirty, filthy liars! LIARS!

Ahem... Pardon me. Anyway, in all seriousness, it depends entirely on what you mean by "play." Would I give this (or most any other third party product) to a child to play with? Hell no! Thing would end up broken in a heartbeat. As an adult who can be careful when moving delicate parts, however, I found Fansproject's Stunticons a joy to transform and pose. (Mind you, I have seen others with differing opinions on that, so your mileage may vary.)

bvzxa wrote:Energon and PCC just don't cut it. I believe they have a hatred for limbs.

No argument from me on the PCC figures... That was not a line I could get into. As for the Energon combiners... Well, they were great for what they were, as a part of the Energon line. As for the duplicate limbs, it was what Hasbro could afford at the time. With the budget they had, they could produce at most ten new molds for combiners. They could either do two combiners with all unique limbs, or three with duplicate pairs of limbs. I think, in the Energon line where these were new characters merely paying homage to G1 combiners, they made the right decision.

Where it fell apart was when they then took those molds and tried to re-issue them in the Classics line as updated versions of the G1 characters. Other then horrible hands and feet, maybe not so bad with Superion. (Airplanes that look similar to one another are not unusual.) But Bruticus definitely suffered by having two characters with highly inappropriate alt-modes. Devastator had it even worse, by in addition to that having a missing member.

Superion needed a bit of help, and Bruticus needed a lot. They got it. Devastator was beyond help, and we've had two quite decent full replacements offered.