The Energon Pub

[william-james88]

The flip and change class of simpler movie toys has a new gimmick this time for Transformers: The Last Knight, where all of them come with flip out helmets/masks. They are called Knight Armor and drastically change the look of the figure. Below you will see images of the toys with and without their helmets as well as the first ever in hand image of Knight Armor Bumblebee in vehicle mode, which looks great. That image, and a few others are courtesy of Pascal over at cybertron.ca while the rest were taken by me. These are for wave one only, since it is the only wave released so far, and includes Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Grimlock, who ends up with a crown rather than a mask covering his face like the other two.

Enjoy!






































Here is what Pascal had to say about these:

The legs on Bumblebee are really annoying, they want to move up (due to transformation), same with the toes (they're spring-loaded and fold up in car mode). Very unstable. Prime is cool though.

[Sabrblade]

"Me, Grimlock, not king, me court jester!"

[AgentK2]

So today in Toys R Us (East Coast), I found TLK toys also! They had pretty much the full cast, except for Optimus (unless I missed him, I wouldn't have gotten him anyway). I got Berserker, Barricade, Grimlock, and Slash, they had Bumblebee but I had no interest in him as I've got the platinum edition AOE version, and the takara Stinger... yeah, I need no more of those. Here are some pictures of the figures in store.

This is how they were when I found them, I was incredibly excited. Barricade can be seen hidden in the back a bit there, I was worried he wouldn't be at first. He was the one I was most excited for. Cracked him open today, he's good! I cannot wait for a good reprolabels set to go on him, and I kinda want to swap out his legs for some reason. I tried my CW Nosecone's legs, and I think they looked really good besides the color difference! Wondering what I could do (if anybody has any ideas on what might look good, let me know! I hope to find something in black because I think that would match the figure color better than any other blue I could possibly find).

These are the legends, but I had absolutely no interest in them.

At checkout, the cashier had to get a bit of assistance from somebody else because it seemed the figures were not to be sold yet. Luckily, though, I was able to get them with no trouble.

This was my final selection lined up. They look good. Grimlock actually has some really nice painted detail, in my opinion, such as on his foot and knees where they don't just make it all one color but break things up with different shades of silver and gray. Perhaps it's not much all things considered, but paint can be scarce on figures these days so it's good to know that not all figures suffer from the lack of it. The dino eyes being red and robo eyes being blue puts me off a bit, but other than that I really like him. Berserker is nice, had a lot of fun with him, though the head seems to pop off a bit easily. Doesn't matter too much, it's a simple enough fix. I already expressed my thoughts on Barricade, (again, anybody with leg ideas let me know!). Slash is the most underwhelming for me, but that's not because he's bad or anything. I like his colors more than the original, but that's about it. He's fine though, just doesn't stand out to me from the rest.
This... kinda made my day. I thought of the possibility of TLK toys popping up in Toys R Us when I checked it out, but I didn't expect it would actually happen. Today was a good day.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

I really thought the mask would do more, like activate some chest armor or shoulder armor or something instead of just the mask

[-Kanrabat-]

Lo and behold, I'll go to my local Walmart tomorrow and all I'll find will be a barren wasteland.

[william-james88]

Barricade is a fun character to get again in a movie toyline since he is movie original and has had decent-very good toys ever since the first film. Below are my thoughts on the new figure in a pictorial review followed by fellow Seibertronian Chuckdawg's thoughts in a video review. Our opinions could not be more different.

I will start by being very blunt: I think this figure sucks. If this is the best this line has to offer with its deluxes, which is what I am hearing from other reviewers, then we are in for a rough ride. Simply said, he is a basic and lazy shell-former. The transformation is nothing new, it's very similar to deluxe Drift from Age of Extinction but without any ingenuity that figure had like the folding doors to reveal new robot detail.

Instead we just get a plain figure where kibble just hangs out. He is far from being as sleek as any character model has shown us and in fact looks nothing like his character model.



I was going to say maybe the head looks similar but they do something super odd where the head is made of two pieces and the piece in the back is a dull beige plastic. I have no clue why they couldn't use the same plastic colour as the front of the head. It looks odd and cheap.



A lot of the problems stem from the simplicity of the figure which results in a terrible looking back, which totally invades the front. There is almost no transformation or deco to the legs, which have the outline of the wheels showing in robot mode, making it look like he has super weird calves.





The backpack is as bad as it gets with shell-formers, taking up the height of the figure, basically, but what bothers me is that it doesn't peg into anything at the top.



Another thing, this figure is puny. Here he is next to Kup.



That Kup cost me $15 USD while Baricade cost me $22 USD (current MSRP for both lines in Canada). This figure just makes me appreciate my Kup even more now.

I do like his knuckles though.



The weapons are ok and I do like that they can be stored in alt mode.









Another thing to note, this toy is not based on any specific car since there is no licensing. Here is a shot of the back of the box where you can see the amount of steps it should take.



So that was my opinion with the photos showing you what I am talking about. Chuckdawg had a very different opinion and here it is below!

While Barricade's transformation is not perfect, it's not as fiddly as it could be. The best part is the wide assortment of accessories, I especially like the Autobot beating stick. If you're going to buy one figure from the first wave of The Last Knight Deluxe Class, make it Barricade.

[william-james88]

Lo and behold, I'll go to my local Walmart tomorrow and all I'll find will be a barren wasteland.

You ready to spend $40 on a voyager and $30 on a deluxe?

[-Kanrabat-]

Lo and behold, I'll go to my local Walmart tomorrow and all I'll find will be a barren wasteland.

You ready to spend $40 on a voyager and $30 on a deluxe?

For voyager Megatron? Hell YEAH! Right here, right now!

As for the rest, I'll wait for the usual sale. Even if that "sale" will just bring back the prices at normal levels.
Still, that new Hound is mighty tempting too...
So far however, none of the deluxes interest me.

[william-james88]

Lo and behold, I'll go to my local Walmart tomorrow and all I'll find will be a barren wasteland.

You ready to spend $40 on a voyager and $30 on a deluxe?

For voyager Megatron? Hell YEAH! Right here, right now!

As for the rest, I'll wait for the usual sale. Even if that "sale" will just bring back the prices at normal levels.
Still, that new Hound is mighty tempting too...
So far however, none of the deluxes interest me.

Ok so then it doesnt matter if your walmart will have those figures tomorrow or not then.
The voyagers you want are only coming in like 2 months.

[-Kanrabat-]

Lo and behold, I'll go to my local Walmart tomorrow and all I'll find will be a barren wasteland.

You ready to spend $40 on a voyager and $30 on a deluxe?

For voyager Megatron? Hell YEAH! Right here, right now!

As for the rest, I'll wait for the usual sale. Even if that "sale" will just bring back the prices at normal levels.
Still, that new Hound is mighty tempting too...
So far however, none of the deluxes interest me.

Ok so then it doesnt matter if your walmart will have those figures tomorrow or not then.
The voyagers you want are only coming in like 2 months.

Oh.
Well, thanks, you saved me a trip.

Optimus Prime seem like a fantastic mold, but I have enough of him already and I'll eather wait for it to be 20$, or if some super special repaint ever come out. Based on Evasion Prime, this is very likely.

[noctorro]

Offtopic:

Anybody else creeped out by the giant letters official productions ceo apple evil corp in the pictures?

[Nemesis Maximo]

Offtopic:

Anybody else creeped out by the giant

Okay, yep, follwing you...

letters official productions ceo apple evil corp in the pictures?

Yeah, I got...you just...I don't...what?

[WreckerJack]

Optimus' face needs more painted details. Looks weird that it's all grey.

[King Kuuga]

Lots of text and broken pictures

So hey buddy, it looks like your pictures were hosted on Discord. It looks like they don't allow external access to their files, so all your embedded reference pics just showed up as broken links. I even followed the URL and only got an error message. I suggest hosting your pictures on Imgur or another site if they're too big to upload straight to Seibertron.

[Carnivius_Prime]

Eh I dunno. Still looks better to me than that TItans Kup he's pictured with (liking Takara's Kup so much more). Kup avoids having bulky back pack by simply turning into a made up sci fi shoe-car with no roof.

I'd quite like to get painting some lil details on this Barricade but yes some of the car kibble could have been made to fold up more to improve it but I still like the look of it. I'd paint the back of his head like I do with some of my figures anyways to block the lightpiping they have (I hate lightpiping, just paint the damn eyes the colour they're supposed to be!)

[william-james88]

He doesnt have any lightpiping.
And his car mode is also made up. There is no license.

[Burn]

I can see myself not getting much of this line. Which is fine, as far as movie figures go I've become VERY selective.

[Evil Eye]

Oh. That's disappointing. If he didn't have that backpack or if it folded up better (see Battle Blade Bumblebee) he'd look OK, but with that whole non-compressible vehicle roof on his back...Nah. A shame as his movie design (from what we've seen of it) and aesthetic concept is pretty awesome. Nightstick, shotgun mandala and "Protect and Serve" knuckledusters? Hell yeah! What a pity they got translated to such a crappy figure.

[Galva Prime]

I'd say Barricade and Optimus are the weakest of all the new moulds so this is not indicative of how good the entire line's going to be. You only have to look at both Megatrons and Scorn to see that they're better than the the Barrcade mould. Not sure why he's so simplified when others in the line transform in more steps. Perhaps it's because he comes with more accessories. Still, it wouldn't have hurt them to actually but the doors on his arms and maybe have the chest transform a bit more to show his badge in the middle.

[Bumblebee21]

i took the backpack off of barricade and it makes him soo much better.
he does have a lot of paint on him or a finish of some type

[Ig89ninja]

i took the backpack off of barricade and it makes him soo much better.
he does have a lot of paint on him or a finish of some type

Wait wait wait, the backpack is removable? If so I'll might actually get this figure

[Bumblebee21]

i took the backpack off of barricade and it makes him soo much better.
he does have a lot of paint on him or a finish of some type

Wait wait wait, the backpack is removable? If so I'll might actually get this figure

yes

[EmirateXaaron]

Argh, sorry for taking so long to get back here. I was unable to revisit the TRU during my stay in Indiana, as I had Easter events to attend with family. Though, I'd say they were stock that was accidentally put out early, if the other experiences here are anything to go by. I might be able to ask a friend that's staying down there to give it a try, though.

[william-james88]

I'd say Barricade and Optimus are the weakest of all the new moulds so this is not indicative of how good the entire line's going to be. You only have to look at both Megatrons and Scorn to see that they're better than the the Barrcade mould. Not sure why he's so simplified when others in the line transform in more steps. Perhaps it's because he comes with more accessories. Still, it wouldn't have hurt them to actually but the doors on his arms and maybe have the chest transform a bit more to show his badge in the middle.

I totally agree with it being odd that Barricade is simplified when the other new molds seem to go back to the ROTF complexity. That Voyager Optimus is super complex (almost annoyingly so, especially with those damn truck panels on the arms).

And while I like your optimism on megatron and the other new molds, these two and berserker are the only ones we have so far for new molds. We didnt handle the other ones yet so we cant know for sure. There are a bunch of cool looking toys which end up being dissapointing once we have them in hand (Leader Grimlock from the previous movie is a good example). I am hoping thats not the case with any of these but the only ones we have been able to handle so far arent that great. Thats pretty much all I meant.

i took the backpack off of barricade and it makes him soo much better.
he does have a lot of paint on him or a finish of some type

Its the metallic plastic used that gives it a nice looking finish.

Wait wait wait, the backpack is removable? If so I'll might actually get this figure

Its not intentional. Like how his arms and head are also removeable since they are on ball joints. Removing the backpack just means your shell-former became a partformer, yay.

Argh, sorry for taking so long to get back here. I was unable to revisit the TRU during my stay in Indiana, as I had Easter events to attend with family. Though, I'd say they were stock that was accidentally put out early, if the other experiences here are anything to go by. I might be able to ask a friend that's staying down there to give it a try, though.

Its been days, so forget that for now. We will news when the line is made available monday.

[Va'al]

After some first look images we got a while ago from Argos UK for Transformers: The Last Knight toys, we now also have a confirmed sighting of the figures on the shelves in other retailers! The following proof comes from fellow Seibertronian Crankcase79 and the Smyths in Birstall, Leeds - check out the display of £22.49/$29 USD Deluxes (lotsa Barricades), One-Steps, Turbo Changers - regular and Tiny - and more, and use our Sightings database anywhere in the world to help out local collectors too!