The Energon Pub

It's clearly just 10 versions of Blurr, in various stages of moving fast. Sold!

So, having messed around with hot rod for most of the day, I have to say that he'd be a perfect figure if it weren't for the idiotic grey arms on his titanmaster, had they been cast in red plastic and helped define his head a bit better he'd be without flaw in my eyes (which probably says something to someone)

Hellscream9999 wrote:So, having messed around with hot rod for most of the day, I have to say that he'd be a perfect figure if it weren't for the idiotic grey arms on his titanmaster, had they been cast in red plastic and helped define his head a bit better he'd be without flaw in my eyes (which probably says something to someone)

YES! Especially about an Autobot.
You're right though about the TM's arms. Especially because of that sculpted circle that is continued on the arms. The arms should have been red.

Nemesis Maximo wrote:And man, if this is the only way to get a hold of Tidal Wave and Nautica, i might be sad.

Cobotron wrote:

Hellscream9999 wrote:So, having messed around with hot rod for most of the day, I have to say that he'd be a perfect figure if it weren't for the idiotic grey arms on his titanmaster, had they been cast in red plastic and helped define his head a bit better he'd be without flaw in my eyes (which probably says something to someone)

YES! Especially about an Autobot.
You're right though about the TM's arms. Especially because of that sculpted circle that is continued on the arms. The arms should have been red.

He reminds me of a cowboy for some reason; but yeah, the silver arms are just painfully bad to look at

william-james88 wrote:

Nemesis Maximo wrote:And man, if this is the only way to get a hold of Tidal Wave and Nautica, i might be sad.

Be very prepared

I like that Hot Rod but he isnt without his issues. he totally fails at an essential aspect many Hot Rods fall victim too, obstructing his glorious spoiler.

Hot Rod has been consistently shown as having his spoiler come over his back in a glorious fashion , framing his head which is the only thing that splits it. it gives him an awesome silouette. But for some damn reason, the modern toys always give him tall dumb looking arms, which look unnatural and restrict poseability.

Look at these shots, his spoiler is never obstructed by his arms or other bits aside from his head:





Getting good shots of G1 is not easy so here's this well made fan art which shows the main hot rod design as I like it:



It comes from the G1 toys which also had that notion that the spoiler shouldnt be obstructed:



By clearly showing the spoiler, you also get a nice mix of bright colours with the yellow purposefully clashing with the red.

And yet what do we get?

This failure



And these arms which compeltely hide out the spoiler



The new MP wasnt bad, but it has these odd red bits coming out of his giant back back which disrupts the silouette



At least this toy gives it the necessary clearance to invoke the framing device, and it looks great



So yeah, a decent toy, but there is definite gripe to be had for ruining a staple design.

william-james88 wrote:rants about a spoiler

And people say I'm nit-picky, guess this is just a boon from not giving two sh|ts about g1 or g1 accuracy. It looks like a piece could have been used to lift it up some, but I feel it wouldn't matter as his shoulders are massive...

william-james88 wrote:It comes from the G1 toys which also had that notion that the spoiler shouldnt be obstructed:

But, Hot Rod's cartoon model was designed by Floro Dery before it was turned into a toy design. Unlike most other G1 toys, the movie characters were designed "movie first, toy second" instead of "toy first, cartoon second".

william-james88 wrote:At least this toy gives it the necessary clearance to invoke the framing device, and it looks great

Only because the instructions for that toy neglect to mention one additional step for transforming the spoiler to let it rest lower behind the toy's collar (much more like on the cartoon model below) instead of behind its head as seen in that pic above.

Well my long chased after Optimus arrived to day - he's a bit hollow feeling and I do prefer Blaster but he's not shabby overall.

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Anyhow speaking of Hotrod - and his head issues I notice Apex's arms (pardon the pun) has a circle on it like Hotrod's head so perhaps the arms could be swapped ?

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Also Re: Hot Rod if you are having issues with the legs not tabbing in - the vehicle mode I figured out what the issue is - it's his knees causing the problem they need to be full 100% folded to allow the side to tab flush if you just casually fold the knees as they are a double joint that slight misalignment is enough to stop the side sitting flush.

I thought I'd mention it in case anyone else had that issue.

Hellscream9999 wrote:So, having messed around with hot rod for most of the day, I have to say that he'd be a perfect figure if it weren't for the idiotic grey arms on his titanmaster, had they been cast in red plastic and helped define his head a bit better he'd be without flaw in my eyes (which probably says something to someone)

I've got your solution, Hellscream. Get Titans return Chromedome (if you haven't already). Pop off the Titan Master Stylor's arms; they're jut on simple ball joints. Take Hot Rod's Titan Master Firebolt/Firedrive and do the same. Swap arms between them and reassemble. You are going to LOVE the results. The red plastic is almost a perfect match between Stylor and Hot Rod, and swapping in gray plastic on Stylor is hardly noticeable behind Chromdome's face anyway.

Wolfman Jake wrote:

Hellscream9999 wrote:So, having messed around with hot rod for most of the day, I have to say that he'd be a perfect figure if it weren't for the idiotic grey arms on his titanmaster, had they been cast in red plastic and helped define his head a bit better he'd be without flaw in my eyes (which probably says something to someone)

I've got your solution, Hellscream. Get Titans return Chromedome (if you haven't already). Pop off the Titan Master Stylor's arms; they're jut on simple ball joints. Take Hot Rod's Titan Master Firebolt/Firedrive and do the same. Swap arms between them and reassemble. You are going to LOVE the results. The red plastic is almost a perfect match between Stylor and Hot Rod, and swapping in gray plastic on Stylor is hardly noticeable behind Chromdome's face anyway.

Just tried this out myself... gotta say, I'm loving the results Thank youuuuu~

Wolfman Jake wrote:

Hellscream9999 wrote:So, having messed around with hot rod for most of the day, I have to say that he'd be a perfect figure if it weren't for the idiotic grey arms on his titanmaster, had they been cast in red plastic and helped define his head a bit better he'd be without flaw in my eyes (which probably says something to someone)

I've got your solution, Hellscream. Get Titans return Chromedome (if you haven't already). Pop off the Titan Master Stylor's arms; they're jut on simple ball joints. Take Hot Rod's Titan Master Firebolt/Firedrive and do the same. Swap arms between them and reassemble. You are going to LOVE the results. The red plastic is almost a perfect match between Stylor and Hot Rod, and swapping in gray plastic on Stylor is hardly noticeable behind Chromdome's face anyway.

I've tried it too, and I have few pictures so people can decide if they like the look before swapping (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND not doing the swap until you're sure you like the look, for reasons upon which I will elaborate at the bottom.)


Here they are, the two of them together. I'll say right now I'm not actually a huge fan of the results - the more similar colors so help the head itself blend better, but having those same colors behind the faces actually ruins the shape I perceive their faces to be.


Here's Hot Rod's head, and oddly enough, for once it actually looks better on camera. The extra red behind his face makes it look way more boxy - where before at least I could sort of see the grey bits as antennae (like Optimus') behind his head, now it just looks like that whole red bit is his face and then his unique head shape is gone.


Chromedome's got more or less the same issue. I guess it might work better for someone who wants a more boxy G1-looking head instead of the pointier IDW-styled one, though, so there's that.


The two arm-swapped TMs together. I know it probably won't matter too much to most, but I really don't like the way they look now that the arms have been swapped. (It's also a good showcase of the Sharpie work I did to make Firedrive look less bland, but that's beside the point.)

And that picture also makes a great segue into why you should be CERTAIN you like the arms swapped before you do it yourself. I don't know if it's just my copy, but the TMs' shoulder ball-joints were not the same size. That just resulted in a loose left arm on Stylor-with-Friedrive's-arms, nothing big, but as you may notice in the above photo, the larger ball on Firedrive means that Stylor's arm now has a huge (relatively speaking) crack in it. That's not a stress mark, that's an actual crack in the plastic, all the way through from the outside of the cup to the inside.
It seems to be holding together for now, but please bear this in mind if/before you decide to try this yourself. It may so happen that it's a one-off problem and I'm being over-dramatic, but I just really don't want lots of people to end up with broken Stylors/Firedrives if the problem ends up being more widespread.

Oh I dunno. I love my Titans Hot Rod. I've lowered the shoulders a bit on mine (and obviously repainted the lot cos I wanted a more Marvel-esque look, I know that's not to everyones taste but it's my figure). And well... you can always just have him posed at an angle to see the spoiler better?

More $150.00 Cad box sets with more to come?



Eh being broke ain't my problem anyways have me moneys Hasbros!

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:At least two have been rumored, each with its own theme.

Yeah I heard the rumors including the Strength set.

The speed pack supposedly comes with Nautica from Blurr/Brainstorm, Quickswitch from Sixshot, Fastlane, Star Convoy and a Titanmaster called Thunderclap.

Bankruptcy is fun.

The trouble with Quickswitch is that they'll prob also give him a submarine mode since he has a gun mode

Btw i just found this

Erm.....ignore that...it seems to be old news but it still doesn't explain why they're adding combiners(Landcross, Abominus) to a TR roster

Stuartmaximus wrote:The trouble with Quickswitch is that they'll prob also give him a submarine mode since he has a gun mode

You do realize that the "submarine" mode is just a gun mode flipped upside down right? That was their way of getting a gun mode into the figure without calling it a gun.

I sure hope someone on eBay parts out this set so I don't have to spend $100 on just Nautica.

As far as box sets go, I feel like we will get 4 in total. We already have Speed and Strength, which correspond to 2 of the stats on the collector's cards. In the end, I wouldn't be surprised if we get Intelligence and Firepower sets.

Should we assume Tidal Wave is a repaint/remold of Broadside? Is it possible that it could be something else, like a Leader or a Titan? It'll probably be the Broadside Voyager mold, but I'd love to see them scale up the mold into a Leader or turn the Metroplex mold into Tidal Wave. (Couldn't that work, since it already has a "carrier mode"?)

GuyIncognito wrote:Should we assume Tidal Wave is a repaint/remold of Broadside?

It's broadside. Also, it cant be a leader because there are only 1 leader per set and the two leaders are blue optimus and quickswitch.

Also, a word from Death:

DeathReviews wrote:My minions were finally able to successfully order the kickback figure from hasbrotoyshop.com! It still says "out of stock", but we got four and it processed the order! Get them quickly!

http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/en/htsusa/-c0283as00

Use the code "LOVE2017" for a 10% discount!