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[Jelze Bunnycat]

Also, Is this the first TF named after a character from The Office....

Shrute, eh? Another Fun Pub-original thing makes it into the mainstream.

yeah but c'mon....we all know what FP was thinking...., ya'll even poke fun at it on TF wiki

I'm just saying that Fun Pub's Shrute used the Office guy's name first.

Looks like another case of name-reuse just 'cause. I bet if you asked Hasbro what it means or where it came they'd be like "Huh?".

And people, we got a new Fracas.

[Skritz]

Given its supposed to be Fracas they should have made in his legs in black buuuut I suppose that would screwed with how Battlemasters are molded.

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Firedrive as Fracas works okay in detail terms even if the # of barrels is wrong. However, that lack of a new barrel piece combined with his fireblast parts being orange rather than purple... It makes him feel more like a Premium Edition Firedrive than a Fracas. Which IMO undercuts his value. I don't suppose it's too late for them to either drop him (and part of the price along with him?) or change the fireblasts?

The Aimless version of the Blowpipe mold has double barrels doesn't look that much like the character "Shrute" is supposed to be (who is NOT a FunPub original, although they are the ones who finally gave him a personality). But I'll probably be accused of splitting hairs for saying this.

So the Firedrive repaint is Fracas, huh? I guess that mean he and Nightstick ain't getting new toys in the next lines. What a shame.

Not necessarily.

[Sabrblade]

By "Fun Pub-original thing", I meant the NAME of that particular Office character being used for a Targetmaster-type character.

[Jelze Bunnycat]

The Aimless version of the Blowpipe mold has double barrels doesn't look that much like the character "Shrute" is supposed to be (who is NOT a FunPub original, although they are the ones who finally gave him a personality). But I'll probably be accused of splitting hairs for saying this.

[Skritz]

Honestly at this rate I'm hoping we see more 3d printed pieces so people can just make their own lineup of slightly-more-toy/toon-accurate Targetmaster partners.

[o.supreme]

Im sure we will, I just saw some 3D printed parts for Chromia to allow her to be a combiner. If it wasn't for the near certainty that we will be getting Lancer at some point, I'd be all over that.

[Skritz]

Im sure we will, I just saw some 3D printed parts for Chromia to allow her to be a combiner. If it wasn't for the near certainty that we will be getting Lancer at some point, I'd be all over that.

Honestly all I want are different barrels so they can at least look the part in gun mode, since the robot mode is secondary to a targetmaster that its a non-issue if they look too similar. Right now for the gun-type Battle Masters we only have two variations of a mold (the Aimless and Blowpipe variations) and a mold with no alternate tooling (Firedrive).

[o.supreme]

Yeah, I get that. Honestly, just looking at them, I cannot tell the humanoid Battlemasters apart, anything to make them more unique would be welcome.

[RodimusConvoy13]

Ugh, f-in' Hasblow. They're screwing the fans again.
They still haven’t given the rotors enough clearance to do this!! Where is my cartoon accuracy????

[chuckdawg1999]

Did not know Skywarp came with three Battlemasters, nice.

[Skritz]

Yeah, I get that. Honestly, just looking at them, I cannot tell the humanoid Battlemasters apart, anything to make them more unique would be welcome.

Given how simple their engineering is you'd think Hasbro would jump at the occasion to milk their molds/core engineering and do the entire Targetmaster lineup. But, no, clearly they do not realize the potential in a Battlemaster collect-a-thon!

Is it wrong I'm hoping next trilogy does a major Unicron Trilogy homage so we can see Micromasters/Mini-cons up the wazoo? Honestly, if you think about it all they need to 'fix' them is to make the peg on the micromaster/mini-con so they can retroactively interact with any figure with 5mm ports, rather than the UT mini-con having the hole.

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Yeah, I get that. Honestly, just looking at them, I cannot tell the humanoid Battlemasters apart, anything to make them more unique would be welcome.

You can't tell the difference between a black body with off-white lims, a gray body with blue limbs, and a blue body with gray limbs? Man, I would hate to be around you when you're driving

Detailed painting would help. As would varying up the ways their barrel pieces were mounted instead of doing it "G1-inaccurate hinge behind the head for everyone!", which results in them all having basically the same transformation scheme (relative to the handle peg) and thus having overly-samey G1-inaccurate gun modes. Take Firedrive for example: if his hinge was on his butt instead, and his handle peg farther up his back, he'd be more distinct and more accurate. I actually modified mine thus.

[Burn]

I for one cannot wait to not be able to get that Skywarp boxset because it'll be some over priced **** exclusive.

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Ugh, f-in' Hasblow. They're screwing the fans again.
They still haven’t given the rotors enough clearance to do this!! Where is my cartoon accuracy????

Eh, just drill a 5mm hole in the top of a green golf tee and file down the diameter of the point if need be.

[Jelze Bunnycat]

Yeah, I get that. Honestly, just looking at them, I cannot tell the humanoid Battlemasters apart, anything to make them more unique would be welcome.

You can't tell the difference between a black body with off-white lims, a gray body with blue limbs, and a blue body with gray limbs? Man, I would hate to be around you when you're driving

The G1 ones were worse in that aspect. I can't remember which name goes with which red one (Pinpointer, Spoilsport and Peacemaker); I'm a bit better with the blue (Caliburst, Aimless and Blowpipe) and grey ones (Nightstick, Fracas, Firebolt, Haywire and Recoil). Don't get me started on the Doubles

[Microbot]

Where do you think this box of Skywarp will be sold? Amazon exclusive as well?

[Seibertron]

Ugh, f-in' Hasblow. They're screwing the fans again.
They still haven’t given the rotors enough clearance to do this!! Where is my cartoon accuracy????

Eh, just drill a 5mm hole in the top of a green golf tee and file down the diameter of the point if need be.

I can't wait to get this version of Springer. This is the version I wanted 5 years ago. Hard to believe it's been that long already!

[Randomhero]

^ Just curious, I used to be in retail years ago, and we would do a store wide inventory once a year, which would have several purposes, but also used to bring actual product in store closer to *true* accuracy. It seems that some chains do it bi-annually, or even quarterly now, but it could just be that time is seemingly accelerating the older I get

I don’t handle Walmart’s anymore. They were annual when I had one as a customer. Targets I think are still twice a year and most of my grocery stores are quarterly now or try to be.

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Yeah, I get that. Honestly, just looking at them, I cannot tell the humanoid Battlemasters apart, anything to make them more unique would be welcome.

You can't tell the difference between a black body with off-white lims, a gray body with blue limbs, and a blue body with gray limbs? Man, I would hate to be around you when you're driving

The G1 ones were worse in that aspect. I can't remember which name goes with which red one (Pinpointer, Spoilsport and Peacemaker); I'm a bit better with the blue (Caliburst, Aimless and Blowpipe) and grey ones (Nightstick, Fracas, Firebolt, Haywire and Recoil). Don't get me started on the Doubles

The Doubles are the most colorful, though!

You can probably tell the G1 Targetmasters apart better than the bozos who animated "The Trainwreck" - I mean, "The Rebirth".

[Nemesis Primal]

-Terror-Daxtyl might be the best Transformer name ever.
-Shrute makes me really hopeful we're still getting Spinister at some point, preferably the next segment of the trilogy, especially since he's the only G1 Targetmaster to be reincarnated as a Battlemaster whose partner is currently missing from Generations.
-Fracas being relegated to boxset duty must such for diehard G1 fans with Scourges to arm, but also his colors look inverted from what they should be, so what happened?

Not picking this set up, I don't need Skywarp, but the minions are still interesting.

[Seibertron]

These Battle Masters are 100% not what I wanted for G1 homage Targetmasters. I like the new ones just fine, but the G1 "updates" are really poor representations of the G1 Targetmasters. They are definitely a cheap cop-out with all of the recolors. Definitely prefer the route that Takara did with the Legends line, but still bummed there was no Nightstick or Fracas released.

[william-james88]

Firedrive as Fracas works okay in detail terms even if the # of barrels is wrong. However, that lack of a new barrel piece combined with his fireblast parts being orange rather than purple... It makes him feel more like a Premium Edition Firedrive than a Fracas. Which IMO undercuts his value. I don't suppose it's too late for them to either drop him (and part of the price along with him?) or change the fireblasts?

Its far too late for any change, the toy is clearly past the packaging phase, let alone production.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

OK, that set with the new images is great. I will get Skywarp and his pals. I love the weapon folks, and Terror-daxtyl is right up there with Pteraxadon for awesome names!

I think Warp and Redwing will look good with my Leader Thundercracker and Megascream combiner. and 2 versions of that mold (for now) will be nice.

[notsoalex]

After images of the Autobot Alphastrike Counterforce surfaced, it was only a matter of time till we learned of the opposing set. Thanks to Seibertronian Jtprime17 in the forums, we have pictures of this new set, and finally caught the name itself, the Decepticon Phantomstrike Squadron. The images come from aiex888 of home.gamer.tw, but all images of the figures are shown below. The box art appears to be the other side of box art with the Autobot set (which has G2 Sideswipe and Slamdance if you don't know), and includes:

• Skywarp (redeco of Starscream)
• Decepticon Fracas (redeco of Firedrive)
• Shrute (redeco of Aimless)
• Terror-Daxtyl (redeco of Pteraxadon)

Shrute was the name used for Hairsplitter, in the TFCC 4.0 release of Spinister, making him one of his Targetmasters. Fracas is Scourge's Targetmaster, but was also released in Headmasters as Nightstick, Artfire's Targetmaster.

So, thoughts on this upcoming set? Are you a fan of these new Battle Masters, and who they represent? Whatever it is, tell us in the Pub forums below, after checking out the full gallery below.