The Energon Pub

Episode 398 of The Seibertron.com Twincast / Podcast promises to not indulge in the meaningless April Fools traditions and address the hard hitting Transformers issues, such as why pepto-pink is somehow a covert secret agent's chosen undercover color scheme. Host Scotty P is joined by Aaarnhide19 and Kuhlio to discuss the Takara teaser images and symbolic preorders before listener questions save the show from a small news cycle.

Episode #398 “Secret Agent Menasor” is available directly and in our RSS Feed, and should appear on Apple Podcasts and many other Podcatcher sites within 24 to 48 hours of when you see this news post.

Here's what we discuss in this episode:

• Legacy G2 Menasor makes an appearance from Takara of all places.
  
• Arcee provokes some conversation on prototype inspired MPG figures.
  
• Optimus Prime becomes the literal symbol of the Autobot cause. Does he motivate sales or inspire the crew to wait for clearance.
  
• Alexison starts out the listener questions with a question about effective fictional deaths in the Transformers universe
  
• Perceptor1996 hires the crew to design a new leader of the Autobots as Scotty P provides some Brave answers.
• Kurthy and TK415 team up to challenge the cast to build a perfect team.
• Kurthy asks who should lose their head, then give it to someone else
  
• Starflayer questions tyrannical leaders, find out who disagrees and who says "YESSSSSSSS"
  
• Bragging rights then brings this show to a close.
  

Couple of things:
1. Lots of designers that have been ripped off from 3d print files still have cults, thingiverse, hubs, or patreons that could be donated to if you like their models. Like https://cults3d.com/en/users/jesslynmakesrobots made the rotorstorm and crosshairs upgrades that everyone loves. For other people like printformers or funbie just giving them a shout-out would probably be good.
2. Yeah, a five man band is kind of a toku trope, but it gets used throughout just about any action/adventure series, East or West. Transformers has a long history of the 5 man band with beast wars (even getting the 6th ranger trope with tigatron), beast machines, animated, prime, and rid15. I can't remember for rid01 or any of the unicorn trilogy how close they get. There is even a five-man-band band trope, so I would have laughed about a picking lead singers and drummers.

Armada I think tried to hold the 5 man band (with Roadies)-
Prime, Red Alert, Hotshot, Smokescreen, Scavenger
Megatron, Demolisher, Starscream, Cyclonus, Tidal Wave- then add in the rando swaps/"guests"

So this isn't the same type of digger I was talking about in my question, but still pretty cool. We don't get enough cool construction robots in general and most of them can't even simulate the functions of their vehicles modes anyway.