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It's funny: this is the most GEEWUN pandering-line and yet people complain it ain't GEEWUN enough.

Skritz wrote:It's funny: this is the most GEEWUN pandering-line and yet people complain it ain't GEEWUN enough.

You can please some of the people most of the time...

I just got Sideswipe and Hound from HTS about an hour ago. Both are great figures. I really like Sideswipe. Great bot mode and the alt mode is cool too. I like hound a lot too. I think the Universe version had a cleaner alt mode, but I like the weapons and color of this one. He's a nice figure.

RodimusConvoy13 wrote:I just got Sideswipe and Hound from HTS about an hour ago. Both are great figures. I really like Sideswipe. Great bot mode and the alt mode is cool too. I like hound a lot too. I think the Universe version had a cleaner alt mode, but I like the weapons and color of this one. He's a nice figure.

Sweet, glad to hear your thoughts on Sideswipe. I found all 4 at target over the weekend, and then ordered another Sideswipe, Hound and Skytread from Hasbro at the MUCH better price, so once they arrive today, I'll be returning them to Target to cash in on the savings.

Sideswipe was the only one I didn't open yet, he's going under the tree, so at least I get to choose the better paint job before I return one of them. Its going to be hard to wait 19 more days till I get to open him.

ZeroWolf wrote:

Skritz wrote:It's funny: this is the most GEEWUN pandering-line and yet people complain it ain't GEEWUN enough.

You can please some of the people most of the time...

I feel like the complaints have been more, the Cybertronian modes aren't Cybertronian enough. Or maybe that's just me. Not gonna stop me from enjoying these toys though.

Speaking of which, I just finally found the Weapon Masters at Target. Time to enjoy!

Lucky you Cobo I'm tempted to try my luck at Smyths toys, here in the UK they got combiner wars, titans returns and potp figures not long after they hit you lucky Americans

I got Hound, Sideswipe, and Flywheels from HTS just a couple hours ago. I haven't opened Hound yet, but the other two are great. I'm also happy about the scale because they work alongside my seeker collection. Reflector will probably be too large, but if it really bothers me I can always shell out for the Botcon set. (I'm not going to do that.) (I hope.)

The only disappointment so far is what I was most excited for: the fire blasts are underwhelming. I put Firebolt's on Flywheel's gun, and that worked well enough, but I also wanted to attach Blowpipe's blast to Sideswipe's chest and it just won't stick. Lionizer's effect has limited utility, and can't really work like I hoped. The SDCC display got my hopes up too much.

The whole package still works together, and I like the play feature, but at least now I'm not going to think about buying extra Battle Masters for Fire Blasts. One of each will be more than enough.

To clarify the remark about sizes, Sideswipe and Classics/Universe Starscream are approximately the same height, though the official numbers are 4m and 5m, respectively. That's close enough for my purposes, and I'm still undecided about getting all of the tetrajets, especially since I don't know if the coneheads will make an appearance.

Cobotron wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:

Skritz wrote:It's funny: this is the most GEEWUN pandering-line and yet people complain it ain't GEEWUN enough.

You can please some of the people most of the time...

I feel like the complaints have been more, the Cybertronian modes aren't Cybertronian enough. Or maybe that's just me. Not gonna stop me from enjoying these toys though.

I agree, but if they had been more Cybertronian they would have looked less like the pilot episode-inspired designs, which have the Earth-like robot modes. Meaning they got G1 toon robot modes with only slight hint of kibble that doesn't quite match the show. Now, again, personally I would have been 100% on board with some MTMTE, Stormbringer or even War Within styling but it's clear these guys were designed so the robot mode would be as much of the Sunbow cartoon as possible.

That and as I mentioned before: these Cybertronian modes are clearly meant to be deliberately retro-futuristic, meaning they look futuristic for the eighties. It's certainly a very unique vibe, that's for sure.

Last, but not least, here's my review of Flywheels (a.k.a., Skytread). Since Flywheels in the original name, and the one I'm most used to, I'll be using that for the remainder of this review, but to anyone not in the know, it's the character named "Skytread" for the Transformers: Siege line to which I am referring whenever I say Flywheels.

I, along with many other fans, had been anticipating Flywheels since we knew we were getting Battletrap in Power of the Primes. Of course, many of us were hoping for the same kind of update we got with Battletrap, where we would get two figures with their own alt modes and robot modes that combined into the classic characters from G1. I recall a LOT of people loved how Battleslash and Roadtrap turned out in PotP, but opinion seemed to shift a little more once Flywheels was fully revealed for Siege.

Judged on its own, Flywheels is a great update of the original G1 toy. While that thing was fun, it was mostly an "autoformer" that produced a robot with very funky proportions and minimal articulation, even for a G1 toy. This modern update fixes all of those issues, giving us a figure that we convert manually, resulting in a robot mode that looks proportionate and cool, like the original animation models from The Headmasters and G1 toy commercials. Flywheels is not slouch in articulation either, sporting some nice ankle tilts like the rest of his Deluxe Class contemporaries in the SIEGE line. The battle damage paint is again kept to a minimum and works well to enhance the look of the toy without being overbearing. The "paint scrapes" are relegating entirely to the tank portion of the figure and end up on the feet and outsides of the legs. You hardly notice they're there unless you're looking for them.

How does Flywheels stack up when compared with Battletrap, his partner in crime from Power of the Primes? Again, it would have been nice had the two been done in the same style as one another, either both having individual robot modes for their two vehicles, or both lacking that addition altogether. At least they are compatible with one another, so they can swap shirts/pants if you really want to. They do look silly and mismatched that way, mostly because of the stark color contrasts, but you can do it if your heart desires. From not having the individual robot modes, Flywheels does transform into robot mode more easily than Flywheels, is noticeably less "fiddly" when posing, and looks overall more cohesive in sculpt. Do the individual vehicles modes have as much advantage? Yes and no. While both the SUV and helicopter of Battletrap suffer from having to combine with one another, on top of being individual vehicles and robots (essentially, they are combiner pieces in Legends scale), the tank of Flywheels turns out quite well (aside from some design/molding issues). The jet component gets stuck with two Deluxe sized robot arms for an undercarriage on a jet that's Legends sized. It's not elegant, but it's not horrendous. It's just disappointing. I think we would have gotten more play value out of Flywheels had been designed in parallel with Battletrap, but in robot mode, they still look good paired up together on display. Like Battletrap, you also can't really securely seat the flying vehicle atop the ground vehicle securely with Flywheels, meaning that if you want to replicate that G1 "pre transformation" pose with these figures, you just have to balance one atop the other.

Going back to the design/molding issues mentioned above, most of the problem is with the tank component. Everything about the jet component works as intended, and the only downside is the robot arms hanging out below the fuselage. The tanks is more problematic, and these issues have been noted by several other reviewers as well. The tank turret doesn't peg in securely. There is a lip of plastic, intentionally molded on the butt of the rifle, that keeps it being able to push the peg all the way into the tank. Either the peg needed to be longer to accommodate that molding decision, or the lip in the sculpt should have been eliminated before production. The turret sits okay, but will fall out easily, especially if you pick up and manipulate the tank at all. The other issue is that the pieces that form the tank turret don't snap in place at all. The tabs are too long/thick and will pop out of their slots. This means that the parts don't lay flush and will always look a little slanted and off unless you fix the tabs yourself with some sanding or trimming. I've hear rumors of some hip joints being "frozen" with Flywheels, but my copy doesn't seem to have any issue.

Overall, I'm glad to have Flywheels, but he could have been designed and polished just a bit better, especially considering he should have been easier and more cost effective to engineer and produce than Battletrap just one year earlier.

Dannshinigami wrote:Where does the middle barrel come from on Chromias cannon?? The muzzle is from the sight on her machine gun but not sure where the rest comes from

Pegs in front of the rear wheels.



Anyway, FedEx just dropped off my Micromasters from HTS! I'll be playing around with these later.

Emerje

You know, it's a shame we just got an Elita-1 in POTP because she could have been neat to have in Siege with a presumably more accurate altmode of a cybertronian ground vehicle, since iirc we only briefly see her being some sort of car-thing in the show. Presumably it would be similar to what Moonracer has but I could see a 'proper' Elita-1 working as a small-ish Voyager.

That said for what it was worth, I did dig her Macross-esque reuse of Starscream. Does anyone have a pic of how Siege Optimus scale with POTP Starscream/Elita-1?

RodimusConvoy13 wrote:I just got Sideswipe and Hound from HTS about an hour ago. Both are great figures. I really like Sideswipe. Great bot mode and the alt mode is cool too. I like hound a lot too. I think the Universe version had a cleaner alt mode, but I like the weapons and color of this one. He's a nice figure.

Poopdoody! I didnt know they were up on HTS. NONE of my stores are eveb trying to reset f9r a new line. If they had Siege figures, they have been puckef fr9m the back.

Oh well, I got the two autobot MicroMaster teams for 7 99 a piece abd free shipping, so that was worth it.

BBTS has the Siege stuff for sale now, not just pre-order: my stuff (except the deluxes) has been sent to my Pile of Loot.

Skritz wrote:BBTS has the Siege stuff for sale now, not just pre-order: my stuff (except the deluxes) has been sent to my Pile of Loot.

I havent gotten my notice for that yet. Magnus too?

Flashwave wrote:

Skritz wrote:BBTS has the Siege stuff for sale now, not just pre-order: my stuff (except the deluxes) has been sent to my Pile of Loot.

I havent gotten my notice for that yet. Magnus too?

I got arrival notices for Deluxes and Voyagers (I just picked up the littlest dudes at Target, so I canceled them from BBTS yesterday or the day before.) The Preorders for Shocky and Magnus just went up recently. No shipping info on them yet.

I just opened my Megatron and Optimus. These are some amazingly thought out figures. The transformations are actually puzzles (particularly for Prime), which was always part of the fun.

It is quite refreshing to have these have minimal cheats in the design. For instance, the windshields are really the windshields. PotP have the fake double over windshields, that just didnt work for me.

If I were to grade these two:

Robot mode
OP: 5/5
Megs: 5/5
Both of these figures in robot mode make me feel like I could reenact scenes from TF:TM or Season 1.

Alt mode
OP: 4.5/5 - only real gripe is the grille is unnecessarily covered by another grille
Megs: 4.5/5 - back is a little unfinished looking, and the cannon cannot tilt, but otherwise a darn good tankatron.

Articulation
OP: 5/5
Megs: 4.5/5 - lacks wrist swivels

Accessories
OP: 4/5 - weapon storage could be better.
Megs: 4.5/5 - great weapons integration. If the sword came apart it would be perfect.

Overall
OP: 4.5/5
Megatron: 4.5/5
The best of what going unapologetically G1 could mean.

These are very refreshing figures, and if you know the character and the alt mode, transformation makes sense but is not so obvious it is insulting. I sure hope this doesn't lead to a letdown with the seekers or other voyagers.

The only other downside to me is that there really is no point to another neo G1 prime or Megatron (at a Voyager scale). Which can be good because they may as well do other series Primes and Megatrons post Siege, since we know they want at least prime occupying shelves at higher price points.

I'll finish up my reviews of the Transformers: Siege Deluxe Class Wave 1 figures with a few shots of Flywheels/Skytread.

Prepare for trouble. And make it...DUOCON?


They got dressed in the dark again.


Turns out, you can hug your children with nuclear arms!

Just opened my Micromasters. I predict these are going to be stolen pretty easily, the bubble is just barely secured with glue and only has one strip of tape on one side. A little pull and the bubble just pops off with little resistance. That's quite the change from previous lines where bubbles were taped on every side.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:Just opened my Micromasters. I predict these are going to be stolen pretty easily, the bubble is just barely secured with glue and only has one strip of tape on one side. A little pull and the bubble just pops off with little resistance. That's quite the change from previous lines where bubbles were taped on every side.

Emerje

When I grabbed my set of Micromasters, the bubble was sealed, but by the time I got back to my car, the bubble was already starting to come off just from me grabbing it by the bubble after checking out. I admit, as it came off cleanly, I was happy for a split second before I realized just how insecure the packaging was

hope a 3rd party accessory provider would provide a widget to solve sky tread's turret hole issue, though I envisage they'll just provide a new gun

So far I'm really enjoying the siege figures - they have their quibbles but I guess we expect more and more from our figures. OP is probably my favourite iteration of the character I own... the transformation is involved but satisfying, and not overly complex to not be fun.

Eek, better write Hasbro and the retailers about this issue. This is something they will care about.

Skritz wrote:It's funny: this is the most GEEWUN pandering-line and yet people complain it ain't GEEWUN enough.

Well, mostly what's been happening just lately re: Hound is the rest of us being flabbergasted that, with how GEEWUN-pandering he is, someone could say he doesn't look like G1 Hound in altmode. So we've been pointing out all the things in common.

I'm really digging the deluxes in this line. The blast effects from the battle masters are fun too. I used those and some explosions from the Disney Store Exclusive Black Series Stormtrooper.

RodimusConvoy13 wrote:I'm really digging the deluxes in this line. The blast effects from the battle masters are fun too. I used those and some explosions from the Disney Store Exclusive Black Series Stormtrooper.

Looking good! Hound looks awesome as I expected but Sideswipe looks better than I imagined.

Regarding the Cybertronian vehicle modes, one of the things I love about this line is that the vehicles could kinda sorta work as future Earth modes (like how Animated is IIRC set in either the future or a high-tech present thanks to reverse engineering Megatron)- so Sideswipe doesn't turn into a Cybertronian car that looks suspiciously like a Lmaborghini, he IS a Lamborghini, but one made in 2088.

Actually, slightly off topic but I wouldn't mind a Transformers series set in the future- partly for an excuse to have effectively Bubblegum Crisis WITH TRANSFORMERS and partly because you could have a really interesting dynamic where the Decepticons (and initially the Autobots before the Earth authorities realize they're the good guys) are actually vulnerable to Earth weapons and are caught unawares; they expect to be facing organics with primitive munitions of no use against Transformer biology and tech, and instead have to contend with ray rifles capable of seriously injuring them.

RodimusConvoy13 wrote:I'm really digging the deluxes in this line. The blast effects from the battle masters are fun too. I used those and some explosions from the Disney Store Exclusive Black Series Stormtrooper.

So the US is getting that stormtrooper afterall. Does the desney store also have the exclusive Phasma?