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Surprised to see Grimlock not going for the dalmatian look. Also had to do a double take with the red on his dino head: turns out it's just lighting. Not in the cards yet for me I'm afraid...

Comparisons with Dinobot when?

Razorbeast88 wrote:I know I'd be watching all the customizing tutorials, I don't know jack about that sort of thing

I'm going to keep them short & to the point. I believe every toy collector needs some basic customizing skills.

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:Surprised to see Grimlock not going for the dalmatian look. Also had to do a double take with the red on his dino head: turns out it's just lighting. Not in the cards yet for me I'm afraid...

Comparisons with Dinobot when?

The red on the Dino head is just lighting.

The Dalmatian spots are there, though confined to the gray area on his raptor back. you can just barely make out the black spots there in some pictures.

I'm on the fence. Don't know if I want this set. I already have Dinobot, and not sure I want Mirage that much even if he is a considerable retool from Siege.... Decisions... decisions.

That Tracks didn't turn out as bad as he originally looked, but still doesn't look great. Unfortunate, because he's one of my favorite characters. Still have my original Generations version of him, which is pretty outdated now, but this doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

I may be splitting that 2 pk with someone, but I'm just not sold on that Mirage...
And I'm not the biggest fan of that character to begin with.
I could probably be swayed, but we'll see. I'd probably be completely okay with him if he was being sold with ER Sideswipe.

I like Tracks enough, but yeah, the feet being connected to the legs they way they are... Ugh.
I will say I think the face and head sculpts look really good. Even if they don't give me much of a cartoon vibe.
I think the other aspect that's a bit disappointing for me is that I always thought he was relatively tall, and this version looks a bit too short.

I have him preordered through Target... I'll probably stick with it, but there's definitely enough time to cancel.

This set is tempting, as I don't have a Mirage myself (my brother does, and he's getting Dinobot, so I wouldn't be double dipping either way) and that Grimlock is the closest thing I could get to a toy of a character from "The Gathering". But I did just drop $50 on a Grimlock already this year, and the line of budget limitations has to be drawn somewhere... I'll have to wait a bit.

In other news, Waspinator confirmed...?

Nemesis Reformatted wrote:

Razorbeast88 wrote:I know I'd be watching all the customizing tutorials, I don't know jack about that sort of thing

I'm going to keep them short & to the point. I believe every toy collector needs some basic customizing skills.

Well let us know... I'm definitely interested and could see getting into customizing sooner than later.

Whifflefire wrote:This set is tempting, as I don't have a Mirage myself (my brother does, and he's getting Dinobot, so I wouldn't be double dipping either way) and that Grimlock is the closest thing I could get to a toy of a character from "The Gathering". But I did just drop $50 on a Grimlock already this year, and the line of budget limitations has to be drawn somewhere... I'll have to wait a bit.

In other news, Waspinator confirmed...?

I think Deluxe Class Waspinator was confirmed several months ago, when almost the entire Kingdom retail line-up was leaked by store inventory listings. He's expected in Wave 4, along with Slammer, Pipes, and Shadow Panther. There will be a Voyager Class Tigatron with a repack of Earthrise Starscream in Wave 4 as well.

Wolfman Jake wrote:

Whifflefire wrote:This set is tempting, as I don't have a Mirage myself (my brother does, and he's getting Dinobot, so I wouldn't be double dipping either way) and that Grimlock is the closest thing I could get to a toy of a character from "The Gathering". But I did just drop $50 on a Grimlock already this year, and the line of budget limitations has to be drawn somewhere... I'll have to wait a bit.

In other news, Waspinator confirmed...?

I think Deluxe Class Waspinator was confirmed several months ago, when almost the entire Kingdom retail line-up was leaked by store inventory listings. He's expected in Wave 4, along with Slammer, Pipes, and Shadow Panther. There will be a Voyager Class Tigatron with a repack of Earthrise Starscream in Wave 4 as well.

Ah. I knew about Tigatron and the others, but wasn't sure about Waspinator. Hopefully we'll see some more reveals soon, as there's another Hasbro fan-fest coming up.

ScottyP wrote:Really diggin' that toy-style headsculpt on BW Grimlock. Hope the next time this mold gets some use it's a heavier retool for Thrustor

And another retool into Hardhead.

It's a good mold, and I like Grimlock, he looks good even if the paint scheme isn't correct.

Not sure on Mirage, I don't need a 3rd from that mold of the same character, but I hate breaking sets

Question: For anyone who got both Amazon sets (Ironhide/Prowl) & (Ramjet/Dirge), although the first is made of 2 deluxe, and the latter is made of 2 Voyagers, do the boxes still line up to make a collage?

I recognize this was the case in Siege with the Decepticon Phantomstrike set, and the Autobot Alphastrike Counterforce.

This newly revealed "Battle Across Time" seems to be version 3.0 of this specific type of release (2 specific releases that make a single collage) as opposed to the Galactic Odyssey sets. I'm sure we will probably get something more akin to them later in the year.

Here is a direct quote from the earlier rumor:

Two Amazon multipacks coming in 2021, Earth Mode Sideswipe (retool) + Beast Wars Grimlock (voyager BW Dinobot redeco) and Earth Mode Mirage (same mold, new deco) + Beast Wars II Skywarp (the eagle figure that was part of Magnaboss but it doesn't combine)

So either they got it mixed up, or a last minute change, but you can pretty clearly see Skywarp's feather's on the packaging for the revealed set. I guess we can assume he will come with an earthmode Sideswipe?

I do find it interesting that there will be two sets, all with heroic characters, fighting a fictional battle with Cons/Preds from the mainline. The difference here is one Maximal, and one Autobot per set, as opposed to one set with good characters, and the other with evil.

If it turns out that Mirage’s missile launcher can’t be mounted on his shoulder, I’m canceling.

It’s hard to see it first but when I got home I compared the pictures Kingdom Mirage vs Seige and there seems to actually a bit of retooling of the biceps. The new one seems the swing them all the way towards the back. Seige doesn’t do that and leaves a section of the back uncovered.

o.supreme wrote:Question: For anyone who got both Amazon sets (Ironhide/Prowl) & (Ramjet/Dirge), although the first is made of 2 deluxe, and the latter is made of 2 Voyagers, do the boxes still line up to make a collage?

They do not, no.

1984forever wrote:If it turns out that Mirage’s missile launcher can’t be mounted on his shoulder, I’m canceling.

Yeah, if this ends up being the case, that will be really disappointing...
Especially since this is supposed to be the "earth" version. ???

Mirage appears to have some pretty decent retooling. He has additional 5mm ports to either side of the driver's seat. The driver's seat looks more like a driver's seat and not some weird sci-fi cockpit. He's beefier, not sure if it is the torso or the changes to the arms in the shoulders and biceps. There's some steps forward but the lack of 5mm ports on the shoulders is one point of irritation to me. I have no attachment to BW Grimlock besides him being an in-fiction evolution of G1 Grimlock.

Nemesis Reformatted wrote:Tracks is the perfect example of pointless & unnecessary changes they made to the cartoon. His original toy version looked like a badass ninja. Kinda like a male version of Nightbird. With the huge ninja craze of the 80's I'm surprised they didn't market him that way. He could have easily been the Transformers equivalent of Snake Eyes.

The ninja craze of the 80s wouldn't happen for a couple more years. Even Snake-eyes was officially a "commando" and not really embracing the whole ninja thing until '85 (3 years after his first figure was released), the same year Tracks was released, and he still wouldn't be outright called a Ninja until . Ninja were mostly considered evil until the Ninja Turtles became big in '87 hence why Stormshadow was a ninja but Snake-eyes was a Commando that trained in ninjutsu, even by '93's Ninja Force he was changed to "Covert Mission Specialist", but not a ninja! '84/'85 Hasbro was never going to consider a heroic Autobot ninja and that's barely changed even today.

Sabrblade wrote:They... They de-Dalmatian-ed Grimlock's deco.

I'm a little upset by this. They used a lot of paint unnecessarily to give him what I would call a much worse result. They should have done the entire figure in white and gold plastic then used gold paint to clean up the legs (I HATE how the legs and feet are half colored now) and black/deep blue to paint the markings and bot head.

This figure is basically RID "Dinobot" Grimlock's color layout (the color breakup in the dino and bot arms) in BW Grimlock's colors.



Still buying it, but man, so much wasted potential.

Emerje

If it turns out the Kingdom Mirage really can't shoulder mount his cannon, I've got a back-up plan. I checked my Siege Mirage, and I'm pretty sure that I can just swap out the arms below the shoulders and the legs at the hip joints with those of Kingdom Mirage. That will give me a Mirage with cartoon accurate white arms and black shoulders, a more cartoon accurate torso without the 26 or "orc" tampographs, and new legs that aren't made out of potentially brittle transparent plastic. Of course, I'd still use the Siege shoulder cannon for more cartoon (and original toy) accuracy. My hope is that it still transforms without issue. If it doesn't, I may just settle for the original Siege release. If Kingdom Mirage does have shoulder mounts after all, I'll just stick with that one and give him the Siege version's more accurate black cannon.

https://twitter.com/TF_pr/status/1392313582621167616

Not being able to shoulder mount is annoying, but I'm guessing someone will sell a 3D printed adapter on eBay. Just something that slots into that little thin gap and over his shoulder from behind would be perfect. I bought one for my Selects G2 Megatron and love it!



Emerje

Rodimus has some big mitts on him.

Emerje

I like the Grimlock head sculpt! Other than that, the robot mode ends up looking a little bland, almost like a duocon with the separation of colors. Beast mode is nice, though it makes me hope there’s a Netflix version of Dinobot down the line where they recolor the upper thigh and weapon tip to blend in more with the raptor form.
Not really interested in Mirage though so it’s a skip for me.

Did anybody notice the Seeker jet on the side of the Grimlock/Mirage box? Perhaps that's a hint as to who is coming next?