New Image of Takara Transformers Unite Warriors UW-EX Baldigus / Ruination

Always love the artwork in these Japanese comics.
Always love to see other continuity Transformers introduced into G1.

Deadput wrote:Why is this absolutely dumb argument even happening?

WHY?!

This reminds me from the past debate Rumble being Red and Frenzy being blue
What's Next?
Roller is either G1 Roller or IDW Roller?

He's being released in 9 days?! wow, that was a quick turnaround from his reveal

Sabrblade wrote:

Black Hat wrote:Damn, he looks good. Shame the hands and feet kinda suck (though the feet LOOK cool) because they're the only bitter nugget in an otherwise delicious stew of toy goodness.

Takara evidently wanted to release those hands and feet into their market somehow, so this is their way of doing that. And it's a good way too since those feet better resemble how Bladigus's feet looked in the cartoon than the CW HFGs as feet do.

Oh I totally understand why they used them, I just don't like them. The hands are completely inarticulate, which sucks, and the feet have no forward-and-backward motion and are hollow shells, which also sucks. I think the feet at least LOOK the part, but compared to other hand options available, and even other hands HasTak has made (like Unicron's gorgeous grabbers) the single-cast fist lumps seem a bit feeble.

Black Hat wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Black Hat wrote:Damn, he looks good. Shame the hands and feet kinda suck (though the feet LOOK cool) because they're the only bitter nugget in an otherwise delicious stew of toy goodness.

Takara evidently wanted to release those hands and feet into their market somehow, so this is their way of doing that. And it's a good way too since those feet better resemble how Bladigus's feet looked in the cartoon than the CW HFGs as feet do.

Oh I totally understand why they used them, I just don't like them. The hands are completely inarticulate, which sucks, and the feet have no forward-and-backward motion and are hollow shells, which also sucks. I think the feet at least LOOK the part, but compared to other hand options available, and even other hands HasTak has made (like Unicron's gorgeous grabbers) the single-cast fist lumps seem a bit feeble.

To be fair, though, the HFGs as feet have zero ankle articulation, so the CW computron feet at least offer some diversity in posable stances. And all we really need the hands to do is hold each gun in its grip. Otherwise, as long as the hands can each make a fist for Baldigus to punch his foes, I'd say they serve their purpose decently enough. It's not like Baldigus is gonna need open palms to hive-five, wave to, or slap somebody.

Sabrblade wrote:

Black Hat wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Black Hat wrote:Damn, he looks good. Shame the hands and feet kinda suck (though the feet LOOK cool) because they're the only bitter nugget in an otherwise delicious stew of toy goodness.

Takara evidently wanted to release those hands and feet into their market somehow, so this is their way of doing that. And it's a good way too since those feet better resemble how Bladigus's feet looked in the cartoon than the CW HFGs as feet do.

Oh I totally understand why they used them, I just don't like them. The hands are completely inarticulate, which sucks, and the feet have no forward-and-backward motion and are hollow shells, which also sucks. I think the feet at least LOOK the part, but compared to other hand options available, and even other hands HasTak has made (like Unicron's gorgeous grabbers) the single-cast fist lumps seem a bit feeble.

To be fair, though, the HFGs as feet have zero ankle articulation, so the CW computron feet at least offer some diversity in posable stances. And all we really need the hands to do is hold each gun in its grip. Otherwise, as long as the hands can each make a fist for Baldigus to punch his foes, I'd say they serve their purpose decently enough. It's not like Baldigus is gonna need open palms to hive-five, wave to, or slap somebody.

Yeah I suppose, I'm just a big fan of articulated hands in general. They're fun. And I must be honest, whilst they SUCKED as feet, HFGs made pretty good hands and surprisingly good weapons.

My ideal setup for hands and feet would be hands done like HFGs but with the fingers done differently to allow for more poses, and the feet being largely one-piece, hefty boots with tight ball-joints for ankles, optional plug-on guns for the ankle pegs which could turn them into little gun turrets when not combined, and unique sculpts for every combiner (so Bruticus' could have sculpted treads on them so when decombined they could form little tanks, Menasor's would be made to look a bit like "battle bikes" when not combined and would as such make his combiner mode look like it had rollerblades, etc). Granted it'd probably go way over budget, but hey, maybe if I get my own 3P company.

Black Hat wrote:Yeah I suppose, I'm just a big fan of articulated hands in general. They're fun. And I must be honest, whilst they SUCKED as feet, HFGs made pretty good hands and surprisingly good weapons.

At the very least, the hands aren't like the original toy's G1-molded fists, which were solid pieces of hollowed-out plastic:

Kurona wrote:Admittedly if the HFGs had to be forgone for any set, it's a shame it had to be forgone on a set with the tank mold. While said mold has so many negatives, it's HFG integration with the twin cannons sitting on the back to replicate the original toy's weapon is really neat and I love posing Brawl's vehicle mode like that.

To be fair to Dangar/Armorhide, he only wore and used his tank mode's double cannons once in a single episode, and without fanfare or even a name for his attack that used them (his use of them was part of a group attack by all five combining Combatrons/Commandos firing all of their guns on Scourge's/Black Convoy's order to fire). Every other appearance of his tank mode in the series featured it without the extra cannons.

It would have been nice for this toy to have included something to represent those extra twin cannons, but I am glad that they at least included an extra handgun to represent the original's handgun ("Dangar Gun") that was a different weapon from his tank gun ("Dangar Cannon").

If need be, finding another extra HFG on the secondary market shouldn't be much of a task.

Sabrblade wrote:

o.supreme wrote:I just think it speaks volumes that so many of us fans assumed Wandering Roller was Roller from the original series.

Maybe here on Seibertron, but in other places, back when the Grand Galvatron set was revealed, others were going "Hey, it's IDW Roller!" almost immediately after the reveal happened. Even here on this board did we have such folks as Mindmaster and SW's SilverHammer who were quick to recognize him as IDW Roller.

Hey, I was right there thinking it was IDW Roller as well, but with two more comics since then and more time to think about it I changed my mind.

I mean, since when is MTMTE considered "obscure" by this fandom in this day and age? It's arguably the most popular English-language Transformers fiction in the whole fandom at this present time.

Just because the comic isn't obscure doesn't mean the characters in it can't be. I mean, we're talking about a character that only had, what, four or five significant appearances in three years from 2012 to 2015 before Wandering Roller was made? Sounds pretty obscure to me, not everyone commits the comics to memory.

But the story doesn't call him "Breakdown", it calls him "War Breakdown". Breakdown was renamed "War Breakdown" in the Japanese dub of the Prime cartoon. Plus, multiple characters can have the same name. This Baldigus comic alone contains a team called the Combatrons who Megatronia even remarks as a different set of Combatrons from those who form Bruticus. IDW's even made a whole deal about two guys both named "Tankor".

OK, now you've lost me. You're the one that said the story calls him Breakdown and asking how I could be so sure it was the same Breakdown from Prime. So now why are you going off about how it's so obvious that they aren't the same for the same reasons why I said they aren't the same?

Being a G1 version of Armada Thrust wouldn't make a G1-transplanted Armada Thrust analogue automatically be the same guy as G1 Thrust. It would just make him yet another guy named "Thrust" in a G1 setting.

Again, I didn't say it would, that was YOUR original argument on how I could be so sure about Thrust and Breakdown but not be sure about Roller. Why are you suddenly trying to make it sound like I think it's also G1 Thrust and Breakdown? I mean, the figure is called "Armada Thrust" it doesn't get any more on the nose than that.

Though, you're accepting what is said about that Thrust having dealt with Unicron at "face value" (which you use later), so why is there some sort of double-standard for when it comes to Roller?

It isn't a double standard, it's a lack of evidence. The bio is written in such a way that it can easily apply to G1 Roller, his image in the comic is obscured with shadow unlike the other two as if it was being used as an Easter egg, but not meant to actually be the character, and his exchange with Optimus is strange since clearly after hopping through space/dimensions it seems unlikely that he'd believe this was IDW Optimus if he were IDW Roller.

Oh really? Well, how about all of those originally non-G1 characters whom Fun Pub, and IDW (and even Hasbro via their Legends mobile game), have just straight up put into G1 settings with their original non-G1 designs carried over wholecloth? Knock Out. "Breakdown". Thunderhoof. Synapse (top-right Armada Sparkplug-looking dude). Twirl. Overrun/Surge. Wind Sheer. Skyfire. Bulkhead. Hot Shot. Heavy Barrel (based on an Armada Mini-Con). All of them are G1 characters based on non-G1 characters and whose designs look exactly like those of the non-G1 chracters they're based on, rather than their designs having been changed to look like any G1 characters who may or may not happen to share their names.

Or what of those whose designs Fun Pub/IDW/etc. only changed a little but still look like their non-G1 counterparts? Override. Lightbright. Sky-Byte. Skidmark (based on an Armada Mini-Con). Treadshot. Ransack. Crumplezone. Ser-Ket (bottom-right winged one).

Maybe I missunderstood, I thought you were talking about times when one character was used to represent another character without altertaions. There's a number of those as well which I feel is the case with Roller.

But doesn't a character's robot mode matter more than its altmode when it comes to the character's personal identity? After all, we're talking about a race of robotic people that turn into objects, not a race of sentient objects that turn into humanoid robots. They're robots in disguise, meaning the altmode is a disguise, as in a falsehood that hides the character's true nature. Thus, shouldn't we be looking to the robot mode, rather than the altmode, for determining "who", rather than "what", a character personally is?

Tell that to the Dinobots. But I don't think it's impossible for there to be a Transformer out there that would just rather be a six-wheeled buggy hanging out in Prime's trailer all day instead. Never stopped a bunch of guys from hanging out in Soundwave and Blaster's chests until they're needed.

But there are Japanese fans of the IDW comics. Just last BotCon there were a bunch of Japanese people coming up to Sakamoto's Artist Alley booth asking him to draw IDW-original characters like Nickel and Sunder.

That's great and I'm sure there are others out there, but that doesn't make them a significant percent of the Japanese Transformers fandom.

The Japanese IDW fandom may not be huge, but that there is one shows that there are Japanese fans hardcore enough to be into those comics, and it's those kinds of hardcore Transformers fans (of any country) that Sakamoto likes to throw bones to with his hardcore brand of continuity fanwank.

Neat, but doesn't make it IDW Roller.

Emerje

Note that this translation uses the English names and terms for the Car Robots characters and terminalogy (minus Brave Maximus and Fire Convoy), so there might some slight confusion in that regard (i.e. - RiD Scourge's Japanese name was Black Convoy, while UW Grand Scourge is already that guy's Japanese name).

@Will - Why is the Grand Galvatron comic (which take place three stories before the Baldigus comic) included?