Monthly Archives: May 2019

Games & Competitions, Transformatorium

Exclusive Card Reveal: Private Stakeout – Transformers TCG

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A few months ago, bigangrytrev.com was privileged enough to be given an exclusive reveal for the new Transformers Trading Card Game. In that instance it was Dirge and Defensive Driving from the Rise of the Combiners cards.

Well now courtesy of Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast, we have been given another exclusive reveal. And this time it is from the latest iteration of the game – War For Cybertron Seige.

For those unaware, the current Transformers Generations toyline for 2019 is indeed War for Cybertron Seige and indeed it appears many of the upcoming cards will be based on said toyline. The exclusive card reveal we get to do today is definetly based on one of those toys, a Micromaster character who hadn’t had a new figure for nearly 30 years – Private Stakeout.

Coming in at 4 Stars, Stakeout – whose roles are Infantry and Communications – doesn’t appear to be the most powerful of characters, but then as a Micromaster he isn’t expected to be.  But this little Autobot can still prove quite useful.

 

Patrol Car Mode

 

3 Attack, 5 Health, 0 Defense

The artwork from this has been taken from the Siege packaging for Stakeout, which I quite like as I’m really enjoying the more gritty artwork that has been accompanying this line. In his Patrol Car mode, Stakeout has only 5 health and absolutely zero shielding. However this sneaky little bot has got that covered. Despite appearing quite vulnerable, his skill is Stealth, which means that unless every other one of your Hero Cards has been KO’ed by your opponent, any attack on this card while it is untapped can be deflected onto another one of your characters, keeping him safe from being killed before he can even get in the fight.

 

Robot Mode

 

2 Attack, 5 Health, 1 Defence

Once again, the artwork has been taken from the great packaging art of the new toy. In robot mode Private Stakeout sacrifices one of his attack points in order to get at least a bit of defence going. But once again, it’s less his stats that are important bur rather his special ability. Stakeout has the ability to, via you sacrificing one of your white-square cards, to flip another Hero Character Card to it’s other mode. This can be invaluable depending on who you are flipping. For instance if you have another character who has a lot more health and defence in one of its modes and is near death, you can flip it to its more resilient mode in order to survive your opponents next attack on you.

 

Teams Private Stakeout may be useful on

Stakeout is most definitely a supporting character. With 4 Stars he is designed to fill out a team full of stronger/higher star ranking characters where you have already used up to 21 of your 25 star limit. Stakeout will be most useful in a team with characters where it is imperative to be able to get that extra Hero Card flip in so as to facilitate either attack or defence. This suits Stakeout in the grand scheme of the Transformers universe; Micromasters are small, not particularly powerful in of themselves and are often used to support bigger robots. For instance in the new toyline Stakeout combines with Red Heat to form the “Binerboost Salvage Blaster”, a gun used by regular sized bots.

 

So I hope you have enjoyed another Exclusive Card reveal from bigangrytrev.com. Many thanks to Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast for the chance to show this card to the world, which will be available when the Transformers TCG War For Cybertron Seige sets get released on June 28th 2019.  Also check out the reveal over on Life…With Sprogs to see another new card – Searget Skrapnel.

 

Related Articles:

Exclusive Cards Reveal: Dirge & Defensive Driving

Devastator Pack Review – Transformers TCG

Toy Review – Siege Micromasters Wave 1

Tales of the Trev

Unsanctioned Food Fight on a Movie Set!

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A while back I told the tale of the one and only time I scored a speaking role in a movie that actually went to cinema – Strange fits of Passion.

Well next week I will be returning to my roots by doing another small speaking role, albeit on television rather than film. But when discussing the previous speaking role with friends last night, it put me in mind of an incident that happened on a different movie set – this time the 2000 TV movie – On the Beach.

This time I was a simple Extra playing a Submariner, and had the joy of the director making me shave off my goatee right there on set since my agent hadn’t deigned to inform me we had to be plain chinned. My defoliated face now freezing, I prepared for several days of pretending to talk in the background while Bryan Brown and Armand Assante did their thing up front for the movie cameras.

“I WANT MY BEARD BACK!”

On the second day of the shooting this undersea aquatic adventure I was involved with an unplanned event, and it is truly the one and only time I have been swept away so much by a mob mentality that I didn’t even really realise what I was doing.

So sit ye down me hearties while I tell ye the tale of:

The Unsanctioned Food Fight!

 

The Set

We were in the ‘submarine mess hall’ set. Six tables set up with 6 sailors per table. Really low ceilings and submarine diagrams all over each wall, though it perhaps speaks to the budget of the film that none of these were even laminated and, I’m pretty sure, affixed with blu-tac.

The Mess Hall of a submarine which for some reason was parked at Crawford Studios.

Every Extra has a plate of food and a beer in front of them. The food was your standard meat & veg and ice cold, whilst the beer was both zero alcohol and warm. The glamorous life of movie acting eh!

 

The Incident

The scene was supposed to go like this: The decision has been made for the submarine to surface, which is going to result in the entire crew dying of radiation poisoning within a couple of weeks like the rest of the planet has always succumbed to. So as food no longer has to be rationed for months, this is to be the crews ‘final feast’. Hence why we have all this delicious food and beer in front of us.

There have been a couple of takes thus far. We Extras are fake eating our freezing cold mashed potatoes and meat with congealed gravy, and sipping from our horrid beers, all whilst fake chatting to each other in the way Extras do when the Director wants your lips moving but no sound coming out.

Then the Director made a big error in judgement.

The Director lent over to one of the Extras and whispers ‘This time, ‘accidentally’ spill some of the beer over your shoulder on to the guy behind you so it looks like you are all having fun’. The director did not inform the other Extra this would be happening to him – guess he was going for an authentically surprised look.

So the next take, the first Extra does as he is told and splashes the guy behind him with beer. But then that guy turned around and promptly splashed him back big time!

And now the mob mentality starts – I’ve never seen anything like it before or since!

With the precedent set by the two guys splashing each other, all 36 extras now stand as one. Like the command to arise was sent directly to our hindbrains and our legs operated on automatic. And thus the biggest food fight I’ve ever been a part of commences! Everyone is throwing at everyone else every bit of food they can lay their hands on! Mashed Potato Missiles and Meat Mortars fly through the air as beers are shook up and wannabe actors spray them on each other like drunken frat boys! The Director fled and so did the cameramen, no doubt to stop the horrendously expensive filming equipment getting soaked. When people had thrown everything on their plates they started scooping up already thrown food to throw once again. The air was full of beer and food and yelling and laughter!

“This wasn’t in the script! This wasn’t in the script!”

After about two minutes it ended and the mob mentality faded. An eerie silence descended upon the room as all us paid-props looked around and realised what we had done. Food slowly unstuck itself from the ceiling with comedic little plops, the ink was running on all the diagrams on the wall because of the splashed beer -the set was trashed!

After about 20 seconds of complete silence there were a few nervous giggles. We were all so going to be fired!

 

The Aftermath

Well it turns out none of us got fired. If it had simply been one or two guys involved they would have been out on their arse, but you couldn’t have a movie where half way through the entire crew suddenly changes because you sacked the original actors. So we all got sent to sit outside in the sunshine for a couple of hours so that our uniforms would dry, and then got a stern talking to. The director was pretty pissy with us for the next few days as well, any tiny mistake by any Extra earned them a public berating. But hey – we were Extras – we were used to being treated like the crap you’d find on the main casts shoes so it didn’t worry us much. And a tiny portion of the food fight scene actually did make it into the movie so we were all pretty proud of that. You can see it here at the 4:55 mark.

And if you go to the 5:55 mark you can see me angrily dancing on a table for 3 seconds, completely surrounded by seamen.

So there ya go, the one and only time I can say that my individual will was truly subsumed by a mob mentality. A fascinating, oddly liberating and surprisingly fun experience.

 

Related Article:

My Immortal Words on the Big Screen

 

Transformatorium, Transformer Toy Reviews

Toy Review – Studio Series: Scrapmetal

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This year marks the 10th Anniversary of the original release of the Transformers Movie “Revenge of the Fallen”.

Despite this movie being almost universally agreed upon as the worst out of all the Transformers movies, it did very well at the box office (as opposed to the Bumblebee movie which was the opposite in both regards). But even fans that didn’t like the movie they liked the figures, a lot of toys were fantastic and considered a lot better than most of those that accompanied future movies.

So, to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the movie and its toyline, Hasbro is releasing via its Studio Series line, new versions of the Constructicons. These new figures will all eventually form a gigantic new Devastator combiner – and who doesn’t love that!

There were lots of unnamed Construticons in the ROTF, and one had a very short showing. Known as ‘ze little one’, there was a small yellow Constructicon who got ripped apart by his peers to be new parts for Megatron. And a full decade later that little guy is getting a toy of his own – so let’s have a look at Scrapmetal.

 

Excavator Mode

A really nicely detailed little digger. Certainly a lot smaller than the rest of the Constructicons, even counting those toys that were released way back when ROTF was in the cinemas. I suppose that suits him based on his ‘ze little one’ moniker. There is a decent amount of detail to this excavator, especially on the digger arm. I also appreciate that his cab windows are translucent rather than solid, as one would expect from a Studio Series toy. A bit of a disappointment is the plastic treads, I would personally have preferred rubber.

 

Robot Mode

I’m not Scrapper – he lived… for a while

Both in colour scheme and general appearance he looks a lot like ROTF Scrapper. But given that was how he pretty much appeared in his very brief appearance in the movie this is to be expected. Again, a nice bit of detail to this toy to recommend it. There is a fair bit of kibble but in a good way. A nice touch is that they’ve made his hands look like grabbing claws as if they are formed from the excavator bucket, even though they aren’t. A big disappointment for me though is my versions hands seem to be jammed, I just can’t get them to open.

Considering how many ugly movie toys we have had over the years, this bloke looks quite good. He comes with a shield, which is OK but I think mainly an excuse to use up some kibble.

Ole’!

The articulation on Scrapmetal is great! Head, shoulders, knees and toes (knees and toes). And I’m not sure I’ve ever had a figure that does such wonderful cartwheels!

 

Transformation

Fairly intuitive. A pretty good level where it’s not going to take up half your afternoon but at the same time isn’t overly simplified like say some of the Cyberverse toys. Parts lock solidly in place in both modes.

 

Scrapmetal – worth getting?

It depends on how much you liked the movies and/or associated toys I guess. If you are a Movieverse completionist then Scrapmetal is a must have, but even if you are not a fan of the flicks this is still a pretty cool toy. If however you are a Constructicon nut like I am, or intend to form ROTF Devastator (Scrapmetal will make up one hand) then this guy is certainly worth putting down your money for.

 

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Hobby Farming, Meaty Goodness!

Meat Recipe #12 – Roasting your own Duck

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For years we have been growing our own fruit, vegetables and herbs and really enjoying both the fresh taste and the satisfaction of producing it ourselves.  Well for the first time ever, we have been able to do the same with our poultry as well.

We already had two Muscovy Drakes and our last lot of ducklings produced 3 more.  Having a ratio of 5 drakes to only 13 ducks was going to result in a massive amount of fights, so while we kept one of the new ones to keep expanding the bloodline, the other 2 had to go.

When you wake up to find this many ducks on your doorstep, it might be time to thin the flock

 

Slaughtering and preparing the ducks

With the assistance of a friends parents, we knocked off two of the drakes at the 13 week mark, and subsequently kept one duck apiece.  While this may sound gory, it really wasn’t.  By doing poultry we had raised ourselves, we could be assured that the ducks had had a good life (we free-range) and were killed instantly and humanely. I shant go into too much detail as this is more a recipe piece but in a nutshell this was done by:

*Giving the ducks a big feed of food and water (a last meal as it were), but then not allowing them to eat or drink for the next 24 hours so that there was nothing in their bowel or bladder.

*Holding the duck upside down by its feet, which actually calms it somewhat, then striking it just behind the  back of the head with an axe, yet not beheading.  This not only instantly kills the duck humanely but the allows you to drain the blood.

*Submerging the carcass in very hot (but not boiling) water for several minutes so you can pluck the feathers.

*Gutting the duck.

End result

Our drake came out at a very respectable 2.2kg, filled with beautiful lean meat as we had not purposely fattened him up.

 

Cooking

This being the first time we were eating our own livestock, I wanted to get the cooking exactly right.  Not an easy task since I’ve never roasted a duck before. After looking through various recipies I chose bits and pieces from several I liked and produced a fantastic result!  So enjoy ‘Big Angry Trev’s Roast Duck & Potatoes Recipe’.

Ingredients

*1 x Home Grown Duck

*1 x Lemon

*2 x Oranges

*Sage leaves

*Purple Sage leaves

*Rosemary

*Chinese 5-Spice

*1 dozen medium-sized Potatoes

 

Food Preparation

*Quarter 2 oranges and 1 lemon

*Go pick the two types of sage and some big sprigs of rosemary (or buy beforehand if you don’t have a herb garden)

*Alternating between the different citrus and herbs, stuff the ducks cavity to capacity

*Taking a knife, score the duck both on the breast and underneath, making sure to cut right through the fat but not into the meat.

*Rub a decent amount of Chinese 5-Spice into the scored flesh

*Peel the dozen potatoes, then boil for 10 minutes.  Shake virgoursly inside the pot to roughen the outsides, then set aside.

 

Method

*Preheat the oven to 180 degrees

*Put the duck in breast-side up on a roasting rack with underneath tray

*At the half hour mark, remove the duck, flip over and put back in.

*At the hour mark remove the tray and drain the fat into the saucepan containing the potatoes.  Put back into the oven breast side up

The amount of fat drained from the duck at the hour mark

*Roll the potatoes around in the duck fat, then place in a deep roasting tray on the upper shelf of the oven.

*At the 1.30 mark flip the duck for the last time

*At the 2 hour mark remove both the duck and the potatoes.

Drain the remaining fat from the roasting pan into a Tupperware container and stick in the fridge for future use.

 

Side Dishes

To add a bit of colour to the table, I personally did a lot of orange vegetables, roasting up a ton of carrots, kumura and (ugh) pumpkin. Also to compliment the oriental style in which I was doing the duck, I made up a huge bed of fried rice, full of peas, corn and bacon, topped with some crispy noodles.

 

So there ya go, Big Angry Trev’s Roast Duck & Potatoes recipe!

 

Got any other duck roasting tips, pop them in the comments section below!

 

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*How to save a Premature Duckling

*Meat Recipe #8 – Roast Lamb with Seasoned Vegetables

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