And so it begins, the great cataloging for my personal and ever expanding Transformers Collection!
And what better place to start than where the whole shebang kicked off – G1! Listed sequentially, and with accompanying photographs, here is the G1 Autobot toys I have amassed over the last 35+ years.
Transformers Generation One Autobot Collection
(Note: All figures in photographs listed from Top Left to Bottom Right)
Since pictures of the The Transformatorium have begun to circulate on various social media around the globe, I get asked a lot of questions. Much of the time, these are questions I have been asked many times before.
This picture tantalizes the curiosity!
So to address this, I put the call out on FB and Twitter for people to put forth their queries that I could answer in a Frequently Asked Questions blog, so in the future I could quickly direct people to it rather than type out the same answers yet again. Don’t get me wrong, I love people taking an interest! This will simply be a bit of a time-saver all round 😉
Find below the list of FAQ’s I received, and thank you to everybody who submitted one!
The Transformatorim – FAQ’s
About the Shed itself:
Q: OMG your house must be soooo big! Is it?
A:The Transformatorium is actually a separate building to the main house – a specifically designed shed to store my collection. We live on a big farm though, so there was plenty of space to construct the shed.
Q: How tall is that ceiling?
No wasted space, not even the ceiling!
A: At it’s apex it is 4 meters high, at it’s lowest it is 2.6 meters.
Q: Why did someone who is so obviously genetically related to hobbits build shelves so high?
What’s the point of having all that space if you don’t use it?
A: (Sigh… yes I know the questioner and yes he is significantly taller than me) I built the shelves myself to scale with the shed, and to maximize shelf space I made them all 2.6m high. Of course that means if I want something off the top shelf them I need a ladder to get it.
Q: What are you going to do when you run out of room?
A: There is a second part to the shed behind the big main back wall. If I ever run out of room I guess I will need to knock out that wall and utilize the storage space behind it. Lets hope that’s a looong way off in the future though, as it would necessitate taking EVERY single Transformer off the shelves for the reconstruction and that would be such a huge job!
Q: How do you deal with heat?
Shady
A: The placement of my Transformatorium Shed is such that during the worst parts of the day it is shaded by tree’s (though I have genuine fear of one of them falling the wrong way one day). The ceiling is also quite high and well insulated so heat doesn’t build up much. The only part of the shed that gets particularly hot is the West facing wall around mid-afternoon. Thankfully I only have MISB crossover figures on that wall which affords the figures some extra protection, and I am growing plants in the garden I made out front that should adequately shade that wall within a few years. I also have thick heavy curtains across the glass door to keep out heat and light.
About me and my collection:
Q: What is your evacuation strategy for the figures in the event of bush fire/flood?
Picture from 3 years ago – would need a bigger trailer now
A: Back in late 2019 I had to evacuate my entire collection due to bushfires. Thankfully the majority of them were still boxed so I was, with the help of a mate, able to load them all up and take them to a friends house in a nearby town that was not as threatened. They lived there for a month until the danger had passed.
If a bushfire or flood came out of nowhere now, I’d be far more concerned with getting my wife, children and pets out safely. Toys can be replaced, loved ones cannot.
If I had time I might dash back and grab as many G1 and Masterpiece toys as possible though 😉
Q: WhErE iS “insert figure obviously missing from your collection here” I dOnT sEe iT.
Oh Timelines Counterpunch, where art thou?!
A: If you don’t see it, chances are I don’t have it. My collection is big, but I can’t think of any specific Transformers toyline that I own every single figure from.
Q: I noticed you’re in Australia – has that ever caused problems with adding to the collection? Import costs, local distribution, environmental damage etc?
A: Yes it can be a real pain in the arse to get certain figures here in Australia, especially for me since I live in the bush and there are no stores that sell Transformers within 50 kilometres of my location. Occasionally here in Aus we luck out and get a figure before the rest of the world, like Legacy Motormaster, but in an age where more and more figures are becoming exclusives to chain stores that don’t even exist on this continent, sometimes the choice is to either pay a ruinous price and postage to get the figure, or to just accept fate and let it go. I certainly think my collection would be bigger if I lived in the US or Japan.
Q: How much of your collection has had to be replaced due to damage or wear, things like Gold Plastic Syndrome, yellowing, sticker damage etc?
Poor Pipes… er…. pipes.
A: I’ve had to replace the odd G1 figure over the years, like Omega Supreme and Mirage, who were too damaged to repair. In fact with my G1 figures I am loathe to touch any of them anymore as they are so old even with a gentle and perfectly executed transformation they can break – poor old Sludge will spend the rest of his life in dino-mode because a hip broke! I need to get around to sourcing a replacement G1 Silverbolt too due to hip damage. For the most part I haven’t had to replace much, I’m pretty careful with my figures. My son broke a few when he was younger, but is much more careful now, to the point I even let him transform my MP’s sometimes.
As for replacing figures which have suffered from Gold Plastic Syndrome or yellowing, its pretty hard to do because any other figures out there on the secondary market usually suffer from the exact same afflictions mine do.
Q: Have you ever had a problem with figures falling over for whatever reason? Does it cause a domino effect, or are they all spaced out enough that you can more or less avoid a catastrophe?
Figures 5 rows deep – what could possibly go wrong?
A: Oh dear Primus yes, this happens way more often than I would like! Some shelves are fine, whereas others I feel like I have to perform some kind of delicate surgery to remove a figure without knocking over a dozen of its brethren. My son has given up now, if he wants a toy he asks me to get is as the domino effect is a shocker! But yeah, it happens, and considering the floor is concrete I’ve had a few heart-stopping moments when a bunch of figures have tumbled and I’ve had to check if they survived.
Q: So many toys! Your wife must be very understanding/ hur-hur yOuR oBvIoUsLy SiNgLe…?
Through thick and thin and Michael Bay movies
A: I’ve been with my wife for nearly 20 years and married for 14 of them. She is extremely understanding of my hobby. She is also relieved that my son is so into Transformers, as it means I have him to share my passion with so she no longer has to fain interest 😉
Q: Is there any third party or customs in the collection or all official HasTak stuff?
Leftovers from the days when official Quintesson toys seemed to have no chance of ever being made
A: I have very few customs or 3rd party stuff. I have nothing against them or those that collect them, they just aren’t for me. I’d say far less than 1% of my collection is not official merchandise. Most I had bought in the past were of characters that had never had an official toy at that point. These days it seems no matter how obscure the character they are probably going to get an official figure at some stage, so I don’t bother with 3P stuff at all anymore. I do have some tiny custom figure made by the talented Michael I am very fond of.
So tiny, so fragile, so perfect…
Q: TWO Unicrons?! What are you, a billionaire!?
They do add a certain gravitas to the room don’t they
A: Heh heh – far from it. Here in Australia we got about the best deal possible through a chain store. You could order the items at cost, then you had a full 18 months to pay them off before they arrived. Plus you could pick up in store so no postage costs! Because of this, I was able to slowly pay off my order of two Unicron’s without breaking the bank, and then take the ute to pick them up – it was a sweet deal!
Q: What are you going to do with your collection when you’re dead? (Obviously the answer is nothing, because you’re dead. But hopefully you put a plan in place prior to your fateful attempt to fit 16 tomahawk steaks in your mouth at once.)
I’m afraid the wounds are fatal
A: My son gets all my male Transformers, my daughter gets all my female ones and BotBots. Before anyone argues this is supremely unfair due to the disparate numbers between male and female Transformer action figures, it should be noted my daughter isn’t really into Transformers so wouldn’t really want many (if any). She also gets my complete collection of Rarity figures from MLP as well.
I’d let my family pick a few for me to be buried with (not that I would have a say in it at that stage). If as a family they decided to simply keep a few each to remember me by, then sell off the rest of the collection to pay off the mortgage or go on an overseas trip, more power to them.
Q: Can I, a complete stranger located on another continent, come and see your collection?
Q: How much are the Tickets?
A: I happily give tours of The Transformatorium to locals, and if people are willing to trek all the way out here to outback Australia to see it, then they get in for free 😉
Q: How do you keep the shelves clean? My own collection is getting fairly dusty but they’re packed too tight to a shelf to just pull’em down and start wiping
The dust, oh the dust…
A: Ah, now this is easily the question I get asked more than any other. Yes dust is an issue in the shed, though not as bad as one may think. It is its worst near the glass door, so my Movieverse figures cop the brunt of it, and there are figures there in their alt-modes there that need to be wiped off monthly.
In the rest of the shed its not too bad. This is where its handy to have an explorative son who wants to check out all the toys. Whenever he or I get a figure from the shelves I give that figure a quick wipe down. In the long run though, I’ve had to resign myself to the fact that, unless I somehow magically become a millionaire and can buy gigantic glass cabinets, my shelves and figures are never going to be dust free and I am just going to have to continue to mitigate the worst of it as best as time allows. Good thing the shelves themselves are brown eh!
Thank you to everyone that submitted questions for The Transformatorium FAQ. If you have any further queries, pop them in the comments section below!
‘What is the worst figure in your collection and why should we all own it?’
First off I’m taking a stab in the dark that Steve is talking about Transformers since that is what I am best known for collecting. Well Steve, given I’m at the 4500 mark for the amount of Transformer action figures I own, there are a fair few contenders for the mantle of Worst. So lets narrow it down to Transformer figures that actually transform and go from there:
Firstly – both these toys have irritatingly simple transformations, even for G1 toys – one move for the legs, one move for the arms and one move for the body/backpack.
Secondly – awful heads! Scoop’s is ridiculously small, making him look like a little yellow guy wearing a huge orange sumo suit, whereas Crancase has just an orange blob for a face, making you squint to make out any detail whatsoever.
Thirdly – bad bodies. Neither of these toys have any articulation to speak of. Scoop’s chest sticks out so far his little hands barely reach past it, and those hands don’t even have peg holes to hold his Targetmaster partners. Lots of Transformer toys have decent sized backpacks, but I’d struggle to think of any that have a proportionately bigger one than Crankcase which towers over the back of him to a ludicrous degree. And while Scoop as a Targetmaster can’t hold guns, neither can Crankcase who is a Triggercon. What’s the point of being a gun-themed robot if you can’t even hold a simple blaster?! As for having legs that actually separate, forget about it.
‘We aint got no thumbs Luitenant Dan!’
Why you should own them?
Both toys have really nice altmodes for their time, with Scoop being a front-end loader that can actually move his scoop, and Crankcase being perhaps the only Decepticon toy of 1988 that had an altmode disguise that could actually work as a disguise, rather than being a huge monster or a neon-coloured vehicle. The Targetmaster and Trigger gimmicks are good fun and they both had interesting roles in the IDW comics. Plus who doesn’t love some G1-goodness 😉
Firstly – loose ball joints. The joints in his shoulders and legs are atrociously loose, making him very hard to pose in robot mode, he is fiddly as hell to try and get to stand in any decent pose without his sword drooping towards the floor.
Secondly – Worst. Dragon-mode. Ever. His dragon mode is absolute shite! Looks absolutely awful, like someone was building a robot alpaca and lost the instructions half way through. There have been a lot of great dragon Transformers over the years and they do not invite Steelbane to their parties.
Why you should own him?
Probably the coolest ‘knight’ looking Transformer toy ever in his robot mode with lots of detail, even on the sword. There were four Knight toys from The Last Knight film and he is the best looking of the lot, with the others compromised by either missing faces or their combiner gimmick. Even if you were not a fan of the film, having a Transformer who looks like he should have been kickin it with Arthur & Merlin is pretty boss.
Firstly – terrible proportions in both modes. Even being a Rescue Bot which is a line known for its more basic toys due to the age demographic they are made for, the vehicle mode is too snub-nosed and the robot mode doesn’t even remotely resemble the cartoon. And what’s with the big goggles – she looks like she is going scuba-diving while flying a WWI plane!
Secondly – the broken transformation spring. This was a toy made for tiny kids and with one transformation movement. It is unbelievable that there was so little quality control that she got released when the spring that allows the transformation was broken in 95% of the figures. Any child given this figure would have been supremely disappointed and their parents feeling ripped off.
Your Quickshadow toy is going to spend more time looking like this than a robot or car
Why you should own her?
Errr… that’s a toughie. There really isn’t anything to recommend the figure at all. At most I would say that she was the first female Rescue Bot which gives the toy some novelty value, and that her on-screen character was very cool. Coming across as a very chilled and aloof British Secret-Agent type gave her a personality we have not seen in Transformers before or since, it’s a shame she didn’t get more airtime than she did.
It seems like only yesterday fans were swooning over finally getting an updated set of Stunticons in the Combiner Wars and Unite Warriors toy lines. Fan favorites, the Stunticons were the second ever combiner group to be introduced in the G1 Transformers cartoon and their rebellious attitude and sweet alt-modes gave the Autobots a run for their money on the roads. This has lead to them appearing in multiple toylines, from KRE-O to Bot Shots to even Robots in Disguise.
Well the Stunticons are back again – well – two of them anyway, with more along later in the year. Drag Strip was released several months ago and Motormaster – the latest Commander Class figure – has just hit stores here in Australia. So without further ado, lets have a look at Legacy Motormaster & Drag Strip!
Drag Strip
Robot Mode
‘Yes I have a name like a bloke in a dress taking his clothes off – wanna make something of it?’
There is a lot of yellow going on here, like a lot. The faux-engine in his chest and the guns and head break it up a bit, but this here fella is yella through and through I tell ya what! But he still a nice looking figure with good proportions, a very cartoon-accurate countenance and no big ugly combiner peg in his chest. Overall an improvement on what has come before. His articulation is quite good, with ankle-tilts and a decent range of motion in all his limbs.
‘Draw pardner!’
His two pistols can be combined into one double-barreled gun and can also be stored on the backs of his thighs.
Vehicle Mode
NOW the name makes sense
A really beautiful and faithful rendition of the original toy, Drag Strip finally turning into a 6-wheeled racer again rather than a Mirage wannabe. There is very little to fault here and kudos to the designers for making him look sweet as!
The pistols can be added to his vehicle form, giving it a battle mode. Gotta say it is an improvement on the giant cannon that plugged into the back of the G1 toy. Overall this is a really nice figure with an intuitive Transformation and perhaps the nicest official Drag Strip figure we have ever had.
The original Motormaster toy was quite different from his cartoon depiction. The toy had its body made from the trailer so was therefore grey, whilst the entire cab made up Motomaster’s feet. This made the toy a bit comical, although very easy to stand up admittedly, with his feet being the size of Prime’s alt-mode on their own! The cartoon kinda skirted around this by making Motormaster predominantly black, as if he was made up from just the cab like Prime was. This Motormaster comes with a trailer but the robot is made up solely of the cab, though they gave him little fake-cab feet, which are actually pretty cute, if quite odd. The lower legs are disproportionately big compared to the rest of him, but that beautiful face-sculpt more than makes up for it.
Overlord eat your heart out
Motormaster has good range of arm motion, but very little swivel in the neck and the legs are too bulky to do much with. Still very good overall however and more cartoon reminicent than the larger Unite Warriors version.
Vehicle Mode
The King of the Road is back baby!
Now this is what I’ve been waiting for – Motormaster with a trailer! Just like I’ve often felt many Optimus Prime toys have been lacking when they come sans trailer, I was disappointed we got no trailer for any of the Motormaster toys subsequent to the original one. Though it’s not as long as I would have liked, it is an extremely welcome addition and really makes the toy for me. Motormaster doesn’t appear nearly as big as the other Commander-class figures in their alt-modes, but that is due to just how jam-packed with parts the trailer is. This mode is what made me want to go buy the figure, and it has (except for the quibble of length) not disappointed. Plus unlike the original toy the cab can detach too!
‘Suck a fat one Optimus and Ultra Magnus – I can do this now too!’
Base Mode
The original Motormaster toy had a sorta base mode, complete with a ramp for his little roller-drone to drive down. This base mode is by far an improvement on the original, with the entire trailer partsforming into a big gun emplacement. This helps make up for Motormaster’s lack of a rifle. It actually looks pretty sweet in person, and while not as cool as Sky-Lynx‘s shuttle launch bay, looks a lot cooler than Rodimus Prime‘s gun trailer. Given everything the trailer has to do to become both a gun-emplacement and parts for Menasor, the partsforming is forgivable in my opinion. The one silly thing is that Motormaster has to put down the sight in order to actually use the gun.
Between robot mode, truck mode and base mode this is easily the best Motormaster figure we have ever had, and we haven’t even got to the gestalt gimmick yet!
It’s a bit hard to do a review of Menasor at this stage since only two of his five components have been released, but I’ll give it a shot.
Drag Strip Component
Ouch!
While they fully made up the limbs of the original G1 toy, in the cartoon the four smaller Stunticons seemed to simply plug onto pre-existing limbs to give them more bulk, and that is apparently the route they are going with this rendition of the Stunticons. Whilst I appreciate toon-accuracy, I’m not a big fan of this, and poor old Drag Strip has to literally split in half in order for Menasor to use his right elbow. It might be screen-accurate, but personally it’s not my cup of tea.
Motormaster Component
Motormaster himself converts into the upper torso of Menasor, whilst his trailer becomes the chest, hands, feet and, er…., exoskeleton of the rest. Once again partsforming is in play. It’s actually quite cleverly done and this mode, like all the others of Motormaster, consists of lots of tab-slotting which gives a lot of structure stability to the figure. I appreciate how the effect overall differentiates this Menasor from his CW/UW counterpart, who because of the design looked similar to many of his toyline gestalt peers. I will reserve judgement on his good this Menasor is until I get the remaining three Stunticons. The gun turret from the base mode stays separate to Menasor and is useable by him, though it does look a bit odd, with it being so big compared to Motormaster, and so small compared to the combined form.
Both Motormaster and Drag Strip are a significant improvement on their predecessors. Both have smaller robot modes but this is far outweighed by both their visual appearances and the intricacy of their toys. Both have good transformations, and despite the multiple configurations inherent in Motormaster there is never a point where one feels frustrated by the process and all the tabs lock tight and sweet! There is one issue however:
photodegradation
There have been many, many reports of yellowed parts on this first batch of Motormaster. I lucked out that there was only one small panel suffering from it on mine, but there have been reports of much worse from many Aussie TF fans. If you purchase a Motormaster and find many such panels, I suggest you try to swap for another.
As previously stated, I am reserving judgement on their Menasor mode before I fully review that mode. Right now my plan for my Transformatorium is to have, regarding my Stunticons, my Combiner Wars in their combined mode, my Unite Warriors in their robot modes and the Legacy toys in the vehicle modes. Then I have the best of all 3 worlds!
So yeah, Legacy Motormaster and Drag Strip – go pick them up! Just watch for the yellowing, only that dang varmint Stripper should be yeller on his belly.
Got something to say about these figures? Pop it in the comments section below!
Rescue Bots, and now its successor Rescue Bots Academy, have come to an end. Rescue Bots has the distinction of not only being the longest running single Transformers cartoon series, but also the first to have no Decepticons. Aimed at a young audience, even adult fans enjoyed watching the various generations of heroic young Autobots save lives and fight natural disasters.
Enjoy below a trek through many of the various Rescue Bots toys we’ve had over the last several years, with many characters getting not only multiple toys, but alternate alt-modes as well! Though simplistic, most of these toys were well made for younger fans, though of course the likes of Quickshadowleft much to be desired.
HeatwaveChaseBoulderBladesOptimus PrimeBumblebeeBlurrSalvageQuickshadowSideswipeHigh TideHot ShotWhirlWedgeMedixHoistRatchetSwiftFreezer BurnGriffin Rock Garage with Kade & FireplugFirehouse HeadquatersPredakingMorbot
Oh Skids you poor dear you – always overlooked. Skids remains to this day perhaps the least well known and recognisable of the Autobots from the 84/85 G1 cartoon. With very brief and unmemorable appearances in only 2 episodes, even the likes ofGrapple and Huffer have proven more popular and its only hardcore G1 & Comic enthusiasts who really know who Skids is. Skids appeared in the Movieverse as well but, besides a similar alt-mode, had nothing in common with his G1 counterpart and is a distorted version of the character everyone would like to forget.
However Skids has managed to do something that Hoist, Trailbreaker and even Jazz have not – he’s got himself a Masterpiece toy! So let’s have a squiz at the new MP Skids.
Skids turns into a fairly realistic rendition of a 1980’s Honda City Turbo hatchback. Whilst not a sexy sportscar, it’s a pretty nice looking vehicle form. What I particularly like is the sloping roof and front grill.
Different parts of Skids open up as well, much like an Alternators figure. The side doors open, the bonnet opens to reveal an engine inside and the hatchback opens to reveal storage space. This storage space will contain a little scooter in the retools of Skids such as Crosscut, and it is a shame Skids did not come with one himself.
Because Skids appeared so little and so infrequently in the cartoon, the designers were not forced to incorporate all the different gimmicks shown on screen, like with so many other Masterpiece figures. So Skids is very basic in that he comes with no interchangeable faces, no special gimmicks and only his two guns like the original toy had.
That said it’s a very nice looking figure with articulation in the neck, shoulders, elbows, knees and ankles, making him very easy to pose.
Much more basic than a lot of other Masterpiece figures, but not irritatingly simple either. In fact I find it a nice change of pace for a MP to have a straightforward transformation with a few clever moves (such as his ankles and shoulders) rather than something overcomplicated which is going to require you give up a portion of your day to complete.
Skids is perhaps the most basic Masterpiece we’ve had in a long time, harkening back to the days of MP Sideswipe. He is pretty no-frills with no interchangeable faceplates, special gimmicks, intricate engineering or vast assortment of accessories. However what he is also lacking is the exorbitant price tag that most MP’s go for as well.
I*’m the cheap one
At around $100au he’s eminently more affordable than most of his counterparts. Add to that a fun and straightforward transformation and Skids becomes a breath of fresh air in a line that is replete with expensive and often overly complicated figures. Skids is well worth his reasonable price tag and a welcome addition to the MP Autobot Cars line-up.
Got something to say about this figure? Pop it in the comments section below!
Just when everyone thought that Cyberverse was over, it’s managed to get in one last gasp of life. Dinobots Unite has just aired on Youtube – a special where Grimlock finally gets all of his Dino-buddies together – both on screen and in their combined mode – Volcanicus.
As such it means new toys to go with the associated media, and who doesn’t love getting more Dinobots eh? So I was very keen to pick up Swoop (with Bumblebee), Warrior-Class Snarl and Ultra-Class Sludge.
Snarl
Robot Mode
Me Snarl miss Tyrannitron
Without the large majestic split tail adorning his shoulders, which made the G1 Snarl my favourite Dinobot to have in robot mode, he very much resembles his G1 Action Master counterpart. Whilst this takes away from some of the majesty of his appearance, he still looks pretty good for a Warrior-class figure with decent proportions and a G1-inspired colour scheme. His head looks great and I’m a real fan of the spikes on his chest and legs. He has decent articulation with movement in the knees, hips, elbows and shoulders.
Like all Warrior-Class figures, Snarl comes with an attack gimmick – in this case a Power Slash. This is achieved by taking the detached… er…. Stegosaurus arse and putting it on a peg on Snarls back. By manipulation of this peg it can make Snarl’s sword arm swing.
Cybertronian Stegosaurus Mode
Looks really good with the yellow backplates and head, making him look more like the G1 cartoon than the G1 toy. Personally I would have liked to see less yellow on his flank but it is forgivable. He has limited movement in his legs and sadly none in his neck, tail and jaw.
A downside to Snarl is that the designers have taken a big shortcut by making the tail and arse of his dinosaur mode detachable where it serves little purpose other than peg manipulation for the robot’s gimmick, so there is no real sense of accomplishment when you convert him to dinosaur mode. However as an interesting side note, the dinosaurs head comes together in a way which is reminiscent of the Age of Extinction Snarl toy.
Sludge
Robot Mode
Very faithful to his G1 counterparts design as Cyberverse is want to do. His large shoulder fins are now at waist height but swing out of the way to prevent major irritation. Like Snarl I am a fan of the new spikes they have attached to the upper body and it is overall a well proportioned figure. He has decent but limited articulation.
For Sludge’s battle mode his detached tail can become a spear for him to wield and he can deploy Energon Armour which takes the form of translucent blue armour that flips out of his back to cover his head and torso. An interesting choice to make the helmet armour an analogue of his Brontosaurus head which my son thought was very cool.
Cybertronian Brontosaurus Mode
I think making Sludge Ultra-class was a very good call in this case, as in comics Sludge is often portrayed much bigger than the other Dinobots when transformed, and by giving him a bigger class size this works well with the likes of Cyberverse Grimlock and Snarl for scale. Like Snarl he has limited movement in his legs but at least comes with a jaw that can open and close. Whereas Snarl has a bit more colour in dinosaur mode than I’d care for, I think Sludge could have stood to have a bit more colour to break up the panels of grey. Overall however a very sweet looking dinosaur, made that bit more bad-ass by having big spikes coming out of the tops of his legs.
Swoop
Robot Mode
Very nicely coloured and proportioned, Swoop resembles his(her) G1 cartoon incarnation rather than the toy. The tail of the Pteradon mode becomes a weapon. Swoops arms wont bend forward which is a major disappointment and a detraction from the figure, making decent posing all but impossible.
Pteradon Mode
The Pteradon mode comes with a big black spot on its head for some reason which you take to be a cockpit until you see the eyes on the side of the head. It’s not a bad looking figure with a decent wingspan but has no articulation to speak of.
Bumblebee & Bumbleswoop
Swoop and Bumblebee can combine together to become Bumbleswoop, in much the same way some figures did in the RID(15) toyline. It looks OK and actually has better articulation that its separated characters (Bumblee is actually even worse than Swoop is!), though for me personally its not my kind of combiner at all.
Transformations
Snarl & Sludge: Given these toys are A: from Cyberverse and B: Warrior and Ultra classes, their transformations are exceedingly simple so easy for young kids to get the hang of and my son did both without any instructions. Like said previously, the detachable backside of Snarl is somewhat of a disappointment. Also both toys are stand alone, so neither are designed to combine into Volcanicus.
Swoop: Arrgh! Swoop transforms via a spring to his Bumbleswoop mode and then you need to reverse it to lock it in place for him to be in his normal modes. Guess what – after only two transformations the the arm clips came out on mine so he was permanently in Bumbeswoop mode! I was not impressed.
Wing and arm clips
Thankfully fellow Transformer Fan Michael Vella was able to figure out what you have to do. There are two clips on each arm, one at the shoulder and one at the bicep. All you have to do is reattach the clips at the bicep and he is good to go again. However it’s pretty crap this is happening on so many of this figure. This earns Swoop Big Angry Trev’s trophy for shittest toy of the year! Haven’t seen one this bad since Rescuebots Quickshadow.
Worth Getting?
Whilst neither Sludge not Snarl’s figures fall into the ‘cheap’ category, they aren’t overly expensive either and I felt I got my money’s worth for both my purchases. Like most Cyberverse characters and toys they are very heavily influenced by Generation 1 and both manage to adhere to this style extremely well. Recommended for younger fans, Cyberverse fans and, like me, Dinobot fans everywhere. Bumbleswoop – overpriced and the arms unclip too easily, I say avoid this pile of crap at all costs!
Got something to say about these two figures? Pop it in the comments section below!
Don’t ya love it when you come across an incredibly cool action figure that you didn’t even know existed?
It’s such a good feeling for the avid collector, but an increasingly rare one. No longer do we only find out what Transformers are being released by perusing our local toy stores to see what’s on the shelf. No sir, we do most of our shopping online and are well aware what toys are in the works, usually a good year before they actually get released.
Well, a really cool figure got past me years ago that I didn’t even know existed until a few weeks ago when I was on a Japanese site, looking for a Wipe-Out to go with my TR Trypticon, and came across this gem by accident.
So let’s take a look – from the Movie Advanced line – at the dark, the dangerous, the friggin awesome – Nemesis Grimlock!
First off – why haven’t you heard of Nemesis Grimlock?
I asked around a lot of my TF buddies and, like me, they had never heard of this toy. And it’s easy to see why. This redeco of the AOE Voyager Class Grimlock toy was an exclusive figure you could only obtain by attending a Transformers Expo that ran for 8 days in Yokohama, Japan back in 2014. Thus if you don’t hail from Japan, this spot of news was easy to miss.
Robot Mode
Like all the other Nemesis characters (Prime, Hot Rod, Primal etc) Nemesis Grimlock has his colour scheme made up of blacks, purples and light blues. And damn does it work! So much cooler than the awful baby-poo brown and death-grey colour scheme of the original toy. For the first time I find myself really liking a Movieverse Grimlock in his robot mode.
Fricken bitchin!
He has decent articulation and is able to be posed fairly well. He scales quite well with other Nemesis characters and his weapon looks like it could deal a lot of damage. Overall fantastic!
Robo-Dinosaur Mode
To be honest I don’t think they’ve made a good looking Movieverse Grimlock toy outside of the Studio Series one. Every other one has got weird colour schemes and weirder features. Proportions wise Nemesis Grimlock has the same flaws as his regular AOE counterpart. But given that this is meant to be an evil version of Grimlock, the weird huge face and teeth with the psychotic eyes work for once – you could imagine that this is the criminally insane version of Grimlock that arose from the bowels of Unicron himself.
The hellishly insane version of Big Grim!
The club can be attached to the tail to make… err…. an extremely long tail, but is best left detached. Nemesis Grimlock comes with a jaw chomping gimmick, some articulation and scales OK with Nemesis Primal, if not the other Nemesis robots.
Transformation
Not particularly hard or fiddly – you’ll pick it up fairly quick.
Worth Getting?
A Nemesis Grimlock figure? Hells yes it is! I don’t care that it hails from the Movieverse continuity rather than the Generations line, it’s still a cool concept. Surprisingly this figure isn’t that hard to find online, probably because no one is actively searching for it, and isn’t ruinously expensive so if you fancy him you shouldn’t have too many headaches tracking one down.
Got something to say about this figure? Pop it in the comments section below!
As most of you would know by now, I have a weekly radio show.The Big DJ Trev Show airs every Thursday night from 6 to 9pm on krrfm.org.au
Well Community Capers –the Rylstone-Kandos district newsletter – asked if they could write a short piece about me in my role as a ‘local radio personality’ for their publication. And what a callous sod would I be to disappoint my adoring fans, so I readily agreed.
Enjoy the short article from Community Capers (Octoboer issue 2021, Volume 274), which talks about my Transformatoriumalmost as much as it talks about my show!
