One of my box Black Friday sale toys from KOtoys was a CHMS orange Sunstorm. You may recall when CHMS first released a Sunstorm toy it was yellow, which wasn't well received by some fans for the color choice, until this orange version came out too. Packaging is similar to Henkei Starscream. The box clearly states CHMS in the top corner instead of Takara Tomy. It's sloppily taped to the card. Inside Sunstorm is held down to 2 metal ties. In a ziplock baggies is a copy of the Henkei Starscream instructions (which do say Takaratomy on them!) as well as a bio card. The bio card is that of Henkei Starscream printed with only the yellow ink (no red or blue). Sadly mine is also off printed off center by an inch, so it cuts off half the printing. Note: That's a stock photo of the box, where the card is fine, my card is off center, and it was below the instructions, so you couldn't tell. I wonder if they were hiding the flaw?



In jet mode the toy looks awesome. Similar to the ehobby Sunstorm toy. Compared to my Classic Starscream it is a little looser in the wings. I also notice that the Decepticon symbols on the wings are a little crooked. I should probably put reprolabels over them.







The transformation is the same as the Classic Starscream, it uses a pretty near exact copy of the mold (not one that removes some leg joints, seen on early KOs by other companies). There is some trouble fitting the nosecone into the chest and shutting the chest completely, but it can be done. I'm told many CHMS seekers have this problem. Nothing is horribly loose or flopping, but it's no where as tight as my Classic Starscream, which has started to tighten up with age. The deco of the toy is VERY similar to Henkei Thundercracker. Basically take Henkei Thundercracker and remove the silver chest, change the blue to orange and the black to white, and you have nearly have Sunstorm's deco. Oddly the launcher buttons are made of orange plastic, but painted completely white. Paint is not as sloppy as some CHMS products I've seen, except for the already-mentioned Decepticon symbols on the wings being tilted.

Chrome seems perfect for now. I don't know it if will flake, but I'm told later CHMS toys had better chrome than early ones.

I notice that one of the 4 screws holding in the wings has it's philips head slightly stripped, like the guy putting them together pushed too long or something. Probably only an issue if you plan to remove them, as the screw is fully seated.

Inside his left leg is a copyright Hasbro 2006, while inside the left is a "CHMS1" stamp.

I love him. He makes a damn near perfect Sunstorm in my opinion. No stupid hugging yellow either.

I have the yellow Raimmaker too, and would consider the yellow Sunstorm that I've seen cheap on ebay as additional Seekers in my army, but this has to be my favorite. It's a shame Hasbro or Takara never made one. I know they recolored that mold to death, but to Seeker collectors, we can't see too many repaints of that mold.

I think this toy is a piece of jive. Not really much good about it. Plastic is decent, but he's loose, the paint apps suck, things don't fit well, and others are too difficult to move. Mine even has missing paint apps on his left wing. Waste of $10.

Randy

Sorry to hear that Randy. You really got a jivey one if you have that many problems.

I got this guy when he was first released and absolutely love him. His joints and paint apps are good as is the plastic quality but he's been replaced by IGear's Sunstorm now so the poor guy is now in storage.

Thanks, I'll probably just end up selling the 3 (3 different kinds mind you) I bought.

Randy

Do you have any problems getting the feet all the way down for robot mode? I have the purple clone seeker (x3) and the feet don't make it down quite all the way (I don't want to break it by forcing it). Wondered if this guy had the same issue.

Ignoring the KO shoddiness aspect of the figure, I find the deco rather bland, especially in alt-mode and in the upper-chest area.

I suppose that's the problem with patterning toys out of the Sunbow Cartoon, though. =/

I have 5 of these CHMS seekers and only my Acid Rain suffers. His left foot won't quite reach.

I'm afraid it is clear that quality on these is spotty and depends greatly on how much you can tolerate. To me, these are 90% and anymore that beats a lot of official product. But I also know I got lucky to avoid some issues with mine that some others are having.

Got mine loose, not sure if that made any difference. I truly love them. I know we would likely never get anything like them from Hasbro and even TakaraTomy.

I don't believe I have any problems with the feet.

A Generations Thrust I bought did so I returned it.

Randy

I picked up the yellow one from ii-toy on ebay for $11 and free shipping. Nice looking, but it had 2 QC issues. It's missing the pin on his right foot and they painted the wrong part of his right leg. Got the vent on his shin instead of his knee. It's painted just fine, but it's not symetrical with the left leg.

I was happily surprised to learn that Reprolabels had a set of labels for the CHMS Sunstorm. Oddly they are NOT recolors of the Starscream labels (which is what ehobby Sunstorm used), but recolors of the Thundercracker labels done to match the orange colors. Still, they look nice. The set is called "Jet Chrome II."