Transformers Legacy toyline

[Steevy Maximus]

Hasbro ran their Pulse stream, light on Rise of the Beasts (short "officially" revealing Scourge), but Generations got a good showing with all of wave 2, including some stuff we haven't seen!
Core wave 2: Grimlock is chonky AF! Sludge was unsightly in robot mode, Grimlock got it in Dino mode. Like with the others...I really can't justify spending the money on this set. I got the leader versions (well, short the two still in the wings), and we KNOW a Dinoking is coming, especially with all the Japanese series love going on. Redecos are both fine. Dig Nemesis getting the Energon axe accessory and Thundercracker sporting cartoon colors. They aren't AMAZING, but they're nice.

Deluxe wave 2: Shrapnel is a get (darn childhood nostalgia), we've seen the rest through unofficial channels so I'm not sure there is much to say about them at this point.

Voyager wave 2: Twincast is exactly what we saw (nods to the novel integration of the blaster for the promo pics). Metalhawk surprised me though. We already saw his FANTASTIC robot mode, but the jet mode surprised me in how much they were able to change in the tooling. On first glance, especially in jet mode, it's REALLY hard to see the Cyclonus foundation. I mean, it still looks derpy, but so was the original toy/design Big props for all the weapons as well. Evolution is really bringing it on the accessory front.

Leader wave 1/2: Skyquake. We've seen him, most of us are already waiting for the repaints/retools to be revealed.

Announced was the well-received holiday Optimus Prime will be getting a "traditional deco" at some point this year. And taking cues from the other brand teams, they've finally started to get ahead of SOME of the leaks by revealing pipeline items:
Beachcomber, Axlegrease (new Junkion, probably the car), Devcon, Dark Leo Prime, Dirge (repackage, main line) and Armada Megatron.

I also like, in general, how they've been explaining some of the design decisions and thought processes on many of these. If nothing else, it validates a lot of our pontification we tend to do around here

 

[Dake]

Nice to see a single-pack Dirge for folks that missed the 2 pack.

I do wish they'd announce 'Bee movie Skywarp so I knew I could complete that trio.

 

[ZacWilliam1]

Core Grimlock - Robot mode fine. Dino-Mode Terrible. Leg mode not even any good even after ruining dino-mode.

Core TC and NP - Could not care less.

Shrapnel - Looks Great. Will Buy. But I'm more excited about the idea of a Chop Shop remold.

Crosscut - Looks fine but I'll probably pass. Just can't buy everything at current prices and he's not a character Fiction has endeared to me.

Crashbar - Looks great. The gimmick is selling these New Junkions to me. Wish there was fiction or even developed line concept to back it up though. Mark keeps referring to them as "Junkion Cadettes" and even those two tiny words give a hint of a story to them that immediately makes me care more.

Animated Prowl - A fun reinvention. I'm probably in.

Metalhawk - Looks Wonderful. I Love the Autobot Pretender shells so I'm in favor of working in details from them but I can't deny how good this looks. I'll probably buy it.

Twincast - I'd like eject but at current prices this may be a pass.

Skyquake - Looks great but I'm not a huge Prime guy. I'll likely wait and see if we get it in UKG1 / MW Starscream colors.

Beachcomber - I'm sure he'll look great but there's other mini bots (or gasp Throttlebots/Sparkabots) I'd like more. Still probably bite.

Devcon - Sold. Though I'll be surprised if the altmode is coherent.

Axel grease - Yes please. More.

Dirge - got him the first time.

Nemesis Lio - Eh.

Armada Megs - That original toy was SOOO good. Other than lacking working leg joints it's one of the best TF molds of all time. I have no doubt that it'll fix that flaw, but will the rest be even close to as good?


-ZacWilliam, Hope the Holiday Prime repaint is Combat Hero.

 

[The Phazer]

Shrapnel looks perfectly fine.
Metalhawk looks... okay? I still think the Pretender approach is pretty incoherent, but this looks like a reasonable interpretation of that character. That said, a painted cockpit on a voyager retool? Ick. Costcutting at it's worst. The gaps at the front of a jet mode could have done with some intakes molded on to hide them a bit better.

I do not understand why they think explaining that Crosscut's wheels are gang molded vindicates it. Yes, we already figured they were on the same sprue. The issue is that such a bad sprue layout was done in the first place, and the obvious answer is because sprue count keeps going down for costcutting purposes. It still looks bad.

Glad some semblance of realism is coming in that they may as well admit the identities of the next wave are already public.

 

[Darth_Prime]

Have you bought the two Dr Wu combiner cassette bots?

Nah. I’m not a big 3P fan. Love what they do most of the time, I just don’t buy them.

 

[Dake]

AAaaand orders are open on Pulse!

I got Metalhawk, Skyquake and Crashbar.

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

 

[Blot]

Crashbar - Looks great. The gimmick is selling these New Junkions to me. Wish there was fiction or even developed line concept to back it up though. Mark keeps referring to them as "Junkion Cadettes" and even those two tiny words give a hint of a story to them that immediately makes me care more.

If it helps, the product text for Scraphook and Crashbar give them this flavor text that might be charitably considered a bio blurb.

Scraphook is among the most rugged bots on Junkion. His fearlessness in the face of danger and imposing physique make him a powerful ally.

Crashbar is one of the fastest Junkions. He races across the planet at high speed, often crashing into obstacles and reassembling himself before speeding off again.

 

[Superomegaprime]

Well, I placed my pre-orders from this latest reveal, but I'm not getting all of this, I preordered:
Animated Prowl
Crashbar
Shrapnel
Twincast
MetalHawk

Also preordered a couple of Rise of the Beast Figures:
Scourge
Airrazor
Battletrap

I did consider pre-ordering Skyquake, but for a character whose existance boils down to just one ep, I just felt I didn't want him and rather wait for the repaint into Dreadwing, the core class figures, I'm passing on, Crosscut, I'm happy with the old generations figure

 

[Sabrblade]

So, Twincast has the retooled smirk face that showed up awhile back on a normal Blaster by mistake, which everyone thought was either a photoshopped hoax or meant for SG Blaster.

They also said that he's not Blaster himself, but a Shockwave-made clone that went awry.

 

[Blot]

They also said that he's not Blaster himself, but a Shockwave-made clone that went awry.

You already know who to blame for that one.

 

[Sabrblade]

Grimlock is mistransformed in the official stock photography. Here's how he's supposed to look:

 

[ZacWilliam1]

Grimlock is mistransformed in the official stock photography. Here's how he's supposed to look:

That's not better.

-ZacWilliam, if this is the best they can manage Core combiners they should have junked the whole idea. Sludges robot and Grimlock's Trex are inexcusable.

 

[Sciflyer]

Yeah, I am skipping the Core combiners because yeesh, they are not good. I also don't have a need for Dinobots to unite into a combined form. And I know that these are small and scratch a different itch, but in recent years, I have bought multiple versions of the G1 Dinobots. I like them just fine, but I am good on them for a while*.
*Except if they made a SS86 Leader/Voyager Swoop, which I hope is in "the pipeline" at some point.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

The Core Dinobot jank has stopped being endearing. The combined mode isn't shaping up to be the payoff it needs to be to make up for it.

One thing that's interesting and different with the original Monstructor/Dinoking gesign is that the leg bots contribute the thighs, as opposed to every other combiner where they just contribute the shins. Legacy has taken the more common approach, and it's made the legs worse in every way.

I kinda like Grimlock's robot mode though. That's going to be an adorable Goryu.

 

[Sciflyer]

The thing is, I was actually watching the "progress" of the Core Dinobot combination thing with some interest at one point, due to the possibility of a modern Dinoking. I don't have much connection with those 'bots either though - more of a curiosity. But regardless of whether or not this set gets "converted" (see what I did there?) into Dinoking, the end result just isn't worth it for me. Like Coffehorse just mentioned, I can't look at them as cutesy, fun/cheap little figures; they're just bad. And I can do bad all by myself...

 

[Superomegaprime]

The thing is, I was actually watching the "progress" of the Core Dinobot combination thing with some interest at one point, due to the possibility of a modern Dinoking. I don't have much connection with those 'bots either though - more of a curiosity. But regardless of whether or not this set gets "converted" (see what I did there?) into Dinoking, the end result just isn't worth it for me. Like Coffehorse just mentioned, I can't look at them as cutesy, fun/cheap little figures; they're just bad. And I can do bad all by myself...

I honestly expect when it comes to Dinoking, there will be some retooling on the bots to bring them a bit closer to their character models from Victory and after that, third party comes in to make upgrades, by design or not, they are thriving with the 3D printing market

 

[Shadewing]

Grimlock is mistransformed in the official stock photography.

Someone is mistransformed in the stock photography? Why? How? This has never happened before, and surely the perpetrator needs to be cuaght and flayed for this grievous error that is causing such dismay amongst the fandom.

 

[Sabrblade]

Didn't know we had a Macaulay Culkin emoji.

 

[G.B.Blackrock]

They don’t have too much of any plastic. They design the molds before they order the plastic which costs peanuts regardless. The most expensive part of manufacturing aside from maybe R&D is making the steel molds so they put the cassette on the clear plastic molds since there isn’t any blue anywhere else on Blaster, they don’t have the paint budget to paint the all the cassette parts the right colors if they put them on shared sprues with Blaster and they have a limit on the number of molds per toy. It’s a compromise for sure but not because Hasbro ordered too much plastic.

I can't speak for others, but I'd rather have given Blaster an opaque cassette door than force an entire cassette Transformer to be made out of clear plastic.