Transformers Brags - What's your latest buys

[thelastallosaur]

Picked up some stuff from Sainsbury's' half price sale - no Voyager Sentinels unfortunately, but I did get my Hands on DOTM Laserbeak, Cyberfire Bumblebee and on a whim the Starscream cyberverse playset.
Laserbeak is win; I was a bit wary about picking him up but he is very nice, extremely posable, and is based on a decent character (though I'm not as huge a fan of his character as a lot of others seem to be).
Starscream cyberverse set is pretty meh - I only got it because I liked the flying decepticon thingys in the movie, and it was frustrating that I had to put on a couple of drops of superglue to fix floppy joints. Starscream himself is only half decent in plane mode, robot mode stinks.
It's somewhat appropriate that Cyberfire Bumblebee is hitting shelves in time for halloween, really menacing paint job in vehicle mode...and his eyes...staring into my mind...

[Phill]

Managed to find a Cyberverse Commander Guzzle today. Not cheap, but he's mine and part of my Wreckers display.

[thelastallosaur]

After a brief encounter with the box of MP-10 Convoy, I now have to wait a month and a half to actually get to the toy inside. It's going to be a good christmas this year!

[quartz]

Lucky Draw DOTM Bumblebee and some more LD MechTech Weapons

[thelastallosaur]

Does it count as transformers? Not entirely, but today I got my TFC Exgraver. Only had a quick play with him before I left for uni, but I like what I've seen so far. Kapow ran out about an hour before I was going to order, so I ended up getting him from Robot Recruits. It's a new UK based online shop that opened this year apparently, with prices slightly cheaper than elsewhere but no free shipping. I cannot fault the service, and their website is nice but simple (no pre-order system). Only a limited range of stock, most of which is Transformers comics, but they had Exgraver in stock and the price was good. I think they have one left if anyone else wants one. I'll post a more detailed opinion on Exgraver himself once I've fiddled with him a bit more.

[thelastallosaur]

So, Exgraver. Quite impressed with him. Maybe not quite up to what I would expect from a mainline transformer quality wise but then I've had far worse mainline transformers too. He's slightly smaller than I expected but all that does is make his engineering seem more impressive. There are a few too tight/too loose sections but again, nothing worse than most transformers. Whilst his vehicle and robot modes are nice, both have little flaws that get in the way of perfection, and by far my favorite mode is his arm mode. There was no way I was going to wait to put him in this mode, and I'm quite happy that this mode was obviously a design priority. As a first experience with unofficial product I'm happy. But now the inevitable bad points. It's been said so many times now that it's become cliche to say it's become cliche, but the price is very high for these guys. The base of the shovel arm is also quite fragile, a well documented problem and one that TFC are taking steps to remedy. And finally, the box says 15+ on it, so you have to be fifteen otherwise santa won't bring you any presents.
Thanks again to http://www.robotrecruits.co.uk/ for sending him - still one left there as of this writing.

[Phill]

Got the EU exclusive MiniCon 8-Pack, so;

Airlift
Barrel Roll
Buckshot
Diveplane
Heavy-Liftor
Iron Claw
Ironside
Reachout

Are finally mine.

[thelastallosaur]

FINALLY managed to find a voyager DOTM Sentinel Prime at Jenners in Edinburgh. Decent figure, with a vehicle mode superior to that of the leader in some ways. Robot mode's face is frankly awful, but the rest is quite nice, although his torso seems short compared to his legs. The mechtech weapon is one of the best, with two strong modes and a reliable auto-transform.

[Phill]

Generations Sky Shadow and Junkheap.

[thelastallosaur]

So my parents just returned for what I'm sure was a lovely week in New York, and had very kindly picked Transformers: Prime Bumblebee, Arcee and Starscream for me.
Bumblebee is a bit disappointing, I had heard that he wasn't that good but I was hoping that was just people being bored of Bumblebee's in general. There are details I really like, but everything inbetween is just dull and clunky.
Arcee is a bit better, and very much on the small side. A lot of stuff ends up on her back in robot mode though, otherwise pretty nice.
Starscream is definitely the star of this wave nice jet mode, really nice robot mode, very sinister and capturing the shows look nearly perfectly. There are a lot of tiny moving parts just to get the details right, fins on the back of his legs, spikes on his knees,splitting tailfin on his back and the spike on his forhead to name a few. That forehead spike is the only real issue, its the wrong colour and the soft plastic its made of means that mine came bent straight out of the package; apparently a common occurence.
Looking forward to the next few figures, though it looks like there'll be a bit of a wait.

[Phill]

In the last week I've picked up;

DotM - Legends/Cyberverse, whatever it's called- Flak.
DotM - HA Basics - Backfire with Spike Witwicky, Ice Pick with Sergeant Chaos, Sandstorm with Private Dedcliff, & Thunderhead with Major Tungsten.
PCC - Commander packs - Salvage With Bomb-Burst, & Undertow With Waterlog.

[thelastallosaur]

Re: my last post; Bumblebee has grown on me a lot. Definitely better than Arcee as far as I'm concerned. Still not as good as Starscream.

New stuff: Just got TFC Toys' Heavylabor and Dr Crank. If anything, these guys are even better than Exgraver. Heavylabor has a very chunky dump truck mode that turns into a nicely beefy robot. There are issues with his hips though, and I actually removed the ratcheting tabs before I did anything else. TFC say they're working on a solution to this that will be shipped with one of the final figures so I'm not too worried; Heavylabor came with a replacement shovel for Exgraver so they seem to mean it when they make these promises. Dr Crank is easily my favorite, between the nicest robot mode, the highly functional crane mode and how much he does for the combined mode, I can see him being the overall winner in this set. Just need to find a suitable string for his crane now. Combining the three I have so far shows just how hefty this thing is going to be when finished, I can't wait. Once again thanks go to Robot Recruits for this order, and for reserving the last three for me. Not sure if I'll end up getting any more unofficial figures once I'm done with these guys (I still consider myself to be against the concept) but I'm not regretting buying them so far.

[Phill]

Picked up Transformers Prime: Wheeljack and Optimus Prime.

[minion]

TF Prime BUmblebee thanks to KingGrimlock. NYCC TaxiBee is a much better toy.

[thelastallosaur]

First transformer of 2012 for me: Bot Shots Barricade. What can I say, its Barricade, and anyway I need someone to fight the Optimus from the line (waiting for the one with trailer, armada-y goodness!)

On an arguably more exciting note, today I recieved TFC Structor, Neckbreaker and Madblender, thus completing the mighty Hercules! I was still a bit unsure of these guys even at the halfway point, but having the complete Hercules in hand (prefrably in both, this thing weighs more than unicron), I'm very happy. My thanks again go to Robot Recruits, who have been very helpful, I wish them all the best in the future as I'd love to see another UK shop competing with Kapow and ToyzandGamez. Will try to post some photos soon.