Grahf: I just replied to a comment in this thread about the Classics Optimus mold and I'd like to go on about it again.

Why?

Because Classics Optimus Prime might be the most important figure for the modern age of the Transformers brand.

People attribute the resurgence of the brand to the movie that came out several months after Classics Optimus and while that is a true statement, it would be downplaying how important the Classics line and this design specifically truly is.

How?

Because the Classics line in general is what brought most of us oldies from the 80's back the brand. We lapsed after G1. We lapsed after Beast War. But when Classics came out, we stayed and have been here ever since. There's people in the comments here that say that Classics got them back into Transformers.

Classics is also the line that let Hasbro know that adult collectors existed. This was pretty much going to be the last line made that didn't have media after failures like Alternators and Titanium and their unwillingness to import the Masterpiece line.

Classics was the line that eventually turned into Generations. Which is now the main branding for their toy lines. We wouldn't have Studio Series, Selects, or Age of the Primes without Classics.

And that's just Hasbro.

The Classics Optimus figure that this little guy is pretty much an undersized KO of is also the figure that launched the third party market for the most part.

So many different companies came from out of nowhere making different upgrade kits for this figure. Without those early upgrade kits selling very well, they never would've transitioned to making full on figures. Quite literally this online store owes its very existence to Classics Optimus Prime and that's not hyperbole.

I don't think a single figure has more upgrade kits and parts dedicated to it than Classics Optimus. At least Four trailers with two of them becoming power up armor and eventually got their own upgrades. The first fully transforming Roller figure that also became a backpack for Optimus. Articulated hands. Articulated ankles. An oversized KO. Several same sized KOs. An armor set that doesn't need to come off and is fully transformable while on that turns him into a completely different looking Optimus. Weapons kits. New heads. And so on and so on still to this day.



I love this design. Like many the Classics line is what got me back into Transformers.

Even with all this design's flaws, it's probably still my favorite Optimus Prime figure. Siege is close only because it takes so many elements from this design.

I can't wait to get this figure and ALL of the redecos they should do. Nemesis Prime, Ultra Magnus with blue legs, Ultra Magnus with white legs, Fire Guts Ginrai, Shattered Glass Optimus, Black Convoy, Magna Convoy, lucky draw and more. Make Shining Magnus and Toxitron so we can have a full rainbow of colors.

Red - Optimus Prime.
Orange - Fire Guts Ginrai.
Yellow - Shining Magnus.
Green - Toxitron.
Blue - Magna Convoy.
Purple - Shattered Glass Optimus Prime.

Black - Nemesis Prime and Black Convoy.
White - Both Ultra Magnus.
Gold - Lucky Draw/Golden Lagoon.
Silver - Hate Plague resistant coating Optimus.



I mean, they have to at least make Magna Convoy right?

Look at the accessories this comes with.

That's the sword that he comes with from Titans Return Alpha Trion and the "shield/gun/claw" thing from TR Mindwipe...or rather, E-Hobby Optimus Primal specifically as he didn't come with it and it was perfectly colored to go with him.



This figure is pretty cheap and the shipping isn't too much. I'll be getting this.


I even know where the oversized KO is right now too so when this comes in I can put them together with one of my Classics mold figures. I love having the same mold/design at different sizes in a line together going from tallest to shortest. They make for great displays. SS86 Sharkticons, Cybertron Starscream, Amada Starscream, WFC/FoC Starscream, ONE Optimus Prime, Beast Hunters Optimus Prime and so on. There's not many you can do it for but when you can it's really cool looking.

Grahf: Why are people calling this Cliffjumper? It's clearly red Bumblebee. They are two separate things lol.

Bumblebee came in yellow and red. It's just that the cartoon used the yellow one.

Cliffjumper came in red and yellow but they used the red one in the cartoon.

Then there's Hubcap that is also yellow and is the same overall car that Cliffjumper is. However he is not yellow Cliffjumper though as his tooling has a different head as well as it doesn't have the spoiler. He also came on cards that said Hubcap.

Finally there's Bumper/Bumblejumper. He's also yellow but he has a different mold entirely. He was supposedly sold on BOTH Bumblebee and Cliffjumper cards. So fans came up with the name of Bumblejumper as a portmanteau of their names which was then shortened and G1ified into Bumper.

Regardless though, you have a female Bumblebee mold yet you don't actually redeco it into the actual female character that is a redeco of Bumblebee?

Poor Glyph never gets any love. She has two toys total that were intended to be her from the start (Botcon and Mass Toys) and another two (Bump of Chicken Bumble from Takara and Valentines day Bumblebee from Art Feather) mostly in her color that are just Bumblebee in blue and one of those two might not have actually been made (the Art Feather figure).

Her Botcon figure uses the keychain version of G1 Bumblebee.

Her Maas Toys figure is the War Within mold they made for Bumblebee.

The Bump of Chicken figure uses the PotP mold.

The Art Feather figure was an early third party VW Beetle reshell of Classics Bumblebee.

So yeah, it would be great if the female Bumblebee figure is done as the actual female Bumblebee option.

It would also be great if Hasbro or Takara gave Red Bumblebee and yellow Cliffjumper names after all this time to try and uncomplicate the situation. Shame Fun Pub isn't allowed to do it anymore. Knowing Hasbro though, the name would just be as lame as blue Trailbreaker (DK-3 Breaker) and black Ironhide (DK-2 Guard). At least Takara gave yellow Hoist a name for the MP (Rigorous). Maybe E-Hobby can give them names if they made new figures for them.

Grahf: This set got absolutely roasted when they revealed it on Facebook. It's horrible. How are so many people in this comments section going on about how great it is and how it does so much?

The only good or useful parts here are the door fillers for the truck cab and the front skirt for super mode...well, if the gold color actually matched that is.

The flaps that cover the super mode hands in truck mode can't be used in conjunction with the trailer. So they're actually useless about 90% of the time as who really will display Optimus without his trailer? The trailer is what's needed for super mode. It's not useless like the G1 and G2 trailers or even the trailer for Rodimus. This is one figure that will always be with its trailer. So there's no need to cover the hands in truck mode as the trailer will do that for you. So all these flaps do is make the super mode shoulders look like shit AND block the 5mm ports up there to do it. So no potential Minicon or Micromaster compatibility up there anymore. Oh and the flaps only hover over the hands which looks just as silly as just having the hands there. Maybe if the hands were smaller top to bottom and the flaps went down into the recessed area over the hands then it would look good. That way they could also be utilized with the trailer. They'd still look stupid on the super mode shoulders though.

The hands are barely more articulated as there's only the one knuckle joint in each finger. There's no secondary or tertiary joints to point the fingers straight and the thumb has very limited articulation. They also have the tab and slot connection to hold weapons which doesn't always work. Sure there's to adapters for it but why not try to make them like Jetfire to begin with? Hasbro already had a good thing there and didn't use it for this.

The chest piece is outright stupid looking. It also required the whole old chest to be used on top of this instead of just the removable Autobot badge. And what utility do we get from all that needlessly extra nonsense layered onto the chest? Two little flaps that kind of sort of hide the smaller robot hands in cab mode but also make the back of the cab even worse looking in the process not to mention how goofy the top of the cab now looks.

The feet flaps are okay. I just wish that the blue parts had something molded into the bottom of them like the black parts. This way when in truck mode, the blue blocks on the sides of the trailer could've been missile launchers or guns or something. But really though, who wanted this to be taller except for that one guy in these comments? Armada Optimus prime is too tall for their already established scale as it is just like Galvatron was. He should've been the size of Star Saber, Super Ginrai and SS Ultra Magnus but Optimus is taller as it is stock, he doesn't need to be any taller still.

They replaced the rear flap for the super mode. That's great! That area is probably the only real problem with the figure. However they somehow made it look just as bad but in a different way though. Why have those two flaps go to the sides to hide behind the thighs? Why not just have them flip around to the back on a double hinge system to get them behind the rest of the rear flap? This way they're completely out of the way instead of trying, and failing, to hide behind the legs. It's just such a stupid choice.

The gun. Oh the gun. It's nice that there's a gun extension. Apparently that's something that almost every kit for this thinks needs to be addressed. However it's so long that it's its own gun. They made the gun too long now. But that's fine since you can still use it as a separate gun. It's just that you might as well get a better looking gun at that point and there are many out there like the extra Over-Run Minicon I have for him or the oversized Ion Blaster from the Centurion set that's way too big for Earthrise Prime or one of the other guns for this that was made. Well what else does it do? Oh it allows the absolute worst part of the figure to attach to it to make the gun look like it has a bookcase under it. Look, you already replaced the rear flap, why not replace that stupid missile launcher flap sandwich hitch thing too so that it converts into the gun extension instead of making a gun extension that accommodates that stupid looking mess of flaps. This is far worse than trying to make the Motormaster base mode tower into a weapon for Menasor. Just replace the fucking things.

There are better kits out there already than this. Ones that do more with the parts provided or have increased articulation and usability.

I was waiting to see what DNA would do with this. I like their SS RotB Scourge kit and their SS GE Optimus kit as well as their Animated Prowl kit fo the most part. So I thought they were back on track to making good kits again finally but this is just a mess of unneeded parts that are badly color matched. Such a shame that there's so many pieces here that ultimately do nothing.

Grahf: Sweetmall on Ebay has this for $27.12 and they give a 7% off discount when purchasing 3 or more upgrade kits. They also sell both kits combined at $41.55.

TFSafari doesn't have this one listed yet. However they offer coupons for either an amount off your total order or a percentage off multiple upgrade kits. Several tiers of each too. By far the cheapest way to get it, especially if you're ordering multiple kits. So be on the lookout for when they do finally list this kit.

Regardless, just save yourself the money and track down the Generations deluxe WFC Optimus Prime from many years ago that was also reissued alongside Titans Return Orion Pax from a few years ago. Or if you can, track down the oversized version of the mold. By far the deluxe is better than this voyager. This is one of the most overrated figures out there. Despite what you may have heard, the deluxe is not difficult to transform and it's not a floppy mess. The transformation is original and quite intuitive and the figure is only floppy during transformation. Once it's in either mode, it's solid. And for the love of Primus, push the fucking feet back on the hinge in the upper ankle. If you don't, don't complain about it falling backwards as it's your own fault at that point. This voyager falls backwards on its own and has no such built in fix though hence the need for upgrades.

Grahf: Okay.

So they added a neck segment to the dragon neck. I did the same thing so that's good. The neck was just too short otherwise. But at least it's not as long as the original toy's neck as that was too long.

They added segments to the tail. I did that as well so that's good as well. Again, the tail was just too short. For both the neck and tail I took pieces off of a second figure I got for super cheap instead of buying one of the overpriced and bad upgrade kits for this. I got more useable pieces for cheaper and still have a complete figure left over to give to a kid or something.

They did something to have flip out side panels on the lower part of the dragon neck. That's good. However it's not great. For me, I think there should've been a whole new dragon chest with clavicles added on that covered the sides of the neck and made it all look better than just side flaps. They'd then fold into the chest as it sits on the robot back to keep out of sight.

Speaking of the dragon chest on the robot back. I wonder if they fixed the molding issue on that one hinge that prevents it from tabbing in and sitting flush on the back. It's just a little bit of plastic that needs to be shaved off though so it's not that big a deal though.

Colors look good. New hand looks good.

Wings look good too but I went crazy with that extra figure and took the larger segments from the spare figure and put them on the main figure so that my Megatron's wing segments are all the same length like the original toy. However, there's quite a bit of modding that needs to be done with that though. I don't think I'd even want to do that on this figure though.

The paint work is excellent. It looks like they handed this to Jiang Xing as it's looking like the original release of their Winged Dragon. Which I have so this will stand nicely next to that.

This might be a smidge too big for what it's supposed to be for but I don't mind so much since it is a dragon. It for sure needed to be bigger though. Commander at least but Hasbro and Takara did some great work for it being a leader though. I just hope they do Tigerhawk too. And maybe go back and do PotP Optimal Optimus without the monkey on his back...so to speak. And then of course do Cryotek, Razorclaw and Primal Prime too.

Grahf: This will be about 16 inches tall now and not the listed height.

It's been over a year since they announced the new height, it should've been updated on the listing long ago.

Just a reminder to anyone looking to get this now that the price is listed.

It's not a bad price either. Still wanted it to be the original listed height though.

In any event, this is going to be about half the price of Fanstoys but Fanstoys won't be twice as good. This is also coming out soonish and not planned for like 2030 or whenever Fanstoys decides to theirs. They only announced theirs to mess with 01 Studio as they're insanely petty like that and have been for years.

I'm still on the fence but that price is making it tip more towards yes, than it does no.

Grahf: Indeed. I'm finding it hilarious that so many people are now begging DNA to "fix" the newly unveiled Nexus Prime by making him his own combiner frame AND his team to go with it. I'm over hear like: You want DNA to do that? Really? What from out of EVERYTHING they've made makes you think they'd be up to the task? Better to ask TDW instead. I mean their Susanoo was very poorly received from what I remember and their Wheelie sucks.

Grahf: A dislike? I guess someone doesn't remember all the great things that Alpha Trion and Treads did together. Or maybe they're jealous of all the fun times they had together. Did you not have fun times with your best friend too? Don't hate.

Grahf: That is one of the best looking Ravage figures I've seen. What black magic did they use to make that? Did they strike a deal with Mephisto to make such a good looking transforming Ravage at that size for this price? Rumble and Laserbeak I can easily see since they're simpler and have been done well several times now and Autoscout is extremely simple but that Ravage though. And it has the hip rockets!

Is it the shape of the cassette itself? Short and deep? I don't know, I just know that this Ravage looks really good. The rest do too but again, they've been done well several times over now and it's usually Ravage that gets the short end design wise.

Shame I don't collect this scale.

Grahf: I have all three versions of this figure now. The Official Hasbro Studio Series, the Black Mamba KO as well as the BaiWei KO. I also have both DNA upgrade kits for this mold and the Tim Heada thighs, gas tanks, ankle armor and cannon extension.

So...

This figure overall is the best of the three.

Things lock together better. The front parts of the vehicle mode to be more specific as it has the most things that come together all around the same area. Once I had everything in place, they stayed in place.

The feet don't need to be repositioned into their proper place for robot mode. A place that isn't always obvious on the official or BMB figures. One of the ankles on the BMB just won't stay in that detent. But it doesn't matter here as the new parts in the feet and ankles has the feet naturally in that position for both robot and vehicle modes.

This comes with several retooled parts. The thighs, the feet, the ankles, the pelvis, the head and neck, the left claw hand and to a much lesser extent, any part that had molded on chains like the chest biceps, right forearm and smokestacks with the exception of the chains on the left wrists. Speaking of the smokestacks, they're now screwed on instead of just pegged on so there's no fear of them coming off. Currently my official is missing one as it's in the bottom of a bin. The smokestacks also have detents to lock them in place for truck mode. So not only do they not fall off as I already mentioned, but they also don't flop around like the SS and BMB figures.

The deco is nice and clean too. No paint representing battle damage or grime. The colors otherwise aren't an exact match to the oficial SS figure like the BMB tried to do. It's not a drastic change in shades but it's noticeable when you have them all together.

There's also some metal being used if that's your thing. Just a few little pieces and nothing to throw the balance off any.

One really odd thing is that the arm cannon is black. But that's fine as the blade on the official SS figure is too. So I'll just give the cannon to him...except that you can't without modifying the base figure. The 'key' on the left forearm peg that the new arms connect to is a different size on this BW figure. So all you need to do is shave off the 'key' (raised part on the peg) on the official part so you can use the arms from this BW KO on the official SS figure. This also adds a forearm swivel as well as that 'key' on the peg prevented that previously.

So for the 'negatives'.

I couldn't care less about the chain or the Transwarp Key. You might but I don't.

They show the cannon connecting to the claw arm but that's only possible on the extra, non-posable, claw arm that's included. I would've liked it had it been on the new articulated claws arm but it's not. Minor I know but it's a thing. I don't even keep a cannon arm with this figure so I couldn't care less but I know someone might.

That's really it. Not much to deduct a star but I just don't think many things are worth 5 stars. I guess you could say that as far as a KO of Studio Series Scourge goes then it is 5 stars but in general, it's just 4 stars.

So as for the setup for my now three Scourge figures:

SS Scourge has the left arm cannon from this BW figure, the Tim Heada cannon extension, the Tim Heada ankle guards, the TH thigh upgrades, the TH gas tanks for the inner thighs, the DNA neck and head (as the stock neck wouldn't go back on AND the BMB figure has larger ball pegs and can't use the DNA head), and the DNA rib cage pieces as despite me not liking them, I wanted to use them.

BMB Scourge has the all the DNA parts except for the head and neck and the ribcage pieces. I also use the left arm with the full hand with this figure to change it all up.

The BW figure is stock with the articulated claw hand arm.

Three of the 'same' figure with three slightly different looks. Scourge, Clench and Motormaster. I think those are the names I'm going to go with. If not Motormaster then Colossus (G1 Clench's other name). I just purchased a Universal Studios SS DOTM Megatron (grey) and he'll be Megatron whereas standard SS DotM Megatron (brown) will now be Mega Octane. If only SS Galvatron had a recolor of some sort so I can have a bigger SS Decepticon/Terrorcon convoy...so to speak.