Transformers are way better than Gobots

[Ronnie]

15 hours ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

Triple Changers were actually a bit shit, weren't they?

Blitzwing was one of the better ones, but as much as we pretended otherwise, Springer gave you the choice of helicopter, stubby helicopter without blades, or robot with disproportionally small head.

Yes, but he wasn't quite as bad as Quickswitch, the Autobot Six Changer. It's a bit rich marketing something as having six distinct forms when half of them are "brick":

Cindersaur at the bottom there has brought to mind another couple of shit series, the Firecons and the Sparkabots. Hasbro really did add some total rubbish at times.

 

[DEF]

It's been YEARS since I've thought of Firecons. Cheers. SO shit but I'm still really fond of them.

[Surf Digby]

Wow, I'd forgotten about all three of those, and I actually had the black (Pontiac?) Sparkabot. I actually thought it was pretty cool.

"It's too far! We'll never get there in time!"

"Oh yeah? Check this out!" Wooooosh!!!

I think with hindsight we let the coolness of the Transformers universe/franchise blind us a bit to some pretty ropey toys. We all wanted Megatron, but he was gash in robot mode, and anyone that had one with both arms still attached wasn't to be trusted.

As for Pretenders......

[DEF]

47 minutes ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

Wow, I'd forgotten about all three of those, and I actually had the black (Pontiac?) Sparkabot. I actually thought it was pretty cool.

"It's too far! We'll never get there in time!"

"Oh yeah? Check this out!" Wooooosh!!!

I think with hindsight we let the coolness of the Transformers universe/franchise blind us a bit to some pretty ropey toys. We all wanted Megatron, but he was gash in robot mode, and anyone that had one with both arms still attached wasn't to be trusted.

As for Pretenders......

Fuck Pretenders. Now that's something I wish I could forget. 

Megatron's an interesting one because as you say the robot mode was pretty shite but the cartoon made him so important that you couldn't over look that. Not to mention the alt mode being the most realistic hand gun replica I could fathom at the time. What self respecting kid doesn't want a toy that you could literally get shot for playing with in the wrong place.

Edited August 14, 2020 by DEF

[Surf Digby]

I got totally taken in by the Pretenders. The big cunts. Whatever year that was, I badgered my parents for one for Christmas and got Waverider. Not the worst of the bunch as it had a passable vehicle mode (and didn't suffer from a screw through the middle of it's windscreen like Landmine did - although I convinced my myself I wanted Landmine too, 'cos his helmet resembled the ones from Thunderbirds 2086), but yeah, he was crap. I should have asked for another Headmaster or Targetmaster.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Nostalgia Nonce
Wrong year

[DEF]

I'm properly bitter about them. I got a lot of second hand toys as a kid bar Christmas and Birthdays.

On the rare occasion I was allowed the run of the Transformers section of Beaties I found a lone Mindwipe on the shelves. One of my favourite Decepticons from Rebirth and I had him in my hands until I noticed those stupid fucking Pretenders.

I'd seen a TV advert the day before with the new cool animation and what not. Stupid STUPID Def put Mindwipe down and went for the new gimmick like the complete and utter cretin I'am. By the time I'd opened it in the car and realised I'd bought a Kinder Egg you can't fucking eat I was devastated. I never got Mindwipe,  never forgave myself and I sure as hell never forgave those shitty Pretenders.

[Ronnie]

1 hour ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

Wow, I'd forgotten about all three of those, and I actually had the black (Pontiac?) Sparkabot. I actually thought it was pretty cool.

It's not so much the gimmick that bothers me but that, as with the Jumpstarters, that the gimmick is the only thing it has and that all the stuff you would want in the toy is sacrificed for it. I know that extremely simple transformations were nothing new, but look at Guzzle (the tank) there: stretch the brick and stand it up. Those Firecons too look shit: do a chest press and then lean it forward, whilst the robot mode is a brick with kibble. Likewise the Throttlebots:

1 hour ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

We all wanted Megatron, but he was gash in robot mode, and anyone that had one with both arms still attached wasn't to be trusted.

I collect Megatrons. I must have around 30 of them. It's a stupid hobby but if there's something that looks like G1 Megatron, then I end up getting it just to stick it on a shelf because that's how collections work and that's why it's stupid to start. I don't, however, have a G1 Megatron on the basis that the toy looks nothing like G1 Megatron despite being G1 Megatron. Without (supposedly) Flory Dery reworking the animation models so that in plenty of cases they looked nothing like the toys, I think Transformers might not have taken root at all. Look at Ironhide and Ratchet, and then picture anybody taking to them if they looked like that in the cartoon.

24 minutes ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

I got totally taken in by the Pretenders. The big cunts. Whatever year that was, I badgered my parents for one for Christmas and got Waverider.

The Autobot ones in particular were shit, weren't they? The Decepticons were objectively turgid too but at least you can give them 1/10 for their characters being a bit more interesting than your friend's dad.

There must be some poor souls out there who ended up with Cloudburst, Landmine and Waverider as their Christmas presents in 1988. I think I'd rather have had a second serving of sprouts.

[DEF]

I couldn't fathom why Ironhide & Ratchet didn't have real heads as a kid. It drove me mad.

I found a picture of the shitarse that took my beloved Mindwipe. Skyhammer.

 

[BigJag]

3 hours ago, Ronnie said:

I collect Megatrons. I must have around 30 of them. It's a stupid hobby but if there's something that looks like G1 Megatron, then I end up getting it just to stick it on a shelf because that's how collections work and that's why it's stupid to start. I don't, however, have a G1 Megatron on the basis that the toy looks nothing like G1 Megatron despite being G1 Megatron. Without (supposedly) Flory Dery reworking the animation models so that in plenty of cases they looked nothing like the toys, I think Transformers might not have taken root at all. Look at Ironhide and Ratchet, and then picture anybody taking to them if they looked like that in the cartoon.

Got any pics of this collection.  I really like seeing different versions of the same character together. 

[Ronnie]

1 hour ago, BigJag said:

Got any pics of this collection.  I really like seeing different versions of the same character together. 

I've taken some photos but, unfortunately, a few are too blurry. Here are the most presentable photos.

There were another four or five photos of those shelves which didn't come out properly but you get the idea. Then we move in the direction of some which are too big for those shelves so need some higher ones:

And some are so big that they have to go on top of the shelving:

Somewhere in my office is a Masterpiece Megatron. For some reason, I can't find him, although two Jar Jar Binxes (Ronette's, not mine) are on display and I can't escape them. I have a small gang right above my monitor:

(Pissing cat. That's Pebbles's massive tail which has trashed those.) 

And for all my office looks superficially very serious, with its thick hardbacks, bound collections etc, one glance at a wall does away with any pretence of sophistication:

Edited August 14, 2020 by Ronnie

[Chris B]

I kind of want to ask my mum if I can go play round Ronnie's house.

[DEF]

Didn't hit the event nearly as hard this weekend on Earth Wars but still managed to get three new 3* Bots. One of which I have literally no knowledge of, Sentius Magnus. Then Goldfire. But one that made me chuffed to bits. 3* Optimus Prime!

Also got my HQ to 11 and I'm now waiting for 3 days as my ship Upgrades to level 6. 7 bots will make all the difference.

How did everyone else do?

 

[air_raid]

On Sparkabots, Pretenders and the 88 catalogue (or “throw lots of shit at the wall and see what sticks”)

Lots of what’s been discussed in here has made me think about the increased gimmickry that blighted the G1 toyline toward the end. More common enmity exists among the fandom towards 1990s combination of Action Masters (“killed the franchise”) and Micromasters, or 1987 for introducing the “little men” gimmicks with Targetmasters and Headmasters. The latter is a bit daft for me as TF always hosted gimmicks including gestalts, the aforementioned Triple Changers and Jumpstarters, motorized actions and even Soundwave having tapes could be considered a gimmick beyond “robot in disguise.” I think people just hated those ranges although as a child I remember loving them giving the characters an extra dimension. My own personal distaste is strongest for the 1989 catalogue because aside from a second year of Powermaster Optimus it’s split between only Pretenders and Micromasters. While I was actually bought a few Pretenders they were fairly rubbish toys and while I enjoyed the Micromasters it was absurd to dedicate half the range to them. However, the real turning point for the range was the 1988 offering, this was truly the point where straightforward “robot in disguise” was on the way out.

Prologue : I’ll be making a few references to swaps of toys during this post. These were all with a kid called Wayne in the year below me at school. We had many equally dorky friends, we were all bullied, and shared every interest you could think of - conkers, pretend wrestling, Monster In My Pocket, Pro Sets, stickers, those Turtles medals you used to get with tokens from the red tops, Calypso cups, playing football on the concrete with a dog-chewed brown tennis ball, and Transformers. Wayne had shaggy hair the same colour as Ric Flair, was a product of divorce living on a poor estate, always smelled a bit stale and had two younger brothers that were fond of burying toys in the garden. Reasonably sure that’s why I got Hot Rod back but not Firebolt. 100% sure our swapping is the reason why my collection includes not a good condition Snap Trap with all his kibble but a Jazz with no gun that can’t stand upright on his own power and back/roof missing.

For brevity I’ll skip the small number of re-releases.

Right, let’s kick off with the most obvious forward movement from the 87 batch, the Powermasters. Clearly somebody had decided that since the Headmasters and Targetmasters had been such a success, a new innovation was required for something the “little men” could transform into and become part of the bigger robot. They landed on “engines” which was a bit of an odd concept, to suddenly have seven new toys with exposed engines. It was reasonably serviceable with the added feature that the Nebulan engine needed plugging into the alt mode to enable them to transform. In the case of the Decepticon mercenary/spy Doubledealer, there were two engines, one that unlocked his Autobot spy robot mode and one (uniquely with a bat rather than humanoid transform) that unlocked a Decepticon bird of prey mode. I can understand in a boardroom somewhere this made a world of sense, making the kibble vital to the transformation process probably sounded like it make kids less likely to lose them, because a lot of Nebulan partners ended up lost (or buried, thanks Wayne). In practice.... kids were going to lose the kibble anyway, and with the Powermasters, what you’d be left with is a toy much less fun to force into robot mode and often with an unsightly hole where the engine should go. As for the toys themselves, I never owned any of the five standard bots but they all look pretty brick like as robots although the ability of Dreadwind and Darkwing to combine to a bigger jet (Dreadwing) made them seem pretty cool and their cult status thanks to Dreadwind “writing” the letters page in the UK comics made me wish I had them even if the toys were a bit naff. The aforementioned Doubledealer I owned and got a fair amount of play out of, and the PM version of Optimus Prime was one of the first Transformers I believe I got as a main birthday or Christmas present. My biggest toy since second-hand Metroplex, I thought it was the bollocks, especially the upgraded battle station mode that his cab robot could stand in, and Hi-Q could even operate two of the cannons. One of the cannons lost some of its peg somehow and Hi-Q lost an arm, so he’s one of the very few TF that took some damage on account of how much I used it. He never got lent to Wayne. Overall the Powermasters were slightly flawed as a concept but not terrible.

 

Death through pessimism.

Secondly we’ll discuss the Double Targetmasters. That’s a retcon name for them as on the leaflet it simply said “Autobot/Decepticon Targetmasters” but they had two partners/guns. Re-releases of the non-Movie character Targetmasters from the previous year were dubbed “Large Targetmaster” to distinguish those boxed beauties from the new ones that came on blister cards. The new ones had a secondary gimmick in that the two guns could combine to form a bigger gun which depending on the hole you plugged it to could look impressive or ridiculous (I’m looking at you, Scoop). I won’t be too hard on them as Landfill and Quickmix were two of the first TF toys I had that weren’t Seacons, Scoop soon followed, and later I bought on Decepticon, Quake. He might still be one of my favourite G1 toys as he looks decent in robot mode, is an absolute badass tank, and between two Nebulans, his tank gun and multiple holes there are multiple ways of arming him. Even though today I only have one of his guns (Wayne). Spinister and Needlenose never interested me. The figures are notably smaller than the 87 Targetmasters but the combined gun deal is fun even if it seems like unnecessary gimmick on top of gimmick, the Nebulan figures can be quite detailed for small ones, although one gripe has to be that they don’t scale to the previous Targetmasters/Headmasters or this years Powermasters which are all consistently sized. Overall, these aren’t terrible either.

 

Badass.

Next we come on to Headmasters. Also differentiated from the still on sale “Large Headmasters.” Leading with the positive, there are two little guns that make the “ears” of each head, which then attach to their vehicle modes which is a pretty decent use of kibble. That’s where it ends. The kibble is excessive as each Nebulan has to combine with a helmet part and the aforementioned guns to make a complete head. Four parts just to make the robots head? That’s a lot of pieces to lose rendering your robot missing part of his head. And speaking of heads, the Nebulan (part of) heads are TINY, looking like children in comparison to last years and small even next to the partners of the Double Targetmasters. I had Nightbeat and a borrow of Siren (from Wayne) and they’re pretty rubbish. Big versions of simple transforms like you get on blister cards, bland looking robots outside of Nightbeats wacky colour scheme (my two favourite colours as a colourblind child) and generally not a patch on last years Headmasters. Shame, since I loved Nightbeat in the comic which is probably why I bought his toy. As per previous point, I lost one of Nightbeats “ears.” I can’t make comment on the con monsters to be fair. But let’s be honest, the 1987 Headmasters make these look like cheaply made knock-offs.

 

Shitty little man.

There’s a brief mention required for the new combining Cassettes, Raindance and Grandslam who combined into Slamdance, and Squalktalk and Beastbox who combined into Squalkbox. They were class and I won’t hear a bad word about them. Fair enough it was adding a gimmick to an already-quality part of the range, but the gimmick was fun and there were already 12 regular tapes released.

 

Definitely not a GoBot.

Onto the Sparkabots/Firecons. These again kind of made sense if you consider Hasbro experienced success(?) with the pull-and-go action of the Jumpstarters and the awful Battle Chargers and Throttlebots, so a push action that operated a little sparking engine to simulate flame sounded great. The sparks were a retread from the previous years button-activated Monsterbots who didn’t get a UK release. In fact I didn’t realize they’d had the gimmick until writing this post. The Sparkabots have a coloured past, pun intended, Sizzle and Fizzle have on occasions in the fiction had their names mixed up (at the very least in the Ladybird books) and been coloured in each other’s schemes by mistake (but only in robot mode) in the UK comics where the trio had some adventures on Cybertron with Ultra Magnus. Only Guzzle remained consistently “himself” and in Rhythms of Darkness is shown to be one of the last seven Autobots alive (briefly) along with Crossblades, Getaway, Chainclaw, Prowl, Jazz and Inferno. In addition some places in the fiction the trio are referred to as the Sparkler Minibots which is both awful sounding as completely non-warrior like but also a misnomer as they’re about twice the size of Bumblebee et al although they scale pretty well to the next two trios I’ll get on to. The toys display one of the earliest examples of the lazy “flap folds over head, legs contract” two stage transformations on both Sizzle and Fizzle that some Scramble City toys previously had and the Micromasters later would employ. I had both, although I always forget whether or not I ever got Sizzle back from Wayne. Guzzle, the coolest of the three (he’s a TANK) eluded me. I won’t lie... as a kid I thought they were awesome and the gimmick won me over. Flawed as it was since the sparks ran out with no simple way of replacing. I had a similar gimmick on a not-Transformer robot that turned into a red and yellow cement mixer, oddly enough. The Firecons were perhaps even cooler despite their blocky robot modes because their monster modes were pretty nasty looking and as a child the fact they “BREATHED FIRE” was cooler than cool. Cindersaur was even portrayed as one of Scorponoks deadliest weapons in one of the Ladybird books. I owned Cindersaur and Flamefeather and was very fond of them, though I had to wait until G2 to pick up a hideously recoloured Sparkstalker. Unfortunately unlike the Sparkabots they wouldn’t shoot across the floor unaided after one push as they were missing any balancing wheels (cars vs monsters innit) so maybe the gimmick wasn’t as playable. And looking back at all the toys now the sparks have long gone, they’re bricks. You’d never look at them with the same admiration as say Sideswipe or Skywarp.

 

Angry brick.

Similarly scaled were the Triggerbots/Triggercons. I remember buying Backstreet and Override though the latter soon vanished from my collection forever (Wayne) and I would later acquire Dogfight (Wayne). These figures had simple transforms and spring activated weapons though the car/bike had chrome coloured weapons that really came over with a snap, but the jet had black guns attached to his arms that rotated really slowly. The slower mechanism was the one attached to the coloured shoulder guns of Ruckus and Crackcase on the con side, whom I both owned, and the chrome on the jet Windsweeper which I never owned or handled. Simplistic transforms aside (Ruckus was one step) I quite like them at the time, Crankcase’s “backpack” of guns made him feel badass. In hindsight they were a bit shit even for blister card smaller toys and if you bought these after being used to Aerialbots or Combaticons you may have felt the same then.

 

He’s cranky because he’s permanently off-balance.

I’m pausing from the newer gimmicks to touch on the Seacons. This Scramble City style gestalt team has a special place in my heart as Tentakill, Skalor and Overbite were my 1st, 2nd and 4th toy bought from Woolies (3rd was Bonecrusher) and Snap Trap was a superb toy. His back guns in turtle mode had a lever that could make them pump back and forth (pew pew!), his jaw could be opened like the Dinobots, he looked great in both modes, his Tech Spec describes him as “The Butcher Of The Bogs” and he carries a big sword. Absolutely pisses on Motormaster for instance. The head of Piranacon, the gestalt, is a chunky piece that sits on top as opposed to Menasors shitty mask and the back of Snap Traps turtle mode makes a fabulous chestplate. Overall the Seacons are decent toys and unlike other Scramble teams, there are six of them. Scratch a little under the surface and you find the issue ; the sixth Seacon in whatever formation you build Piranacon actually transforms into his gun. Yes, they tooled these combiner cons to also be Targetmasters for their gestalt. The usual gun choice, Overbite, makes a pretty weedy arm or leg in comparison to the others. As if that wasn’t enough gimmick, each con came which a black rifle and TWO extra pieces of kibble to form a stand for their gun form to free stand. And three of the five smaller Seacons have two handheld guns that combine when forming their “Targetmaster” mode. In other words, my first blister pack Transformer had five pieces of kibble. While my near-complete Piranacon brought me a lot of joy before Snap Trap left me forever (Wayne), the team has great bare bones, ruined by too many gimmicks and not knowing when to stop. I suppose, the Be Here Now of gestalt teams.

 

I miss you, buddy.

I don’t really want to dwell too much on Quickswitch except to say he’s vastly inferior to Sixshot and most of his modes could be described as brick, brick with paws or brick with wings. Prime example of the time that just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you should. Almost as gratuitous as the Ultra Pretenders. Wayne lent me him but I didn’t keep him long because he was shit.

 

More like Brickswitch.

Finally.... the Pretenders. Oh boy. Even if you didn’t mind the concept, there’s no doubting the awfulness of these. The shells of the Autobots look like absolute tossers. Some of the con monster shells look fairly menacing, but each and every one contains a generic robot that transforms, roughly speaking, into a plastic chunk of crap. I held out until the Pretender Classics came out because honestly, these looked utter shit to even a child massively into TF with a huge completionist compulsion. Somehow in the intervening years my need to collect whatever I could led me to pick up the shells of Waverider and Submarauder from car boot sales and I hate myself for it. Don’t stack up next to my 50p Overlord. Not content with 12 humanoid pieces of crap, they also released Pretender Beasts which have pretty nice looking armed animal shells, but despite my investment in Carnivac from the comics, I wasn’t swayed. Wayne lent me Snarler and inside the shell is more garbage, an alt that looks like nothing and a robot with the legs of the nothing animal sticking out the sides. I never handled Carnivacs toy but photos make him look like shit too, as do the Autobots. Last but not least were the Pretender Vehicles, Gunrunner for the bots and Roadgrabber for the cons. Heaven forbid buying 16 of these pieces of shit would have been enough, here are two more. I actually bought Roadgrabber because in the box he looked cool, and the vehicle shell does make an imposing addition to a con army. However, the “transform” of the shell is such an insult I forgot it had one, the robot is terribly generic as per, and his alt mode is a shit triangle with wings and a nose cone that looks like a stubby little robot dick. I have a soft spot for it because in the rear slots the guns pump while the vehicle rolls but.... it’s a Pretender, thus its shit.

 

Pew pew pew!

So there you have it. The 1988 catalogue... throw everything at it and see what makes the kids bite. As you can tell, I actually bit on a fair amount of it. But Jesus, things were starting to go downhill.

Oh and DEF, don’t worry about Mindwipe. I had him and I don’t feel like I had him very long when his arm detached at the shoulder joint (not Wayne’s fault). Exactly the same fate befell Brainstorm. Which is still better than what happened to him in the comic (Unicron ate him).

Epilogue : I crossed path with Wayne again in our mid 20s through a mutual friend, he’d grown his hair long, become a Metallica fan and fronted a metal band. By all accounts he wields a mean axe and actually gets girlfriends. There’s hope for everyone, kids.

[air_raid]

13 minutes ago, DEF said:

Didn't hit the event nearly as hard this weekend on Earth Wars but still managed to get three new 3* Bots. One of which I have literally no knowledge of, Sentius Magnus.

How did everyone else do?

 

 

Magnus is an absolute beast. My 2* Malus is one of my most powerful and at 4* I’ve seen him take down strong bases alone. He’s so overpowered they’ll never put 5* on any of the votes. You’ll have fun with a 3*.
 

Bot wise I only added a 3* Barricade but was lucky enough to get a Gold Attack Core from a dupe and one of my event prizes was a Silver Special Force Flak Jacket which is really useful on Scavenger when my war team also involves Specials such as Razorclaw, Dead End and when he levels, Galvatron.

[Joe Blog]

I did shockingly on this event. Plagued by 2* bots all the time. I do have Armada Megatron, Sentius Malice and  Rodimus Unicronus which I quite like. 

My strongest is a 4* Headstrong and I now have a 3* breakdown, oh I also.have a 4* red alert. I really don't know what the best team set up is. 

I use the following.

2* Megatron, Cyclonus, Cybertron Starscream and Swindle with the afore mentioned Head strong and Breakdown.