New Arrivals - Early December 2014 (Part 1)

It's not just been 3rd Party stuff coming in of late, I've definitely rediscovered my love of the Transformers movie lines, and filling gaps in burgeoning collection directions has been a theme of late. In addition to the kind of toys you see int he above image - Human Alliance, Animated and Age of Extinction - you will see the most ridiculous addition so far in these posts.

A lot has been said about Evasion Mode Optimus Prime, the voyager from the Age of Extinction toy line. This is widely, and correctly, seen as the very best that AoE had to offer. First impressions were another Hasbro gangly movie figure that was instantly forgettable. On first transformation I had to admit it was cool. By the 4th time I handled the toy I was in love and here's my first version (2 others already purchased). I am struggling to remember a voyager figure with a better transformation. This is an engineering marvel turning Movie aesthetic Prime into a G1-esque Prime cab which is almost 1:1 with the G1 toy. Posability is wonderful, just look at that running pose. I just cannot fathom why we had to have so many unobtainable versions of it, two lucky draw editions, Milk magazine's version and even the TF Expo Nemesis Prime...good luck to idiots like me. Anyway, I can't put this thing down, absolute Transformers magic. However, even if that's supposed to be Megatron's shotgun, it's bloody awful.

Yeah I have two of these already, but not the Hasbro Ultra Magnus, just the Takara Tomy and then the repainted Roadbuster Ultra Magnus. So here it is. Lighter blue, still magnificent, regal and a proper leader class monster. 

Painted windows instead of clear, disjointed black and yellow colour scheme that didn't even do us the honour of having a black robot head...there was no reason at all to buy a 2011 Human Alliance redeco Bumblebee apart from reasons of HA completion. And yet, he's beautiful in both modes. It feels remoulded too in certain places, especially the chest/grille halves that rotate. This black version seems to have them rotate much more than the first yellow release. That chair hanging off his left arm still grates...

The only versions of these toys I was missing...loose. I cannot bring myself to open up the glorious 2-packs where Prime lives with Blackarachnia and Megatron shares eternal cardboard incarceration with Prowl. So I got loose battle damaged deluxe Animated Prime and Megatron for a £5, the "Battle Begins" set. As far as Animated goes, I need 'just' the Stunti-con Job set, the Takara Swindle and deluxe Bumblebee/Elite Bumblebees, a Hasbro Voyager Prime, the silver lucky draw Bumblebee, a few semi-clear EZ collection Legends and it's job done.

Finally...

This cost me £15. It came from the US. And it made ALL the difference.

:)

All the best
Maz