Robots In Disguise 2015 (Part 11) - Minicons Wave 1

Next up in my detailed look at the Hasbro Robots In Disguise 2015 toy line, cartoon and related media are the first wave of Minicons. These little one-step wonders are intended to interact with the newly-released Deployers, Drift and Fracture. Having appeared relatively early on in the first season of RID, we've had to wait some time for toys of Slipstream, Jetstorm, Divebomb and Airazor. However, wave 1 consists of two extra Minicons too that have not been featured in the show, those are Dragonus (Decepticon) and Sawback (Autobot). Also, Airazor and Jetstorm are so far only available with the Deployers themselves.

Hasbro G1 Targetmaster Triggerhappy

1987 saw the release of the 'Masters, Transformers with heads and weapons that turned into miniature robots of their own. First introduced in "Rebirth" after a number of random new characters interspersed with old ones crashed on planet Nebulos, the Targetmasters consisted of Autobots and Decepticons who bonded with native Nebulons that turned into their weapons. Triggerhappy (and Targetmaster Blowpipe) is one of those Decpticons. Triggerhappy was also available in Japan as D-88 Triggerhappy, packaged in styrofoam and missing his rubsign. There is a bilingual Canadian G1 package and I suspect bilingual European version too.

Transformers Adventure (TAV-18) Drift

I actually had no intention of collecting the Takara Tomy Transformers Adventure (TAV) versions of the Hasbro Robots In Disguise 2015 toys. I was going to buy the locally available Hasbro versions of RID 2015 because that was a wonderful novelty in the UK, and I was going to watch the cartoon with my daughter and wear the cheap-ish toys down into the ground with our playtimes. A destiny every toy dreams of , surely. However, after my Hasbro RID Bumblebee became broken and I sprung for the show accurate TAV-01, together with the images of TAV Drift and how much better his deco was than Hasbro's, the die was cast. TAV-18 Drift arrived this week - amid news of TAV Drift:Origin, a piece of news that lit my Twitter feed up like a Christmas tree when I shared it.

Robots In Disguise 2015 (Part 10) - Legion Class Wave 4

Press on with the repaints! In truth, Hasbro need absolutely no encouragement to take a mould and recolour it umpteen times, and frankly that suits a crazed variant collector like myself, especially when the toys in question are tiddly little Legion class Robots In Disguise toys. What we have here are the Night Ops Bumblebee Legion class repaint and his co-release, Alpine Sideswipe - who bears a terribly strong resemblance to Red Alert, were he to have been a red & white Fire Chief repaint of Sideswipe as he was in Generation 1. These were sourced for me in Singapore recently where they had been sighted first, thank you Iain, you are a legend.

FansToys FT-06 Sever - Production Version

Here are a few images of the production version of FansToys' FT-06 Sever (MP Snarl), the third of their Iron Dibots (Dinobots) released just in the last week or two. The paint application is a little different, as in there is no paint on the vertical vents at the bottom of the outer robot feet, the red on the chest seems ever so slightly different and even the grey plastic seems darker than the test shot I had and reviewed. In terms of tightness, everything is mega tight, with the thighs being too tight for sure. It's scary to transform them or pose them. Sword grip is much improved, gun grip has deteriorated from the test shot. Overall it improves on the review sample I had, which was already a very accomplished figure, meaning that in my opinion Sever is now the most polished product FT have released in virtually all departments. The robot face is still odd though, different, but still odd. Have some pics.

Transformers Adventure (TAV-01) Bumblebee

My Hasbro Robots In Disguise 2015 warrior class Bumblebee stopped working. Actually it's debatable that it ever worked considering the leg issue all of them have straight out of the packaging. However, once the doors could no longer tab onto the side of the vehicle mode, causing them to hang off and sag (thank you broken tabs), a more show accurate premium option was immediately attractive. Enter Transformers Adventure TAV-01 Bumblebee from Takara Tomy, with extra paint apps, suspected improved build quality and a very sensible £18 shipped price from Asian online retail.

BadCube OTS-04 Wardog - Review

We've had the robot mode pictorial and the tank mode pictorial, now it's time to share some opinions on BadCube's Masterpiece-style version of the minibot Warpath. With Huffer (as "Cubex Huff"), Brawn(y) and Outback(lands) in the bag already, BadCube continue to blaze an MP-style minibot trail across the landscape with an ambitious interpretation of everyone's favourite tourettes-suffering military Autobot. The review is a bit late as BadCube are about to release their Evil Bug Corps (Insecticons) and have just announced their Sunstreaker, but I've got some tasty pictures and a few words for those of you still undecided about Wardog.

Robots In Disguise 2015 (Part 9) - Warrior Class Wave 3

It's been far too long to wait for Robots In Disguise warrior class Sideswipe to hit stores, he's a major character in the show that youngsters and grown up fans alike will have taken to as much - if not more - than any other Autobot in the show. The late release of this warrior Sideswipe, alongside Jazz, shows in his engineering. The other RID warriors so far have been so simple they've almost not felt like the deluxes we've come to know, but Sideswipe is certainly a step above the blocky simple warrior class we've gotten so far. I'm just not entirely convinced that's a good thing.