I'm sold on Combiner Wars!

Well, I opened Silverbolt and combined him with his fellow Aerialbots and, wow, Hasbro have done a fantastic job. The individual bots have great vehicle and robot modes, the transformation is simple but effective and the combined mode looks great. Again, it's simple, but nicely posable.

On the basis of Superion I have decided to go all out on Combiner Wars and sell Fansproject Menasor, despite some indications that CW Menasor isn't as good. I have done this for several reasons: I like the idea of having scramble city style combiners where all of them are compatible with each other, swapping over limbs between Superion and Defensor, and Menasor and Bruticus (assuming they get released! I'll come to that later). If at possible I would rather have official figures than third party. These Combiner Wars figures are much more playable than the third party equivalents; Fansproject Motormaster is terrifying to transform because he has a stupidly thin double jointed waist. Since putting FP Menasor together I haven't done anything else with it because of this. Finally, All of the pictures of Superion show him posed: he looks quite good. The pictures of Menasor show straight on and he looks gorilla armed. I'm going to guess that when he's posed, like Superion, he's going to look pretty good. In addition, the individual bots look good, particularly Motormaster and Breakdown. If all else fails I can display them individually!

Therefore I have now bought Drag Strip ready for Wave 2 of Combiner Wars, I can't wait and I hope to be able to get them in person in store. I have also bought Bombshell (times two) and Powerglide, they are both fantastically well sculpted, particularly the heads. Great for legends figures with a nice simple transformation.

Powerglide is going to replace the Maketoys version I had. Given how nice these new minibots are I'm tempted by Cosmos and by the rumours of a new Warpath. I'd like all of the minibots to be roughly the same size, but with some only released as (old scale) legends and some as scouts it's not possible. I'm also on the fence about Bumblebee and Cliffjumper, if I did make the change it would leave only iGear Huffer and Beachcomber at the smaller scale from the '84/'85 lineup.

It seems that Defensor is a done deal for Combiner Wars, Bruticus is a little bit less certain, but it seems that Onslaught might be a fairly straight forward remold of Hot Spot - change the ladder for a double gun. Vortex and Blast Off from the Aerialbots, Swindle from a Stunticon, then Brawl maybe a remold or a new mold. It would seem pretty straight forward. Toy Fair is just over a month away so hopefully we will find out then. They might just reveal Wave 3 though.

I have finally found AOE Slash, for 6.59 in TRU, my patience was rewarded! I've heard it said that he's the weakest out of the movie dinos so it's nice not having to pay any postage for him, also I found him on a weekend away so he's a nice reminder of that. I will get Slog and Snarl at some point, but there's no rush, I'll wait till I see a good deal.

Play With This Too have confirmed that they will be making a Stranglehold for their fundraising campaign in February, along with their Octopunch that they've shown some sketches of ('Ancient Astronaut'), both will go quite nicely with ROTF Bludgeon for some Mayhem Attack Squad goodness. In addition they've confirmed Metalhawk. I'm not quite sure why the idea of non-transforming Pretenders appeals to me so much but my Marvel, Masterforce and Grimlock collection shelves will all benefit. I am really excited for these figures, hence mentioning it every blog since TFCon Chicago! I don't think I've mentioned my Marvel shelf before, it started out as the Wreckers versus Bludgeon and Thunderwing, basically important comic characters who weren't in the cartoon but now it's evolving to be Wreckers versus the Mayhems with Thunderwing thrown in. Might have to get Nightbeat as well.

I realise that I have become loyal to a very small group of companies for my transforming robots; Hasbro and Takara obviously, then Fansproject and Mastermind Creations, with a bit of Maketoys and Perfect Effect, and now Play with this too. There are a few others for some of the smaller toys, but otherwise I don't really pay any attention to what other companies are doing. I would like some Terrorcons but I'm happy to wait and see whether one of the above does them. Now I've got Dinobots and Predacons there aren't really any other characters left who I can't be patient for (I did start collecting the Planet X dinos, which if they're available in the future I still may pick up).

The MP-13SW release of Skywarp is now out, having looked at pictures I'm more excited than I was expecting, similarly I've watched a video review of Legacy Tigerzord. Both have great paint jobs. I've resolved not to spend any money online, but if I sell FP Menasor I will have a bit of money to play with. I'm going to see what the deal is with PWTT's fundraiser then I can allocate any remaining funds accordingly. It would be good to know what Fansproject are up to - Swoop should be out soon and Skullcruncher has been at the prototype stage for a while, it seems that preorders could happen very close to the actual release dates.

I have been enjoying the last few episodes of Agents of Shield, The hints of alien interference with Earth (presumably setting up the Inhumans) is much more interesting than most of the Season 1 stuff, and having a known villain makes thing much more personal than the situation before Hydra were revealed. It looks like another year of great Marvel films, Avengers 2 and Ant-Man are both really exciting prospects. I hope I get a chance to watch Agent Carter as well, nothing has been sorted out for the UK yet.

I'm really enjoying the Marvel Cinematic Universe podcast at the moment, they review the films as well each individual episode of AOS. The two guys who present it are super enthusiastic and really make it an entertaining listen. I'd highly recommend it if you're interested in the MCU, check it out here: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/marvel-cinematic-universe-podcast

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Update from an earlier comment, I'm all in for updated legends Bumblebee, Cliffjumper and Cosmos. Sure Cliffjumper is just a red repaint but so is the one I've already got. I bought Bumblebee from my local TRU today, I was all set to buy the 2-pack with Blazemaster when I noticed the Now and Then AOE Bumblebee set included the same figure for the same price so effectively it's a choice between Blazemaster and AOE Bumblebee. I preferred the paint apps on the Now and Then version so opted for that one, I'll donate the movie Bumblebee to a charity shop. I saw Cliffjumper in a comic shop a while ago so I'll try and get back and pick him up as well.

I've opened Drag Strip now, it's a good figure but for me the face sculpt is just lacking something. I think it might be that the visor isn't straight across the head, it has a couple of spikes coming down. Still he will be spending most of his time in combiner mode as Menasor when wave 2 hits so maybe not such a problem. Much prefer his Aerialbot wave mates though.