Vinyl Vehicle Voltron

Originally solicited for April, Toynami delayed the third volume of of their vinyl figure line-up for months... during which they released several repaints of other figures including the limited version of the actual third figure as an exclusive metallic paint job for SDCC2010. But now it is October and I finally have a vinyl Vehicle Voltron in my hands.
Vehicle Voltron is frequently referred to as “the other Voltron” but in my mind – he stands equal to Lion Voltron because even when I was little, I appreciated that the saga “ended.” The evil king Zarkon was defeated in a final epic battle on Planet Doom and I was happy that all would be okay. And it was time to see what else was going on in the universe populated by Galaxy Garrison and the rest of the Drule Empire. It wasn't a matter of who was more powerful than who, I was more interested in seeing the universe expand.

Vehicle Voltron stands about 9 inches tall and is roughly the same height as the volume 1 figure. However, because of his cone-headed profile thanks to his head being formed of a rocket-jet, he generally tapers to a point and thus looks somewhat smaller. Lion Voltron's wings also widen his profile a lot by comparison. On the other hand, being made up of no less than 15 component vehicles, Vehicle Voltron enjoys a sharper sculpting job than Lion Voltron does.
Vehicle Voltron appears to be composed for more forms including a separate (but not removeable) fighter-jet-chest-plate. And he has joints at the hips where his legs meet his torso. A small complaint is that the joints aren't as tight as Lion Voltron. Also the same paint over-spray appears occasionally as expected for a mass-produced figure.
While at first I was disappointed the figure did not include the “spinning laser blades” weapons on his shoulders, it later occurred to me that this is indeed anime-accurate as Vehicle Voltron was rarely drawn with the helicopter props on his shoulders unless he was charging up an attack. That said the sculpt also takes a cue from the older toys and so shows a bunch of tank-treads on the back side. In the actual animation, Voltron sported a pair of engine pods on his upper back. It irritates me to know that the sculptor clearly chose whatever elements were easiest to implement rather than to stick with a particular design choice.

Shadow Demolitions/Shadow Pack review

It's a good thing I had seen a video review of a previous iteration before this arrived or else I might have been severely disappointed. However I've accepted the nature of collecting these extremely exclusive limited-run unlicensed fan-made add-ons: it is quite an expensive hobby.
Perfect Effect's Shadow Demolitions with Shadow Pack finally arrived. As you can see from the photo, entire set comes in a box not much bigger than a deck of playing cards.
The star of the show is the new "Shadow Pack." It's a brilliantly sculpted piece with lots of sharp details and painted highlights. It comes molded in matt-black but detailed with gun-metal silver, navy blue and pale metallic blue to match the Nemesis Prime product line. The plastic is a solid ABS type and the moving parts are on solid hinges. There are two sets of panels that open: one set to attach to Shadow Commander's back in robot mode and the other to attach to the front of the trailer-mode.
Both modes clip in very securely and mostly do their jobs as mounting points for weapons. Unfortunately, I must point out that while I'm not certain this is due to my Shadow Commander set being a recast knock-off set, I can't believe there is any way that tiny slot-peg would fit tightly enough to hold up the "BFG" weapon on Shadow Commander's back as shown on the back of the box.
Overall, as far as limited-run items go, I think the given ten-dollar price-tag is pretty good.
However, thus far, Shadow Pack has only been offered for about $50... because it comes in a set with a new repaint of Perfect Effect's "Shadow Warrior" figure named "Shadow Demolitions." Shadow Demolitions is the 4th iteration of the PE-01 figure (inspired by the Rumble and Frenzy cassette-bots from Generation 1). In this case, the new guy is has red highlights... And that's about it. He's is pretty much identical to all the other PE-01 figures already out. He still comes with back-mounted "winged cannons" that can be hidden in his arm-mounted quad-cannons. He still transforms into a dual-quad weapon for Shadow Commander. And he still needs this little extra "grip" bit to attach to the mounting peg.
And yes... he still doesn't quite fit on Shadow Commander's shoulder (again, could be because my armour was a KO set). But there's just no way that fiddly peg (which is actually part of the rotating piece that forms the robot's neck) will stay in its proper position while you try forcing the peg into the proper holes... It can be do for the perfectly sized holes in the Shadow Pack. And of course it'll work for the matched hole on the grip bit. But not for any other holes...
As it stands, Shadow Demolitions is still just an expensive version of a Target Master weapon-figure. But now, I'll need to track down a matching Shadow Warrior since I realize my truck mode Nemsis Prime with Shadow Commander trailer simply looks lop-sided without one.

God-Sword and Nemesis Cmd Ctr.

Sandwiched after my knock-off Fansproject Shadow Commander set and before the release of Perfect Effect's Demolitions Shadow Warrior pack, more new unlicensed add-ons arrived for my Nemesis Prime figure in the mail.

First up is a rather simple accessory kit. Perfect Effect created the “God Sword” kit inspired by the powerful Cybertronian relic from the comics. Naturally, they reused the mold several times to do one for Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, and Nemesis Prime repaints.

The kit comes out of the box in pieces and in essence is a “parts-former” more than a “transformer.” The final completed sword is almost 15 inches long after several snap-together procedures. This black version is highlighted with silver to match Nemesis Prime. The clear red looks good but doesn't match Nemesis Prime other than to remind me of the windows on Scourge (from Robots in Disguise).
To convert the sword into Nemesis Prime's armour mode, the kit also comes with 3 additional bits. A pair of clips to attach the “shields” to the arms. The third bit is a “backpack” piece that connects the sword's hilt and handle into wings and shoulder-cannons. Lastly, the remaining parts can be combined into a smaller sword.
The second add-on set in the mail this week is another trailer. Hasbro and Takara have not released a full semi tractor-trailer toy of Optimus Prime in years often releasing the figure as only a semi tractor. Fans have clamoured for the glory days of Generation 1 when a Prime's trailer would open up to become an outpost playset.

BTS Toys delivers a futuristic trailer featuring several unusual bevels and vents. Unlike the trailer mode of Fansproject's “Commander” kit, BST.Toy has given us a rotating hitch that lets Prime turn corners. And yes, the back panel does become a ramp for cars to drive into the trailer (not all figures fit, however due to the sculpted details inside).Removing the wheels assembly reveals the return of Roller! The trailer then sits on a set of risers.The trailer's side opens to reveal a repair drone and a couple of weapon storage compartments (extra guns included!). The repair drone rises and spins on its mount. The odd shapes come out of the weird “mecha” chunk at the front of the trailer which become a small heli-pad and what looks like a computer terminal.
Unfortunately while the interior is beautifully sculpted and painted, everything is Minicon-sized (actually even smaller than that). Also, while BST offers a very sharply engineered piece, they're not quite up to Fansproject level. The claw arm is a little loose because the ball-joints sit between the next two halves screwed together. The overall shape of and placement of the compartments could have been spaced a bit differently to allow more interior space. The side panels should have been braced when they open to become the floor (they collapse if you put anything heavier than Roller).
Overall, my collection of black variant add-on kits poses a very striking visual and I'm pleasantly surprised that these unlicensed products are as solid as they are.

Shadow Commander knock-off review

First a little primer: Ultra Magnus was actually a repaint of "Powered Convoy" before Hasbro introduced him to Transformers as an all-new character. Conveniently, the white repainted Optimus Prime toy hidden inside the armour was ignored until Dreamwave comics introduced the concept that Magnus was in fact physically identical to Prime underneath the armour. From that point on, Hasbro and Takara started producing white variants of almost every Prime toy and called it Magnus.

And they did so with the popular "Classics" line a couple of years ago selling an exclusive 2-pack of "Ultra Magnus" (a white Prime) and a "Sky Warp" (a black Starscream) through Target stores in the USA... but fans had gotten wise... Enter an outfit calling themselves Fansproject.

Fansproject have released an unlicensed trailer kit to complement the white Prime toy making it truly fully Ultra Magnus in his fully armoured Generation 1 appearance. And they didn't stop there. When Hasbro released a black repaint exclusive to SDCC calling him "Nemesis Prime," Fansproject started releasing repaints too.

Since then, the Fansproject kits have sky-rocketed in price on the secondary market. It was only a matter of time before this happened...But did I pay a premium on the secondary market for a rare variant? No! This is a Chinese knock-off. Yes, even the unlicensed and unauthorized products are getting ripped off now!

How is it? Well aside from being a fraction of the cost of an original Fansproject kit, you kind of get what you pay for. At first glance it looks good. Even the packaging and instruction booklet was KO-ed. The KO includes everything you would find in the original (I've heard previous KO iterations were missing the waist piece or other optional bits like the alternate face-plate or missing clip for the sword which normally stores itself under the trailer). All in all, a pleasant surprise how accurate the copy has become.

Now for the bad news.
Check out the smeared glue over the surface! Thankfully, the nature of the trailer is that it's lots of pieces together. So each piece had a separate level of quality and that was the worst of the mess.
On the other side there's what I call over-trim. The white stress mark is the result of someone breaking off the flash after this part left the mold. Amateur work. But again... it's a KO and this is what cheap gets you.
Finally I wanted to show the shoulder part. One side is great - almost indistinguishable from the real thing. The other... not so much. There are glue smudges and gaps where the seams should have met (too much glue adding thickness). On the other hand, I would point out that the clips are copied accurately so the shoulder armour does indeed connect with the molded details on the original figure's shoulders.

In fact, the only part that is "non-functional" is the right hand (it won't snap into place). So holding the big gun is out of the question. Since it's a hand though posing it in certain positions will allow it to rest in place (as seen in the full-body picture above).

Overall, I guess I'm willing to let the defects slide because I was expecting much worse. But the KO does come complete as the real thing. And although the booklet pages were stapled in the wrong order, and the box has that pale bootleg printing like they have on pirate CDs, well... like I said, you get what you pay for. It's crap but at least it isn't completely worthless.

Kor Triumphant... finally.

After a steady stream of losses, the Kor came back with possibly the best performance ever in a 4-way free-for-all. My opponents were a white Soldier deck, a customized Sliver deck, and a white-red Ally deck.

First, the Soldier deck played Crusade (whether this was part of a failed strategy or a foolish mistake, we shall never know). All the figures below should be increased by 1 at game-time. Without a doubt, in a game where life totals dropped as low as single-digits among players, this did make a difference. However, I retain the actual non-augmented creature stats to describe my combination plays for simplicity.

My luck started with a decent draw with some lands and several inexpensive cards to play. In only a few turns, I was already crushing the Ally deck next to me with this:
Kor Duelist + Adventuring Gear + Basilisk Collar + Trusty Machette.
On Landfall he is 5/4 Doublestrike with Lifelink value of (at least) 5 and Deathtouch. Note that none of the cards in play cost more than 2 mana. I specify "at least" because if a blocking creature is killed on the First-Strike phase of the Doublestrike, then there is no damage dealt after that in normal combat phase.Having a Land to play each turn triggered the Landfall on Adventuring Gear. I became unstoppable by kicking Kor Aeronaut (granting Kor Duelist the Flying attribute) while playing also a Sejiri Steppe during another turn (granting him protection from whichever colour blocker my opponent had untapped).

Turning my attention to the Soldier deck afterwards, I was thrown for a loop when I was finally stopped by a Wall of Nets and Holy Day. That is, the defender blocked, prevented all combat damage, so both combatants survive, but then the attacker is exiled. However, I did have a lot of Lands on the table by this point. So I rearranged several creatures and equipments to the following configuration:
Armament Master with Trusty Machette and Explorer Scope (4/3)
Knight of Cliffhaven (level 1) with Basilisk Collar (6/7)
Kor Aeronaut with Adventuring gear (6/6)
The Sliver deck was gaining momentum (as it always does late in the game). So watched carefully until one crucial mistake... it completely tapped out to bring out a Sliver Queen. It's big and scary (plus the cross-effects of the other Slivers in play gave it several additional attributes. But after considering the math against a single blocker, I took my chance...

I declared Attack with all 3 of my creatures.
The Exporer's Scope triggers and I check the top card of my library. It was a land.
This triggers Landfall on Adventuring Gear and Kor Aeronaut becomes an 8/8 Flying.
Total damage across all three was 18/16 with a Lifelink value of at least 9.

This eliminated the Sliver deck from play. And if that weren't lucky enough, my final opponent continued to have mana issues so for the next turn, I took the time to Level up.
Knight of Cliffhaven (Level 4) with Basilisk Collar (8/8)
Since he's Flying and Vigilence, I attack each turn gaining more life than the Soldier deck can deal without fear of losing a potential blocker.

Finally, I move the Adventuring Gear to Armament Master bringing his bonus up to a +6/+6 so Knight of Cliffhaven can attack and block for 10/10 total. My Lifelink continues to swing my life-counter wildly up and down while the Soldier deck sends Shadow creatures I am helpless against. But it doesn't matter as I'm gaining life much faster than my opponent can deal damage to me at this point. We decide to call it a game.

I hardly ever win free-for-all games. It's nice to do it with a little style and a lot of luck.