Tag Archives: Matrix of Leadership

Toys Review – Studio Series Hot Rod & Scourge

With Haslab’s Unicron due to ship out in a few months and 2021 being the 35th anniversary of The Transformers: The Movie, it’s seems the perfect time for Hasbro to cash in on the nostalgia that still surrounds this cult classic movie to this day.

To this end, their higher end Studio Series line is taking a departure from the live-action movies to make figures intended to look as much like their onscreen counterparts as possible from the 1986 animated movie. The preview pictures online have had many fans frothing from the mouth with excitement and today we get to look at two of the Voyager class figures – Scourge and Hot Rod.

 

Scourge

Robot Mode

As someone who owns nearly ever iteration of the Sweeps commander, I can confidently say this is the best looking Scourge we’ve ever had! All the little details from the red claws to the facial hair, along with the larger details such as the bat wings, are just spot on. This really is a beautiful looking figure. He feels really solid with high quality materials used and is very easy to pose.

Scourge the Tracker. And his huntsmen – The Sweeps

Cybertronian Hovercraft

Once again a fantastic representation of how he looked on the screen. The only downside for me is the feet on the rear end of the hovercraft mode which precludes him having his usual rectangular booster. Given the feet were a problem with Earthrise Ratchet’s altmode as well I hope this isn’t a trend we see continued. However this is a minor quibble. You can attach Scourges weapon to the side of the Hovercraft and with a bit of fiddling about you can make his head pop up just like when he was asking to ‘gut Ultra Magnus’.

Peekaboo!

 

Hot Rod

Robot Mode

Hot Rod isn’t nearly as big as Scourge and indeed looks more like a Deluxe Size than a Voyager. However when you see all the options his body comes with along with the accessories you will understand why.

Hot Rod comes with a slew of options from the original toy and movie. As well as his two pistols he comes with;

His arm blasters and visor

 

His welding hand and circular saw

His Matrix of Leadership

All this adds up to being able to recreate a ton of iconic scenes from the movie and I deny any TF:TM fan to resist recreating many of these cinematic moments. Play value through the friggin roof yo!

 

Vehicle Mode

A very nice looking Hot Rod. I can’t say it has a giant ‘wow’ factor as we’ve gotten quite a few nice looking vehicular Hot Rod’s over the years. But it’s still pretty damn good and like Scourge you have the options to add weapon details such as guns from the engine (like his Targetmaster incarnation), his circular saw and also flames coming from the exhaust.

 

Transformations

Both of these figures have very cool transformations. They are quite involved and I recommend using the instructions the first time out, but there are never any moments where you feel lost or frustrated.

 

Worth Getting?

Oh hells yes! These are both fantastic figures and great representations of their movie incarnations. The only minor quibbles I have are Scourges booster as mentioned earlier, and I found one of Hot Rod’s arms very stiff and apt to pop out during transformation. I also would have liked to see his flame add-ons to be orange rather than matrix-fire blue. But these are all minor detractions. These figures, along with their display stands, will look great in anyone’s collection. I managed to get my figures for nearly half price due to a scanning error at the shop, but would feel I was getting my money’s worth even if I’d paid full price.

 So go get these figures now – nothin’s gonna stand in your way – not tonight!

Got something to say about these two figures? Pop it in the comments section below!

 

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Toys Review – POTP Optimus & Rodimus Prime

So here we are in the third instalment of the Prime Wars Trilogy and the latest toyline is Power of the Primes!  This toyline will be filled with combiner groups like the Combiner Wars and smaller characters that can attach to bigger characters like in Titans Return.  However a new gimmick – Evolution – is being trotted out for arguably the two most well known leaders in Autobot history – Optimus and Rodimus Prime!

For those that don’t know, before he because Optimus  Prime this inspirational leader was a much humbler character named Orion Pax.  Likewise before he because Rodimus Prime, this headstrong leader was a less-than-humble Hot Rod.  Once given a matrix both of them got bigger, stronger, wiser and a kick-ass trailer!

We’ve had a plenty of Hot Rod and a few Rodimus Prime toys over the years.  Likewise we’ve had a few Orion Pax toys and you could fill a real life truck trailer with the amount of different Optimus toys there have been.  But this is something new – we are getting these characters combined.  That’s right, Orion and Hot Rod can become their matrix-infused selves with the help of transforming trailers – let’s have a look!

 

Robot Modes – The Primes!

Beefcake!

Both these characters are really big and chunky.  I don’t mind this, I think a bit of bulk suits both characters quite nicely.  Both are well proportioned and able to perform a decent amount of poseablity.  It’s a shame Rodimus Prime’s arm’s don’t come forward further as to hold his rifle in both hands he has to hold it almost perfectly horizontally.  Also his (what would you call it – a ‘crest’?) yellow fins look too small on his big frame.  Optimus resembles his Powermaster incarnation a bit more than his original incarnation but given his trailer makes up the bulk of his body, this is forgivable and perhaps even to be expected.

‘Roduimus – what HAVE you been eating?!’

Both characters carry a Matrix of Leadership within them in their Prime modes.  Optimus’ one resides in his chest as to be expected, however Rodimus looks like he is trying to digest his.

 

Robot Modes – The little fellas

‘Before they were stars’

Hot Rod looks quite nice and looks pretty much most other incarnations of the character from recent years.  Here the yellow fins are quite proportional.  The Orion Pax toy looks more like he did in the original G1 cartoon than any other Orion toy I have seen to date – the screen dominating his chest piece and the sculpted head going a long way towards doing so.  The larger rifles from the bigger bots split in half to become two guns apiece for their precarnations, which works well for Hot Rod in particular.  Once again there is decent poseability here and the proportions are nice.

Bloody teenagers – always depressed

The only thing – why do they both look so serious and miserable?  If I remember they were both pretty happy characters before being dumped into their leadership roles.

 

 

Prime Vehicle Modes

Optimus Prime

Always nice to get an Optimus’ sporting a trailer.  The back of the truck cab has a lot of kibble and looks frankly bollocks from the side and back but the front view is fine.  It lacks the big grey smokestacks that the robot has – it’s odd that the robot mode has truck kibble that is not used for the actual truck.  The trailer looks quite good and you can imbed his rifle in the middle.   The toy rolls and mauvers well.

 

Rodimus Prime

‘Cybertronian Winnebago’ – for when Mini-Cons retire and hit the road

There have only been a handful of Rodimus Prime toys so not that many with trailers.  Besides the Masterpiece version I think that this is the best of the lot of them vehicle wise.  The Cybertronian Winnebago is faithfully represented, though there is a fair old gap between the overhang of the trailer at the front and the vehicle underneath.  When transforming into this mode one needs to make sure that you get every tab in nice and tight before moving on to the next step, otherwise the next set of table will not align properly.  Getting the tab from the bottom of the trailer into the top of the car is very hard to get tight.

For the first time in history, I prefer Rodimus to Optimus

 

Precarnation Vehicle Modes

I won’t even bother with Orion Pax’s here since he doesn’t have one.  It’s simply Optimus’ truck cab without the trailer attached.  A bit disappointing, I know he didn’t show an alt-mode in the cartoon on which he is based but it has been widely accepted since then that he turns into a Kup-esque vehicle.  So let’s look at Hot Rod.

22 years later and it’s still a sexy alt-mode!

To get Hot Rod into his vehicle mode all one needs to do is remove the trailer and reposition the arms/doors on the sides of the vehicle – that’s it.  But nevertheless it works and it’s a good sized alt-mode, looking a fair bit bigger than most deluxe versions of the character in recent years.

 

Overall

Look, these aren’t perfect toys.  The backpacks on the Prime modes that carry their precarnations are fairly bulky and Orion really could have used his own alt-mode.  It also would have been nice if the trailers had battlebase-modes for the smaller bots to use.  However these are fairly minor quibbles in the grand scheme of things.  These toys trot out a very clever idea with the Evolution concept – makes one wonder if they could somehow make a Megatron that turns into Galvatron or a Bumblebee that turns into Goldbug.  Both kids and older fans of the original series are really going to get a lot of enjoyment out of these figures!  Well done Hasbro – a fantastic start to your new toyline indeed!

 

Got anything to add to this review?  Would love to read it in the comments section below! 

 

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Big Angry Trev visits Hasbro Australia!

On Monday, myself and 14 other lucky fellows were treated to a behind the scenes look at the offices of Hasbro Australia, located in Sydney.  Organized by the operator of Ozformers, this was for a hands-on experience with the newest Transformers toyline: Power of the Primes.

My Graceland!

After a short wait, myself and my compatriots were ushered up to the fourth floor of the Hasbro offices where a space had been prepared.  Scattered around various parts of the room were examples of some of the great Transformer products that have come out of recent.

 

Of course there was one other major Hasbro product on show and that was My Little Pony.  Whilst this was largely ignored by the Transfans I couldn’t help but have a good look.  I loved the huge Pinkie Pie – if it had been Rarity I would have forgotten the TF’s altogether and tried to work out a way to smuggle her out of the building for me to ride whenever I saw fit (sounds kinda dirty I know but Rarity – I loves ya!).

 

 

Power of the Primes

Of course the main point of the day was to give fans a hands-on experience with the new toyline.  This consisted mainly of Wave 1 which has been released in the USA already and is due out in Australia within the next few months.  Whilst this is all the same toyline, it can be broken into different groups.

The Dinobots

Something that has all the fans excited is that for most of the Dinobot characters this is their first Generations treatment.  On display was the latest (of many) Grimlock‘s as well as Slug and Swoop.  Also on display was the newest addition to the classic Dinobot team – a female raptor named Slash.

POTP Slug meets G1 Slag

Of course, without Sludge and Snarl we couldn’t see the fully combined form of the Dinobot gestalt but I will say that what we could put together did look a lot better than what I had seen in photos to date.

 

The Original 13 & Pretenders

Now I’ll admit – I was not a fan of the Pretenders from G1, not particularly liking organic modes.  But many of these characters have been brought back and in a bizarre twist, has been combined with the characters from TF lore which constitute the first 13 Primes.  The classic Pretender shell characters are used to ensconse the mini-Primes within.  Rather odd, but I know when they hit the shelves I wont be able to resist.

Apparently Landmine & Alpha Trion were the same dude

 

The Primes

A rather interesting concept that has been done here is with Optimus Prime and Rodimus Prime.  Not only do both transform from Truck/Cybertronic Winnebago to robot, but you can remove a smaller robot which transforms into their pre-evolved forms – Orion Pax and Hot Rod.  I  really dig this concept and both toys looked great!  Both also came with a Matrix of Leadership.

The evolution of a hot head

 

And the others…

There were several other figures on show from the new line.  These included Beachcomber, Windcharger and a Dreadwind which is based on an older Combiner Wars figure.  The Ozformer owner was also kind enough to bring a couple of figures that were US exclusives that not many Aussies would have touched – Arcee and Grotusque.

 

So overall it was a very interesting hands-on experience and behind-the-scenes look at Hasbro.  I’d like to thank Hasbro for the opportunity – I’m sure my fellow 14 fans had as much fun as I did!  And to top it off, in the raffle at the end I scored a The Last Knight Hot Rod to take home!

Free toy!

 

Got anything to say about this visit to Hasbro?  Would love to read it in the comments section below!