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Zob's Thoughts on PotP Prime Masters: Micronus (Cloudburst), Vector Prime (Metalhawk), and Liege Maximo (Skullgrin)

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Zobovor

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Jan 16, 2018, 9:35:03 PM1/16/18
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My store doesn't sell these so I had to get 'em on eBay. Which is fine, because I love getting stuff in the mail.

The idea for the original 1988 Pretenders was that the Autobots disguised themselves as humans and the Decepticons disguised themselves as monsters. Honestly, this seems pretty limited in its applications (and Marvel Comics even poked fun at it, with the Decepticons remarking, "They seem awfully big for humans!") The concept was apparently enough of a success that Hasbro spun off the idea into Pretender Beasts, Pretender Vehicles, Mega Pretenders, Ultra Pretenders, etc.

Titans Return knocked out a lot of 1987 characters, and Hasbro knew that if they were going to start paying tribute to 1988 characters, that would mean Pretenders. Making them the new opening price point toys solved a couple of problems. For one, it makes sense for Transformers masquerading as humans (or humanoids) to be a much smaller size. For another, it allows the Pretender outer shells (called "decoy armor" for this toy line) to actually transform into guns and weapons that the other toys can hold. This is also the only way you can get the coveted Prime Master mini-figures, since unlike Titans Return, none of the Deluxe- or Voyager- or Leader-class toys come with them this time. Given how important they are to fully experience the play pattern, you basically have to buy these little guys.

The existing Prime Masters are built like the Titan Masters, which means that they transform and fold up the same, and they can interact with Titans Return toys if you want your robots to walk around with weird symbols instead of faces. So, in some ways the Prime Masters are Headmasters. Since the Pretender shells can change into guns for the bigger toys to carry, they're also Targetmasters, after a fashion. Finally, since some of the prime armor is engine-shaped, and the Prime Masters can plug into the armor to provide Transformers with their various abilities, they're also Powermasters, in a way. Given that Power of the Primes is incorporating toys using Combiner Wars engineering as well as Titans Return engineering, PotP is shaping up to be a veritable PotP-ourri.

From a marketing aspect, I find it odd that they're playing up the names of the Prime Masters (Micronus, Vector Prime, etc.) instead of the names of the Pretender characters, who would arguably be more familiar to fans (Skullgrin, Cloudburst, etc.) I also find myself wondering if we're only going to get twelve of these Prime Master toys total, since the collector cards only list 12 of them. There were over three dozen Pretender toys during G1, so it seems like we're going to miss out on quite a few of them.

MICRONUS (CLOUDBURST)

The Micronus mini-figure is sculpted to resemble the inner robot of the Pretender Cloudburst toy, though the color mapping is a little off (this toy is grey with a red head, arms, and upper legs; the Cloudburst robot was mostly red with grey upper legs). The decoy suit opens on a hinge at the front of the legs; the entire front of the suit folds down to allow you to put the Prime Master inside. There's a little hole where the face would normally be on the Pretender shell, so Micronus can peer through. (There are some reports of these toys coming with TWO Prime Masters, one in the bubble on the card and another already inside the decoy suit.)

Where the Titan Masters were held together with screws, the Prime Masters have a bolt holding them together. It's almost like Hasbro knew people would want to replace the silly symbols with robot faces, but didn't want to make it easy.

The decoy suit is about two and a quarter inches in height, and the sculpt very strongly resembles the 1988 Cloudburst outer shell (it could use some grey paint on the arms, but no big thang). The original first generation of Pretenders had human heads that were partly recessed and covered in armor (remove Cloudburst's helmet and you still wouldn't be able to see his mouth) and that look is faithfully replicated here. He comes with a large double-barreled gun (sure, they couldn't paint his arms, but they painted the gun) that the decoy suit can hold.

Transformation to weapon mode is similar to the Targetmaster figures that came with Scoop from 2014. There's a peg wedged between his feet that you can flip around, and the double-barrled gun can connect to his back to complete a hinge, allowing the cannons to hang on his back or flip around to form the gun mode. I would think he can be carried by any Legends, Deluxe, Voyager, or Leader toy.

Micronus can stay inside the decoy suit, or he can transform and link to the outside of the gun, presumably to grant the weapon mode his unique powers. He is also designed to fold up and plug into the Prime Armor of the Deluxe or Voyager toys, or be inserted into the Matrix casing, and thus the chest, of the Leader toys.

Targetmasterifying the Pretenders was kind of an interesting idea. It makes the guns that they turn into a little more significant, I think. The biggest problem I had with the single-pack Titan Masters was that many of the mini-vehicles had no canonical precedent. I wanted Brawn's head, for example, but I didn't really care about a Jeep that could turn into a speeder bike.

The specific ability for Micronus is to effect a "power swap." Based on the collector cards I've read, in practice this seems to allow Transformers to either borrow another robot's ability (Grimlock, for example, links with faster robots to overcome his own extreme slowness) or share their abilities with others (Beachcomber can give others the use of his geologic sensors). So, basically, Micronus is a tiny, walking power chip rectifier exchange.

VECTOR PRIME (METALHAWK)

The Vector Prime mini-figure is indeed designed like the Pretender inner robot for Metalhawk (the former Japan-only character who is becoming increasingly more common in America), but it's hard to tell, because the 1988 toy had a gold body and head with blue legs and arms and red feet, but this toy is mostly grey with blue arms and upper legs. More paint applications would have helped a lot.

The decoy suit is a good likeness of the original Metalhawk outer shell, though the shoulders don't jut out heroically quite as much as the G1 version. He's got the distinctive helmet fin and everything, though. The decoy suit turns into a single-barreled cannon.

The in-universe ability of Vector Prime is the capacity for time travel. So, when he links up with other Transformers, it allows them to tailor this ability to suit their own interests; i.e., Jazz uses it to experience music from different time periods; Skrapnel just visits different time periods to snatch up energon. (Love's language reads the same anywhere, apparently.)

LIEGE MAXIMO (SKULLGRIN)

Of the three mini-figures, this one looks the most like the character it's sculpted to resemble. The dark grey with fuschia arms and legs is a pretty close match to the inner robot for Pretender Skullgrin. The mini-figure even has little molded tank treads on his legs, hinting at the transformed mode for the 1988 toy's inner robot.

The decoy suit is a good match for the Pretender outer shell of Skullgrin. The original 1988 toy had organic styling, which was dispensed with for this toy in favor of a more mechanical appearance, while still retaining the same basic skull-monster theme. (Send in your skeletons. Sing as their bones go marching in.)

Instead of a cannon to carry, Skullgrin comes with a three-pronged silver claw. I guess it's a melee weapon. When connected to the decoy suit, you can fold it over to form his weapon mode, which I suppose is ideal for close combat.

Liege Maximo's special ability is that of a trickster. This manifests itself, within the fiction, as giving Transformer the ability to deceive (Beachcomber can trick Decepticons into putting down their weapons; Slag can persuade anyone to fight him).

The biggest problem I have with this particular toy, honestly, is the design of the power symbol when he's transformed. By accident or design, it looks a lot like a face. It's kind of abstract, but there's a definite set of eyes, a nose, and some teeth. Maybe it's just because I'm accustomed to these mini-figures folding up into the heads for bigger robots, but the not-quite face really bothers me, and makes me think that the others are supposed to be able to pass for not-quite faces, too. The others aren't even vaguely face-like, though.

Some of the other Prime Masters coming soon include Landmine (with Alpha Trion), Submarauder (and Alchemist Prime), Bludgeon (with Quintus Prime), Bomb-Burst (with Megatronus), and Octopunch (with Solus Prime). So, that's eight out of twelve already accounted for.

I've been playing around with the different ways in which the toys can interact, and I'm already finding some limitations. The core of the Matrix from the Leader-class toys, even though it's square-shaped like the things the Prime Masters fold up into, can't plug into the decoy suits in gun mode because they require the peg holes on the bottom of the feet of the mini-figures to connect. I was, however, able to fit Liege Maximo into the Matrix casing to form an Autobot Matrix of Trickery. (Take me into your darkest hour and I'll never desert you.)

The random handful of Titan Masters I tried were able to fit into the decoy suits, too, in case you were possessed by the strong desire to have a Pretender Fengul. (You can even build an Autobot Matrix of Fengul if you want to be completely preposterous.) So, while the ability of the various toys to interact is pretty good, I find it difficult to say good-bye to the Headmasters, because I really like them so much better than the Prime Masters who turn into indistinguishable things.


Zob (HeadPowerTargetmasters with Pretender shells has become a reality)

Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats

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Jan 17, 2018, 2:55:23 AM1/17/18
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On Tuesday, January 16, 2018 at 6:35:03 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
>
> VECTOR PRIME (METALHAWK)
>
> The Vector Prime mini-figure is indeed designed like the Pretender inner robot for Metalhawk (the former Japan-only character who is becoming increasingly more common in America), but it's hard to tell, because the 1988 toy had a gold body and head with blue legs and arms and red feet, but this toy is mostly grey with blue arms and upper legs. More paint applications would have helped a lot.

This toy makes me want the Siege on Cybertron Set for Metalhawk. Sigh.

> LIEGE MAXIMO (SKULLGRIN)
>
> The biggest problem I have with this particular toy, honestly, is the design of the power symbol when he's transformed. By accident or design, it looks a lot like a face. It's kind of abstract, but there's a definite set of eyes, a nose, and some teeth. Maybe it's just because I'm accustomed to these mini-figures folding up into the heads for bigger robots, but the not-quite face really bothers me, and makes me think that the others are supposed to be able to pass for not-quite faces, too. The others aren't even vaguely face-like, though.

I like Liege Maximo most because he can pass for a face. A Headmaster parks his Transector (I really have a hard time thinking of headless robots as characters...) and along comes this weird monster thing. When no one is looking, he splits open, Liege climbs out and steals the body. It just seems so natural.

Micronus has a weird one eye with glowing bat ears face thing going on, which looks like an alien face. Vector Prime just has gibberish though.

I really wish that the Titans Returns toy bodies had heads, which folded down, and that the port was on the back of the head. Then the bodies would feel like characters, and there would be an actual bonding of two characters.

Legends Optimus Prime (came with Roller) has a 5mm peg hole on the back of his head, which can fold down for cab mode. The other day I discovered that you can sort of shove a Titan Master there, and he now suddenly has a different, too large head. And now, I want toys designed to do that well and have properly sized heads.


Zobovor

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Jan 18, 2018, 2:06:58 AM1/18/18
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On Wednesday, January 17, 2018 at 12:55:23 AM UTC-7, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> This toy makes me want the Siege on Cybertron Set for Metalhawk. Sigh.

You should get the set anyway, for Powermaster Optimus Prime 2.0 and Pounce. I paid more than full price for it, before they even started bootlegging the hell out of it, and I don't regret it.

> I really wish that the Titans Returns toy bodies had heads, which folded
> down, and that the port was on the back of the head. Then the bodies would
> feel like characters, and there would be an actual bonding of two characters.

Like Armada Sideways? That would be weird.

I do kind of like that every toy can potentially be a Targetmaster now. One of the problems with the G1 Targetmasters was that not every toy could play the game. You could stick Targetmaster guns on a few random other toys, but not all of them... and very few of them had a connector point for vehicle mode. With Power of the Primes, you can stick a transforming gun on Slag, Dreadwind, Jazz, etc. Doesn't matter. Remember how in Titans Return, everybody was a Headmaster? Now, everybody's (potentially) a Targetmaster now!

Granted, the guns turn into Pretenders now, which is weird, but it's still got the basic Targetmaster play pattern to it. There's no more dedicated partnerships (e.g., Crosshairs and Pinpointer) but instead an entire network of potential Targetmasters who can partner up with anybody. At least it plays up the intercompatibility aspect of the toys, so nobody really gets left out.

You have to make multiple purchases now, but I kind of think this is the intended play pattern. The big toys just come with Prime Armor to give you SOMETHING to plug into them, and they had to do something with the combiner parts anyway. Attaching a big freaking gun to, say, Dreadwind is a lot more satisfying than connecting a weird armor thingy, though. The guns can still act as an intermediary to the Prime Masters, too, so you don't lose any functionality.

I kind of missed the Targetmasters during Titans Return, so to see that Hasbro was always planning on incorporating them, or at least something like them, into Power of the Primes is nice. I just wished that this was how they'd marketed the toys from the get-go. If they had just called them Targetmaster Pretenders, I probably would have been all over it. Dreadwind with a gigantic gun that totally ruins his aerodynamic capability is something that mirrors the G1 experience to some degree, so it pleases me even if Hi-Test isn't involved per se, and even if the Dreadwind character was never a Targetmaster historically.

Giving the guns special powers gives the characters a reason to fight over them, too. Maybe when he turns into a weapon, Metalhawk, using the abilities of Vector Prime, has time-displacement powers. Shoot somebody and it zaps them minutes or hours into the future, reappearing too late to make a difference in the battle. Blast somebody with Cloudburst, and using the power of Micronus, you can temporarily steal their special power. Transformers have historically never really swapped weapons (Starscream never let anybody else ever borrow his null rays, even when it would have made sense to) but this way, guns can be swapped between characters readily.


Zob (the only thing missing is the ability to stack two guns together like the 1988 double Targetmasters)

Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People.

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Jan 18, 2018, 9:58:45 PM1/18/18
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On Thursday, January 18, 2018 at 1:06:58 AM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 17, 2018 at 12:55:23 AM UTC-7, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
> > This toy makes me want the Siege on Cybertron Set for Metalhawk. Sigh.
>
> You should get the set anyway, for Powermaster Optimus Prime 2.0 and Pounce. I paid more than full price for it, before they even started bootlegging the hell out of it, and I don't regret it.
>

You need a Metalhawk for your Metalhawk so you can Metalhawk while you Metalhawk...

The silver is already rubbing off the hinge on my Pretender shell Metalhawk's gun.

> > I really wish that the Titans Returns toy bodies had heads, which folded
> > down, and that the port was on the back of the head. Then the bodies would
> > feel like characters, and there would be an actual bonding of two characters.
>
> Like Armada Sideways? That would be weird.
>

I thought the same thing.

> I do kind of like that every toy can potentially be a Targetmaster now. One of the problems with the G1 Targetmasters was that not every toy could play the game. You could stick Targetmaster guns on a few random other toys, but not all of them... and very few of them had a connector point for vehicle mode. With Power of the Primes, you can stick a transforming gun on Slag, Dreadwind, Jazz, etc. Doesn't matter. Remember how in Titans Return, everybody was a Headmaster? Now, everybody's (potentially) a Targetmaster now!
>

Like the Minicons in Armada!

> Granted, the guns turn into Pretenders now, which is weird, but it's still got the basic Targetmaster play pattern to it. There's no more dedicated partnerships (e.g., Crosshairs and Pinpointer) but instead an entire network of potential Targetmasters who can partner up with anybody. At least it plays up the intercompatibility aspect of the toys, so nobody really gets left out.
>

Okay, so more nebulous than the Minicons in Armada

> You have to make multiple purchases now, but I kind of think this is the intended play pattern. The big toys just come with Prime Armor to give you SOMETHING to plug into them, and they had to do something with the combiner parts anyway. Attaching a big freaking gun to, say, Dreadwind is a lot more satisfying than connecting a weird armor thingy, though. The guns can still act as an intermediary to the Prime Masters, too, so you don't lose any functionality.
>

It would have been nice if the combiner feet looked like anything other than feet in any non-combiner mode.

> I kind of missed the Targetmasters during Titans Return, so to see that Hasbro was always planning on incorporating them, or at least something like them, into Power of the Primes is nice. I just wished that this was how they'd marketed the toys from the get-go. If they had just called them Targetmaster Pretenders, I probably would have been all over it. Dreadwind with a gigantic gun that totally ruins his aerodynamic capability is something that mirrors the G1 experience to some degree, so it pleases me even if Hi-Test isn't involved per se, and even if the Dreadwind character was never a Targetmaster historically.
>
> Giving the guns special powers gives the characters a reason to fight over them, too. Maybe when he turns into a weapon, Metalhawk, using the abilities of Vector Prime, has time-displacement powers. Shoot somebody and it zaps them minutes or hours into the future, reappearing too late to make a difference in the battle. Blast somebody with Cloudburst, and using the power of Micronus, you can temporarily steal their special power. Transformers have historically never really swapped weapons (Starscream never let anybody else ever borrow his null rays, even when it would have made sense to) but this way, guns can be swapped between characters readily.
>

Sort of like Armada again.

>
> Zob (the only thing missing is the ability to stack two guns together like the 1988 double Targetmasters)

You have to take a Titans Return weapon/sled and plug a Pretender shell into it. That way you can have a Prime Master piloting the sled while a Titan Master's giant face is on top of the gun.

Gustavo Wombat

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Jan 20, 2018, 5:16:35 AM1/20/18
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Zobovor <zobo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 17, 2018 at 12:55:23 AM UTC-7, Gustavo Wombat, of
> the Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
>> This toy makes me want the Siege on Cybertron Set for Metalhawk. Sigh.
>
> You should get the set anyway, for Powermaster Optimus Prime 2.0 and
> Pounce. I paid more than full price for it, before they even started
> bootlegging the hell out of it, and I don't regret it.
>
>> I really wish that the Titans Returns toy bodies had heads, which folded
>> down, and that the port was on the back of the head. Then the bodies would
>> feel like characters, and there would be an actual bonding of two characters.
>
> Like Armada Sideways? That would be weird.

Not sure why that is weirder than headless bodies.

Zobovor

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Jan 20, 2018, 11:52:45 AM1/20/18
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On Saturday, January 20, 2018 at 3:16:35 AM UTC-7, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

>> Like Armada Sideways? That would be weird.
>
> Not sure why that is weirder than headless bodies.

I guess because it seems redundant. Why have a Headmaster who can transform into a head and connect to a robot if he already has another perfectly good head?

It would be like doing a Targetmaster Shockwave. Why does he need a little man who turns into a gun? His arm is already a gun.


Zob (on the other hand, if you lose your Power of the Primes guys-who-turn-into-weird-sparky-things, your toys still have heads)

Zobovor

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Feb 26, 2018, 8:52:43 PM2/26/18
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On Tuesday, January 16, 2018 at 7:35:03 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:

> My store doesn't sell these so I had to get 'em on eBay.

Looks like Walmart is finally going to start carrying them. If you've been looking for these but haven't found them yet, now would be a good time to look. We only got a case of the first wave, but I'm sure wave two is just around the corner.

Interstingly, they scan as TRA GEN P W PWR MSTR, which I believe would be short for Transformers Generations Prime Wars Powermasters. So, aside from the fact that Hasbro solicited the toys under the working name of Prime Wars, they were, indeed, considering calling these Powermasters at one stage.


Zob (has a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell)

Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People.

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Feb 26, 2018, 10:30:24 PM2/26/18
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I haven't found wave 2 anywhere at all
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