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Dave's PotP Rant: Prime Masters Wave 2
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Dave Van Domelen
Jun 19, 2018, 2:01:46 AM6/19/18
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Dave's Transformers Power of the Primes Rant: Prime Masters Wave 2
Alchemist Prime/Submarauder
Alpha Trion/Landmine (Vector Prime/Metalhawk retool)
Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/MasterP2
After a rather unreasonably long delay of about six months, this wave
finally hit the regular distribution chain. Fortunately, it hit hard enough
that I felt no guilt over buying spares of both immediately for faceplate
swaps (I got a Submarauder faceplate as part of Prize Inside's first
four-pack, still waiting on Trent to release a Landmine face).
CAPSULES
$5 price point.
Alchemist Prime: Pretty good update of Submarauder, although the inner
robot is completely the wrong colors for that. Clever pseudo-vehicle mode
for the armor. Recommended.
Alpha Trion: Original mold recommended. This looks very good as an
armor, otherwise sharing the virtues and flaws of the original.
Recommended.
RANTS
Packaging: Same as wave 1, each new one has the other as a co-sell. I
think more of Liege Maximo is shipping in some cases to pad them out, but I
haven't personally seen if they're just leftovers or if they retooled Liege
Maximo's assembly. Every wave 1 figure I've seen still on the pegs alongside
wave 2 looks unaltered.
Tooling Change: Apparently they decided pins weren't the way to go, and
we're back to screwed-on backplates, which means greater ease of replacement
with custom faceplates. I don't think this requires any actual mold changes,
since the pins I've removed from my customized ones could be replaced by
screws with no modification of the torso needed...if any changes are required
it's in the backpack, not the torso. So I don't think they retooled the mold
for Alpha Trion's torso.
Annoying News: Apparently Power of the Primes has been cut short, so
among other things we may never get some of the Primes.
PRIME: ALCHEMIST PRIME
Assortment: E1115
Decoy Armor: Submarauder
Decoy Armor Faction: Decepticon
Transformation Difficulty: 3 steps
Previous Name Use
Prime: None
Decoy Shell: G1
Previous Mold Use: None
Prime Master Ability: Mystical Scientist
Weapon: Trident
Prime Master: Well, it's molded with details based on Submarauder's
inner robot from G1, but this is one case where the requirement of
gang-molding really hurts the inner robot. Submarauder was almost entirely
magenta with some dark blue, and Alchemist Prime looks like he should be Twin
Twist's Titan Master. The torso and boots are bright blue, while the rest of
the toy is very light gray. No paint on the robot, and just black paint
picking out the details of the Prime sigil.
The Prime sigil is ten circles of various sizes in a left-right
symmetric pattern that looks vaguely like spider eyes, and was probably
inspired by the ten spheres of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life (but it doesn't
actually look like the Tree). The frame has tusk-like details at the bottom
reminiscent of Megatron's battle mask from The Last Knight.
Decoy Armor: A pretty good mold update, they only had to tweak a few
things to escape the bulbous aesthetic of the origina Pretender shells.
Since he's supposed to look like a giant monster rather than a guy in armor,
more rounded bits are appropriate. The head fin has been changed to more of
a shark fin, which lets it look more like a prow in weapon mode. Weirdly,
some of the panel lines on the chest combine with the paint scheme to make it
look like he's wearing a suit coat with the sleeves torn off. There's no
opening for the face of the Prime Master to show through, and while there's
some small holes on the pecs and thighs, they're not really big enough for
you to tell if the Prime Master is inside.
Oddly, they could have gotten a lot more G1-accurate on this one than on
the others, thanks to the relative lack of paint on the original's arms and
feet. But that would have required adding a color, so they left the kneecaps
unpainted, extended to dark blue of the chest down along the sides, and left
off the details on the thighs (and the unpainted arms).
Stands a bit taller than other armors thanks to the fin, at 2.5"
(6.5cm). The arms, armor front, and weapon are light gray plastic. The back
and handle are bright blue plastic. The front of the armor front is painted
almost entirely in bright blue, aside from the kneecaps. There's purplish
blue on the "suit coat" parts, magenta on the belt and on the top facing of
the weapon. The gills are painted orange, and the eyes red. A tiny purple
Decepticon symbol is printed on the belt buckle.
Same articulation (or lack thereof) as other decoy armors, the hands can
hold 3mm pegs and the underside of each foot has a pair of 2mm peg holes so
that the figure can stand on larger figures. The pairs are set so that the
figure faces the same directions a *Master figure would, rather than at a
right angle to that (as on the Vector Prime/Alpha Trion toys). I think the
holes in the chest of the armor are also 2mm wide, but there's really no way
to use that for connecting things.
The hand weapon is basically the business end of a trident with no
shaft, just a 3mm peg grip. Only 36mm long total. The underside of each
tine is supported by a piece that runs perpendicular to the flat of the
trident, and they're curved so that it looks like maybe he's going to trim
your hair for you.
Decoy Armor Weapon Mode: This actually looks kind of like a speedboat,
thanks to how the head fins and the trident's supports are curved. I suppose
it's intended to be an electric blaster of some sort, or maybe a trident with
a really thick shaft. But if the Autobot-based weapon modes have unofficial
artillery piece modes, this is a boat. If you fold Alchemist Prime up into
not-a-head mode, it looks like the bridge of the boat (which is 3.25"/8.5cm
long). With the Prime Master sitting up, it's more like one of those Cobra
skimmer vehicles that sold at the lowest possible vehicle price point back in
the day. :) I just noticed that the even molded window-like details into
the small of the back of the armor to reinforce the boat thing.
Overall: I do like that they got a little clever here with the "weapon"
mode, it's definitely preferable to the Skullgrin "Um, it's a claw weapon"
mode. Although now that I'm looking for it, I see some windows on
Skullgrin's back/sides too, maybe intended to be a harrow or somesuch.
PRIME: ALPHA TRION
Assortment: E1116
Decoy Armor: Landmine
Decoy Armor Faction: Autobot
Transformation Difficulty: 3 steps
Previous Name Use
Prime: Gen
Decoy Shell: G1, Energon, Cyb, RotF
Previous Mold Use: Gen (Vector Prime)
Prime Master Ability: Infinite Knowledge
Weapon: Cannon
The French on the package has his ability as "Savoir Infini," which
immediately makes me think of "Extra Savoir Faire" from They Might Be
Giants.
Prime Master: Same mold as Vector Prime, but with a new backplate. The
blue parts are now light gray and the dark gray parts are golden yellow. The
backplate is new, and the Prime sigil is almost nine diamonds in a diamond
pattern (3 by 3), but the top diamond is stretched slightly taller than the
rest. The frame looks like a sort of rack holding the sigil, and they
definitely tried to work a little of fantasy/magic into its design. The
figure's face is (somewhat sloppily) painted golden yellow, and the diamonds
on the back are painted pinkish magenta.
If Waverider never gets released, the light colors of this figure make
it easier to dye, assuming I'd be willing to undo the hip and knee pins in
order to keep the thighs light gray.
Decoy Armor: Same mold as the Metalhawk armor, but with a new front
armor piece. The blue parts are now light gray, the dark gray parts are
golden yellow, as on the Prime Master. This is somewhat obscured by the fact
that the armor front piece is dipped in golden yellow paint (pretty good
match, just a little lighter than the plastic) before having other details
painted on it.
The new armor front is based on Landmine's G1 armor, but as with
Metalhawk and Cloudburst, they made it much more angular than the rounded G1
look. And as with wave 1 armors, the colors are a pretty good match for the
G1 version, except for the unpainted (and possibly "unpaintable plastic")
arms. A few touches of red paint on the arms and gray on the toes would
bring it the rest of the way into "compliance" with G1. There's red paint on
the kneecaps, hip flex joints, and abdomen. The helmet top and the belt are
painted medium gray. A tiny Autobot symbol is printed on the top of the
chest. There's no paint on the cannon barrel except for the #E1116 stamp.
Decoy Armor Weapon Mode: Since the armor is face down in this mode, it's
basically a yellow ang gray version of the Vector Prime weapon.
Overall: The retooled chest is a nice sharp design, making me wish the
original Pretenders had used this aesthetic for their armors. Not worth
serious hunting or paying of reseller premium, but if you see it on the pegs
for $5 it's worth picking up.
Dave Van Domelen, has some more OGRE tanks to finish painting before he
does Submarauder's new face.
Alchemist Prime/Submarauder
Alpha Trion/Landmine (Vector Prime/Metalhawk retool)
Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/MasterP2
After a rather unreasonably long delay of about six months, this wave
finally hit the regular distribution chain. Fortunately, it hit hard enough
that I felt no guilt over buying spares of both immediately for faceplate
swaps (I got a Submarauder faceplate as part of Prize Inside's first
four-pack, still waiting on Trent to release a Landmine face).
CAPSULES
$5 price point.
Alchemist Prime: Pretty good update of Submarauder, although the inner
robot is completely the wrong colors for that. Clever pseudo-vehicle mode
for the armor. Recommended.
Alpha Trion: Original mold recommended. This looks very good as an
armor, otherwise sharing the virtues and flaws of the original.
Recommended.
RANTS
Packaging: Same as wave 1, each new one has the other as a co-sell. I
think more of Liege Maximo is shipping in some cases to pad them out, but I
haven't personally seen if they're just leftovers or if they retooled Liege
Maximo's assembly. Every wave 1 figure I've seen still on the pegs alongside
wave 2 looks unaltered.
Tooling Change: Apparently they decided pins weren't the way to go, and
we're back to screwed-on backplates, which means greater ease of replacement
with custom faceplates. I don't think this requires any actual mold changes,
since the pins I've removed from my customized ones could be replaced by
screws with no modification of the torso needed...if any changes are required
it's in the backpack, not the torso. So I don't think they retooled the mold
for Alpha Trion's torso.
Annoying News: Apparently Power of the Primes has been cut short, so
among other things we may never get some of the Primes.
PRIME: ALCHEMIST PRIME
Assortment: E1115
Decoy Armor: Submarauder
Decoy Armor Faction: Decepticon
Transformation Difficulty: 3 steps
Previous Name Use
Prime: None
Decoy Shell: G1
Previous Mold Use: None
Prime Master Ability: Mystical Scientist
Weapon: Trident
Prime Master: Well, it's molded with details based on Submarauder's
inner robot from G1, but this is one case where the requirement of
gang-molding really hurts the inner robot. Submarauder was almost entirely
magenta with some dark blue, and Alchemist Prime looks like he should be Twin
Twist's Titan Master. The torso and boots are bright blue, while the rest of
the toy is very light gray. No paint on the robot, and just black paint
picking out the details of the Prime sigil.
The Prime sigil is ten circles of various sizes in a left-right
symmetric pattern that looks vaguely like spider eyes, and was probably
inspired by the ten spheres of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life (but it doesn't
actually look like the Tree). The frame has tusk-like details at the bottom
reminiscent of Megatron's battle mask from The Last Knight.
Decoy Armor: A pretty good mold update, they only had to tweak a few
things to escape the bulbous aesthetic of the origina Pretender shells.
Since he's supposed to look like a giant monster rather than a guy in armor,
more rounded bits are appropriate. The head fin has been changed to more of
a shark fin, which lets it look more like a prow in weapon mode. Weirdly,
some of the panel lines on the chest combine with the paint scheme to make it
look like he's wearing a suit coat with the sleeves torn off. There's no
opening for the face of the Prime Master to show through, and while there's
some small holes on the pecs and thighs, they're not really big enough for
you to tell if the Prime Master is inside.
Oddly, they could have gotten a lot more G1-accurate on this one than on
the others, thanks to the relative lack of paint on the original's arms and
feet. But that would have required adding a color, so they left the kneecaps
unpainted, extended to dark blue of the chest down along the sides, and left
off the details on the thighs (and the unpainted arms).
Stands a bit taller than other armors thanks to the fin, at 2.5"
(6.5cm). The arms, armor front, and weapon are light gray plastic. The back
and handle are bright blue plastic. The front of the armor front is painted
almost entirely in bright blue, aside from the kneecaps. There's purplish
blue on the "suit coat" parts, magenta on the belt and on the top facing of
the weapon. The gills are painted orange, and the eyes red. A tiny purple
Decepticon symbol is printed on the belt buckle.
Same articulation (or lack thereof) as other decoy armors, the hands can
hold 3mm pegs and the underside of each foot has a pair of 2mm peg holes so
that the figure can stand on larger figures. The pairs are set so that the
figure faces the same directions a *Master figure would, rather than at a
right angle to that (as on the Vector Prime/Alpha Trion toys). I think the
holes in the chest of the armor are also 2mm wide, but there's really no way
to use that for connecting things.
The hand weapon is basically the business end of a trident with no
shaft, just a 3mm peg grip. Only 36mm long total. The underside of each
tine is supported by a piece that runs perpendicular to the flat of the
trident, and they're curved so that it looks like maybe he's going to trim
your hair for you.
Decoy Armor Weapon Mode: This actually looks kind of like a speedboat,
thanks to how the head fins and the trident's supports are curved. I suppose
it's intended to be an electric blaster of some sort, or maybe a trident with
a really thick shaft. But if the Autobot-based weapon modes have unofficial
artillery piece modes, this is a boat. If you fold Alchemist Prime up into
not-a-head mode, it looks like the bridge of the boat (which is 3.25"/8.5cm
long). With the Prime Master sitting up, it's more like one of those Cobra
skimmer vehicles that sold at the lowest possible vehicle price point back in
the day. :) I just noticed that the even molded window-like details into
the small of the back of the armor to reinforce the boat thing.
Overall: I do like that they got a little clever here with the "weapon"
mode, it's definitely preferable to the Skullgrin "Um, it's a claw weapon"
mode. Although now that I'm looking for it, I see some windows on
Skullgrin's back/sides too, maybe intended to be a harrow or somesuch.
PRIME: ALPHA TRION
Assortment: E1116
Decoy Armor: Landmine
Decoy Armor Faction: Autobot
Transformation Difficulty: 3 steps
Previous Name Use
Prime: Gen
Decoy Shell: G1, Energon, Cyb, RotF
Previous Mold Use: Gen (Vector Prime)
Prime Master Ability: Infinite Knowledge
Weapon: Cannon
The French on the package has his ability as "Savoir Infini," which
immediately makes me think of "Extra Savoir Faire" from They Might Be
Giants.
Prime Master: Same mold as Vector Prime, but with a new backplate. The
blue parts are now light gray and the dark gray parts are golden yellow. The
backplate is new, and the Prime sigil is almost nine diamonds in a diamond
pattern (3 by 3), but the top diamond is stretched slightly taller than the
rest. The frame looks like a sort of rack holding the sigil, and they
definitely tried to work a little of fantasy/magic into its design. The
figure's face is (somewhat sloppily) painted golden yellow, and the diamonds
on the back are painted pinkish magenta.
If Waverider never gets released, the light colors of this figure make
it easier to dye, assuming I'd be willing to undo the hip and knee pins in
order to keep the thighs light gray.
Decoy Armor: Same mold as the Metalhawk armor, but with a new front
armor piece. The blue parts are now light gray, the dark gray parts are
golden yellow, as on the Prime Master. This is somewhat obscured by the fact
that the armor front piece is dipped in golden yellow paint (pretty good
match, just a little lighter than the plastic) before having other details
painted on it.
The new armor front is based on Landmine's G1 armor, but as with
Metalhawk and Cloudburst, they made it much more angular than the rounded G1
look. And as with wave 1 armors, the colors are a pretty good match for the
G1 version, except for the unpainted (and possibly "unpaintable plastic")
arms. A few touches of red paint on the arms and gray on the toes would
bring it the rest of the way into "compliance" with G1. There's red paint on
the kneecaps, hip flex joints, and abdomen. The helmet top and the belt are
painted medium gray. A tiny Autobot symbol is printed on the top of the
chest. There's no paint on the cannon barrel except for the #E1116 stamp.
Decoy Armor Weapon Mode: Since the armor is face down in this mode, it's
basically a yellow ang gray version of the Vector Prime weapon.
Overall: The retooled chest is a nice sharp design, making me wish the
original Pretenders had used this aesthetic for their armors. Not worth
serious hunting or paying of reseller premium, but if you see it on the pegs
for $5 it's worth picking up.
Dave Van Domelen, has some more OGRE tanks to finish painting before he
does Submarauder's new face.
Travoltron
Jul 7, 2018, 12:15:15 PM7/7/18
to
On 6/18/2018 11:01 PM, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
> (I got a Submarauder faceplate as part of Prize Inside's first
> four-pack, still waiting on Trent to release a Landmine face).
What are these and how do they work?
> (I got a Submarauder faceplate as part of Prize Inside's first
> four-pack, still waiting on Trent to release a Landmine face).
Zobovor
Jul 7, 2018, 1:29:53 PM7/7/18
to
On Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 10:15:15 AM UTC-6, Travoltron wrote:
> What are these and how do they work?
https://www.shapeways.com/product/J8AMRWXKC/prime-master-pretenders-set-1
> What are these and how do they work?
Replacement parts that can convert Prime Masters into Titan Masters, basically. You would have to figure out how to disassemble the toys, and you would need to paint the replacement faces.
Zob (has enough projects to work on as it is)
Travoltron
Jul 7, 2018, 1:49:53 PM7/7/18
to
That's really cool. It's seen another seller with products like these:
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/steamshield
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/steamshield
Dave Van Domelen
Jul 7, 2018, 2:25:11 PM7/7/18
to
http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/quickbash.html#shapeways has a bunch of
Trent's faceplates, including the four Titan Masters I've done faces for
(still no Landmine faceplate available).
Dave Van Domelen, just dyed the spare Submarauder armor black because he
has a local friend who wants to do black armors for his....
Trent's faceplates, including the four Titan Masters I've done faces for
(still no Landmine faceplate available).
Dave Van Domelen, just dyed the spare Submarauder armor black because he
has a local friend who wants to do black armors for his....
Zobovor
Jul 7, 2018, 3:28:45 PM7/7/18
to
On Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 11:49:53 AM UTC-6, Travoltron wrote:
> That's really cool. It's seen another seller with products like these:
> https://www.shapeways.com/shops/steamshield
I love the lengths they go to in order to avoid stepping on Hasbro trademarks. You could almost make a game out of guessing which characters they're alluding to. Foulmouthed Comedian! Psychotic Gunner! Hollywood Mechanic!
> That's really cool. It's seen another seller with products like these:
> https://www.shapeways.com/shops/steamshield
Zob (Space Bus!)
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