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Iron Factory Spirits of the DEC (3rd party DJD)
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Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People.
Dec 27, 2019, 1:59:20 PM12/27/19
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So my holiday haul includes my birthday since they are so close together. It sucks when you get combined gifts.
Anyway the start of the saga, I saw while browsing the Facebook marketplace one of the local guys who I bought TR Overlord for at $10 (after he found on Walmart clearance for $9) was selling Iron Factory Spirits of the D.E.C. IF-EX31 Dubhe for $35. Well I contacted him about it, and we were trying to set up a time to meet as I didn't want him to ship it and have it be yet another package stolen off the front porch like so many others.
But then later that week before the supposed meeting I found Dubhe at the local store whose inventory I manage. It was from the same guy. He sold everything that he had listed on FB to the guys at the shop. But then he also sold it on Facebook. He came back to the shop and reclaimed a good portion of it. That pissed everyone at the shop off, but he forgot to reclaim Dubhe. The shop sold it to me at $25, using cash they paid me anyway. So it was unsealed. But Iron Factory is never sealed, and nobody had opened the clamshell inside the box before me.
Anyway the reason I wanted Dubhe was because he is the 3rd party Tarn figure I can afford. The larger version is $400 I cannot justify getting. The Flame Toys official Tarn doesn't transform. I became enamored by Tarn when one of the vendors at TF Expo was 3D printing Tarn masks. She taught me the gospel of the DJD story (not really a gospel, just good storytelling)
Just a little background before the rest of the story.
The DJD is the Decepticon Justice Division from the IDW comics. They are a team of Decepticons that are officially a branch of Decepticon government forces but unofficially Megatron's personal bounty hunter enforcer's squad, going after whomever Megatron dictates needs punishment. Tarn attempted suicide when he heard Megatron had betrayed the Decepticon cause.
Well the DJD will likely never get official toys, despite being super popular among comics fans, because they're quite twisted and cruel.
The DJD members once recruited use code-names of the first 5 cities the Decepticons conquered in the Great War. Members of the DJD are:
Tarn, the leader
Helex, the muscle
Kaon, communications officer
Tesarus, more muscle
Vos, the sniper
Agent 113, the previous Vos who had been lobotomized and turned into Kaon's pet.
Nickel - Medic
Agent 113 and Nickel are more support roles than official members, so they break the codename scheme, and aren't part of the combiner.
Anyway Iron Factory is known for making high quality but tiny bots, they are all legends scale. Sure Iron Factory makes a ton of legends scale G1 characters, but these were characters I had no representation of.
So Iron Factory made Spirits of the D.E.C, or Decepticon Enforcement Corps.
Tarn became IF-EX31 Dubhe
Vos became IF-EX32 Phecda
Kaon became IF-EX33 Mizar
Helex became IF-EX34 Alkaid (who I am still seeking)
Tesarus became IF-EX35 Merak
I didn't intend to collect more than Dubhe, as he was the leader and had a really cool looking robot mode (very Cybertronian, would have made a great Siege figure) but then I saw there was a giant mode, or a combined mode, and I'm a sucker for combiners. I have no idea if the combined mode is canon or not but I do not care. My christmas list was 40 things for my family not to get me and then 2 items on BBTS for them to buy me. I was pretty happy with the results. I got food, some Whiteclaw (not a fan) from my brother, an Darth Vader/Maury shirt, and $320 which will go to paying bills.
So for the individual bots:
IF-EX31 Dubhe (Tarn) - Formerly Damus/Glitch
He's a few inches tall, his robot mode has giant treads for his inner and outer shoulders, with 2 moveable gun turrets sticking up over his shoulders and a large arm mounted double barrel cannon, with each barrel intentionally offset so they don't line up. All of them come with closed hands equipped and other hands in their boxes, like a Gundam figure would. He has grasping hands and open hands as options. Tarn is famous in the comics for having a face that looks like the Decepticon symbol, which is later revealed to be a mask to hide his scarred face. The mask here is great looking but tiny. It's the smallest transforming robot accessory I can think of right now. Smaller than my smallest fingernail. It fits on securely and can be removed to show his scarred face underneath which is also very well sculpted. you can loosely put the mask in his open hand and it stays there OK. I left the closed fists on because they look best in vehicle mode. He is mostly purple, dark grey, black, with white hips and lower arms.
He is very agile, he has 6 ball joints which are frighteningly stiff when you first get him. He has ball joint hips, shoulders, and elbows, but the shoulders have extra joints. He has a waist, triple jointed knees, double jointed elbows, ankles, swivel wrists, full head articulation and a waist swivel.
His transformation is very detailed, as my first Iron Factory toy I noticed there are extra important steps. His crotchplate is designed to fall off to prevent damage if you attempt to transform him in the wrong order. You have to rotate his waist so his legs are backwards, then rotate his hips so his legs are forwards but on opposite sides. Then you fold his chestplate up 90 degrees, open the inner shoulder treads on his torso, so you can swing the outer shoulders on his arms down to his waist, his arms connected by very thin very tiny little plastic bars that look very delicate, and then close the treads. Then you have to position his shoulder guns up, open up his backpack by splaying it out to the sides. Then you flip the chstplate up over his head. You fold the toes to the backpack engaging 2 of his 3 knee joints, and you fold the handle out of his gun and plug his ankles into the gun handle (the handle only used for vehicle mode because a 5mm port is used to attach it to his arm in robot mode) and then you ttach his forearms to the outer ankles when you rotate the forearms out of the way of the treads. Then you flip the shoulder treads out to have the back half plug into the knees to finish his tank mode. He's about the size of a scout class car in this mode, which is keeping his big self in scale with legends figures.
He has no moving wheels or anything, he just slides along on his now 4 unmoving tank treads, you can't do much in the way of vehicle articulation beyond angling the guns. But he looks really good. This would have been a great Siege toy.
Tarn folds up to form the center/upper inner torso.
Of course Tarn's preferred method of torture/execution is poetry, and his special vocal processor is designed to make his poetry as unpleasant as possible. I think there was something in Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy about the first and second worst, and I think Tarn is trying to compete.
IF-EX32 Phecda (Vos) - formerly Forestock
IF-EX32 Phecda and IF-EX33 Mizar come boxed as a set, as the smallest members of the DJD. Their box also contains the combined head/interior-shoulders/chestplate, the combined feet, part of the combiner gun, and an "upgrade set" for IF-EX31 Dubhe, containing a new set of arms and a spare mask. So the "upgrade set" appears to just reverse the orientation of the bars connecting the arms, perhaps fixing an assembly error?
So Vos the smallest of the DJD/DEC troops. He's a sniper. His toy uses ball joints more liberally and he looks the most fragile. I've already got some stress marks on his weapon after 1 day.
He has a bunch of hands, comes equipped with closed hands, but has grasping hands, open hands, and a special hand containing his face, because the character in-comic likes to remove his face and force others to wear it while it grinds off their own face. He has a head with a faceplate and one without, but no faceless head as far as I can see. I guess you could just leave the faceplate off when swapping heads but then the back of the head would fall off too if it's not screwed to a face. I decided to equip his grasping hands as he holds something in his every mode. He's almost exclusively dark blue with white details on his arms and thighs, grey crotch, and some small gold and silver detailing on his chest and faces.
He has ball joint ankles, ball joint knees as 1 of his 2 ankle joints, ball jointed hips as one part of a universal hip joint, ball jointed shoulders and elbows as well as ball joints in his shoulder guns which flip down next to his head. he also has ankle, toe, bicep, wrist, and waist swivels as well as a full motion neck. His rifle attaches to his backpack and has a tripod built-in. He can hold it by a 3mm peg handle.
So his transformation is just as finicky as Tarn, possibly slightly more so. First you have to rotate his upper thighs 180. It looks like it shouldn't do anything but it positions the knees correctly. Then you have to pull his backpack out, which is really awkward as it's attached behind the waist but pegged in the mid torso. His entire middle torso is taken up bu backpack. It's on a very thin little arm with a hook. I have a feeling they left this hook open because it probably broke too easily if it were a permanently attached loop. The backpack unfolds to have a stand, and then the shoulder cannons fold together into one, and their assembly is passed through the thigh gap to cover over the chest in a manner similar to CW Hot-Spot's ladder. The head folds back into the space the backpack left in the torso, the arms are swung backwards and grip onto handlebars on the shoulders, the rifle pegs into the peg revealed bu flipping the head back and the shoulders and forearms fold up next to the rifle. Pegging the rifle in got stress marks on the base of the rifle for mine. It will not sit securely but the arms hold the rifle in. now you connect the legs together and you have his finished mode.
Vos is a sniper rifle. He's a gunner, a sniper, and a sniper rifle. He is used by Megatron and Tarn in the comics, but here he sits on his handle and the rifle tripod and he's a sniper rifle. He's one of the weapons of the combined mode.
IF-EX33 Mizar (Kaon) - Formerly Amp
So packaged with Phecda is Mizar, Mizar is mostly red and white, with treads for lower legs, silver Tesla coils on his shoulders, and a black and gold turbine on his chest. In the comics his former name was Amp, which is fitting too.
Mot of his alt mode is on his back so he's got a decent sized backpack. He's got ball joint ankles, hips, and elbows, but he also has articulated toes, heels, other ankle joints, multiple knee and hip joints, many elbow joints, shoulders, the coils are on swivels, and he has a full motion head. I left the closed fists on because he doesn't hold anything in either mode.
To transform him rotate out his thighs 90 degrees, fold his ankles forward, unfold his knee tread, then rotate the back of his treads around 180 degrees. Fold his feet up on top of the treads. Then you unfold he backpack by opening the claws, folding the outer flap up, then folding the lower flaps down, pegging the pegs into the treads. The white flaps fold in to form armrests and you're done.
Now he's an electric chair with a footrest, armrests, a white skullcap and silver claws to prevent escape. Now his shoulder Tesla Coils and the generator on his chest makes sense. Guess what his favored method of torture is?
This might be my favorite one. Most Scout or Legends toys fit in the chair, assuming they are capable of sitting. He's a bit large for a number of Legends toys.
He reminds me of a cross between Perceptor and Prime Knock-out, he's red and white, he has an alt mode that puts treads on his legs, and he likes to "play" with other bots.
He combines with the cannon included to form an arm mounted gun on the combiner.
IF-EX34 Alkaid (Helex) - Formerly Crucible
So all the online retailers I normally shop with and trust are sold out of Alkaid. Some have gone to pre-ordering but the only place he seems in stock is through sketchy places on ebay.
Helex/Alkaid is bigger than the above, he's mostly dark blue and he's got an extra set of arms at his waist. He forms a tank with a door in the middle, his method of torture is to put other bots inside him and trap them there, giving them a sense of claustrophobia. Then he can increase the temperature to melt his captive. His name pre-DJD was Crucible, which is fitting.
He breaks apart to form the combiner's shins and forearms, I hope to find him soon.
IF-EX35 Merak (Tesarus) - formerly Scissorjaw
So he's pretty big. About as big as a TR Voyager toy, and he's got some heft to him. He's mostly tan with red forearms, knees, toes, and a red X across his robot face. He's got white hips and grey treads on his shoulders and silver blades in his grinder. He's got shoulder, elbow, knee, toe, heel, wrist, waist and head articulation, as well as 2 gripper claws that come from his back over his shoulders. They each have 3 articulated fingers as well as 2 joints mid-arm. He also has a rocket pod mounded behind his head.
He again has multiple fists, but these fists go to the arms he doesn't really use and the closed fists look best for vehicle mode.
His vehicle transformation is largely to lay him down and form his treads. You have to rotate his thighs, reversing his feet, his toes pop out and rotate around to become the front of the tank, while the heels fold down to become cannons. The instructions omit the kneecaps need to be slid down, so it took me forever to get the tank to sit flat before knowing that. The back of the knees have little locks, when you pull them out the thighs slide into the shins, there are 3 positions for the locks and the middle position is for vehicle mode. Now the forearms fold up and rotate around allowing you to unhinge and rotate the treads off of his shoulders and to form whole treads on the sides of the tank. Part of the tread remains out of the tread, they decided to go for the look of the tread in robot mode over the vehicle mode. The missile box comes forward to cover the head, and small treads on his back rotate 90 degrees to turn the back into treads under the tank.
So now the grinder that was his chest is in the middle of a tank, and his gripper arms are ready to capture prey and feed it into his grinder ring. This character's favorite mode of torture is to slowly lower bots into his grinder feet-first. In the comics he killed Flywheels for treason.
His combined form is the outer shoulders, upper legs, and lower torso of the combiner. His grinder ring and tread arms as well as his legs have a bunch of joints that are only used for combiner mode. His tank instructions have 20 steps. His combined mode instructions have 35 steps.
So he's a behemoth by himself. his combined mode is sure to be bout the size of a G1 combiner. I'll probably rewrite the whole write up when I finish the combiner. Right now if I attempted to make him he'd have stubby legs and baby hands.
I really enjoy this team over all. They have a lot of character development and all of them have really interesting modes. It's the extreme of the cult of personalities the Transformers mythos gives us.
This was a good holiday.
Anyway the start of the saga, I saw while browsing the Facebook marketplace one of the local guys who I bought TR Overlord for at $10 (after he found on Walmart clearance for $9) was selling Iron Factory Spirits of the D.E.C. IF-EX31 Dubhe for $35. Well I contacted him about it, and we were trying to set up a time to meet as I didn't want him to ship it and have it be yet another package stolen off the front porch like so many others.
But then later that week before the supposed meeting I found Dubhe at the local store whose inventory I manage. It was from the same guy. He sold everything that he had listed on FB to the guys at the shop. But then he also sold it on Facebook. He came back to the shop and reclaimed a good portion of it. That pissed everyone at the shop off, but he forgot to reclaim Dubhe. The shop sold it to me at $25, using cash they paid me anyway. So it was unsealed. But Iron Factory is never sealed, and nobody had opened the clamshell inside the box before me.
Anyway the reason I wanted Dubhe was because he is the 3rd party Tarn figure I can afford. The larger version is $400 I cannot justify getting. The Flame Toys official Tarn doesn't transform. I became enamored by Tarn when one of the vendors at TF Expo was 3D printing Tarn masks. She taught me the gospel of the DJD story (not really a gospel, just good storytelling)
Just a little background before the rest of the story.
The DJD is the Decepticon Justice Division from the IDW comics. They are a team of Decepticons that are officially a branch of Decepticon government forces but unofficially Megatron's personal bounty hunter enforcer's squad, going after whomever Megatron dictates needs punishment. Tarn attempted suicide when he heard Megatron had betrayed the Decepticon cause.
Well the DJD will likely never get official toys, despite being super popular among comics fans, because they're quite twisted and cruel.
The DJD members once recruited use code-names of the first 5 cities the Decepticons conquered in the Great War. Members of the DJD are:
Tarn, the leader
Helex, the muscle
Kaon, communications officer
Tesarus, more muscle
Vos, the sniper
Agent 113, the previous Vos who had been lobotomized and turned into Kaon's pet.
Nickel - Medic
Agent 113 and Nickel are more support roles than official members, so they break the codename scheme, and aren't part of the combiner.
Anyway Iron Factory is known for making high quality but tiny bots, they are all legends scale. Sure Iron Factory makes a ton of legends scale G1 characters, but these were characters I had no representation of.
So Iron Factory made Spirits of the D.E.C, or Decepticon Enforcement Corps.
Tarn became IF-EX31 Dubhe
Vos became IF-EX32 Phecda
Kaon became IF-EX33 Mizar
Helex became IF-EX34 Alkaid (who I am still seeking)
Tesarus became IF-EX35 Merak
I didn't intend to collect more than Dubhe, as he was the leader and had a really cool looking robot mode (very Cybertronian, would have made a great Siege figure) but then I saw there was a giant mode, or a combined mode, and I'm a sucker for combiners. I have no idea if the combined mode is canon or not but I do not care. My christmas list was 40 things for my family not to get me and then 2 items on BBTS for them to buy me. I was pretty happy with the results. I got food, some Whiteclaw (not a fan) from my brother, an Darth Vader/Maury shirt, and $320 which will go to paying bills.
So for the individual bots:
IF-EX31 Dubhe (Tarn) - Formerly Damus/Glitch
He's a few inches tall, his robot mode has giant treads for his inner and outer shoulders, with 2 moveable gun turrets sticking up over his shoulders and a large arm mounted double barrel cannon, with each barrel intentionally offset so they don't line up. All of them come with closed hands equipped and other hands in their boxes, like a Gundam figure would. He has grasping hands and open hands as options. Tarn is famous in the comics for having a face that looks like the Decepticon symbol, which is later revealed to be a mask to hide his scarred face. The mask here is great looking but tiny. It's the smallest transforming robot accessory I can think of right now. Smaller than my smallest fingernail. It fits on securely and can be removed to show his scarred face underneath which is also very well sculpted. you can loosely put the mask in his open hand and it stays there OK. I left the closed fists on because they look best in vehicle mode. He is mostly purple, dark grey, black, with white hips and lower arms.
He is very agile, he has 6 ball joints which are frighteningly stiff when you first get him. He has ball joint hips, shoulders, and elbows, but the shoulders have extra joints. He has a waist, triple jointed knees, double jointed elbows, ankles, swivel wrists, full head articulation and a waist swivel.
His transformation is very detailed, as my first Iron Factory toy I noticed there are extra important steps. His crotchplate is designed to fall off to prevent damage if you attempt to transform him in the wrong order. You have to rotate his waist so his legs are backwards, then rotate his hips so his legs are forwards but on opposite sides. Then you fold his chestplate up 90 degrees, open the inner shoulder treads on his torso, so you can swing the outer shoulders on his arms down to his waist, his arms connected by very thin very tiny little plastic bars that look very delicate, and then close the treads. Then you have to position his shoulder guns up, open up his backpack by splaying it out to the sides. Then you flip the chstplate up over his head. You fold the toes to the backpack engaging 2 of his 3 knee joints, and you fold the handle out of his gun and plug his ankles into the gun handle (the handle only used for vehicle mode because a 5mm port is used to attach it to his arm in robot mode) and then you ttach his forearms to the outer ankles when you rotate the forearms out of the way of the treads. Then you flip the shoulder treads out to have the back half plug into the knees to finish his tank mode. He's about the size of a scout class car in this mode, which is keeping his big self in scale with legends figures.
He has no moving wheels or anything, he just slides along on his now 4 unmoving tank treads, you can't do much in the way of vehicle articulation beyond angling the guns. But he looks really good. This would have been a great Siege toy.
Tarn folds up to form the center/upper inner torso.
Of course Tarn's preferred method of torture/execution is poetry, and his special vocal processor is designed to make his poetry as unpleasant as possible. I think there was something in Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy about the first and second worst, and I think Tarn is trying to compete.
IF-EX32 Phecda (Vos) - formerly Forestock
IF-EX32 Phecda and IF-EX33 Mizar come boxed as a set, as the smallest members of the DJD. Their box also contains the combined head/interior-shoulders/chestplate, the combined feet, part of the combiner gun, and an "upgrade set" for IF-EX31 Dubhe, containing a new set of arms and a spare mask. So the "upgrade set" appears to just reverse the orientation of the bars connecting the arms, perhaps fixing an assembly error?
So Vos the smallest of the DJD/DEC troops. He's a sniper. His toy uses ball joints more liberally and he looks the most fragile. I've already got some stress marks on his weapon after 1 day.
He has a bunch of hands, comes equipped with closed hands, but has grasping hands, open hands, and a special hand containing his face, because the character in-comic likes to remove his face and force others to wear it while it grinds off their own face. He has a head with a faceplate and one without, but no faceless head as far as I can see. I guess you could just leave the faceplate off when swapping heads but then the back of the head would fall off too if it's not screwed to a face. I decided to equip his grasping hands as he holds something in his every mode. He's almost exclusively dark blue with white details on his arms and thighs, grey crotch, and some small gold and silver detailing on his chest and faces.
He has ball joint ankles, ball joint knees as 1 of his 2 ankle joints, ball jointed hips as one part of a universal hip joint, ball jointed shoulders and elbows as well as ball joints in his shoulder guns which flip down next to his head. he also has ankle, toe, bicep, wrist, and waist swivels as well as a full motion neck. His rifle attaches to his backpack and has a tripod built-in. He can hold it by a 3mm peg handle.
So his transformation is just as finicky as Tarn, possibly slightly more so. First you have to rotate his upper thighs 180. It looks like it shouldn't do anything but it positions the knees correctly. Then you have to pull his backpack out, which is really awkward as it's attached behind the waist but pegged in the mid torso. His entire middle torso is taken up bu backpack. It's on a very thin little arm with a hook. I have a feeling they left this hook open because it probably broke too easily if it were a permanently attached loop. The backpack unfolds to have a stand, and then the shoulder cannons fold together into one, and their assembly is passed through the thigh gap to cover over the chest in a manner similar to CW Hot-Spot's ladder. The head folds back into the space the backpack left in the torso, the arms are swung backwards and grip onto handlebars on the shoulders, the rifle pegs into the peg revealed bu flipping the head back and the shoulders and forearms fold up next to the rifle. Pegging the rifle in got stress marks on the base of the rifle for mine. It will not sit securely but the arms hold the rifle in. now you connect the legs together and you have his finished mode.
Vos is a sniper rifle. He's a gunner, a sniper, and a sniper rifle. He is used by Megatron and Tarn in the comics, but here he sits on his handle and the rifle tripod and he's a sniper rifle. He's one of the weapons of the combined mode.
IF-EX33 Mizar (Kaon) - Formerly Amp
So packaged with Phecda is Mizar, Mizar is mostly red and white, with treads for lower legs, silver Tesla coils on his shoulders, and a black and gold turbine on his chest. In the comics his former name was Amp, which is fitting too.
Mot of his alt mode is on his back so he's got a decent sized backpack. He's got ball joint ankles, hips, and elbows, but he also has articulated toes, heels, other ankle joints, multiple knee and hip joints, many elbow joints, shoulders, the coils are on swivels, and he has a full motion head. I left the closed fists on because he doesn't hold anything in either mode.
To transform him rotate out his thighs 90 degrees, fold his ankles forward, unfold his knee tread, then rotate the back of his treads around 180 degrees. Fold his feet up on top of the treads. Then you unfold he backpack by opening the claws, folding the outer flap up, then folding the lower flaps down, pegging the pegs into the treads. The white flaps fold in to form armrests and you're done.
Now he's an electric chair with a footrest, armrests, a white skullcap and silver claws to prevent escape. Now his shoulder Tesla Coils and the generator on his chest makes sense. Guess what his favored method of torture is?
This might be my favorite one. Most Scout or Legends toys fit in the chair, assuming they are capable of sitting. He's a bit large for a number of Legends toys.
He reminds me of a cross between Perceptor and Prime Knock-out, he's red and white, he has an alt mode that puts treads on his legs, and he likes to "play" with other bots.
He combines with the cannon included to form an arm mounted gun on the combiner.
IF-EX34 Alkaid (Helex) - Formerly Crucible
So all the online retailers I normally shop with and trust are sold out of Alkaid. Some have gone to pre-ordering but the only place he seems in stock is through sketchy places on ebay.
Helex/Alkaid is bigger than the above, he's mostly dark blue and he's got an extra set of arms at his waist. He forms a tank with a door in the middle, his method of torture is to put other bots inside him and trap them there, giving them a sense of claustrophobia. Then he can increase the temperature to melt his captive. His name pre-DJD was Crucible, which is fitting.
He breaks apart to form the combiner's shins and forearms, I hope to find him soon.
IF-EX35 Merak (Tesarus) - formerly Scissorjaw
So he's pretty big. About as big as a TR Voyager toy, and he's got some heft to him. He's mostly tan with red forearms, knees, toes, and a red X across his robot face. He's got white hips and grey treads on his shoulders and silver blades in his grinder. He's got shoulder, elbow, knee, toe, heel, wrist, waist and head articulation, as well as 2 gripper claws that come from his back over his shoulders. They each have 3 articulated fingers as well as 2 joints mid-arm. He also has a rocket pod mounded behind his head.
He again has multiple fists, but these fists go to the arms he doesn't really use and the closed fists look best for vehicle mode.
His vehicle transformation is largely to lay him down and form his treads. You have to rotate his thighs, reversing his feet, his toes pop out and rotate around to become the front of the tank, while the heels fold down to become cannons. The instructions omit the kneecaps need to be slid down, so it took me forever to get the tank to sit flat before knowing that. The back of the knees have little locks, when you pull them out the thighs slide into the shins, there are 3 positions for the locks and the middle position is for vehicle mode. Now the forearms fold up and rotate around allowing you to unhinge and rotate the treads off of his shoulders and to form whole treads on the sides of the tank. Part of the tread remains out of the tread, they decided to go for the look of the tread in robot mode over the vehicle mode. The missile box comes forward to cover the head, and small treads on his back rotate 90 degrees to turn the back into treads under the tank.
So now the grinder that was his chest is in the middle of a tank, and his gripper arms are ready to capture prey and feed it into his grinder ring. This character's favorite mode of torture is to slowly lower bots into his grinder feet-first. In the comics he killed Flywheels for treason.
His combined form is the outer shoulders, upper legs, and lower torso of the combiner. His grinder ring and tread arms as well as his legs have a bunch of joints that are only used for combiner mode. His tank instructions have 20 steps. His combined mode instructions have 35 steps.
So he's a behemoth by himself. his combined mode is sure to be bout the size of a G1 combiner. I'll probably rewrite the whole write up when I finish the combiner. Right now if I attempted to make him he'd have stubby legs and baby hands.
I really enjoy this team over all. They have a lot of character development and all of them have really interesting modes. It's the extreme of the cult of personalities the Transformers mythos gives us.
This was a good holiday.
Zobovor
Dec 27, 2019, 10:56:48 PM12/27/19
to
On Friday, December 27, 2019 at 11:59:20 AM UTC-7, Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People. wrote:
> Tarn became IF-EX31 Dubhe
> Vos became IF-EX32 Phecda
> Kaon became IF-EX33 Mizar
> Helex became IF-EX34 Alkaid (who I am still seeking)
> Tesarus became IF-EX35 Merak
I know absolutely nothing about these guys, so I poked around online and did some research.
> Tarn became IF-EX31 Dubhe
> Vos became IF-EX32 Phecda
> Kaon became IF-EX33 Mizar
> Helex became IF-EX34 Alkaid (who I am still seeking)
> Tesarus became IF-EX35 Merak
I'm not sure how I feel about Tarn literally having a Decepticon symbol for a face. That seems like an answer to a question that literally nobody was asking. I mean, everybody knows that the Decepticon symbol is a stylized representation of Soundwave's face. So, to pretend that the symbol really came from another character is a little contentious, I think.
I can't believe there's a Transformers character who turns into an electric chair. Yeah, good luck convincing Hasbro to make THAT into a toy. Maybe put some swastikas on the sides, just for fun. Go big or go home, I always say.
The large hole in the center of Merak's chest really bothers me. It reminds me a little of the Revenge of the Fallen version of Devastator, with that big, gaping mouth.
Good luck to you in finding Alkaid for a reasonable price. You'll have to let us know what you think of the combiner form once you've collected them all.
Zob (worked one overnight shift and now I'm gonna be messed up for the next week...)
Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People.
Dec 27, 2019, 11:19:45 PM12/27/19
to
On Friday, December 27, 2019 at 9:56:48 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
> On Friday, December 27, 2019 at 11:59:20 AM UTC-7, Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People. wrote:
>
> > Tarn became IF-EX31 Dubhe
> > Vos became IF-EX32 Phecda
> > Kaon became IF-EX33 Mizar
> > Helex became IF-EX34 Alkaid (who I am still seeking)
> > Tesarus became IF-EX35 Merak
>
> I know absolutely nothing about these guys, so I poked around online and did some research.
>
> I'm not sure how I feel about Tarn literally having a Decepticon symbol for a face. That seems like an answer to a question that literally nobody was asking. I mean, everybody knows that the Decepticon symbol is a stylized representation of Soundwave's face. So, to pretend that the symbol really came from another character is a little contentious, I think.
>
He wears the Decepticon symbol mask because he sees himself as the embodiment of the Decepticon government's will. Bots in the comics thought it was his literal face but it isn't. Although like Soundwave, his real power is in his voice.
> On Friday, December 27, 2019 at 11:59:20 AM UTC-7, Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People. wrote:
>
> > Tarn became IF-EX31 Dubhe
> > Vos became IF-EX32 Phecda
> > Kaon became IF-EX33 Mizar
> > Helex became IF-EX34 Alkaid (who I am still seeking)
> > Tesarus became IF-EX35 Merak
>
> I know absolutely nothing about these guys, so I poked around online and did some research.
>
> I'm not sure how I feel about Tarn literally having a Decepticon symbol for a face. That seems like an answer to a question that literally nobody was asking. I mean, everybody knows that the Decepticon symbol is a stylized representation of Soundwave's face. So, to pretend that the symbol really came from another character is a little contentious, I think.
>
> I can't believe there's a Transformers character who turns into an electric chair. Yeah, good luck convincing Hasbro to make THAT into a toy. Maybe put some swastikas on the sides, just for fun. Go big or go home, I always say.
>
> The large hole in the center of Merak's chest really bothers me. It reminds me a little of the Revenge of the Fallen version of Devastator, with that big, gaping mouth.
>
> Good luck to you in finding Alkaid for a reasonable price. You'll have to let us know what you think of the combiner form once you've collected them all.
>
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