Post by Philip Ayres on Oct 9, 2017 11:03:32 GMT
Chaos on Velocitron Rodimus Prime
I'm not sure I quite see the point of the Titanmaster in the Choas on Velocitron set.
He's named Rodimus Prime so I'm guessing he's meant to be used to upgrade your Titans Return Hot Rod to Rodimus Prime. Fair enough, but Hot Rod's Head and Rodimus Prime's Head are virtually identical. The most major differences between the two on the toys here is the crest is segmented in two on Hot Rod while Rodimus Prime's is one single crest slatted and that Rodimus Prime has some purple paint on him. If there was a real, discernible difference, like between Bumblebee's toy and comic/cartoon heads or between Bumblebee & Goldbug's heads I could understand it. But the difference here is slight.
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Deluxe Hot Rod's Titanmaster Firedrive is a plain grey colour in robot mode. In robot mode the Rodimus Prime Titanmaster is coloured to look much more like Hot Rod, in a similar way to how Titanmaster Brawn, Blaster's Titanmaster Twincast Galvatron's Titanmaster Nucleon look like larger characters. Lower legs are painted black, upper legs are moulded orange and arms & head are moulded red. All these parts are inherited from Ptero, with all the detailing intact.
The chest, and the plate for the face are both new and are die-cast, a first for a Titanmaster. I don't think the die cast pieces really work here: for a start they're giving the Titanmaster robot a heavy backpack which will inevitably unbalance the figure. The paintwork is fine from the front but the back of the face, exposed when he lifts his arms, is unpainted. The edge between the two sides is very obvious when looking at the front of the robot. The design of the chest isn't really screaming Hot Rod or Rodimus Prime at me but the colours are doing their very best to make up for it. The Die Cast is obviously a big thing, not many Transformers have it now, I was expecting a big flash near the picture of the Titanmaster saying something like "Featuring Die Cast Parts!!!!" or similar, but the callouts on the top & front are very restrained and there's nothing on the back.
The List of Titanmasters found on the Trypticon Cereal Box lists his power as "Ultimate Speed Boost", which matches the Speed Tech Spec quadrant highlighted on the packaging which is believed to be the original name for this set. I can get the association between Hot Rod and Speed, but less so Rodimus Prime.
I suppose Rodimus Prime can serve as Fastclash's driver in the Chaos on Velocitron set, that intention would seem to be followed up in Seige on Cybertron where Pounce is likewise packaged with a Decepticon Titanmaster, Thunderwing, who is a repaint of Rodimus Prime with a new head. Yes it adds something to the set but I can't help feeling that it's place would have been better filled by weapons for Fastclash or an all plastic Titanmaster with it's accessory.
Siege on Cybertron Thunderwing
Siege on Cybertron's Titanmaster Thunderwing uses the same die cast metal chest as Rodimus Prime with a new faceplate and limbs & head taken from the Fangry Titanmaster. The arms are lavender, legs black chest white and head blue, so the aim here with the figure is to make it look as much like Pretender Thunderwing's Inner Robot as possible. The head mode looks more like Generations Thunderwing than the original putting it on the top 50% of Thunderwing heads: the last Thunderwing head, used on TFSS 5.0 Thunder Mayhem, was a disaster!
The Siege on Cybertron set highlights a Strength Set Logo and just like the Speed Logo on Chaos on Velocitron led top Rodimus Prime's power being "Ultimate Speed Boost", the List of Titanmasters found on the Trypticon Cereal Box reveals Thunderwing's Power to be "Ultimate Strength Boost", which given Thunderwing is traditionally shown as a strong Transformer makes some sense.
There's no Thunderwing Titans Return to to pair him with, though I've seen several photos using him as a replacement head for The Last Knight Nitro which makes sense as he's a jet who doesn't have his own Titanmaster. With Rodimus Prime having been unveiled as a Power of the Primes leader and Thunderwing appearing on the Power of the Primes fan vote some have seen the boxset heads as a hint to the identity of Power of the Primes leaders. Personally I'm a little surrprised that Thuderwing wasn't done as a leader in Titans Return as a retool of Sky Shadow just as his original toy Blackshadow and his Generations successor were a retool of Thunderwing and his Generations version. Of course if they went down that route the Titanmaster there would end up supplying the face, which would then be surrounded by a helmet to boost it to leader size, rather than being the whole head like this one is.
Hascon Ultra Magnus
To recap:
We know from the Transmission Podcast rumours that Choas on Velocitron was originally the Speed set, which is reflected in it's Speed Tech Spec quadrant highlighted on the packaging and that set's Rodimus Prime having the "Ultimate Speed Boost" power revealed on the List of Titanmasters found on the Trypticon Cereal Box.
Similarly we know from the Transmission Podcast rumours that Siege on Cybertron was originally the Strength set, which is reflected in it's Strength Tech Spec quadrant highlighted on the packaging and that set's Thunderwing having the "Ultimate Strength Boost" power revealed on the List of Titanmasters found on the Trypticon Cereal Box.
There are four areas on the current Tech Specs: Strength, Speed, Intelligence and Fireblast. These were also shown in the SDCC 2016 Titan's Return Storybook which divided the first few waves of toys up between the four tech spec quadrants. The four quadrants are all illustrated as symbols on the Chaos on Velocitron and Siege on Cybertron boxsets with the Speed and Strength logos highlighted accordingly.
So.....
What happened to the Intelligence and Fireblast boxsets?
The the Transmission Podcast rumours places the Speed & Strength sets in development in March & April 2016. At around that time the Combiner Wars G2 Superion, G2 Menasor and Victorion sets were on sale. These sold poorly, ending up sitting with retailers for quite some time, and indeed some retailers still have them now even at large reductions some 18 months later. So I'd like to suggest this possible scenario: the numbers come back to Hasbro saying the boxsets aren't doing well and Hasbro pulls the plug. The last Combiner Wars boxset Liokaiser gets produced in smaller number and made an exclusive to Entertainment Earth in the US. The Speed & Strength boxes get given catchier titles, Chaos on Velocitron & Siege on Cybertron, which disguise their "one of four" origins and turn into exclusives for TRU and BBTS respectively.
We know a little about what would probably have gone into the Intelligence & Fireblast sets. Two Clones Fastclash & Pounce had been packed with Chaos on Velocitron (Speed) & Siege on Cybertron (Strength) respectively. I think it's likely that Wingspan's function of "data processor" meant he was destined for Intelligence and thus Cloudraker was for Fireblast. With the Intelligence and Fireblast sets not happening they end up in a 2-pack together for Walgreens. It's thought likely that a G2 Green version of Titan's Return Voyager Megatron would have ended up in Fireblast as a counterpart to Choas on Velocitron's Laser Prime remake of Generation 2 Optimus Prime, possibly alongside a US release of Legends Godbomber to go with Magnus Prime the mild recolour of Legends Super Ginrai found in the Siege on Cybertron set.
But we had no idea about which Titanmasters would be in which set until the Trypticon Cereal Box was released at SDCC 2017 on Thursday 20th July. A List of Titanmasters found on that box gave a number of then unknown Titanmasters, one of which was an Ultra Magnus listed as "Ultimate Intelligence Boost", just as Rodimus Prime and Thunderwing were listed as "Ultimate Speed Boost" and "Ultimate Strength Boost". Our Intelligence Titanmaster had been found.
Ultra Magnus toys generally take one of two forms: either a white Optimus Prime or a blue, red & white super robot. Very seldom do they do both so it's something of a surprise to find it attempted on a Titanmaster. The Titanmaster robot itself is all white, using exactly the same parts as Siege on Cybertron Thunderwing: the metal chest first found on Chaos on Velocitron Rodimus Prime plus the arms, legs & head from Fangry. The only paint is a blue mouthplate & crest plus red eyes. It's a good attempt at a white Optimus in Titanmastr robot form. OK you could have done better using Alpha Trion's Sovereign in white but....
Transforming to head mode is then a bit of a surprise as given the white Optimus robot you're probably expecting the white Optimus head. That's not what you get, what's here instead is a small version of the blue Magnus super robot head with silver pipes & face and blue eyes. It looks really nice, a lot better than photos made me think it would! Like Thunderwing, if Ultra Magnus had been done as a full size toy he'd have probably have been a leader so the Titanmaster there would have just supplied the face which would have been beefed up to a leader sized head by a helmet. Personally I'd like to see a redone version of Combiner Wars Leader Ultra Magnus with more 1986 like weapons, 5mm peg hole hands and a Titanmaster covered by helmet head, ala Titans Return Powermaster Optimus Prime, but there I would want a white Prime face if it was being completely covered.
As it is what we have here gives us a perfectly Ultra Magnus head for a smaller toy. No complaints there!
I'm not sure I quite see the point of the Titanmaster in the Choas on Velocitron set.
He's named Rodimus Prime so I'm guessing he's meant to be used to upgrade your Titans Return Hot Rod to Rodimus Prime. Fair enough, but Hot Rod's Head and Rodimus Prime's Head are virtually identical. The most major differences between the two on the toys here is the crest is segmented in two on Hot Rod while Rodimus Prime's is one single crest slatted and that Rodimus Prime has some purple paint on him. If there was a real, discernible difference, like between Bumblebee's toy and comic/cartoon heads or between Bumblebee & Goldbug's heads I could understand it. But the difference here is slight.
Deluxe Hot Rod's Titanmaster Firedrive is a plain grey colour in robot mode. In robot mode the Rodimus Prime Titanmaster is coloured to look much more like Hot Rod, in a similar way to how Titanmaster Brawn, Blaster's Titanmaster Twincast Galvatron's Titanmaster Nucleon look like larger characters. Lower legs are painted black, upper legs are moulded orange and arms & head are moulded red. All these parts are inherited from Ptero, with all the detailing intact.
The chest, and the plate for the face are both new and are die-cast, a first for a Titanmaster. I don't think the die cast pieces really work here: for a start they're giving the Titanmaster robot a heavy backpack which will inevitably unbalance the figure. The paintwork is fine from the front but the back of the face, exposed when he lifts his arms, is unpainted. The edge between the two sides is very obvious when looking at the front of the robot. The design of the chest isn't really screaming Hot Rod or Rodimus Prime at me but the colours are doing their very best to make up for it. The Die Cast is obviously a big thing, not many Transformers have it now, I was expecting a big flash near the picture of the Titanmaster saying something like "Featuring Die Cast Parts!!!!" or similar, but the callouts on the top & front are very restrained and there's nothing on the back.
The List of Titanmasters found on the Trypticon Cereal Box lists his power as "Ultimate Speed Boost", which matches the Speed Tech Spec quadrant highlighted on the packaging which is believed to be the original name for this set. I can get the association between Hot Rod and Speed, but less so Rodimus Prime.
I suppose Rodimus Prime can serve as Fastclash's driver in the Chaos on Velocitron set, that intention would seem to be followed up in Seige on Cybertron where Pounce is likewise packaged with a Decepticon Titanmaster, Thunderwing, who is a repaint of Rodimus Prime with a new head. Yes it adds something to the set but I can't help feeling that it's place would have been better filled by weapons for Fastclash or an all plastic Titanmaster with it's accessory.
Siege on Cybertron Thunderwing
Siege on Cybertron's Titanmaster Thunderwing uses the same die cast metal chest as Rodimus Prime with a new faceplate and limbs & head taken from the Fangry Titanmaster. The arms are lavender, legs black chest white and head blue, so the aim here with the figure is to make it look as much like Pretender Thunderwing's Inner Robot as possible. The head mode looks more like Generations Thunderwing than the original putting it on the top 50% of Thunderwing heads: the last Thunderwing head, used on TFSS 5.0 Thunder Mayhem, was a disaster!
The Siege on Cybertron set highlights a Strength Set Logo and just like the Speed Logo on Chaos on Velocitron led top Rodimus Prime's power being "Ultimate Speed Boost", the List of Titanmasters found on the Trypticon Cereal Box reveals Thunderwing's Power to be "Ultimate Strength Boost", which given Thunderwing is traditionally shown as a strong Transformer makes some sense.
There's no Thunderwing Titans Return to to pair him with, though I've seen several photos using him as a replacement head for The Last Knight Nitro which makes sense as he's a jet who doesn't have his own Titanmaster. With Rodimus Prime having been unveiled as a Power of the Primes leader and Thunderwing appearing on the Power of the Primes fan vote some have seen the boxset heads as a hint to the identity of Power of the Primes leaders. Personally I'm a little surrprised that Thuderwing wasn't done as a leader in Titans Return as a retool of Sky Shadow just as his original toy Blackshadow and his Generations successor were a retool of Thunderwing and his Generations version. Of course if they went down that route the Titanmaster there would end up supplying the face, which would then be surrounded by a helmet to boost it to leader size, rather than being the whole head like this one is.
Hascon Ultra Magnus
To recap:
We know from the Transmission Podcast rumours that Choas on Velocitron was originally the Speed set, which is reflected in it's Speed Tech Spec quadrant highlighted on the packaging and that set's Rodimus Prime having the "Ultimate Speed Boost" power revealed on the List of Titanmasters found on the Trypticon Cereal Box.
Similarly we know from the Transmission Podcast rumours that Siege on Cybertron was originally the Strength set, which is reflected in it's Strength Tech Spec quadrant highlighted on the packaging and that set's Thunderwing having the "Ultimate Strength Boost" power revealed on the List of Titanmasters found on the Trypticon Cereal Box.
There are four areas on the current Tech Specs: Strength, Speed, Intelligence and Fireblast. These were also shown in the SDCC 2016 Titan's Return Storybook which divided the first few waves of toys up between the four tech spec quadrants. The four quadrants are all illustrated as symbols on the Chaos on Velocitron and Siege on Cybertron boxsets with the Speed and Strength logos highlighted accordingly.
So.....
What happened to the Intelligence and Fireblast boxsets?
The the Transmission Podcast rumours places the Speed & Strength sets in development in March & April 2016. At around that time the Combiner Wars G2 Superion, G2 Menasor and Victorion sets were on sale. These sold poorly, ending up sitting with retailers for quite some time, and indeed some retailers still have them now even at large reductions some 18 months later. So I'd like to suggest this possible scenario: the numbers come back to Hasbro saying the boxsets aren't doing well and Hasbro pulls the plug. The last Combiner Wars boxset Liokaiser gets produced in smaller number and made an exclusive to Entertainment Earth in the US. The Speed & Strength boxes get given catchier titles, Chaos on Velocitron & Siege on Cybertron, which disguise their "one of four" origins and turn into exclusives for TRU and BBTS respectively.
We know a little about what would probably have gone into the Intelligence & Fireblast sets. Two Clones Fastclash & Pounce had been packed with Chaos on Velocitron (Speed) & Siege on Cybertron (Strength) respectively. I think it's likely that Wingspan's function of "data processor" meant he was destined for Intelligence and thus Cloudraker was for Fireblast. With the Intelligence and Fireblast sets not happening they end up in a 2-pack together for Walgreens. It's thought likely that a G2 Green version of Titan's Return Voyager Megatron would have ended up in Fireblast as a counterpart to Choas on Velocitron's Laser Prime remake of Generation 2 Optimus Prime, possibly alongside a US release of Legends Godbomber to go with Magnus Prime the mild recolour of Legends Super Ginrai found in the Siege on Cybertron set.
But we had no idea about which Titanmasters would be in which set until the Trypticon Cereal Box was released at SDCC 2017 on Thursday 20th July. A List of Titanmasters found on that box gave a number of then unknown Titanmasters, one of which was an Ultra Magnus listed as "Ultimate Intelligence Boost", just as Rodimus Prime and Thunderwing were listed as "Ultimate Speed Boost" and "Ultimate Strength Boost". Our Intelligence Titanmaster had been found.
Ultra Magnus toys generally take one of two forms: either a white Optimus Prime or a blue, red & white super robot. Very seldom do they do both so it's something of a surprise to find it attempted on a Titanmaster. The Titanmaster robot itself is all white, using exactly the same parts as Siege on Cybertron Thunderwing: the metal chest first found on Chaos on Velocitron Rodimus Prime plus the arms, legs & head from Fangry. The only paint is a blue mouthplate & crest plus red eyes. It's a good attempt at a white Optimus in Titanmastr robot form. OK you could have done better using Alpha Trion's Sovereign in white but....
Transforming to head mode is then a bit of a surprise as given the white Optimus robot you're probably expecting the white Optimus head. That's not what you get, what's here instead is a small version of the blue Magnus super robot head with silver pipes & face and blue eyes. It looks really nice, a lot better than photos made me think it would! Like Thunderwing, if Ultra Magnus had been done as a full size toy he'd have probably have been a leader so the Titanmaster there would have just supplied the face which would have been beefed up to a leader sized head by a helmet. Personally I'd like to see a redone version of Combiner Wars Leader Ultra Magnus with more 1986 like weapons, 5mm peg hole hands and a Titanmaster covered by helmet head, ala Titans Return Powermaster Optimus Prime, but there I would want a white Prime face if it was being completely covered.
As it is what we have here gives us a perfectly Ultra Magnus head for a smaller toy. No complaints there!
