18 September 2010

Transformers Victory Brainmaster C-322: Braver

This post follows from: C-323 - Road Caesar giftset

Profile from TF Wiki:

"Braver (ブレイバー Bureibā) is the brains of his team—and when his team is named the Brainmasters, that's really saying something. Braver loves to tinker and create, being something of a mad scientist, but his child-like charm and creativity are tempered with the good sense to work on a small scale and not to turn on his creations until the kinks are worked out, leaving him a little less prone to self-injury than certain other scientists. And just because he's a brain doesn't mean Braver is lacking as a warrior—he is an accomplished fighter, capable of holding his own against two or three opponents at a time and employing complicated strategies and manoeuvres on the battlefield with ease.

As a Brainmaster, Braver possesses incredible skill, strength, intelligence and courage. Among the group, it should not be surprising to learn that Braver exemplifies intelligence in particular; his smallest robot form is the Brain of Intelligence, which combines with a Transtector that transforms into a sports car. In robot mode, Braver can eject oil from the soles of his feet and then proceed to run around his opponents at super speed, igniting the oil in a technique known as his blazing "Brain Hellfire" attack. Braver combines with his fellow Brainmasters Blacker and Laster into Road Caesar, forming the left leg of the super robot."

Again, like C-320: Blacker and C-321: Laster, Braver is also not very interesting. The transformation is largely similar to Laster but the car mode is pretty horrid and lacks detail given its size. Easily one of the weaker Brainmasters, but not as bad as Blacker.

Cliffbee.com concludes thus:

"More than anything else, Braver suffers from being far too simple for his size. The sculpt, articulation and transformation are all a joke and the car mode is far too generic. The Brainmasters that combine to form Roadcaeser far too simple to offer any impressive engineering. The brain gimmick is okay, but isn't enough to make the Transformer work. If you could snap this guy up for retail he'd be okay, but he's not worth the premium his rarity will likely add to the price - 3/10"



















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Transformers Victory Brainmaster C-321: Laster

This post follows from: C-323 - Road Caesar giftset

Profile from TF Wiki:

"Laster (ラスター Rasutā) is so cool, he's practically coated with ice. He is constantly observing everything and everyone around him, and there are very few places one can escape to that do not fall under his watchful eye. But Laster is not watchful because it is his job to be: he's watchful because he's anti-social, preferring to simply observe others, rather than interact with them. His social detachment suits the other Autobots just fine, too, because his icy demeanour constantly puts them on edge.

As a Brainmaster, Laster possesses incredible skill, strength, intelligence and courage. While his teammates Blacker and Braver exemplify strength and intelligence in particular, Laster embodies the slightly less-definable endowment of "skill", which essentially seems to mean that he is "good at stuff"; the "all-rounder" of the Brainmaster trio, if you will. While he does not have Blacker's raw warrior instincts on the battlefield, he can evade any trap with the agility and talent of a veteran of hundreds of conflicts. And while he may not match Braver in the laboratory, Laster knows his way around a circuit board, and has invented many simple devices that have helped the Autobots in battle against the Decepticons.

Laster's smallest robot form is the Brain of Skill, which combines with a Transtector that transforms into a sports car. In this mode, Laster's figuratively "icy" personality takes on a literal bent when he spins his wheels at full speed, activating climate control devices mounted within them to freeze his enemies solid with sub-zero temperatures. Laster combines with his fellow Brainmasters Blacker and Braver into Road Caesar, forming the right leg of the super robot."

 Whew. That was long. At least Laster has a more interesting profile than toy. However uninteresting this toy is, I think its still the best among the 3 brainmaster robots, which are all pretty weak. I don't know, maybe its just my weakness for Countachs (ie: Laster's car mode). I also like the head-sculpt the most.

Cliffbee.com says the following in conclusion:

"More than anything else, Laster suffers from being far too simple for his size. The sculpt, articulation and transformation are all a joke, although I'm glad the model of car is very easy to pick. The Brainmasters that combine to form Roadcaeser far too simple to offer any impressive engineering. The brain gimmick is okay, but isn't enough to make the Transformer work. If you could snap this guy up for retail he'd be okay, but he's not worth the premium his rarity will likely add to the price. If you want just one Brainmaster (of the Roadcaeser group), this is the one I'd recommend - 4/10"

Like this head-sculpt. Blue eyes, yah!









I like this car mode the best among the 3 Brainmasters.












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Transformers Victory Brainmaster C-320: Blacker

This post follows from: C-323 - Road Caesar giftset

Profile (from TF Wiki):
"Blacker is the commanding officer of the Brainmasters car trio and second in rank to Star Saber among the Earth Autobots. Blacker is possibly the most experienced warrior among the Autobots of Earth and is considered the senior member of the elite Brainmaster unit, making him one of the most respected Autobots around. Blacker tends to take this very seriously and is constantly trying to set the proper example for his fellows. Most Autobots take this in stride with his prestige though Wingwaver considers it highly patronizing. Blacker is more than willing to sacrifice himself for others and has been crippled several times saving others. As a member of the Brainmasters, Blacker is also an instrumental component of Road Caesar as he forms both the torso and arms."

While the all the Brainmasters are not interesting transforming toys, I personally think that Blacker is the weakest design among them. As a toy, its really not very fun in either robot or car mode. It offers very little play value and is blocky and larger than it should have been for such a simplistic design. I guess that its the Brainmaster function that limited and affected its design, which is a little unfortunate.

Cliffbee.com appears to share the same low-esteem I have for Blacker by stating in his review's conclusion that:

"More than anything else, Blacker suffers from being far too simple for his size. The sculpt, articulation and transformation are all a joke. The Brainmasters that combine to form Roadcaeser far too simple to offer any impressive engineering. The brain gimmick is okay, but isn't enough to make the Transformer work. If you could snap this guy up for retail he'd be okay, but he's not worth the premium his rarity will likely add to the price - 3/10"

Blacker head-sculpt. It's okay, I guess. Not the best of the 3 Road Caesar robots though.




Guess what? Blacker's sword is not black. It's white.




The Blacker brainmaster

Dune buggy mode

Dune buggy attack mode








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All packed up (late post)

A few pictures to follow up on my post regarding removalists and the packing of all my stuff, including Transformers (which numbered something like 30 carton boxes, 9 of which are large double-sized cartons).

Lumiere Apartments, bright and early

All Transformers are packed, but sundry items like DVDs, books, comics, clothes and etc will be packed by the removalists.

I just can't believe how much dvds, books and clothes we have, ahem, ahem.


17 September 2010

"My" Combaticons are up over at Botch's!

What the title says. "My" Combaticons are up over at Botch's! The Combaticons box art I edited awhile back (very awhile back), are now up at Botch the Crab!

It's a very sweet set. Botch has been very kind to attribute my contribution and he has written a very nice article to go along with the release.

Head over to Botch the Crab now!

09 September 2010

Cliffbee.com reviews

As I mentioned here, I will only have all of 5 Transformers in my possession for the next month. This now is a point in my life where I have the least Transformers in my possession, ever. Even after my mum gave away 99.99% of my toys back in the early '90s, I still had more Transformers than I have now (back then I had the 5 Predacons, Optimus Prime and Grimlock = 7 TFs).

Despite my TF-less state now, I managed to do some good before all of them got shipped off. I lent the very astute and dedicated toy-reviewer extraordinaire owner of Cliffbee.com a number of toys for him to review.  Why does he need the actual toys, one might ask. The answer is that he does not review a toy unless he is able to handle and see it physically, even if the piece is a 'repaint' of say a US release. To my mind, that makes his reviews accurate and in a way authoritative.

Here are the pieces that I lent Cliffbee.com for review:
Oh, and he takes great pictures of the toys!
Enjoy.

~ HD

08 September 2010

The removalists are here right this moment

The removalists are here at my place right this moment. They are packing our stuff to be shipped to Hong Kong. 

All the Transformers I have in Australia have been packed. They are in 8 large "dishpacs" and 19 smaller "book/wine" boxes.

They are packing our clothes, dvds, books and other sundry items now.

In approximately 2 hours, the only Transformers I will have in my possession for the whole of next month are Minerva, Sonic Bomber MIB, Road Fire MIB, Galaxy Shuttle MIB and the Ravage USB.

~ HD
10.25am

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