but I do have a few new things- 6" Gamorrean Guard - pretty decent, they figured out how to use hollow parts without compromising structure, so he's big but not too heavy to ship, since Hasbro is queen of the cheapskates. Good paint and sculpting, lucky Target-exclusive find.
- Nemesis Prime Evolutions - got some birthday money and some Amazon points, so I figured "why not?" and got it. A decent set, the black color hides the weirder design choices (there are plenty), and it makes for a fairly satisfying bot. Giza the transforming bird-sword is a neat addition as well, I can picture someone KO'ing it in die cast. $50 for an Amazon Exclusive, and it holds up.
- Novastar - I passed on Moonracer, this deco looked more interesting. Hasbro left off a paint app that makes it a little more confusing (the midsection windows are clear while the front are silver), and this mold is a bit on the bland side for alt mode and transformation. There's more backpack than torso, which is lazy. Leg mode transformation is a touch unstable. Head design and paint is surprisingly good.
- Repugnus w/ Dastard - lotta Amazon exclusives this summer. He's a really fun toy, lotta silly stuff because he's a monsterbot. The monster mode arms don't have much range of motion due to a design change from the prototype, but otherwise it's nifty all around.
- Blast Off w/ some prime master who even cares - the US repaint of this Japanese combiner-wars-era mold is here, and it's... fine, I guess? It's finally a shuttle, but the arms have to face the wrong way in alt mode because the US version goes with the cartoon-accurate chest instead of the shuttle nose, which means it's facing the other way. You can swap the arms, the shoulders, the lower arms, whatever to make it work to your liking. It's unclear why this wasn't released in the US in the first place.
- Combiner Wars Onslaught - well, with Blast Off, I had most of the Combaticons so I picked up the leader and slapped them all on him. I'm using the US Blast Off in place of Vortex, as I passed on the original and now it's expensive.
