When Crosscut was first announced, I recognized that I would probably want to get the toy so I could pop off his red fists and give them to Skids. The red fists on Skids are very important, because of reasons. Then I forgot all about Crosscut, didn't pre-order him when he was available, and only just recently remembered him. Haven't seen him in stores yet, but I ordered mine from Hasbro Pulse. In my mind, he's basically a $25 add-on kit. He's a pair of red hands with a pointless robot attached to them.

I would even venture to say that Hasbro probably went out of their way specifically to give him the red hands, just so fans could give the hands to Skids. I mean, they admitted that there was nothing they could do about the wheels, because they're part of the same mold as the hands. But, there actually is something they could have done. They could have given him black wheels, and black hands. But they didn't do that. They made sure that he would have red fists, even if it meant he also ended up with weird red wheels, like some kind of Big Lots knockoff. It's such a bizarre choice that the only possibility that satisfies my logic circuits is that they knew we needed red hands for Skids.

There were so many Diaclone versions of Skids. We got the blue version with the Skids face during G1, but there were black versions and silver versions and red versions, which had either the Skids face or Crosscut face depending on which version it was. I feel like the Crosscut face looks a lot like Optimus Prime. Obviously there's no rule that says more than one robot can't have a mask like that, but it's kind of Prime's signature look.

The Diaclone version had chrome weapons, but this version has red. He's also got red stripes on the sides of his vehicle mode, which was accurate for G1 Skids but not for the silver Diaclone toy, which originally had black. The unpainted rear windows on Skids weren't bad-looking, but on this toy, the silver windows are obvious and problematic. They really should have been painted blue.

But, by far the biggest offending problem with this toy is the red wheels. They're ghastly. They just scream "cheap Chinese bootleg" in a way that official Transformers toys rarely do. However, I only got Crosscut as a parts donor for Skids, so I guess I can't complain too much. While I was switching parts, I looked at other swaparoo ideas that might benefit Skids. He could arguably use a red mid-section, too, but that would involve removing pins, and I don't want to damage the toys just to get them apart.

Crosscut really isn't an exercise in cost-cutting at all, since he required so much paint just to look halfway decent. He's actually made out of light grey plastic, so every single vehicular exterior surface had to be painted silver. The panels on the front of his legs are red plastic, and had to be painted black with silver kneecaps (they're red on the underside, though). Same with his front bumper—that's also red plastic, painted black. This is probably why they didn't paint his sunroof or fog lights or front grill—it would have blown the paint budget completely.

He looks just fine with Skids' black fists.

I also got the Core-class Thundercracker in the mail today. I started collecting Core-class toys thinking that they would be able to interact with the Ark playset when it eventually came out, and then the Ark came out and it wasn't a playset at all. So, now I'm collecting tiny versions of G1 characters I already have, and I don't really know why.

In 2021, Core-class Starscream came with his normal arm guns, then they decided to mix things up with Skywarp in 2022 and give him a ridiculous tuning fork. There was such a huge backlash about the tuning fork that they basically couldn't not give Thundercracker his normal arm guns. But, now I have to figure out what I'm going to do about Skywarp. Get some cruddy-looking 3D-printed ones, I guess, since nobody who does molded parts seems to be offering them. I hate the look of 3D-printed add-ons. They're awful.

So, one of the things Thundercracker has got going for him is that he's painted consistently in the same manner as Starscream and Skywarp. The Deluxe-scale Classics versions we got were spread so far apart that every one of them got different paint applications, and they didn't really look like a cohesive unit when you got them all together. Mr. Cracker very much looks like part of the set. Not quite the sky blue of his cartoon incarnation, but a medium blue that's far lighter than his G1 toy, and which matches the blue on Core-class Starscream.

How fun would it be to get Core-class versions of Ramjet and Thrust and Dirge? I think it would be a blast. There's a huge third-party market right now for Legends-sized versions of the G1 characters, but they tend to sell for like thirty bucks a pop. If Hasbro could continue to do it for about eleven or twelve dollars, I think they'd mop up.

I also got the Core-class Grimlock toy, and I think he's my third baby Dinobot. Three more to go (Snarl, Swoop, and Scarr) and I can form Baby Volcanicus.

As arobot, he stands about 3.75" at the head, though he's got an assembly behind his head that brings him closer to four inches tall overall. He's almost entirely grey from head to toe, with a black-painted head and fists, a gold-painted chest and wrist claws, and red stripes on his legs (and a tiny bit of red on his abdomen). Color mapping is mostly G1, but he could have used a black pelvis and/or upper legs to break up all that grey.

He's got a surprising amount of articulation for such a small toy—his hips and knees are on ball joints, as are his shoulders. His head swivels and his waist and wrists swivel. Just about the only useful joint he's missing is elbows. He carries a stubby dino tail weapon that's got two stubby cannons at the end of it.

Transformation is similar to G1, but with some changes. The dinosaur head and upper body are formed from the wings on his back, but the robot chest doesn't get out of the way to accomodate them. The chest stays where it is. The robot arms form the T. rex legs, and the robot legs form an absolutely colossal dump truck of a hind section. Grimlock's got a badonkadonk. He's officially a DinoPAWG. Me Grimlock not badass—me Grimlock fatass! He's got a huge butt, is what I'm getting at. (He is mistransformed in a lot of stock photos, with the robot feet pointing towards the ground. The correct transformation involves the robot knees facing the ground and the robot toes forming part of his back, but any way you slice it, he's still thicc as all get-out.)

Dino mode is about three inches tall. He does have some gold paint for his belly and neck and toes, but aside from that he's almost all grey. He's got cute little blue eyes, and a dinosaur head that can pivot up and down, but doesn't have a working jaw. But, holy moly, he needs Jenny Craig in a major way. They absolutely did not need to make his robot boots that huge, because it impacts his dinosaur mode so, so badly.

His leg mode is basically dino mode, afer you swing the dino legs together to form the combiner toes, and move the dino head and upper body out of the way. He's got a connector peg that flips out and plugs into Sludge, who forms the torso. He's intended to be the left leg, and there's a section of Grimlock's robot foot where there's a gap. I haven't figured out what purpose the gap serves yet. Maybe it will make sense later.

The likelihood that he's going to get a remold and redeco to serve as Goryu of the Dinoforce, and thus turn into the leg of Dinoking, is extremely high.

Zob (until next time... me, Grimlock, no feel like it)

On Monday, April 17, 2023 at 5:58:54 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
> When Crosscut was first announced, I recognized that I would probably want to get the toy so I could pop off his red fists and give them to Skids. The red fists on Skids are very important, because of reasons. Then I forgot all about Crosscut, didn't pre-order him when he was available, and only just recently remembered him. Haven't seen him in stores yet, but I ordered mine from Hasbro Pulse. In my mind, he's basically a $25 add-on kit. He's a pair of red hands with a pointless robot attached to them.
>
> I would even venture to say that Hasbro probably went out of their way specifically to give him the red hands, just so fans could give the hands to Skids. I mean, they admitted that there was nothing they could do about the wheels, because they're part of the same mold as the hands. But, there actually is something they could have done. They could have given him black wheels, and black hands. But they didn't do that. They made sure that he would have red fists, even if it meant he also ended up with weird red wheels, like some kind of Big Lots knockoff. It's such a bizarre choice that the only possibility that satisfies my logic circuits is that they knew we needed red hands for Skids.
>
> There were so many Diaclone versions of Skids. We got the blue version with the Skids face during G1, but there were black versions and silver versions and red versions, which had either the Skids face or Crosscut face depending on which version it was. I feel like the Crosscut face looks a lot like Optimus Prime. Obviously there's no rule that says more than one robot can't have a mask like that, but it's kind of Prime's signature look.
>
> The Diaclone version had chrome weapons, but this version has red. He's also got red stripes on the sides of his vehicle mode, which was accurate for G1 Skids but not for the silver Diaclone toy, which originally had black. The unpainted rear windows on Skids weren't bad-looking, but on this toy, the silver windows are obvious and problematic. They really should have been painted blue.
>
> But, by far the biggest offending problem with this toy is the red wheels.. They're ghastly. They just scream "cheap Chinese bootleg" in a way that official Transformers toys rarely do. However, I only got Crosscut as a parts donor for Skids, so I guess I can't complain too much. While I was switching parts, I looked at other swaparoo ideas that might benefit Skids. He could arguably use a red mid-section, too, but that would involve removing pins, and I don't want to damage the toys just to get them apart.
>
> Crosscut really isn't an exercise in cost-cutting at all, since he required so much paint just to look halfway decent. He's actually made out of light grey plastic, so every single vehicular exterior surface had to be painted silver. The panels on the front of his legs are red plastic, and had to be painted black with silver kneecaps (they're red on the underside, though). Same with his front bumper—that's also red plastic, painted black. This is probably why they didn't paint his sunroof or fog lights or front grill—it would have blown the paint budget completely.
>
> He looks just fine with Skids' black fists.
>

I got T30 Crosscut because the T30 mold didn't look like the Skids I was used to, having not read IDW at that point. I don't need another Crosscut. I didn't need that Crosscut. The name Crosscut reminds me of a paper shredder anyhow.

> I also got the Core-class Thundercracker in the mail today. I started collecting Core-class toys thinking that they would be able to interact with the Ark playset when it eventually came out, and then the Ark came out and it wasn't a playset at all. So, now I'm collecting tiny versions of G1 characters I already have, and I don't really know why.
>
> In 2021, Core-class Starscream came with his normal arm guns, then they decided to mix things up with Skywarp in 2022 and give him a ridiculous tuning fork. There was such a huge backlash about the tuning fork that they basically couldn't not give Thundercracker his normal arm guns. But, now I have to figure out what I'm going to do about Skywarp. Get some cruddy-looking 3D-printed ones, I guess, since nobody who does molded parts seems to be offering them. I hate the look of 3D-printed add-ons. They're awful.
>

Buy a second Core Thundercracker to paint his guns black for Skywarp??

> So, one of the things Thundercracker has got going for him is that he's painted consistently in the same manner as Starscream and Skywarp. The Deluxe-scale Classics versions we got were spread so far apart that every one of them got different paint applications, and they didn't really look like a cohesive unit when you got them all together. Mr. Cracker very much looks like part of the set. Not quite the sky blue of his cartoon incarnation, but a medium blue that's far lighter than his G1 toy, and which matches the blue on Core-class Starscream.
>
> How fun would it be to get Core-class versions of Ramjet and Thrust and Dirge? I think it would be a blast. There's a huge third-party market right now for Legends-sized versions of the G1 characters, but they tend to sell for like thirty bucks a pop. If Hasbro could continue to do it for about eleven or twelve dollars, I think they'd mop up.
>

I'm still much happier with the Legends 3p Tarn than with the Voyager Legacy Tarn. It's obvious who spent more time and effort making the figure look good. Some of the $30 Legends scale figures are just really well done. I also don't expect Hasbro to make a Transformer that turns into a sniper rifle or electric chair anytime soon.

> I also got the Core-class Grimlock toy, and I think he's my third baby Dinobot. Three more to go (Snarl, Swoop, and Scarr) and I can form Baby Volcanicus.
>
> As arobot, he stands about 3.75" at the head, though he's got an assembly behind his head that brings him closer to four inches tall overall. He's almost entirely grey from head to toe, with a black-painted head and fists, a gold-painted chest and wrist claws, and red stripes on his legs (and a tiny bit of red on his abdomen). Color mapping is mostly G1, but he could have used a black pelvis and/or upper legs to break up all that grey.
>
> He's got a surprising amount of articulation for such a small toy—his hips and knees are on ball joints, as are his shoulders. His head swivels and his waist and wrists swivel. Just about the only useful joint he's missing is elbows. He carries a stubby dino tail weapon that's got two stubby cannons at the end of it.
>
> Transformation is similar to G1, but with some changes. The dinosaur head and upper body are formed from the wings on his back, but the robot chest doesn't get out of the way to accomodate them. The chest stays where it is. The robot arms form the T. rex legs, and the robot legs form an absolutely colossal dump truck of a hind section. Grimlock's got a badonkadonk. He's officially a DinoPAWG. Me Grimlock not badass—me Grimlock fatass! He's got a huge butt, is what I'm getting at. (He is mistransformed in a lot of stock photos, with the robot feet pointing towards the ground. The correct transformation involves the robot knees facing the ground and the robot toes forming part of his back, but any way you slice it, he's still thicc as all get-out.)
>
> Dino mode is about three inches tall. He does have some gold paint for his belly and neck and toes, but aside from that he's almost all grey. He's got cute little blue eyes, and a dinosaur head that can pivot up and down, but doesn't have a working jaw. But, holy moly, he needs Jenny Craig in a major way. They absolutely did not need to make his robot boots that huge, because it impacts his dinosaur mode so, so badly.
>
> His leg mode is basically dino mode, afer you swing the dino legs together to form the combiner toes, and move the dino head and upper body out of the way. He's got a connector peg that flips out and plugs into Sludge, who forms the torso. He's intended to be the left leg, and there's a section of Grimlock's robot foot where there's a gap. I haven't figured out what purpose the gap serves yet. Maybe it will make sense later.
>
> The likelihood that he's going to get a remold and redeco to serve as Goryu of the Dinoforce, and thus turn into the leg of Dinoking, is extremely high.
>

I'm probably only getting Dinoforce, as the baby Dinobots don't look like Dinobots to me. I already have POTP and some Studio series and the arguably not as accurate core figures that make a legends scale brick don't do it for me, in the same way that Predacons Rising Abominus was only ok until we got PotP Abominus.

>
> Zob (until next time... me, Grimlock, no feel like it)