Guess what I got from BBTS today?

For those who may not know, the Nemesis was the Decepticons' spaceship in the G1 cartoon. It attacked the Ark after it launched, and the Decepticon boarded the Autobot ship, which eventually led to the Ark crashing on Earth and laying dormant for four million years. The rest, as they say, is history.

After we got a transformable Titan-class version of the Ark in 2021, it seemed its counterpart, the Nemesis (which wasn't officially named in canon until Beast Wars retroactively assigned the name) was inevitable.

The ship comes disassembled, with the main vehicle plus the undercarriage fin attached to the main cardboard insert, and a secondary insert to which everything else is bundled (the top piece to the bridge, two smaller fins, the blades for robot mode, and the dark grey sprue frame with accessories). There don't seem to be a left or right fin, so it doesn't matter how you pop them on.

It's very purple. It's oh-so-purple.

Fully assembled, the ship is about 21" in length, almost 17" in height from bottom fin to top fin, with a nearly 14" wingspan. The bridge piece is made of rubbery red plastic and is painted in its entirety, so basically it's a well-decorated blast effect. It is a whimsical design that is made for spacefaring, not sitting on your shelf, so Hasbro did invent an alternate configuration in which the bottom fin splits in half and folds to either side, which is more accommodating for a desktop display. The ship really needed some kind of a proper stand (and I'm sure we'll get a third-party one eventually), but it didn't come with one.

The sprue frame includes three round dual-barreled blaster cannons and three square triple-barreled cannons, all of which can mount on the forward section of the ship. Hasbro learned their lesson from the Ark, clearly, which came with molded-on gun shapes that didn't move. The ship didn't seem to have these in evidence in the cartoon, but one supposes it had all sorts of pop-open artillery hatches (oddly enough, Megatron never actually opened fire on the Ark in the pilot episode!).

I was kind of hoping some of the molded detail on the toy would match up to the limited screen time we see the ship's functions in the first cartoon episode. But, there are no details to suggest where the boarding chute hatch is, nor are there obvious spots where the tractor beams emanate from.

(As an aside, I honestly haven't paid very close attention to the ships before, since they never had a Hasbro toy equivalent. It turns out that the second space cruiser that the Decepticons build on Earth is not the same exact design as the original Nemesis. They have similar shapes, and of course they're both purple, but there are distinct differences! So this toy represents the original ship, the one that attacked the Ark, and not the ship that eventually became Decepticon Headquarters on Earth.)

The sprue frame also comes with super tiny (like half-inch) slugs for jet-mode versions of Ramjet, Thrust, a Seeker (Starscream-type) and a Cybertronic tetrajet. The ship has two docking platforms, one on each side, that can slide out and allow the little jets to plug into place. Their presence really helps to illustrate the true size of this enormous starship. (Technically, all the jets should be Cybertronic in nature, but the cool thing about the Earth-style ones is they can also double as correctly-scaled Decepticons to attack HasLab Unicron, right before he eats them.) You can leave the jets docked and plugged in, if you want. The landing platforms are also Earthrise-style A.I.R.LOCK compatible so you could plug in other toys to turn the ship into a larger playset, if you wanted to. They really could have used some paint, though. The jets are grey, and the docking platforms are also grey, so a coat of paint would have really helped them to pop.

I bought this toy because I wanted the Nemesis, not because I wanted it to be able to turn into a very silly, very leggy female Decepticon. But, the toy transforms, so here we go.

Basically, you stand the ship on its butt-end. The front of the craft splits apart to become the arms (the nose halves are also rubbery red plastic that's painted), and the robot head is tucked under the ship's bridge section. The bottom fin ends up on the robot's back, while the rest of the ship splits apart to become the robot legs. The bottom "hump" on the ship is what unfolds to become the forearms, with the robot hands flipping out from hidden compartments. Lots of fidgeting required, the movement of fins, the folding of parts. For those who complained that the Ark's transformation was too easy, this toy is for you.

As a robot, she's roughly 20.5" in height, with at least 13" of that being her legs. She's so leggy. They go all the way from her ass to the ground. It's an incredibly unconventional robot configuration, with almost no mass to her torso, pointy shoulders, and immensely long legs. She looks like a distant relative of G2 Manta Ray. She's still very purple, but accented with red and a light lavender for the hands, most of the feet, and parts of the shoulders and torso. I get that she's a girl, but surely they could have come up with a different secondary color than pink? And, of course, since the Ark had an Autobot symbol for a face, her face is strongly influenced by the Decepticon insignia. (The real reason we have so many translucent red parts was to give her glowy red eyes.)

The two small forward canards are meant to come off and be held as blades (this is supposedly her Evo-Fusion gimmick). The two side fins, which end up on her knees, can also pop back off and be equipped as weapons. The handles that pop out so she can grip the side fins remind me of the handle grips from Titans Return for Fortress Maximus. In this mode, the docking platforms are in her forearms, and can be accessed via little sliding tabs.

So, I don't hate the robot mode. This is not how I'll be displaying the toy, since for me, the draw is a Decepticon spaceship to rival the Ark, not a big, pointy purple robot girl. But, of course, this is a toy line called Transformers, and the release of the Ark set a precedent, so we all knew the Nemesis would have to transform into something as well. (For those of you who may be wondering about storage options, she will fit easily into her box in robot mode, if you slip the removable fin off her back. You don't even have to remove an arm, like I have to do with Fortress Maximus.)

The Titan-class toys are $200 these days, which is a hell of a lot of money.. I mean, I've paid that much for Masterpiece toys before, and they're a lot smaller. But, this is the current asking price, so you gotta pay if you wanna play. I honestly kind of hope they're done with Titan-scale toys, unless they give us a really good G1 Metroplex redo, or a Fortress Maximus redo that isn't a recycled Metroplex. They've hit all the big and important characters already, and it was a much easier sell back when they were only $150 a pop.

Zob (also got the MOTU Origins Point Dread and Talon Fighter as well as the Skeletor/Screech set, toys I probably have no business buying, but I love them anyway)

On Monday, July 10, 2023 at 7:23:27 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
> Guess what I got from BBTS today?
>
> For those who may not know, the Nemesis was the Decepticons' spaceship in the G1 cartoon. It attacked the Ark after it launched, and the Decepticon boarded the Autobot ship, which eventually led to the Ark crashing on Earth and laying dormant for four million years. The rest, as they say, is history.
>
> After we got a transformable Titan-class version of the Ark in 2021, it seemed its counterpart, the Nemesis (which wasn't officially named in canon until Beast Wars retroactively assigned the name) was inevitable.
>
> The ship comes disassembled, with the main vehicle plus the undercarriage fin attached to the main cardboard insert, and a secondary insert to which everything else is bundled (the top piece to the bridge, two smaller fins, the blades for robot mode, and the dark grey sprue frame with accessories).. There don't seem to be a left or right fin, so it doesn't matter how you pop them on.
>
> It's very purple. It's oh-so-purple.
>
> Fully assembled, the ship is about 21" in length, almost 17" in height from bottom fin to top fin, with a nearly 14" wingspan. The bridge piece is made of rubbery red plastic and is painted in its entirety, so basically it's a well-decorated blast effect. It is a whimsical design that is made for spacefaring, not sitting on your shelf, so Hasbro did invent an alternate configuration in which the bottom fin splits in half and folds to either side, which is more accommodating for a desktop display. The ship really needed some kind of a proper stand (and I'm sure we'll get a third-party one eventually), but it didn't come with one.
>
> The sprue frame includes three round dual-barreled blaster cannons and three square triple-barreled cannons, all of which can mount on the forward section of the ship. Hasbro learned their lesson from the Ark, clearly, which came with molded-on gun shapes that didn't move. The ship didn't seem to have these in evidence in the cartoon, but one supposes it had all sorts of pop-open artillery hatches (oddly enough, Megatron never actually opened fire on the Ark in the pilot episode!).
>
> I was kind of hoping some of the molded detail on the toy would match up to the limited screen time we see the ship's functions in the first cartoon episode. But, there are no details to suggest where the boarding chute hatch is, nor are there obvious spots where the tractor beams emanate from.
>
> (As an aside, I honestly haven't paid very close attention to the ships before, since they never had a Hasbro toy equivalent. It turns out that the second space cruiser that the Decepticons build on Earth is not the same exact design as the original Nemesis. They have similar shapes, and of course they're both purple, but there are distinct differences! So this toy represents the original ship, the one that attacked the Ark, and not the ship that eventually became Decepticon Headquarters on Earth.)
>

That would be The Victory, which some people want as a future Titan because Decepticons are outnumbered currently when it comes to Titans. The idea would be to have a submerged mode, with all the add on towers around it and the raising elevator, and then the main ship would have a flight mode and all the surrounding towers would form a Spacebridge. Might be cool to have a spacebridge playset.

> The sprue frame also comes with super tiny (like half-inch) slugs for jet-mode versions of Ramjet, Thrust, a Seeker (Starscream-type) and a Cybertronic tetrajet. The ship has two docking platforms, one on each side, that can slide out and allow the little jets to plug into place. Their presence really helps to illustrate the true size of this enormous starship. (Technically, all the jets should be Cybertronic in nature, but the cool thing about the Earth-style ones is they can also double as correctly-scaled Decepticons to attack HasLab Unicron, right before he eats them.) You can leave the jets docked and plugged in, if you want. The landing platforms are also Earthrise-style A.I.R.LOCK compatible so you could plug in other toys to turn the ship into a larger playset, if you wanted to. They really could have used some paint, though. The jets are grey, and the docking platforms are also grey, so a coat of paint would have really helped them to pop.
>

Are the jet sprues similar to Titans Broadside Aerialbot friends?

> I bought this toy because I wanted the Nemesis, not because I wanted it to be able to turn into a very silly, very leggy female Decepticon. But, the toy transforms, so here we go.
>
> Basically, you stand the ship on its butt-end. The front of the craft splits apart to become the arms (the nose halves are also rubbery red plastic that's painted), and the robot head is tucked under the ship's bridge section. The bottom fin ends up on the robot's back, while the rest of the ship splits apart to become the robot legs. The bottom "hump" on the ship is what unfolds to become the forearms, with the robot hands flipping out from hidden compartments. Lots of fidgeting required, the movement of fins, the folding of parts. For those who complained that the Ark's transformation was too easy, this toy is for you.
>
> As a robot, she's roughly 20.5" in height, with at least 13" of that being her legs. She's so leggy. They go all the way from her ass to the ground. It's an incredibly unconventional robot configuration, with almost no mass to her torso, pointy shoulders, and immensely long legs. She looks like a distant relative of G2 Manta Ray. She's still very purple, but accented with red and a light lavender for the hands, most of the feet, and parts of the shoulders and torso. I get that she's a girl, but surely they could have come up with a different secondary color than pink? And, of course, since the Ark had an Autobot symbol for a face, her face is strongly influenced by the Decepticon insignia. (The real reason we have so many translucent red parts was to give her glowy red eyes.)
>
> The two small forward canards are meant to come off and be held as blades (this is supposedly her Evo-Fusion gimmick). The two side fins, which end up on her knees, can also pop back off and be equipped as weapons. The handles that pop out so she can grip the side fins remind me of the handle grips from Titans Return for Fortress Maximus. In this mode, the docking platforms are in her forearms, and can be accessed via little sliding tabs.
>

I had Titans Fortress Maximus, and I don't get this handle grips reference, because he couldn't hold anything. I even got the SDCC version, with the big honkin sword, and I still say he can't really hold anything because he was terrible at trying to hold that.

> So, I don't hate the robot mode. This is not how I'll be displaying the toy, since for me, the draw is a Decepticon spaceship to rival the Ark, not a big, pointy purple robot girl. But, of course, this is a toy line called Transformers, and the release of the Ark set a precedent, so we all knew the Nemesis would have to transform into something as well. (For those of you who may be wondering about storage options, she will fit easily into her box in robot mode, if you slip the removable fin off her back. You don't even have to remove an arm, like I have to do with Fortress Maximus.)
>

Again, SDCC so I didn't have to remove an arm....

> The Titan-class toys are $200 these days, which is a hell of a lot of money. I mean, I've paid that much for Masterpiece toys before, and they're a lot smaller. But, this is the current asking price, so you gotta pay if you wanna play. I honestly kind of hope they're done with Titan-scale toys, unless they give us a really good G1 Metroplex redo, or a Fortress Maximus redo that isn't a recycled Metroplex. They've hit all the big and important characters already, and it was a much easier sell back when they were only $150 a pop.
>

I watched this random YouTube video that popped up in suggetions yesterday, and it's some ideas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZFCBwVBih4
I agree, we need a Tidal Wave. He's likely the only Armada/Energon/Cybertron I'd buy.
The Cyberverse citybot, at least it's another city bot to rival Metroplex. Definitely an expanded universe but I think it could do better than Cybertron universe Metroplex.
I am surprised we never got G2 Constructicons
And it's the description of the Victory I mentioned above

>
> Zob (also got the MOTU Origins Point Dread and Talon Fighter as well as the Skeletor/Screech set, toys I probably have no business buying, but I love them anyway)

Sold an Origins Frogmonger on Sunday, just have Sunman and the Faker Dupli-Cat set left and I'll be out of non-standard-retail Origins toys. Then I can get to work on the 15 Prince Adam and Sky Sleds that came in.

On Tuesday, July 11, 2023 at 7:38:59 AM UTC-6, Irrellius Spamticon wrote:

> That would be The Victory, which some people want as a future Titan because Decepticons are outnumbered currently when it comes to Titans. The idea would be to have a submerged mode, with all the add on towers around it and the raising elevator, and then the main ship would have a flight mode and all the surrounding towers would form a Spacebridge. Might be cool to have a spacebridge playset.

I feel like that might be a hard sell, to be honest. I mean, the second space cruiser (never heard the name Victory before, but okay) got way more screen time, but it represents a failure for the Decepticons in a way that the Nemesis did not. Also, two gigantic purple Decepticon starship toys that are both very similar in shape and size would probably strike most people as redundant.

Personally, I love the idea of a Decepticon undersea base playset, with a docking tower and everything, but I feel like it wouldn't be too marketable. It's going to feel too samey, after getting a Nemesis toy.

> Are the jet sprues similar to Titans Broadside Aerialbot friends?

I forget what size the pegs are for the tiny Aerialbots. I'm not sure if they're compatible. The premise is the same, certainly.

> I had Titans Fortress Maximus, and I don't get this handle grips reference, because he couldn't hold anything.

So, Metroplex's big red guns had these square-shaped handles with little rectangular plugs that you could slide into his palms. Fortress Maximus didn't come with a rifle, but you could pop off the red cannons from his legs, and they had flip-out handles so you could put them in his hands using the same handle shape. I don't think it was officially documented in the instructions.

> I agree, we need a Tidal Wave. He's likely the only Armada/Energon/Cybertron I'd buy.

A lot of people seem to be excited about Tidal Wave. I won't buy it, but if people want it, then sure.

I don't hate the idea of getting Galvatron's mothership. That's a cool ship design.

> I am surprised we never got G2 Constructicons

Four of the Combiner Wars Constructicons were excellent. Long Haul was a thicc boi, and Mixmaster's vehicle mode was awful. I'm kind of glad I only had to buy that version of Devastator once.

I have a very strong suspicion we will eventually get both Studio Series '86 Devastator and a Masterpiece Devastator. It's just a matter of which one gets developed and released first. I'm sure both of them will eventually get a G2-themed redeco. If the Studio Series toys are Voyager-sized, I am not averse to the idea of getting $30 redeco toys. I doubt I would buy G2 versions of the Masterpice versions.

> Sold an Origins Frogmonger on Sunday, just have Sunman and the Faker Dupli-Cat set left and I'll be out of non-standard-retail Origins toys. Then I can get to work on the 15 Prince Adam and Sky Sleds that came in.

I started collecting with the idea that I would just buy the characters and vehicles I remembered and loved from when I was a kid. But now I own things like Frog Monger, who never existed as a toy in the 1980's. Sigh. I got sucked into this toy line hard core. I am vaguely curious how much you're selling Dupli-Cat for.

Zob (honestly, Dupli-Cat is the best name ever)