I'm not expecting too many people to see this review, given the sheer amount of spam we're experiencing at the moment. (I access the newsgroup through Google so I've been reporting the spam posts to them, not that I expect it's going to do a lot of good.)

As a reminder, we can all meet up over on Reddit on r/AltToysTransformers if this persists!

But, anyway, got me a package from Hasbro Pulse. I did not order the rest of the wave, as I have zero interest in Shadow Striker or Strongarm. I ended up with four Bombshells, though, so it all evens out in the end, I suppose.

So, I imagine the genesis of Detritus as a character went something like this. Takara was reissuing some of the G1 toys, but they wanted to amortize the cost of fixing up and retooling the molds when it was necessary. There were some built-in redeco toys associated with toys like Starscream and Prowl, so no problems there, but Hound was one of the few Diaclone toys who didn't have a redeco version. So, they invented Detritus to justify the existence of a redeco, and decided to make him a Junkion. I disagree strongly with this idea, since Junkions are a) all motorcycles and b) they share a distinctive red/tan/brown color pallette, whereas Detritus is a tan-colored Jeep. Visually, he does not fit. I don't own the eHobby version.

However, the Siege version of Hound was one of the key players missing when many of the Siege toys were rejiggered into Earth mode vehicles for Earthrise the following year. I've been wanting an Earth mode Hound for a really long time, so much so that I allowed myself to be suckered into buying the "predeco" version, knowing full well that I'll buy the toy again when it gets released in its proper colors. (This is why I own Titans Return Orange Astrotrain, after all.)

And, yes, these are the same weapons that came with Doritos Jazz (I realize more and more I'm just using made-up names for toys instead of the real ones) which I guess served as a sneak preview of Detritus/Hound, or at least that specific part of the mold. (Weirdly, the shoulder launcher and missile appear to be made of clear plastic that's completely painted, so I guess these parts are gang-molded with the windshield? Maybe that's how they were able to include the weapons with Doritos Jazz—they just gated off the Hound windshield and produced the Jazz windshield instead?

So, Detritus is five inches tall as a robot, and he's a tan color with a chocolately dark brown pelvis and arms and legs and feet. He reuses the same arms and shoulder connectors, upper legs, and feet from Siege Hound, but the other parts appear to be new. The character is ostensibly a mercenary, both Autobot and Decepticon, so he's got an Autobot badge on his left shoulder. He's got some red painted stripes on his forearms and legs that look like simplified versions of the stickers on the eHobby toy. (I went poking around online for pictures of the eHobby toy since I don't own it, and I stumbled upon the tfwiki.net entry. This is what they have to say about Detritus: "SYK:JUS’SAY‘AARRGHAARRGHPLEEASSENNONONOUGH." It's good to know they've finally turned their act around instead of the blatant idiocy that they used to perpetuate.)

Like the eHobby toy, he's got a painted goatee—his face is a glossy light grey and the beard is the same gold as his missile and handheld gun.. (Mark Maher and Ben MacCrae of Hasbro are both very proud of their beards, and they never fail to point out when they get to do a toy that also has a beard.)
The handheld gun fits in his hand and the shoulder launcher fits in the shoulder, not surprisingly. His Evo-Fusion gimmick, such as it is, includes jamming the shoulder launcher backwards into the barrel of the handheld gun. I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. As a partial Siege holdover, he's also got two small knobs for blast effects, one on each shoulder. Likewise, he's mostly C.O.M.B.A.T.-ready, with peg-holes in the sides of his shoulders and forearms and the sides of his legs and bottoms of his feet. The big one he's missing, though, is one on his back. (We've fallen away from this kind of compatibility for many recent toys. We tend to still get the holes in the bottoms of the feet, if nothing else, but sometimes the other peg-holes seem to get overlooked.)

To transform him, the chest flips up to form the front of the Jeep, and the windshield on his back plugs into place. The arms fold up beneath the undercarriage, and the pairs of wheels within the legs do the same thing as Titans Return Kup, opening up to form both the front and rear wheel base. It's nearly the same transformation as Siege Hound except for the absence of the roll cage. The handheld gun and the shoulder launcher can both mount to the rear of the Jeep, but the G1 toy actually had a third, dedicated vehicle-mode weapon, so it's unfortunate we didn't get something closer to that.. Also, the rear bed of the Jeep ends up with this empty square-shaped gap, and he could really use something to go there to close the gap, like a turret gun.

Jeep mode is about 4.25" long, and hides most of the chocolate parts so he's almost entirely tan. It's a very good Earthification of the Siege design, replacing essentially the entire vehicle configuration except for the little side panels formed by the robot feet. They had to skirt licensing by tweaking the design so that it's not a completely authentic Jeep (the headlights are square-shaped with round bulbs inside them, and the slots for the front grill are horizontal instead of vertical) but the basic shape is acceptable. He kind of pulls an Earthrise Trailbreaker/Hoist where the robot arms are quite obvious and visible beneath the undercarriage, and his ground clearance is rather poor (I can't get all four of his wheels to consistently rotate). There's a large Decepticon symbol on the hood. I have no idea whether I would group him with the good guys or the bad guys when and if I ever do a nice, big neo-G1 display.

There was a time when every Hound toy got turned into Swindle, so I guess I would rather get Detritus if given a choice. Also, it's a good way to get the character for only $25, as opposed to the $200ish the eHobby toy tends to sell for. I will no doubt enjoy Hound a great deal more, but this is a fun sneak peek at the design and engineering that will be used for him eventually.

Zob (hopefully this won't get completely lost in the noise)

On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 9:07:25 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> I'm not expecting too many people to see this review, given the sheer amount of spam we're experiencing at the moment. (I access the newsgroup through Google so I've been reporting the spam posts to them, not that I expect it's going to do a lot of good.)
>
> As a reminder, we can all meet up over on Reddit on r/AltToysTransformers if this persists!
>
> But, anyway, got me a package from Hasbro Pulse. I did not order the rest of the wave, as I have zero interest in Shadow Striker or Strongarm. I ended up with four Bombshells, though, so it all evens out in the end, I suppose.
>
> So, I imagine the genesis of Detritus as a character went something like this. Takara was reissuing some of the G1 toys, but they wanted to amortize the cost of fixing up and retooling the molds when it was necessary. There were some built-in redeco toys associated with toys like Starscream and Prowl, so no problems there, but Hound was one of the few Diaclone toys who didn't have a redeco version. So, they invented Detritus to justify the existence of a redeco, and decided to make him a Junkion. I disagree strongly with this idea, since Junkions are a) all motorcycles and b) they share a distinctive red/tan/brown color pallette, whereas Detritus is a tan-colored Jeep. Visually, he does not fit. I don't own the eHobby version.
>
> However, the Siege version of Hound was one of the key players missing when many of the Siege toys were rejiggered into Earth mode vehicles for Earthrise the following year. I've been wanting an Earth mode Hound for a really long time, so much so that I allowed myself to be suckered into buying the "predeco" version, knowing full well that I'll buy the toy again when it gets released in its proper colors. (This is why I own Titans Return Orange Astrotrain, after all.)
>
> And, yes, these are the same weapons that came with Doritos Jazz (I realize more and more I'm just using made-up names for toys instead of the real ones) which I guess served as a sneak preview of Detritus/Hound, or at least that specific part of the mold. (Weirdly, the shoulder launcher and missile appear to be made of clear plastic that's completely painted, so I guess these parts are gang-molded with the windshield? Maybe that's how they were able to include the weapons with Doritos Jazz—they just gated off the Hound windshield and produced the Jazz windshield instead?
>
> So, Detritus is five inches tall as a robot, and he's a tan color with a chocolately dark brown pelvis and arms and legs and feet. He reuses the same arms and shoulder connectors, upper legs, and feet from Siege Hound, but the other parts appear to be new. The character is ostensibly a mercenary, both Autobot and Decepticon, so he's got an Autobot badge on his left shoulder. He's got some red painted stripes on his forearms and legs that look like simplified versions of the stickers on the eHobby toy. (I went poking around online for pictures of the eHobby toy since I don't own it, and I stumbled upon the tfwiki.net entry. This is what they have to say about Detritus: "SYK:JUS’SAY‘AARRGHAARRGHPLEEASSENNONONOUGH." It's good to know they've finally turned their act around instead of the blatant idiocy that they used to perpetuate.)
>
> Like the eHobby toy, he's got a painted goatee—his face is a glossy light grey and the beard is the same gold as his missile and handheld gun. (Mark Maher and Ben MacCrae of Hasbro are both very proud of their beards, and they never fail to point out when they get to do a toy that also has a beard.)
>
> The handheld gun fits in his hand and the shoulder launcher fits in the shoulder, not surprisingly. His Evo-Fusion gimmick, such as it is, includes jamming the shoulder launcher backwards into the barrel of the handheld gun.. I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. As a partial Siege holdover, he's also got two small knobs for blast effects, one on each shoulder. Likewise, he's mostly C.O.M.B.A.T.-ready, with peg-holes in the sides of his shoulders and forearms and the sides of his legs and bottoms of his feet. The big one he's missing, though, is one on his back. (We've fallen away from this kind of compatibility for many recent toys. We tend to still get the holes in the bottoms of the feet, if nothing else, but sometimes the other peg-holes seem to get overlooked.)
>
> To transform him, the chest flips up to form the front of the Jeep, and the windshield on his back plugs into place. The arms fold up beneath the undercarriage, and the pairs of wheels within the legs do the same thing as Titans Return Kup, opening up to form both the front and rear wheel base. It's nearly the same transformation as Siege Hound except for the absence of the roll cage. The handheld gun and the shoulder launcher can both mount to the rear of the Jeep, but the G1 toy actually had a third, dedicated vehicle-mode weapon, so it's unfortunate we didn't get something closer to that. Also, the rear bed of the Jeep ends up with this empty square-shaped gap, and he could really use something to go there to close the gap, like a turret gun.
>
> Jeep mode is about 4.25" long, and hides most of the chocolate parts so he's almost entirely tan. It's a very good Earthification of the Siege design, replacing essentially the entire vehicle configuration except for the little side panels formed by the robot feet. They had to skirt licensing by tweaking the design so that it's not a completely authentic Jeep (the headlights are square-shaped with round bulbs inside them, and the slots for the front grill are horizontal instead of vertical) but the basic shape is acceptable. He kind of pulls an Earthrise Trailbreaker/Hoist where the robot arms are quite obvious and visible beneath the undercarriage, and his ground clearance is rather poor (I can't get all four of his wheels to consistently rotate). There's a large Decepticon symbol on the hood. I have no idea whether I would group him with the good guys or the bad guys when and if I ever do a nice, big neo-G1 display.
>
> There was a time when every Hound toy got turned into Swindle, so I guess I would rather get Detritus if given a choice. Also, it's a good way to get the character for only $25, as opposed to the $200ish the eHobby toy tends to sell for. I will no doubt enjoy Hound a great deal more, but this is a fun sneak peek at the design and engineering that will be used for him eventually.
>
>
> Zob (hopefully this won't get completely lost in the noise)

I've reported the spam too - much good may it do us.

I have no interest in Detritus, but I'm glad he's a good Hound mold; my Universe Hound suffers from loose joints, and I never picked up the Siege, or even found the Retro G1 release, so I'll be glad for a chance at a modern day G1 Hound.

I remember thinking the eHobby toy looked cool from the official images.
But other pictures I've seen of the actual toy, it had this gross flesh
color instead of the military desert tan.
I hope this toy fixes that.

I think I'm still going to wait and hope this mold is released as Hound.

On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 9:07:25 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> I'm not expecting too many people to see this review, given the sheer amount of spam we're experiencing at the moment. (I access the newsgroup through Google so I've been reporting the spam posts to them, not that I expect it's going to do a lot of good.)
>
> As a reminder, we can all meet up over on Reddit on r/AltToysTransformers if this persists!
>
> But, anyway, got me a package from Hasbro Pulse. I did not order the rest of the wave, as I have zero interest in Shadow Striker or Strongarm. I ended up with four Bombshells, though, so it all evens out in the end, I suppose.
>
> So, I imagine the genesis of Detritus as a character went something like this. Takara was reissuing some of the G1 toys, but they wanted to amortize the cost of fixing up and retooling the molds when it was necessary. There were some built-in redeco toys associated with toys like Starscream and Prowl, so no problems there, but Hound was one of the few Diaclone toys who didn't have a redeco version. So, they invented Detritus to justify the existence of a redeco, and decided to make him a Junkion. I disagree strongly with this idea, since Junkions are a) all motorcycles and b) they share a distinctive red/tan/brown color pallette, whereas Detritus is a tan-colored Jeep. Visually, he does not fit. I don't own the eHobby version.
>
> However, the Siege version of Hound was one of the key players missing when many of the Siege toys were rejiggered into Earth mode vehicles for Earthrise the following year. I've been wanting an Earth mode Hound for a really long time, so much so that I allowed myself to be suckered into buying the "predeco" version, knowing full well that I'll buy the toy again when it gets released in its proper colors. (This is why I own Titans Return Orange Astrotrain, after all.)
>
> And, yes, these are the same weapons that came with Doritos Jazz (I realize more and more I'm just using made-up names for toys instead of the real ones) which I guess served as a sneak preview of Detritus/Hound, or at least that specific part of the mold. (Weirdly, the shoulder launcher and missile appear to be made of clear plastic that's completely painted, so I guess these parts are gang-molded with the windshield? Maybe that's how they were able to include the weapons with Doritos Jazz—they just gated off the Hound windshield and produced the Jazz windshield instead?
>
> So, Detritus is five inches tall as a robot, and he's a tan color with a chocolately dark brown pelvis and arms and legs and feet. He reuses the same arms and shoulder connectors, upper legs, and feet from Siege Hound, but the other parts appear to be new. The character is ostensibly a mercenary, both Autobot and Decepticon, so he's got an Autobot badge on his left shoulder. He's got some red painted stripes on his forearms and legs that look like simplified versions of the stickers on the eHobby toy. (I went poking around online for pictures of the eHobby toy since I don't own it, and I stumbled upon the tfwiki.net entry. This is what they have to say about Detritus: "SYK:JUS’SAY‘AARRGHAARRGHPLEEASSENNONONOUGH." It's good to know they've finally turned their act around instead of the blatant idiocy that they used to perpetuate.)
>
> Like the eHobby toy, he's got a painted goatee—his face is a glossy light grey and the beard is the same gold as his missile and handheld gun. (Mark Maher and Ben MacCrae of Hasbro are both very proud of their beards, and they never fail to point out when they get to do a toy that also has a beard.)
>
> The handheld gun fits in his hand and the shoulder launcher fits in the shoulder, not surprisingly. His Evo-Fusion gimmick, such as it is, includes jamming the shoulder launcher backwards into the barrel of the handheld gun.. I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. As a partial Siege holdover, he's also got two small knobs for blast effects, one on each shoulder. Likewise, he's mostly C.O.M.B.A.T.-ready, with peg-holes in the sides of his shoulders and forearms and the sides of his legs and bottoms of his feet. The big one he's missing, though, is one on his back. (We've fallen away from this kind of compatibility for many recent toys. We tend to still get the holes in the bottoms of the feet, if nothing else, but sometimes the other peg-holes seem to get overlooked.)
>
> To transform him, the chest flips up to form the front of the Jeep, and the windshield on his back plugs into place. The arms fold up beneath the undercarriage, and the pairs of wheels within the legs do the same thing as Titans Return Kup, opening up to form both the front and rear wheel base. It's nearly the same transformation as Siege Hound except for the absence of the roll cage. The handheld gun and the shoulder launcher can both mount to the rear of the Jeep, but the G1 toy actually had a third, dedicated vehicle-mode weapon, so it's unfortunate we didn't get something closer to that. Also, the rear bed of the Jeep ends up with this empty square-shaped gap, and he could really use something to go there to close the gap, like a turret gun.
>
> Jeep mode is about 4.25" long, and hides most of the chocolate parts so he's almost entirely tan. It's a very good Earthification of the Siege design, replacing essentially the entire vehicle configuration except for the little side panels formed by the robot feet. They had to skirt licensing by tweaking the design so that it's not a completely authentic Jeep (the headlights are square-shaped with round bulbs inside them, and the slots for the front grill are horizontal instead of vertical) but the basic shape is acceptable. He kind of pulls an Earthrise Trailbreaker/Hoist where the robot arms are quite obvious and visible beneath the undercarriage, and his ground clearance is rather poor (I can't get all four of his wheels to consistently rotate). There's a large Decepticon symbol on the hood. I have no idea whether I would group him with the good guys or the bad guys when and if I ever do a nice, big neo-G1 display.
>
> There was a time when every Hound toy got turned into Swindle, so I guess I would rather get Detritus if given a choice. Also, it's a good way to get the character for only $25, as opposed to the $200ish the eHobby toy tends to sell for. I will no doubt enjoy Hound a great deal more, but this is a fun sneak peek at the design and engineering that will be used for him eventually.
>
>
> Zob (hopefully this won't get completely lost in the noise)

I've also been reporting the spam.

Happy to say that I got this guy from BBTS, but it's gonna be a long time before I'm able to free him from his cardboard prison. Still, I'm glad to have him. Maybe Detritus is a sign that we'll be getting more eHobby guys in the main line.

On Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 5:39:36 AM UTC+1, William A. Rendfeld wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 9:07:25 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> > I'm not expecting too many people to see this review, given the sheer amount of spam we're experiencing at the moment. (I access the newsgroup through Google so I've been reporting the spam posts to them, not that I expect it's going to do a lot of good.)
> >
> > As a reminder, we can all meet up over on Reddit on r/AltToysTransformers if this persists!
> >
> I've also been reporting the spam.
>
> Happy to say that I got this guy from BBTS, but it's gonna be a long time before I'm able to free him from his cardboard prison. Still, I'm glad to have him. Maybe Detritus is a sign that we'll be getting more eHobby guys in the main line.

Sorry, replying to this mostly to keep a non-spam thread visible in my browser. Count me as another person who's been reporting the spam--that's what, four of us now? Glad to see how actively Google is pursuing those reports.... /sarcasm.

Thanks for the heads up about the reddit group, Zob. Didn't know that existed, but I can dust off an old reddit account if this doesn't go away soon.

Slightly more on topic, if anybody happens to have both the new Studio Series and the WFC Kingdom toys of Ultra Magnus, I'd love to see comparison shots of them with the other Studio Series figures. Or even just the Kingdom Ultra Magnus with the Studio Series crew... I'm beginning to think Studio Series UM might be a little too big in robot mode for my tastes, and I'm trying to figure out if the Kingdom Ultra Magnus would be a better (and cheaper!) fit.

Velvet Glove (latest epiphany: scale in Transformers is not so much canon as headcanon)

On Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 3:27:44 PM UTC+2, Velvet Glove wrote:
> On Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 5:39:36 AM UTC+1, William A. Rendfeld wrote:
> > On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 9:07:25 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> > > I'm not expecting too many people to see this review, given the sheer amount of spam we're experiencing at the moment. (I access the newsgroup through Google so I've been reporting the spam posts to them, not that I expect it's going to do a lot of good.)
> > >
> > > As a reminder, we can all meet up over on Reddit on r/AltToysTransformers if this persists!
> > >
> > I've also been reporting the spam.
> >
> > Happy to say that I got this guy from BBTS, but it's gonna be a long time before I'm able to free him from his cardboard prison. Still, I'm glad to have him. Maybe Detritus is a sign that we'll be getting more eHobby guys in the main line.
> Sorry, replying to this mostly to keep a non-spam thread visible in my browser. Count me as another person who's been reporting the spam--that's what, four of us now? Glad to see how actively Google is pursuing those reports... /sarcasm.
>
> Thanks for the heads up about the reddit group, Zob. Didn't know that existed, but I can dust off an old reddit account if this doesn't go away soon..
>
> Slightly more on topic, if anybody happens to have both the new Studio Series and the WFC Kingdom toys of Ultra Magnus, I'd love to see comparison shots of them with the other Studio Series figures. Or even just the Kingdom Ultra Magnus with the Studio Series crew... I'm beginning to think Studio Series UM might be a little too big in robot mode for my tastes, and I'm trying to figure out if the Kingdom Ultra Magnus would be a better (and cheaper!) fit.
>
> Velvet Glove (latest epiphany: scale in Transformers is not so much canon as headcanon)

I've also reported all of the SPAM messages so far, wish I could get google groups to filter away the "This conversation has been hidden because you reported it for abuse"-messages, sigh...

On Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 9:30:35 AM UTC-4, Avaran wrote:
> I've also reported all of the SPAM messages so far, wish I could get google groups to filter away the "This conversation has been hidden because you reported it for abuse"-messages, sigh...

I think it takes a little time for Google to do that. Several hours at least.

As far as the spammer themselves, it's clearly one person doing it. Jerk.

I've created a killfile for Thai script that's been working well, but
the bot is just switching to English now.
Have you seen this on other newsgroups? I'm kind of paranoid that I'm
only seeing it on the two newsgroups I follow.

In article <5beaf806-9b9d-48eb-b319-d00c410be716n@googlegroups.com>,
Velvet Glove <kernowmogs@gmail.com> wrote:
>Sorry, replying to this mostly to keep a non-spam thread visible in my
>browser. Count me as another person who's been reporting the
>spam--that's what, four of us now? Glad to see how actively Google is
>pursuing those reports... /sarcasm.

I alerted Tim Skirvin of killfile.org yesterday. His cancelbot code is
out of date since there hasn't been serious spam in years, but he's aware of
the problem and is taking steps.

Dave Van Domelen, it's like getting Kup out of long stasis to fight a
Sharkticon horde....

On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 8:07:25 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
> I'm not expecting too many people to see this review, given the sheer amount of spam we're experiencing at the moment. (I access the newsgroup through Google so I've been reporting the spam posts to them, not that I expect it's going to do a lot of good.)
>
> As a reminder, we can all meet up over on Reddit on r/AltToysTransformers if this persists!
>
> But, anyway, got me a package from Hasbro Pulse. I did not order the rest of the wave, as I have zero interest in Shadow Striker or Strongarm. I ended up with four Bombshells, though, so it all evens out in the end, I suppose.
>
> So, I imagine the genesis of Detritus as a character went something like this. Takara was reissuing some of the G1 toys, but they wanted to amortize the cost of fixing up and retooling the molds when it was necessary. There were some built-in redeco toys associated with toys like Starscream and Prowl, so no problems there, but Hound was one of the few Diaclone toys who didn't have a redeco version. So, they invented Detritus to justify the existence of a redeco, and decided to make him a Junkion. I disagree strongly with this idea, since Junkions are a) all motorcycles and b) they share a distinctive red/tan/brown color pallette, whereas Detritus is a tan-colored Jeep. Visually, he does not fit. I don't own the eHobby version.
>
> However, the Siege version of Hound was one of the key players missing when many of the Siege toys were rejiggered into Earth mode vehicles for Earthrise the following year. I've been wanting an Earth mode Hound for a really long time, so much so that I allowed myself to be suckered into buying the "predeco" version, knowing full well that I'll buy the toy again when it gets released in its proper colors. (This is why I own Titans Return Orange Astrotrain, after all.)
>
> And, yes, these are the same weapons that came with Doritos Jazz (I realize more and more I'm just using made-up names for toys instead of the real ones) which I guess served as a sneak preview of Detritus/Hound, or at least that specific part of the mold. (Weirdly, the shoulder launcher and missile appear to be made of clear plastic that's completely painted, so I guess these parts are gang-molded with the windshield? Maybe that's how they were able to include the weapons with Doritos Jazz—they just gated off the Hound windshield and produced the Jazz windshield instead?
>
> So, Detritus is five inches tall as a robot, and he's a tan color with a chocolately dark brown pelvis and arms and legs and feet. He reuses the same arms and shoulder connectors, upper legs, and feet from Siege Hound, but the other parts appear to be new. The character is ostensibly a mercenary, both Autobot and Decepticon, so he's got an Autobot badge on his left shoulder. He's got some red painted stripes on his forearms and legs that look like simplified versions of the stickers on the eHobby toy. (I went poking around online for pictures of the eHobby toy since I don't own it, and I stumbled upon the tfwiki.net entry. This is what they have to say about Detritus: "SYK:JUS’SAY‘AARRGHAARRGHPLEEASSENNONONOUGH." It's good to know they've finally turned their act around instead of the blatant idiocy that they used to perpetuate.)
>
> Like the eHobby toy, he's got a painted goatee—his face is a glossy light grey and the beard is the same gold as his missile and handheld gun. (Mark Maher and Ben MacCrae of Hasbro are both very proud of their beards, and they never fail to point out when they get to do a toy that also has a beard.)
>
> The handheld gun fits in his hand and the shoulder launcher fits in the shoulder, not surprisingly. His Evo-Fusion gimmick, such as it is, includes jamming the shoulder launcher backwards into the barrel of the handheld gun.. I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. As a partial Siege holdover, he's also got two small knobs for blast effects, one on each shoulder. Likewise, he's mostly C.O.M.B.A.T.-ready, with peg-holes in the sides of his shoulders and forearms and the sides of his legs and bottoms of his feet. The big one he's missing, though, is one on his back. (We've fallen away from this kind of compatibility for many recent toys. We tend to still get the holes in the bottoms of the feet, if nothing else, but sometimes the other peg-holes seem to get overlooked.)
>
> To transform him, the chest flips up to form the front of the Jeep, and the windshield on his back plugs into place. The arms fold up beneath the undercarriage, and the pairs of wheels within the legs do the same thing as Titans Return Kup, opening up to form both the front and rear wheel base. It's nearly the same transformation as Siege Hound except for the absence of the roll cage. The handheld gun and the shoulder launcher can both mount to the rear of the Jeep, but the G1 toy actually had a third, dedicated vehicle-mode weapon, so it's unfortunate we didn't get something closer to that. Also, the rear bed of the Jeep ends up with this empty square-shaped gap, and he could really use something to go there to close the gap, like a turret gun.
>
> Jeep mode is about 4.25" long, and hides most of the chocolate parts so he's almost entirely tan. It's a very good Earthification of the Siege design, replacing essentially the entire vehicle configuration except for the little side panels formed by the robot feet. They had to skirt licensing by tweaking the design so that it's not a completely authentic Jeep (the headlights are square-shaped with round bulbs inside them, and the slots for the front grill are horizontal instead of vertical) but the basic shape is acceptable. He kind of pulls an Earthrise Trailbreaker/Hoist where the robot arms are quite obvious and visible beneath the undercarriage, and his ground clearance is rather poor (I can't get all four of his wheels to consistently rotate). There's a large Decepticon symbol on the hood. I have no idea whether I would group him with the good guys or the bad guys when and if I ever do a nice, big neo-G1 display.
>
> There was a time when every Hound toy got turned into Swindle, so I guess I would rather get Detritus if given a choice. Also, it's a good way to get the character for only $25, as opposed to the $200ish the eHobby toy tends to sell for. I will no doubt enjoy Hound a great deal more, but this is a fun sneak peek at the design and engineering that will be used for him eventually.
>
>
> Zob (hopefully this won't get completely lost in the noise)

This guy is the only one who lasted more than a week at my shop, we got 2 of him left and nothing else. Bombshell went first, then the girls, and I think a lot of people are waiting for him to be Hound. He's taunting me, I might pick one up if he's around too long.

yeah I reported all the spambots, I wish we could send Junkions after them, Trashmaster needs to get to work taking out this junk.

On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 6:07:25 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> and his ground clearance is rather poor (I can't get all four of his wheels to consistently rotate).

This flaw seems more and more common in modern era Transformers and should be considered a total engineering failure, but for some reason people don't get mad about it.

> Zob (hopefully this won't get completely lost in the noise)

Put me on the list of people who reported every damn last single one of those posts. And now my Google Groups A.T.T. feed looks pretty cleaned up with only about 5 or 6 'this comment is hidden because you reported it for abuse' messages. Better than over 120 of them like I had yesterday.

On Friday, September 29, 2023 at 12:28:19 AM UTC-4, Evil King Macrocranios wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 6:07:25 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> > and his ground clearance is rather poor (I can't get all four of his wheels to consistently rotate).
> This flaw seems more and more common in modern era Transformers and should be considered a total engineering failure, but for some reason people don't get mad about it.
> > Zob (hopefully this won't get completely lost in the noise)
> Put me on the list of people who reported every damn last single one of those posts. And now my Google Groups A.T.T. feed looks pretty cleaned up with only about 5 or 6 'this comment is hidden because you reported it for abuse' messages. Better than over 120 of them like I had yesterday.

On the bright side, it's going to force us all to step up and engage more with real posts, if only to get ahead of the Tidal Wave of spam we're experiencing. I'm not great with foreign languages - is that Thai?

On Friday, September 29, 2023 at 12:28:19 AM UTC-4, Evil King Macrocranios wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 6:07:25 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> > and his ground clearance is rather poor (I can't get all four of his wheels to consistently rotate).
> This flaw seems more and more common in modern era Transformers and should be considered a total engineering failure, but for some reason people don't get mad about it.
> > Zob (hopefully this won't get completely lost in the noise)
> Put me on the list of people who reported every damn last single one of those posts. And now my Google Groups A.T.T. feed looks pretty cleaned up with only about 5 or 6 'this comment is hidden because you reported it for abuse' messages. Better than over 120 of them like I had yesterday.

Whoever did what, it appears to have worked. The flood has been reduced to a trickle.

On Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 10:28:19 PM UTC-6, Evil King Macrocranios wrote:

> Put me on the list of people who reported every damn last single one of those posts.

Yay! Teamwork makes the dream work!

Zob (there is no "I" in "team," but there's a "me")