griffin
23rd July 2014, 07:39 AM
Donated by Banter Toys, who are the distributors of these in Australia, and should be out now at places like Newsagents, ToysRUs stores, some Toyworlds, and some other locations (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?p=426026#post426026).
This review will be moved to the Review section after a couple weeks. It is just highlighting these products in return for giving us these samples for free.
With that disclaimer out of the way, since these are free and I'll be giving them away later (in some sort of competition), I may not be as critical as I would be if I had bought these... because I'm not one for buying much merchandise. (it's expensive enough just buying the toys)
I'm not sure what the Retail Prices of these are, as I don't think anyone has reported it yet, but I'm guessing $2-3 for the Game Cards and $3-5 for the Collector Cards.
More information on these two Card sets, and other Licensed Transformers products being distributed by Banter, can be seen here (http://www.bantertoys.com.au/categories/brands/transformers).
First up, the Game cards.
Banter sent me ten packs, which are nice shiny foil to catch your eye... in the recognisable fourth Movie style.
No chewing gum inside though. :p I guess that shows how long it has been since I last had anything to do with blind-packed trading cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/b998.jpg
Each pack has five cards, and it wasn't until I opened up the last pack that I came across an added insert with instructions on how to use the cards. (I was thinking that there was probably just a website address for the instructions that I'd need to mention, but here you can see what you are likely to get yourself if you start collecting these)
It is a bit confusing for me to understand, but probably makes sense to those who have played these types of battle card games (each person uses their own deck to compete, so the more chase cards or powerful cards you collect, the better chance you have at winning).
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/b999.jpg
.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c000.jpg
The cards themselves are nice enough to collect as collector cards, but are only single-sided, and need to include battle stats, so aren't able to contain anything else other than an image.
There are four groups of cards, and three types of cards.
The groups are - Autobots, Decepticons, Humans, Power-boost.
The types are - regular, foil, rainbow foil.
These are Autobot cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c001.jpg
Decepticon and Human cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c002.jpg
Power-up cards, foil cards, and rainbow foil cards (looks the same as foil cards until you look at them from an angle).
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c003.jpg
The backs of the cards, showing the groups.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c004.jpg
On the back of the packs, it says that there are "over 170 cards" to collect. (not sure why they couldn't quote the exact number of cards, as you'd never know for sure if you managed to collect them all)
One mirror foil card in every two packs (on average). One rainbow foil card in every five packs (on average).
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c005.jpg
Of the 50 cards I got, which is almost a third of the cards, I didn't end up getting any duplicates... which is a nice start, but I'm not about to start buying up 50-odd packs to collect them all.
Secondly, the Collector Cards.
The ten packs they sent me were in a Point-Of-Sale box, which is a nice little bonus to keep them in... if I decide to collect the set.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c006.jpg
Each pack has ten cards that are double sided, IF they don't have any Souvenir Movie parts in the pack.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c007.jpg
Odds listed on the back of the packs...
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c014.jpg
Optimus truck panel (the shiny blue or red parts) - 1 in every 7 packs. (noted on the back of each one as xxxx/8070... so you can work out the approximate total number of trading cards Topps produced if that ratio is accurate)
Cade Yeager clothing piece - 1 in every 50 packs (probably individually numbered as well)
Shane Dyson clothing piece - 1 in every 50 packs
Tessa Yeager clothing piece - 1 in every 100 packs (probably less because she wore less clothing, or, more of her outfits were "kept" by production staff after the movie ;) )
Optimus Truck tail light piece - 1 in every 150 packs. (This one is really odd, as I'd much rather have some of the signature/unique shiny truck panel parts than a piece of red glass that could be anyone's tail light... this is the rarest item, but the least interesting of the five.)
The packs also note that, If your pack has a truck panel or clothing piece, it will not have 10 cards in it. The truck panel is encased in a solid block that is the thickness of 10 cards, so no other cards will be in the pack (making it easy to find if you have sensitive fingers... like those hunting down Lego mini-figures in their blind bags).
The clothing pieces are not as thick, but are noted as taking up the space of 5 cards (so comes with 5 regular cards)... while the Optimus tail-light pieces are said to come with 1 or 2 regular cards because it must be almost as thick as the panel pieces.
Most of the cards are movie scenes from all four movies, in plot order (the card numbers). They have a lot of detail and info on the cards, so if you are a fan of the movies so far, this is a nice set to own and read. (they aren't half-assed efforts by people with partial knowledge of Transformers)
Only complaint I have though is one that may just be my bad luck - not a lot of movie scene cards with robot action. As you can see below on almost half of the movie scene cards, they mostly feature humans. But as I said, this could just be my bad luck with these ones, and the rest are all robot scenes.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c008.jpg
From about 140 to 150 are non-foil character cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c009.jpg
And from about 150 to 170 are the rainbow foil cards.
Looks like they have 30 character cards, but could only do 20 of them as Rainbow foil, in order to adhere to the ratio of one per pack of 10. That spoils the set of 30 character cards if a third are not as nice as the majority of them.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c010.jpg
The backs of the rainbow foil cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c011.jpg
Before I started opening the packs I read the back which noted the odds of Truck panel parts, and that it would replace all 10 cards in a pack... so I had a feel to see if any of the ten packs had one, and if I could pick it. I was only expecting one, but managed to identify two by feel.
One blue and one red.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c012.jpg
It was actually quite exciting... and have now been placed with the Movie toys in my collection.
It's like owning part of Optimus Prime... the real Optimus Prime (which I've actually touched in person at this year's BotCon - the surviving Optimus Truck that is).
On the back is a printed number to verify that it is of a limited number... in this case, there are 8,070 Optimus Truck panel parts out there to find.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c013.jpg
After getting two of them, I'm now quite tempted to find some more to collect, and maybe even a clothing piece or two as well if I'm lucky.
And just like the Game cards, I didn't get any duplicates out of the remaining eight packs, totalling 80 of the 170 cards... having me thinking about collecting the rest of them, even though I hate blind collecting, as you have to spend a lot more than what you would for a complete set.
I'd much rather pay a little extra for a complete set, than spending 3 or 4 times as much chasing up the few illusive cards that are always hard to find.
To sum up...
Game Cards - only go for them if you play those Battle Card type games.
Collector Cards - worth collecting if you have the money and patience to collect them all... or just to collect some parts of real Movie Props.
This review will be moved to the Review section after a couple weeks. It is just highlighting these products in return for giving us these samples for free.
With that disclaimer out of the way, since these are free and I'll be giving them away later (in some sort of competition), I may not be as critical as I would be if I had bought these... because I'm not one for buying much merchandise. (it's expensive enough just buying the toys)
I'm not sure what the Retail Prices of these are, as I don't think anyone has reported it yet, but I'm guessing $2-3 for the Game Cards and $3-5 for the Collector Cards.
More information on these two Card sets, and other Licensed Transformers products being distributed by Banter, can be seen here (http://www.bantertoys.com.au/categories/brands/transformers).
First up, the Game cards.
Banter sent me ten packs, which are nice shiny foil to catch your eye... in the recognisable fourth Movie style.
No chewing gum inside though. :p I guess that shows how long it has been since I last had anything to do with blind-packed trading cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/b998.jpg
Each pack has five cards, and it wasn't until I opened up the last pack that I came across an added insert with instructions on how to use the cards. (I was thinking that there was probably just a website address for the instructions that I'd need to mention, but here you can see what you are likely to get yourself if you start collecting these)
It is a bit confusing for me to understand, but probably makes sense to those who have played these types of battle card games (each person uses their own deck to compete, so the more chase cards or powerful cards you collect, the better chance you have at winning).
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/b999.jpg
.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c000.jpg
The cards themselves are nice enough to collect as collector cards, but are only single-sided, and need to include battle stats, so aren't able to contain anything else other than an image.
There are four groups of cards, and three types of cards.
The groups are - Autobots, Decepticons, Humans, Power-boost.
The types are - regular, foil, rainbow foil.
These are Autobot cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c001.jpg
Decepticon and Human cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c002.jpg
Power-up cards, foil cards, and rainbow foil cards (looks the same as foil cards until you look at them from an angle).
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c003.jpg
The backs of the cards, showing the groups.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c004.jpg
On the back of the packs, it says that there are "over 170 cards" to collect. (not sure why they couldn't quote the exact number of cards, as you'd never know for sure if you managed to collect them all)
One mirror foil card in every two packs (on average). One rainbow foil card in every five packs (on average).
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c005.jpg
Of the 50 cards I got, which is almost a third of the cards, I didn't end up getting any duplicates... which is a nice start, but I'm not about to start buying up 50-odd packs to collect them all.
Secondly, the Collector Cards.
The ten packs they sent me were in a Point-Of-Sale box, which is a nice little bonus to keep them in... if I decide to collect the set.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c006.jpg
Each pack has ten cards that are double sided, IF they don't have any Souvenir Movie parts in the pack.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c007.jpg
Odds listed on the back of the packs...
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c014.jpg
Optimus truck panel (the shiny blue or red parts) - 1 in every 7 packs. (noted on the back of each one as xxxx/8070... so you can work out the approximate total number of trading cards Topps produced if that ratio is accurate)
Cade Yeager clothing piece - 1 in every 50 packs (probably individually numbered as well)
Shane Dyson clothing piece - 1 in every 50 packs
Tessa Yeager clothing piece - 1 in every 100 packs (probably less because she wore less clothing, or, more of her outfits were "kept" by production staff after the movie ;) )
Optimus Truck tail light piece - 1 in every 150 packs. (This one is really odd, as I'd much rather have some of the signature/unique shiny truck panel parts than a piece of red glass that could be anyone's tail light... this is the rarest item, but the least interesting of the five.)
The packs also note that, If your pack has a truck panel or clothing piece, it will not have 10 cards in it. The truck panel is encased in a solid block that is the thickness of 10 cards, so no other cards will be in the pack (making it easy to find if you have sensitive fingers... like those hunting down Lego mini-figures in their blind bags).
The clothing pieces are not as thick, but are noted as taking up the space of 5 cards (so comes with 5 regular cards)... while the Optimus tail-light pieces are said to come with 1 or 2 regular cards because it must be almost as thick as the panel pieces.
Most of the cards are movie scenes from all four movies, in plot order (the card numbers). They have a lot of detail and info on the cards, so if you are a fan of the movies so far, this is a nice set to own and read. (they aren't half-assed efforts by people with partial knowledge of Transformers)
Only complaint I have though is one that may just be my bad luck - not a lot of movie scene cards with robot action. As you can see below on almost half of the movie scene cards, they mostly feature humans. But as I said, this could just be my bad luck with these ones, and the rest are all robot scenes.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c008.jpg
From about 140 to 150 are non-foil character cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c009.jpg
And from about 150 to 170 are the rainbow foil cards.
Looks like they have 30 character cards, but could only do 20 of them as Rainbow foil, in order to adhere to the ratio of one per pack of 10. That spoils the set of 30 character cards if a third are not as nice as the majority of them.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c010.jpg
The backs of the rainbow foil cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c011.jpg
Before I started opening the packs I read the back which noted the odds of Truck panel parts, and that it would replace all 10 cards in a pack... so I had a feel to see if any of the ten packs had one, and if I could pick it. I was only expecting one, but managed to identify two by feel.
One blue and one red.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c012.jpg
It was actually quite exciting... and have now been placed with the Movie toys in my collection.
It's like owning part of Optimus Prime... the real Optimus Prime (which I've actually touched in person at this year's BotCon - the surviving Optimus Truck that is).
On the back is a printed number to verify that it is of a limited number... in this case, there are 8,070 Optimus Truck panel parts out there to find.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c013.jpg
After getting two of them, I'm now quite tempted to find some more to collect, and maybe even a clothing piece or two as well if I'm lucky.
And just like the Game cards, I didn't get any duplicates out of the remaining eight packs, totalling 80 of the 170 cards... having me thinking about collecting the rest of them, even though I hate blind collecting, as you have to spend a lot more than what you would for a complete set.
I'd much rather pay a little extra for a complete set, than spending 3 or 4 times as much chasing up the few illusive cards that are always hard to find.
To sum up...
Game Cards - only go for them if you play those Battle Card type games.
Collector Cards - worth collecting if you have the money and patience to collect them all... or just to collect some parts of real Movie Props.