First in pack look at CW Brawl

[TAAUBlaster]

Wow, not even remolding Blast Off's head is really lazy on Hasbro's part. Not to mention that I'm not a fan of using a jet in the first place.

Don't know if its just the photo, but Bruticus' arms look way to long and spindly compared to his chunkier torso and legs. Brawl and Swindle are looking mighty fine though!

[Lord_Zed]

Not bad, but I'm still going to wait and see what TakaraTomy do.

I remember reading that issue for the first time standing in my local newsagent thinking 'that was BRUTAL' when Megatron basically crushed his head with his bear hands. That was my favourite issue

Given later in the same issue Megs had half his face scratched off and yet still delivered a KO to Predaking, brutal is rather apt.

And clearly Brawl's crushed head was not fatal seeing as how he showed up only a few issues later hunting Throttlebots. Obviously Brawl doesn't use his head much.

[GoktimusPrime]

The source of the Combaticon photos is a Vietnamese hobby shop, so these are likely to have been poached from the factory... or Hasbro are releasing toys early in Vietnam as soon as they are manufactured.

Heh, wasn't the avoidance of factory poaching one of the reasons why HasTak relocated manufacturing from China to Vietnam (as well as cost)? Although I guess it's not surprising that security at a factory in an even cheaper labour market wouldn't be much improved.

Wow, not even remolding Blast Off's head is really lazy on Hasbro's part. Not to mention that I'm not a fan of using a jet in the first place.

Don't know if its just the photo, but Bruticus' arms look way to long and spindly compared to his chunkier torso and legs. Brawl and Swindle are looking mighty fine though!

I can understand not remoulding, as it is costly; and these don't seem to be the gang-moulded redecos that we get with toys like Dead End/Streetwise etc. And I personally approve of the choice of having Blast Off as a fighter jet rather than a space shuttle, since it actually makes more logical sense in a team of combat vehicles (which a shuttle isn't). Besides, Blast Off was already a jet in Fall of Cybertron. Having said that, I think that a better solution would've been to simply repaint Firefly. Same alt mode, but the head looks more similar to Blast Off's IMHO.

[yoshi594]

i really hope takara fixes blastoff! will defo be skipping the hasbro release.

[prjkt]

Have we seen a production sample of Blasr Off yet? Head at still be changed

[TAAUBlaster]

I can understand not remoulding, as it is costly; and these don't seem to be the gang-moulded redecos that we get with toys like Dead End/Streetwise etc. And I personally approve of the choice of having Blast Off as a fighter jet rather than a space shuttle, since it actually makes more logical sense in a team of combat vehicles (which a shuttle isn't). Besides, Blast Off was already a jet in Fall of Cybertron. Having said that, I think that a better solution would've been to simply repaint Firefly. Same alt mode, but the head looks more similar to Blast Off's IMHO.

I get that remolding is costly. But its just sheer laziness that they did a straight repaint, when other new character repaints had at least gotten new heads. I'd be content with Firefly's head as an option though. At least he has a mouthplate. I know a lot of people are happy with the jet, but I like my CW to be G1 accurate Not having a dig at those who do prefer the jet alt mode, its just my personal preference. So I'll be waiting for Takara's and see what they do.

Have we seen a production sample of Blasr Off yet? Head at still be changed

The packaged sample on the FB page would be a final production piece I imagine. And you can see the two bright yellow eyes - which suggests the head won't be changing.

[UltimateGalvatron]

I like the Quickslinger head in Blast Offs colours...

[Bidoofdude]

I like the Quickslinger head in Blast Offs colours...

I kind of have this. It's not accurate, which kind of sucks, but that head still looks killer in those colours.

[GoktimusPrime]

I get that remolding is costly. But its just sheer laziness that they did a straight repaint, when other new character repaints had at least gotten new heads. I'd be content with Firefly's head as an option though. At least he has a mouthplate. I know a lot of people are happy with the jet, but I like my CW to be G1 accurate Not having a dig at those who do prefer the jet alt mode, its just my personal preference. So I'll be waiting for Takara's and see what they do.

I suspect that the budget may be allocated to the Combaticons as a set, rather than to each individual figure. And they've extensively retooled Hot Spot to become Onslaught, with more minor retooling on Rook to become Swindle, and of course, spending more money developing the wholly new Brawl mould. I suspect that perhaps there just wasn't any money left after that to develop a new head for Blast Off. Having said that, it would (should?) cost them nothing to simply repaint the existing Firefly mould. As you rightly said, as least he does have a mouth plate. That's what feels lazy (via inattentiveness) to me.

In hindsight, Hasbro should've really just given the Rook mould a Swindle head in the first place. Nobody would care if Rook had a Swindle-like head, because he's a new character and there's no precedent. Hasbro did a better job with Alpha Bravo; developing him really as Vortex first, then releasing him as an Aerialbot. So now Hasbro didn't have to do anything to retool Alpha Bravo as Vortex, because he was really just Vortex the whole time. They only had to retool him as Blades, although it's possible that the Vortex/Blades heads were gang-moulded together to save on money. Hasbro would've already gang-moulded the Firefly and Quickslinger heads... I'm not sure why they couldn't have gang-moulded a third Blast Off head (after all, TakaraTOMY gang-moulded variant parts for the 3 MP Nissans). But even assuming that it wasn't feasible for them to do it, surely the Firefly head would've been the more logical choice. Still... the horse has already bolted, so there's not much point lamenting about what could've been. I just hope that Hasbro learns from these mistakes and improves on them in future; and also learn from their successes, like Alpha Bravo/Vortex. That was a good call.

But yeah, probably better for you to wait and see what TakaraTOMY produces.

I like the Quickslinger head in Blast Offs colours...

Yeah, but that's because you didn't grow up with G1. You don't have 29 years' worth of memories and emotional attachment to this character. I'm not saying that this is any better or worse than those of us who grew up w/ G1, but I think it's fair to say that we view G1 from different perspectives. And you could even say that we view the Transformers stuff that you grew up with (still growing up with ) through different eyes as well.

[MayzaPrime]

CW Blast Off can always be re-purposed as SG Slingshot