Dave's Third Party Rant: MasterShooter Collectibles Bolt-Action (Firebolt) BrOOMstick (Nightstick) Minute-Bot (Haywire) Shot-Piece (Recoil) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/MasterShooter Back in January 2012 I pre-ordered these through Captured Prey, but due to numerous production difficulties, I got them in April...2013. Oops. These are resin-cast "third party" toys with pretty high production values, meant as articulated updates of Targetmaster partners designed to work with a variety of modern Transformers (both 5mm pegs and the 3mm clip system). I got the four for $40, the sort of impulse buy I'm a bit less likely to make at the moment. I won't be Capsuling, as I figure anyone considering a purchase like this isn't looking for a quick thumbs up/down anyway. :) I also got a Brown Master (Browning-homage) as a freebie thrown in, but it's pretty clearly an early effort at the Targetmaster style, and I'll judge the product by the final version. Premise: The dilemma of any third party production is to create something recognizable to the fans, but not so recognizable that it draws a Cease & Desist order. Some take it seriously, others go more for the parody angle (since parody is protected, and could add a layer of dubious legal defense). MasterShooters definitely go for the parody angle. Each of the toys is clearly meant to be an update of an official Targetmaster, although a few add in additional elements. Some of the names are close to the originals, others are only made clear in the bio notes. Unfortunately, the humor level skews towards the junior high level, with numerous unsubtle jokes that are too blatant to really count as innuendo. Packaging: These are all in snap-together clear blister shells made to hang on pegs. 6" (15cm) tall and 2.25" (6cm) wide with a blister at the bottom 2.25" (6cm) tall, 1.5" (4cm) wide and 2cm deep. A card insert has all the specific info, and each is packaged with an adapter plug that lets 3mm C-clips attach to them. All of them have card inserts with a color fade from top to bottom and a grid, meant to evoke some G1 packaging without duplicating it. They all have a "MasterShooter Collectibles" logo evocing G1 logos, but the "MasterShooter" is squished and hard to read...if these were intended for shelves, they'd fail at catching the eye. The rest of the words on the cards are in Impact font, with name/epithet/quote on front and bio note on back. On the front, hidden by the toy itself, is the webpage and legalese, including the fact that these are not child-safe and are meant only for adult collectors. Well, pre-adolescent ones, to judge by the bio notes. Common Elements: They're all made of black and light gray resin plastic, very strong and with very tight tolerances. The joints are very stiff as a result, but sometimes so stiff it feels like I'm going to break something. The only paint is on the faces, a single color for the entire face. While there's a lot of similarity in the molds, there's minor differences in most of the parts, so they're not just all redecos. Sometimes the difference is a matter of a helmet crest being a half millimeter shorter, mind you. All of them are 5.5cm tall (a little over 2"). All joints are ball joints, with the neck being restricted to the point where it can only wiggle a little while turning. Shoulders, elbows, hips and knees all have pretty wide range of motion, and the knees can bend both forwards and back. Gun modes all have a stepped peg that can be held in either 5mm peg hole fists or 4mm (compatible with original Targetmasters). The pegs are always on the back of the figure, and in most cases at the top of the back. They're also pretty short, so only block-fist types can hold them, the open hands with three-quarter channels might have trouble. Adjacent to the peg is a C-clip strut that's on a ball joint similar to that of the neck. The space between peg and strut is pretty tight, so some figures may have clearance issues. Each comes with an adapter piece that's meant to fit onto the 5mm peg and provides a 3mm rod segment so that it can attach to another toy's C-clip. There's a very shallow 5mm peg on the bottom that can help with some of the clearance issues in rare cases. None of them stay on very well, though, and I lost one of mine in the carpet before even getting into the review. No great loss on the toys themselves, although I might repurpose mine to let old Armada toys use C-clip weapons. The hands have spherical depressions on the top and bottom of the fist so that their accessories (if any) can clip on, rather than trying to make Cyberverse-style 2mm peg weapons. As with the original Targetmaster partners, they all transform by folding the legs over the front of the torso. They also have tabs on the wrists lock into the joint slots of the hips, to keep the arms fixed in place. The legs have tabs to lock them together, helpful considering that the joints aren't hinges as they are in G1. It's a bit tricky getting the legs folded up properly, and it matters more on some than others (the ones with barrels on the backs of the thighs REALLY need to be lined up carefully, the ones with barrels attached to the torso not so much). Mold flash is a minor problem, if you get these you might want to go over them with a file or X-Acto. Additionally, some of the larger pieces have shrinkage-hollows in them, like the bottoms of the feet. The "Automated Robots" have a cross-shaped faction symbol, while the lone "Deceptive Construct" figure has a cross flanked by two lines that may be intended as a distinct symbol, or could be the same symbol superimposed on a grille. Individual Comments: NAME: Bolt-Action Based On: Firebolt Epithet: The Hot Steel Rod Quote: "How would you like to taste my fiery bolt?" Bolt Action [sic] has a very large ego, but it might actually be justified. He packs quite a large punch for such a small bot. He is brash and rushes into action too quickly, yet is able to work his way through the brush all the way to victory. His weapon of choice is a double barreled [sic] crossbow that rapid fires high temperature steel arrows and he is more than capable of using it effectively. He simply exhausts his opponents with a hard, fast, continuous pounding of hot rods. He is a valuable asset to the Automated Robots. Seriously, did they farm these bio notes out to a 7th grader? Because that's about the level of the sexual references here. If I were doing Capsules for these toys, the bio notes alone would drop some of 'em a notch or two. It's like bathing in 4chan. Packaging: The backing card has a yellow-orange to orange fade and yellow gridlines, to emphasize the Hot Rod link. The crossbow is behind the figure, loose. Robot Mode: The legs and crossbow are light gray, the rest is black. The face is painted black. This is one of the designs with the gun barrels molded on the backs of the thighs, but they don't stick out past the C-clip strut, nor do they significantly impair articulation. There is a t-shaped slot on the butt, used for some other figures to glue on a barrel. The crossbow is 39mm long and 34mm wide, designed to clip around any figure's fist, but with no other means of attachment as a weapon. It can store on the figure's back by putting the grip peg between the two barrels. The adapter can be snapped into the C-clip to keep it from falling off. If they'd made one of the crosspieces round instead of rectangular it could attach to a C-clip, but as it stands there's no real way to attach it along the centerline in gun mode (and putting it in one hand looks dumb). I suspect the only reason they gave him a crossbow was as a TF:A Rodimus reference, though. Transformation: Nothing special on this one, just make sure the barrels are lined up properly. Turning the head around is an optional step, gets the face out of the way. Gun Mode: A squat two-barreled gun 1.5" (3.5cm) long, light gray on the top and black on the bottom. Overall: Given that third party toys regularly cost five to ten times as much as same-size mass-market toys, this is pretty good value. It tries a little too hard to be compatible with everything, resulting in being only marginally compatible with anything, but that's endemic to the line. NAME: BrOOMstick Based On: Nightstick Epithet: The Sweeper Quote: "This is my BrOOMstick!" BrOOMstick vowed to retrieve the ruby skid plates that were scavenged by the resident of the building that fell on his last partner. On his journey, he was possessed by an evil spirit frpmo an old book. Victory was won, even though it meant cutting off his own hand. He eventually built a prosthetic, but still likes to wield the chainsaw that he had used in the interim. He has now teamed up with the Sweepers who serve the Deceptive Constructs. The new partnership seems to have distracted him from his vow, for now. Mixing Wizard of Oz and Evil Dead: Army of Darkness references in one bio note is a bit of a pop-culture overload, but at least it crowds out the dick jokes. Packaging: The card insert has a white to blue fade with purple grid lines, since this is the lone Decepticon-alike. The blue is dark enough to make the last third or so of the bio note hard to read. The chainsaw is clipped over the right fist in-package. Robot Mode: The legs, chainsaw and center barrel are black plastic, the rest is light gray. The face is painted red. The thighs have barrels on them as well. This is one of the figures where the C-clip adapter actualy fits pretty snugly on the back peg. The chainsaw is 24mm long and is basically the front end of a chainsaw blade, with the chains vanishing into the handle. Storing it on the back is a bit trickier than with Bolt-Action's weapons, but the clip-and-adaptor trick helps hold it in place. Transformation: Same as witht Bolt-Action. Gun Mode: This takes the basic shape of Bolt-Action's gun mode and adds a third barrel, which is glued into the t-shaped slot on the mold's butt. The total length is 45mm with this extra barrel. The extra barrel does seem to be glued in place, not just pegged. I wonder if they attempted a version where it was removable and a t-slot was put on a forearm so that the weapon could be used in robot mode? I suppose the chainsaw can be left in one hand in this mode, as a sort of side-bayonet, but it doesn't look a whole lot better than putting the crossbow in Bolt-Action's hand in gun mode. Overall: Probably my favorite of the three, and not just because the bio note isn't a farrago of genital humor. Chainsaws are cool at any scale, and this is one of the less blocky guns. NAME: Minute-Bot Based On: Haywire Epithet: The Quick Shot Quote: "I'm sorry, but I do have one more round..." To say Minute Bot [sic] lives up to his name is an understatement. Frequently shoots off all his ammunition before the battle even begins, leaving his partner to rely more on his blurring speed than his gunslinging abilities. Often makes excuses for his lack of restraint, but the real reason is because he rarely sees action due to his partner being a courier rather than a warrior. He considers taking the little blue cog to help his endurance in battle. Maybe then the other Automated Robots will respect him instead of laughing. They were doing so well until the lame Viagra joke. Packaging: The card insert has a blue to light blue fade, with gray grid. Minute-Bot has no accessory, and until I do a more thorough search of the corners of my living room no longer even has his C-clip adapter plug. (Okay, before posting the review I did that thorough search and found it.) Robot Mode: Black legs, everything else is gray. The thighs have no barrels on them, instead this uses the same central barrel as BrOOMstick. The face is painted white. No accessory. Transformation: Same as the previous two, but since the only barrel is fixed to the torso, you don't need to fuss about with the legs as much. Gun Mode: 46mm long, black on top and otherwise gray. Overall: Probably the least interesting of the four. If you're not getting a price break by buying all four at once, you can safely leave this one out. NAME: Shot-Piece Based On: Recoil Epithet: The Old Timer Quote: "Easy on the trigger, I wasn't built yesterday!" Shot Piece [sic] is as cantankerous as they come, maybe moreso than his partner. Constantly has to take little blue cogs for his broken barrel, but they unfortunately rarely last more than 4 hours. Doesn't particularly care for the name given to him by the Leader [sic] of the Automated Robots, who is a bit of a jerk and likes to rename bots on a whim. He'll never use the phrase "piece of shot" to describe how he feels ever again. Bragging about his past conquests has become a defining trait of Shot Piece [sic] as he loves to bore other bots with his old war stories. Yes, not only is there another Viagra joke, but we bring in scatological humor (which abounds in Brown Master's bio, BTW). And really badly forced scatological humor, to boot..."piece of shot" isn't something anyone would ever say except to self-censor at the last second. Even sadder, a "shot piece" is a legitimate if obscure/rarely used term for artillery whose barrel rifling is worn out, so there was no need to even make the joke. Also, that's three-for-three on characters whose name is hyphenated on the front, but not in the bio note. Packaging: Same background as Minute-Bot's. Robot Mode: This is notable for having a different spine piece than the other three. It puts the grip peg at the bottom and a swivel at the top for the barrel. The legs are light gray, everything else is black, and the face is painted silver. I'd call this an undocumented feature, but there's no documented features: the barrel piece uses the same attachment system as the chainsaw and crossbow weapons. So it can be popped off the back and put in the robot's hand. This also means you can mount the crossbow or chainsaw in place of the dual barrelled weapon. One downside of this mold variant is that the adapter peg/clip can't be mounted on the figure in robot mode without getting in the way of the gun barrels. Transformation: The legs and arms fold up as normal, but the barrels also have to be flipped out. Turning the head to hide the face works better than in most cases, since the barrels partially cover the face when you do that. Gun Mode: 47mm long double barrelled gun, gray on top and otherwise black. It'd have really benefitted from molding some details onto the soles of the feet, which are pointed forward in this version. Overall: A bit more versatile thanks to the back clip for the weapon, I'd call this the second best of the batch. So, rankings go BrOOMstick, Shot-Piece, Bolt-Action, then Minute-Bot, in order from best down. I'm not sure I'd recommend getting a full set unless you have a large toy budget, though. The quality is good, but you really pay for it. Dave Van Domelen, notes this was a pretty quick review to write. :)