Transformers: Collaborative Twin Mill is Something That Exists

OK time for a brief follow-up to the Bone Shaker article. Twin Mill is Bone Shaker's wavemate, and the general consensus seems to be that he's good, but not quite as good as the greaser. That's probably fair, but it just goes to show how much context matters. If I'd picked this up first, I'd spend a lot more of the word count talking about refreshing it is. And trust me, it is refreshing as carformers go, and there's at least one area where he does better than Bone Shaker. His flaws are however are perhaps more immediate.

 

The car mode for example is extremely well-presented, with loads of paint, more style, and translucent windows. Few, if any corners were cut here, and complaints are in nitpick territory. However, taking it out of the packet revealed a case of visible Head Syndrome, and some minor imperfections on the shoulders which I touched up. Not the best first impression, TBH, took a bit of the shine off. Its fairly compact car mode too. Bone Shaker in general actually isn't that much bigger than Twin Mill, but that open top and wheelbase do make him look like he's in a slightly different scale. Twin Mill is more like a modern minibot deluxe by comparison. These are all fairly ignorable flaws though, and it turns out you can turn the head around. It rolls well, the wheels being pinned, if loosely at the back, and this mould does a lot better with accessories. The air intakes are on 5mm pegs, so you can swap them for guns if you want. As car modes go it's almost ideal, despite that rough start, if maybe a bit small considering crossover premium.

The transformation and subsequent robot mode are similarly good, putting me in mind of several other Autobots. The overall vibe is of Tracks by way of G1 Blurr, with a bit of Armada Blurr thrown in for the arms. It's a skinny and lithe build, with long legs like a runner. The proportions are better than Bone Shaker, size comparisons being more favourable in this mode too, but the leg issue is here too and more obvious. This was crying out for something to fill in those lower legs, and he's mainly leg. On the plus side, Twin Mill has a much better accessory game, as he ends up with wrist swivels, forearm mounted flame throwers, which retain the 5mm port functions from car mode, and the flame effects I've yet to mention. These flames are hard plastic, so I’d advise a touch of caution, but otherwise this beats Bone Shaker hands down. Those engine blocks bulk out the otherwise thin forearms nicely, adding that little bit of 5mm play value without ruining the look, and robot arson is always great. Its poses well too, although my example has loose knees. So, much like Bone Shaker, it's pretty great toy in both modes, but with at least one potentially deal breaking quirk.

Is Twin Mill actually the worse of the two? Well, I've been back and forth on this, and I'm gonna say "No, but". What better describes Twin Mill is to say that he is the more conventional of the two, and my example seems to have slightly weaker quality control which makes it feel less premium. He's much closer to the Transformers baseline, so he's got better fundamentals, but ends up less interesting. Physically, and metaphorically, he is a touch overshadowed by Bone Shaker, which isn’t great given the price tag, but that's a long-long way from saying he's bad. And he will soon be available in red. If in doubt, pick up the one you like best first, and then maybe see about a sale for the second. 

Gunpla: The WMS-03 Maganac (HG)

 Yes, it's time to talk about Wing's lesser known grunt.

The eponymous machine of the Maganac Corps is something without a clear or direct equivalent in wider Gundam. It's a good guy grunt treated with some dignity, and isn't obviously a re-imagining of something from the One Year War. Rather they are what are the box calls a Middle Eastern Nations design, with all that implies. There is possibly an Orientalist aspect to this, and if Quatre Raberba Winner isn't a nod towards Lawrence of Arabia I'd be very surprised.  But then I am British. There's supposedly 40 of them, there was even a big multipack towards that end, and how many thieves did Ali Baba have? I did attempt some research on the creative intent here, I asked around, but I did not find much, so I'll leave that discussion to other writers. Practically, the Maganac was judged to be superior to the Leo, although that's a low bar, with customised versions being common. My recollection is that these guys weren't in the show that much, but generally gave good account of themselves when they did.

 

As a kit, the Maganac is one of those 30 Minutes Missions adjacent armybuilders. It's a relatively simple design with a few polycaps, but mostly friction/clip joints. In some respects it's a transitional piece, with the shoulder joints looking an awful lot like, no, exactly like common polycaps. Colour accuracy is good, but also an annoying near miss. I don't really care that the gun's magazine is the wrong colour, or that you need to put a couple of stripes on the tower shield. I do mind that the yellow panels on the shoulders are stickers when the kit is otherwise very good at colour separation. On the plus side, there's a few weapon storage options, the gun being stowable in the shield, and there being adapters for the axe and shield to stow on the back. The latter two are functional, but don't look great. They look a bit "first draft"; doing the job, but aren't that visually pleasing.  There’s transfers though, if that’s your thing.

While this kit is more solid than the Leo, with fewer fiddly bits, I like it less. Part of that is because the Leo is a fucking classic design, and the Maganac isn’t. However part of that is execution, like the stickers which just aren’t great. The Leo has its flaws, but can easily be built up with little things like foil behind the visor, some black paint, basic panel lining, gundam markers, and/or the inkwash of your choice. Its a simple design that rewards simple techniques, but if you go that extra mile it can shine. If you want a great Maganac, this kit requires you to either sticker the thing up, or paint yellow atop of brown, both options being very annoying.  Also, while true to the animation, there's a notable lack of surface detail here, especially on the lower legs, and a some flair wouldn't have gone amiss. I’d also like the highlight the elbow and knee joints as areas where corners were cut, although they are entirely functional.

 

I ended up doing some basic weathering here, trying to conceal some cutmarks, and did up the sensors with paint. I think it works alright, but this isn't the best kit to start with TBH. 

My Time at TFNation Manchester 2026

Bloody hell, 3 years. And its a full convention now, with a slight name change, and panels on the Friday.

I kinda went into this one with mixed feelings though. My selection of increasingly boring mental health issues had been bothering me in the weeks leading up to the event, while Transformers in general wasn't grabbing me that much. Well, except for Bone Shaker, but I already had him, and I'll be talking about his wavemate soon. I was aware of a need for a holiday, and welcomed the opportunity to see friends. But I wasn't really going in with a shopping list or itinerary. My objectives: try to socialise, and do some good work for charity as part of Toy-Fu. We as a group definitely did that last one, although I continue to struggle with the first.

I regretted not taking a taxi to the station almost immediately, as a bus time table proved to be inaccurate and my burden comical. Back in January, I'd collected an eBay order on Toy-Fu's behalf, and while I am stubborn that only helps so much. I got to the station though, and the journey wasn't too bad. I just needed to have a shower afterwards. Having showered, probably to the benefit of all and sundry, I attempted to socialise while waiting for the Toy-Fu crew to arrive. I found this a touch difficult. At previous events I was able to recognise a few people, less so this time. Seemed a slightly different crowd, although I did manage to use the old “is that robot any good?” technique. This however stopped being a concern once the dealer’s room opened for a late night set-up. This made for a much easier Saturday morning, and a generally more chill experience all round. Which was nice. Not perfect though. For most of Saturday morning my brain played the ending theme to Dragon Half on loop. And by the end of it, I was making the sort of mistakes where I wasn't sure if I was overtired or just an idiot. Those options are not mutually exclusive, given how many toys I’d decided to transport via crowded public transport. On the plus side: those toys mostly sold, I think I pulled my weight, saw a couple of friends in person, and I did find it easier to talk to people in a salesman role. I did eventually get to do some socialising after we’d loaded the van, we had a nice meal, but I was fading fast. And really felt it the next day. Because if it wasn’t the physical exhaustion, it was the fucking clock change. 

Anyway. A nice and productive time overall. How was the robot side of things? Uhh, kinda neutral. I did manage to attend one panel, and I did manage to pick up a few indulgences.  Reading TFN is still a smaller event than Birmingham TFN, and so both traders and events were scaled to match, so I didn’t find that much. The Hotwheels Collaborative was present, and I know if held off to purchase them there, I’d be a lot more hype. Something-something don’t spoil your dinner. I did however pick up four items, with a majority of the money going to Toy-Fu, because I’m like that. In order of increasing size and cost:

Blokees Galaxy Version Defender Megatron: Yeah, so I brought this to build in the bar, as I’d waited too long to get Tarn. Oh well. If/When I do get Tarn, he can have his idol.

Titans Return Scourge: An obsolete, headmaster-styled version of Galvatron’s bearded lackey. It was cheap though, and I kinda vibe with it.

Dr Wu Great Claw: In the apparent shortage of compelling items from Hasbro I’ve found myself drawn to Dr Wu’s assortment of baby citiformers that are also beastbox. It just makes for a nice treat, although I mustn’t let this become too much of a habit. This one seems to split the difference between Energy Dragon and Iron Fortress, but I’m still getting used to it.

Webdiver Galleon: Look, sometimes you just get an urge for something amazing. Its a Japanese-dragon-robot-pirate-ship. And also a video game accessory. Do I need to say more?

I dunno if any of these are blog material, but I kinda like ‘em.

Plamo: Stargrave Automatons

At time of writing, I’m between major modeling projects. And that will probably remain the case until either 40K 11th edition, or I discover something fun, whatever happens first.  But I did get these in late January, and wanted to briefly talk about them, once I got around to it...

OK, so the inspiration for these as models is obviously a melange of Borg and Adeptus Mechanicus, spiced with the Strogg from Quake and the 1999 Jamie Lee Curtis film Virus. Like so many Stargrave kits, there's innumerable head and weapon options, with the ratio of melee to guns being more choppy than the norm. There is however some bigger guns in there too,  like a recognisable flamer and heavy bolter-alike. The heads meanwhile  tend to straddle the cyborg/zombie line, although there are some necron-adjacent scarabs that seem rather interesting.  In many ways its a kitbasher’s dream. One observation I would make however is that these models sometimes have bare feet, and a tattered look on the fabric. This leads to ye olde fixed pose problem, whereby a supposedly unique model with individual battle damage gets repeated in a squad. I mean, how many guys with one robot leg, but no shoes, would you expect to see? It's not an actual problem, but if you're wanting to make, say, military cyborgs, you're probably better off not using the bodies here. However, I'd go so far as to say that making a Servitor Killteam is very possible, and that may indeed become something I try.

 

As I was feeling out this kit, I built two sets of five. The first set was mainly melee, attempting a Borg colour scheme, while the second was shooty in admec red, or orange as it turned out. The colour schemes were experimental, and due to a paint drying out, I had to improvise a bit with the flesh tones. These were painted by dry brushing the fabric first, followed by basecoats for skin and metals, trying to keep an optimised order of application. Secondary colours and such followed, then an inkwash, and finishing touches. The bare feet presented some challenges to basing, so I kept that, um, basic.

 

 
Perhaps not my best work, but a fine distraction. I don’t know if I’ll do any more, but I’m happy to have the leftovers in the bitz box.

 

Kitbash: Another Deathskull Looted Rhino

 

I will admit to being tempted by those new Red Corsairs. Sometimes... you just get bored, and space pirates are fun. Then that mutated into a more general interest in capital C Chaos, as a modeling project. I even got some models to test out a few paints, but it didn't quite come together. That might be for the best. At time of writing, mid-March, it's clear 11th edition is  approaching and it is therefore massively dumb to start anything 40k related, but I still needed to do something. Then I tried a freeform scratch build, and that didn't come together either. So, I went back to something I'd shelved.

 

You see, as much as I love Orks, I've basically done everything. Not beast snaggas admittedly, but near enough, and I dunno if 11th ed will change that. Although Yarrick is back, that's pretty cool. Really brightened a Monday. Anyway, that leaves either reclamation/modernisation projects like today's subject, or more modern and thus more expensive plastics. The former isn't that exciting, and it's hard to justify the latter. Especially as I'm not playing 40k regularly just now. So, the best thing I could find to do was rebuild an old predator/rhino hull into a "counts as" trukk. This would bring my count up to 6, which is likely to be as many as I'd ever need, and, you know, having a couple of rhinos makes sense for Deathskulls. As Warboss rides and such. Fortunately, this proved to be a fun little distraction of a project, that people seemed to like too.

 

As I'd already orkified this once, the main things I had to do here was expose the crew compartment and to add a wreckin' ball.  This makes it a less thorough rebuild than the last one, but truthfully less structural work was needed. This was then painted in my usual manner, if only to stay in practice. I mixed my own metal paints for the hull, and mud paint for the undersides. Perhaps the most significant thing I did was paint in the grilled(?) headlights with a tiny wee brush, which is the kind of detail I’d avoid in the past. I didn't do it that well, now I look at the photos, but paint mistakes are fine with orks, I suppose. I touched those up later on.

Job’s a good ‘un.

Transformers: Age of the Primes Venin is Something That Exists

 The Transformers 1985 Venom toy

 

OK. I'm not surprised that Venin is something that exists. I am surprised that he is both a new mould, and not some form of exclusive. Here's the thing. Hasbro has spent a few years modernising the big three Insecticons again, the famous G1 robobug swarm. At the same time, they took the opportunity to revamp the much, much much MUCH more obscure other four. Four toys not made by Takara, and thus had no real fictional appearances to speak of. Comic book scene fillers at best. I don’t think I've ever actually seen the toys in person either, TBH. This was mainly achieved via retools released in exclusive multipacks, until Venom, now Venin for legal reasons, turned up. But is he any good? Well, he got bumped by Bone Shaker, so that should be a hint, but read on to find out.

I suppose I should expand at bit more on the context here. Venin's first toy, much like Jetfire, originates with the late Takatoku Toys, and the obscure Armored Insect Corps Beetras toyline, a bug themed mecha property. As such, Venin and his ilk don't resemble the best known Insecticons except by theme, and went through a few substantial colour changes when Hasbro licensed them. To the best of my knowledge, Beetras has yet to experience any form of post-80’s revival, so Venin is the only significant attention that series has ever had, and only then by a technicality. And it's a fairly faithful modernisation, very much a G1-plus-actual-articulation job. And, that's pretty much the review. It's the original toy put in the modern deluxe price point, with the quality of life stuff common of that size class. This means the transformation is fundamentally the same, the look is fundamentally the same, and the flaws are fundamentally the same.  Just with ankle tilts. This sadly means that Venin in robot form suffers for that distinctive belly-wing arrangement, that hampers articulation in the arms. I suppose you could have them hang up front like an apron, but that doesn't look great. All four limbs have substantial hollowness for transformation purposes, and the head doesn't do much for bug mode. A flaw seemingly unique to this version though is how the fists are merely tabbed in, rather than pinned in place, so they detach often. One wonders if someone had a budget cut, or a monkey's paw? On balance, its rather mediocre as deluxes go. That said, while I can't make a direct comparison, it turns out that this is actually a head larger than the original. Maybe this is a more complete upgrade than I initially thought…

Maybe it is. I went looking for videos of the original, and there are a few differences I want to highlight. The torso has been redesigned to skinnier and more angular, going from a Parks & Rec' Chris Pratt to a MCU Chris Pratt.  Some of it is now translucent too, which works very well with the existing colour palette. It's not a common colour scheme, but it works, benefiting from some nice tampographs. I do like how the odd hand axe combines with the gun for a better axe. The bug mode, in this case a Cicada, is basically unique among decepticons, with all legs articulated at the base, plus the wings. The head is also articulated, but given that this is just the robot mode head, that's a less of a positive, just something inherited from the source material. And thus far, this is the only unique Insecticon mould, that counts for something right?

Overall, Venin feels like an earnest attempt, but is being faithful to a fault. It's like what happened with Needlenose, but not as severe. Venin is at least an interesting starting point, and is doing OK at what it's choosing to do. But I can't help but question if this was the right call. This dude got this level of attention? Really? Sure, that's a nice note to end the Insecticons on, but why this guy? As opposed to, say, three other Insecticons. Or almost anyone else, from any continuity you care to name. Fair play to the design team for doing something different, we need more of that, but Venin isn't gonna win many new fans as is. Interesting, but not especially good, Venin is merely something that exists.

Gunpla: The gMS-01 Sugai's Gelgoog (GQ)

OK, it looks like I'm gonna have to explain the painfully named Gundam GQuuuuuuX. It's still very new, so hopefully I won't get sidetracked too much.

GquuuuuuX is the Gundam multiverse series. No, not Turn-A. Nor Build. Or Super Robot Wars. No, it's the one explicitly about alternative universes and canon, although it doesn't immediately present like that. Initially, it presents as a "what if Zeon won" story, imaging a different story route for the original 1979 anime, but parallel worlds and time-whimey elements consume the narrative. At which point, it's not really a warstory any more, nor a real robot show, because realities are being created or destroyed seemingly at will. To give a spoiler free analogy; GQ is akin to a Spider-Man story where someone is repeatedly resetting history to keep Uncle Ben alive and ensure Peter Parker never becomes a superhero. It's the kind of story you write when you understand the letter of canon, and have memorised the apocrypha, but don't actually understand why any of it was important in the first place.

The "Gelgoog" is a good example of how self-regarding the show can be. It's the Zeon made mass-produced version of the original Gundam, a GM in all but name. The original Gelgoog was of course the Zeon answer to the Gundam, and the name has been applied here..... just because? This rather like Nazis knocking off a Sherman tank and then calling it the King Tiger. It makes sense for Zeon to apply it's own naming conventions, don't get me wrong, but that's typical of the self-referencing stuff GQ does. As to why it looks like it does? Well.... just because? GQ designs kinda look like that. Yes it does put me in mind of the difference between 80's Transformers and Michael Bay's Transformers. And to make it better, or possibly worse, this is not the stock colour scheme. That’s a stereotypical green affair on a limited release. No, this is Sugai’s colours, a Federation ace who has somehow settled on a paintjob not otherwise present in this universe, which makes it look as much as possible like a GM …just because? Its the ouroboros of grunt suits. 

GQuuuuuuX, as a series, sets off my autism something fierce. All this having been acknowledged, I feel I should mention that I actually kinda like the Gelgoog on its own terms. I like how the legs exist mainly as frame for some rocket engines. I like the odd offset(?) joints; they are very Syd Mead. I like the forearm shields, and the fact you can John-Woo this guy with twin pistols. I like that all the weapons store.  No, the white bits on that exaggerated collar aren’t beam sabers, those are greeblies. I even kinda like the finger harpoon thing. Had GQ been it's own narrative, its mecha designs would have been viewed as modern and fresh. Or at least something interesting by the Evangelion guy. A subtle homage maybe? Instead, everything in the series exists in a context where it is unavoidably compared to a genre making classic, and the creative team behind this was, perhaps, not up for that comparison. Either that, or I’m just desperately trying to justify my own hypocrisy in buying this.

 

So, all that having been said, fucking hell, three paragraphs just to place this properly in its incestuous continuity and I didn't even mention Sugai! Oh well, let's skip that. She was only in one episode, I dunno if she actually matters that much, and I've written too much already.   

Ahem, so, all that having been said, how is the Gelgoog as an actual kit? Interesting and boundary pushing. The high parts count is used to create a layered effect in the details, in often creative ways. It's complex, but not needlessly so. It comes with a decent selection of hands and weapons, even throwing in a Darth Maul gimmick just for the kit. Colour accuracy is 99% ideal; there’s a few areas that need some black paint, like the inside of the leg thrusters, but that’s really nothing remarkable. I'm not a huge fan of the black plastic, and the odd choice of opaque plastic for the sensors, but this at least on the level of that Origin GM, but with no stickers. The joint design is a notable highlight, with no polycaps used and some clever locking taps used in places. With the backpack thrusters the ball joints like to come off, but all load-bearing joints seem great. It takes a while to get everything done, there’s a lot here due to its  unconventional design, but if you want a quality example of what Bandai can do with a Gunpla, here it is.

The Gelgoog was very impressive build, which honestly did not need much work to look good.  I did a basic weathering job, that possibly goes against the vibe of its series, but its fine.  I wasn’t able to fix the backpack issue, but that’s manageable. Also, I realised upon writing this that the thighs should probably not have that horizontal seam, that's something for the colour variants. Oh well, too late now, and its still a good kit. Pick it up if you like the looks of it.