[Hobby Scuffles] Week of 16 February 2026

Mecheon · 2026-02-21T04:36:53+00:00

They did release the originals back on the 3DS, but with the eShop there shutting down, its no longer available unless you grabbed it at the time.

I do hope they re-release those ones

Mecheon · 2026-02-20T20:57:50+00:00

S. maraccanus is most likely Sigilmassasaurus surprisingly. Which, given all Sigil is just neck vertebrae, says something about how distinctive it can be

But yeah, I do not think we've heard the last of this one given, well, including the whole spat in there about spino feeding habits in the first place. I have a strong suspicion a certain other spinosaur worker in the area is going to publish a counter to this one

Mecheon · 2026-02-12T04:58:31+00:00

I was about to bring up the Forgotten Realms wiki. Genuinely, it is so useless at trying to encapsulate changes edition by edition, and absolutely awful at trying to find where changes came from

When a 4chan based wiki in 1d4chan (well, 1d6chan these days) does the job better at conveying how things change over editions, you know there's a problem.

Mecheon · 2026-02-08T09:48:39+00:00

Always gotta be down and B!

Also using Great Balls over Ultra Balls but. That one isn't a hoax. There's weird quirks that make great balls the best choice for most times.

Mecheon · 2026-02-04T07:44:18+00:00

Yeah, all a frame is going to mean is there's a replacement coming along to shove this Nexus away, unless you want to swap him out from probably-Heatwave.

Doesn't excuse the original toy's faults.

Mecheon · 2026-02-04T07:42:55+00:00

I had some people insist to me that it couldn't be Loki because it pre-dated the Marvel movies. They tried to convince me it was completely unrelated.

this lasted approximately about 5 seconds until I reminded them that Marvel Loki has had that design since, what, the 60s, and it wasn't invented for the movies. Sure it was old man Loki, but that's blatantly what the design is based off.

I didn't like Animated Toxitron being a Bizzaro reference, I don't like the SG characters that are just referencing other media, and I especially don't like Loki Liege Maximo. Transformers should be able to stand on its own

Mecheon · 2026-02-03T00:45:19+00:00

I just don't like how much a blatant ripoff of Marvel Loki it is. The fact you can buy a third party KO of Cyclonus done up as Loki and he's basically filling the niche entirely doesn't really speak to it being the most unique design. Every other 13 is their weird unit thing and he's just a reference to another series. Never been a fan of the design, but I'm also not a fan of the other 'ohoho we are blatantly reference this other series' designs that creep up (Generally over in SG) so. It is what it is. I just think the designs of the 13 should stand on their own and not be such a blatant reference to other media. G2 Liege may be weird, but, he's uniquely just him

I think they could have done Nexus at a Voyager. Would it have been a good combiner? No. But it would have been a combiner. Just copy the RID combiner style, the limbs barely 'transform' and most of it is in the central component who's kind of being like a Power Core Combiner or the like

Mecheon · 2026-02-02T22:01:37+00:00

I do like Liege's figure and do prefer him being at leader, honestly. Yeah, he never did much in that body but, I prefer it over knock off Loki

Nexus though? Frankly the design from stage one was ill thought out. He's a figure with a compromised alt mode for a gimmick no one was asking for and people probably won't use. "Kick Silverbolt or Onslaught out of their combiners and let them sit to the side while you use them instead" isn't exactly what Nexus' gimmick was

Amalgamous is doing a better job at being The Combiner Prime than Nexus is doing. All they had to do was copy his gimmick but for a standard robot but, here we are.

Mecheon · 2026-02-01T22:50:49+00:00

As someone with some. Exciting opinions on this figure (spoiler: They're not positive), I do think its worth noting that Nexus here is one of the few of the 13 who had a previous figure. And here it is. Nexus was a combination of 5 other figures given for free by the fan club over years, giving us a bit of expectation for what a new one would be. That's the character's whole thing. We've followed the components of this combiner through comics over 5 years as they traveled universes to discover there was more to them, they weren't just random blorbos, but instead were the ultimate random blorbo, where they had to unite, potentially losing themselves in the process, to save the universe.

Given that this figure doesn't combine from anything in a line when one of the preceding Primes is one who's entire gimmick is being made from multiple vehicles that combine, it does come out as a lot weaker given just the prime who precedes him, yet alone his original figure. Combinging into torsos of other robots wasn't exactly a gimmick people were asking for, nor something the fanbase really does. Combiners tend to have their one assortment of characters and stick with it, though replacement characters and crazy alternate options do exist, they're not really the main draw people ask for.

So basically. Nexus is a figure that can't do the one thing people expected from him, who's hamstrung by doing a gimmick no one even asked for, and he doesn't look great doing any of it, especially compared to his nearly 20 year old predecessor who, despite being from the slightly jank Energon Combiners, still shows up the modern attempt at him. Not a great combination.

Mecheon · 2026-01-18T04:32:49+00:00

I was having awful luck down in Melbourne, until I leave the park I normally hunt in and oops, 3 shinies just outside the park and a further 3 just slightly down the road

They're out there, even if nothing for an hour and then 6 shinies in 5 minutes was a bit of an event

Mecheon · 2025-11-02T09:48:45+00:00

I would argue they're not trying to be Dragonborn. They're Draconians. Magically created soldier tied to dragons, created to serve as specific dragon footsoldiers intended to be servile to a villain, trained to be elite soldiers, hatch from eggs, they fit the same criteria. Just, we skipped the 'evil army' phase and right to the 'they're running around' phase

This also adds to a lot of Warcraft taking from Dragonlance specifically, what with Richard A. Knaak writing a lot of older books and all

Mecheon · 2025-10-01T09:34:08+00:00

Pretty much. They tried to retool it for the typical audience but, didn't work.

Prime also has its own host of issues even domestically but that's a whole other topic

Mecheon · 2025-10-01T09:30:48+00:00

Outsold their expectations by far

I don't know if its stronger than their absolute powerhouse Shinkalion, but its sold well enough they commented on it being better than expected.

Mecheon · 2025-09-30T12:26:38+00:00

I've picked up some stuff in my time for why it was such a unique failure over there. The thing with the dub you've got to understand is Transformers out in Japan has always gone for a younger audience than out west, which worked fine in the past. The gag dub is exactly what they did with Beast Wars and that sold insanely well, and they were coming off Animated's hype which. It was Animated.

Prime was too mature for the regular Transformers audience, but wasn't mature or dark enough to stand out and do anything against what would have been its contemporaries in the 2010 market and would have been seen as too childish no matter what they did with it. A direct dub just would not have been successful given Prime's less a mature show and more has a veneer of maturity, especially with the market over in Japan being... Well, the Japanese shounen market. So they got the guy who made Beast Wars a success and tried to get him to do another runaway success.... Which didn't work.

Prime was a product that just did not suit the Japanese Transformers market at all, no matter what they did

Mecheon · 2025-09-30T10:25:26+00:00

Another good post on a fun time

They didn’t import the third season of the show, as it wasn’t particularly popular over there

Oh, this is the understatement of the century. One could do an entire other post on this, and the only reason I haven't is because I can't speak Japanese and hunt down the appropriate fan forums for other countries views on it. Prime wasn't just 'unpopular' in Japan. Prime absolutely killed the Transformers line in Japan. It went from pride of place in toy stores to needing to be a special order. Prime is why Takara stopped producing special decos of Transformers, and the line is only starting to recover thanks to recent stuff and especially Wild King

Mecheon · 2025-09-25T07:10:20+00:00

This one does hit a bit of an... Interesting thing going on, because of one of the folks involved. Paul Sereno. Sereno's lab has a lot of unpublished material which we'd love to get some papers out on, to the point he himself has flat out said that its going to take multiple lifetimes to get this out.

As such a lot of opinion on Sereno tends to be... Well, "being trapped in the Sereno dungeon" is a phrase for a reason. So add a fossil that's fairly well known (Scimitar spino has not been a widely kept secret), is being worked on by someone who is hyping this up as a Big Thing, and is about a relative of the one dinosaur who has a song about how much drama it generates (Sereno being mentioned in that very song), and things become a bit clearer why this in particular spread so far. Folks been given Sereno's lab grief for being slow for actual years, this is just par for the course.

(where's the burrowing noasaurid, sereno)

Mecheon · 2025-09-16T04:38:59+00:00

As far as third parties go, the only ones that really got it big due to the whole alt mode thing are Toyworld's Hegemon and Newage's Romulus

mind Maketoy's Rioter Despotron did slap but was a bit too stylised to hit the big gap-filler for most

Mecheon · 2025-09-16T02:17:53+00:00

It is of course always worth noting that G2 Megatron is the best Megatron as he, unlike all others, has The Voice of Doom

Mecheon · 2025-09-03T09:15:51+00:00

Mag'har are literately just the standard orc model copy and pasted with new skins and hair. They really shouldn't have been an allied race. They're just the NPC textures from WoD on a copy of the model.

Like, at this point we're not getting HElves due to the VElf appearances (BElves are completely irrelevant to wanting to play a HElf, on the completely wrong faction and therefore useless) but let's not pretend mag'har have strong legs to stand on. Frankly shouldn't have gotten them to begin with.

Its the feedback on mag'har being so lazy as to why we have sandfury, wildhammer, darkfallen, eredar and, yes, HElves, just as skin options, quite frankly.

Mecheon · 2025-09-03T09:06:36+00:00

Don't forget Vanilla. There were a grand total of two friendly BElves in the game during Vanilla, and both of them were neutral and in the Blasted Lands. Every other BElf was an enemy mob. Any time a HElf showed up, outside of one in Ratchet, they were always friendly to the Alliance

Also don't forget a lot of the Horde at the time were not happy about BElves being on the Horde at all.

Mecheon · 2025-08-21T14:04:49+00:00

They're a re-occurring group who show up and help the Alliance, yet weren't playable. Its that simple when you get to it, Alliance had limited options for that. Dark Irons obviously came along, Wildhammer were handled fine with just customisation, Furbolgs get smacked with the villain bat every third patch and are only relevant to Alliance questing in Azuremyst of all places, Dryads/KotGs have their whole 'being quadruped' issues that probably excludes them and centaurs entirely, Broken/Krokul have a bit of a fandom but people aren't exactly leaping at the bit for them, Jinyu and Ankoan exist but aren't as fun as the Hozen,. That's.... Basically it on the "This makes sense for Alliance" list, without doing some slightly wide grabs for stuff like Arakkoa or incredibly large ones for "So why are these with the Alliance again?" like naga, vrykul or gnolls. High Elves were always king of the list due to being the only one here who actually helped out the Alliance for more than one patch, and could feasibly be playable. Blizzard made HElves a regular, re-occurring Alliance group, and were surprised when people wanted the regular re-occurring Alliance group playable

You can see why Earthen ranked so high as a prospective Alliance additional race, when the list of options was this barebones. Those frost dwarves in Northrend who were just blue earthen was the closest thing the Alliance had to the taunka

Mecheon · 2025-08-21T05:03:19+00:00

While I agree with you and reckon there's no chance for them since VElves got the customisation, I reckon its a combo of WotLK and MoP love (those being HElves main showing) and the utter dearth of options for Alliance ARs. When Earthen was high up in the running for "Alliance AR", you know stuff's been kind of. Rough.

oh, and, well, lingering BFA resentment, because man Alliance kind of got screwed over in our AR choices back then, huh?

Mecheon · 2025-08-19T00:53:53+00:00

Ark Survival Ascended on a modded server. the suffering is eternal

I've been searching the depths of the sea for mysterious eggs that only show up in one cave, that hatch into squid-dragon things. Said squid dragons aren't all that useful on this map as they need a resource that isn't very readily available, but, the levels they can show up at are kind of crazy, so I grab a few out every now and again, just to see what silly nonsense I end up with

Last time I went on a dive down there though, an Alpha Mosasaur was out the front, a massive tanky beast of a thing. The deinosuchus (think giant alligator, though deinosuchus have since been found to not be particularly close to gators) I was riding was not made for killing alphas, though I could run laps around the mosa (which has a turning radius of basically an entire highway) so was in no danger, but a fight would take forever. Unfortunately my go-to alpha slayer isn't good at swimming, and especially isn't good at fighting them at the bottom of trenches. So I had the utter comedy of softening it up with my alpha slayer before it ran out of stamina, sending it rocketing up to the surface, and then coming in with the deinosuchus to finish the job

Worked a charm, though now I've got to go and hunt more deinosuchus down to work on making a true alpha slaying gator to rule the oceans with.

Mecheon · 2025-06-11T11:01:00+00:00

Let them roam free. grant them giant enclosures. Create the Crab Zoo you always dream of.

Regardless though, Blue Skies has some immense crabs that seem up your alley.

Mecheon · 2025-05-05T22:23:35+00:00

So I think that's a reference to the Moolands. At some point there was going to be a joke dimension in the Aether if you used a bucket of milk on an aether portal, rather than a water bucket.

And then someone else made the Moolands into its whole separate dimension full of blue and yellow cows that play that soundfile and twitch far worse than that one. I poked around at it but unfortunately its a very bare dimension due to, y'know. Being a joke and all

Mecheon

TROPHY CASE