Unite Warriors UW-EX Mega Empress and Flowspade - New Images

Is that a female Megatron?!
I hope she can transform into a gun!

Shauyaun wrote:Is that a female Megatron?!
I hope she can transform into a gun!

Mega Empress turns into a Rosenbauer Panther 6x6

Flowspade turns into a Ferrari 458 Italia

Shauyaun wrote:Is that a female Megatron?!
I hope she can transform into a gun!

Megatronia is a redeco of Victorion (excluding Rust Dust), and can be considered TakaraTomy's take on the toy:


Transformers Generations Combiner Wars Victorion Gallery


Each female limb is named after a card suit, and associated with a certain male Decepticon, like the Female Autobots from G1:

Mega Empress: Megatron's "husband" (though she's apparently into polygamy by proposing to Optimus Prime as well)
Luna Clover: Extreme Starscream fangirl
Moon Heart: cold like Soundwave
Flowspade: Spy sent by Shockwave
Trick Diamond: a schemer like the Combaticon Swindle

It's Luna club not clover.

steals_your_goats wrote:It's Luna club not clover.

Actually, both are correct. In a rather weird move, two have alternate names due to the suits being called by different names:

Luna Club's Japanese name is Luna Clover
Trick Diamond's Japanese name is Trick Dia

True, I messed up, big whoop

Luna Clover's a better name tbh

I wonder if the shorted version of Trick Diamond's name is
said

Di-a
Dyer
Or
Deer
or Dee-ear

or what ?

RAR wrote:I wonder if the shorted version of Trick Diamond's name is
said

Di-a
Dyer
Or
Deer
or Dee-ear

or what ?

"Dai-ya" (think "Diaclone"), as it's the first part of "diamond".

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Mega Empress: Megatron's "husband" (though she's apparently into polygamy by proposing to Optimus Prime as well)

I think you mean to say that Mega Empress is Megatron's "wife," correct?

Wolfman Jake wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Mega Empress: Megatron's "husband" (though she's apparently into polygamy by proposing to Optimus Prime as well)

I think you mean to say that Mega Empress is Megatron's "wife," correct?

Bah, I really need to start drinking coffee... "Considers Megatron her "husband"" sounds a lot better.

I mean, the mold did start off life as Hot Spot...

Kurona wrote:I mean, the mold did start off life as Hot Spot...

They all started out as male... At the very least they're not showing any Scrambling tendencies with other Combiners, unlike BWII Scylla who is the only female Space Pirate Seacon...

I'll shut up now.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Kurona wrote:I mean, the mold did start off life as Hot Spot...

They all started out as male... At the very least they're not showing any Scrambling tendencies with other Combiners, unlike BWII Scylla who is the only female Space Pirate Seacon...

I'll shut up now.

Honestly, I think a combiner made up of different-gendered components could be fun and interesting. Proooobably something a bit too complicated for Hastak to start selling though lol.

Kurona wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Kurona wrote:I mean, the mold did start off life as Hot Spot...

They all started out as male... At the very least they're not showing any Scrambling tendencies with other Combiners, unlike BWII Scylla who is the only female Space Pirate Seacon...

I'll shut up now.

Honestly, I think a combiner made up of different-gendered components could be fun and interesting. Proooobably something a bit too complicated for Hastak to start selling though lol.

Some of the Micromaster Six-combiners from Operation Combination have female members.

Why, Overlord himself is a combination husband-and-wife Transformer (with the husband simply speaking on behalf of the whole's identity in robot mode).

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Trick Diamond's Japanese name is Trick Dia

トリックダイヤ Torikkudaiya

ダイヤ daiya on its own is also Japanese for diamond, think of it as an abbreviation that still translates properly. So it's Trickdiamond in both languages, not Trick Dia.

Might as well point out that Lunaclover is technically proper since it's ルナクローバー Runakurōbā, but as we know the official English translation is Lunaclub which is weird because even the Japanese don't call the card suit clover, they call it club (クラブ kurabu) so you'd think her name would be ルナクラブ Runakurabu.


Emerje

Luna Club - is that like 2 stages higher than the Mile High Club ?

For what it's worth, if anyone wants to part with just Megaempress (when she comes out), I'll be happy to take her off your hands.

Emerje wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Trick Diamond's Japanese name is Trick Dia

トリックダイヤ Torikkudaiya

ダイヤ daiya on its own is also Japanese for diamond, think of it as an abbreviation that still translates properly. So it's Trickdiamond in both languages, not Trick Dia.

Might as well point out that Lunaclover is technically proper since it's ルナクローバー Runakurōbā, but as we know the official English translation is Lunaclub which is weird because even the Japanese don't call the card suit clover, they call it club (クラブ kurabu) so you'd think her name would be ルナクラブ Runakurabu.


Emerje

Proper nouns usually get transliterated as is, so "Trick Dia" still stands regardless, as does "Luna Clover". That doesn't automatically make it their official English name however, as Convoy vs. Optimus Prime have shown. As you may already know, Unite Warriors as well as Legends give different English names where applicable, hence the "Trick Diamond" and "Luna Club" for greater familiarity for the Anglophone audience. Don't see it as a translation, more like providing proper analogs.

"Clover" for the Suit of Clubs is used a lot in pop culture, but not all the time. For instance, in the card-themed Sentai JAKQ Dengekitai the Club-themed member is "Clover King", and in the Shugo Chara anime, the Club-themed persona is called "Amulet Clover". On the flipside however, in Kamen Rider Blade when the "4 Card" (4-of-a-kind) attack is initiated, the Club suit is called out as "Club". They're pretty much interchangeable terms.

RAR wrote:Luna Club - is that like 2 stages higher than the Mile High Club ?

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Proper nouns usually get transliterated as is, so "Trick Dia" still stands regardless, as does "Luna Clover". That doesn't automatically make it their official English name however, as Convoy vs. Optimus Prime have shown. As you may already know, Unite Warriors as well as Legends give different English names where applicable, hence the "Trick Diamond" and "Luna Club" for greater familiarity for the Anglophone audience. Don't see it as a translation, more like providing proper analogs.

Problem is Transformers tend to complicate things by using common nouns as proper nouns rather than the proper nouns written with common nouns in typical Japanese names. And further complicated by the use of borrowed English common nouns which you wouldn't typically see used as Japanese proper nouns outside of things like Transformers. So Torikkudaiya, two borrowed English words, is literally the word trick and the word diamond (daiya being short for daiyamondo).

And it is daiya, not dia which is pronounced dee-ah and is another borrowed word meaning deer or dear.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:And it is daiya, not dia which is pronounced dee-ah and is another borrowed word meaning deer or dear.

Emerje

"Dia" as a Japanese shorthand for "diamond" is indeed said as "dye-ah", yes. I strongly doubt JelZe meant for anyone to read it as "dee-ah".

Sabrblade wrote:

Emerje wrote:And it is daiya, not dia which is pronounced dee-ah and is another borrowed word meaning deer or dear.

Emerje

"Dia" as a Japanese shorthand for "diamond" is indeed said as "dye-ah", yes. I strongly doubt JelZe meant for anyone to read it as "dee-ah".

What I meant is that dia doesn't really mean anything in English. In Japanese they may shorten diamond (daiyamondo) as daiya, but it wouldn't translate as dia, it would still be diamond. It's further complicated by there being a separate Japanese word dia that is pronounced differently and means something entirely different. Trickdia doesn't make sense when compared to Flowspade, Lunaclover, and Moonheart when the others spell out the name of the card suits, but she doesn't. If she's Trickdia then the others should be Flowspa, Lunaclo, and Moonha.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:What I meant is that dia doesn't really mean anything in English. In Japanese they may shorten diamond (daiyamondo) as daiya, but it wouldn't translate as dia, it would still be diamond. It's further complicated by there being a separate Japanese word dia that is pronounced differently and means something entirely different. Trickdia doesn't make sense when compared to Flowspade, Lunaclover, and Moonheart when the others spell out the name of the card suits, but she doesn't. If she's Trickdia then the others should be Flowspa, Lunaclo, and Moonha.

Emerje

A lot of diminutives don't really mean anything in English when one takes them as they are without accounting for their context and/or sources of derivation.

Frankly, insisting that ダイヤ be rendered as "daiya" isntead of "dia", when it's very obviously a diminutive of the English word "diamond" (ダイヤモンド) sounds a little weaboo-ish to me. Otherwise, you might as well insist that トリック be rendered as "Torikku" instead of as "Trick" even if that does end up being a meaningful English word.

Besides, it's not like we're talking about an ordinary word anyway. We're talking about an individual's name (or, part of the their name, at least). Names don't always have to conform to every rule of the English language, especially in the cases of names originating from non-English-speaking countries, even if said name happens to also have a connection to English words. Not to mention the science fiction alien aspect of the name that also factors into its lack of conforming to English language rules, as that aspect enables a name to break any and all rules it wants to so as to be rendered as virtually anything the name wants to be.

Sabrblade wrote:Frankly, insisting that ダイヤ be rendered as "daiya" isntead of "dia", when it's very obviously a diminutive of the English word "diamond" (ダイヤモンド) sounds a little weaboo-ish to me.

I'm saying it should be "diamond" outright just like it's printed on the picture of the figure. Both "daiya" and "daiyamondo" are borrowed words meaning diamond. Just because the Japanese choose to use an abbreviated version of the word doesn't mean "daiya" translates into "dia", that word isn't interchangeable for us.

Otherwise, you might as well insist that トリック be rendered as "Torikku" instead of as "Trick" even if that does end up being a meaningful English word.

No, because Torikku is also a borrowed word. Therefore, Trickdiamond.

Besides, it's not like we're talking about an ordinary word anyway. We're talking about an individual's name (or, part of the their name, at least). Names don't always have to conform to every rule of the English language, especially in the cases of names originating from non-English-speaking countries, even if said name happens to also have a connection to English words. Not to mention the science fiction alien aspect of the name that also factors into its lack of conforming to English language rules, as that aspect enables a name to break any and all rules it wants to so as to be rendered as virtually anything the name wants to be.

Like I said before, Transformers names don't follow normal Japanese name rules. Transformers names typically use common nouns as proper nouns while still keeping the meaning of the common noun rather than writing proper nouns with common nouns that have no meaning. This is further enforced by many Japanese Transformers using borrowed English words for their names. So where Ginrai might be spelled with the characters for "thunderclap", that isn't his name, but where all of these ladies are named for card suits and use borrowed English words for their names they definitely translate and retain their meaning.

Emerje

As to avoid derailing this thread any further, I will finish my stance on the whole matter with this:

Names rendered in Japanese script are usually left transcribed or romanized, and never translated, because what would be the point in translating names? Romanizing is all TakaraTomy has ever done (Minelba and Gregevor anyone?), it's only recently that they started using US analogs. Trick Diamond and Luna Club are indeed the English names (using proper analogs), but the Japanese originals are still rendered as Trick Dia and Luna Clover in Latin Script.

To further right this ship, I'll gush a bit here about Unite Warriors Computron! I got my sets delivered yesterday (at last!). He's terrific, he's sturdy, and he looks fantastic along side his Autbobot combiner brethren.

In person, Afterburner still comes off as mostly red, though a much lighter shade that other red components of the team and gestalt. Some pictures had depicted him with a slightly orange-red hue, but I don't see it in hand, at least with the lighting in my apartment. The only other bummer is that the windshield and front wheel assembly doesn't collapse a little more.

Strafe is truly amazing. Though a retool of the UW Blast Off mold, you'd hardly realize it from the robot mode (or the alternate mode, for that matter). Mine seems to snap together quite a bit more securely, especially in arm mode, than my UW Blast Off, which is a big plus. I also love the attention to detail, like how the tail fins fold away in arm mode to tuck in everything, even the robot mode arms, neatly.

Scattershot is awesome, I already knew what to expect mostly from the "beta" version of him Hasbro released at retail, but the extra remolding and expert paint apps make the Takara version really shine. The new guns are nice, but somewhat awkward to attach in alt mode.

Lightspeed is just what he is. A mostly red repaint of Combiner Wars Wheeljack with a new head. That's fine. He plays the part very well, but there are no surprises here. The new guns are nice too.

Nosecone is perhaps the most fun to transform and play with. He's loaded with guns! More to the point, though, his transformation is very satisfying. The mechanisms to manipulate the huge drill piece work well and are mostly intuitive. It's nice that the drill isn't a "parts" Transformation in this regard, but integrated effectively into the whole of the figure.

Finally, for Computron himself, I'll say that I like that you can combine SOME of the Technobots' weapons into the gestalt mode gun. I was disappointed at first that not all of them are utilized, but soon found there are clever little places to stick the rest of them, to "fill out" the combined mode just a little more. It just adds to the uniqueness of the figure, which manages to feel so new, despite everything being, at best, a remold from earlier in the line.

Wolfman Jake wrote:Mine seems to snap together quite a bit more securely, especially in arm mode, than my UW Blast Off, which is a big plus.

Thank you for this. After months of debate about trying to get UW Blastoff separately, I decided to get the whole UW Bruticus set because even though I had CW Bruticus complete, I really liked the animated color scheme, 4 rotor Vortex etc (Besdies I can use CW Blastoff and Vortex for another all-unique 'Con Combiner I am building) ... But UW Blastoff was a bit of a disappointment, in terms of how well he held together, and his head keeps popping off, which worried me with Strafe. Thankfully as you said my UW Strafe is great. Not sure what happened with Blastoff, if it was a QC mishap or what. Just have to handle that one very gently.

Also just ordered a Generations Cosmos off eBay cheap. I'm not exactly the creative type, but I'm going to see what I can come up with; if there is any way to integrate him with UW Computron as CW does for Scrounge. I would rather have gotten a TFA "Adams" but those are going 3-4X what I can get a used Cosmos for.

For as much I saw everyone complain about UW Dragstrip, they never show up on ebay. I thought that a few people at least would want to sell him off and get CW Dragstrip for their UW Menasor but seems not. Still would like to trade my CW one out and get UW one.

o.supreme wrote:

Wolfman Jake wrote:Mine seems to snap together quite a bit more securely, especially in arm mode, than my UW Blast Off, which is a big plus.

Thank you for this. After months of debate about trying to get UW Blastoff separately, I decided to get the whole UW Bruticus set because even though I had CW Bruticus complete, I really liked the animated color scheme, 4 rotor Vortex etc (Besdies I can use CW Blastoff and Vortex for another all-unique 'Con Combiner I am building) ... But UW Blastoff was a bit of a disappointment, in terms of how well he held together, and his head keeps popping off, which worried me with Strafe. Thankfully as you said my UW Strafe is great. Not sure what happened with Blastoff, if it was a QC mishap or what. Just have to handle that one very gently.

Also just ordered a Generations Cosmos off eBay cheap. I'm not exactly the creative type, but I'm going to see what I can come up with; if there is any way to integrate him with UW Computron as CW does for Scrounge. I would rather have gotten a TFA "Adams" but those are going 3-4X what I can get a used Cosmos for.

Blast Off's head wasn't really a QC issue as just a poor design. The little platform the head sits on gets jarred by the combiner joint. The head should've just attached to the joint proper like an Aerialbot.

It's a loose fit, but still works

ok so while my first pic was a loose fit, my 10 year old son actually found a better solution . If you open Payload's landing gear, you can peg it into the weapon hole on Strafe. You end up with an inverted version of what CW Computron does with Scrounge, but it still looks cool and is a secure fit.

Battle Gear or Baldigus? Wish it was the former (pun intended).

Another wallet shattering repaint!

http://takaratomymall.jp/shop/default.aspx

Those who are still waiting for Takara to show us their version of Liokaiser might have to wait a bit longer (or maybe longer than that) since Takara's next Combiner in their Unite Warriors line is none other than Baldigus, a Bruticus repaint, known as Runation in the west.

While his silhouette is teased on Takaratomymall, he will be fully revealed the 25th of October. The picture's file name is Baldigus, confirming the identity of this release. We do not know if there will be any retooling involved. A silfouette of the individual members was found in the Megatronia comic, also shown below.

Well, there is my first Unite Warriors purchase. Thank you

Well this'll certainly be interesting. Let's hope it looks good...but, considering it's Takara, I'm sure it'll be awesome.

I'm bummed since I'm one of those waiting for Takara's take on Liokaiser.

Probably my last chance to get a four bladed Vortex.....

PeterPrime wrote:Well, there is my first Unite Warriors purchase. Thank you

This might...actually be my first pass. I've purchased/plan on purchasing all the UW sets up until now because IMO they are either superior to CW, or offer something unique (well one could argue that Superion & Menasor are pretty much the same aside from the paint apps). But all the others have been different in some way. I have/enjoy UW Bruticus. If this is a straight up repaint I'll be a bit disappointed. They have to offer something different I would think/hope. Also, Baldigus had nothing to do with Unicron previously..., not sure how this all makes sense.

So we get the full reveal on the 25th...Lynx Master is supposed to come out on the 29th...Hopefully soon we'll be getting a close up of the packaging.

No love for the Battle Gear colors

What's odd to me is that they have Movor on the arm even though in the cartoon he was also commonly shown as a leg - which is also a good way to differentiate him from Bruticus.

If they're doing Baldigus/Ruination, they should really do an Autobot RID combiner too.

Optimus Prime - Hot Spot mold
Side Burn - Dead End mold
Prowl - Breakdown mold
Skid-Z - Dragstrip mold
X-Brawn - First Aid Mold

Terrsolpix wrote:Probably my last chance to get a four bladed Vortex.....

I don't know if it's worth it. It only looks good in alt mode (where it is awesome ). In every other mode, it just makes everything a mess. The helicopter blades are my least favorite thing about the AB mold and four blades makes it worse.

Kurona wrote:What's odd to me is that they have Movor on the arm even though in the cartoon he was also commonly shown as a leg

That's not entirely true.

Back when I was putting this together, I determined that Ruination/Baldigus formed his Flight Mission formation exactly nine times in RiD 2001 (eight times in Car Robots since one of the times in the dub was added to the dub). Meanwhile, his Land Mission formation was formed a mere seven times in RiD 2001 (six times in Car Robots since one of the times in the dub was in one of the dub's clip shows). So he was seen in his Flight Mission a little more often than his Land Mission.

kurthy wrote:

Terrsolpix wrote:Probably my last chance to get a four bladed Vortex.....

I don't know if it's worth it. It only looks good in alt mode (where it is awesome ). In every other mode, it just makes everything a mess. The helicopter blades are my least favorite thing about the AB mold and four blades makes it worse.

I agree, they are the worst part of that mold and having four doesn't make things any better. They get in the way and really don't position well at all. They really should've redesigned the rotor completely instead of just adding two more blades using the exact same design.

RiddlerJ wrote:If they're doing Baldigus/Ruination, they should really do an Autobot RID combiner too.

Optimus Prime - Hot Spot mold
Side Burn - Dead End mold
Prowl - Breakdown mold
Skid-Z - Dragstrip mold
X-Brawn - First Aid Mold

Any combiner using the Autobot Brothers as limbs ought to, IMHO, have Tow-Line as the fourth limb since, in Car Robots, he is their cousin, part of their family.

leokearon-s-digibashes-t105245s25.php#p1785312

leokearon-s-digibashes-t105245.php#p1779232

My Digibashes I did of Ruination and RID Autobot Combiners

RiddlerJ wrote:If they're doing Baldigus/Ruination, they should really do an Autobot RID combiner too.

Optimus Prime - Hot Spot mold
Side Burn - Dead End mold
Prowl - Breakdown mold
Skid-Z - Dragstrip mold
X-Brawn - First Aid Mold

First, I wanna see Devastator repainted as Landfill.

Yeah, I know it's a poor match in combined mode -- but in addition to the CR Build Team, we've got G1 Targetmasters Quickmix and Scoop we could throw in to the set, giving each Constructicon an Autobot repaint:

Hook -> Hightower
Scavenger -> Grimlock (needs a new name)
Long Haul -> Heavyload
Bonecrusher -> Wedge
Mixmaster -> Quickmix
Scrapper -> Scoop

That last one alone would make it a big seller among IDW fans.

mblase75 wrote:Scavenger -> Grimlock (needs a new name)

New name could be Buckethead.

couple of things..first off. If TT did any other Combiners, they would be based off of Japanese characters, so even if say...they did a CR team, or Buildmaster, they would have all the Japanese names. I seriously doubt they would remold Devastator into Buildmaster as it would not be accurate to the animated series. The same reason why I seriously doubt they will be doing LioKaiser (at least not Hasbro's version). They may totally shock and surprise us with some new molds, but considering all the effort TT took to design just two unique molds of their own...I don't know how they would do a whole new combiner. Still...it would be awesome.

If they were to make a new Liokaiser torso with Jallguar and Leozack - which, to me, seems unlikely - I can still see them using the limbs from Hasbro Liokaiser. They were done fine.