More kreo for August

August is likely to be the month for Transformers Kre-O for me, as five of the seven sets in series two have arrived so far, and the first wave of Preview Mini-figures are on their way, so should get here before the end of the month.  I also ordered the remaining two second-series sets from the Hasbro Online store a week ago, via a shipping agent, but they are not likely to get to me before this month ends.

So, yesterday I went to the post office to see if my latest two Amazon.com orders had arrived, and sure enough, they were both there.

Kreo Battle for Energon (Optimus Vs Megatron)
Kreo Street Showdown (Wheeljack Vs Knockout)
Kreo Rotor Rage (Vortex) 

Movie ball set (small squishy football, soccerball, baseball)

TFs comic compilations (Autocracy, RiD, MTMTE) - the most recent three releases

GIJoe Classic Vol 14 & 15 - that completes the original 155 issue original series, as volume 15 was just released. Now to read it all. I read through the first 5 when Marvel were releasing them, but since that was almost 10 years ago now, I'll probably have to restart from the beginning again).

GIJoe (continued) Vols 1-4 - this is the new series that followed on from #155 of the original series, replacing the Devils Due GIJoe series that was also meant to follow on from the original series (but is now an alternate timeline, known as "Disavowed"). This means when I finish the 15 volumes of the Classic series, I have 4 more volumes to read after that. So much to read. So little time.

GIJoe (1986) movie - it was cheap, and I wanted something to go with Kre-O Vortex and the soft balls, to make the order more worth it. I'd never seen the movie before, and I can see why many GIJoe fans pretend it never existed.

It also explained characters in the fourth volume of GIJoe & TFs by Devils Due (I might have to re-read it now).

I was a bit disappointed that there was no Snake Eyes or Storm Shadow, who were major players in the comics. I guess it was like Grimlock in Transformers, in that he was a key player in our comics, but not in the cartoon.

So after about 6-7 hours, I had constructed the vehicle modes of the next three Kre-O sets...

Since two of the sets above were two-packs, the individual vehicles were fairly small and simplistic. The back of Optimus could have used a few more pieces to fill out the "skeleton" look of the back end.

The rope for Vortex is too thick to tie into a proper knot (the rescue rope is kinda pointless though - looks better without it).
The missile launchers on Vortex are quite inventive, to actually fire the missiles without having a spring in them.

The ATV (quad-bike) with Vortex doesn't move too well, because the wheels rub against other parts.

They still can't get the stickers right, as most are the wrong size (compared to the sizes shown in the instructions). There were even some stickers left over, which aren't even used in the Robot mode, or can go anywhere.

Once again, it seems that the robot modes were what they first created, and then they built alt-modes from those parts, as there are lots of pieces left over with each set (20-30 at least).

Disappointed that the Wheeljack/Knock Out set only had a small railing and 2 traffic cones as the extra "diorama" build. Compared to the other sets (guard house, construction site, bank, ATV), this felt "cheap". (note - the pieces used in "diorama" items are not used in either modes of the Transformers characters, so they should have given us something substantial for that set)

The non-convertible Kreons look so much better than the blind-pack ones... when you compare Vortex Kreon with the Spinister Kreon. (two helicopter characters)