TOY NEWS FOR 5/9/2013 - iGEAR - "MINI WARRIORS" (TRANSFORMERS) - RED BARON, ROCKY, STINGER & BUSTA (POWER GLIDE, CLIFFJUMPER, BUMBLEBEE & WHEELIE)

Need some mini-bots to go with your Transformers Masterpiece collection? Don't think Takara will ever get around to them, or just don't want to wait that long? Then independent toy company iGear has you covered.

They've already released figures based on Brawn, Cosmos, Huffer, Pipes and Seaspray, and their versions of Gear, Outback, Beachcomber and Swerve are ready to hit any day now, so they definitely seem to be having some serious success with this line.

In there newly previewed wave, they'll be including some serious fan favorites.

"Red Baron" (Power Glide) is the stand out figure for me here. Both his design and sculpting look absolutely fantastic. "Busta" (Wheelie) also looks much better than his original G1 counterpart and is much closer to this animation styled design. He even includes his slingshot from TF: The Movie!

Moving on to the more popular characters, "Rocky" (Cliffjumper) and "Stinger" (Bumblebee), they obviously don't allow for the same artistic license as the others do due to their alt modes (car modes) making up most of their robot form. In order for them to look correct in their car modes, it give them larger feet and barrel chests in robot mode. I do wished they looked a little better-- and more cartoon accurate-- but there's little iGear could really have done here other than exactly what they did do.

I'm about to pick up my first few iGear Mini Warriors (Brawn and Huffer) and I hear great stuff about them. Once I have them in hand and see if they're as good as I hear they are-- and once I put them with my Masterpiece collection-- I'll decide if I want to fully invest in this line. But, I have a strange feeling that I probably will...

Prototype and Size Comparison Pics