This morning, CBR.com posted an article which had official reveals for a couple of the new Mayhem Attack Squad packs:

https://www.cbr.com/transformers-legacy-toys-hasbro/

...And almost immediately afterwards, the toys themselves actually went live on Hasbro Pulse.

https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-legacy-united-doom-n-destruction-collection-3-pack
https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-legacy-united-doom-n-destruction-collection-2-pack

...And almost immediately after THAT, the Deluxe Insecticon set was sold out. It actually sold out while I was in the process of paying for it. The other set sold very quickly as well.

Amazon's search engine is badly borked, so you cannot find the listings for these sets by typing sensible things like the names of the characters, or keywords like "Transformers" or "mayhem," because that would be silly. But here are direct links to both sets, still available as of this writing:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSGV7SPQ
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSH1QFHR

So, let's talk about these guys, since this is the first time we've actually seen them!

Chop Shop is a Legacy Shrapnel redeco with a new head, to the surprise of absolutely no one. He looks more or less exactly like I expected him to look. It's honestly a very successful update for everybody's favorite Insecticon thief.

Barrage is a Bombshell remold, and not a terrible one. I wasn't sure how much remolding they were going to be willing to commit to, but he honestly looks better than I had been anticipating. They reversed the orientation of Bombshell's upper body, so Bombshell's chest is now Barrage's back. His insect mode looks a bit odd, since he's got the Bombshell shoulders serving as the eyes of the bug mode, plus the new Barrage eyes as well. But, I like what they came up with, considering the train wreck called Bombshell they had to work with.

The Insecticons also come with a little Micromaster Autobot named Malleus Minotaurus, and he is apparently a Wrecker. If you thought he sounded a lot like Siege Smashdown, you would be correct.

Windsweeper is the expected Needlenose redeco, with a new head and not much else. He even comes with the same Targetmaster guns (named Ozone and Cleansweep) but they're painted entirely metallic silver from head to toe, ostensibly so they can still look like Windsweeper's old Triggercon guns. I don't completely love this. I guess I'll have to wait for the inevitable third party weapons upgrade for him.

He comes with Prime Universe Breakdown, who is a remold of Legacy Bulkhead. Some people are complaining that this base toy is wildly inappropriate for the character, but I know nothing about him and cannot speak towards that idea. I don't want him, and I'll be selling him off when I receive him. I'm only buying the set for Windsweeper and his clean-up crew.

The Barrage/Chop Shop set is $54.99 and the Windsweeper/Breakdown set is $59.99, and they're scheduled to ship in August 2024. There is still one more Mayhem Attack Squad set that remains unaccounted for so far (the reported Bludgeon/Ruckus set).

Zob (yep, glad I got the vintage Deluxe Insecticons when I did)

Zobovor wrote:

> This morning, CBR.com posted an article which had official reveals for a couple of the new Mayhem Attack Squad packs:

> https://www.cbr.com/transformers-legacy-toys-hasbro/

> ...And almost immediately afterwards, the toys themselves actually went live on Hasbro Pulse.

> https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-legacy-united-doom-n-destruction-collection-3-pack
> https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-legacy-united-doom-n-destruction-collection-2-pack

> ...And almost immediately after THAT, the Deluxe Insecticon set was sold out. It actually sold out while I was in the process of paying for it. The other set sold very quickly as well.

> Amazon's search engine is badly borked, so you cannot find the listings for these sets by typing sensible things like the names of the characters, or keywords like "Transformers" or "mayhem," because that would be silly. But here are direct links to both sets, still available as of this writing:

> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSGV7SPQ
> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSH1QFHR

> So, let's talk about these guys, since this is the first time we've actually seen them!

Loving the look of the bugs. My only real issue with the standard Insecticons is that the purple is very slightly different on each toy in a way that is probably almost unnoticeable to a normal human, but leaps out at me from across the room and I can’t unsee it. Different characters who aren’t supposed to match is just going to make me like these molds so much more.

> The Insecticons also come with a little Micromaster Autobot named Malleus Minotaurus, and he is apparently a Wrecker. If you thought he sounded a lot like Siege Smashdown, you would be correct.

> Windsweeper is the expected Needlenose redeco, with a new head and not much else. He even comes with the same Targetmaster guns (named Ozone and Cleansweep) but they're painted entirely metallic silver from head to toe, ostensibly so they can still look like Windsweeper's old Triggercon guns. I don't completely love this. I guess I'll have to wait for the inevitable third party weapons upgrade for him.

Windsweeper looks so much better than Needlenose. It’s just a better color scheme. The target masters are a little sad looking.

> He comes with Prime Universe Breakdown, who is a remold of Legacy Bulkhead. Some people are complaining that this base toy is wildly inappropriate for the character, but I know nothing about him and cannot speak towards that idea. I don't want him, and I'll be selling him off when I receive him. I'm only buying the set for Windsweeper and his clean-up crew.

Honestly, the base toy makes more sense for him than it did for Bulkhead. It’s not any more accurate, but it matches the character’s personality. I wish they remolded the shield to be not canvas, but he looks great. It’s weird that he and Bulkhead share a mold though.

It also looks like he and Knock-Out went through the same G1ification filter, so they match up well. As you might hope that boyfriends would as they age together and get adapted into different universe incarnations together. They’re gay for each other. Because they’re gay.

Or their depiction in TF:Prime was just queer baiting. But the simpler explanation is just that they are gay, with Knock-Out being really stereotypically gay.

> The Barrage/Chop Shop set is $54.99 and the Windsweeper/Breakdown set is $59.99, and they're scheduled to ship in August 2024. There is still one more Mayhem Attack Squad set that remains unaccounted for so far (the reported Bludgeon/Ruckus set).

Both are preordered. Not sure I need Ruckus and Bludgeon though, unless they are doing something really fancy with them.

> Zob (yep, glad I got the vintage Deluxe Insecticons when I did)

The Insecticons look great! Of course I'm a sucker for any iteration of Chop Shop, but this is definitely the best since G1.

Breakdown and Windsweeper not so much. Glad I got the 10th anniversary Breakdown in 2022. Windsweeper I'll probably find cheaper on the secondary market towards the end of the year, no real rush to get him.

Of course since I said this I will likely not find him at all, and that wouldn't be too terrible.

IrrelliusSpamticon wrote:

> The Insecticons look great! Of course I'm a sucker for any iteration of Chop Shop, but this is definitely the best since G1.

SHrapnel and Chop Shop are both already pretty similar in appearance, so this is one of the few times when it's not wholly disingenous to make Chop Shop a redeco instead of designing a new toy. The same could be said of Kickback and Ransack, to perhaps a slightly lesser degree.

But, honestly, it's Barrage that I'm the most impressed with. I thought he was going to require a lot of remolding so that he didn't end up just looking like a sad Bombshell, and Bombshell was already like 50% recycled Shrapnel parts by metric volume. But, he looks kind of amazing. He turned out way better than I was expecting.

The best-case scenario is that Venom gets an all-new mold. I'm having a lot of difficulty imagining how they would get away with recycling an existing Insecticon for him.

> Breakdown and Windsweeper not so much. Glad I got the 10th anniversary Breakdown in 2022. Windsweeper I'll probably find cheaper on the secondary market towards the end of the year, no real rush to get him.

My thinking is that Windsweeper will probably be the more desirable of the two, and that it's Breakdown that a lot of people are going to try to unload on the aftermarket. But, if this is how they're addressing the Triggercons (recycled parts), then I wonder if Ruckus is even going to have his guns at all...

Zob (like, I get that the Triggercons aren't the most important characters ever, but when the sub-group is literally NAMED after the toy gimmick...)

GustavoWombat wrote:

> Loving the look of the bugs. My only real issue with the standard Insecticons is that the purple is very slightly different on each toy in a way that is probably almost unnoticeable to a normal human, but leaps out at me from across the room and I can’t unsee it.

I know the smaller Legends-class Insecticons had bad color-matching problems, but do the Legacy Insecticons not match either? I've had them all together before, and I didn't notice any glaring color mismatch. Hmm.

I just dug through one of my Legacy boxes and I'm not seeing it. The translucent wings on Kickback don't match the silver color used for Shrapnel's antennae, which still irks me a bit, but the purples all look the same to me. Are you really seeing a difference?

> Windsweeper looks so much better than Needlenose. It’s just a better color scheme. The target masters are a little sad looking.

It's obvious they were planning for this toy to serve double-duty as Windsweeper from the beginning (Needlenose already had the Windsweeper tail fin assembly), so if that's the case, you'd think they would have designed a gated mold so that they could close off the Targetmasters and open up some Triggercon guns. Like, I wasn't expecting them to be spring-loaded, but come on already. This sets a bad precedent for whenever they get around to doing the Triggerbots.

> Both are preordered. Not sure I need Ruckus and Bludgeon though, unless they are doing something really fancy with them.

Ruckus will likely have a special power, like Beachcomber, in that his tires will be capable of melting the other toys in your toy box. Fancy, or just dangerous...?

Zob (my Beachcomber tires are currently in a Zip-Loc baggie, segregated from the other toys)

Zobovor wrote:

> I just dug through one of my Legacy boxes and I'm not seeing it. The translucent wings on Kickback don't match the silver color used for Shrapnel's antennae, which still irks me a bit, but the purples all look the same to me. Are you really seeing a difference?

Yup. I am blessed/cursed with a really sharp color sense.

The translucent wings don’t bother me because they aren’t supposed to match the gray. Whether they it would be better if they did match is another issue, but I don’t like gray for silver anyway, so it’s not like either really is in keeping with the original toys.

They’re probably trying to match the animation models more than the original toys.

>> Both are preordered. Not sure I need Ruckus and Bludgeon though, unless they are doing something really fancy with them.

> Ruckus will likely have a special power, like Beachcomber, in that his tires will be capable of melting the other toys in your toy box. Fancy, or just dangerous...?

For a pacifist, Beachcomber really causes a lot of destruction. I wonder if the parakeet does too. Maybe Ruckus will come with a squirrel or something instead of a parakeet.

> Zob (my Beachcomber tires are currently in a Zip-Loc baggie, segregated from the other toys)

On 3/1/2024 9:15 AM, Zobovor wrote:
> like Beachcomber, in that his tires will be capable of melting the other
> toys in your toy box.  Fancy, or just dangerous...?
>
>
> Zob (my Beachcomber tires are currently in a Zip-Loc baggie, segregated
> from the other toys)

This is a thing!? OMG. Are there any other toys that have this problem?

Travoltron wrote:
> This is a thing!? OMG. Are there any other toys that have this problem?

I've seen accounts of RotF Voyager Bludgeon having rubber tank treads that melt the surrounding plastic if not stored properly. Mine hasn't done it but I've seen pictures.

Travoltron wrote:

> This is a thing!? OMG. Are there any other toys that have this problem?

I need to write a post about it. Stay tuned!

Zob (after this station identification and a word from our sponsor)