Of all the TFCon 2023 exclusives, only the Fans Hobby MB-19C Huntsman really looked like it was worth my dropping money on. I'm not a huge seeker fan, and I really didn't need Femme Armada Megatron, at least not for $160 bucks.
Sold at $210, Huntsman is a retool of the Fans Hobby take on Doubledealer, the weapons dealer that plays both sides. This is their take on the character of Stalker, the Decepticon Predator team member. Being a reuse of this character, Huntsman retains a few characteristics of its parent toy, specifically, the Powermaster, and a few odd parts here and there, with extensive retooling to transform the character fully.
I think in terms of content, Huntsman effectively comes with what the original G1 toy did (sans Powermaster), but lacks the hand weapon instead opting for the two part ICBM that comes with the MB-19. What you're seeing in the bottom left hand corner are 8 green missile attachments that really don't do anything other than look neat, a throwback to the original G1 toy. There's also a little satellite dish.
The missile actually has light and sound functions, but as I have no batteries, well, I decided not to bother actually testing them.
Speaking of optional parts, there's also a set of stickers you apply to the Missile and the figure to make it more toy accurate. With my crappy skills, I humbly declined attempting this.
Vehicle mode is nice and chunky. There's a quite a few G1 collectors that supposedly lost interest once they started moving away from licensed vehicle modes, but me? Well I personally loved it when the toys became bigger and less fragile, and this alt mode would be a good example of things I would have found neat as a kid. Missile mount onto the top and sides of the wheel covers. Speaking of wheels, freaking rubber tires. Something that I expected to be on Wheel Blade. There's just something about rolling a toy car over a surface and not feeling every bump of the underlying surface is fantastic.
Missile can be removed and placed vertically at the back of the vehicle. An extending support arm or something would have made this even neater.
The Powermaster figure (or Power Driver) is yet another size, coming in roughly at the size of a modern day Micromaster. Articulation isn't quite as good as with the tiny head Wheel Blade came with, but the figure doesn't need to bend that way in order to accomplish it's designed transformation. You can shift a few panels around, and get the figure to be seated in the pilots spot. Unlike Wheel Blade, though, I actually got this one to fit.
Transformation into robot mode a more complex than it would appear, but at the same time it's certainly much better thought out than Wheel Blade, where every step I would worry that I'd end up breaking something, or scuffing the finish. There were a few steps where the manual wasn't that great, but that's really about it.
Head sculpt has that very retro design to it... brings back many fond memories of my youth and the design aesthetic of the 80s/90s in general. In robot mode, Huntsman is a giant brick of fun. He's almost as tall as the Legacy Super Armada Prime., more or less in line with what Ultra class figures used to be. Unlike the G1 toys, the Powermaster here is just for aesthetics, and isn't technically required for transformation. Just that you'll have a big hole to address.
One of the more interesting things Fans Hobby did was make hands for the figure that have a built in slot, which secures the hand weapon into place. Fingers do individually move, though articulation is limited to rotations.
Articulation is.. OK. For a figure of this size (and price), I just thought I'd be getting something better than effectively Mainline. Hips and legs on the whole have some pretty good articulation,. Ankle movement is limited by the sheer bulk of the lower leg, as is the actual range of motion of the knees. So basically there are some decent wide legged stance and walking options, but crouching? Forget it. Upper body is pretty pedestrian. Yes, you've got a waist joint, and the elbows are double jointed, but the limited head range of motion, and the effectively standard shoulders effectively set a limit on what you can accomplish here. Due to the transformation, the shoulders can collapse forward and allow you to bring the arms together, but it does in fact look kind of weird.
Paint and Build can be summarized in this photo. The paint work is minimal, consisting of applications on parts that aren't the primary plastic colours. The actual paint work itself is solid, though a bit basic. in terms of complexity. If you look at the photo above, you'll notice that the chest and abdomen sections look misaligned. From what I can tell, the left (in photo) side is a bit higher than the right side), which is causing the point of the arrow to not be aligned right down the middle of the torso. This says to me either the part is warped or, more likely, the joints behind it aren't properly inserted/installed.
Material choice is pretty good. There's the rubber tires, though no die cast. Plastic quality seems on par with the Mainline stuff. Despite being all plastic, the figure has some nice heft to it and shouldn't topple over if grounded correctly. However, the figure is also incredibly top heavy, so you're ultimately not going to be doing any gravity defying poses with Huntsman.
The MB-19C isn't perfect, but it has a lot of favourable factors and more importantly, feels more like a premium product than Wheel Blade. Yeah, OK, so I don't expect that sheer number of parts this one has, but rubber tires and better conceived engineering, something that won't break if you tweak it the wrong way. It wasn't even like the trade off for that was better foot articulation on Wheel Blade. Having said that, I understand why this was a convention exclusive - G1 Stalker isn't exactly one everyone's must buy list. In fact, the number of people that recognize the character is much less than the usual G1 suspects. So, I say if you like chunky toys, with a more involved transformation than rotate out some limbs, and you like the prospect of owning 1 of 600 of them, this isn't a bad figure to consider.
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