Jacob Blackmon Blogs

The contact build for today is Ramhorn ! This Autobot cassette was one of several introduced to us in the Transformers movie from 1986. I don't personally recall seeing him in the classic Marvel Transformers comic series. But he did feature prominently in the first several episodes of the third season of the G1 TF animated series. Unlike Eject and Rewind, who have jobs within Blaster's communications sector, Ramhorn is all about the fight. I guess he serves as the enforcer for the Autobot Communications sector. I you enjoy this content, please help my friend Owen and his fight against cancer . RAMHORN " Flee before me or else you'll fall before me ." Ramhorn is one bad-tempered tape. In beast mode, he's very aggressive and easily provoked. If somebody messes with his stuff, he'll most likely smash the offender, then smash the tampered-with belongings, then smash everything nearby for good measure. He's very strong, too, able to derail a train with a si...

In honor of the release of Transformers One, I have created a Contact Build for Sentinel Prime. While this build is unlikely to be used in most TF campaigns, it is possible someone may want to run a TF campaign set in the early days of the Great War, or perhaps have a game based on the movie TF: One itself. This contact build may help facilitate character interactions with Sentinel. Sentinel Prime (sometimes known as Sentinel Zeta) has been depicted in many different ways over the course of Transformers series and revisions. In their earlies version, he is the bearer of the Matrix of Leadership -- one of many in a lineage of Primes --  handing it off to Optimus before his passing. It was likely the Transformers Animated series of 2007 that solidified the modern version of Sentinel as he is depicted today; showcasing that the lineage of Primes was not always one of virtuous bots. Some came into their position as Prime through manipulation and guile, rather than being a bearer of the...

The contact build for today is the Recordicon: Eject ! I hope you're ready for some football! If you enjoy this content, please help my friend Owen with his fight against cancer ! EJECT " Clutch hitting is the key to an effective offense ." The best way to describe Eject is that he is always ready for some football! A confirmed Earth-sports junkie, Eject constantly scans the airwaves for everything from baseball, basketball, football, soccer, hockey, anything, from professional to academic-level competition. This occasionally interferes with his job as a surveillance agent, should a game go into overtime when he should be monitoring Decepticon activity. Sports clichés and terms litter his speech: "home runs", "touchdowns", "goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!!" and, of course, "Are you ready for some football?!" For Eject, sports are more than a form of entertainment. To his mind, they are also the answer to the war. He feels that...

The contact build for today is the rhyming Autobot survivalist: Wheelie . Most TF fans were introduced to Wheelie via the Transformers Movie in 1986. And frankly, this guy was Jar Jar Binks before Jar Jar ever Jar Jar'd! He was ANNOYING! Sure, he was supposed to be a kid... who spoke in a rhyming method. There are lots of Autobots who have distinct speaking mannerisms. But the voice they chose to use for Wheelie was the most ear-grating high-pitch autotune trash. Like a microphone feedback squelch being put through a synthesizer. Honestly, I think if they'd just gone for a normal voice, it would have been fine. But the voice combined with the rhymes made him unbearable to listen to. And what's worse is he could be an interesting character! Imagine being the sole survivor of your family's crashed starship on a world filled with hostile alien robots that want to eat you! Wheelie survived this! There is even one piece of art that has Wheelie wearing a necklace of Sharktico...

The contact build for this article is Tailgate ! Of this generation of mini-bots -- all of those that were basically just repaints of the first generation of minibots -- Tailgate may be one of the worst offenders. He's a repaint of Windcharger, one of the Autobots who was specifically shown in the 1986 film film to be DEAD DEAD DEAD!! And he's just painted... white. Bland, boring.... white! Not only that,  but he even steals from Windcharger in the worst way. Tailgate has a special magnet installed in his front bumper. But instead of having a wicked-cool magnetic power like Windcharger, Tailgate uses this magnet to  be as lazy as possible: he uses it to magnetically follow vehicles in front of him, so her doesn't have to waste fuel while driving. Wow, dude... wow. Otherwise, he's also just an idiot, in the fact that he does not understand that Earth machines are not sentient. He believe that machines Humans are using are secretly alive (they are -- provably -- not) and ...

Our next Contact build is for the Autobot metallurgist: Swerve ! Swerve is yet another Autobot mini who replaced an existing character simply to sell more toys. In this case, he is modeled after the Autobot Gears. I was really unfamiliar with this character before building him as a contact. He very unremarkable as a character in the classic G1 series. It is in the modern era that Swerve has shined!  He became a popular character with the writers and fan during the IDW comics, where his constant banter made  him an ideal pundit for the goings on in the series. If you enjoy this content, please help my friend Owen with his fight with cancer . SWERVE " Molecular structure is the window to understanding. " Gregarious would be a good word to describe Swerve. So would outgoing, enthusiastic, upbeat, joyfully irreverent, flippant, sarcastic, wise ass, troll, or "total pain in the aft", depending on which side of his weapons-grade mouth you happen to fall on and how long yo...

The contact build for today is the Autobot gunner: Pipes! When Transformers the Movie happened in 1986, Hasbro wanted to sell more toys by getting rid of old characters and replacing them with new characters. In terms of the mini-bots, they did this in the most "cost-effective" (aka cheap-ass) way possible: by repainting old figures and saying they were entirely different characters. Now... to be fair, Hasbro isn't the only company to do this. If you glance over at Mattel, their Masters of the Universe line is rife with characters built on mix and matching the plastic pieces of one character and repainting them to make an entirely new character with as minimal effort as possible. It keeps costs down, while maximizing the characters in the series. But, whereas Mattel actually mix-and-matched different pieces from different character to make a new character, Hasbro didn't even do that... they just flat-out repainted an old  character and claimed  it was a new one! It...