We've gotten quite a few new Stepper/Ricochets over the years, but never a new toy of his buddy Artfire until now.  The pair exist because Japan didn't want to do Cyclonus and Scourge as Targetmasters, I guess, and so they gave their Targetmaster partners to redecos of the Jazz and Inferno toys.  Redoing white Jazz toys in black as Stepper/Ricochet makes pretty solid retail sense, but redoing the red Inferno as, uh, mostly red Artfire probably seems like a less good idea.  Artfire was never very visually distinct from Inferno, roughly being an Inferno with a white chest, so that's likely why he hasn't shown up until now.  (Also because we get a dozen times more Jazz toys than Infernos.)

But somebody over in Japan was willing to do an Artfire as an exclusive, so here we are.  He's got Inferno's head and  hands and the Grapple retool's crane arm, so he's a parts combination that hasn't been done before.  Artfire also comes with two Targetmasters, one being the fifteen zillionth redeco of Universe Nightstick and the other being a redeco of one of Power Core Combiner Pinpoint.  The former is intended to be Artfire's original partner, Nightstick, whose name causes the Transformers Wiki much grief, and the latter is intended to be Sparks, which was the Marvel Comics name for Firebolt, Hot Rod's Targetmaster partner.

Because Artfire has Grapple's crane and not a ladder, the instructions tell you to peg both of his Targetmaster partners through the crane's hook so it becomes this sort of water cannon thing.  Inventive!

I KIND OF HAVE A LOT OF THIS MOLD.

At least there's three different heads to go between them.  (You'll note the handpainted Hot Spot head I gave to my Pyro.)  There aren't many G1 firetrucks even left to still make this guy into.  There's probably still a Micromaster firetruck, right?  And Hosehead.  Both of whom are probably red and black, so, well, you know.  And, heck, they could probably still get away with making a Hauler, and I would be very happy to buy it.  I say that not only because I don't have an original Hauler (I got my Sunstorm long after he was released and so after the duo had been split up on the secondary market), but because I still really like this toy.  And thank god for that.

Joining Rodimus in the "Challenge at Cybertron" set is Cyclonus!  Like Rodimus, he's supposed to be in colors that closely approximate his appearance in the television show, regardless of taste.  As a result, he doesn't actually look all that bad.  He's a bit too much of the same value, meaning he's gonna look like he's almost all the same color to some colorblind people, but he's not an assault on the retinas like Takara's attempt at the same thing.

The original American Universe Cyclonus (in the back of the photos) tried to spice things up by using a darker purple, a medium red, and some light gray.  It better-balanced these colors across the body by breaking up the torso into light gray and dark purple instead of keeping the torso entirely purple.  This bothered some people.  Those people are in luck 'cuz the "Challenge at Cybertron" version keeps the torso all purple.  And it decorates the drab purple with some more saturated purple that you kind of have to squint to see in nonoptimum lighting.  Again, most of his colors are all the same value.

And he comes with Nightstick again, who looks more like Nightstick since he now has silver legs.

I think I'm going to keep boy my Cyclonuses.  This new one can be Cyclonus proper, and the old Universe one can be Cyclonus's Armada.  Why him and not the original?  He looks more like he's in Skywarp's colors, particularly with the gray stripes running down his torso.  And, y'know, Skywarp became Cyclonus's Armada. So that works out!

Of course, old-Nightstick is becoming Krunix. Hell, that Nightstick was always Krunix to me.  Basically, it's nice to now have a Nightstick.

Geez, Cyclonus, you sure are a whole lotta purple.