Wednesday 7 January 2015

Generations Combiner Wars Alpha Bravo


Alpha Bravo

Alpha Bravo is the cuckoo in the nest in the team of Generations Aerialbots replacing the missing Slingshot. The name is a bit of a play on words: Alpha Bravo is the phonetic alphabet for AB as in AerialBot. He's a major departure for this team as he transforms into a Helicopter rather than a Jet like the other original Aerialbots did. To be fair there is a precedent for this: Universe Micromaster Superion, a repaint of Operation Combination Sixwing, has a helicopter member: Rotor, a repaint of Chain Gun.

Alpha Bravo's robot mode doesn't help it's cause because it's got a strong resemblance to the missing Slingshot with a red/orange chest and orange paint covering it's faceplate and the top of the head. There's lots of white, grey and black on the rest of the toy but probably the defining feature of the robot mode is the gold/orange missiles moulded round the forearms and hands. The tail and rotor blades for his vehicle mode are sitting on the robot's back. The head is on a ball joint, as are the shoulders, He's got a bicep swivel, bending elbow, turning waist, ball jointed hips, thigh swivels and bending knees. He comes with his own single barrelled hand gun, with a massive ammunition magazine, and the dual cannon which serves as his combined mode foot & hand.

Transformation: rotate 90 degrees at the waist. Peg the legs together. Open the back of the lower legs and fold the upper legs into it and close. Although Alpha Bravo has the same transformation in the legs as the other Aerialbots he's the only one where the legs form the front of the vehicle mode, the others have the legs form the rear of the jets. Fold the nose halves round from the side of the legs and bring together. Fold the top of the cabin down onto the nose. Fold the tail back into place over the head. Straighten the arms so the missiles point forward alongside the side of the helicopter. Straighten the rotor blades.,

Alpha Bravo has decent enough helicopter with a peg hole underneath for the double cannon and either hand peg hole, facing down, can hold the gun. The rotors spin just fine. The problem is that now we see the helicopter mode it's shouting other characters at us. The missiles on the side, the shape, indeed how it transforms and what the robot looks like put us in mind of Combaticon Vortex. On the other hand a mainly white Autobot Helicopter makes us think Protectorbot Blades, and Production sketches show a red version with a new head. Then you looks closely at the shape of the nose and start thinking "Is a Combaticon Blast-off remould possible?" You almost wonder if they had to remove Slingshot, and you wonder if they did given Firefly's jet shape, why they didn't just replace him with Blades and have done with it?

Alpha Bravo can also function as a limb for Superion or any other Combiner Wars combined robot:

Arm mode: From robot mode fold the head back revealing the combiner peg and peg the legs together to form the lower arms.

Decent arm providing the Combiner wars standard of a turning and raising shoulder, a bicep from the robot hip, double bending elbow and rotating wrist. The colours on him are a good match for Silverbolt's white & red and the large amount of red makes him a good arm for Optimus.

Leg Mode: From helicopter mode fold the tail onto the back of the vehicle revealing the head. Rotate back 180 degrees to reveal the combiner peg. Pull the top of the cabin up, then fold the sides of the nose out and back into the position the occupy in robot mode. Peg the dual cannon into the foot. Slot into a Combiner Wars Voyager leg port.

Solid lower leg which provides a thigh swivel, bending knee and rotating ankle.

only real complaint about the limb mode is one I forgot to make for the other Aerialbots: the dual cannon is, like the rest of the Aerialbots, black, giving Superion black hands & feet. In 1986-8 all the combiners had different colours for their hands & feet: Superion's was white while black was used for Defensor.

Decent helicopter and robot and limb. But it feels too much like a different character and a substitute for one that should be there.

Alpha Bravo is numbered 4 in the Aerialbot set and was released with his team-mates Skydive & Firefly and the Stunticon Dragstrip in the first Combiner Wars wave that arrived in late December 2014.


Future Repaints/Remoulds

As I mention above it looks like Alpha Bravo is destined for several reuses: Production sketches show a red version with a new head which could well be the Protectorbot Blades which Wal*Mart computer listings have revealed. As yet no Combaticons have been announced but the helicopter and robot modes are very close to what you'd expect for Combaticon Vortex. The long nose of the helicopter is also reminiscent of Combaticon Blast-off so a as that may be on the cards. A yellow repaint as Evac or Sandstorm is a distinct possibility but I think the shape of the Helicopter isn't quite angular enough to do Whirl, Springer, Spinister or Bulkhead/Quickstrike. Finally the Combiner Wars Optimus torso brings Energon Optimus to mind and Alpha Bravo would make a good helicopter drone Op 2.

Tuesday 6 January 2015

Generations Combiner Wars Firefly


Firefly

Poor Firefly. I'm guessing that trademark issues stop him using his original name Fireflight so instead he looses the last five letters and gains a Y to take on the codename of one of GI Joe's enemies. As name swaps go this isn't the worst I've ever seen but I wonder if they gave any consideration to using his Japanese name Firebolt? Unless, of course, it's an attempt on trademark preservation for Firefly during GI Joe's current interregnum. Hasbro: where was my 50th anniversary Firefly figure?

Anyway back to the Transformer: The robot mode, like the original, is mainly white from the front with some red round the chest. A lot more red is visible from the back where it looks, as ever, like he's carrying his plane mode on his back. Silver and blue highlight are on the chest and silver is used to pick out the faceplate and top of his white head which means his head strongly resembles that of Ultra Magnus' inner robot. Articulation is good: ball jointed head, shoulders lift at the body and connect to the arms via a ball joint. He's got a bicep swivel, bending elbow, turning waist, ball jointed hips, thigh swivels and bending knees. The only real problem with the robot mode is the top, around the shoulders, looks substantially wider than the bottom, around the lower legs. He comes with his own single barrelled hand gun and the dual cannon which serves as his combined mode foot & hand.

Transformation: Straighten the legs and peg together. Open the back of the lower leg up and fold the upper leg into it. Yes it's that knee joint again. Straighten the arms by the sides of his body with the hands facing forwards. Fold the shoulders, and arms, down so the slot on the lower arm meets the tab on what was the lower leg. Fold the nosecone over the head. Fold the tail fin, tail wings and main wings down. Peg the hand gun and dual cannon under each wing.

The original Fireflight was a red F-4 Phantom with white wings. While the colours have been carried over to the new toy, the vehicle design hasn't and his design now more closely resemble the Harrier Jump Jet. Long term Aerialbot fans may see the significance of this decision and should jump down to the bottom to give the Future Repaints section a quick read. Unlike the other jet mould used for the Aerialbots Skydive & Air Raid, Fireflight has a fold down landing gear under his nose. He lacks the 5mm peg hole on top of the jet body but there's one under each wing to allow his weapons to be used in this mode.

Firefly can also function as a limb for Superion or any other Combiner Wars combined robot:

Arm mode: take the robot, fold the head back 90 degrees raising the combiner peg. Fold the arms so the shoulders are above the head, with the arms pointing backwards, folded down his back and the hands hanging onto the tabs there. Peg the legs together to form the lower arm. Bend the barrels of his larger dual cannon down, fold out the fingers and peg into the base of his feet.

Decent arm providing the Combiner wars standard of a turning and raising shoulder, a bicep from the robot hip, double bending elbow and rotating wrist. The colours on him are a good match for Silverbolt's white & red and the large amount of red makes him a good arm for Optimus.

Leg Mode: Take the jet mode, fold the nose cone onto his back, as per robot mode, and insert his large dual cannon into the rear of the jet as a foot.

Solid lower leg which provides a thigh swivel, bending knee and rotating ankle.

Skydive's a solid, if unspectacular, toy in all of it's modes. You'll want it to complete Superion and two more might be in order to use as arms for a colour coordinated Ultra Optimus.


Future Repaints

The obvious repaint for most Aerialbots is as their G2 counterparts. G2 Fireflight however looks very much like his original version, with the exception of some detail on the wings and a silver robot chest which is already hinted at here.

But look at the jet mode: it strongly resembles the missing original Aerialbot Slingshot: they are both Harriers. A white repaint of Firefly, perhaps with a new head, would do the trick nicely. That then could be redone as the gold G2 Slingshot, though hopefully in a more resilient non GPS prone version!

Generations Combiner Wars Skydive & Air-Raid


Skydive

Confession time: I can never remember which Aerialbot is which! Skydive is the grey one with black wings who TFWiki tells me is a F-16 Falcon Jet. He comes packaged in robot mode complete with a trading card. He's an Aerialbot so, like the rest of his team, there's yellow highlights on the card, and he's numbered 2.

The robot mode is nice and chunky, taking the 1986 Scramble City body part design and tweaking it to give Skydive pointer Shoulders and an almost upside down pot shaped head while putting all the colours where they ought to be. You can tell it's meant to be Skydive. His articulation is good: ball jointed head & shoulders, bicep rotation, bending elbows, rotating waist, ball jointed hips and bending knees. He come with a double barrelled gun for him to hold, similar to the weapon with the original toy, and a larger weapon with two warhead mounted on the end. Each can be held in either hand.

Transformation: remove the weapon. Fold down the front of the legs. Lock the legs together, unpeg the back of the knees and fold down the upper legs into the lower legs: the knee is pinned to a bar which is in turn pinned half way up the leg. So the knee is positioned at the top of the leg for robot mode and inside the bottom for vehicle mode. Get used to it, it's on all four Aerialbots and two of the Stunticons. The only thing to be careful of is that the knees tab in right when reversing the transformation. Personally I think it's Overcomplicated solution to a simple problem when a sliding joint, like Dragstrip has, will suffice. Fold the arms straight along the sides of the plane. Pull each wing back and swing them, and the connected shoulder and arm, back down the body: a similar idea to the legs here: the shoulder is mounted on a bar which is in turn attached half way down the body. Peg the inside of the wrist against the sides of the back of the jet. Fold down the tail fins and wings. Fold the nose forward, off the robot's back/top of the plane, and into the correct position for a jet.

I am not a plane man, but TFWiki tells me this new version is "a cross between an F-16 and an F-18". I can see the resemblance, but he now has two tail fins rather than one. Other editions include a pair of gold painted missiles underneath each wing. Also under each wing, and on top of the body of the jet, are 5mm peg holes which you can use to mount his weapons. Since there's three peg holes and just two weapons there's plenty of configurations available to you. Unlike Firefly and Silverbolt, Skydive has no landing gear and relies on the robot parts on the undercarriage to rest on.

Skydive can also function as a limb for Superion or any other Combiner Wars combined robot:

Arm mode: take the robot, fold the head back 90 degrees raising the combiner peg. Fold the arms so the shoulders are above the head, with the arms pointing backwards, folded down his back and the hands hanging onto the tabs there. Peg the legs together to form the lower arm. Bend the barrels of his larger dual cannon down, fold out the fingers and peg into the base of his feet.

Decent arm providing the Combiner wars standard of a turning and raising shoulder, a bicep from the robot hip, double bending elbow and rotating wrist.

Leg Mode: Take the jet mode, fold the nose cone onto his back, as per robot mode, and insert his large dual cannon into the rear of the jet as a foot.

Solid lower leg which provides a thigh swivel, bending knee and rotating ankle.

Skydive's a solid, if unspectacular, toy in all of it's modes. Get used to it because he forms the basis for another Aerialbot too!

Skydive was sold in Combiner Wars Deluxe wave 1 alongside his team mates Alpha Bravo & Firefly and the Stunticon Dragstrip. This wave was first seen in the far east in the middle of December 2014 and shortly afterwards, to much surprise, became the first generally distributed Generations deluxe wave in the UK for many years. The wave was then found in the USA at around the end of the same year.


Air Raid

The original 1986 Air Raid is an F-15 Eagle, the same as the original Decepticon jets and indeed the jet mode bears the same colour, black, as one of those Decepticons, Skywarp. This new version is a quite similar looking F-14 Tomcat. What's interesting is that the official images of the Aerialbots make it quite obvious that Skydive & Air Raid share a great many parts:

Skydive Air Raid
Leg Front Grey White
Upper Legs Black White
Waist Black White
Connector Black White
Gun Black White
Tailfins Black Black
Nosecone Black Black

More comments when the toy is released, but it very much looks like he has functional swing wings.

Air Raid is numbered 1 in the Aerialbot set and sold in the second wave of combiner toys. He is the lone Aerialbot in this wave and comes packed with the three Stunticons who do not feature in wave 1: Breakdown, Deadend and Offroad. This wave is due to be released in mid/late January 2015.


Future Repaints

The obvious candidates for recolouring these two toys are G2 Skydive, in silver, and G2 Air Raid, in blue, coincidentally the colours of another early Decepticon jet, Thundercracker.

It therefore makes sense to me that Starscream, Sunstorm and Acid Storm would make good repaints for Air Raid.

The swing wing F-14 design also automatically lends itself to doing Jetfire