One of the big problems with the Torchbearer helicopters, Stormclash and Skyburst, is that they are very very similar toys. Yes I know there's something clever going on with mirror image colour schemes on the vehicles and robots, plus different heads, but they are basically the same underlined by Hasbro themselves not being able to tell the difference and mucking up the labelling for
their official photos! Unite Warriors has hone a different route.
Lunaclub is the repaint of Torchbearer Stormclash and has the head with the eyes. She swaps Stormclash's institutional green for the black used on all of Megatronia's components while her red becomes a peach/pale neon orange. The faction symbol on the right of her chest becomes a Decepticon one while the square on the left, painted red on Stormclash, becomes a pale blue which will become significant later. He bladed weapon is still transparent blue but has the blade painted pint and the edging, previously silver, turned gold. See this tweet for a comparison between the two versions of the toy.
I'm not 100% keen on the peachy orange but it goes OK with the black and is a HUGE improvement over the previous colour scheme.
Moonheart is the repaint of
Torchbearer Skyburst and has the head with the visor. Her colours have taken a very similar approach to that used on her sister Lunaclub. Again Institutional Green becomes black but this time the red becomes pale blue producing a colour scheme that's sympathetic to the moon part of her name. All the other changes to Lunaclub apply here too but interestingly the square on her right chest, again previously red, is now blue. Their
fictional biographies depict them as twins and it's nice to see that, although different, a piece of each other's colour schemes shows up on the opposing toy. Here's
a tweet showing a comparison between Moonheart & Skyburst while
this tweet shows the Four Guards Helicopter sisters together.
The better of the two helicopter colour schemes used in the Megatronia box, but the use of the colour on the chest helps tie her in with her sister and is a nice touch.
Four Guards
Lunaclub &
Moonheart were direct repaints of Torchbearers
Stormclash &
Skyburst. Trickdiamond is broadly the
same with black replacing green and yellow replacing red. However the frame for the top of the body, shoulder joints,
elbow joints, waist & knees is now black instead of yellow with the yellow paint apps down the side of the body and on the
robot reduced in size somewhat. Like the helicopters her shield weapon is still moulded in clear blue plastic but has
it's paint applications changed to gold. You can see the difference between the two toys in
this tweet.
Since the Breakdown mould,
adapted for Torchbearer
Jumpstream & this toy, has already been used to make Combiner Wars Sunstreaker seeing
the car mode in mainly black, with yellow highlights, puts me in mind of the Generation 2 version on Sunstreaker's
brother Sideswipe who, at the time of
writing in February 2017, still hasn't received a Combiner Wars version presumably due to his presence in Robots in Disguise.
You can't really go wrong with a black Lamborghini. Well unless you stick the Botcon 2016 Ravage head on it. Looks
great!
Flowspade is almost a direct plastic colour swap for
Torchbearer Dustup with institutional green becoming black and red becoming what my wife described as violet. The waist, knee, combiner wars & Hand/Foot/Gun frame breaks this pattern by going from red to black. The reason the colour swap doesn't look so simple is that the paint apps for vehicle mode have been dramatically changed as you can see in
this tweet comparing the two. With Dustup the car, which would have been mainly that nasty green, was liberally painted red over the sides helping the red plastic elbow blend in. For Flowspade this has gone and the elbow sticks out like a sore thumb as it has done on most versions of
Combiner Wars Dead End! Paint is kept to a minimum: the front bumper, centre of the bonnet, one of the few places that was the native plastic colour on Dustup, and the centre of the rear. The weapon is significantly improved here: like
Megaempress the moulded plastic colour has gone from grey to black and coupled with the gold paint used on all the weapons in the Like the other deluxes in the
Megatronia boxset it looks significantly better!
Big improvement over Dustup. But it's the 12th use of Dead End so I'm finding it hard to get really excited about.
When Megaempress was first hinted at in
this Unite Warriors comic strip there was an assumption that she was
Esmeral the wife of
Deathsaurus in the Victory Manga. The reality when revealed turns out to be even stranger as
the online comic introducing her reveals: She is effectively a female version of Megatron constructed from his spare parts! The idea here is to make the robot mode as close to Megatron as possible and they've done a pretty good job as
this tweet showing Megaempress with the
Legends Version of
Combiner Wars Megatron shows. Even the female Prowl head works with the crest aping the details on the top of Megatron's head within his helmet. In fact the detailing is so close I'd argue that this Voyager robot should be called Megatronia instead of
the combined robot which
looks nothing like Megatron! The only downside to the detailing is that it does make the face hidden in the remoulded
Pyra Magna chest panel more obvious than ever with the eyes, one red and one blue to match the panel on Megatron's chest, really standing out! For those upset at the lack of a traditional arm mounted fusion cannon the now black ladder can be folded over her shoulder as what's described
on TFWiki as a Rail Fusion Cannon.
The colours result in a fire engine that has swapped it's orangey red for silver which, together with the black ladder, almost convinces me that this isn't a fire engine any more. I can almost believe it some sort of military vehicle with a big gun mounted on the back if. It looks totally different to the previous Pyra Magna version of the toy as this Comparison Tweet shows.
Love this toy. Fabulous repaint. If I could afford it I'd buy another just so I could display the Voyager in robot mode because I know combineritus will strike and she will spend the rest of her life as Megatronia's torso!
TakaraTomy loves it's Fembots even more than Hasbro do. The Legends line got
Windblade,
Arcee &
Chromia like the Generations line did but in addition the first two were repainted in the Legends line as
Slipstream &
Nightbird Shadow alongside
Blackarachnia, a remould of the
animated toy. So it was rather likely that Takara would do a Japanese version of
Victorion.
The existence of Unite Warriors "Victorion" was hinted at was first hinted at in a comic strip released on 28th June 2016 with official images following on 24th August and a revised set on the 31st of the same month which reveals the names used for the set. I've not found an official name for the team but TFWiki refer to the deluxes as The 4 Guards.
Essentially the Unite Warriors Megatronia Boxset is a repaint of the previous Combiner Wars Victorion Gift Set. The only change to the toy moulds used is that Torchbearer Rust Dust, a repaint of
Combiner Wars Protetobot Groove, is omitted as have all the Legends companions for the Combiners issued in Unite Warriors.
All the deluxe in the set are predominantly black while the Voyager, Megaempress, is mainly silver with some black. I've listed bellow the toys in the set, with what they're repaints of and which colour in addition to black they toy has on it.
The pink on Megatronia is provided by the chest plate and stripes on the upper legs, both of which are hidden away when Megaempress is in robot mode. Her black from the ladder/rail fusion cannon becomes the chest and head of the combined robot. Black continues onto the individual robot weapons which combine to form Megatronia's sword and the hands & feet which are repaints of those used on Victorion which hadn't previously appeared on a Japanese toy.
Given this new colour scheme with the elements united by the black Megatronia is a far more attractive toy than Victorion with her clashing institution green and red. Yes, she does tend to lean forward but that's a problem common to all combiners using variants of the Hotspot mould. And Yes, the chest panels tend to pop off when you turn the arms, another fault common to Hotspot and Pyra Magna. My real problem with the new version of the toy is the name. I feel Megatronia is a much more suitable name for the Voyager, who looks like a female Megatron
than the combiner
which doesn't.
I'm led to wonder if this is another case of names being mixed up so the Voyager should be Megatronia and the larger combiner Megaempress.
