Slugslinger & Caliburst
Misfire and his retool Slugslinger were revealed at the Australian Toyfair via an Australian fan event. And Slugslinger is a retool of Misfire as well as both being retools of Triggerhappy: there's a parts frame in common between the two toys that Triggerhappy doesn't have making up the bulk of his waist section, but not the front, the hinges connecting the shoulders to the body and the hinges connecting the front of the plane to the robot's back. If you look at the back of Slugslinger's shoulders you'll see the hole that Misfire's wings are attached to.Slugslinger feels a lot like Misfire in robot mode: same legs as peg Triggerhappy, same articulation as Misfire, and jet nose, or in this case noses on his back! The blue and the off white/grey he's coloured in, while a close match for the original, look a little off colour.
The gun, or guns, are disappointing me. Both Triggerhappy & Misfire had attach side by side guns, though Triggerhappy needed some help to hold his horizontally. Slugslinger has two guns: a blue dual cannon with a seat and a grey single barrelled gun. The latter fits between the barrels of the former to form a longer combined weapon but it isn't really doing it for me. The space for the Titanmaster only really accommodate his feet so he ends up sitting on rather than in the weapon.
Transformation: with the exception of the wings being on a hinger fixed to the body rather than one linked the shoulder this transforms identically to Misfire. Relatively simple, though tabbing the arms into the wings and the body seems a bit of a pain here, but simple is a relief after the nightmare that was Energon Slugslinger
The jet mode is a near perfect replica of the original Slugslinger jet. However because of the size of the toy his Titanmaster Caliburst has to sit in the body of the jet between the twin jet noses and not in one of the jet nose cockpits themselves. To accomplish that would have needed a Voyager sized toy. Your mileage may vary depending on how essential you thought this feature would be. Like his mould mates he also lacks anywhere to mount the combined weapon on the top of the toy, which to me is a major failing, but still has 5mm sockets on his shoulders and under his wings.
I can't say Slugslinger is setting my world on fire. He hasn't got the mad transformation of Triggerhappy or the insane colours of Misfire. Part of this is probably due to him being an end of line toy I feel I've paid too much for. When he was revealed at the Australia toy fair it was expected he'd have new deluxe wavemates and indeed toys in other sizes released at the same time. I can name you a good half a dozen possible repaints and remoulds that could have been done from existing toys to help further or complete various head & Targetmaster groups. Hasbro tried to compensate for the toy being the only new one in his case by packing him 3 per case but since he was packed with 2 x Rodimus, 2 x Kup and 1 x Hardhead, none of which were terribly in demand, it presented online retailers with a problem. Kapow passed on the case, IDToys sold Slugslinger at an inflated price and BBTS only sold him in sets with other toys. The possibility of solid cases at a later date has been mooted but I hope Hasbro have learnt that the initial case strategy they used for Slugslinger is a bad idea.
