Phil's Transformer Reviews: February 2018

Monday 26 February 2018

Generations Power of the Primes Alpha Trion with Landmine and Alchemist Prime with Submarauder

Prime Masters

The Prime Master size is the successor to Titans Returns Titanmaster. Both sizes use identical figures, down to footpeg holes, ankle spur, articulation, size and transformation. Gone is the Head on their back, replaced by one of the symbols of the twelve Primes, which leads us to believe there will be twelve Prime Masters. The Prime Masters bear the names of the Prime whose symbol is on their backs. The Prime Masters have replaced the chest screw with a pin which makes customising them much harder: several were intending to replace the Prime symbols with the faces of the Pretender robots that their Decoy Suit represented.

The Transforming accessory is now replaced by a Decoy Suit, about 5cm high x 3.5cm wide x 1.5cm deep, based on the shell of a 1988/1989 Pretenders Character. This opens up, via a hinge on the feet, to accommodate a Prime Master inside. Since Prime Masters & Titan Masters are the same size your old Titan Masters can also fit inside the Pretender Shell. The shell has holes in it's feet the same size as the Titanmaster footpeg holes, but the spacing varies from toy to toy. The shell's arms are articulated at the shoulders allowing them to raise. The hands are a 3mm peg hole which it can use to hold it's weapon. The weapon can also be attached to the Pretender's back via studs on the side of the weapon which fit dimples either side of a gap on the back. The gap size varies between the different shells so a shell can only store it's own weapon like this. The Pretender shell itself can transform into a weapon: the weapon on the back folds up so it's pointing out from the head and a 5mm handle folds out between the shell's feet enabling it to be held with the plainer back of the Pretender shell facing up. The transformed Prime Master can attach to the top of the weapon via two footpegs, forming a cube that powers the weapon, or the Prime Master can sit in it and act as a gunner. The weapons are perhaps a little large for a deluxe, suiting the Voyager and Leaders toys better.

The shell & Prime Master are seemingly constructed with just two frames of plastic: One contains the back of the shell, the weapons mode handle and the chest & lower legs of the Prime Master. The other contains the weapon, the arms of the shell and the arms, upper legs, head & backpack of the Prime Master.

There is something of a discontinuity having a different character inside the shell instead of who the shell originally belongs to!

Alpha Trion with Landmine

Landmine was missed out from the retail range in Japan, with Metalhawk taking his place in the Wave 1 Pretenders. So it's kind of funny that Alpha Trion with Landmine is a repaint of Vector Prime with Metalhawk. Blue becomes off white, Dark Grey becomes yellow and the chest of the Pretender is a new piece moulded in grey plastic, then painted yellow, resembling Landmine's original shell. The gun is unpainted here and does a better job than on Metalhawk, resembling Landmine's original gun

The inner robot is a little way off for Landmine: they've got the grey arms & head, with it's yellow painted face, right but everything else is all over the place. As for being Alpha Trion, well yellow & grey are not Alpha Trion's colours!

Landmine's release, opposite Skullgrin, completes the ground based Pretenders from the 1988 Wave 1.

Alchemist Prime with Submarauder

Submarauder was the seagoing Decepticon in 1988's Wave 1. He has a pale blue Decoy Suit, with white arms and a front moulded in the same colour but heavily painted to match the back of the Decoy Suit: for both Landmine and Submarauder you wonder if Hasbro might have been better breaking the "front moulded in the same colour as the arms" pattern! Suiting his nautical status he's armed with a trident which sadly he can only hold in front of him and not upright! However if you're a Diaclone Reboot fan you might have DA-12 Gyroseptor or DA-13 Dartloader both of which contain a piece for turning a 3mm peg through 90°

The Alchemist Prime Primemaster is white, with blue chest & lower legs and looks nothing like Submarauder's inner robot!

I'm borderline on the weapons mode: the stabbing trident works much better than Skullgrin's claw, but it still has a big blocky base. However it can be held upright. If there was a Power of the Primes version of a certain seagoing Combiner, he'd make a good weapon for it.

Friday 2 February 2018

Generations Power of the Primes Tailgate

In 1986 five of the 1984 Mini Autobots, inherited from the Microchange toyline, were remoulded and redcoed to become new characters: Brawn, Cliffjumper, Gears, Huffer & Windcharger became respectively Outback, Hubcap, Swerve, Pipes & Tailgate. Of the 1984 Minibots only Bumblebee missed out on a redeco primarily because he was still available in the 1986 cases. This makes the decision to paint the similarly moulded Cliffjumper yellow as Hubcap look even more odd but evidence exists that Hubcap should be white and Tailgate yellow which is how things have remained. We missed out on a white repaint of RTS Windcharger, he instead gets coloured black as Wipe-Out during Transformers United. So when Tailgate gained in popularity after the launch of Transformers: More than Meets the Eye it was no surprise to see Tailgate released first during Generations Thrilling 30 and Windcharger become the redeco during Combiner Wars. The problem here is the T30 Tailgate is strongly modelled on his More Than Meets The Eye appearance, and not his 1986 toy or briefly seen cartoon appearance and Windcharger inherited those characteristics leading to a toy many were not satisfied with. That lead to Power of the Primes Windcharger in Legends Wave 1 and since a toy/cartoon style Tailgate is an easy redeco it quickly followed in Wave 2 to avoid any possibility of money being left on the table rather than in Hasbro's bank account.

So this is nearly a straight colour swap: red plastic and paint turn white, grey turns a greeny blue. A new head appears to mimic Tailgate's original. It's cast in the blue green plastic with white paint on the head surround and silver on the face plate. Silver is also used on the chest to make it look more like the original Tailgate's. I had thought from the photos that it was a new chest but something looked a little odd about it. In hand I can see it's the same and I can also see why it looks odd on him and Windcharger: It's an amalgam of their chest designs with paint and decals used to bring out different details here, but ultimately it doesn't look 100% right on either toy.

Transformation and articulation is the same, there isn't a lot you can say to describe it other than this is a repainted Windcharger with a new head. Ultimately if you want the MTMTE character, this isn't the toy for you and you should track down the T30 version. But if you don't care which Tailgate, or specifically want the toy/cartoon version than this is the toy for you.

Future Repaints

Repaint Tailgate in black as Wipe-Out from Transformers US #27 please!

Generations Power of the Primes Battleslash, Roadtrap & Battletrap

Generations Power of the Primes Battleslash

When Battleslash was first leaked to Transformers fans he appeared to be called Battleclash. Somewhere along the line that's become Battleslash which looks a little odd when there's already a Dinobot Slash in the previous wave of Legends toys.

Battleslash is a new character appearing for the first time in Power of the Primes. He's mainly white robot with a slightly odd looking stance thanks to his wide waist and legs. The chest is pushing big buttons for me reminding me of SOMETHING, with a Decepticon symbol in the middle and two barrel ends set into purple panels to the sides. His right arm has a helicopter blade on it, reminding me a little of Power Core Searchlight. He's got 5mm Fists but no weapon, a rotating head and ball joint knees, hips, elbows & shoulders. The shoulders are very odd: the base of the ball joint points back rather than into the body so you'll be pushed to get a full range of movement from them: they'll raise from by the side to pointing forward but no further, bu swing them out to the sides and he can raise his arms above his head.

Transformation: fold the chest forward, fold the head into it and fold the chest back up. Fold the back down, releasing the tabs into the shoulder hinges, and fold each shoulder hinge 90° out to the sides. Fold the sides of the lower leg down under the feet and rotate each lower leg 180° at the knee. Separate the waist and fold each waist half up through where the arms were so the legs meets and tab together above the robot's neck, where the head was. Swing each arm round on the shoulder hinge so they're pointing out to the sides. Fold the arms down so they point the same way as the legs.Swing each lower arm in 90° at the elbow. Bend the elbow 180°, a motion it couldn't manage in robot mode, so the front of the lower arm lies along the inner face of the upper arm and tabs into place. Fold the arm halves up over the robot's thighs and tab together, then tab into the robot's knees. Close the back of the chest, the helicopter's cockpit and fold the helicopter's nose into place.

Yes.... those arms weren't fun to Transform. You can see what's meant to happen but the series of steps you need to go through is somewhat complicated.

As helicopters go Battleslash feels quite chunky. It's also got a massive square hole in the front of the nose which looks rather unsightly. A weapon that fitted into the gap might have been nice. There's accommodation for a Titanmaster on the tail against the tail fin but, like Slash, he needs to bet sat with the knees bent the wrong way. He looks like he'll be decapitated but incredibly he blades will spin and miss him ..... but it's close.

Compared to recent vehicle Legends Battleslash feels a little sub par: the vehicle isn't quite right and there's nowhere to sit the Titanmaster inside him. However Battleslash has one more role to play .....

Generations Power of the Primes Roadtrap

Roadtrap is a squat chunky blue robot with some yellow, pink and silver detailing. Like Roadtrap his chest design, panels on the upper chest slanted in towards each other reminds me of someone but I'm not sure who. He's got ball joints at the knees, hips, elbows and shoulders.

Transformation: Pull the black struts the wheels are attached to down under his feet. Fold the pink painted upper portion of the lower leg back 90°, taking the upper leg with it, and fold the pink bits forward again so they're sitting further back than they were previously. Fold the chest down so it covers the lower legs. Fold the shoulders out to the sides and back so the arms are under the vehicle and tab the arms into the top of the vehicle. Fold the wheel struts back so they rest against the hands. Fold the robot head & neck down under the rear of the vehicle.

The slightly odd shaped chest now produces a slightly odd shaped load on the back of the van/pickup (I'm pretty sure it should be a van but I'm being generous here) which tries to help disguise what a mess the rear of the vehicle is. It fails completely, it is a huge mess and not helped by being one of those Transformer modes that wants to undo itself and needs regular massaging back together.

Once again, like Battleslash, there's nowhere for a Titanmaster to sit inside the vehicle so he's perched on the back, either with his knees bent the wrong way, or hanging off the back of the load, or awkwardly sloped backwards.

The robot is OK, the transformation is novel and clever but the alternate mode looks a load of rubbish. Fortunately there's a bit more too it.

Generations Power of the Primes Battletrap

A long long time ago there was a Transformers Van and Helicopter who had no alternate modes but combined to form the robot Battletrap. Personally I think Battletrap had the wrong name and that name should have gone to the tank & fighter jet combination known as Flywheels whose name I think is more appropriate to the car & van. Your mileage may vary on this theory. In both cases the air vehicle was placed onto the land vehicle and they would autotransform into the robot.

The general thought on how to update these characters was to turn them into Triplechangers as was done with Botcon Battletrap & Titans Return Skytread (Flywheels). However when two toys named BATTLEclash and RoadTRAP were leaked, emphasis intentional, fans mediately spotted what the names were suggesting that each individual mode had been given a robot and they combined, a bit like Multiforce or Energon Powerlinx toys.

So to combine the toys start from robot modes:

Fold Roadtrap's chest down over his upper legs, folding the arms back behind the legs and tabbing in place: simple.

Battleslash on the other hand.... fold Battleslash's chest forward, fold his robot head into his chest and fold he chest back into place. Straighten the arms to the sides, pull the back down releasing the shoulder hinges and fold the arms across the chest. Separate the hips and fold them up onto the sides of the body to form Battletrap's shoulders with Battleslash's legs as Battletrap's arms. Fold Battletrap's head out of Battleslash's back and fold Battleslash's back closed to form Battletrap's chest. Fold the helicopter nose down under Battletrap's chest and put Roadtrap's head into the hole in the helicopter nose.

The combined robot is around deluxe size: Titans Return Perceptor is on my desk and they're a very similar height. The connection between the two halves is surprisingly good, pick him up by the upper body and there's no hint of he legs wanting to come away. The connection is so good that you're happy using his waist, formed from Roadtrap's neck, to turn the upper body to the sides. He looks very similar to the original Battletrap, blue legs & head and white body, just the arms have changed colour now being white.

Articulation: head turns as does the waist, which we've already said. Ball joints at the shoulders, elbows and hips. All of Roadtrap's leg articulation is within Battletrap's legs but effectively it's all been immobilised by the small robot's arms. Folding the small arms out would give you more place the legs could bend but I imagine without the they WOULD bend and it's better to settle for less articulation but a robot that will stand straight and stably.

Battletrap has 5mm peg holes in his hands but these are obscured by Battleslash's heel spurs sticking out the front of the hand: you'll have trouble getting a lot of weapons into those holes in a way the Battletrap will be able to hold them pointing straight in front of him. The point is rather moot in that neither he or his components have any weapons for you to use.

Both components have their downsides, especially in vehicle mode, but I rather like Battletrap himself. My enjoyment will be improved later on if they do Flywheels using the same combination system allowing you to connect Battletrap's top half to Flywheel's lower half and vice versa.