Generations Power of the Primes Snarl
Snarl was the first Dinobot I got when I was younger, a weapon less 1990 purchase off a market stall in Kingston that had previously only ever supplied me with bits of the matchbox version of Judge Dredd's Land Raider. It would be a years or so before I acquired Grimlock & Sludge, courtesy of their gold box classic versions an my first Slag was a green G2 version, with an original following shortly after: to this day I have never owned Swoop. So I have something of a soft spot for Snarl.Straight out the packaging he's evidentially the original Dinobot. Legs are spot on, with the dino head halves now hidden behind the legs instead of at the sides. The body has been thinned down, with his combiner connector replacing the cockpit for a Diaclone warrior. The arms are slightly beefed up and in an odd choice the shoulders are now clear plastic instead of the grey used for the legs. As this piece has the ball joint for his shoulder embedded in it it is a worry for later. His forearms have been lengthened and are now gold, another odd choice: I'd have made them black but then that would be too much like Sludge maybe? Like the original his tail is split in two and spread out as wings behind and just above his shoulders but, if I'm being picky, the flat inner face now face front rather than the curved one.
Articulation: ball jointed head & shoulders, bicep swivels & bending elbow. Rotting waist. Ball jointed hips, thigh swivel and bending knee. 5mm hands to hold his weapons, but he's missing his signature gun coming with just a clear sword, not even red like Swoop's and the original Dinobots. Like the other POTP land based deluxe Dinobots, Sludge & Slug, he has 5mm ports on both shoulders and on the middle of his chest though the chest port is mounted on his combiner connector. As per the other Dinobots he comes with Prime Armour, which can be attached to his chest, used as a weapon or forms a combiner hand: you can pick his out easily as the 5mm peg is gold on his, not black like the others.
Transformation: remove his weapons. Pull the tail halves back and fold the head back into the exposed cavity. Fold the tail halves closed and swing up covering the robot's neck. Fold the hands into the forearms, bend the arms and swing the shoulder joints back 90°. Swing open the panels on the rear of the legs, tab the legs together, fold the lower legs back 180° at the lower knee joints, close the panels , fold the head forward and position the forelegs.
So very nearly spot on: the tail has too muck silver grey in it's base and isn't gold. The gold robot forearms now make sense as they're serving as the Stegosaur's rear lower legs which always were gold but folded back under the arms on the original Snarl. Arm articulation for the robot is transferred to the rear Stegosaur legs, forelegs rotate at the hips & bend at the knees. Rear legs hips have 5mm peg holes on the side for mounting weapons, they're the only ones on the dinosaur mode. The top of the rear of his body has a Primemaster footpeg on either side and there's another on the inner faces of the largest pair of plates, which can fold to the sides.
Apart from the robot shoulders, which worry me, a pretty decent go at reinterpreting Snarl. Needs his original gun though!
Snarl also serves as a combiner limb, principally for the Dinobot combiner Volcanicus.
Leg mode: Take the beast mode. Fold the head down underneath the beast, exposing a 5mm port. Swing the rear legs down and tab onto the grey front of the beast, swinging the forelegs up. Fold the tail forward & up, don't split the tail as some of the first pictures of the combiner did, and fold up the combiner connector.
Solid leg, with the tail covering a large part of the combiner's upper leg.
Arm Mode: take the robot mode, fold the tail back & bring the tail halves together. Fold the head back and raise the combiner connector. Bend the arms at the elbows, rotate 180° at the bicep and tab the gold forearms onto the sides of the red body. Open the panels on the rear of the legs and fold the 5mm port down behind the feet. Close the panels up again, tab the legs together, rotate the waist 180° degrees and insert his Prime Armour's peg into the hold under the legs to act as a hand.
Again a decent arm. No complaints.
So a pretty good update of the original toy plus two decent limb modes. A definite win!
Snarl is sold in Power of the Primes deluxe wave 2, with 2 of Sludge, 2 of Rippersnapper and 1 each of Moonracer and Blackwing.
Generations Power of the Primes Sinnertwin
The Power of the Primes version of Sinnertwin reuses a number of parts from Snarl, notably most of those moulded in black on the Dinobot. The fists, elbows, combiner connector, waist, hips and upper legs are all reused on the Terrorcon, but in a greeny blue colour. The only obvious black part from Snarl not reused is his head!Future Repaints
When Snarl was released as a Diaclone Toy his chest was black instead of red. His Generation 2 toy was available with his silver grey swapped for either Green or Red.When Snarl's toy was unveiled at Hascon 2017 images showed him with an additional gun in Dinosaur Mode which was missing from later images and the finished toy. This gun resembles the weapon on the front of Dinoforce Goryu's Pretender Shell which, coupled with the Yokuryu head for POTP Cutthroat accidentally shown at NYCC 2017 makes many people think a Dinoforce/Dinoking repaint of the POTP Dinobots/Volcanicus might be coming. However I'm not sure Snarl will stretch to being Goryu's Monster Pretended repaint Scowl.
Sinnertwin's Beast Hunters version Twinstrike has a Clear Yellow repaint in Predacons Rising, a Green version as Transformers Go Garara and a Grey/Black version as Transformers The Last Knight Thrash.
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