Phil's Transformer Reviews

Friday, 10 March 2017

Legends LG-35 Super Ginrai

The original Powermaster Optimus Prime and it's Takara counterpart Masterforce Super Ginrai are the same basic toy with different design choices made at crucial points so it's somehow right that Titans Return Powermaster Optimus Prime and Legends Super Ginrai should take the same approach. A modified toy was first hinted at in a silhouette image that I suspect the retailer in question wasn't meant to release and then revealed in prototype form in a Japanese toy show presentation where photography was forbidden. The prototype was revealed to the world in a video recorded at Wonder Fest 2016 released on July 24th 2016 with official coloured images released the same day and scheduled for a Christmas 2016 release.

Straight out the box certain changes are obvious to the vehicle mode. The cab has a new front with larger windows and a smaller grill, more closely mimicking the original Optimus Prime. The red plastic used is redder than on the western version and there's more of it on the front of the trailer, making it look more like the arms at the front of the Powermaster Prime/Ginrai trailer even though they're still safely tucked inside the trailer. Other than that the trailer is very similar until you get to the rear when you notice that the back of the trailer is flatter and no longer has the Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus feet sticking out the back. Gone too are Ultra Magnus' weapons, replace by a pair of very nearly mirror image guns which are pegged into the roof. Like many Titans Returns weapons they peg together to form a seat for the Titanmaster to sit in but, like many of the early combining weapons, the gun handles stick out to the sides to do this so the combined weapon can't be held with the Titanmaster sitting in it. The handles on the guns are different too and are now traditional 5mm pegs which is a bit of a relief for those of us who hated the Ultra Magnus style hands that Prime inherited with the guns.

The Titanmaster has in turn been extensively redecoed in robot mode to closely resemble Hi-Q or more accurately his Japanese counterpart Godmaster Ginrai. They've done a superb job too, with a white head, chest & legs. The majority of the legs are painted, the lower legs black and the upper legs red with just the knees left bear to simulate the screws on the original. There's even a round detail on the knee which was seemingly absent on Apex but was actually there on the back of Apex's legs thanks to an assembly error! The arms are the same red plastic as the cab with the image complete with some paint on the Titanmaster's face. Superb job. Transforming the Titanmaster to head mode reveals a new face. Gone is the Orion Pax style open face. I got what they were trying to do on the Titans Return toy, with the helmet covering the Orion Pax head turning the toy into Optimus Prime but never felt it really worked there with the peaked cap and crest in those colours reminding me of Postman Pat! Instead we get a traditional Optimus Prime head here complete with faceplate and I'm not complaining!

Transformation of truck to robot mode is broadly similar with two major differences. When you get as far as folding up the the truck's roof you'll discover that the lower arms have been extended along the underside of the roof and need to be retracted with the roof panels folding up on the underside. The smaller panel folds up first with the larger panel folding back on top of it, though sadly not quite flat. Then there's the feet, which are brand new and seem VERY complicated even though they're not. Start by getting the rear of the truck into leg mode then turning the toy over so you can see the underside of the feet. Fold/slide the whole foot down out the bottom of the leg: it's on a double jointed hinge so will move with some wiggling. Some more wiggling will move it 1cm towards the front of the leg. Fold the big blue panel down at the rear of the foot. Swing it out 180° so it points out the front of the foot then fold it up 90°. Fold the red heel spur down at the back. My toy sat on the shelf for a month or two in robot mode till a friend worked out how to transform them back! So this time I wrote the instructions as I transformed the toy, backtracking every step to make sure I got it right!

Other smaller points to note from the transformation: I had real trouble extending the cab when returning the robot to truck mode, far more than I'd had with previous versions of Prime/Magnus. I'm on my fourth version now, Generations and Legends versions of both, and hadn't noticed that the cab needs pulling down slightly first before being pulled forward. Also the sides of the super robot chest piece now rotate forward and back: when returning to truck mode the idea seems to be that they're rotated back 90° so the windows look out the rear of the vehicle further obstructing the internal space.

The super robot mode has three major areas of change: the chest, the arms and the feet.

The main purpose of the chest changes are to make the front of the super robot look much more like the original Super Ginrai but I suspect there's an element of functional necessity in there too to accommodate the retooled cab. I haven't yet tried a parts swap to check for comparability. The only real problem with this piece is the cab windows look recessed too far compared to the small side windows on the chest piece, but the Titans return version had that problem too.

The lower arms look much more streamlined than before. Gone are the Magnus style opening hands replaced by a closed fist with a 5mm peg hole in the middle of it and a rotating wrist. For my money the Magnus hands were a mistake on the original: Prime could only use the weapons he or Magnus came with and he frequently dropped those, though was better than Magnus. He also couldn't hold the Titanmaster size class weapons which is a major flaw given these weapons exist in this line: a similar fault afflicts many Armada toys. There's an additional 5mm peg hole on the front of the arm. That, and the extending arm used in the transformation, are believed to form part of the toy's ability to merge with Legends LG-42 Godbomber to form Legends God Ginrai with the arm armour pegging into the hole and the extending arm allowing Ginrai's fists to serve as GodGinrai's. The panels on the back of the lower arms are a bit unsightly with the larger panel sticking out at a slight angle. That's been inherited from the Titans Return version, the other two are new. I can't help thinking that a new piece with a double joint so it folded flat over the smaller ramp would look better.

Then there's the feet..... The feet inherited from Ultra Magnus were large and provided a certain amount of stability. There wasn't an obvious reason to change them but change them they did into something that's a lot more complicated. They're trying to look like the feet on the old Powermaster Prime/Super Ginrai toy but really needed to be a lot bigger in height and projection forward to do that which is impossible given the space they unfolded from. The 1988 toy's feet were also up against a substantial background of lower leg. These new ones have nothing behind them for the most part make them look very odd. There's some added articulation there: they bend to the sides for wider, legs open, stances and the foot bends to the side but unfortunately the red heel spur folds in far too easily. It's necessary to support the toy's weight and accidentally folding it in slightly seriously affects the toy's balance. I'm not keen on the new feet but I can see why they have been changed as it looks like the modifications once again make it possible for him to combine with Godbomber.

The base mode is broadly similar to how it was before. The ability to fold back the side windows on the chest plate give more vertical structure to that part of the base. Unfortunately the large rear panels from the top of the truck can no longer be folded flat against the tower arms so they either have to be folded at an angle or project, facing the wrong way, out the top which is a shame. The hands turning sideways to provide a side mounting point for the weapon is scant compensation. But, let's face it, the base mode wasn't much cop anyway and your toy will be spending very little time in it.

By itself Ginrai is a qualified success. I like the upper body changes to the robot, I don't like the feet and if I was keeping it by itself I'd look into swapping the feet, or even the entire legs, with the Titans Return version. But The whole story of this toy can't be told on it's own so to fairly assess the changes we'll need to wait for Godbomber.

Friday, 3 March 2017

Titans Return Skyshadow with Ominus

Titans Return Sky-Shadow with Ominus

As obscure Japanese toys go Overlord was reasonably easy to find, albeit not always complete, thanks to a limited release in Europe in 1991. Then along came Nick Roche, James Roberts & The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers and the price went through the roof to the point where it's high on many fans "I wish they would reissue" lists. Overlord has continued to appear in More than Meets the Eye, increasing his popularity, so much so that when in April 2016 Hasbro's Botcon 2016 presentation concluded with a silhouette of Overload fans worldwide were very pleased to be getting a new version of the toy, confirmed by Overlord & Sky Shadow showing up on a Hasbro Product Codes list. However in October 2016 at NYCC 2016 Preview Night it was revealed that Sky Shadow was coming first as a pretool of Overload!

Pretools are a relatively new phenomenon. It always used to be the way that a toy was released and then repainted or retooled into a new version. Now the trend is for the repaint to come out first as the recent Voyager versions of Optimus Prime & Megatron, so obviously new versions of Octane & Blitzwing, prove. But it's hard to see why Hasbro would choose Sky Shadow, previously known as Black Shadow, as a pretool of Overlord. Skyshadow has a much stronger link with another character: both his previous versions were retool of the Generations Deluxe and Mega Pretender Thunderwing. The only remote connection between the Overlord and Skyshadow is that both are Phase Sixers in the IDW continuity!

Sky Shadow comes boxed in robot mode but we'll look at his vehicles first:

Start the transformation by separating the toy in two by pulling down on the legs: a jagged "spine" piece will emerge from the body on top of the waist. Fold the feet & heels spurs down towards each other under the legs. Separate the legs and fold what's inside each leg out through the inner side of the leg so it's mounted on the front of the leg. Bring the legs back towards each other do they're straight & parallel then bend the knees back 180° so the spine is between each foot. Plug the gun's 5mm handle into the hole on the back of the waist.

Return to the body: lift up the top of the head, remove the Titanmaster then close the top of the head. Remove the shield/drone. Straighten the arms to the sides, with the peg holes in the hand facing forward. Slide the upper arms up into the shoulders. Hallelujah, an actual sliding joint on a limb! I know these can weaken over time which is why we have such complicated mechanisms to shorten legs now, but here the extended position in robot mode has the arms hanging down and the shortened position is held in place by the wings which fold down and have the wrists tab onto them. Fold the nose off the robot's back which surrounds the head. Fold the tail fin and wings up. Clip the drone under the nose.

So we end up with two vehicle, a jet and a tank, which is very Overload. The only problem is there's only one Titanmaster packed with Skyshadow to share between them: Ominus. Ominus himself, or should that be HERself, hints once more at the toy's eventual destiny as Overlord in that she is cast in a very similar style to Mega, the female of Overlord's pair of Powermasters. Now I do have a spare Decepticon Titanmaster to drive the other vehicle, the Legends EX boxset version of Skytread but he's quite angry with Skyshadow for stealing his vehicles combine to make a robo shtick and is planning to team up with Titans Return Trypticon ala the Transformers UK story Meltdown! to have his revenge on Sky Shadow.

The jet part of this set is unique to Sky Shadow and is modelled very closely after the jet form of Black Shadow combined with his Pretender shell. It almost looks more like it does on the boxart than the original toy did! The plane's under the wings guns move from side to side, and the drone can be detached but apart from that the only real moving feature is the opening cockpit canopy, cast in clear red plastic. There's a Titanmaster peg on each wing and another on top of the body of the jet. Also on top of the jet is a 5mm peg hole which can be used to mount the drone on top of the jet which allows the space the would have been occupied by the nose to serve as an additional Titanmaster seat.

While the jet is unique the tank component of the toy looks identical to the one with Overlord.

Phil' tank test time!

Does the turret turn?
NO
The turret is made of two halves folded out from inside the legs. Getting a turning joint out of that would have been difficult.
Does the gun barrel elevate?
NO
Sadly the gun just pegs in. Now with a bit of work I reckon we could have had an elevating gun here, mounting it so the peg faced up and the rear of the gun had slots which mounted on a dimple from each half of the turret, but their separate nature might have meant not enough friction to allow it to raise. An alternative maybe would have been to have the gun's handle pivot.
Either way I have less sympathy for this feature being missing and feel it was surmountable.
0 out of 2 here. Poor show.

The tank rolls along courtesy of three wheels in the underside. There's four Titanmaster pegs along the back and another on the roof of the turret. One side of the turret is covered by a clear plastic hatch which fold forward to reveal a compartment for the Titanmaster to sit in and, unlike Voyager Megatron, the Titanmaster can be sat in the compartment and the hatch closed completely over him.

The two vehicles can be combined with each other: on the underside of the jet there's a silver panel, part of the robot's chest, which folds forward revealing a clip which in turn fits over a bar on the top of the tank. The combined vehicle looks very much like what Flywheels does in the moment before you securely push the jet down to transform the toy!

The two toys can combine to form a base mode: For the tank half remove the gun then fold the robot's waist & upper legs out the back of the tank. Rotate the thigh swivel 180° on each leg, then fold 90° out to the side at the hip and 90° down just above the knee. Fold the half of the turret that doesn't have the hatch back into the leg.

Remove the drone from the jet then fold the tail fin & wings down. Lift the wings slightly to free the robot's arm which are then folded out to the sides. Bend the cockpit and jet nose up via the cockpit half of the joint that connects it to the rest of the jet. Fold down the cockpit canopy to create a platform. Slide the robot waist into the back of the jet. Clip the drone under the jet's nose. Peg the gun into the hole on the plane's back so the rear of the gun holds the canopy/platform down and the barrel fits over the tail fin. Fold the robot's feet up from the tank halves, fold the base mode connectors out and fold the feet back down.

OK I can see what they're going for here, in terms of Overlord with the plane forming a tower and the cockpit canopy a platform but where original Overlord is shallow & wide Sky Shadow is deep and narrow. In fact the leg configuration here is reminding me very much of how Perceptor's look in Microscope & cannon mode and making me regret that he's been done as a Titans Return Deluxe and not as a leader who can form a base mode. Again I can see how the tank half legs are meant to be the tank half base elements, with the canopy section visible but it doesn't really work here and, with Sky Shadow being a different character, they might have been better off with both tank halves/legs having the flat side facing up giving a long structure to run vehicle down towards a ramp at the end. Then you run into more trouble because the ramp connectors are half way down the sloped end, not a smooth transition for a vehicle rolling down it. In fact ramps are probably the main problem with the base mode, there aren't any here and Overload was covered in them. There's also no a lot to do here where Overload had a little car, raiding cannon and repair arm. But we've got a position for the Titanmaster to sit, in the tank turret half, he can stand behind the cannon on the Titanmaster peg provided inside the canopy plus there's two Titanmaster pegs on each leg, one on each wing and one on each of the rather use less spread out arms.

From base mode remove the Titanmaster, gun and drone. Close the cockpit canopy. Fold the turret half into the leg. Unfold the foot & heel spur, folding the base mode connector back into the foot. Fold the legs out to the sides 90° above the knees and then down 90° at the hips before rotating out 180° at the thigh. Fold down the chest panel. Extend the arms and unfold the fists from the forearms, folding the arms down to the sides. Fold the jet nose onto his back. Fold the Titanmaster into head mode and place inside the head's helmet. Place the gun in his hand and either mount the gun separately or tab hew rear of the gun into it's front.

It's at this point I made a big mistake: I got the Adventures version of Sky Shadow out and put him next to the Titans Return version. The Titans Return version looks great against other toys, especially other Leaders like Sixshot, but next to his deluxe version he looks far too big! Now the deluxe was probably too small anyway, indeed I said his predecessor Generators Thunderwing was too small and should be Voyager sized when I reviewed that in 2010! I think my assessment then was right, Sky Shadow should be a Voyager: it'll be interesting to see how I feel about the size of a Thunderwing repaint of the Titans Return toy if it happens.

As a representation of the character it's not bad. Most of what is identifiably Sky Shadow is found on the upper body and that all comes from the jet unique to this set. The character's legs are a bit harder to describe without having a look at some pictures so they just about get away with the rather blocky legs here by doing them in the right colours. Chest, head and arms are pretty good, though the lower arms could do with some black paint. He could also do with some twin guns like previous versions of the character had!

Articulation is great: head turns as do the shoulders which also lift up to the sides. The guns on the shoulders fold out towards the sides but the clutch on this joint is a little too great as pushing them back in is more likely to lift the arm to the sides than move the gun unless you're holding the arm as well. He's got bicep swivel and bending elbows. Sadly no wrist swivels and no waist joint :-( Hips rotate and move out to the sides plus have a thigh swivel immediately bellow. The knees bend and the feet tilt sideways at the ankles.

This toy is a hard one to sum up. It's a good toy, lots of fun to play with but the base mode could be better and do a bit more. The overall gimmick of Plane & Tank combine to form robot or base suits Overlord better and I think that's the toy's biggest problem. They've chosen a character who has always been a repaint to give us first before the main event which many are looking forward to. Even if Sky Shadow had followed Overlord it would be a bit of head scratcher why he was a remould of Overlord.

Future Repaints

Having done Sky-Shadow surely Thunderwing is an inevitability? I can't see him being a Leader by himself: we think there's one wave of leaders left after Overlord and to do him there would mean repaints of the same toy released in three consecutive waves. I see him more as part of a boxset, the only fly in that plan being that there's already a Titanmaster Thunderwing in the Siege On Cybertron boxset.

The Leader size might be a little large for him but the plane & tank combine to form robo transformation is surely an ideal fit for the Duocon Flywheels/Skytread?

I can't get over the leg configuration on Sky Shadow's base mode. With the tank turret part folded away it would make the perfect base for a Leader Perceptor with the upper body forming a different cannon tank by itself and then combining in Microscope & Robot mode.

Thursday, 2 March 2017

Titans Return Broadside with Blunderbuss

At the end of August 2016 a prototype image for a Titans Return version of Broadside was leaked. This was almost expected: Broadside was the only one of the 1985/6 Triplechangers not to receive a classics update and the range already included Astrotrain, who'd previously been a classics deluxe and Megatron & Optimus Prime who looked suspiciously like new version of Blitzwing, who's Generations Voyager had several issues, and Octane, who'd been a Universe 2 deluxe. These toys were all but confirmed by Computer Listings the day after the Broadside prototype emerged and eventually unveiled at Toyfair 2017.

It was immediately spotted that parts of Broadside's legs resembled Alpha Trion which stoked to the ongoing debate about "what is a retool?" Since Combiner Wars started Hasbro and TakaraTomy have been presenting us with toys that share less and less parts with each other which is confusing some people no end. Now when I write my reviews for my site I tend to write for the original toy and then write about it's repaints and retools so I've got a vested interest here in identifying toys that are related to each other! So for my money Broadside IS a retool of Alpha Trion, and Lio Convoy, because they share a number of parts. Broadside's robot and jet mode were shown at New York Comic Con 2016 with his aircraft carrier mode revealed in the Official Images for the same event.

Out the box the robot has some obvious parts reuses: the feet, ankles, outer side of the leg & connected hinge & deck plate plus the Titanmaster robot Blunderbuss are the same as those on Alpha Trion. Less obviously so are his hips, shoulder hinges, neck collar, upper arm and elbow. The hips, shoulder hinges, neck collar & Titanmaster robot body are all a dark red: on Alpha Trion they're purple and Lio Convoy they're red, so we can be reasonably confident they're on the same sprue. The feet were pinky red on Alpha Trion, white, but painted, on Lio Convoy and red here while the outer legs were purple on Alpha Trion, white on Lio Convoy and red, but painted, here. He looks a decent chunky robot with the Titanmaster given a new faceplate and the horns replaced by pop up missile banks deployed by a button on his chest which are a lot easier to retract and fare less trigger-happy (small T) than the horns on the lion/spaceship versions of the toy. The chest is a big clear blue cockpit window. The shoulders are big and blocky and, like Voyager Optimus Prime, have large tops that have been folded back behind them and are presumably meant for his repaint. Articulation is one step down from Alpha Trion, he's lost his wrist swivels, but he makes up for it with some additional 5mm holes to mount weapons on on the underside of his arms, tops of his shoulders and, oh dear, his crotch. Broadside has lost the tri gun and sword found with the previous versions but gained a large clear blue hand gun with a Titanmaster seat in the back, 5mm pegs on the bottom & both sides and a 5mm peg hole on the top.

Transformation to jet mode: Remove the Titanmaster. Fold the jet nose up off his back into place on the neck. Fold the hands back into the forearms and straighten them, rotating at the bicep so the pale grey panel at the back of the hand faces rear. Fold the feet behind the back of the leg. Straighten the legs then bend the hip forward 45°, putting the tabs on the sides of the crotch into matching holes on the inner thighs. Bend the lower legs back at the knees so they're horizontal. Fold the backs of the shoulders up into place to form the pointed tops. Pull the shoulders out to the sides and move the shoulders, and arms with them, down the body so the shoulders are at hip level. Hook the tab on the lower arms into the rectangular hole on the lower legs. Fold the wings out from under the arms. Open the cockpit and sit the Titanmaster inside. Peg the gun into the 5mm peg hole behind the cockpit.

There have been better Transformer jet modes. There have been far far worse too. In it's favour are a well defined nose at the front, a cockpit you can sit a Titanmaster in and wings to the side so you can tell it's meant to be a jet. The case for the prosecution hinges on the rear of the jet and the way the legs and lower arms are arranged. It looks odd but it really isn't helped by the tail fins and wings pointing the wrong way! This was noticed on his Official Images and a correction was hoped for but didn't happen. Almost the first thing I did the first time I transformed Broadside into jet mode was pop them all off, turn them round so they faced the right way and swap them with their opposite number! Others have gone further and believe a better jet mode is formed from keeping the legs straight. In addition the wings are mounted level with the bottom of the jet, which looks slightly odd and the underside of the jet isn't great, being mostly flat. The jet mode is covered in Titanmaster pegs: one each side of cockpit, two on each wing, one on each of the engines formed from the arms and one on each tail fins - is he meant for some stunt flying with passengers stood on him? The gunner's seat, behind the cockpit, is also rather exposed.

Transformation to carrier mode: remove the gun. Fold the shoulders back to their robot mode position. Straighten the legs & remove the gun. Turn the toy over and fold the deck plate up off the back to cover the nose, tabbing in place. Fold the wings in and tab them into the arms. Fold the robot feet down off the backs of the legs so they point out the end of the legs. Rotate each leg in 90° at the thigh swivel so the grey deck plate portions face you and fold the flaps back into place completing the landing deck, Fold down the front support, the front landing gear inherited from Alpha Trion, and the rear supports, eight side of the jet cockpit. Fold down the jet tail fins & wings. Fold up the command tower and then it's communications array.

Broadside's carrier mode is big, 25cm long x 9cm wide, and flat so you don't really want to be breaking up that jet landing space by sticking the gun right in the middle of it in the one 5mm deck hole sticking up! Fortunately a hole is provided on each side, the holes that were under the arms, for you to attach the side pegs of the to, and it kind of works there like a launch ready to be lowered into the sea: GI Joe's USS Flagg had one. But I'm afraid the first thing that really caught my eye on this mode was the stickers. Stickers, as opposed to factory applied tampographs, re-entered Transformers with Generations Metroplex and have been used increasingly frequently since, presumably as a cost cutting measure, on Voyager, Leader & Titan toys. There were issues with Voyager Optimus & Megatron's stickers in the previous wave of toys and there are issues here. On my copy the smaller middle runway sticker came out crumpled up due to being applied badly. I've tried to fix it, but it looks terrible. The 36 on the command tower is falling off all by itself. Even if you've got a toy that's not got peeling and damaged stickers there's still the issue that several stickers, most notably the rear runway one, are placed over moulded detail causing the sticker to distort. If you're doing stickers make sure the surface they're applied to is flat and doesn't come into contact with anything else!

The deck plate is covered in Titanmaster pegs: four on the front section, formed from the lower legs and identical to the front of Alpha Trion's vehicle mode, plus six more on the middle & rear on Broadside's new pieces. In addition to standing your Titanmaster army on the deck they can also be used with five scaled down Aerialbot miniatures supplied with the toy. These tiny planes are mounted on a cup that fits over the peg. They're too small for me though and are staying on their sprue in the box!

The one structure projecting up from the deck is the carrier's command tower and communications array. By itself it looks OK, but the top is designed to fold back to provide a seat for his Titanmaster. Several have commented unfavourably that this make it look like Blunderbuss is on the throne! He can be attached to the tower base in head mode too, a bit like how Scourge's head attaches to his vehicle, or the weapons can be mounted there.

The one minus point about the jet mode tail fin swap is that the grey fins now hang down under the carrier rather than fold flat against the underside but since they're right next to the red tailfins hanging down the sides I think this could be excused.

There's a small trick here that I think Hasbro have missed: I'd have changed the rear of the carrier, and perhaps the front too, to accommodate a Titans Return base mode connector to allow the carrier to dock with Fortress Maximus, Blaster and Powermaster Optimus Prime.

A qualified success. It's not a functional disaster, like Generations Blitzwing but the jet mode isn't the best and the carrier could have been improved by dumping the stickers. As with all flat surfaces on TF toys made up of parts it can be difficult to get them all in alignment and one of my rear supports is a little keen to move out of place if I knock the toy.

Titans Return Tidal Wave

A Titans Return version of Armada Tidal Wave was strongly rumoured as a Broadside repaint and looking at some of Broadside's design choices you could see why people thought this was a strong possibility.

Titans Return Tidal Wave was revealed at Toyfair 2017 with official images, albeit with a mis-transformed robot mode, released at the same time. He forms part of a Siege on Cybertron boxset, which is believed to have been known as the Strength set in it's development, which will be a BBTS exclusive in the USA. The boxset also contains Magnus Prime, a repaint of Legends Ginrai, Metalhawk, a Triggerhappy repaint, and new toys Pounce & Titanmaster Thunderwing.

Future Repaints

I've always thought that an ideal repaint of the original Broadside would be Micromaster Flattop and the same applies to his Titans Return version.

Tidal Wave's colours don't quite match either his Armada, Micron Legend or Energon versions all of which lend themselves to possible repaints.

Wednesday, 1 March 2017

Legends LG-41 Lio Convoy

I hadn't realised quite how many times Beast Wars II Lio Convoy has been redone: In Japan he has a new toy in Robotmasters and an Arms Micron repaint of Transformers Prime Thundertron. In the west he's been a Classics Legend, a Target Universe2 Voyager and a TFCC exclusive, repaints of Legends of Cybertron Leobreaker, Cybertron Leobreaker & Generations Thrilling 30 Orion Pax. That's a lot of toys, comparable to or even exceeding the number of updates popular characters released in the Hasbro version of Beast Wars have had. But Lio Convoy does hold a somewhat special place: he and his opposite number Beast Wars II Galvatron were the first Japanese exclusive toy moulds to be available in the internet age so knowledge of them was more widespread and the ability to obtain them was made a lot easier than earlier Japanese exclusives like Star Saber, Dai Atlas & Star Convoy. Their availability increased when they were offered for sale in the US by the first version of the Hasbro online store.

When Titans Return Alpha Trion first came out I said:

I'd be VERY surprised if Alpha Trion wasn't repainted as Lio Convoy. The Primesque Titanmaster and the Lions heads on the shoulders both suggest a repaint of this nature.

Sure enough on October 7th 2016 his existence was leaked through a an official reveal in a TakaraTomy image release.

As you'd expect almost everything on the toy is now moulded in white plastic. There are some exceptions though: the grey on beast legs, upper robot legs, & robot hands stays grey, but maybe a slightly shinier grey. The pinky red of tri cannon, loin cloth, chest & lower arms turns red. Significantly the purple of landing gear, ankles, deck plate leg hinges, waist hinges, cockpit hinge, shoulder joint, neck collar upper arms & elbows turns red: almost all these parts will be reused on the toy's remould.

Slightly surprisingly the Prime like Titanmaster from Alpha Trion *ISN'T* reused with a new face. Instead, just like with Convobat, Sentinel Prime's Titanmaster Infinitus is pressed into service. Again like Convobat he's mainly blue, but a slightly lighter more metallic blue. His chest is now red and his legs white with plenty of red paint applied to the front of the arms and legs which is probably aiming for looking like Lio Convoy's Cybertronian form seen in the first episode of Beast Wars II. Transformed into head mode it looks perfect atop the Lio Convoy robot with a silver crest & faceplate and yellow eyes. Almost all the images shown of the toy before release showed him with the robot mode's horns raised which was a little odd: I associate a horned Optimus Prime head more with Beast Wars Neo's Big Convoy than his predecessor Lio Convoy!

The head isn't the only part inherited from Sentinel Prime: Lio Convoy also has Sentinel's thinner gun without the seat, now cast in the sale blue as the head, giving him a total of three weapons now along with Alpha Trion's Tri Gun with seat and sword. The Sword is a good inclusion, as he previously used an Arms Micron sword called L.P with with version in that toy range. The sword, and the cockpit canopy in his vehicle mode, are now moulded in clear plastic. The sword now has gold edging, reinforcing the L.P. link, and a painted silver hilt. Three weapons is too much for the robot to hold at once but there's several spare 5mm ports on the side of the legs, back of the shoulders and his backside which can be used to store the spare plus the tri gun can be mounted on the back of the cockpit canopy.

Where Lio Convoy had his beast head mounted whole on his right shoulder the beast head is now split in half on both shoulders but it's still evocative of the original with some excellent red and gold paint applications. It's possible to mimic the original's mane on the sides of the arms by rotating the lower arms in 90° at the bicep albeit at the cost of the arms bending in at the elbows. The red chest has a completely different design to the original's 1984 Optimus Prime mimicking chest but the design here works well, aided by some gold paint applications and by making the clear orb in his chest that releases the horns a Maximal spark crystal.

Lion mode looks exactly as you'd expect it to: White with a gold mane. The horn on the lion's head which troubled some when the toy was Alpha Trion works so much better in white than it did in Purple.

The vehicle mode is mainly plain white but there's lots of red, gold and blue highlights which break the solid white up.

Superb repaint. While the result isn't a bang on replica of Lio Convoy's robot and beast mode, the colours are so evocative of the original that it almost doesn't matter. The replacement head and additional gun are great.

Future Repaints

There's lots of potential repaints if we look at the other Lio Convoy toys. The original Beast Wars II Lio Convoy has two repaints: Black Lio Convoy & Flash Lio Convoy while the Target Universe2 Voyager is a repaint of Cybertron Leobreaker which was in turn repainted as the black Nemesis Breaker, the red Leo Prime and Razorclaw while the Arms Micron version was a repaint of Prime Thundertron which was in turn turned into Go Prime and Botcon Alpha Trizer, which brings us full circle to Alpha Trion!

Saturday, 25 February 2017

Tiftans Return Titanmaster Repugnus

Repugnus first appeared in 1987 as part of the Monsterbots alongside Doublecross & Grotusque. We didn't get the group here in he UK, despite two of them featuring on the 1987 Boxart. Repugnus wasn't issued with the other two in Japan in 1987, he was a 1988 Mailaway, but despite this setback he's led a more interesting life since cropping up as repaint not once but twice in 1987 with his Universe & Cybertron toys.

When Doublecross was remade in Titans Return as Twinferno hopes were high of getting deluxe toys of all three Monsterbots. As yes Grotusque has yet to be announced but Repugnus finds himself reduced to the Titanmaster size assortment, with a small robot becoming his head and his beast mode becoming the accessory.

The head mode's face, which is yellow paint over red plastic, looks decent enough but the yellow is, like the yellow softer plastic used elsewhere, slightly too pale for my liking and could be a bit more vibrant. The Titanmaster robot it unfolds into has a yellow chest & upper legs with the lower legs, arms & head being cast in red and the head additionally painted yellow.

Repugnus' accessory looks like a small version of his beast mode which has acquired a pair of pointed wings. There's a massive gap in his chest which is filled by the the Titanmaster in head mode. Now there's not one but two sets of footpegs in the cavity but neither is used here: put the head in with the face towards the back and the smaller Titanmaster head towards the top: the beast head should fold back allowing access. With the beast head folded back and the Titanmaster in place it almost looks like an odd robot mode, but the beast head does need to be folded back into place to complete the beast mode which has legs that bend at the hips, albeit joined together, and independently turning arms at the shoulders.

At this point I had to do something I rarely have to do and that was resort to the instructions to find out what Repugnus' vehicle was.... Open the head and remove the Titanmaster head which needs unfolding into robot mode. Fold the head forward: there's a joint at the back of the neck connected to another joint on the top of the middle of the body which enables the head to be positioned at the rear or front of the body. Keep the head looking straight up still. Lay the creature on it's back and fold the legs up. Stand the Titanmaster in the body cavity.

It's got wings so it must be a jet of some description..... Some very vague description! I think we'll move on rapidly!

Return the Titanmaster to head mode and replace it in the chest cavity. Fold the wings down 180°. The instructions say that the head should be moved back to the rear position but I find it's more solid in the forward position. Either way the head should still be looking up and a 5mm handle should be unfolded from the underside enabling the weapon to be held.

The weapon looks odd, but better that the jet mode: There's a pair of twin blades poking out the front, formed from the wings, but underneath each of these is a pair of gun barrels moulded onto the back of each leg.

It's not a complete disaster as a weapon, certainly better than the jet, but the real star here is the bug mode. His wave mate Shuffler is the better all round toy.

Titans Return Titanmaster Shuffler

The original Shuffler is one of the six Japanese exclusive Autobot Master Warriors and as such he goes for an AWFUL lot of money! Like his fellow Master Warriors Lione and Toraizer he had no humanoid robot mode, transforming from a head to an animal, in Shuffler's case an elephant. For his Titanmaster version, like Lione's Titanmaster remake Sawback, the head now transforms into a humanoid robot while the animal is his accessory which becomes a vehicle and a weapon.

Shuffler always was a dull purple head, with eyes and a faceplate, but his resculpt has brought his larger robot head looking much more like a purple Optimus Prime head with a grey faceplate! These colours continue onto the Titanmaster robot, which is grey with purple arms & head.

The accessory's elephant mode is a pretty good modern interpretation of the original with all the colours in the same place: Purple body, with grey legs, ear and a new 5mm peg tail. Trunk & tail can lift up, and both sets of legs can move forward albeit paired with their opposite number on the other side of the body. There's a cavity under the body that Shuffler's head fits into, face up, Titanmaster's head towards the front.

The elephant has a vehicle mode too. Fold the elephant's head, not just the trunk, the whole head, back 90° and then rotate the head 180° so the trunk faces towards what was the rear of the beast. Fold both tail and trunk down. Fold all the legs forward towards what was the front of the beast and is now the rear of the vehicle. Stand Shuffler on the footpegs at the vehicle rear.

The accessories' vehicle mode is a small tank with the head forming the turret and trunk & tail forming gun barrels. There's no wheels but there is moulded tank tread detail on the base of the sides, what was the rear of the legs. Fab little vehicle mode.

From here remove the Titanmaster and fold the rear tread set, the front legs, back down. Fold the tail & trunk up 90°. Turn the toy over and place the tail/grey tank barrel into a figure's hand.

The weapons mode for the accessory is a missile array, similar to Armada Minicon Firebot's weapons mode. Here Shuffler's accessory weapons mode has twelve moulded missile tubes, two on each of the elephant's forelegs, and two banks of 2 x 2 missiles on the exposed beast's neck - oddly the same number that Firebot had. There's a pair of tubes sticking out of the beast's ears which I assume are gun barrels plus you could imagine that the Titanmaster footpegs are an additional pair of barrels. The trunk, hanging down from the weapon, forms an effective hand guard for the larger toy holding it. While the weapons mode does need a figure to hold it you could turn it into a stand alone missile array by folding the other legs back to their position in elephant mode and standing the toy the other way up on those.

I like this toy a lot. Three decent, solid modes in there. He'll be overshadowed by his more famous wave mate Repugnus but I think Shuffler is the better toy of the two.

Future Repaints

There aren't that many Elephant Transformers but the pachyderm body paired with a Prime like face makes the temptation to do a Titanmaster Big Convoy too great, especially if it could be twinned with a white Sawback as Lio Convoy.

Tuesday, 21 February 2017

Titans Returns Roadburn (Chase)

This is a remake of the Throttlebot Chase. First let's deal with the name: he was rumoured as Chase, his instructions showed him as Chase on early versions of the toy but his packaging says Roadburn, and the instructions have since been corrected to match the name on the card, presumably to avoid confusion with Rescue Bot Chase. See also: The Titans Return version of Steeljaw being repainted and renamed Stripes to avoid confusion with the Robots in Disguise toy and the lack of a Combiner Wars Sideswipe despite an obvious mould being available also due to a Robots in Disguise toy! Since both names appear officially on Chase/Roadburn I don't think it matters which name you use.

The toy itself swaps Titans Return Bumblebee's red for yellow and slaps a new head on it, painted blue with a gold painted face. For a new version of Chase it would more than do the job if the paint layers weren't layered on top of each other. Even so it still beats the original hands down in every aspect apart from being pull back and go in vehicle mode.

But I have a problem with it being Chase.

I've never liked the Throttlebots as toys very much. Yes they had a decent run in the comic but as toys they're cut down miniaturised Battlechargers lacking the auto TF gimmick. They're squat robots with the worst arms in the whole toyline - I can just about forgive the legs because that's sacrificed for the gimmick, the four cars are essentially the same toy in different colours and worst of all they're just cheap knock off versions of the original Mini Autobots! Goldbug *IS* Bumblebee, as widely established in the comics and cartoon. Once you're thinking one of them is you quickly see the striking similarity between Rollbar & Wideload and Brawn & Huffer! That then makes the blue Freeway a remake of Gears leaving you to decide which of the red Cliffjumper & Windcharger gets to be the red Chase and who gets to become the white Searchlight! I get that the Throttlebots are 1988 toys, the same year as the Headmasters extensively remade during Titans Returns but having started this group with Chase do they intend to finish it? Can you really repaint Bumblebee as Goldbug, Freeway & Searchlight too? I wouldn't put it past Hasbro trying but I don't see enough waves left to do it: Roadburn's in Wave 4 and Combiner Wars only lasted six waves! Titans Return Brawn is too similarly coloured and not the right shape for Rollbar and besides they need to do the more obvious Outback from him first. And where do you get Wideload from? There's still some lingering discontent over Combiner Wars Huffer, and his repaint Combiner Wars Pipes, being just a repaint of Generations Thrilling 30 Legends Optimus Prime!

These last two points bring us neatly to the other problem I have with this toy being Chase: He's not Cliffjumper. Now it has been known for Bumblebee to be repainted into Cliffjumper, so much so that it's a bit of a trope and they'll be many pleased that this ISN'T Cliffjumper. But the original toys, which started life in Microchange as super deformed versions of real world vehicles, are very similar. Their animated and comic versions are based on these rather than the real life Volkswagen Beetle & Porsche 924 which look nothing like each other. In fact Cliffjumper's Porsche looks so different that it would be nigh on impossible to get a cartoon/comic look alike robot out of it, perhaps explaining the lack of a Masterpiece version. So in my book, YES Cliffjumper is not only an acceptable repaint of Bumblebee, albeit with perhaps a new head and some mucking about with spoilers, but is also the first repaint of Bumblebee that *SHOULD* be done. The previous Legends scale Cliffjumper is a repaint of Thrilling 30 Legends Bumblebee, which is more a Cybertron than Earth mode toy. The Bumblebee's been updated to the toy Roadburn's repainted from yet Cliffjumper is still stuck with his earlier, weaker impersonation. It doesn't seem fair that one of the 1984 cast has been passed over in favour of a much less well known toy and Roadburn being red means it's considerably less likely we'll get another red toy from this mould. Sorry Roadburn, given the choice between the two it would have been Cliffjumper every time for me.

I am now going to have to buy two Roadburns in the hope of a third party Cliffjumper head!