Generation 2 Breakdown
Breakdown is probably the most recognisable of the the Generation 2 Stunticons due to him being the only one that actually came out, albeit as a 1994 Botcon exclusive. Having got a Breakdown in Combiner Wars, I thought it an inevitability that the Transformers Collectors Club will repaint it as G2 Breakdown like they did with the universe version. However the entire G2 Menasor set/Stunticon team was released in 2016 as a shared internet exclusive!Simple colour swap here: white becomes a bright light blue/green, dark blue becomes purple with the red paint op on the bonnet turning black. Like the other G2 Combiner Wars Stunticons the Hand Foot Gun is also cast in a pale blue.
You need to see the G2 Combiner Wars Stunticons in the plastic. People can describe them and show pictures but it doesn't remotely cover it. They're mad and I love them!
Botcon 2016 Ravage
Expanding the three member Tripredicus was always going to require adding two new members and since both Tarantulas and Ravage are shown to be agents of the Tripredicus council in the Beast Wars cartoon series they are the obvious choices. Ravage fits quite easily into the vehicle theme too, having been a car in Alternators with a Ravage beast head on a humanoid robot like the Beast Wars version had. There's a very indirect link to the choice of which Combiner Wars car here too: Alternators Ravage was a remould of Alternators Tracks. The Reveal The Shield Tracks was remoulded in Generations Wheeljack, who's Combiner Wars version is a remould of Breakdown. I did say it was indirect!I've no real complaints about the black Lamborghini vehicle mode apart from being worried that doing one here might weigh against us getting a Combiner Wars Generation 2 Sideswipe down the line. At first glance the robot appears to be OK, within the limitations of the Breakdown mould, though the new beast head looks a little squashed from the front. Unfortunately it gets much worse from the side, showing that there's not much depth to the head at all with the back being virtually flat. What little detail there is on the back of the head looks like a simplified robot head. There's a nice touch with a Decepticon symbol on one shoulder and a Predacon symbol on the other but these then end up sideways on in car mode. I'm also finding the hips, a little dodgy in previous incarnations anyway, to be even worse here getting stuck in the wrong places and being very difficult to position in robot mode.
They've tried bless em, it just hasn't quite worked.
To compound things the club then failed to pack Ravage's Hand Foot Gun with the toy requiring it to be collected separately!
Botcon 2016 Tigatron
Virtually the moment Ravage was revealed I was pretty sure what one of the souvenir toys for Botcon 2016 was going to be: In 2000 the Japanese Beast Wars Ravage, with a beast head as used by the Botcon 2016 version, was repainted as Transmetal Tigatron so it was a given that the new head would get a further reuse and so it proved. As well as appearing in 2001 there was a second Tigatron, this time a car, 2006 making this a further homage to a past Botcon toy.How well they've pulled the toy off is debatable: the toy is an off white, almost very pale grey, unlike the pure bright white generally used for Tigatron since the Japanese version of the original Tigatron. A large Maximal symbol adorns his bonnet with a smaller one on each shoulder. There's a blue highlights in car mode and mint green blue highlights in robot mode. The head possesses the same problems as it does with Ravage and I'm finding the quality control on mine to be slightly dodgy with wheels and spoilers popping off all over the place plus, like Ravage, the problematic hip arrangement is stiff in all the wrong places.
Sum the bits up and probably the worst toy in the whole Botcon 2016 set. Needs better colours, better QC and a better head!
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