Beast Wars Neo Big Convoy
www.tfu.info/1999/Cybertron/BigConvoy/bigconvoy.htmBig Convoy is the leader of the Cybertron (Autobot/Maximal) forces in Beast Wars: Neo.
The name convoy is attached to most of the Japanese Cybertron leaders - it's effectively the Japanese name for Optimus Prime. subsequent toys were termed Star Convoy, Beast Convoy, Leo Convoy and later Super Fire Convoy. You get the idea.
The Japanese box for this is red across the top and bottom with a wood pattern across the middle, a large window, illustration bottom left and series logo bottom right. The left hand side of front has a diagonal slice out of the corner - it's the right hand side for the Destrons (Decpeticon/Predacons) On top we have the TF, down the sides we have features, underneath a co sells panel showing all the Neo toys to the point Big Convoy was released: C, D and VS sets 29-35 plus S-3 - the numbering is consecutive from Beast Wars through Beast Wars II, Neo and to the end of Metals. Not all numbers are used for each side. Big Convoy is C 35 (Cybertron) , his opposite number Magmatron is D 35 (Destron) and they appear together in a VS pack - VS-35. Just don't bother trying to track the VS pack down, it was impossible to find at the time. In fact don't bother with the Japanese versions - the Korean ones are much cheaper, the same quality and in different boxes. They're looked down on by many TF fans because the first Korean toy to really come to prominence was the Korean Brave Maximus, which had a sticker on upside down. This has led to an unfair label that the Korean toys aren't much scratch in the quality dept. That's rubbish. They're the cheapest way to get many BWII and Neo toys, and there's some great packs like the first 4 new Cybertrons and Destrons in packs together.
Big Convoy is a little bit of an oddity - He's a Woolly Mammoth which you could argue belongs with the dinosaurs - dinosaurs being the Destron theme in Neo, as opposed to the tame/harmless animal theme that the rest of the Cybertrons had. The Mammoth is brown, graduating to a lighter shade of brown as you get to the legs. There's a somewhat patchwork pattern of lines on the mammoth where all the different pieces of the beast "shell" come together. The tusks are an Ivory colour, with some white detail on the toes and green eyes. There isn't any articulation in this mode for the beast's limbs - the only real movement on a joint is the beast's ears which flap back and forth, but he does have two action features: Pull back on a lever in the top of his head the trunk raises or pull back on each ear to raise the corresponding tusk.
He does have some weapons he can use in this mode - there's 2 large nearly round panels in between each legs on each side. These pull out, rotate round and have a missile launcher built into them. The launchers fire an anchor shaped missile using a trigger on the outside of the panel. All in all very similar to the missile launchers on the original Beast Wars Ultra Megatron. The other weapon takes a little transforming to reveal. Find the panels taking up most of the middle of the top of the back of the mammoth - these will pull up and out. Pull the panel the tail is attached to up. Pull the head halves apart slightly and pull up on the trunk. Pull the back of the beast - everything behind the head - up by a hinge behind the head. The entire middle of the toy from trunk to tail will lift up on a strut that's hinged to this piece and the middle of the beast's neck. This strut will also turn, so rotate the revealed section through 180 degrees so the tail is at the front and the trunk at the back. Once there fold down what was the back of the beast, and fold down and back on the entire rotated section. Fold the panels that were the middle of the beast back over each ear, fold the very back of the beast back and it's tail forward. This reveals a double barrelled missile launcher - one missile on top of the other. These missiles can't be fired in this mode but it looks impressive, especially when deployed with the anchor missile launchers.
TF: Pop open the mid back panels, pull up the tail panel, pull the head halves apart slightly and then raise the tail/cannon/trunk piece up. Pull the cannon up by it's hinge. Pull; the front legs down unlocking them under the ears. Fold back inside the back legs so the bottom of the beast is upside down out the back of the beast, but leave (or move/ the back legs so they're pointing down still. Pull the anchor launchers out the side of the now revealed robot legs. Fold the front beast legs - now at the end of the robot legs - onto the back of the robot legs via the strut that connects them to the robot's ankles - the strut recesses into the robot legs and the beast leg locks in place. Fold out the feet and heel spurs and straighten the legs. Pose the anchor launchers as pointing upwards. The rear beast legs are connected by a strut to the top of the robot legs - pull these down and back so they rest on top of the back of the lower robot legs. You might be able to stand the toy up now, in any event turn it so you can see the front of the robot legs. Rotate round the robot's waist 180 degrees. Unpeg the hands from the back of the robot's back. Fold the arms out from the side of the robot body, and fold the lower arms out from behind the upper arms. Note that the spikes on the top of the arms are recessed in a slot in the shoulder blades - they'll need to go back in there for the TF back to beast mode. Bend the arms back, rotate forward at the shoulders, turn the lower arms out 90 degrees at the elbow. Fold the head halves out to the sides and then fold back 270 degrees - there's a piece that catches that prevents you doing the reverse manoeuvre through 90 degrees - I tried it once and chipped the socket for the ball joint that connects the head halves to the body. Pull the body down onto the robot waist, exposing the robot head. Fold out the robot head side horns. . Extend the strut connecting the trunk/gun/tail piece as far from the body as you can and swing it round so it's on the robot's back behind the head halves - you may need to angle the robot forward a bit to maintain balance now.
The resulting robot is Optimus Prime, but it's Optimus Prime with a twist, a sort of battle veteran version. Broadly speaking the head is a pal metallic (not chromed) blue, the upper body and arms are red, the waist and lower legs are white and the upper legs & feet are black. The face has the Prime faceplate in silver, but the silver vertical crest above the eyes is much bigger than usual. There's no hint of the usual Prime curves to the head, this is much squarer and blocky. There's a ridge over the eyes which are nicely done in metallic gold. As I mentioned in the TF the head has horns that fold out of the sides - you can have these angled in several different ways due to the shape of them - personally I like the inside of the horns to be on the vertical. Think Galactus helmet for the horns and you won't be too far off. It's obviously Prime but different. The chest is an excellent interpretation of the classic Prime chest - dominated by 2 large red windows on the upper chest. Set between them in an inverted spark crystal - you can see the metallic gold outline with the Cybertron (Maximal) logo picked out in red round the middle. I've always wondered if this was some sort of design error - later on you'll be able to see the inside of the chest and there you'll find the more familiar side of a spark - should this have been molded the other way round ? Having it this way does make for a quite distinctive detail in the middle of his chest that sets him aside from his colleagues. There's some round silver details round the windows - 2 at the top and outer side of each that look like little spotlights. The lower chest has 2 raised rounded ridges underneath the windows picked out in white that look like stomach muscles. You're meant to think this is a strong guy. The arms while being similar in design don't match material used to make them - his right is solid red at the top and white at the bottom, whereas his left is made of clear red plastic with detail picked out in silver. Are we meant to think he's a battle hardened veteran who's lost an arm at some stage ?
Articulation: The foot and heel spurs bend independently of each other at the ankle and are mounted on a ball joint. We have a double bending knee - a strut connects the lower and the upper leg and it bends at both ends and a swivel joint above the knee. The hips are ball joints and the waist turn. The neck is also on a ball joint. The shoulders shrug up as part of the TF. The shoulder joint is a ball and socket joint. There's one at the elbow, but the ball folds in as it turns up. Fortunately there's also a bending joint bellow this. The wrists fold up.
Weapons: We mentioned the anchor missile launchers earlier, these are now hung off the lower legs and can be rotated forward. If you fold down the bits of mammoth under each forearm you can fold out two small clubs (I'm told they're called Tonfa) that fold out under and peg into the bottom of each hand. The inside of the beast head halves have some missile arrays molded and painted into them. Then there's the cannon. There's no real way to use it when's it's stored on the back, so it's a good job it can be removed - pull on it and it unclips from the folding strut connecting it to the body. From there turn the cannon over so the trunk is upside down, fold the back of the mammoth & the side pieces under the cannon to position it as a separate ground based weapon. The missiles can be fired sequentially in this mode by turning the small dial on the top of the cannon. If you pick the weapon up and find the lever for pulling the trunk up, you'll find a little flap behind it. Pull back on this flap and it reveals a handle that fold out that allows this massive piece of weaponry to be used as a hand cannon.
Big Convoy's got one more hidden feature but this one isn't weapon related, it's a tribute back to the 1986 Transformers Movie. The front of the chest panel - windows and spark mount folds down revealing the inside of Big Convoy's chest. Contained within is an Autobot Matrix of Leadership - a pair of handles, connected to a across the top from which hangs a case - all in gold chrome - which contains a red clear plastic ball. The Matrix is removable - there's a peg on the chest that sits in a round hole in the back of the matrix - and thanks to this hole the Matrix glows like a lightpipe when removed. The handles are the standard size peg used on most large toys to date (and would beginning with Armada show up on smaller ones. So Big Convoy can hold the Matrix - and thanks to those odd folding in ball joints on his arms he can hold the Matrix in both hands in front of his chest as if he's opening it to unleash it's power.
Overall: Really what can you say. Articulated in robot mode, heavily armed, a couple of nice features in (an admittedly brick like) beast mode, some movie and Optimus Prime tributes thrown in. It's an incredibly good toy. Your beast collection isn't complete without one.
Main event over we turn to the repaints:
Black Big Convoy
www.tfu.info/1999/Cybertron/BlackBigConvoy/bigconvoy.htmWhen Big Convoy came out Takara were releasing multiple recoloured versions of the Beast Leaders - there's Clear Convoy and Burning Convoy - from the Beast Wars Ultra Optimus Prime - and Black Lio Convoy and Flash Lio Convoy - from the Beast Wars II leader Lio Convoy. Big Convoy becomes Black Big Convoy - who may have appeared in the Beast Wars Neo cartoon as evil Big Convoy. The main colour on the repainted beast is black, with the horns a darkened silver and the lower body a dark gold. The robot is mainly black with the horns and inner shoulder blocks in grey and gold detailing all over the place. It's a nice repaint - black ones frequently are. Don't even think about trying to find one though !
Universe Nemesis Prime
www.tfu.info/2004/Decepticon/NemesisPrime/nemesisprime.htmFor some while there was fan requests to get Big Convoy released in the US. His predecessors - Lio Convoy and Galvatron were available through the Hasbro website for a while, and Magmatron was a Beast Machines Dinobot store exclusive for Target. He eventually appeared recoloured as a another Target store exclusive in Universe. Once again the base colour of the beast is black, this time with grey fur towards the bottom of the beast. The tusks are a more white ivory colour and each has a red blood stained tip. Transforming the toy we find the clear red plastic remains the same but the white has become a beige grey, the tonfas, feet and struts on the front of the legs are red (more blood ?) the white detailing is silver and there's some blue and silver detailing for what was previously silver or gold. It's a nice repaint, not an all black lazy repaint. The blood stained tusks are the work of genius !
Of the three, the original Big Convoy remains the best.
