Phil's Beast Wars Neo Cybertrons reviews !

[Philip Ayres]

We covered the Destrons in Dinobot week so it's the turn of the Neo Cybertrons now ! Big Convoy had his own thread, and Razorclaw & Armadillo have snuck into the basics thread. So to start us off we have ...... Beast Wars Cybershark ??

[Philip Ayres]

Cybershark www.tfu.info/1997/Maximal/Cybershark/cybershark.htm

Cybershark was one of the first Beast Wars Deluxe toys released without the mutant head. He was also an arch shelf warmer in the UK, there really hasn't been a toy that's shelfwarmed like him before or after.

On continental Europe there was one, possibly two Beast Wars dlx cases before the one we got in the UK. There *may* have been a case that was 2 x Cheetor, 2 x Waspinator, 2 x Tarantulas and 2 x Dinobot. There was a case that contained these 4 toys (probably at one to a case) and Rhinox & Wolfang (probably at 2 to a case) By the time we in the UK got a case we'd lost Wolfang, got one each of the others, plus one of Jetstorm and two of Cybershark. The five carried over toys were in the show. Jetstorm was one a case. You can guess which one wasn't selling. Fast Forward to a few months when a replacement case shows up with Bonecrusher, Manterror, Retrax and K9. What gets carried over ? The show toys that people want ? No, poor unloved Cybershark. You could still find him on some shelves when Beast Machines hit. I suspect that at some point Hasbro UK hoovered them all up because Toy Stack were getting solid cases of him at one stage. Thing was by this point it had emerged he was hard to find in the states so I suspect a great many were going overseas at that point in trades.

Cybershark is a hammerhead shark - the flat head with eyes on either side gives it away a bit. The only real articulation in this mode is a pair of fins that are ball jointed to the body and that the beast head can be raised up.. The shark is mainly blue with a metallic green spot pattern down his back and a more white underside. He's got 2 action features in this mode: The first is that a press of a button in the top of the tail deploys a claw from under the body which springs out in opposition to the tail. The other is that the entire head of the shark can be fired off as a missile by pressing down on a trigger on the shark's head. Doing this exposes a robotic version of a normal shark's head - this trick would be repeated with Killerpunch.

TF: Pull the underside of the shark apart down the middle lengthwise and fold up to the sides. Fold the robot arms out 90 degrees at the bicep joint* Remove the tail - it pulls off. Fold the legs and hips out under the shark's mouth. Fold the shark's head back at the robot's shoulders to form the robot chest locking the legs in place and exposing the robot's head.

* This step isn't in the instructions. But if you examine the robot's feet there are little pegs on the heel end of the foot. I think they are meant to recess in something and the piece they rest against in shark mode is the robot's hand. So you orientate the fist hole so it catches the peg. This works better if the arms can bend back, hence my thought that the top of the fists should be pointing in just after the sharks sides are unfolded (and just before you fold them up).

The resulting robot has one of the most dementedly mad faces in all of Transformers - lots of shark's teeth and glowing red eyes. It's a big surprise to find from his rubsign - one of the first BW toys to have one - that he's a Maximal ! A lot more white is exposed in this mode - shoulders, forearms & fists, hips, lower legs and feet. There's also some bronze on the inside of the shark's skin.

Articulation: bends at ankle and knee, swivels bellow a ball jointed hip, ball joints at neck and shoulder, bicep swivel and a bending elbow.

The beast head on the chest can be lifted up to horizontal and fired still. In addition he carries two of the best missiles in Beast Wars in his back pack - push them out the top from the bottom and you'll find the tip of the missile has etched on it a shark's eye, mouth and gills. Top work there ! The missiles can be used in the launcher on the chest or held in his hand by their ends as staves. It's also possible to hold the claw formed from tail as a hand weapon. Because the missiles can be held it's possible for the Shark's head to be held in the same manner as an axe - this looks best if you stick it in the top of one of the fists and attach the claw to the bottom forming a larger staff.

Overall: It a good toy. Everything works, the figure is nicely articulated and attractively decorated. Only it's non appearance in the show has led to it being left on the shelf and dismissed by so many. It's one of my favourite BW deluxe toys however. Get one.


Sharp Edge www.tfu.info/1999/Cybertron/SharpEdge/sharpedge.htm

Cybershark did appear in his original form in Japan C-11 or as part of VS-11 with Inferno. That didn't stop him from being used as the basis for Hellscream or making an appearance in Beast Wars Neo as a more minor remold - Sharp Edge. Shark Edge is C-37 and is also available in VS-37 with the Dinobot remold Hardhead (who went on to be recoloured as the Beast Machines Dinobot Dinotron)

There are three major pieces remolded on Sharp Edge - the first is his tail which gains a fin round it. The second is the head - gone is the hammerhead to be replaced by a long serrated nose with a couple of barbs hanging off it. My wife suggests it might be a Marlin. He's a slightly darker blue in colour with a light blue pattern on him. Both the claw and firing head gimmicks still work - though the robot head is coloured a more gruesome blood red on this toy. It might be a good idea to remove the beats head before transformation here as the long nose can get in the way !

Robot reveals the third new part - a completely new head - armoured with a blade as a crest on the middle of it. The white in this mode is now grey, and the bronze becomes red. In this mode the beast head is used as a sword - Hardhead also has a sword, in his case from his tail - so there's a sword duelling theme across the set. Given the general western theme in the Neo toys it thus follows that Sharp Edge is Zorro (I was going to say Power Man & Iron Fist's El Aguilla but then remembered what he's based on !)

Good example of a remold getting something new out of an existing toy. I got a VS-37 into the country for something absurdly cheap last week - less than UK retails for 2 deluxe ! So look on eBay and see what you can find !

[Philip Ayres]

Beast Wars Neo Longrack www.tfu.info/1999/Cybertron/Longrack/longrack.htm

Longrack is Big Convoy's second in command in Beast Wars Neo. He was available as C-29 in Japan or as part of VS-29 with Guiledart. He's also the first organic beast after a year of Transmetals, Fuzors and Cyberbeasts.

Longrack is a giraffe - mainly a sort of cream colour with brown spots and some black fur. His legs all bend back at the knees, and his back legs move at the hip. There's a tail ball jointed at the base and head that can look up at the neck. The beast's eyes are connected to his tongue - press it in and they move forward - kind of similar to Guiledart's play dead gimmick

Longrack has a king of weapon mode similar to that found on some of the other Neo Cybertrons. Fold his head up, pull off the back panel, pull down the mid panels on each side. Swing the forelegs forward and down. Fold the back hip panels up and forward to cover the space vacated by the mid panels. Fold the back panel back towards where it was in place in beast mode. Then turn the piece that the rear legs connect to 180 degrees so the legs are pointing the wrong way up out the back of the beast. Swing the tail and back section round 180 degrees so it's pointing out the back of the beast, then twist the beast's back section so it's the other way up. Fold this up 90 degrees where it connects with the tail, then fold the tail section down 90 degrees so the back section is running along the back of the legs. Fold the bottom of the back legs up so they face skywards. Unfold the robotic stuff out of the leg behind the beast, unfold the foot and fold the wheels down. Fold the giraffe neck back along the vehicle, and hit the trigger in the neck to deploy the crane arm. Bring the front legs up so they're pointing out the front of the giraffe, and then bend the legs down at the knees exposing the missile launchers.

Odd is the only way to describe this - it's obviously meant to be a battle platform of some description (see BaBoom) but all it looks like is a distorted giraffe with a claw arm sticking out of it - which can be swung round in this mode. I'll talk more about the claw and the missiles in robot mode, and you'll need to return Longarm to beast mode first.


TF: Fold his head up, pull off the back panel, pull down the mid panels on each side. Swing the forelegs forward and down. Fold down the panel on the opposite side to the spark, swing the head up and replace the panel. Turn toy round so the robot head faces towards you. Fold the back hip panels up and forward to cover the space vacated by the mid panels and cover the spark. Fold the giraffe neck & head back so the claw points towards you. Swing the robot round at it's waist so it's facing out the back of the beast and the back of the rear beast legs are in front of the robot. Fold the beast's front legs up behind the robot's back and then fold down the forelegs to reveal the missile launchers. Fold the panels on the robot's hips out to the sides. Spin the grey waist piece between the rear beast legs round at the bottom of the robot chest then fold back and lock into place. Fold the panels down over the hips. Pull down the robotic pieces hidden in the back of the leg, straightening out the red piece at the end as you go. The red piece folds out like a boot round the beast's foot, and the wheel acts as a heel spur. Swing the claw arm down to one side. Turn the back piece at the end of the tail section on the other arm round so the robotic side faces forward. Fold out his hand.

Resulting robot - well you can tell it was a giraffe. The giraffe neck and head extending over his right shoulder is a clue. He's covered in the giraffe cream and brown fur even on his now revealed robot head - which is somewhat reminiscent of Cheetor's with a large central spike. A lot of the exposed robot pieces are coloured silver but there is some black and burgundy in there too. He bends at the ankle and knee, ball jointed hips, turns at the waist and neck and has ball jointed shoulders. There's a universal joint connecting the giraffe arm to the rest of the toy at that elbow, while the other elbow is a ball joint as is the wrist on both arms - the wrist for the fist demonstrates how movement can be provided for a joint and the joint still fold away into something (see Animated Grimlock's dino arms !) His left arm contains a knife that flips out under the wrist and is removable. This has got a standard 5mm peg on it so can be held either hand or the centre of the claw hand. The claw hand - as well as the standard size hole has a pair of opening claws that fold out to the sides. There's a trigger under the beast's neck - outside of the arm in robot mode - that causes the arm to telescope out to several times it's original length - long enough in fact for the claw to touch the floor when the robot is standing upright. There's a pair of missile launcher on the robot's back - the front upper legs. They can be swung down to fire behind him but they don't quite reach vertical elevation, and they certainly can't be fired forward over his shoulder. The spark is mounted on the robot's chest - swing the giraffe panel on the chest up and to the side to fully reveal the Cybertron (Maximal) spark - though it is visible through some diagonal lined holes in the chest which exactly cover the spark.

So yes, the robot mode is a little uneven in the arm department. But it's so uneven that it looks ok, there's no real excuses given. It's interesting that when Longrack got brought back as a vehicle in Cybertron they chose to use the Armada Hoist mold which has similarly unbalanced arms. The beast mode is a new animal and looks good. Looking at the catalogue supplied with him I see he would have retailed at Y2500 which is about the same price as an old Mega toy. He's a little bigger than that, especially in beast mode but a little light for an old ultra. He certainly wouldn't have fitted in a mega box so that may explain why he never got imported into a western toyline. Which is a shame because he is a good toy.

Longrack has never been repainted.

[Philip Ayres]

Break www.tfu.info/1999/Cybertron/Break/break.htm

Break is one of two new basics toys on the Cybertron (maximal) side in Beast Wars Neo. He comes by himself as C-32 or opposite Dead End in VS-32. Their name are a G1 Tribute of course - Breakdown and Deadend were both Stunticons in G1. I suspect that the name Break is also a little bit of a play on words - Break being very similar to Beak.

Break is a penguin, mainly black with a white front and some yellow round his neck, on his beak and round the back of the head. His eyes are picked out in pinky orange. His wings are on ball joints and can flap out to the sides as well as move around. His ankles are ball jointed too which allows his feet to stretch out behind him as if he were swimming. His head turns from side to side.

Like all the new basics at the start of Neo he has a third mode - this time serving as a weapon for the larger toys. Break's official weapons mode is formed by firing the missile out of his bottom, and then pulling the back section with the wings connected to it out and down a bit. You then spread the wings. Personally what I'd do would be to spread the wings to start wing and keep the missile launcher contained with the penguin - this increases the stability of the toy in weapons mode. The pegs for holding Break are under his wings - so effectively the official mode has all the rest of the penguin dangling under the weapon just connected by the arm that leads into the missile launcher.

TF: fold the white panel back across the chest. Note how the front of the robot legs are over the chest, while the tops of the feet are tucked against the robot's back. Fold the missile launcher off to one side and the tail to the other side. Fold the robot legs down under the robot, and spin at the waist. Turn the feet round. Fold the panel up on the back. That's the easy way. The reverse is the real terror, a nightmare of lining panels up and remembering to twist limbs the right way round - the arm connecting to the head is an important one. It's possibly the hardest basic to return to beast mode - it's only real rivals also being Neo toys - Dead End and Bazooka !

The penguin head should be on the shoulder of the arm holding the missile launcher, which the tail is on the other shoulder. So we've got lots of beast hanging off all over the place ! A lovely penguin beak helmet is the main feature of the head. The robot has black upper limbs and feet, with white lower limbs, chest and head - all with blue detailing. The right arm is attached to a massive non removable missile launcher. Nearly every joint on this toy is a ball joint: Ankle, knee, hip, waist, neck, shoulder and elbow, The exception is where the missile launcher bends as the hand holds it.

Overall: Decent beast mode, absurd unstable official weapons mode fortunately redeemed by being able to hold the penguin and fire the missile out of it's bottom. Decent robot mode with lots of beast kibble. Fun toy, lots packed into it for a basic sized robot.

[Philip Ayres]

Stampy www.tfu.info/1999/Cybertron/Stampy/stampy.htm

Stampy is a rabbit. I'm sorry when I hear the name Stampy I think elephant (see the Simpsons) The rabbit follows the unused docile mammal them all the Beast Wars Neo Cybertrons have. He appears as C-31 or with Sling in VS-31.

Sling is mainly white with some grey - upper back legs, tail and ears. Back legs have a joint at the ankle then ball joints at hip & knee, and there are also ball joints at the foreleg shoulders. The ears move back and forwards. He's quite poseable and stable, I've got him standing on his back legs with the front legs in the air.

He has a weapons mode like many of the other Neo Cybertrons: Pull up on the panel behind his head bending back about 90 degrees, then fold back so it covers the back of the beast, and fold the fore legs back. Extend the legs out the back of the beast. Separate the head in two and fold to the sides level with the protruding robot head so that the grey panels lock into their clips. Fold the rabbit head parts so they're facing straight forward. Bend the ears as far forward as possible, and turn the rabbit head halves so they're facing out. Fold the rear legs up over the toy so the feet are over the shoulder of the forelegs. The resulting weapon is some sort of odd double barrelled weapon or a scissor claw - the ears move together when you pull back on the tail. The weapon can be held by the larger toys - there's a 5mm peg underneath. A nice little touch - on the bottom of the peg is a molded Cybertron symbol !

TF: Since weapon mode is so close we'll start from there: straighten the rear beast legs out behind the toy, folding the beast foot back as a heel spur and the robot foot down from the lower leg. Swing the rabbit heads down to form the arms and turn at the elbows to reveal the hands.

Resulting robot has the beast back legs serving as it's legs with all the poseability they had, plus ball jointed shoulders & elbows, and a neck joint. More grey and some gold is revealed in this mode - the grey is on the upper limbs and feet, the gold on the robot head, chest and lower limbs. The beast ears form blades sticking out the robot's wrists. There's a large red Cybertron spark embedded in the left of his chest. The arms still move a bit when you pull down on the tail.

Overall: Simple toy, does the job. More solid if still silly weapons mode.

[Philip Ayres]

Beast Wars Razorbeast www.tfu.info/1996/Maximal/Razorbeast/razorbeast.htm

Razorbeast is a Warthog. At the time of Beast Wars development The Lion King was a recent release and Pumbaa the Warthog was a popular character in the that so it made sense for BW to have a Warthog (similarly Dinobot and the Raptors in Jurassic Park) Razorbeast had 4 legs each attached to his body by a limited ball joint. No other parts of the beast move. The dominant colour on the beast is a reddish brown, with black fur down the head and back.

TF: Flipchanger. Pulling back on the tail causes the sides of the beast to fold out, the head to fold under the beast revealing the robot head, and the beast legs to extend out the back of the toy. From here the arms unpeg from the sides of the toy.

His robot mode exposes a more sandy brown on the upper robot limbs and the lower chest, while the head is the same reddish brown as before. He's the BW basic standard for articulation - ball joints at knees, hips, shoulders and elbows plus neck. The head is molded to take a lightpipe, but like all the early BW basics it's disabled by using an opaque piece of plastic and the eyes are painted.

Like all the BW basics he has a concealed weapon. In his case it's in the black piece of fur on the robot's back. Remove it and flip out a dual cannon. This can either be hand held or - in a nice touch - reattached to his back and fired over his head.

Overall: Simple, effective and done well. I look at these BW basics and rarely see anything really special but they're all perfectly decent toys. No feature that doesn't work or isn't implemented quite right, they all TF ok, they all look like beasts and they all have decent articulation. We didn't know how lucky we were.


Beast Wars Neo Randy www.tfu.info/1999/Cybertron/Randy/randy.htm

In nearly 10 years of writing toy reviews I've never had to talk about GPS before. But I will here. (and I don't mean the Global Positioning System !)

Randy is Neo toy C-34 and is also part of VS-34 with Crazybolt - the rather fetching Iguanus recolor.

Randy is a basic colour swap. The sandy brown is now white. The reddish brown is gold. And that's where the trouble started for me. I got my brand new Randy and tried to pull him out the packaging. Off came his leg and with it a sizeable proportion of one side of the beast. Randy had fallen prey to GPS - Gold Plastic Syndrome. A certain sort of gold plastic used in toys has a tendency to break easily. Amongst the toys affected are Bristleback, Black Zarak, G2 Slingshot, Thunderclash, BW Grimlock & Armada Superbase Op have all had plastic breaking reported by various members of the hub. As it is the gold looks a little silly on a beast ! So maybe a slightly different choice of colour may have been in order.

I've got a 2nd on the way. That'll be cut out of it's packaging !

[Philip Ayres]

Armadillo www.tfu.info/1996/Maximal/Armordillo/armordillo.htm

Armadillo is another one of the early Beast Wars basics.

He was in the first wave to reach the UK in 1998. If my Ani Mutants Optimus Primal box is to be believed there was a previous wave of Terrorsaur, Iguanus, Razorbeast and Rattrap with Slapper, Insecticon & Armadillo joining them for the basic case that reached the UK at the start of 1998. He was also the first TF to be deleted in the UK when Airazor, Clawjaw and Razorclaw were introduced. (an interesting aside - it's one of the 2nd set of toys that gets the chop when the deluxe assortment upgraded as well. But I'll talk about that when I review Cybershark/Sharpedge in a few weeks time)

Armadillo is an armadillo (no surprise there). He's mainly orange with grey as the upper limbs and tail up through the strut in the flipchanging mechanism. There's also grey paint on the back of the beast and the claws. The eyes are black. I've checked on Wikpedia and the photo there showed an Armadillo as being a mixture of brown and gold. The front legs bend at knee and hip, back leg at the hip.

TF: A Flipchanger. Pulling up on the tail and unlocking it from the slot in the back it extends into causes the head to fold back under the beast and the robot legs to extend out the end. Turn the beast over and stand - the beast's underside is now the front of the robot.

Robot is dominated by the beast head mounted in the middle. The beasts front legs serve as the arms, whereas the robot legs are new but in the same grey upper limb, orange lower limb combination as the arms are. The beast's back legs are revealed to be mounted in the sides of the shell to weapons. The leg on your left is connected to a morning star (the chain is sadly a molded unit) whereas the one on your right is a laser gun. These are removable, and when pulled off the legs can be flipped round revealing a peg that fits into the back of Armadillo's hand. The weapons just sit on the back of the hands instead of in them and they do look a little odd there as he has no standard fist - just the beast claw. Head: same comment as per the rest of the BW basics, why is the lightpipe filled in ? This time they've used a redish pink to paint the front of the eyes whereas the back panel is the same colour as the rest of the head. The faceplate is the same grey used on the claws.

Overall: Adequate basic. Could do with a better colour scheme - Snapper's springs to mind as it works well on Crazybolt too.


Bump www.tfu.info/1999/Cybertron/Bump/bump.htm

A couple of years later Armadillo came back in Beast Wars Neo. The original version was only available in a playset containing a volcano base along with Snapper but this one was available by himself as C-38 Bump or in VS-38 with Bazooka. He's a simple paint swap - dark red for orange, a lighter grey for the grey plastic and silver for the grey paint. The eyes are bright green in beast mode, as they are on the robot face. (I'm actually sitting here with all 3 versions of the mold in front of me - Bump arrived today and I've just transformed him for the first time while writing this !)

The orange and grey together look a little flat. This colour scheme is considerably more vibrant. The better of the two.


Psycho Orb www.tfu.info/2004/Destron/PsychoOrb/psychoorb.htm

Then five years later Armadillo came back for a third go - this time as a Destron and one of two Beast Wars basic recolours in Robotmasters. Orange becomes brown, grey is a different lighter shade again and the entire back of the beast is painted gold. The eyes are a yellow mildly tending towards green. TF reveals a grey faceplate, lilac eyes, a traditional Destron badge on his collar and some gold detail on the lower leg. Much more authentic yes, but it looks so boring and plain.

Psycho Orb comes with an additional weapon: he has what looks like a shield or a breast plate in clear green energon. There is a bar over the top with pegs at each end that fit Psycho Orb's "hand" as do the moveable peg underneath. There's also a hole underneath the shield big enough to take a standard larger peg or minicon port. This is the centre piece of the Robotmaster Destrons combined energy weapon: The spears from the flip changer jets plug in each side at the top while the post hole at the bottom takes the morning star from Wrecker Hook. The combined weapon looks odd, but it's just a bit of fun.

Overall: Think I prefer Bump.

[Philip Ayres]

Razorclaw www.tfu.info/1997/Predacon/Razorclaw/razorclaw.htm

Razorclaw marks the start of something of a design gear shift for the Precacon warriors. Gone is the flipchanging gimmick, requiring a tiny bit more work when TFing a toy. In comes extensive use of clear plastic on basics which will continue through on new toys into the Predacon Fuzor basics

Razorclaw is a crab, with mismatched claws. His right hand claw is much bigger than the left. The dominant colour in this mode is the clear dark blue of the shell with orange making up the legs, upper arms and the claws sticking out the back - I'm presuming this is meant to be the end of another set of legs ? There's a gold wash on the back of the crab. The crab mouth opens and closes. Inside the smaller claw is a little molded in gun. The clear blue plastic is good - catching the light well.

The large claw if meant to have an action feature in it. There's a lever on the outside of the claw that when you pull it back is meant to flip the claw open - the way this should work is there's 3 struts of plastic inside the claw attached to the lever that should run in a groove on the other side of the claw. You can see a lot of "meant" and "should" in there. It doesn't work. Invariably - unless you take special care - the struts fold away with the lead one outside of the groove it's end runs in making the feature hard/impossible to work. I've checked both of the mold I have here and they're both the same in this respect.

TF: turn the beast over so you see it's underside. Pull the beast jaw up to reveal the head - the lower jaw is formed from the crest on top of the ad which recesses into the body. Unpeg and fold back straight behind the toy the crab's tail - moving the robot legs to the side to do so. Turn the lower robot legs round at the knee so they're pointing down to the sides, straighten the legs up at the knee and fold straight down in front of the tail at the back of the crab. Pull the sides of the crab shell up - there's a hinge at the head. Fold the crab side legs back under the sides of the shell so they form wings for the robot mode. Open the feet and pose the arms.

The robot shows a lot more of the orange on the chest, upper limbs and feet. The blue plastic really shows off the toy in this mode and lights up well with a light source behind it. He's got ball joint at knees, hips, shoulders, elbows and neck, with bending ankles and his right wrist. The robot is designed with a separate piece forming the back of the head so I assume it was meant to have a lightpipe here. The eyes at the front are painted over. You can't really complain too much here as the entire head lights up !

Overall: not bad basic, maybe slightly odd colours for a crab. Nice to see the clear plastic back.

Video Razorclaw www.tfu.info/1998/Predacon/Razorclaw/razorclaw.htm
Rockbuster www.tfu.info/1999/Cybertron/Rockbuster/rockbuster.htm

Razorclaw here is a repaint released with a videotape containing Aftermath and Call of the Fuzors 1. As far as I'm aware this is a US exclusive

Rockbuster is a Beast Wars Neo toy available by himself as C-33 or in a vs pack with Hydra as VS-33. There's a little bit of a G1 homage going on with the names here: Buster and Hydra were the names for the Japanese recolours of Dreadwind and Darkwing respectively.

I'm lumping these 2 together. On first sight there is no difference at all between these toys. But if you look *very* closely at the rubsign you'll see that one's a Predacon and the other is a Maximal. TFU.info have gone to great lengths to make sure their photos catch this. This is a basic colour swap - Clear blue becomes dark red. Orange becomes a sea green. The gold paint on the robot chest becomes orange, while the inside wing paint becomes silver. There's a new orange pattern on the shell.

Time to go out on a limb and make a big statement: This is the best basic repaint *ever* and possibly the greatest TF repaint of all time. It makes the toy look different, it's appropriate to the toy (red lobsters and sea green) the colour scheme works well - excellently in fact, It original. I just love it to bits so much so that if I was forced to sell everything Rockbuster would be one of the last toys out of the door.

[Philip Ayres]

Mach Kick www.tfu.info/1999/Cybertron/MachKick/machkick.htm

I've not been looking forward to doing this. I have problems with Mach Kick. I struggle to transform him - especially back to horse mode. There's a photo on my PC of how the horse mode should look from the inside with the panel connecting to the front legs removed to help me !

Mack Kick was BW Neo toy C-36 and also was in VS-36 with Archadis.

Mach Kick is a black horse, with a hair tail. His fore & back legs bend at knee and ankle, and the forelegs have a ball joint at the hip. The head raises and lowers, and the jaw opens. He's got an attack gimmick in this mode - push down on the back of the mane and the horse's head telescopes forward courtesy of the mane extending. There's a word for the mechanism behind this but I can't think of it right now (help !)

Mack Kick has a sort of attack/battle station mode. I'm unable to find any photos for it on the net, I haven't got the box that shows it and I can't figure out what to do from the far too small Japanese instructions. You'll have to do without me describing it but it's basically Longrack's. But worse.

TF: (here we go) pop the back up, remove the tail. Look at the horse from the side where the horse is facing to your right. The waist is facing you with the strut on top pointing forward and underneath facing back. The leg on top (his right) comes towards this side and down, the leg on the bottom (his left) goes up and back. Straighten the robot legs up by twisting at the knees. Fold the lower legs up into the front of the lower legs. Fold down the heel spurs. Pop the panel connected to the forelegs off it's pegs. Detach the side panels and fold them down behind the robot legs. Turn round at the waist so the arm folded over the chest faces forward. Fold the horses head down to form one arm. Fold the robot head up and turn round. Fold the horses back up onto the shoulder and turn so it's pointing down. Fold the other arm onto the shoulder under the horses back. Turn the horse legs section the other way up and fold onto the back.

(well as usual describing the TF has helped me to reverse it ! Though it all went a bit wrong around the getting the side panels back in place as I'd managed to get them upside down on the wrong sides - the pegs need to be facing down on the horse mode.)

Robot has ball jointed shoulders, a pair of ball joints on his left elbow, on his neck, waist, hips and knees. The horse arm bends at the elbow. The tail forms a sort of whip/hand axe for the robot to hold in his one fist.

Overall: Robot's OK, limited by the horse's head on the arm. Horse is good, pretty well articulated. TF is horrendous - especially back to beast. My abiding view of the toy is coloured by this, your mileage may vary.

[Philip Ayres]

Really wasn't looking forward to that. Haven't done it justice. But the TF just drives me insane and really puts me off the toy.

[kayevcee]

It took me three months to get Mach Kick back into horse mode after I bought him at Botcon Europe. An impressive feat of engineering, maybe, but if they ever make another TF like it I won't buy it. Or I'll buy them all so I can destroy them.

-Nick

[The Doctor]

Transforming Mach Kick makes grown men weep.

-Ralph

[legios]

I think in all the time I owned Mach Kick he was transformed a grand total of once - if was far too much trouble to ever repeat.

Break and Stampy however are absolutely terrific toys. Stampy just has one of those sculpts that makes one go "Awwwww!", and Break is simply so much fun in terms of his transformation and his alt-mode that he is one of my favourite Beast-era basics (and also he turns from Warrior Robot into a Penguin, which is just a really fun idea).

Karl

[Philip Ayres]

I'm glad it's not just me with Mach Kick. I nearly used the words RID Ultra Magnus in the review because I think that sums up how I feel about the TF.

[legios]

Sept 28, 2008 21:10:19 GMT Philip Ayres said:

I'm glad it's not just me with Mach Kick.

Not at all. Mach Kick is one of those designs that is an absolutely brilliant ideas, a wonderful sculpt - but the execution of the idea is so hair-tearingly frustrating that it robs it whatever lustre it should have had.

Karl

[The Doctor]

DAMN YOU, ULTRA MAGNUS!!!

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

And finally - completing the NEO ybertrons we have .... Polar Claw

Polar Claw www.tfu.info/1996/Maximal/PolarClaw/polarclaw.htm

Polar Claw is one of the first Mega sized Beast Wars releases.The Mega sized toy is the oldest established standard TF size format having been introduced in the early 90s for Stalker and Rotorstorm. The size was resurrected in Beast Wars for toys a bit larger and a bit more action feature packed than the deluxe toys.

As we'll see later Polar Claw wasn't always known by this name, but he's always been sold as such. He's a polar beast, mainly white in colour but with some red and black from robot mode showing through. He's pretty stationary in Beast Mode - the rear legs being part of the gimmick, and the ball joints on the front hip being limited by the rod attaching them to beside the robot's head. By folding the front legs forward until the connecting bar is straight out the sides of the bear you can get full ball jointed movement at the shoulder but that then mean the legs are projected out to the sides by about 1cm.

I mentioned the back legs being part of a gimmick: Pull back on them and the beast mouth opens bearing his fangs. Both his front legs contain gimmicks but only his left leg allows it to be used in robot mode. There's a small lever in the side of the leg - pulling it back cases the front of the leg & the foot to flip up and a robotic jump out of the legs. All well and good, but might have worked better if it had been the beast foot that leaped forward and the top of the legs was part of the mechanism.

TF: From beast mode fold up the toes on the rear legs, fold the back of the legs down to form the lower legs, fold out the robot toes. Straighten the back legs out the back of the beast - you'll probably need to pull one leg first and then the other. Extend the front legs to the sides by pushing forward a little, fold out in front of the beast and then point them upwards. Split the underside of the beast in two and fold to the sides to form the arms. Swing the lower arms in 90 degrees at the elbows. Flip out the hands. Fold down the black piece of plastic covering the robot's waist and lower chest. Fold down the panel in the robot's back from the best head backwards. Fold the beast head forward and down into the robot's waist in the process bringing the robot/mutant head out the back of the robot. Fold the panels up. Position the front beast legs so they're pointing over the robot's shoulders with the feet forward.

Resulting robot is quite chunky, with the majority of the revealed red and black being on the chest. His knees bend as do his hips - the latter being connected to limited ball joints. Both shoulders and elbows are ball jointed and the wrists fold up as part of the TF. The head turns, but turning it through 180 degrees switches form the all red (with black eyes) beast mask to the black helmeted yellow faced robot mode. The top of the head pushed in - it does nothing in this mode but is a key part of the biting gimmick in beast mode - the back legs (now robot legs) move a part in the hips that presses on the top of the robot head which in turn open the beast mouth. The robot fore legs sit on ball joints to act as shoulder cannons. The left one is still the claw firing forward gimmick. The right one has a trigger that fires the entire foreleg forward which then auto TF's into a bat - the first creature reuse in BW (The original basic Optimus Primal was a bat) This bat has spring loaded wings that can be bent in at where they join the body and midway along the wing. The bat can be held, or reversed to form a cross bow like weapon.

Overall: Ok beast mode, with 2 gimmicks that work. OK robot mode which is a tiny bit hindered by the robot hips being involved in the beast gimmick. It's not a bad toy..... but you compare it to Ultra Op, the original deluxes and basics and it feels a little like a weak ling in the chain. It's good, but it's not as special as the toys around it somehow. And certainly doesn't command the money that it's case brother Scorponok does ! (My word, there's a toy that needs a reissue)


Barbearian / Grizzly-1 www.tfu.info/1998/Cybertron/Barbearian/barbearian.htm

If you pick up one of the minicomics that came with the basic Op vs Megatron pack you'll see a TF mega bear is advertised on the back along with a mega Scorpion. Except the bear is called Grizzly-1 and is brown, with the black swapped for white and the red for black. Takara used this as the basis for an exclusive for Botcon Japan in 1998: We had the brown bear, but the black remained and the red became yellow. Somewhere along the line there was some name confusion and the name Barbearian became attached to the toy ! Never mind. It's a clever repaint, but very hard to track down.

Survive www.tfu.info/1999/Cybertron/Survive/survive.htm

Survive was available as Beast Wars Neo toy C-39 or in VS-39 with Killerpunch. They are the last regular BW Neo toys (though the Blendtrons later appear under the X numbering system) and as such are very hard to find, especially the VS pack, because Killerpunch is a substantial remold and has never been recoloured/re-released elsewhere. I always thought a toy could Survive should be partnered somewhere along the line by a toy called Protect (see the famous UK Nuclear War survival tips leaflet and Runrig song of the same name !) However in this pack Survive's bat is called True One. Hmmm, all the subsequent releases have named the bat I wonder what Polar Claw's is called ?

The base colour for this recolour is grey, with the hands, part of the fold down chest panel and lower robot legs being yellow and the remaining robot pieces mainly being a dark blue/dark grey colour. The mutant face is black with red eyes, the robot helmet is red, with a yellow face plate and painted on black eye mask and beard.

It's an OK repaint, but it feels a bit of a cheap copout at the tail end of Neo which had produced some excellent new molds especially since his VS partner is a toy as great as Killerpunch is ! Possibly not worth the trouble of tracking down.

[Philip Ayres]

Two small additions to the Mach Kick review:

Having read up on the toy I'm reminded that Mach Kick and Archadsis are design contest winners in Japan - apparently the horse design was submitted by a child in crayon !

There's a few repaints in Mach Kick that haver never been made. The most obvious is a white horse, but also if you remolded the tail so the tail lost the hair and was more like TM Cheetor and then painted appropriately then the toy would make a good Zebra.

[Philip Ayres]

I'd never noticed before but once the leg is in bat mode it can be reattached to the launcher so Polar Claw (etc) can have the bat sitting on his shoulder !

[Philip Ayres]

Help Needed ! I've got Heinrad / Heinlad (which is more correct ?) sitting here waiting for a review.

I seem to remember his bag/jar is meant to contain something - possibly relating to the Kanji written on them (What do those symbols mean ?)

Thing is what *I* remember them containing is too outrageous for me to commit to print without a source.

So what do you remember is in them ? And is there a page on the net that will back you up ? (and the correct spelling/meaning of the symbols)

[legios]

Nov 13, 2008 11:08:45 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Help Needed ! I've got Heinrad / Heinlad (which is more correct ?)

Whichever one Tomy say. Literally - there is no direct equivalent in Japanese to the distinction English makes between between r and l . So things can be transliterated using either - the usual form would be to accept what an authoratative source wishes you to use.

sitting here waiting for a review.
I seem to remember his bag/jar is meant to contain something - possibly relating to the Kanji written on them (What do those symbols mean ?)

Thing is what *I* remember them containing is too outrageous for me to commit to print without a source.

So what do you remember is in them ? And is there a page on the net that will back you up ? (and the correct spelling/meaning of the symbols)

I'm going to have to do some research on this, but as I believe he is supposed to be done up to represent a Miko (a shinto holy man) I seem to recall it is something to do with Shinto ritual materials. (Something in the back of my mind suggests that it is either Sake or water for use in purification, but I am not certain on that).

EDIT: and I'm right not to be sure. The Wikipedia page on Tanuki identifies amongst their characteristics:-

"(3) a sake bottle that represents virtue, "

In essence he is tootling around with a big jar of Rice Wine. The bag doesn't seem to represent anything from the mythical Tanuki, unless it is supposed to be the promissary note (supposed to represent trust).

EDIT 2:
The Wikipedia page on Heinlad (their useage), identifies the items as a wine jar (which would match with the myth) and a Winers (I think they mean Vintners) Journal.

I shall try and do some digging and I will let you know if I turn anything else up.

EDIT 3: The transformers Wiki:

Heinrad Entry

concurs on the Sake jar and identifies the second item as a "book of IOUs (used to trick people into giving him money)." So, it would appear that there are several theories loose in the Western world.

Karl

[Philip Ayres]

None of which was the one I heard !

[The Doctor]

So, not man-paste then?

-Ralph

[grahamthomson]

Also, the Tanuki allegedly possesses enormous testicles, which are fairly well represented by the Heinlad toy.

[Philip Ayres]

That's more along the lines of what I remember

[grahamthomson]

Nov 14, 2008 10:15:26 GMT Philip Ayres said:

That's more along the lines of what I remember

You remember having enormous testicles? Good grief, Phil, what has the medication done to you!!

[Andy Turnbull]

A slight testicle related diversion, if you want to see Tanuki use their over-inflated ballsacks to knock seven bells out of riot cops get Pom Poko on DVD.

That is all.

Andy

[grahamthomson]

Please, please let that be on Youtube.

[Philip Ayres]

Nov 14, 2008 11:55:30 GMT @grahamthomson said:

Nov 14, 2008 10:15:26 GMT Philip Ayres said:

That's more along the lines of what I remember

You remember having enormous testicles? Good grief, Phil, what has the medication done to you!!

My confused mind though he was carrying his bits in thar and bag !

[The Doctor]

Pom Poko does indeed have said action in it. Very good film.

-Ralph