Phil's ROTF Basic Reviews

[Philip Ayres]

Got a few basics sitting here that need the review treatment....

[Philip Ayres]

Skystalker is a spy plane - I'm told it looks like something called the F-303 seen in Stargate. For a basic he's quite sizeable - he'd have had difficulty fitting inside a standard sized ROTF bubble in vehicle mode. His body is about the same length as some of the basic cars, but the wings are twice the width of the body. There's a landing gear with two wheels that folds down under the nose, but no wheels at the back - just a pair of round pegs. These feature when you use him with Mindwipe - the ROTF Voyager Stealth Plane. The robot's spring loaded feet are under the wings - these can be folded down to form additional support when he's sitting on the ground.

Skystalker has an additional battle mode: fold the engines back 90 degrees so their rear faces down. The engines fold back another 180 degrees at the robot knee so the engine fronts are pointing down. Fold the feet down under legs. This is almost a traditional Robotech Gerwalk mode albeit with no arms. The effect here is to make the spyplane look like a bird.... and of course since the spyplane is coloured black, the bird is a blackbird which in turn is the name of a type of spyplane.

TF: fold the legs out into battle mode and then bend back behind the plane. Fold the landing gear up, fold the nose under the jet and fold the head down - be careful when folding the head back to make sure the horns on the back of the jet fold into the jet's fuselage. Look at the underside of the jet - robot's chest - and unpeg the wings from the fuselage folding them forward. Separate the rear of the jet down the middle and fold up & to the sides at the shoulders to form the arms - the shoulders themselves swing up and into some of the space occupied by the jet's nose preventing the nose from folding back while the arms are extended. Fold the arms down to the side and rotate the elbows so the forearms can fold up.

The first thing you'll notice with the robot mode is the feet - well if you haven't already formed the battle mode that is ! They point straight down and are spring loaded close so need to have some weight applied to them to open them up. In a neutral standing position all the force is pushing in one direction and may not be enough to keep the claws open resulting in the robot toppling over. The best solution I can offer is to rotate the lower legs out by about 20 degrees at the knee which will result in the robot being much more stable. The vehicle's wings are mounted on ball joints on the upper arm. This gives you the ability to move them around and create very different looks for the robot mode from straight up behind the robot, to stored pointing down behind the robot's back to straight out as wings. Within the wings are contained Skystalker's weapons - push them through the wings and push the peg at the base into the palm of the robot's hand. The pegs used here have matching holes on other toys - look out for them. The base of the axe also has a u-shaped clip which can lock round Skystalker's forearm. The head on the toy isn't really traditional transformers style but neither is it quite like the other Bayformers. The horns out the back are more traditional Transformers design but the large round head with it's single cycloptic eye are a little different. He's loaded with articulation and most of it involves ball joints: the top of the neck, shoulders, elbows and hips all feature ball joints while the bottom of the neck bends as do the knees and the ankles.

Overall: some real personality in this toy. Even if you've not been buying the Movie toys I think you aught to give this little guy - released this week in the UK through ASDA (I'm writing 24/04/2010). Well worth a look - and we've hardly looked at his ability to work with Mindwipe here !

[Philip Ayres]

Depth Charge

Depth Charge is a Littoral (Close to shore) combat ship with the helicopter deck at the rear being replaced with a pair of huge elevating and pivoting missile launchers (moulded & non-functional). The entirety of the ship is made up of sea grey/blue plastic with a lighter camouflage pattern covering it.

TF: Split the prow & most of the deck in two and fold forward to become the legs. Rotate at the robot's waist with the underside of the rear of the boat facing forward. Fold the tower halves - now at the base of the leg - back to become heel spurs. Pull the rear sides away from what would be the robot's shoulders to form hands - fold out behind the boat. Separate the helicopter deck and the launchers and fold to the sides to form the arms. Fold the arms into a neutral position, fold the shoulder pads up and position the missile launchers.

Depth Charge's robot mode has the oddest legs of any Transformer - the prow and sides of the ship form the lower legs pointing forward at an angle. Except this is just a shell with the actual lower leg attached to it at an angle till it meets with a knee joint which is behind the leg and with the upper leg rising diagonally towards the waist. The overall effect is something like a centaur with the knee bending in the wrong direction like an animals. The ankles bend to the sides and forward & back while the knees bend. There's a swivel joint on the thigh, the hip joints are ball joints while the waist joint turns. Neck & shoulders are again ball joints with a swivel bicep joint and a double bending elbow. Most of the body parts introduced for the robot mode are in black plastic but the ankle joints, shoulders and missile pod mounts are a beige plastic. The missile pods are the only weapons Depth Charge's robot mode has - mounted on ball joints they can be rotated and elevated on his shoulder pads. The peg holes inside his hands - used for attaching the hands to the sides of the boat - are just the right size for the pegs on Skystalker's weapons so he can hold those.

Decent vehicle mode - not enough Transformer boats. Odd but decent robot. Worth a look, but his repaint is better

Nightboat, The Crime Solving Boat

The packaging says Sonar. But since it's a black repaint that puts it into the territory occupied by 80s black super vehicles Knight Rider, Airwolf & Streethawk so it therefore follows that it must be the homage of these created for the Simpsons episode "And Maggie Makes Three" A basic colour swap - sea blue/grey becomes black, black becomes dark blue and beige becomes white. The black on the boat's skin alternates between gloss and matt giving a nice camouflage pattern. Superb repaint.

[The Doctor]

Nightboat is nice. If I saw one cheap, I'd be tempted.

-Ralph

[legios]

Apr 24, 2010 10:34:20 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Skystalker is a spy plane - I'm told it looks like something called the F-303 seen in Stargate.

Hmm. I guess he does sort of. Not that it had occured to meself But I'd agree with other folk who have said he looks like the American "Sentinel" reconnaisance UAV. He looks a lot like the descriptions that were circulating back before it was declassified and it was the fabled "Beast of Kandahar". (Apart from being olive-green instead of the Sentinel's white paint scheme)

Overall: some real personality in this toy. Even if you've not been buying the Movie toys I think you aught to give this little guy - released this week in the UK through ASDA (I'm writing 24/04/2010). Well worth a look - and we've hardly looked at his ability to work with Mindwipe here !

I will admit to being very impressed with this toy when I saw it at the Death Fortress. Something about it is just a cut above a lot of the other movie 2 toys I have seen. It has a good range of poseability, there is enough freedom in the arms to get some very dynamic looking stances out of him. The stowage for his hatchets, as well as the fact that he has two ways of employing them when they are deployed is quite clever as well.

I love the head-sculpt - the mono-eyed look really suit a Decepticon warrior somehow.

He is definitely a bit of a winner I'd say.

Karl

[blueshift]

The storage for his axes blew my mind. I really like this guy. Still a bit too 'movie-like' for me, but easily the best of the movie figures I've seen.

[Philip Ayres]

Ransack

ROTF Ransack is a Biplane - possibly a first for Transformers. The wings are moulded in beige plastic, while the body is burgundy and all the accessories are a greyish black. He's got a rotating propeller mounted on his nose. Under one wing is a dual machine gun mount while under the other is a pair of bombs. The top of the upper wings each have a Decepticon symbol on them.

TF: Fold the wheels at the front out to the sides a little. Fold the tail down under the cockpit and turn 90 degrees so the upright tail fin is on the right. Fold the fin at the back down and the fin at the front out to the side. Rotate the back fin forward to become the right foot and fold the back fin down to become the left foot. Slide the panels on the robot's hips down and out. Pop the ends of the lower wings out of the piece under the wings. Fold the panel up so it's along the inside of the outer support between the wings. Fold these up against the underside of the top wing. Pop the top wing out of the inner wing support. Fold the wings back behind the cockpit into the space where the tail started. Fold the lower wing up onto the inner wing supports. Unfold the arms from under the wings and straighten the weapons out so they point down the forearms. Pull the engine up to reveal the head and fold the nose down onto the chest.

Ransack's robot mode looks very skeletal - he'd be right at home in the UK comic story where the dead TFs are coming back to life ! There's ball joints at his shoulders & hips, the waist turns and the elbows, knees, ankles and neck (twice) bend. Fold his propeller blade back up to form a cutting weapon on his chest - but he has already got the bombs and machine guns from vehicle mode mounted on each arm. The wings can be slung down his back like a cloak or rotated upwards to give the robot wings.

Some definite personality to this toy, well worth a look.

Red Baron Divebomb

The Red Baron was a famous World War I flying ace on the German side who flew a red biplane. The plane is then an obvious target for a repaint of Ransack then ! Beige & Burgundy become red while the grey becomes black. Realisation is a little on the plasticy side but it's still a really great repaint.

[Philip Ayres]

Revenge of The Fallen Brakedown

I like my Transformer toys to do what it says on the tin. If Optimus Prime's a truck he needs to be red. Bumblebee is yellow and small (not like the movie version), Sideswipe is a red Lamoghini,Prowl's a police car and Ironhide's a van. The Movie line frequently forgets these ideas and many others. Breakdown is a white Lamboghini Stunticon with Blue robot parts. So is ROTF Brakedown. They get it right for a minor character and get some of the others so, so wrong. (Ratchet) Brakedown apes his predecesor's vehicle mode down to the coloured stripe and Decepticon symbol on the bonnet.

TF: Tunr the car over. Pull both sides of the car out to the sides and back a little to form the arms. Fold the front of the car down under the back to form the legs. Fold the legs forward and then the waist back bringing the legs back under the car. Seperate the lower legs, rotate outwards, fold the bonnet halves back and fold down the feet. Fold the arms down to the sides and extend the elbows. Fold the roof of the car back and swing the windscreen round to cover the rear of the roof. Fold the robot head up.

Brakedown's robot mode completes the homage with plenty of blue robot parts and a head that bears a resemblance to the original complete with red face. The head is on a ball joint as are the shoulders at the body which also have an upwards bending joint at the arm. The arm has a bicep swivel, bends twice at the elbow and has ball jointed wrists. No waist joint, but ball joints at the hips, a thigh swivel, bending knee and ankle. The toy's problems in robot mode stem from it's proportions - the head's too big and the arms too long - extended straight out they drop down bellow the knees.

The colours and car are right, it doesn't look too much like a movie robot but the proportions are a bit odd. Worth a look especially if you can find it in one of the offers that's been on.

Repaints

Go on, give us a G2 Brakedown!

[Philip Ayres]

Still to come:

Dirt Boss/Dead Lift
Deadend/Nightbeat/Slapdash
Knock-Out/Reverb/Trenchmouth
Rollbar/Wideload
Dunerunner/Beachcomber/Crankstart
Scalpel
Ejector
Scattorshot

[Philip Ayres]

Dead End

Welcome to my review of the ROTF Homage king ! The original Deadend is a Stunticon, a burgundy red Porsche 928. The new Deadend is a red car that resembles a Peugot 9009 concept car. I think the vehicle mode for this Decepticon looks similar to the Porsche 962 car used for previous Transformers such as Tailspin and Backstreet. Try very hard and you can open the car's boot on this vehicle mode.

TF: Fold the sides and back wheels of the car out and up. Turn the car over. Fold the boot back & up, then fold the boot down and slide the top of the car up to reveal the robot's head. Open the bonnet up, separate the legs, fold the feet out and fold the wheels back.

Dead End's robot mode has the skeletal characteristic common to many ROTF Transformers toys. He's blessed with a goodly amount of ball jointed articulation including shoulders, elbows, wrists (!) and hips. Bending joints are found at the knee & ankle and there's a swivel joint at the thigh - no bicep swivel is necessary due to the ball jointed elbow: another lesson in why ball joints are great. He's got no waist swivel or turning neck but her does have some compensation in the head: the jaw opens to reveal a set of teeth! Mostly the robot mode continues the red plastic seen in the vehicle mode, but the waist, lower legs, shoulder joints and head are a bronzey beige plastic and the lower arms, hands and feet are black plastic. The hands have a small round hole in the middle of them. While not obvious at release it's become apparent that these holes let him hold Skystalker's hand axes by the peg sticking out the handle.

Overall: The car mode and robot aren't shaped like the original, but they're coloured right. The Bayness of the toy is reduced by it being a basic. Worth a look, but check out the repaints first.

Nightbeat

The Nightbeat Autobot repaint is obviously a homage to Headmaster Nightbeat swapping the red for light blue, black for beigey bronze and beigey bronze for grey. He also gains some yellow flame details. I've seen it claimed that this repaint started life as a Packrat homage but ended up as Nightbeat because "Marketing felt the name "Packrat" wouldn't appeal enough to children,". I think the bubble on the car is a decent evolution for Nightbeat's rounded shape, but think a blue version of this toy might be better named Tailspin. I also question the appropriateness of putting out a Nightbeat repaint so soon after the fan club tried to sell it's own Nightbeat repaint of Energon's Hotshot.

Slapdash

Slap Dash is a Wal*mart exclusive repaint sold in a 2-pack with Trenchmouth who is himself a repaint of Knock-out. The original Powermaster version of Slapdash was a yellow and blue race car. This new version is a yellow/orange (for red) repaint of Dead End (bronzey/beige becomes a similar orange/yellow and the black becomes grey). I think the colour and mode combination points towards a different late G1 toy - the Triggerbot Backstreet though I think you could make a decent argument for this being a ROTF homage to Generation 1 Wheelie.

Either way this pack failed to show up in ASDA (Wal*Mart's UK arm) possibly due to an abundance of the Data War and Wave War 2 packs.

[Philip Ayres]

Ejector

Every so often a TF comes along that's real pleasure. And then we get the real stinkers. Guess which Ejector is.....

His alternate mode is a four slice toaster - this appeared in an advert connected with the first film and actually appears in the second. The toaster is reasonably solid from some angles but look closely and you can see a lot of panel cracks for transformation. Even worse one side is completely open letting you see into the toy. Oh dear. He's got a plug, but it's not a standard British one and it's attached by a bit of string.

Turn the toy over looking at the open base with the open side pointing down. Fold the bottom down to become the legs and fold down the feet. Bend at the knees and reverse the lower legs. Fold the back panel down - the top of the toaster with the slots in - yes it does fold down ! Fold the moulded end of the toaster onto the toy's back. Fold the face up from the chest. Fold the back of the robot round to the sides to become arms and then fold the sides down to become forearms. Raise the arm panel next to the shoulders up then unfold a second set of forearms. Finally fold the mouth down over the shoulder panels and replace the back panel.

This is a hideous, misproportioned little troll of a Decepticon with it's mouth on it's chest, too many arms and a string tail. He'll stand up, but not too well. His ankles bend, the lower legs turn bellow the bending knees and there's ball jointed hips. The shoulders have joints at the body that fold back a little, ball joints at the arms, a bending elbow on both lower arms per arm, an additional ball joint on the inner arm and a bending wrist & fingers.

There's nothing wrong with this toy that a decent robot head, replacing the outer arms with guns and straightening the legs wouldn't cure. But that's a long list. And this is a hideous toy which is doing it's best to shelf warm.

[Philip Ayres]

Scattorshot

Scattorshot has his origins in a few previous Transformers. The general form of blue pick up truck comes from Dropkick from the first movie, while the snowplough on the front comes from (the similarly blue) Animated Sentinel Prime . The name and twin weapons on the roof come from the (again blue !) Cybertron Scattorshot who also donates the grey and bronzey beige used for this toy. The Snowplough is stationary but the guns on the roof can rotate through 360 degrees and elevate.

TF: Pull the front of the vehicle down to form the robot's feet - the windscreen is the heel spurs, the bonnet is the toes and the snow plough folds under the car onto the robot's knees. Pull the outer halves of the cab out and forward to form the forearms - fold the hands out and fold the sides up against the forearms. Swing the guns round so they face forward and are held in the robot's hands. Separate the upper arms and fold the shoulders out to the sides. Fold the back of the truck up and then fold both shoulders back to lock round the back of the truck. Stand.

Scattorshot's robot mode is a bit top heavy with the box from his back surrounding the body and head. The head is the most annoying thing about this toy, it looks like he's wearing an American Footballer's helmet. This mode introduces grey for the upper arms and some beigey bronze for the waist, shoulder joints and cannons. The cannons are now mounted on the top of his wrists with handles that descend into his hands. For a bonus you can clip Skystalker's axes onto the gun barrels and use them as bayonets. Articulation: bending ankle, ball jointed knees & hips, turning waist, ball jointed neck & shoulders, double elbow with a bending joint at the top & a ball joint at the bottom and hands that bend in at the wrists.

Overall: Decent toy in both modes. Could do with a new head though!

[Philip Ayres]

Knock-out

I like a new Transformers motorbike, especially the more sporting motorbike form used here (see also: Road Rocket and Arcee) The vehicle modes for these need to be sleek & compact not allowing a lot of room for manoeuvre when fitting in robot parts.

Knock-Out is an Autobot, a Grey-black bike, with a black seat and grey handlebars & side struts. The wheels are also black but this is separate moulding sprue to the seat as we'll see later. The wheels roll ok, with the front one mounted in a turning fork - not linked to the handlebars sadly. The bike stands by itself thanks to a very low undercarriage.

TF: split the underside of the bike in two down the middle, pull out to both sides and fold down under the seat. Fold the feet down and from the feet fold the heel spurs out. Turn the side panels so they're along the legs - reattaching if necessary. The side panels are just pegged in so will come off. Split the windshield in two down the middle, fold back alongside the fuel tank - revealing the robot's head - and turn the windshield halves so they face forward. Split the remainder of the back of the bike - including the rear wheel & saddle - in two down the middle and fold forward locking round the front of the bike. Lock the robot's waist in place behind the fuel tank. Stand. Fold the arms - made from the saddle and back of the bike - down to the sides rotating the lower arm in by 90 degrees to reveal the fists.

One of the most noticeable features of the robot mode is the head, he's got a moulded face mask very much in the style of Marvel's Wolverine. This would lend itself to some nice repaints like Wolverine's various costumes: yellow & blue, beige & brown and black & silver. If they don' turn up as exclusives somewhere (and there's no reason why they shouldn't given that Hasbro have the Marvel licence) then you can lay money on seeing some in a Botcon customisation contest any time soon. The other prominent detail on the toy is the cannon moulded into the end of the robot's right arm. He's a winner on the articulation front - the only bending joint is the ankle, everything else is ball jointed: knee, hip, neck, shoulders & elbows.

Overall: Decent bike & robot is a tiny bit spoilt by the colours that just don't work for me.

Reverb

Reverb is a Decepticon repaint of Knock-Out. The plastic has the following colour substitutions:

Red - Grey-black
Burgundy - black (seat)
grey - grey
black - black (wheels)

On the plastic for the bike we've got a paint scheme of a thin white stripe and blue panels with the number 97 on it. This brings to mind the Autobot Smokescreen. Knock-Out's kind of an inverse of Smokescreen's Blue with white stripe and red panel. Smokescreen's racing number is 38 - all we need is Reverb's to be 83 and it would be perfect.

Trenchmouth

Trenchmouth is a Wal*Mart exclusive packed with Slapdash. To date they've not showed up in ASDA in the UK. The plastic swaps used in the toy are very similar to those used for Reverb:

Red - Grey-black
Brown - black (seat)
grey - grey
black - black (wheels)

The difference between the two repaints is really the paint used: there's very little used here, just a touch of brown round the edges.

Backfire

Knock-out proves himself to be the ROTF repaint king by being the first to three repaints. This forthcoming toy - there's pictures at his BBTS Pre-order - has the following colour swaps inspired by the Energon Arcee toy:

White - Grey-black
red - black (seat)
metallic grey - grey
black - black (wheels)

The white and red looks very sleek on the bike mode, while the robot mode looks a lot like Beast Wars Ramulus.

[Philip Ayres]

Rollbar - the name originally used for Throttlebot Rollbar - is a delivery van. He's mainly grey in colour with dark blue paint and plastic making up the rear of the vehicle. One wheel at the front & two at the back on each side.

TF: Fold the panel between the front wheel and back wheels on each side back to cover the back wheels. Slide the blue doors at the back down out of the slots underneath bringing the rear wheels with them and bending the robot legs at the knees. Fold the dark blue panels at the rear of the van out to the sides, then rotate the pale blue panel they're connected to back through nearly 360 degrees. Separate the top of the van in two and foldout to the sides revealing the arms. Fold the pale blue panel up to become the chest panel which in turn folds out the legs and lowers the front of the vehicle to reveal the head.

This last step makes Rollbar feel like the missing Autobot Flipchanger, except the Flipchangers do more of their TF automatically. In fact the articulation is almost identical to Flipchanger Hoist/Hubcap etc: Ball joints at the hips, knees and elbows, fore & aft at the inner shoulder joint, and up to the side at the outer one using 3 bits of plastic where 2 would have done with a ball joint. There's a pin through the ankles making them look like they should bend to the sides but they don't. Lower limbs, outer chest panel and head are made of the dark blue plastic while most of the rest is light grey plastic bar the chest panel and panels folded back on the lower legs which are light blue. There's he head of the robot looks and is coloured like Optimus Prime, indeed there's something of Optimus about the entire robot mode.

Vehicle mode isn't that exciting and neither is the robot mode. Nothing the Machine Wars Flipchangers didn't do as well twelve years previously.

Wideload

Wideload - like the first use of this mould, a name recycled from a Throttlebot this time Wideload - is a colour swap repaint of Rollbar - grey becomes creamy yellow, light blue becomes dark blue and dark blue becomes light grey.

The creamy yellow just doesn't work for me and the other colours are too similar to the original. Maybe an orange and blue combination like his namesake might have been better ?

[blueshift]

My main problem with Rollbar isn't the simplicity - sometimes that is cool. It's more the high amount of grey plastic used. Grey plastic is probably the most boring material used in Transformers, I can't think of a single occasion when I've liked it

[Philip Ayres]

Dunerunner

Dune Runner is essentially a scaled down version of the deluxe toy Landmine from the first Movie. A dark green dune buggy style jeep with black wheels he has a pair of silver/grey machine guns mounted on pale blue arms behind the driver's compartment. The arms pivot at their base and a the gun allowing the guns to always be horizontal no matter which direction the arm is positioned.

TF: Fold the lights & bumper forward to form the feet - these are silver but this is paint later revealed to be the same plastic as the robot's upper limbs. Fold the light blue heel spurs out the feet. Fold the front of the vehicle down under the cab and separate to form the robot's legs. Fold the sides of the vehicle out to the sides via a joint inside the vehicle then fold them back up via a revealed ball joint that's further away from the body. Straighten the sides of the vehicle to form the arms. Fold back the back of the vehicle to reveal the head which might need pushing back a bit. Rotate the waist 180 degrees and fold the cab's roof down to form the robot's chest.

The head on this toy is odd. It looks like some poorly moulded thing painted silver (it's moulded with the car body so would be green) you'd find on a knock off! Lower arms - beneath a double bending elbow - are revealed to be the same light blue plastic as before but the upper arms are a black plastic - the repaints show this is a different sprue to the wheels. These have ball jointed shoulders which fold forward at the body. The head turns - it's probably ball jointed, I can't be sure - as does the waist. Ball jointed hips lead to black upper legs (like the upper arms and waist) which are connected to the lower legs made from the front of the vehicle by a bending joint. Another bending joint is found at the ankle. The cannons have ended up mounted on top of the shoulders in this mode and have the same articulation as before.

Decent robot & vehicle but spoiled by the head.

Beachcomber

Beachcomber appear in a Wal*Mart 2 pack with Deadlift, a repaint of Dirtboss.

Simple colour swaps here:

Green - car body - becomes blue
Light blue - weapon mounts & forearms - becomes off white
Black - upper limbs & waist - becomes off white
Black - wheels- stay the same

Obvious recolour as G1 Beachcomber.

Crankstart

Crankstart is a forthcoming ROTF basic - you can view his BBTS Pre order here.

Simple colour swaps here again:

Green - car body - becomes dark green
Light blue - weapon mounts & forearms - becomes silvery grey
Black - upper limbs & waist - becomes blue/grey
Black - wheels- stay the same

Very similarly themed to the original, I won't be bothering with it.

[Philip Ayres]

Dirtboss

It's always nice to find a new vehicle mode for a Transformer: Dirt Boss is a fork lift truck. Someone has obviously decided that this is a sort of construction vehicle because he's moulded in a yellow plastic with a sort of lime tint to it. He's got a grey cage cab - complete with moulded seat and steering wheel. The forklift blades - also grey - don't raise, but the lifting gear they're attached to can pivot back.

TF: Unpeg the legs from under the truck and fold down under the back of the vehicle. Fold the feet down. Separate the forks, cab and body bending each half back to the sides of the rear of the vehicle. Fold the seat back to become a backpack. Push the cab halves up to reveal the head. Fold the arms out to the side of the body with the forks becoming blades projecting out from under the arms.

The prominent features of the robot mode are a big radar dish on the figure's grey chest - I have imagination so it's a huge chest cannon :-) - and the halves of the cab cage forming *HUGE* shoulder pads towering over the robot - a hinge to enable these to fold down to the sides would have been useful as would some mechanism to lock the head & shoulders up - they tend to slip together. He's mostly ball joint articulated - shoulder, elbow, hip & knee - with the wrists and ankles bending.

Points for being a new vehicle mode but the colour isn't helping it and neither are those shoulder pads.

But why are you reading this ? There's a much better video review on The StarDub YouTube Channel !

Deadlift

Deadlift is a Wal*mart exclusive packed with Beachcomber who is a repaint of Dunerunner.

The toy is a basic colour swap with the yellow becoming orange and the grey becoming a darker grey. There's quite a bit of painting going on too with the lower limbs painted a silvery grey.

Decent repaint coloured *much* better than the original.

[Philip Ayres]

Scalpel

Scalpel is something different. He's a Decepticon Medic for a start. He's also another household object like Ejector - an off white Microscope. The lenses pivot and move up & down.

TF: Fold the base up to the sides. Inside are six legs - unfold them. One set of three legs slides up to match the others. Rotate the legs at the knees. Split the lense mount in two , fold down to the sides, fold out the eyes and fold out the arms from under the lense mount. Fold the tops of the lense mounts underneath and bring them together. Fold the stem of the Microscope under the base and rotate the lense mount. Extend the legs.

No, that's not the best transformation description I've ever written. But all the legs fell off while I was doing it and it's hard to know what you're doing with a non-humanoid robotmode. What you get is some sort of six legged insect with huge eyes, antennae and tiny arms. Ball joints at each knee and hip as well as the shoulders while the arms bend.

VERY fragile - as I mentioned the legs fell off and several of the thin grey ball sockets have cracks in. AVOID. I'm now going to try to rebuild mine in the more stable microscope mode.

[Philip Ayres]

May 7, 2010 13:30:18 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Revenge of The Fallen Brakedown

I like my Transformer toys to do what it says on the tin. If Optimus Prime's a truck he needs to be red. Bumblebee is yellow and small (not like the movie version), Sideswipe is a red Lamoghini,Prowl's a police car and Ironhide's a van. The Movie line frequently forgets these ideas and many others. Breakdown is a white Lamboghini Stunticon with Blue robot parts. So is ROTF Brakedown. They get it right for a minor character and get some of the others so, so wrong. (Ratchet) Brakedown apes his predecesor's vehicle mode down to the coloured stripe and Decepticon symbol on the bonnet.

TF: Tunr the car over. Pull both sides of the car out to the sides and back a little to form the arms. Fold the front of the car down under the back to form the legs. Fold the legs forward and then the waist back bringing the legs back under the car. Seperate the lower legs, rotate outwards, fold the bonnet halves back and fold down the feet. Fold the arms down to the sides and extend the elbows. Fold the roof of the car back and swing the windscreen round to cover the rear of the roof. Fold the robot head up.

Brakedown's robot mode completes the homage with plenty of blue robot parts and a head that bears a resemblance to the original complete with red face. The head is on a ball joint as are the shoulders at the body which also have an upwards bending joint at the arm. The arm has a bicep swivel, bends twice at the elbow and has ball jointed wrists. No waist joint, but ball joints at the hips, a thigh swivel, bending knee and ankle. The toy's problems in robot mode stem from it's proportions - the head's too big and the arms too long - extended straight out they drop down bellow the knees.

The colours and car are right, it doesn't look too much like a movie robot but the proportions are a bit odd. Worth a look especially if you can find it in one of the offers that's been on.

Repaints

Go on, give us a G2 Brakedown!

Oil Pan

Oil Pan swaps Breakdown's white for orange and blue for purple. Now you might think that this is a bit like a failed attempt at doing Stunticon Breakdown's team mate Dragstrip, but what this really reminds me of is Pretender Bludgeon (who has already had a

So Oil Pan will be my new Bludgeon. All he needs is a sword.

[Philip Ayres]

REPAINT TIME !

May 8, 2010 21:29:05 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Scattorshot

Scattorshot has his origins in a few previous Transformers. The general form of blue pick up truck comes from Dropkick from the first movie, while the snowplough on the front comes from (the similarly blue) Animated Sentinel Prime . The name and twin weapons on the roof come from the (again blue !) Cybertron Scattorshot who also donates the grey and bronzey beige used for this toy. The Snowplough is stationary but the guns on the roof can rotate through 360 degrees and elevate.

TF: Pull the front of the vehicle down to form the robot's feet - the windscreen is the heel spurs, the bonnet is the toes and the snow plough folds under the car onto the robot's knees. Pull the outer halves of the cab out and forward to form the forearms - fold the hands out and fold the sides up against the forearms. Swing the guns round so they face forward and are held in the robot's hands. Separate the upper arms and fold the shoulders out to the sides. Fold the back of the truck up and then fold both shoulders back to lock round the back of the truck. Stand.

Scattorshot's robot mode is a bit top heavy with the box from his back surrounding the body and head. The head is the most annoying thing about this toy, it looks like he's wearing an American Footballer's helmet. This mode introduces grey for the upper arms and some beigey bronze for the waist, shoulder joints and cannons. The cannons are now mounted on the top of his wrists with handles that descend into his hands. For a bonus you can clip Skystalker's axes onto the gun barrels and use them as bayonets. Articulation: bending ankle, ball jointed knees & hips, turning waist, ball jointed neck & shoulders, double elbow with a bending joint at the top & a ball joint at the bottom and hands that bend in at the wrists.

Overall: Decent toy in both modes. Could do with a new head though!

Hunt For The Decepticons Flak

Flak's a straight colour swap for Scattorshot:

Dark grey - with a white & black urban camouflage pattern - replaces blue.
Black replaces grey
Burgundy brown replaces bronze.

Not the worst repaint I've seen in the last year.

Flak is sold as part of The Ravage Infiltration pack which also includes Ravage, a repaint of Revenge of The Fallen Legends Ravage and Rollbar, a repaint of Revenge of The Fallen Dune Runner plus some figures recycled from older Screen Battle sets. To date this set has not been released in the USA, where it was scheduled to be a Target exclusive, and is only available in the UK as an exclusive for Sainsburys, where it shelfwarmed at full price (£27 - not Surprising when a scout is £7 and a legend is £4) and is now still sitting there at half price. Curiously Sainsburys' last exclusive, a 3 pack of recycled Cybertron scouts, did the same thing.

Hunt For The Decepticons Firetrap

Do I really need a third version of Scattorshot? Well the answer's probably no. But I kept going into ASDA and seeing him there, probably not the same one because the Scout case is selling well and he's one per case. He's been looking at me and talking to me. "Take me home, I look nice" was wearing me down. Then today (Friday 4th Feb) we had "Take me home with you, I'm really Roadbuster" and that was it: I had to have him.

Colour swaps:

Army green replaces blue
Orangey yellow replaces silver.
Brown replaces bronze.

In some ways he's more Brawn than Roadbuster, but to me, he's Roadbuster and I love him.

Future Repaints

I feel the Firetrap name was wasted on the above: How about a red version with a white front blade and weapon as a snowploughed fire truck with water cannons on top? Or even an all white artic version ?

`

[Philip Ayres]

May 12, 2010 15:47:21 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Dunerunner

Dune Runner is essentially a scaled down version of the deluxe toy Landmine from the first Movie. A dark green dune buggy style jeep with black wheels he has a pair of silver/grey machine guns mounted on pale blue arms behind the driver's compartment. The arms pivot at their base and a the gun allowing the guns to always be horizontal no matter which direction the arm is positioned.

TF: Fold the lights & bumper forward to form the feet - these are silver but this is paint later revealed to be the same plastic as the robot's upper limbs. Fold the light blue heel spurs out the feet. Fold the front of the vehicle down under the cab and separate to form the robot's legs. Fold the sides of the vehicle out to the sides via a joint inside the vehicle then fold them back up via a revealed ball joint that's further away from the body. Straighten the sides of the vehicle to form the arms. Fold back the back of the vehicle to reveal the head which might need pushing back a bit. Rotate the waist 180 degrees and fold the cab's roof down to form the robot's chest.

The head on this toy is odd. It looks like some poorly moulded thing painted silver (it's moulded with the car body so would be green) you'd find on a knock off! Lower arms - beneath a double bending elbow - are revealed to be the same light blue plastic as before but the upper arms are a black plastic - the repaints show this is a different sprue to the wheels. These have ball jointed shoulders which fold forward at the body. The head turns - it's probably ball jointed, I can't be sure - as does the waist. Ball jointed hips lead to black upper legs (like the upper arms and waist) which are connected to the lower legs made from the front of the vehicle by a bending joint. Another bending joint is found at the ankle. The cannons have ended up mounted on top of the shoulders in this mode and have the same articulation as before.

Decent robot & vehicle but spoiled by the head.

Beachcomber

Beachcomber appear in a Wal*Mart 2 pack with Deadlift, a repaint of Dirtboss.

Simple colour swaps here:

Green - car body - becomes blue
Light blue - weapon mounts & forearms - becomes off white
Black - upper limbs & waist - becomes off white
Black - wheels- stay the same

Obvious recolour as G1 Beachcomber.

Crankstart

Crankstart is a forthcoming ROTF basic - you can view his BBTS Pre order here.

Simple colour swaps here again:

Green - car body - becomes dark green
Light blue - weapon mounts & forearms - becomes silvery grey
Black - upper limbs & waist - becomes blue/grey
Black - wheels- stay the same

Very similarly themed to the original, I won't be bothering with it.

Hunt for the Decepticons Rollbar

The fourth version of this toy has the following colour swaps:

Grey - with black & white urban camouflage - replaces Green for the car body Pinky brown replaces Light blue for the weapon mounts & forearms

Decent repaint, but I prefer Beachcomber (above).

Rollbar is sold as part of The Ravage Infiltration pack which also includes Ravage, a repaint of Revenge of The Fallen Legends Ravage and Flak, a repaint of Revenge of The Fallen Scattorshot plus some figures recycled from older Screen Battle sets.To date this set has not been released in the USA, where it was scheduled to be a Target exclusive, and is only available in the UK as an exclusive for Sainsburys, where it shelfwarmed at full price (£27 - not Surprising when a scout is £7 and a legend is £4) and is now still sitting there at half price.Curiously Sainsburys' last exclusive, a 3 pack of recycled Cybertron scouts, did the same thing.

[Philip Ayres]

I've tweaked the Skystalker review while writing about his repaints so here it is again this time with new friends:

Revenge of the Fallen Skystalker

Skystalker is a spy plane - I'm told it looks like something called the F-303 seen in Stargate. For a basic he's quite sizeable - he'd have had difficulty fitting inside a standard sized ROTF bubble in vehicle mode. His body is about the same length as some of the basic cars, but the wings are twice the width of the body. There's a landing gear with two wheels that folds down under the nose, but no wheels at the back - just a pair of round pegs. These feature when you use him with Mindwipe - the ROTF Voyager Stealth Plane combining them in jet mode..... well I say combining, Skystalker sits on Mindwipe, but it's meant to evoke the G2 ATB formed from Dreadwing and Smokescreen. The robot's spring loaded feet are under the wings - these can be folded down to form additional support when he's sitting on the ground.

Skystalker has an additional battle mode: fold the engines back 90 degrees so their rear faces down. The engines fold back another 180 degrees at the robot knee so the engine fronts are pointing down. Fold the feet down under legs. This is almost a traditional Robotech Gerwalk mode albeit with no arms. The effect here is to make the spyplane look like a bird.... and of course since the spyplane is coloured black, the bird is a blackbird which in turn is the name of a type of spyplane.

TF: fold the legs out into battle mode and then bend back behind the plane. Fold the landing gear up, fold the nose under the jet and fold the head down - be careful when folding the head back to make sure the horns on the back of the jet fold into the jet's fuselage. Look at the underside of the jet - robot's chest - and unpeg the wings from the fuselage folding them forward. Separate the rear of the jet down the middle and fold up & to the sides at the shoulders to form the arms - the shoulders themselves swing up and into some of the space occupied by the jet's nose preventing the nose from folding back while the arms are extended. Fold the arms down to the side and rotate the elbows so the forearms can fold up.

The first thing you'll notice with the robot mode is the feet - well if you haven't already formed the battle mode that is ! They point straight down and are spring loaded close so need to have some weight applied to them to open them up. In a neutral standing position all the force is pushing in one direction and may not be enough to keep the claws open resulting in the robot toppling over. The best solution I can offer is to rotate the lower legs out by about 20 degrees at the knee which will result in the robot being much more stable. The vehicle's wings are mounted on ball joints on the upper arm. This gives you the ability to move them around and create very different looks for the robot mode from straight up behind the robot, to stored pointing down behind the robot's back to straight out as wings. Within the wings are contained Skystalker's weapons - push them through the wings and push the peg at the base into the palm of the robot's hand. The pegs used here have matching holes on other toys - look out for them. The base of the axe also has a C-shaped clip which can lock round Skystalker's forearm and onto the 3mm bars found on other Transformers toys. The head on the toy isn't really traditional transformers style but neither is it quite like the other Bayformers. The horns out the back are more traditional Transformers design but the large round head with it's single cycloptic eye are a little different. He's loaded with articulation and most of it involves ball joints: the top of the neck, shoulders, elbows and hips all feature ball joints while the bottom of the neck bends as do the knees and the ankles.

Overall: some real personality in this toy. Even if you've not been buying the Movie toys I think you aught to give this little guy - released this week in the UK through ASDA (I'm writing 24/04/2010). Well worth a look - and we've hardly looked at his ability to work with Mindwipe here !

Smokescreen

We've already commented how Skystalker & Mindwipe both individually and combined in jet mode evoke the G2 ATB formed from Dreadwing and Smokescreen. So a recolour as the G2 version was inevitable. Here's the colour swaps used:

Blue replaces black.
Black replaces olive grey.

It's a very nice looking repaint there's two downsides to it:

1) The blue plastic is reportedly quite weak and prone to cracking if you, say, pop the weapons out of the wings.

2) It's only available in a 2-pack with Smokescreen repaint of Mindwipe which was an exclusive at Tokyo Toy Show 2010, and thus costs a penny or two to buy.

Oh well.

Hunt For The Decepticons Sunspot

Every so often a repaint comes along which is truly barking mad but at the same time manages to work. Ladies and gentlemen: Hunt For The Decepticons Sunspot. Here's the colour swaps:

White replaces black.
Slate grey replaces olive grey on the feet, legs and lower arms.
Yellow replaces olive grey on the hips, upper arms, c-clips and the neck

Add onto the white some extensive yellow paint and you get something that should look hideous, but doesn't. There's a small amount of inspiration taken from Sunstorm and his various spawn here. Somehow the colours work despite the madness of it. Sadly they aren't matched on Strafe, Mindwipe's repaint, who inexplicably becomes an Autobot to Sunspot's Decepticon and gets a pale grey and red paint scheme that in no way works with Sunspot's. Again, Oh dear.

Still at least Sunspot's great.