Dave's Titanium Series Transformers Rant: 3" Assortment 2 Optimus Prime (G1) Smokescreen (Alternator) Bumblebee (G1) Scorponok (Energon) Grimlock (G1) Predaking (G1) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/3Titanium2 It looks like Titanium TFs are going to be released in ways that are designed to annoy me, in weird dribs and drabs. So I'm just going to arbitrarily say that "Assortment 2" is the second nine figures, regardless of how they get released, nyah. I'll add to this review as the figures come into my possession. The checklist included with the figures only has 15 figures, so there may only be 6 in this review, I'll find out when I find out. Got the second trio late in October 2006. http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/3Titanium1 covers the packaging style and general design aesthetic. CAPSULES Optimus Prime: Generally looks good in the right poses, but has some oddball posing in general. Mildly recommended. $4.99 at Target. Smokescreen: Wobbly, oddly posed, lacks the rally paint apps. Neutral. $4.99 at Target. Bumblebee: Interesting toy/cartoon hybrid, good pose. Could stand a little more paint, but otherwise I like it. Recommended. $4.99 at Target. Scorponok: Colors a little iffy, okay pose and sculpt. Mildly recommended. $4.99 at hasbrotoyshop.com. Grimlock: Decent sculpt, odd pose, could use a little more paint. Mildly recommended. $4.99 at hasbrotoyshop.com. Predaking: Pretty good pose and colors, goes with the animation model rather than the toy configuration. Recommended. $4.99 at hasbrotoyshop.com. RANTS With this assortment, they seem to have given up on the idea of pegged bases entirely, as the figures don't even have pegholes in their feet. Prime, Smokescreen and Bumblebee are held in by single twist-ties, have guns in the blister next to them, and the same sort of rubber-banded Autobot symbol bases as previous Autobots (and none have pegs). Smokescreen also has a rubber band connecting his legs behind the blister and another keeping his arms down. He's definitely a case for getting out the scissors. This wave comes with the same catalogs as came with the later assortment 1 figures. AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME Ancient, wise, and powerful, OPTIMUS PRIME is the greatest leader the AUTOBOTS have ever known. Patient, understanding and kind during moments of peace, he is nonetheless as skilled a warriors as he is a leader and a diplomat. It has been noted more than once that his wisdom is so great that he seems to have a deeper understanding of the universe than he lets on. STR 10 INT 9 SPD 8 END 10 COUR 10 FRB 9 Avg 9.33 Hm, two different rules for commas in lists followed in one bio note. :) Height: 2.5" (6cm) Parts: Torso and boots are metal. Arms are red plastic, head and hands are dark blue plastic, pelvis/thighs and gun are silver plastic, wheels on boots are probably black plastic, but might be silver with black paint. The red and blue plastics both react moderately to UV. Paints: A lot of different paint applications on this one. Silver on the face, forehead, smokestacks, hubcaps, flanks, fueltanks and several other fiddly details. Dark gray on the abdomen, lower thighs, shins, back, and various boot details. I think the eyes may also be dark gray. Black windows and shoulder joints. Yellow on the chest lights and pelvis. Dark blue paint on his skidplate to match his boots. This may also be his eye color, it's really hard to tell. There's an Autobot symbol printed in red and white on his left shoulder, but not his right. The paints don't seem to react to UV, and there's a small chip on the chest. Pose: Slightly crouched. Right arm is bent at 90 degrees and intended for holding his rifle. The left arm is in a weird "Delbo Point" sort of position, and it seems like he's intended for poses in which he's scolding someone. Like, pointing down at something and telling Grimlock to clean up his mess. Oh, I suppose he can also be posed with rifle raised and arm pointed at the enemy, in an "Autobots, ATTACK!" sort of thing. But I like the scolding ones better. Swivel shoulders, neck, waist and wrists. Accessory: Silver version of the classic Optimus Prime rifle 47mm long (about 2"). Overall: Kinda weirdly posed, and could really use a foot peg to deal with minor stability issues. Would have been nice if his gun were black, too. Not horrible, not great. Kinda middle of the road. AUTOBOT: SMOKESCREEN If there's one thing SMOKESCREEN hates, it's a fair fight. That's why it's his job to make sure battle tips in favor of the AUTOBOTS. Charming, clever and sneaky, if he can't out-drive something, he can usually out-talk it, and failing that ge can generate a dense cloud of magnetized smoke that sticks to and follows his victim. His weaponry includes an array of sensor- disrupting missiles and flak launchers, and an electro-shock rifle that can scramble most circuitry. STR 4 INT 9 SPD 7 END 6 COUR 8 FRB 7 6.83 I wonder if they meant "chaff" rather than "flak", based on context. Height: 2.25" (5.5cm). Parts: Torso/pelvis and boots are metal. Thighs and gun are silver plastic, I think. All the other parts are metallic blue plastic, and it's possible that the thighs and gun are as well. The blue plastic reacts moderately to UV. Paints: Most of the metal parts are painted in metallic blue, slightly darker than the metallic blue plastic. Silver on the forearms, thighs (maybe), windows, face, headlights and maybe gun. Black trim in various places, on the flanks and tires, and possibly on the gun. Red taillights, yellow license plate. The helmet horns and hubcaps are gold. There's dark gray on the front grille bits. There's red and silver Autobot symbols on both shoulders. The eyes seem to have been left unpainted. It's worth noting that there was no attempt to do the rally paint in yellow, it's possible they didn't seek licensure for this toy (which would go along with the Titanium version of Jazz being Meister and having slightly different paints as well). Pose: Crouched in a firing pose with both hands together on his gun. The shoulders, wrists and neck swivel independently, but the arms are clearly meant to move together despite not being attached to each other. The thighs are a single piece connected through a hole in the pelvis, but there's some wiggle room that can result in balance issues. Also, if the connection between the two legs gets warped in package, you can end up with feet that don't stay on the same plane, as with mine. Wobbly Smokescreen. Accessory: His engine gun, 30mm long. He points it a little off to his left in "standard" pose. Overall: Wobbly, oddly posed, missing paint. Eh. Weakest of the Alternator Titaniums. AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Very few AUTOBOTS can match BUMBLEBEE for sheer guts. Small but daring, BUMBLEBEE willingly goes where larger, tougher robots wouldn't even consider. Acting as a spy for OPTIMUS PRIME, he uses his size as an advantage, going unnoticed where his larger comrades would stick out. Though he is among the bravest and most respected of AUTOBOTS, he still idolizes the larger more combat-ready robots, especially OPTIMUS PRIME and PROWL. STR 2 INT 8 SPD 4 END 7 COUR 10 FRB 1 Avg 5.33 I should note before going into the usual details that this appears to be a hybrid of the G1 toy and cartoon models. It has cartoon proportions and head, but various toy details like the wheels on his arms and a silver panel behind the head. It's not quite the decoy version either, as that lacks the panel behind the head, and it has the front wheels closer to the fists where the Titanium version has the front wheels on the mid-forearm. Height: 2.25" (5.5cm). Parts: Torso and feet are metal. Arms, hands, pelvis/legs and gun are black plastic. The head is probably yellow plastic, and reacts to UV. Paints: Yellow paint on torso and feet, which reacts strongly to UV. The windows, back and soles are painted black. The hubcaps and face are silver, as is the bit behind the head that takes the place of the toy's silver panel. There's a red and white Autobot symbol on the chest. Pose: He's got a mild case of the Crouch, but it doesn't look to bad on him. More of a battle ready sort of thing. Arms and legs are bent slightly. He has swivels at shoulders, waist and wrists. The head may be able to turn, but the panel behind it blocks all but a little wiggling. Accessory: He comes with a small black laser pistol 24mm long (about an inch). It has a small trigger, which his right hand's index finger is molded to fit around. The handle fits snugly into the hold in his back, although it doesn't really look stored there. Overall: Could stand to have a few more paint apps, notably on the eyes, but is otherwise very good. Definitely the best of its batch of three. DECEPTICON: SCORPONOK For SCORPONOK, honor and duty came before all else in his quest to see his adopted home world reborn. The opposed philosophies of DECEPTICONS and AUTOBOTS meant little to him except as a means by which the warring factions might be manipulated to his ends. Nearly as powerful as MEGATRON, not even the DECEPTICON leader's tampering with his core programming was enough to completely subvert his sense of duty. He eventually sacrificed his life in the final apocalyptic battle that saw the return of his living world to the universe. STR 10 INT 8 SPD 7 END 9 COUR 9 FRB 9 Avg 8.67 Height: 2.25" (6cm) at the head, 3" (7.5cm) at the tail top. Parts: Metal on the torso and boots. The arms are made of a light blue plastic that's completely painted over (I have to stretch the joints to see the original paint, which doesn't give a reliable color). The head is probably also this plastic color, and the thighs might be. The tail and pelvis are seafoam green (66CC66) plastic. Paints: The upper arms, flanks, thighs, claws and toes are painted burnt orange (CC3300). The torso is mainly painted seafoam green (a bit lighter than the equivalent plastic). The shoulders, outer forearms and non-tread parts of the lower legs are painted dark gray (666666) with metallic light blue acents. The head is also metallic light blue. The forearm blades, kneecaps, stinger guns, flank exhaust pipes and visor are yellow (FFFF00) except for an inexplicable strip of black across the eyes part of the visor. The tank treads on the legs are also black, and so are the windows on the chest. There's some pale gold details on the abdomen and shoulders, and silver on the back and on the claw pistons. The claw thumbs are dark purple (330033). Pose: In a slight crouch. The head, knees and shoulders swivel as normal. The "wrists" are elbow swivels, with the right arm being permanently bent and the left using an angled swivel to pseudo-bend. Despite looking like it should, the tail does not have a moving joint at its base. The figure is very stable in standing, and its lack of a peg-hole in the feet doesn't hurt it. Accessory: None. Overall: Decent, although the head paint job is kinda sad. It's also kinda hard to do a figure that depends so much on clear plastic without that option. AUTOBOT: GRIMLOCK Mightiest among the DINOBOTS, GRIMLOCK masked a surprising intelligence behind simplistic speech patterns. His contempt for the weak kept him often at odds with OPTIMUS PRIME, but his hatred for all those who exploited their strength at the expense of others kept him always firmly on the side of right. Though he could bring a huge array of weapons to any fight, he preferred to close with his enemies, wielding his energo sword in robot mode, or simply crushing his enemies' limbs with his powerful kaw as a Tyrannosaurus. STR 10 INT 7 SPD 3 END 10 COUR 10 FRB 8 Avg 8 Height: 2.25" (5.5cm). Parts: Boots and the upper torso are metal. The head, pelvis, thighs and fists are black plastic. The arms and dinokibble backpack are silver plastic. Paints: The torso is painted a pale gold. The pelvis is red (FF0000), as is the eyeslit. The boots are painted silver with some little details in red, yellow and blue primaries. The red paint on the pelvis and eyeslit is totally neon, glowing brightly under UV. None of the other colors particularly reacts. ("Hh. Me Grimlock have hotpants.") Pose: Kind of a weird squat, with the right foot bent so that just the toe area is on contact with the table. Standard swivels at neck, waist, shoulders and wrists. Stability is iffy, due both to the small contact area on the right foot and the awkward stance, you may want to put some poster putty under the feet or something. Accessory: Silver sword 1.5" (3.5cm) long, held in by a rubber band. Black double-barrelled blaster 1.25" (3cm) long, just held into the blister on its own. I may go ahead and paint the sword red. Both weapons are rubbery plastic. Overall: It could stand a few more paint apps, and the legs look funky, like they dismantled a G1 Grimlock and stuck the legs back on at the desired angles without thinking of how to maybe improve on that. DECEPTICON: PREDAKING As near a perfect warrior as any robot ever to join the DECEPTICON ranks, PREDAKING was a savage force of destruction. Melding the predatory instincts of five beast-bots, he had no equal as a warrior. Responding without thought to any threat and never stopping until every enemy was destroyed. War was his natural environment, the scattered ash of a cooling battlefield his lair, the stink of burnt machinery his food. STR 10 INT 5 SPD 3 END 9 COUR 9 FRB 9 Avg 7.5 Height: 2.25" (5.5cm), with 2" (5cm) wingspan. Parts: The upper torso and boots (below the beast head kneecaps) are metal. The fists and the foot guns are gray plastic (close to 999999), with the foot guns being an insert on the bottoms of the feet, metal "spats" on either side of 'em. The head and arms are orange (FF6600) plastic, the wing backpack and pelvis/thighs/knees chunk are black plastic. The orange plastic glows under UV. Paints: Lots of black, orange, red and yellow paint, generally matching the proper color scheme of the original. None of them glow, sadly. This one really deserves to light up like a fireworks display under UV. I think the eyeslit paint (black) is too high, above what looks to be a molded visor. Pose: Divebomb is the right arm, instead of the left arm as per the toy. However, animation and comic models tend to have Divebomb on the right as far as I can tell, so I guess they went with that. They also went with a proportionally larger wingspan than on the toy, which is more dynamic. A bit of the Dreamwave Squat. Right arm bent 90 degrees at the elbow, left arm only bent a little. Standard six swivels. Tends to fall over backwards if tipped even a little, so the lack of pegs hurts a little. Accessory: Gold sword 2" (5cm) long, held into the blister with a rubber band. Rubbery plastic. Overall: Colorful, best pose of the second trio, but nothing I couldn't live without. Dave Van Domelen, notes Smokescreen REALLY needs a foot peg, but it's kinda hard to kitbash into die-cast metal.