Dave's Transformers Cybertron Rant: Scout Wave 5 Swerve Swindle Wave 2 is back, and it's pissed. Seriously, these are both recolors of http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Cybertron/Basic2 (minus the Recon Team), but with aggro personalities and sneering or snarling package art. Updated February 15, 2006 with Key Code Info. And again March 14, 2006, with Key Code visual content. CAPSULES Swerve: Clocker recolor. Looks a bit better, but otherwise nearly identical, down to the flaws in joints. Mildly recommended if you have Clocker, recommended otherwise. $6.99 at Target. Swindle: Hardtop recolor. Just as garish and wrong as Hardtop in terms of colors, just in a brighter way. Like Swerve, pretty much identical otherwise. Mildly recommended if you have Hardtop, recommended otherwise. $6.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: Standard Scout blisters, but with an addition (also seen in later shipments of previous waves...wave 5 could be considered a grab bag of all previous Scouts, with the new recolors shortpacked in it): a sticker proclaiming that there's a game piece inside that can let you maybe win a trip to Space Camp. The map that came with mine was Earth, and in English, although I've heard of some getting trilinguals. The game piece peels off a backing with the rules and fine print, then opens up to reveal that you didn't win. :) As a consolation, there are four collectible stickers, one in each game piece. I got two copies of the Hot Shot sticker (3 of 4). The losing text reads, "SORRY, not a winning game piece. Starscream beat you...this time. Try again!" The stickers are about 3cm wide and 5cm tall. Two twist-ties hold Swindle in place, and two more hold his gun. Three ties hold Swerve, plus two rubber bands. Heh...the Key Codes for these guys have the same first three digits as their original mold-brothers. In both cases, the final digit is replaced by the letter r. Of course, and this is becoming a mantra, there's no code content online yet as of January 20, 2006. AUTOBOT: SWERVE Planet: Speed Altmode: Sportscar (related to an 80s concept car) Previous Mold Use: Clocker Previous Name Use: G1 Minibot, Alternator, Universe Key Code: s12r Impatient and short-tempered, SWERVE is a robot whose processors run so hot he was forced to install a backup exhaust system just to compensate for the excess heat. After his suspension from official races for poor sportsmanship, he found himself in the seedy underground oil-sport racing sircuit. There, running races in which the last robot standing is declared victor, he's finally found an outlet for his temper, and a use for his lightning fast reflexes and sharp-shooting skills. STR 5 INT 6.5 SPD 7.5 END 9 RNK 3.5 COUR 6.5 FRB 5 SKL 6 Avg 6.125 Key Code Info: The form that Swerve has now is actually his 16th body! He started in a form that was close to the size of Crumplezone - it was heavily armored and SUPER slow. With his mega-impatient personality driving him ever faster and harder on the track, he began to bootleg and manufacture body parts to streamline his own form. Finally, he achieved a perfect balance between exhaust spitting speed and plasma blasting firepower. It also doesn't hurt for any body moddin' bot that in the crash and bash races in the bowels of Velocitron there is a never-ending upply of decimated body parts too.... (Update 3/14/06: a slick colored CG image of the vehicle mode was added as visual content.) Heh. Clocker's clone, Overclocker. Color swaps: Yellow-orange becomes dark red, bright light blue becomes somewhat dark (60%) cool gray, and the clear blue becomes smoky brown-gray clear plastic. Paint apps: Almost identical paint masks and colors, with a few exceptions (and the white paint is flatter than the pearly stuff on Clocker). The weapon piece (aside from the fins being left unpainted) and exhaust pipes are identical, and the feet are the same except for losing the white mask. The chest is almost the same, but replaces red with gold and yellow-orange with dark red. The face is still silver, but there's a dark red paint on the forehead, cheeks and chin of the helmet, and dark gold on the eyes (thus blocking the lightpipe). The front end of the car is painted dark red, with a large silver Autobot symbol nearly filling the hood. There's also silver on the fronts of the upper arms and dark red covering the entire surface of each rearview mirror (there's a little bit of paint slop onto the adjacent dashboard). Other comments: The name Swerve has only been used for red recolors (or slight remolds) of previous molds. G1 Gears (G1 Swerve), Armada Blurr (Universe Swerve), Alternators Tracks (Alternators Swerve) and now Cybertron Clocker. Overall: On the one hand, the color scheme isn't as garish as Clocker's. On the other hand, it's kinda bland aside from the big hood symbol. DECEPTICON: SWINDLE Planet: Earth Altmode: Dune Buggy Previous Mold Use: Hardtop Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Armada, Universe Railbot, Alternator Key Code: s4mr Though he is outfitted with a sensor package and weapons system nearly identical to his twin brother HARDTOP, SWINDLE scorns long-range tactics. He'd rather charge and Autobot and club him across the visual cluster with his laser rifle than actually use it to blast another robot. SWINDLE is deceptively agile and tough for his size, traits developed over years of picking fights and winning. He's not as slavishly loyal to MEGATRON as his brother; he'll work for anyone who lets him trash AUTOBOTS. STR 7 INT 6 SPD 8 END 6 RNK 3.5 COUR 5 FRB 5.5 SKL 8 Avg 6.125 Key Code Info: Hardtop's brother may look like someone who can keep his cool together, but put him in an arena, stick a blunt object in his hand and the guy turns into a berserker bot. After Megatron left the Jungle Planet he placed Hardtop, Swindle and Runamuck on sentry patrol there to watch over some of the locals. Swindle immediately headed for the hills and his brother couldn't find him for weeks. One day, while patrolling, Runamuck landed in an elaborate trap that strung him up in an electron-spider-web. Dangling 100 feet above the air near a tree limb, Runamuck looked around and was shocked to discover he was starting at a highly camouflaged and majorly feral Swindle. With an animalistic grin, Swindle cut Runamuck down and leapt from tree to tree cackling like a hyenabot. Swindle had heard the call of nature and answered the phone! (Update 3/14/06: Color guide for the toy added.) Both of the toys in this wave have Rank 3.5. "Back in the ranks, you stinking recolor! Leave leadership to the original molds." Color swaps: Robin's egg blue becomes a sort of purplish, brownish ick color. Whatever color got painted over for the aborted lightpiping on Hardtop got painted over here too. Purple becomes a brownish olive green (the greenish shade comes out more in fluorescent light than incandescent). Black becomes dark cool gray, and green becomes a bright canary yellow. Paint apps: Similar to Hardtop's patterns, but not as similar as Swerve is to Clocker. The skull-like pattern on the chest is painted in silver, with a Decepticon symbol printed on what would be the forehead. This symbol is not visible in vehicle mode, letting Swindle be more of a disguised bot. There's dark cool gray paint on the upper arms and shins, plus the panel on the back (or on the hood in vehicle mode) and on the backs of the fists. The rollcage is silver, as are the kneecaps, brushguard, headlights, and toes/roof light housings, with red lenses in the lights. There's that odd brown/green color on the forearms where the running boards are in vehicle mode. The face and "ears" are bright yellow, with silver visor. Other comments: There's really no theme to the use of Swindle's name. Combaticon military jeep, Mini-Con race car, Autobot Micromaster train, Alternator civilian jeep and now Decepticon jeep-like vehicle. In color, it's closest to Alt.Swindle, though. Most of the colors on this toy are really weird, in that they look different under incandescent light and fluorescent. None of them react strongly under UV. Overall: A bit more subdued than Hardtop, aside from being bright yellow. A duller or browner yellow would have worked better with the other colors. Still, it's decent. Dave Van Domelen, probably wouldn't have even gotten these if it hadn't taken them so long to show up...waiting increases desire, curse it.